sharks – Page 4 – Southern Fried Science

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.

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

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

January 22, 2018January 21, 2018 Andrew Thaler 1 Comment

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.

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.

17 amazing and important things about sharks and rays that scientists discovered in 2017

December 22, 2017December 22, 2017 David Shiffman 1 Comment

Science

2017 was… yeah. Of all the years I’ve lived through, 2017 was definitely one of them. Anyway, some interesting things happened in the world of shark research. Here, in no particular order, are 17 amazing and important things that scientists discovered about sharks and rays over the last year.

1 Sharks can switch between sexual and asexual reproduction. We’ve known that several shark species can reproduce asexually for over a decade now, but this year, Dudgeon and friends showed an individual shark switching between sexual and asexual reproduction for the first time!

Noteworthy media coverage: CNN, National Geographic, Gizmodo

Deep-sea mining goes to court, a year in climate reporting, oyster-adorned singers, and more! The Monday Morning Salvage: December 11, 2017.

December 11, 2017 Andrew Thaler

Weekly Salvage

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

2017 Year in Climate. It’s been a wild, woolly years of climate highs and policy lows.
Fossils of Congress, featuring real, non-elected fossils, found around DC, might be my new favorite thing.

https://fossilsofcongress.tumblr.com/post/168190045787/the-discs-are-pieces-of-crinoid-stem-crinoid-a

Twitter Ocean Chess, lessons from the Vaquita, awe of the deep, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: November 13, 2017

November 13, 2017November 13, 2017 Andrew Thaler

Weekly Salvage

Fog Horn (A Call to Action)

Ocean policy news breaking this week. We’ll have a comment template ready to go when it does. Please check back. We can’t announce until we know exactly what we’re dealing with.
Still time to register for OceanDotComm! Science Communication folks! Are you ready for OceanDotComm? Register now!

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

This is an amazing piece about the importance of awe in deep-sea conservation. Unless we regain our historic awe of the deep ocean, it will be plundered.

Wine bottle found in the deep North Atlantic. Laura Robinson, University of Bristol, and the Natural Environment Research Council. Expedition JC094 was funded by the European Research Council.

The Vaquita are going extinct and with them comes an importance lesson on the value of social science to conservation research:

My wife, on the other hand, is a social scientist who works on development here in Mexico. When we first started dating, I used to tease her for being a soft little scientist in her soft little science. I now understand that helping a community pull itself out of poverty is more complex than brain surgery or quantum physics.

There is no magic equation for community organizing but she begins by understanding that “the community” isn’t some monolithic creature that thinks as a unit. There are complex politics and power dynamics at work that can either aid or destroy all her efforts.

I now understand why the vaquita is going extinct. They sent too many people like me into the region and not enough like her.

source.

Would you like to play a game? Last week David and I unleashed Twitter Ocean Chess upon the internet and the results are in: it’s the only valid use of 280 characters.

Deep-sea mining, octopus cities, a world without ozone, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: October 2, 2017

October 2, 2017October 1, 2017 Andrew Thaler

Weekly Salvage

Fog Horn (A Call to Action)

Islands and nations across the Caribbean are hurting from multiple hurricanes. We’ve curated a short list of various charities and fundraisers for each island: How to help our island colleagues in the wake of total devastation.

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

The race to the bottom begins! Japan successfully undertakes large-scale deep-sea mineral extraction and Japan becomes the first nation to mine a deep-sea hydrothermal vent.

Scientists spent a month terrifying guppies to prove that fish have personalities. Worth it just for the headline.

A shark for all floods, Crowdfunding scams, old fish, bold fish, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: September 18, 2017

September 18, 2017September 18, 2017 Andrew Thaler

Weekly Salvage

Fog Horn (A Call to Action)

The fight for our Marine National Monuments isn’t over. We finally know *some* of the contents of Zincke’s monument review memo, and it’s not great. The DOI wants to see commercial fishing return to the Pacific Remote Islands and Rose Atoll Marine National Monuments. Longline fishing in these regions has historically been conducted by foreign fishing fleets which have been documented using slave labor. Many ecologists believe that maintaining these protected zones serve as a refuge that boost populations of many important commercial fish and improve the overall health of the fishery.
Here’s the good news: Any change to monuments created under the Antiquities Act must be approved by congress. You’ve got a lot of reason to call you representatives this week, so why not add “I opposed the reintroduction of ecologically and economically destructive commercial fishing to the Pacific Remote Islands and Rose Atoll Marine National Monument.” to your script?

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

Hero Shark, the shark who shows up to every flood, ostensibly to save us all from our own hubris, has a long a fascinating history. “Shark in flooded street” wasn’t even the first time that photo was used for fake news.

NOAA’s New Weather Satellite Captured Stunning Images of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. These are amazing and terrifying.

Rick MacPherson and I made a bot that generates random ocean conservation solutions from a massive archive of policy jargon. Follow @OceanCon_Bot. It is good.

How to help Houston, GameBoy SONAR, buy a lighthouse, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: August 28, 2017

August 28, 2017August 28, 2017 Andrew Thaler

Weekly Salvage

Fog Horn (A Call to Action)

Hurricane Harvey is sitting over the city of Houston, dumping biblical amounts of rain and flooding nearly the entire metropolitan area. There’s lots of great organizations to donate to, but in the immediate aftermath, it’s often best to donate to local relief programs that already have a ground team in place, rather than national groups that will take weeks to build up their infrastructure. I’m a fan of the Texas Diaper Bank and Portlight Inclusive Disaster Strategies, both of which serve communities that tend to be particularly vulnerable during natural disasters.

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

Dr. Katharine Hayhoe has become one of the most important voices in Climate Change over the last few years. Her latest, I was an Exxon-funded climate scientist, is a sober look at who where the money really goes and who pulls the strings in the climate change denial industry.
Bandai and Nintendo once made a SONAR that runs on a GameBoy Pocket, and I want one. Has anyone ever encountered one of these rare and wondrous techno chimeras?