Check it out here...
Sadly, it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with sharks. Silly ABC got me all excited. Still, it’s a hokey reality show, so I’ll probably watch it.
I’m not going to have internet access for the next two weeks, so don’t be mad if I don’t respond to your comments. I set a couple of posts to show up automatically, so you can pretend that I’m not really gone.
~WhySharksMatter
Read the comments here. To what degree should comment thread discussions be controlled? Where is the line between mediation and censorship? What about tone and response to tone? Are you a troll? Am I?
~Southern Fried Scientist
The latest edition of Scientia pro publica, which contains blog posts from all disciplines of science, is up at Greg Laden’s blog. Check it out here.
~WhySharksMatter
Check out this ad campaign I originally saw at the BLUE Ocean Film Festival:
Visit the website of the organization that made this video.
Things have been pretty heavy around here recently. So, to lighten the mood, I’m proud to report that North Korea has apparently broadcast its very first documented television commercial.
Words fail me.
hat tip to Seen Through a Glass
~Southern Fried Scientist
Two weeks ago, I wrote about the controversy surrounding this year’s “Shark Week”. Some shark conservationists believe that the Discovery Channel is promoting negative stereotypes about sharks at a time when we should be promoting conservation. Paul Gasek, Senior Science Editor and Executive Producer for the Discovery Channel, wanted to tell his side of the story, and agreed to be interviewed for Southern Fried Science. I let you, the readers of Southern Fried Science, suggest questions for my interview.
This interview has generated a great deal of buzz. Over a dozen science blogs directed readers to Southern Fried Science to submit questions, and I want to thank everyone who helped spread the word. Between e-mail, facebook, and direct blog submissions, I received well over 100 questions. It’s clear that lots of people care about this issue, and I think I speak for everyone when I tell you that we all appreciate Paul taking the time to answer our questions.
Because some questions were similar, and because some submitters are international and don’t speak English as a first language, I have rephrased and combined several questions. According to my agreement with Discovery, I have limited this interview to ten questions. Also according to my agreement with Discovery, I have not edited Paul’s responses in any way.
Fresh off the plane from Okinawa, it’s time for the 26th installment of the Carnival of the Blue. Sitting on a soft pillow of sticky rice, these slices of ocean goodness are ready to melt in your mouth. So get out your chopsticks and warm up the sake, this months entries are sashimi grade.
We’ll start with some Ebi Nigiri. Mark Hall from the Biomes Blog and Daily Kos wants to know if this shrimp has been bought responsibly. Sadly, this being the tropical Pacific, it’s very likely not a sustainable fishery, so he’ll have to satisfy himself with vegetable rolls instead.
Mark Powell, of blogfish fame, had a little more success with his Gunkanmaki. Although oyster is not often combined with sushi, the occasional oyster roll can be an interesting treat, and Mark assures us that in our quest to save the oyster from ocean acidification, we should first fortify our bodies with oyster power.
Ken Petterson, from SeaNotes, is a little more hesitant. He wants to know what our responsibility as consumers, chefs, and businesses is when it comes to our seafood choices? Thankfully, the Seafood Watch program makes it a little easier to make informed choices.
While planning out this feast, Allie from Oh for the love of science! notes that great white sharks might also plan their meals, but of course, the media may have gone a little overboard in their assessment. Pun intended.
Taking a break from our meal for a moment. David, of right here, takes advantage of a lull in our furious eating to regale us with stories of the day he almost wound up on the menu. WhySharksMatter has been formally classified as bycatch.
And speaking of furiously eating, Rick MacPherson of Malaria, Bedbugs, Sealice, and Sunsets, informs us that, not surprisingly, string rays that are constantly fed by tourists get fat and lazy.
Rock Stars
After our dinner is done, we head over to the local Karaoke Bar to join Miriam Goldstein of Oysters Garter. She wants the world to know that scientists (especially marine scientists) are the ultimate rock stars, and advertisers are catching on.
Join us next month at Oh for the love of science! where Allie will be offering up another delectable course of Ocean Blogging.
~Southern Fried Scientist
hat tip to Ben Goldacre. This is about the most egregious case of irresponsible (and just plain hateful on all levels) science journalism I’ve ever seen. The following bit of sleuthing comes from Naomi MC at Vagina Dentata:
The original press release from the University of Leicester. Keep in mind that most data presented at conferences is not only preliminary, but also presented to a group of peers already familiar with the subject matter. This data set appears to be no exception and comes from a graduate student’s unpublished thesis work. News reports and press releases from data presented at conference should only be released with the express written consent of all co-authors.
But though irresponsible, that is completely irrelevant in the face of this headline from the Daily Telegraph, reporting on the above press release:
I try to avoid foul language in my writing, but this report calls for a resounding What The Fuck? read more…
InterRidge, a global organization of hydrothermal vent biologists, has, over the last several years, established a set of guidelines for responsible research practices at deep-sea hydrothermal vents. Along with many scientists, several nations and commercial organizations have signed onto this statement. Although tailored to deep-sea science, these guidelines are broadly applicable to any science program that requires field work.
Without context, David doesn't know if this sign is completely weird or completely common in Japan
These last few days in Okinawa, listening to talks given by both rockstars in deep sea biology and rising stars, have perhaps been the most informative few days of my entire graduate career. However, one theme that keeps reoccuring in many of these talks is the importance of controls.
Deep-sea chemosynthetic biology is a great model system to look at controls because hydrothermal vent, methane seep, and whalefall sites are so profoundly different from their surrounding environment. Though far from the barren dessert postulated in Thomas’s time, the sea floor is largely uniform – one giant ecosystem that stretches across the globe. This is why the discovery of chemosynthetic systems was so important, they profoundly shift the deep-sea paradigm away from uniformity.
David is a graduate student in South Carolina studying shark conservation. He is the author of the upcoming book “Why Sharks Matter: Using New Environmentalism to Show The Economic And Ecological Importance of Sharks, The Threats They Face, and How You Can Help”. His time is divided between educating the public about sharks, spending days at a time at sea playing with sharks, and eating horribly unhealthy foods.
