Marine Science
grrlscientist | October 11, 2009tags: garbage patch, Pacific Ocean, environment, science, Scripps Institute, streaming video
Scripps scientist Miriam Goldstein talks about the SEAPLEX expedition to the North Pacific Gyre and how shocked she was to find the amount of plastic on the ocean's surface when floating around in a skiff.
sheril | March 10, 2009The Guardian:
Human pollution is turning the seas into acid so quickly that the coming decades will recreate conditions not seen on Earth since the time of the dinosaurs, scientists will warn today.
Say what?! Look, ocean acidification is a VERY real threat to our planet. That said, the seas are not turning to acid! (But gee, way to scare folks into envisioning the demise of the wicked witch!) This demonstrates a lack of taking the time to explore and understand what ocean acidification means--the term is used to describe the way the pH of oceans is becoming less basic as they absorb…
sheril | February 25, 2009
Readers at The Reef Tank were interested to learn more about marine science, so I was happy for the opportunity to chat with Ava earlier this week. As I explained during our conversation, aquariums need not be detrimental to biodiversity when managed responsibly. I suspect most people enjoy the hobby because they are also fascinated by and appreciative of the marine realm... a sentiment we ought to encourage if we plan to save oceans. An excerpt of our interview:
How did you get started in marine biology and why did you pick it as your study of choice? Was it about marine biology that got…
sheril | February 24, 2009I'll admit PZ's post yesterday featuring a cosmic cephalopod sleeping overhead in the Carina Nebula was both daunting and impressive... but never fear friends, a heroic starry sea cucumber keeps vigilant in the Crab Pulsar and continues to protect us from its merciless tentacles.
sheril | February 23, 2009
According to CNN, former Governor Gary Locke (D-WA) is likely to be nominated by President Obama as our next Secretary of Commerce.
Given NOAA accounts for up to 65% of the Commerce Department budget, you bet I'm eager to learn more. Among many duties, the incoming Secretary of Commerce faces enormous ocean related challenges so I will be following this story with interest.
sheril | February 16, 2009All the tropics folks have a habit of going on and on about species diversity, but it turns out the poles aren't as desolate as many expected. The Census of Marine Life has just released a report documenting about 7,500 species in the Antarctic and 5,500 in the Arctic including several hundred critters possibly new to science.
Stories circulating the media call the tally 'astonishing', but I'm honestly not surprised given how little we know about these regions. The most interesting revelation... Despite the 8,000 miles between them, at least 235 species live in both polar seas. Pretty…
sheril | February 5, 2009
An article in this week's PNAS reports ocean acidification and climate change threaten reef clownfish. Changing CO2 levels disrupt larvae's sense of smell, which is crucial to survival.
According to Dr Philip Munday, "What our study is showing is that animal behaviour is affected by the acidification of the oceans. It's opening our eyes to another issue of acidification that we need to be aware of."
More at ABC Science...
sheril | January 19, 2009It was a long, hard, and tumultuous battle, but the clash of the titans that began here at The Intersection--that will go down in science blogging history as the Great Marine Invertebrate Wars--has ended. And yes readers, our own fighting echinoderm has emerged victorious!
The final showdown happened this weekend when Jason of Cephalopodcast brought [pins of] the inverts to ScienceOnline'09 so attendees could take sides by declaring allegiances. And those poor squiggly cephalopods didn't stand a chance... It was literally a blowout as echinoderm fever took the blogging conference by storm…
sheril | January 15, 2009S. 22, The Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2008 passed the Senate this afternoon 73-21. The package includes ocean exploration, NOAA undersea research, ocean and coastal mapping integration, the integrated coastal and ocean observation system*, federal ocean acidification research and monitoring, and coastal and estuarine land conservation, and lots more. Once the House acts, the final version may get sent to the next President...
In other words, Obama's first law might be huge for ocean science!
* hat tip to Senator Snowe for all her work on ocean observing
sheril | January 7, 2009Yesterday, President George W. Bush set aside 195,000 square miles of Pacific ocean habitat under executive authority granted by the Antiquities Act. He created three new national monuments which ban seafloor mining, most commercial fishing, and limit recreational and indigenous harvest.
The new areas include the waters surrounding Howland, Baker, Jarvis and Wake islands; Rose, Palmyra and Johnston atolls; Kingman Reef; the three northernmost Mariana Islands; and the deep seafloor of the Mariana Trench.
And with a stroke of his pen, W. protected more ocean than any other political leader in…
cmooney | December 18, 2008 That's the word from the Washington Post. Like, wow. Lubchenco is yet another distinguished scientist and ScienceDebate2008 supporter. We are racking them up in this administration. Here's Lubchenco's video:
Chu, Holdren, Lubchenco....we've got a hell of a science administration shaping up here.
P.S.: Joe Romm has huge praise for the John Holdren pick, and says Holdren is even better than Chu in some ways in terms of dealing with the climate issue...but I would ask, why then wasn't he rolled out as part of the energy and environment team? It's not clear to me how much Holdren will focus on…
sheril | December 10, 2008This time, it's personal.
There is no question fisheries are in serious trouble and Bush is hoping to loosen rules under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) that govern the environmental review process surrounding catch limits. The proposed 11th hour changes would weaken the Magnuson-Stevens Act (a bill I was intimately involved with in 2006).
Stay vigilant folks. Oceans--not special interest groups--need protection.
sheril | November 10, 2008Brittle stars off the coast of New Zealand are at CNN today and recently appeared on the BBC. In fact, these critters are making waves across the interwebs.
Evidence continues to mount that echinoderms rule...
Someone better warn the guys at Deep Sea News.
sheril | November 6, 2008The boys at Deep Sea News are hosting Carnival of the Blue this month:
This 18th edition of the Carnival of the Blue is one mixed with awe and pessimism, yet optimistic for the beginning of a new political era in the United States. Keep in mind these posts were written prior to the November 4th election. The future editions of the Carnival of the Blue will be very interesting to watch. With the new political landscape will optimism reign supreme? Will there be more blog coverage on proposed solutions to problems pertaining to our ocean's health? More analysis of an administration's plans to…
sheril | October 26, 2008Orcas are one of my favorite species. Extremely intelligent and exhibiting many complex behaviors, they're simply beautiful marine mammals.
Seven orcas are now feared dead in Puget Sound. If true, it could be the biggest decline among the sound's population in almost a decade. Possible causes: Low numbers of their main food--chinook salmon, pollution, and stress from whale-watching tour boats and Navy sonar.
The number of 'southern resident' orcas is estimated to be 83.
sheril | October 15, 2008What does the Filet-O-Fish at McDonalds have in common with that imitation crabmeat in California rolls and the uh, 'healthy' ingredient in beer-battered fish-n-chips?
Pollock: poster child of sustainable seafood.
Well the pollock fishery is now possibly on the brink of collapse. Managed through the distribution of transferable quotas, fishermen take over one million tons of pollock every year and it seems those critters can't reproduce and recover as fast as they're being harvested. Go figure.
Jennifer's got more detail in her guest post at Grist:
This is why Dr. Jeremy Jackson at the…
sheril | October 10, 2008
DNA testing has now proven that a pup carried by a female blacktip shark in a Virginia aquarium contained no genetic material from a male.
The research was reported in Friday's Journal of Fish Biology and marks the first verified case of asexual development in this lineage.
sheril | September 16, 2008Once upon a time I was a grad student in the School of Marine Sciences at UMaine.
We were a small, tight-knit co-hort of eight ladies and two fellows... including lobsterman Curt Brown. A bright, charming, and silly guy, Curt was always fun to catch a Red Sox game with at the Seadog and the one to help me get home when my car was buried under three feet of snow. So naturally, I was thrilled to see 'Captain Curt' on CBS Sunday morning with Catch A Piece Of Maine--a terrific community based fishery model that directly supports lobstermen and the working waterfront of Maine:
Catch a Piece of…
sheril | August 19, 2008From living reefs to humans, we're all connected. Watch, listen, and please pass the message on...
"Protect the living reef and we protect the ocean. Protect the ocean, and we protect ourselves."
- Ed Harris, Project AWARE