Moby Dick | Southern Fried Science

The ongoing wonder of hagfish, deep-sea mining’s race to the bottom, saving whales with lineless lobster traps, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: January 21, 2019

Posted on January 21, 2019 by Andrew Thaler

Foghorn (A Call to Action!)

It’s month two of the longest shutdown in US history and there’s only one party who won’t allow a vote to reopen the government proceed. Have you called you senator today?

The Shutdown Is Making the U.S. Less Prepared for Hurricane Season

And while I have your attention, FYI:

Thousands of Scientists Endorse Study Proclaiming Trump’s Border Wall a Disaster for Wildlife

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)3-D Printing the Ulitmate Deep-Sea Christmas Tree

Oceans Warming Faster Than Predicted, Scientists Say and Ocean Warming Is Accelerating Faster Than Thought, New Research Finds.
Ministry hints Putin’s Arctic ambitions are not realistic. There is unease in several Russian government ministries as officials start to understand that the President’s objectives for the Northern Sea Route can not be reached. The only way to please the president might be to expand the sea route itself.
Hagfish are so good. We don’t deserve hagfish.
- How hagfish launch slime missiles that swell 10,000 times in size.
- How hagfish can make enough slime to clog a shark’s jaws in seconds

Monday Morning Salvage: January 23, 2017

Posted on January 23, 2017 by Andrew Thaler

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

Come back to the Mariana Trench with me! I’ve taken the almost ten hours of assorted dive footage from our adventures in Saipan, Tinian, Rota, and Guam and edited it down to just the best four minutes. Share, subscribe, and enjoy!

Jetsam (what we’re enjoying from around the web) Read More

Monday Morning Salvage: November 28, 2016

Posted on November 28, 2016 by Andrew Thaler

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

This GIF of a swimming crinoid:
The original video by Els Van Den Eijnden can be found here: Dive in Bali by Els Van Den Eijnden

5 best baby books to launch your child’s ocean education.

Posted on September 15, 2016 by Andrew Thaler

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As a few of you have noticed, we recently added a tiny new member to our little ocean outreach empire. A new baby opens up a chance for us to explore a whole new world of ocean-themed content tailored to our newest explorers. As a family of marine biologists, we very quickly accumulated a massive library of ocean-themed baby books, some amazing, some not-so-amazing.

After critical review by two PhDs in Marine Science and Conservation, for both scientific accuracy and pure delightfulness, here are my top 5 baby books to get your ocean education started off right.

I’m the Biggest Thing in the Ocean by Kevin Sherry.

Sherry must have written this book specifically for me, since Sizing ocean giants: patterns of intraspecific size variation in marine megafauna is already my most widely distributed paper. I know a few things about giant squids. I really love this book. The art is colorful and engaging. The story has a hilarious twist. It’s grounded in real ocean critters (though there’s something funky going on with that jellyfish). And there’s an important lesson about hubris and trophic position in marine food webs. Read More

Core Themes for 2012: A renewed sense of wonder

Posted on January 27, 2012 by Andrew Thaler

In the past four years, we took our readers from the remote shoals of the Skeleton Coast to the unfathomable depths of the western Pacific. We touched the coasts of every continent, plumbed the depth of every ocean. Throughout this shared journey, the unspoken, implicit rationale, the very heart of our passion, the reason that any of this is worth doing, is that the ocean is awesome. When I say awesome, I don’t mean awesome in some mundane, biblical sense of fear and wonder when staring into the face of god; I’m talking about something much greater than our fragile brains can comprehend.

We have sailed so far, in these four years, and in this voyage I fear that we have found ourselves, like Ishmael, in “the damp, drizzly November of [our] souls.” The conversation at Southern Fried Science has changed, become more cynical, fatalistic, and driven by threats facing the ocean, rather than reasons why we value it. What once was a sea of boundless potential is now cast in bondage to statistics, benefit analyses, weights and measures, action items. In a way, this shift was inevitable. The ocean is in trouble, the world is changing, and the less we understand it, the more we will lose. Without someone to mark the ledger, to take the bearing, the ship is lost.

Finding Melville’s Whale: Hark! (Chapter 43)

Posted on February 20, 2011 by Andrew Thaler

Hark!

A noise
in the hold
like a cough
do you
Imagine
ghosts
aboard?
Or men,
lying
in the
darkness.

Finding Melville’s Whale: The Whiteness of the Whale (Chapter 42)

Posted on February 13, 2011 by Andrew Thaler

After reading some of the reviews from our Readers’ Survey, many people list these among their favorite posts, while many others consider them their least favorite. So, we’ve decided to change the posting schedule for Finding Melville’s Whale. From now on, one or two new entries will appear every Sunday, instead of Tuesdays and Thursdays. We hope you will continue reading along with us as we dive deeper in Melville’s masterpiece.

The Whiteness of the Whale

The nameless horror
in that deepest sea
is the whitest whale.
Albino beasts, though
oft mistaken for
divine ravelry
are far more vicious
then their drab companions.
Moby Dick was the
Whitest whale, and the
most horrible.

Finding Melville’s Whale – Moby Dick (Chapter 41)

Posted on February 6, 2011 by Andrew Thaler

Moby Dick

By the glint of harpoon goblets, Ishmael
had sworn bloody vengeance upon the whale.
His future now belongs to Moby Dick.

A whale that terrorized the world’s oceans,
whose tremendous bulk instilled fear in all
men and marine life, even the sharks fled.

He became as god in whalemen’s legend,
ubiquitous, occupying all seas,
and immortal, no harpoon could harm him.

His great bulk, his forehead, wrinkled and white,
his deformed jaw, twisted and cruel, a scythe,
and a conscious, intelligent malice.

The were the fearsome features Ahab fought,
when from a shattered boat he pulled a blade
against the whale, in blood soaked seas, bodies,
lost comrades, swirled around him, Moby Dick,
who reached out with his reaper’s jaw and took
all that Ahab was, and also his leg.

In the throws of madness Ahab subsumed
his demons, leaving behind a monster-
filled captain, unyielding in his vengeance.

And the crew that sails with him, Savages,
Cannibals, Mongrels, broken men. Ishmael’s
oath is to this bloodthirsty endeavor.

First-night Watch and Midnight, Forecastle (Finding Melville’s Whale Chapters 39 and 40)

Posted on January 23, 2011 by Andrew Thaler

Finding Melville’s Whale: Sunset and Dusk (Chapters 37 and 38)

Posted on January 13, 2011 by Andrew Thaler

Thanks to everyone who stuck around during our blog vacation. Our adventure into Moby Dick continues with chapters 37 and 38 – Sunset and Dusk. These two chapters have been consolidated from two soliloquies to a dialog between Ahab and Starbuck. Read along with us and discuss this chapter or the book as a whole in the comments. Visit this page for the complete collection to date: Finding Melville’s Whale.

Sunset and Dusk

Ahab: I wear this burden on my brow.
Starbuck: Madness, madness of my captain.
Ahab: No noble sunrise, but anguish.
Starbuck: I see his doom, but follow him.
Ahab: No soothing sunset, but horrors.
Starbuck: This heathen crew swears pagan oaths.
Ahab: They think me mad to hunt the whale.
Starbuck: To fulfill Ahab’s ghastly will.
Ahab: Who took my leg, Starbuck, my leg!
Starbuck: I must fight this phantom future.
Ahab: My path is fixed in iron hate.

All: A dead whale or a stove boat!
All: A dead whale or a stove boat!