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.

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

• Florida will crack down on shark fishing from the shore! Featuring extensive use of David’s research on shore-base shark fishing and survival.
• ‘Dead zone’ larger than Scotland found by underwater robots in Arabian sea: Scientists say situation is ‘worse than feared’ after finding almost no oxygen in Gulf of Oman.
• Atoll Islands Home to Thousands Could Be Uninhabitable by Mid-Century. It continues to blow my mind that entire nations could disappear beneath the waves by the end of the century.

• This week in ocean plastic:
  • A Swirling Sea of Plastic.
  • Microplastics Have Invaded the Arctic—and Climate Change Could Make It Worse.
• Foxconn Will Drain 7 Million Gallons of Water Per Day From Lake Michigan to Make LCD Screens and Foxconn Just Got Permission to Start Draining Lake Michigan to Make LCD Screens.
• Giant Ship-to-Shore Cranes Parked Off New York.

• Does Size Matter? Debating the Role of Marine Protected Areas: As the world’s marine ecosystems face increasing threats, scientists disagree on whether the trend toward huge, remote reserves is a promising new development or a worrisome distraction.

Lagan (what we’re reading from the peer-reviewed literature)

• Lallemant-Moe (2018) The Polynesian political awakening in response to climate change. DOI: n/a.
• Storlazzi and friends (2018) Most atolls will be uninhabitable by the mid-21st century because of sea-level rise exacerbating wave-driven flooding. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aap9741.
• Victorero and friends (2018) Out of Sight, But Within Reach: A Global History of Bottom-Trawled Deep-Sea Fisheries From >400 m Depth. DOI: 10.3389/fmars.2018.00098.
• Stratmann and friends (2018) Faunal carbon flows in the abyssal plain food web of the Peru Basin have not recovered during 26 years from an experimental sediment disturbance. DOI: 10.5194/bg-2018-167.
• Mallin (2018) From sea-level rise to seabed grabbing: The political economy of climate change in Kiribati. DOI: 10.1016/j.marpol.2018.04.021.

Shipping News (academic and ocean policy wonkery)

• As Scientists Speak Out About Science, Women and Young Scholars Lead the Way.
• Have the Sciences Had a #MeToo Moment? Not So Much: In many fields, sexual harassers have lost their jobs. But in the sciences, they’re often still getting paychecks instead of punishment.

Driftwood (what we’re reading on dead trees)

• Conservation Is Our Government Now: The Politics of Ecology in Papua New Guinea by Paige West.

Derelicts (favorites from the deep archive)

• How Millard Fillmore reshaped the oceans in a quest for guano.
• Protect Our Oceans: from the ground in Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.
• I sing the praise of my robot underlings, the workhorses of deep sea exploration.

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.