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Tag: mermaids

We Were Wrong About Megalodon: lessons learned from 10 years combating fake science in popular media

Posted on March 4, 2024March 4, 2024 By Andrew Thaler
We Were Wrong About Megalodon: lessons learned from 10 years combating fake science in popular media
Blogging, Education, Featured

Twelve years ago, Discovery Channel aired a documentary so egregiously bad, so wildly dishonest, and so utterly contemptuous of its audience, that it set the entire Science Blogging Community alight. And then, a year later, they followed it up with another. This was a clarifying moment for science, and especially ocean science, blogging. We weren’t … Read More “We Were Wrong About Megalodon: lessons learned from 10 years combating fake science in popular media” »

Gently jelly-nabbing bots, deep-coral under threat, albino stingrays, #JacquesWeek, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: July 23, 2018

Posted on July 23, 2018July 22, 2018 By Andrew Thaler
Weekly Salvage

Foghorn (A Call to Action!)

  • All Hands on Deck! You’re got one week left to apply to join the MIT Media Lab and NOAA’s Office of Ocean Exploration and Research for this year’s National Ocean Exploration Forum as an Ocean Discovery Fellow!
  • Jacques Week 2018 is here!

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

  • What just happened? Everyone is going wild for the deep-sea fish attack video.
  • A gentle jellyfish-grabbing claw for collecting squishies without squishing them!

The Levee (A featured project that emerged from Oceandotcomm)

  • Stitching Hope for the Coast – communicating coastal optimism for Louisiana. Deadline for submissions has been extended to October!

Read More “Gently jelly-nabbing bots, deep-coral under threat, albino stingrays, #JacquesWeek, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: July 23, 2018” »

Skate saunas, clone armies, deep news from deep-sea mining, an ocean of plastic, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: February 12, 2018.

Posted on February 12, 2018February 13, 2018 By Andrew Thaler
Weekly Salvage

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

  • Attack of the clones! A Pet Crayfish Can Clone Itself, and It’s Spreading Around the World!
Ranja Andriantsoa/The Atlantic
  • One of the take-home points in the talk I gave last Friday is that we barely know anything about the services hydrothermal vents provide to the rest of the ocean ecosystems. Deep-sea hydrothermal vents are nurseries for skates.
ROV framegrab of Pacific white skate egg sacs near a black smoker in the Galapagos. Photo Courtesy Ocean Exploration Trust

Read More “Skate saunas, clone armies, deep news from deep-sea mining, an ocean of plastic, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: February 12, 2018.” »

Science as graphic novel, baby eels, anglerfish emoji, drone ocean rescue, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: January 22, 2018.

Posted on January 22, 2018January 21, 2018 By Andrew Thaler 1 Comment on Science as graphic novel, baby eels, anglerfish emoji, drone ocean rescue, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: January 22, 2018.
Weekly Salvage

Fog Horn (A Call to Action)

  • The US Government is shut down. This is not great news for science (at the moment, my project to train ROV technicians and deliver 5 – 10 observation-class underwater robots to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands is on hold pending resolution). Call you congressperson and give them an earful. Call you senator and give them an earful.

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

  • Women Writing About the Wild: 25 Essential Authors: A primer on who to start reading and who you’ve been overlooking for too long.
Nan Shepherd. (Wikimedia Commons)
Nan Shepherd. (Wikimedia Commons)
  • This paper: Managing marine socio-ecological systems: picturing the future, which, holy mola, is written in graphic novel format!
Managing marine socio-ecological systems: picturing the future
Managing marine socio-ecological systems: picturing the future.

Read More “Science as graphic novel, baby eels, anglerfish emoji, drone ocean rescue, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: January 22, 2018.” »

Bone-eating zombie worms, octopus overlords, old wooden ships and new woes for deep-sea mining. It’s the Monday Morning Salvage! January 1, 2018.

Posted on January 1, 2018January 6, 2018 By Andrew Thaler
Weekly Salvage

Fog Horn (A Call to Action)

  • Stop. Breathe. Take a step back. This can all be incredibly overwhelming. Pick the fight that matters most to you and take a few days deciding what success looks like, what strategies will work, and what tactics are available to you. And then hoist your flag and get to work.

  • And when you meet someone fighting a different fight, remember to support them. There are already enough fronts to advance without taking friendly fire from our flanks.

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

  • Maybe it’s time to seriously consider just giving control of the world to the cephalopods. A New Species of Giant Octopus Has Been Hiding in Plain Sight.
The frilled giant Pacific octopus. Photo Courtesy D. Scheel
  • The most depressing annual run-down on the environmental science web: The Animals That Went Extinct in 2017.

Read More “Bone-eating zombie worms, octopus overlords, old wooden ships and new woes for deep-sea mining. It’s the Monday Morning Salvage! January 1, 2018.” »

Climate change denial, open-science hardware, some missing pink dolphins, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: May 1, 2017

Posted on May 1, 2017April 30, 2017 By Andrew Thaler
Weekly Salvage

Fog Horn (A Call to Action)

  • Are you represented by a climate change denier? Motherboard has put together this amazing guide to every climate change denier in congress. Check your state and give your congressperson a piece of your mind. Congressman Andy Harris may be sick of hearing from me, but I guarantee he’ll be gone from my district long before I am.

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

Read More “Climate change denial, open-science hardware, some missing pink dolphins, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: May 1, 2017” »

Sifting the fact from the false in an internet full of fake ‘news’

Posted on November 15, 2016November 16, 2016 By Chris Parsons
Uncategorized

Southern Fried Science has at the forefront of trying to debunk fake news, such as faux documentaries about mermaids or giant sharks. In their article “Fish tales: combating fake science in the popular media” Andrew Thaler and David Shiffman asked that:

“scientists familiarize themselves with common sources of misinformation within their field, so that they can be better able to respond quickly when factually inaccurate content begins to spread”

morpheus

Read More “Sifting the fact from the false in an internet full of fake ‘news’” »

Fish tales: Combating fake science in popular media

Posted on September 23, 2015September 22, 2015 By Andrew Thaler
Uncategorized

Yesterday, after months of waiting, David and my magnum opus on our efforts to stem the tide of fake documentaries was, at last, made available online: Fish tales: Combating fake science in popular media. What role should scientist play in correcting bad science, fake science, and pseudoscience presented in popular media? Here, we present a case … Read More “Fish tales: Combating fake science in popular media” »

Breaching Blue Chapter 5: The Hunters

Posted on September 5, 2014 By Andrew Thaler
Popular Culture

breakingblueAll week I’m posting the first five chapters from my absurd work-in-progress, Breaching Blue. Check out Chapters 1, 2, 3, and 4. This concludes our week long mermaid adventure. Enjoy. And, if you don’t enjoy, blame Shiffman.


The reef made them strong. Janthina no longer hesitated to swim above the sunbreak, to explore the illuminated waters above. Each morning, as the sunlight penetrated the twilight waters of the reef, Janthina would rise into the realm of light. The animals that lived in the sun were new. They were active, vibrant, powerful. They moved as if the whole ocean was theirs to command.

Janthina spied Tornus below. The arch of her back was unmistakable. She had grown into a powerful, confident mermaid, broad across the shoulders and strong. Resting on the seafloor, she look like nothing so much as a massive boulder. Tornus sat in a circle with Simnia, Luidia, and several others, fashioning spearheads from a pile of discarded stingray carcasses, their meal from the previous day. The long, jagged barbs were perfect for hunting. They could puncture the toughest scales and would remain lodged until their prey went limp.

The barbs were cheap. The spears, though, required great effort to prepare. The instructions for their manufacture were scattered across the reef. It took nearly a full lunar cycle for Tornus and her compatriots to find enough driftwood, another cycle to grind them down into long, sturdy shafts.  They were solid and  stout. There were none to spare.

Janthina swam down to greet her sisters.

Read More “Breaching Blue Chapter 5: The Hunters” »

Breaching Blue Chapter 4: Over the Edge

Posted on September 4, 2014 By Andrew Thaler
Popular Culture

breakingblueAll week I’m posting the first five chapters from my absurd work-in-progress, Breaching Blue. Check out Chapters 1, 2, and 3. Enjoy. And, if you don’t enjoy, blame Shiffman.


Clymene swam just below the sunbreak, testing the limits of her own courage. The reef was behind her, its unexplored pinnacles rising into sunlit waters. She cut a lazy circle around the coralline towers as she drifted upwards with each circuit. Luidia watched from a distance.

Clymene cast an elegant profile as Luidia looked up from her sentry. Her tail was long and graceful, slimmer than Janthina’s, with a broader fluke. Her arms were long and limber; her fingers reached nearly to her peduncle, where there powerful muscles of her tail met the wide blades of her fluke. Luidia admired her sister. Her own stumpy hands barely reached past her waist, and hers was a bulkier build. Luidia had one advantage over her more streamlined sister. The massive pelvic fins that sprung from the base of her tail were fantastically versatile, she could to pivot and turn with exceptional precision. Where Clymene was constantly frustrated by the tight narrow corridors they continued to discover within the reef, Luidia could traverse them with ease.

Read More “Breaching Blue Chapter 4: Over the Edge” »

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