submersibles | Southern Fried Science

Octopus Genes, Decolonization, and a mega-dose of Citizen Science! Monday Morning Salvage: April 10, 2017

Posted on April 10, 2017 by Andrew Thaler

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

Octopuses are weird. Really, really weird. Ed Yong covers yet another weird octopus thing in the Atlantic: Octopuses Do Something Really Strange to Their Genes. And check out the original paper, below.

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

This interview with Shay Akil McLean is one of the best introductions to the concept of decolonizing science: Hood Biologist Explains How to Decolonize All The Science. See also: We Need Decolonial Scientists.
Free Radicals is one of the best new(ish) science blogs on the net: Zapatistas Reimagine Science as Tool of Resistance.
Incidentally, the March for Science does not have a diversity problem.

Instead, I believe that this march needs to be completely apolitical and nonpartisan. I think that we should protest the current administration, which wants to repeal laws guaranteeing clean air and water, claim that climate change is a hoax, and remove scientists’ access to quality healthcare, but in a way that doesn’t alienate members of the current administration. We should demand change, but vaguely, and from no one in particular.

Source.

If you love geophysical fluid dynamics, then you will love these foamy streaks in a lagoon. Deep Sea News, natch.
With the legendary Erika Bergman at the helm, the Aquatica Submarine crew put eyes on a new glass sponge bioherm off the coast of Vancouver.

Another article about the GOSH meeting where I rep-ed OpenROV and Oceanography for Everyone: Santiago de Chile, capital of the Global network for Open Science Hardware.
As a card-carrying population geneticist, I second this piece: Getting your genetic disease risks from 23andme is probably a terrible idea.

I sing the praise of my robot underlings, the workhorses of deep sea exploration

Posted on March 28, 2012 by Andrew Thaler

Building the Remote Lee. Photo by Andrew Thaler

James Cameron’s triumphant dive and (equally important) return from the Challenger Deep is a landmark achievement. In 62 years, only 3 people have ever visited the bottom of the Mariana Trench. While budgets for scientific exploration have been cut across the board, Cameron ponied up tens of millions to build only the second human-occupied submersible capable of reaching those depths. But the Deepsea Challenger is not the only visitor to Challenger Deep in the last few decades. In May, 2009 the ROV Nereus plumbed the depths of Challenger Deep. More than a decade before that, Kaikō, a Japanese ROV, became the first unmanned vehicle to reach into the Mariana Trench and return with video, sediment, and biological samples during several return trips.

And, while Alvin is in drydocks and human-occupied submersibles are tragically being mothballed across the country, more remote operated vehicles are exploring the ocean than ever before. They are being built and run by scientific institutions, private firms, public universities, high schools, industrial corporations, and individual citizens. My lab mate and I built one last winter, for fun. And while I agree with Al and Craig at Deep Sea News that ROV’s are not as “sexy” as human occupied submersibles, that is a marketing problem, because, like it or not, ROV’s are the real masters of deep sea exploration. If your goal is to learn as much as possible about the deep ocean, if you want the biggest return on your investment, if you want to involve a huge and diverse exploratory team, the ROV is king.