Bot meets Whale: making friends in the ocean; or how I learned to stop worrying and mitigate harmful interactions between recreational ROVs and marine mammals.

An example of a microROV system. From Thaler et al. (2019)

Today, there are more robots exploring the ocean than ever before. From autonomous ocean-crossing gliders to massive industrial remotely operated vehicles to new tools for science and exploration that open new windows into the abyss, underwater robots are giving people a change to experience the ocean like never before. The fastest growing sector of this new robotic frontier? Small, recreational, observation class ROVs.

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SeaWorld versus OSHA versus Brett Kavanaugh, sea lions and sucker punches, this dumpster whale is all of us, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: October 1, 2018.

Foghorn (A Call to Action!)

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

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Natural history needs more .gifs

There’s something glorious about .gifs, the short video clips that proliferate across the internet. Not quite as demanding of commitment as a full video, slightly more than a still image. These mighty little loops of endless wonder can express joy, surprise, or disdain far better than their static counterpart. They are an artform unique to the web.

Yet, somehow, the humble .gif has never garnered the same level of prestige as a carefully crafted photograph or a lovingly edited documentary. Heck, some science communicators think we should to away with .gifs completely. This is, of course, misguided.

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Sharks aren’t always the top of the food chain

Most people think of sharks as being apex predators, large, fearsome  hunters sitting right at the top of the ocean food chain.  Of course, that isn’t always the case. There are more than 500 known species of sharks, and they vary in size from the size of a pencil to the size of a school bus. In many cases, there’s a larger predator in their environment, which can lead to some surprising and amazing  interactions.

A crocodile ate a bull shark

Brutus, a famous crocodile in Australia, was recently photographed eating a juvenile bull shark. Southern Fried Science writer Sarah Keartes has the full story at EarthTouch.

Photo by Andrew Paice

Photo by Andrew Paice

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