Transcript provided below.
Tag: NOAA
Weekly Salvage
A wood-boring clam inside a piece of wood
Photo: Jenna Judge
Foghorn (A Call to Action!)
- Good job, everyone! NOAA Budget Proposal Hits Rough Waters in Congress.
- Tool Foundry expands access to science by promoting tools for discovery: Luminary Labs initiative launches four-month accelerator to help inventors bring better scientific tools to more communities
Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)
Photo: Jenna Judge
- How Miami’s realtors lie to themselves, each other, and you about climate change in America’s largest sinking city: Heaven or High Water: Selling Miami’s last 50 years.
- The Video of Giant Isopods Eating an Alligator in the Deep Sea You Must Watch!
Uncategorized
Late yesterday afternoon, the Department of Commerce unveiled its long awaited budget proposal. Designed in large part to free up funding for President Trump’s ill-conceived, wasteful, and wildly unpopular wall on the Southern Border, it includes cuts to NOAA programs so deep that America’s coastal communities and coastal economies will take generations to recover. Read … Read More “Commerce Unveils a Budget to Decimate NOAA” »
Weekly Salvage
The oldest mariner’s astrolabe ever found, decorated with the Portuguese coat of arms. COURTESY DAVID MEARNS
Foghorn (A Call to Action!)
- Your regular reminder that the currently proposed 2020 US budget is a crime against the American People. Call your representatives, especially if you live in MD, LA, or NC.
Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)
- The destruction of Beira is a catastrophe on a nearly unimaginable scale. ‘Almost Everything Is Destroyed’: Cyclone Idai Leaves Mozambique’s Fourth-Largest City in Ruins.
- It’s Official, This Is the Oldest Known Mariner’s Astrolabe in the World.
- After Two Decades, a Fishy Genetic Mystery Has Been Solved.
- A scientist faced down the ultimate cold case: How did two groups of fish separately evolve genes for making antifreeze?
Uncategorized
Yesterday the Trump Administration unveiled its proposed budget for fiscal year 2020. This budget contains steep cuts research, education, and social services in order to fund the construction of the border wall. Chief among the cuts is an unprecedented reduction in funding for NOAA, which functionally disbands several core research programs within Ocean Services. From A Budget for a Better America:
“The Budget also proposes to eliminate funding for several lower priority NOAA grant and education programs, including Sea Grant, Coastal Zone Management Grants, and the Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund.”
A Budget for a Better America, page 21
Rumblings on the hill suggest that Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross plans to unveil his own plan to drastically reduce the budget of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and permanently hamstring NOAA in furtherance of the Administration’s goal to find funding to construct a wall on the US southern border.
These cuts include zeroing out the budget for the following agencies and programs:
- NOAA SeaGrant
- NOAA Coastal Zone Management Program
- National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS)
- Pacific Salmon Restoration Program
- Potentially at least one fisheries laboratory
These cuts would be catastrophic America’s Coastal Communities and Economies, especially in places like North Carolina, Maryland, and Louisiana.
Read More “Trump’s 2020 Budget will be a Disaster for America’s Coastal Economies” »
Weekly Salvage
Foghorn (A Call to Action!)
- It’s time for Africosh! The annual Africa Open Science and Hardware Summit Heads is in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania this year!
- LUMCON is hiring! They’re looking for two exceptional coastal and marine science faculty hires in any discipline. And they have the best “come work for us” video!
Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)
- Hakai Magazine is my jam this month.
- How an Epidemic Exposed the Ecological Importance of Sea Stars: The near eradication of British Columbia’s sea stars demonstrated the dynamic role they play in regulating kelp forests.
- How to Dismantle a Blue Whale: In Chile, a team of volunteers confronts stench and gore to ensure a new life for a dead whale. [Warning: Link contains graphic pictures of whale evisceration]
- I’ve been following this project for almost 2 years. Awesome to see how far they’ve come. NinjaPCR is a WiFi enabled, Opensource DNA Amplifier and Thermocycler for Polymerase Chain Reaction developed by 2 hackers in Tokyo.
- Plastic wrap made from shellfish and plants is completely compostable.
Hagfish (just Hagfish)
- Yes, people do eat hagfish. Yum! Snake-like creature writhes, squirms on grill.
- Hagfish are the emissaries of love, not war. Stop it. Synthetic ‘Slime’ To Help US Navy Trap Enemy Ships.
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.
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!
Weekly Salvage
Foghorn (A Call to Action!)
- Hacking extinction. Conservation X Labs is looking for bold ideas for technological solutions to conservation challenges. Up to $90,000 in grant awards to bring your prototype to life! Applications open until June 30.
- NOAA is looking for Science Communication specialists! Job call is open until June 7.
Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)
- Project Azorian: The story of the Hughes Glomar Explorer. Straight from the CIA to you, some details redacted. Still one of the wildest and weirdest ocean stories in the history of the United States.
- The Alongside Wildlife Foundation has awarded its first set of grants! What a great group of people and projects.
- This crab has an itch that it just can’t scratch.
Uncategorized
Cuttings (short and sweet): Follow Canadian ocean science communicator Kayla Glynn on twitter. NOAA’s status of stocks. By Steve Midway, for the Fisheries Blog. Antarctic seals recruited to measure the effects of climate change. By Alex Fox, for Nature News. 15,000 lionfish removed from Florida waters. By Ed Killer, for the Treasure Coast Palm. Plastic bag … Read More “Obama’s ocean monuments, deep diving seals, and sustainable US fisheries: Thursday Afternoon Dredging, May 24th, 2018” »
Weekly Salvage
Foghorn (A Call to Action!)
- 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)
- Immediately after college, my backup plan if I didn’t get into grad school was to go to work as an underwater welder doing saturation diving. After reading this, I’m pretty glad I didn’t go that route. The Weird, Dangerous, Isolated Life of the Saturation Diver.
- Walking the talk in Vanuatu, the first country in the world to ban plastic straws.
- We’ve been saying this for a awhile now. Cryptocurrencies that rely on ever increasing processing power to resolve transaction are an environmental disaster. Alarming Study Suggests Bitcoin Consumes an Astonishing Amount of Energy and It’s Only Getting Worse.
The Levee (A featured project that emerged from Oceandotcomm)
- Stitching Hope for the Coast is still accepting contributions from knitters around the world. Join the fun!