Gregarious gars, surprising crocs, mustachioed monkeys, ocean wilderness, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: July 30, 2018

Posted on By Andrew Thaler
Weekly Salvage

Logo for Monday Morning Salvage.

Foghorn (A Call to Action!)

A gar wearing a red cap.

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

marine biologist Melissa Cristina Márquez
Marine biologist Melissa Cristina Márquez

The Gam (conversations from the ocean-podcasting world)

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How many nuclear weapons are at the bottom of the sea. An (almost certainly incomplete) census of broken arrows over water.

Posted on By Andrew Thaler
Uncategorized

What’s the weirdest think you’ve found in the ocean?

Several week ago, we tackled this question while discussing the incredible shrinking cups the deep-sea scientists like to decorate and send into the wine-dark deep. While toilets and spam cans and beer bottles make for good headlines and shocking images of how extensive human impacts are on the deep sea, those are far from the strangest objects to grace the sea floor.

By most reasonable metrics, that honor has to go to the many nuclear weapons and nuclear weapon components that have been lost at sea over the last 70 years. While a few high-profile incidents have received tremendous coverage, most incidents remain largely shrouded in secrecy, with only sparse reports available. Which brings us to a question that’s been lodged in my brain for the last month: just how many nuclear weapons are sitting at the bottom of the sea?

A Mark-43 nuclear bomb. One of these is at the bottom of the sea.
A Mark-43 nuclear bomb. One of these is at the bottom of the sea.

This, of course, does not include the many, many, many times the United States has intentionally tested nuclear weapons throughout the Pacific, often while forcibly relocating local communities away for their now-test-site homes or, occasionally, not. This also doesn’t include the rare lost nuclear submarine, who’s payloads and whether or not they carried nuclear ordinance are mostly still classified. And, of course, it doesn’t include the Soviets or any other non-US nuclear nation.

For the most part, the 1950s and 60s were a hell of a time for losing track of nuclear weapons. By the time the 70s rolled around we had decided that maybe we should be a bit more careful with these things. But by then, we had accidentally dropped at least ten nukes into the ocean in eight different incidents. And we had lost one in a Carolina swamp. And we had almost accidentally nuked Greenland.

Who the heck thought these things were a good idea?

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I built a head-mounted LiDAR array that lets you see the world like a dolphin via vibrations sent through your jaw.

Posted on By Andrew Thaler 5 Comments on I built a head-mounted LiDAR array that lets you see the world like a dolphin via vibrations sent through your jaw.
Education, Open Science, Science

I’m Andrew Thaler and I build weird things.

Last month, while traveling to Kuching for Make for the Planet Borneo, I had an idea for the next strange ocean education project: what if we could use bone-conducting headphones to “see” the world like a dolphin might through echolocation?

The author wearing a head mounted LiDAR array, looking very pensive.
Spoilers: You can. Photo by A. Freitag.

Bone-conducting headphones use speakers or tiny motors to send vibrations directly into the bone of you skull. This works surprisingly well for listening to music or amplifying voices without obstructing the ear. The first time you try it, it’s an odd experience. Though you hear the sound just fine, it doesn’t feel like it’s coming through your ears. Bone conduction has been used for a while now in hearing aids as well as military- and industrial-grade communications systems, but the tech has recently cropped up in sports headphones for people who want to listen to music and podcasts on a run without tuning out the rest of the world. Rather than anchoring to the skull, the sports headphones sit just in front of the ear, where your lower jaw meets your skull.

This is not entirely unlike how dolphins (and at least 65 species of toothed whales) detect sound. 

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Gently jelly-nabbing bots, deep-coral under threat, albino stingrays, #JacquesWeek, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: July 23, 2018

Posted on By Andrew Thaler
Weekly Salvage

Foghorn (A Call to Action!)

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

The Levee (A featured project that emerged from Oceandotcomm)

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Fun Science FRIEDay – The Break-up

Posted on By Kersey Sturdivant
Uncategorized

Our lives are a blip in the space time continuum. As a result, it can seem that the Earth is relatively static, with many of the large scale dynamic changes that shape our sphere largely unnoticeable to us occurring on geological time-scales. One such change is the movement of landmasses on earth, better known as plate tectonics.

Earth’s landmasses are not static but in constant flux. The Earth’s lithosphere (formed by the crust and the upper part of the mantle) is broken up into a number of tectonic plates that move relative to each other at varying speeds, “gliding” over a viscous asthenosphere. There is still ongoing debate about what force or forces causes this movement, but whatever the forces are they can also cause the plates to rupture, forming rifts, and potential leading to the development of new plate boundaries. When this happens landmasses break-up and new continents forms; this is currently happening in the East African Rift in southwestern Kenya.

View of East African Rift in Kenya from space (Photo credit: Google Earth. Data SIO, NOAA, US Navy, NGA, GEBCO).

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Writing an Effective Ocean Advocacy Letter

Posted on By Angelo Villagomez
Uncategorized

Earlier this year, Andrew issued his Summer Science Outreach Challenge: Write an Op-Ed.  Inspired, I thought I would straight up steal Andrew’s idea and give a few tips on writing an effective advocacy letter, the type of letter you’d send to a government official to ask them to help protect the ocean.

In my conservation career I’ve written hundreds of letters to all levels of government, from agency staff to presidents.  Advocacy letters are one of the more effective tools in the arsenal of conservation tactics.  They are a great way of communicating a message directly to a targeted person (assuming the letter gets read, of course!) and are a great way to kick off a discussion on protecting the ocean between concerned citizens and government officials.  Here are a few tips:

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ACTION ALERT: Protect Florida sharks from harmful fishing practices

Posted on By David Shiffman 3 Comments on ACTION ALERT: Protect Florida sharks from harmful fishing practices
Conservation, Science

After years of scientists and conservationists complaining about problems with common land-based shark fishing practices, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is finally taking action! At their April meeting, FWC formally announced that they are considering revising regulations governing this activity with the goal of restricting the unnecessary and cruel handling practices that result in killing protected species of sharks.

(For background on this topic, please read my detailed open letter, or this summary of my research).

Here are the options that FWC is considering.

Examples of unequivocally illegal shark fishing from Shiffman and Friends 2017

 

How can you help? Either physically attend a workshop or send a formal comment online!

 

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Pirates, conch, and surfing scientists: Thursday Afternoon Dredging, July 19th, 2018

Posted on By David Shiffman
Uncategorized

Cuttings (short and sweet):  Follow Erin Meyer, the director of conservation programs for the Seattle Aquarium, on twitter! Piracy Incident Reported in First Half of 2018 at Lowest Level in 10 Years. From GCaptain news alerts. She said she didn’t know it was illegal to take conchs. She’s heading to jail anyway. By Gwen Filosa, for … Read More “Pirates, conch, and surfing scientists: Thursday Afternoon Dredging, July 19th, 2018” »

Jacques Week 2018 Begins July 22! Join us for a week of classic Cousteau Documentaries!

Posted on By Andrew Thaler 1 Comment on Jacques Week 2018 Begins July 22! Join us for a week of classic Cousteau Documentaries!
Education

Jacques Week begins this Sunday, July 22, 2018! Join us for a week-long celebration of the ocean documentarian who started it all! Without Jacques there would be no Blue Planet, no Mission Blue, and no Shark Week. All next week we’re watching classic Jacques Cousteau Documentaries, discussing ocean science and conservation, and celebrating all things Ocean!

Most of these films will available online. Some will require purchase. We’ve provided links to the for-purchase options and offer alternates if you can’t find them. It’s become nearly impossible to find copies of the Jacques Cousteau Odyssey collection, so, though this series includes some of my all time favorites, we’re going to phase them out this year and instead lean more heavily on River Explorations for more recent Cousteau work. Links to all available films can be found at the JacquesWeek2017 YouTube playlist.

Jacques Week is a collective viewing experience. We’ll provide links to each piece of media, due a countdown on Twitter, and then everyone hits play at the same(ish) time and we watch these incredible documentaries together. 

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#JacquesWeek returns! Falling glaciers, fish that don’t eat plastic, sharks and the women who study them, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: July 16, 2018

Posted on By Andrew Thaler
Weekly Salvage

Foghorn (A Call to Action!)

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

Fishermen with an illegal haul of totoaba. Image courtesy of Elephant Action League.

Photo: Toby Driver (RCAHMW)

Read More “#JacquesWeek returns! Falling glaciers, fish that don’t eat plastic, sharks and the women who study them, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: July 16, 2018” »