plastic – Page 3 – Southern Fried Science

Voyaging canoes, failed sea-steading sea states, breaching ocean plastic, deep-sea mining, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: July 2, 2018

July 2, 2018July 1, 2018 Andrew Thaler

Weekly Salvage

Foghorn (A Call to Action!)

This year’s Jairo Mora Sandoval Award for Courage in Conservation goes to Patima Tungpuchayakul! Between August 2014 and October 2016, Patima helped rescue 3,000 trafficked fish workers stranded on remote islands in Indonesian waters by the Thai fishing industry from their slavery. Read more about Patima’s tireless work to liberate enslaved peoples in the fishing industry.

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

Atlas Obscura is on a roll this week with some seriously fabulous ocean coverage, including my new favs:

The Canoe That Changed Hawai‘i: How Hōkūleʻa and its amazing voyage across the Pacific helped kickstart a Hawaiian cultural renaissance.
Abalonia: The Island Nation That Never Was.

The wreck of the Jalisco. ASSOCIATED PRESS

Whale made from 5 tons of plastic waste breaches Bruges Canal.

The Levee (A featured project that emerged from Oceandotcomm)

Stitching Hope for the Coast – Christmas trees provide coastal optimism by the incredible Dr. Guertin.

Hacking Extinction, fishing for hagfish, itchy crabs, clam cavalcades, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: June 4, 2018

June 4, 2018 Andrew Thaler

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)

These clams.

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.

Saturation diving, destroying the world with Bitcoin mining, deep-sea mining, Arctic shrinkage, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: May 21, 2018

May 21, 2018 Andrew Thaler

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!

Bone-eating Jabba worms, the world’s deepest plastic bag, new shipwrecks, climate change art, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: May 14, 2018.

May 14, 2018 Andrew Thaler

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.
How to save the high seas: As the United Nations prepares a historic treaty to protect the oceans, scientists highlight what’s needed for success.

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

No commentary needed: Eyeless, Mouthless, Bone-Eating Worm Named After Jabba the Hutt.

Osedax worms growing on the vertebrae of a dead whale.
Photo: 2006 MBARI

Every ocean, every dive, every time, trash: Plastic Bag Found at the Bottom of World’s Deepest Ocean Trench.

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!

Write to your newspaper, banning plastic in the Bahamas, vanishing atolls, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: April 30, 2018.

April 30, 2018April 29, 2018 Andrew Thaler

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.

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

Rescued octopus returns to thank its rescuers.

The government of the Bahamas will ban plastic bags and other single use plastics by 2020!
Are you listening to Offshore by Civil Beat? The current season on adoptions in the Marshall Islands is a gut punch.

The Levee (A featured project that emerged from Oceandotcomm)

Saving the Coast through Storytelling.

Smart phones are worse than you think, SeaWorld takes a dive, this week in deep-sea mining, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: April 9, 2018

April 9, 2018April 8, 2018 Andrew Thaler

Weekly Salvage

Foghorn (A Call to Action!)

Stop raising awareness already (and start translating information into action).
Scott Pruitt still has a job [As of 16:59 on 4/8/2018 ~Ed.]. A Running List of Wild Shit Scott Pruitt Hasn’t Been Fired For (Yet).
What to up you outreach skills? Sign up for Andrew Lewin’s Podcasting for Environmental Communications course.

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

Smart phones. As you know I have a love/hate relationship with tech and the resources needed to fuel our increasingly demanding hardware. Now, we’ve got the most clear picture yet of the impact of smartphones on the environment and it’s not pretty.
- Smartphones Are Killing The Planet Faster Than Anyone Expected.
- Smartphones are warming the planet far more than you think.

The Levee (A featured project that emerged from Oceandotcomm)

Knitting *and* environmental justice? Sign me up! Stitching Hope for the Coast: Creative pieces that celebrate coastal optimism for Louisiana.

Frisky Anglerfish, Persistent Aquatic Living Sensors, Make for the Planet Borneo, Sea Cucumber Mafia, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: March 26, 2018

March 26, 2018March 25, 2018 Andrew Thaler

Weekly Salvage

Foghorn (A Call to Action!)

Sign up for Make for the Planet Borneo and help push forward the next generation of conservation technology!
Announcing the Con X Tech Prize for Hacking Extinction! Apply for funding to create a working hardware prototype and win up to $20,000 in awards.

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

This is a totally ordinary, not at all alarming, call for government bidders on a contract to build “new systems that employ natural or engineered marine organisms as sensor elements to amplify signals related to the presence, movement, and classification of manned or unmanned underwater vehicles.” They even adorably call these Persistent Aquatic Living Sensors PALS. Normal!
Here’s a video of anglerfish mating, because anglerfish are beauty.

This week in science and conservation slowly, awkwardly coming to terms with their racist history: For Decades, Our Coverage Was Racist. To Rise Above Our Past, We Must Acknowledge It and Environmentalism’s Racist History.
Scientists in Survival Mode: After a disastrous hurricane season, scientists in the storms’ pathways struggle to return to work.

The Levee (A featured project that emerged from Oceandotcomm)

Marine lab has ‘front row seat’ to Louisiana coastal loss.

LUMCON by boat — Photo by Melissa Miller

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

February 12, 2018February 13, 2018 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!

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

2 minutes to midnight, 3D printed turtle eggs, awkward fiddlers, Egyptian welders, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: January 29, 2018.

January 29, 2018January 29, 2018 Andrew Thaler

Weekly Salvage

Fog Horn (A Call to Action)

Good morning. The time is now 2 minutes to mid-night. Doomsday Has Never Been Closer. Good luck.

Despite the fact that we live in extremely dangerous times, the scientists in charge of the clock said there is hope. The clock has been wound backwards before, in the wake of the Cold War or during times when nuclear superpowers expressed interest in not mutually assuring destruction.

The scientists argue that civil society should turn the screws on government to reduce carbon emissions and push for even more ambitious climate action than what the Paris Agreement calls for. That sounds like a more fruitful plan than huddling in a bunker.

Source.

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

Some technology is pretty good, though: Cracking down on poaching with 3D-printed fake turtle eggs