Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)
- Robots versus Aliens is my favorite genre of conservation technology. Sea-Star Murdering Robots Are Deployed in the Great Barrier Reef.
- Fish Bombardment is my other. Video: Utah Officials Restock Remote Lakes by Plane.
The Gam (conversations from the ocean-podcasting world)
Speak Up for the Blue with two great recent episodes.
Jetsam (what we’re reading from around the web)
- Such a cool story! Go Alvin! 85 Miles of Atlantic Coral Reef Stayed Hidden Until Now.
- Environmentalists win appeal against seabed mining decision.
- This is brilliant!
- The Mysterious Science of Motion Sickness: New research starts to explain why some people feel nauseous on cars, boats, buses, and carnival rides, while others don’t.
- It’s an older paper, but still a great paper: Jumbo Shrimp: The First Definitive Evidence of a Megalodon Nursery.
Megalodon teeth from several museum collections used for size and jaw placement comparisons.
- The Ecologist on a Mission to Count New York’s Whales.
- run. fish. beer. Conservation through Recreation. From our friends at the Fisheries Blog.
- Lonely dolphin stranded in Scottish firth alters ‘speech’ to fit in with local sea life.
- Bankrupt Titanic Collector Is Selling Everything. Cool cool cool.
- It’s Photoshop. Thousands share photo of man with 16-foot shark on Outer Banks. There’s a big problem with it.
No hyperlink link, it’s a fake photo.
- When Conservation Backfires: Ironically, the creation of huge marine reserves can temporarily worsen the problems they are designed to address.
- USNS Comfort Ordered To Colombia But The Future Remains Uncertain For The Hospital Ship.
- How Escaped Pets Took Over Florida. When store-bought animals are released, they may go from pet to pest.
Lagan (what we’re reading from the peer-reviewed literature)
- Willoughby and Christie (2018) Long‐term demographic and genetic effects of releasing captive‐born individuals into the wild. DOI: 10.1111/cobi.13217.
- Coldren and friends (2018) Warming accelerates mangrove expansion and surface elevation gain in a subtropical wetland. DOI: 10.1111/1365-2745.13049.
- Gooden and Grenyer (2018) The psychological appeal of owning private land for conservation. DOI: 10.1111/cobi.13215.
Driftwood (what we’re reading on dead trees)
- The Realm of the Submarine by Paul Cohen.
Story time! I found this delightful volume in a used book store in Annapolis. Inside the front cover, I found a letter from the author to Admiral Mike Rindskopf, the youngest officer to command a fleet submarine and (when he died in 2011) the last living US commander of a WWII sub. What a cool piece of submarine history!
The Realm of the Submarine.It gets better! Check out the end page inlay illustration the sizes of various submarines compared to a blue whale. Not only does it show just how big military subs are compared to research subs (we have bad priorities), but some of the sizes genuinely surprised me. I always though that Aluminaut (4), for example, was about the same size as Alvin (3).
From The Realm of the Submarine.
Feel free to share your own Foghorns, Flotsam, Jetsam, Lagan, Shipping News, Driftwood, and Derelicts in the comments below. If you enjoy Southern Fried Science, consider contributing to our Patreon campaign. For just $5 per month, you can support the SFS Writers Fund, which helps compensate your favorite ocean science and conservation bloggers for their efforts.