Fog Horn (A Call to Action)
- The US Government is shut down. This is not great news for science (at the moment, my project to train ROV technicians and deliver 5 – 10 observation-class underwater robots to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands is on hold pending resolution). Call you congressperson and give them an earful. Call you senator and give them an earful.
Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)
- Women Writing About the Wild: 25 Essential Authors: A primer on who to start reading and who you’ve been overlooking for too long.
- This paper: Managing marine socio-ecological systems: picturing the future, which, holy mola, is written in graphic novel format!
Jetsam (what we’re enjoying from around the web)
- Look, a Trump Thing™ happened. It involved sharks and Shark Week. David probably had a weird weekend. Buzzfeed did that thing where they just copy tweets and call it an article. I do miss the days when you could just have a conversation with colleagues on Twitter without someone swooping in to declare it their latest hot take.
- I see what you did there, oceanbites. Well played: Can we build a multisensory shark repellant?
- Watch this undersea vehicle’s close encounter with a shimmering purple jellyfish.
- Deep-sea mining, the news that just keeps coming: Nautilus Minerals vice president of PNG Operations has resigned. At the same time, former PNG attorney general and minister for justice Sir Arnold Amet calls on Papua New Guinea to terminate its Nautilus partnership.
- Octopus Chokes Dolphin to Death in First-Ever Discovery.
- Will There Ever Be an Anglerfish Emoji? There will be if I have something to sat about it.
- 3,000 Mainers hope to nab one of 11 licenses to fish baby eels.
- Drone saves two teenagers stuggling in ocean by dropping yellow raft.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMJuN8npYCo
- Summertime skincare: bowhead whales use rocks to help peel off molting skin.
- Fake documentaries included, this is definitely the least informed article you will ever read about mermaids: Mermaid Academies Are a Thing. Why You Should Be Afraid.
- Ok then. Vinny From Jersey Shore Is A Secret Climate Change Nerd.
Lagan (what we’re reading from the peer-reviewed literature)
- Thébaud and friends (2017) Managing marine socio-ecological systems: picturing the future. DOI: 10.1093/icesjms/fsw252.
- Canales-Aguirre and friends (2018) Population genetic structure of Patagonian toothfish (Dissostichus eleginoides) in the Southeast Pacific and Southwest Atlantic Ocean. DOI: 10.7717/peerj.4173.
- Stabell and Steele (2018) Precaution and Fairness: A Framework for Distributing Costs of Protection from Environmental Risks. DOI: 10.1007/s10806-018-9709-8.
- Tilot and friends (2018) The benthic megafaunal assemblages of the CCZ (Eastern Pacific) and an approach to their management in the face of threatened anthropogenic impacts. DOI: 10.3389/fmars.2018.00007.
- Zou (2018) State Practice in Deep Seabed Mining: The Case of the People’s Republic of China. DOI: N/A
Shipping News (academic and ocean policy wonkery)
- Tear Down That Paywall: The Movement to Make Ocean Research Free for All. As scientists race to save coral reefs and tackle other crucial marine issues, access to expensive scientific journals has become a roadblock to sharing knowledge, especially for researchers in developing countries.
Driftwood (what we’re reading on dead trees)
- A less-than reputable science channel sends a team of scientists to the Marianas Trench to make a fake documentary about mermaids. It’s like Mira Grant’s Rolling in the Deep horror novel was written just for me (including my all-time favorite trope: wildly inaccurate descriptions of what research cruises are actually like).
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.
Mira Grant’s sequel, Into the Drowning Deep, is even better! It released last November. Up close look at those mermaids.