funding – Southern Fried Science

Emergency room conservation: why waiting for the Endangered Species Act to save a species is a fiscal disaster

August 11, 2026 Ali Gaster

Let’s talk about a pervasive zombie idea (a disproven idea that refuses to die) that continues to shamble through the halls of resource management. This is the belief that we shouldn’t spend money on conservation until a species is officially, legally designated as Threatened or Endangered. The logic behind this delay usually wears a suit … Read More “Emergency room conservation: why waiting for the Endangered Species Act to save a species is a fiscal disaster” »

When universities puts $$$ before science and ethics

August 3, 2026 Ali Gaster

Academic life, Policy

One thing the latest Trump regime has shown is which university administrators actually care about academic freedom, the pursuit of science, and diversity and equity, and which were just paying lip service for the sake of grant money. For years, universities have proudly proclaimed their commitment to scientific integrity, inclusion, open inquiry, and the idea … Read More “When universities puts $$$ before science and ethics” »

Oceans week 2026 – a lost hope

June 5, 2026August 3, 2026 Ali Gaster 1 Comment

Academic life, Climate change, Conservation, Science

This week is National Oceans week. One of the main events in Washington DC is Capitol Hill Ocean Week (or CHOW). This two-day event, sponsored by the U.S. Government, brought policymakers, scientists, and conservationists together for policy discussions, networking, and raising awareness about ocean issues. I went to the event two years ago, and at … Read More “Oceans week 2026 – a lost hope” »

Why ocean science is still one of the worst-funded scientific fields worldwide

June 3, 2026 Chris Parsons

Climate change, Conservation, Exploration, Science

For a planet that is 71% ocean, humanity spends a surprisingly small amount of time (and money) trying to understand it. Ocean science sits in a strange place in the research ecosystem. It underpins climate science, fisheries management, biodiversity conservation, and coastal economies. It’s essential for understanding everything from hurricanes to heatwaves to global carbon … Read More “Why ocean science is still one of the worst-funded scientific fields worldwide” »

Ocean scientists need to learn a lesson from NASA

April 14, 2026April 14, 2026 Chris Parsons

Exploration, Oceanography for Everyone, Popular Culture, Science

My social media this week was full of space. When Artemis I splashed down, the world watched in awe. When the James Webb Space Telescope unrolled its golden mirrors, it felt like a win for humanity. NASA has mastered the art of making space science matter to the public. Meanwhile, ocean science (the study of … Read More “Ocean scientists need to learn a lesson from NASA” »

How to fix the UN Decade of Ocean Science

April 9, 2026 Chris Parsons

Exploration, Oceanography for Everyone, Open Science, Policy, Science

In a previous post an uncomfortable reality was highlighted: that the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021–2030) has, so far, delivered more branding than transformation. Despite much initial hyping, it has really failed to deliver on its promises so far. That may sound harsh. But halfway through the decade, its biggest outputs … Read More “How to fix the UN Decade of Ocean Science” »

Crab industry in crisis, world’s largest deep-sea mining vessel takes to sea, Bayou Women, ocean trash, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: May 7, 2018

May 7, 2018May 7, 2018 Andrew Thaler 1 Comment

Weekly Salvage

Foghorn (A Call to Action!)

The Eruption at Kilauea on Hawai’i’s Big Island is truly spectacular, however hundreds of people are displaced from their homes. The mayor has directed those interested in giving donations to contact the Salvation Army at +1 (808) 756-0306.
Yale study: Newspaper op-eds change minds and The Long-lasting Effects of Newspaper Op-Eds on Public Opinion. Scientists and conservationists, this May, make an effort to publish a Letter to the Editor or OpEd in your local paper. If you’ve done so, please leave a link to it in the comments.

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

Without seasonal workers, the Maryland crab industry is barreling towards a crisis. “Nearly half of the Eastern Shore’s crab houses have no workers to pick the meat sold in restaurants and supermarkets.” Crab crisis: Maryland seafood industry loses 40 percent of work force in visa lottery.
Trash on the seafloor. Megan McCuller has an eye-opening thread on all the trash they’re finding on the deep seafloor.

Lionfish Traps! Jake Levenson has been trying something similar in Dominica. New Weapons in the War on Lionfish, a Beautiful but Deadly Invader.

A second trap design from Gittings. Lionfish are attracted to the structures inside. (Steve Gittings/NOAA)

The Levee (A featured project that emerged from Oceandotcomm)

Women of the Bayou: Stories of resilience and ingenuity in south Louisiana’s changing landscape.

Listen to the Bayou Women radio production, too!

Why do wizards go adventuring ? Or …. you thought that your tenure requirements were tough?!

February 23, 2017February 23, 2017 Chris Parsons

Academic life, Popular Culture

Something that has been bothering me for a while, is why do wizards go adventuring?

Source: ClipArtLord.com

Now if you are a big geek like me, you’ll know that practically every adventuring party has a wizard. But these wizards are incredibly unprepared for exploring dungeons and have a shockingly high mortality rate. In the dungeons and dragons* of my youth, a starting wizard had a mere 1 to 4 hit points and was equipped with dagger (or is they were luck a staff). Did these budding Gandalfs get armor? Of course not, they faced ogres and basilisks in the fantasy equivalent of sweat pants.

The statistics of a starting wizard meant that they could easily be killed by a house cat. Also they had just one spell. Cast “light” so that your party could see in a cave, and you were done for the day. If you had the most destructive spell of the first level wizard, you would fire a “magic missile” that always hit, but did a miserable 2 to 5 (1d4+1) points of damage. So if jumped by above mentioned angry house cat, you literally had a 50/50 chance of killing it before it killed you**.

So why do all these highly educated, highly intelligent wizards leave their ivory (or mithril) towers and trudge through cold, dank dungeons with groups of characters that generally make the knights in Monty Python and the Holy Grail look like Seal Team 6 in comparison?

Why does every early career academic pursue elusive gold and put their common sense and lives on the line? Why…? To get tenure of course…

R1 research universities – is a biased, flawed ranking system crippling academia?

February 16, 2017February 20, 2017 Chris Parsons

Academic life

If you are at a university that has graduate students, you have probably heard about whether your university is an R1 or R2 or R-whatever research institution. Universities tout their position in this ranking system, awarded by the Carnegie Foundation, to denote how “prestigious” they are in terms of research. From 1994, the ranking used to be given according to how much federal research funding they were awarded.

Source: clipart panda

Because of this, all the ranking told you was how much federal money a particular university received. This system is incredibly flawed. For example, if you have faculty more dedicated to writing grants and less dedicated to teaching, mentoring graduate students, publishing articles or doing other activities that are supposed to be the mainstay of academia, then certainly you will get more money. However, this will be at the expense of teaching, mentoring, publishing, etc.

Philantropy is our government, now: How to Fund Your Great Scientific Idea

January 25, 2016January 26, 2016 Bluegrass Blue Crab

Uncategorized

On January 1, 2016, the Southern Fried Science central server began uploading blog posts apparently circa 2041. Due to a related corruption of the contemporary database, we are, at this time, unable to remove these Field Notes from the Future or prevent the uploading of additional posts. Please enjoy this glimpse into the ocean future while we attempt to rectify the situation.

Since Congress decided to cut science funding to all but matters of national security, many of us in the environmental field have existed in the new world of science funding–Foundations and Charitable Giving. While one might make the case that protecting the environment is in fact a matter of national security, our elected representatives disagree and sliced funding to climate change, political science, and education first. But they’ve also constructed a tax code favorable to private donors and foundations supporting science, sometimes because they really like the idea, they see future payoffs from their investment, or because they need the tax writeoff. The problem with these sources of private money is that they’re not as easy to discover as some of those public sources once were, and often require developing a personal relationship with the family owning the endowment. After polling the environmental science community, here’s some tips and tricks for finding and courting money that have set up some fantastic labs for others. Learn from their success.

Know the Next Big Thing

There are fads amongst the problems that need to be solved, and any successful research lab has at least one toe in the water of the subject at the top of the publicity agenda. For ocean topics, for a long while this was charismatic endangered species like whales and turtles. Once we realized we’d done as much as we could in this arena, other subjects started getting attention. For the foundations who take on these issues, they want to be seen at the forefront of an issue, not the tenth batter up, so the field is a constantly shifting landscape and the pace of that shifting hastens each year. Remember when citizen science was the next big promise for marine research? That it offered cheap, high quality data covering large spatial scales collected by the good graces of volunteers? People loved to suggest starting citizen science projects, and it solidified the institutional landscape we see today with professional associations and research institutions designed around maximizing the promise of citizen science. That all happened within the space of a few years and some large investments by the Packard and Bechtel foundations. But once something is institutionalized, it’s time for the foundations to move on to the Next Big Thing.