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Lost shipwrecks, weaponized hagfish, plastivorous worms, deep-sea mining, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: August 20, 2018.

Posted on August 20, 2018 by Andrew David Thaler

Foghorn (A Call to Action!)

Did you know that oceanbites also published in Spanish? Go check it out!

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

Marine Worms Are Eating Plastic Now. I’m sure this will be fine [Ed: I’m not sure. It won’t be fine.]
Are you following Diva Amon’s latest expedition: My Deep Sea, My Backyard in Trinidad and Tobago? Join the adventure!

Dr. Amon shows off a deep-sea dropcam. Courtesy OpenExplorer.

Researchers just found a WWII shipwreck that was lost for over 75 years off the coast of an Alaskan island.

Members of the expedition take time to examine a Japanese mini submarine that remains in the historic sub pens on Kiska Island. Image courtesy of Kiska: Alaska’s Underwater Battlefield expedition.

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

Posted on February 12, 2018 by Andrew David Thaler

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!

Ranja Andriantsoa/The Atlantic

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

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

Posted on August 28, 2017 by Andrew David Thaler

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?

Parasitic barnacles, a code of conduct for marine conservation, #BillMeetScienceTwitter, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: May 22, 2017.

Posted on May 22, 2017 by Andrew David Thaler

Fog Horn (A Call to Action)

27 National Monuments are under review by the Department of the Interior. Our Nation Monuments are our National Treasures. Don’t let them be sold to the highest bidder! Submit formal public comments on the DOI Monument Review and make your voice heard.

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

This parasitic barnacle, Sacculina carcini, replacing the reproductive organs of a crab.

Hat tip to Tommy Leung, who’s twitter feed is a gold mine of fantastic parasites and where to find them.
#BillMeetScienceTwitter. What started as an inquiry into whether science celebrities really engage with practicing scientists on a regular basic morphed into the best way to find new scientists to follow on Twitter. I’m curating a massive list of all the self-identified Ocean Scientists that participated.

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

Deep-sea mining is gearing up on the high seas, and international regulations is still lagging far behind technology: The Wild West of Deep-Sea Mining.
oceanbites rolls out an excellent overview of the different kinds of robots used in conducting deep-sea research.
Beyond drug lords and conservationists: Who is missing in the coverage of the vaquita’s demise? from the legendary team at Deep Sea News.
Henderson Island is isolated and uninhabited, so why are all its beaches so completely covered in garbage? Spoilers: It’s because the planet is an interconnected global system with impacts felt far beyond the source of insult.
Bone-eating snot flower worm will never not be my favorite common name. Tiny Zombie Worms Are the Beavers of the Deep.
The history of the entire world, in one entertaining YouTube video (via Vox):

Are Ships The Careless Giants Of The Sea? Yes, but they don’t have to be.
Trump’s EPA Greenlights a Nasty Chemical. A Month Later, It Poisons a Bunch of Farmworkers.
Trump country is flooding, and climate ideas are shifting.
The Ocean as the New Frontier of Climate Action.
The Antarctic Peninsula is 3 degrees warming than is used to be, and that means plants are growing and Antarctica is getting greener.
The long history of ocean drilling and scientific discovery.
A tiny anchovy could be a silver bullet for malnutrition in Peru—if only we would let it: The Fish that Smells like Money.
I talk alot about e-waste and disposable electronics, which is why I’m excited to see modular, open-source smartphone projects finally start to mature. The ZeroPhone looks like on of the most promising additions to this space.
Skeptic Magazine has a pseudoscience problems. Unfortunately, this time it’s the skeptics promoting some pretty eyebrow-raising junk science. I went a little deeper into this on Twitter.