Craig is temporarily a post-doctoral fellow at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute who is looking for a permanent position. He spends most of his time balancing his overwhelming geekdom with normalcy so he can function in the real world. Luckily his wife likes his geekiness.
Peter Etnoyer is a Graduate Research Associate at the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. He studies deep corals and ocean fronts, and he loves to be on the water.
Kevin Zelnio is a Graduate Student Researcher at Penn State studying the ecology of hydrothermal vent and methane seep communities. He raises awareness of the plight of the spineless through folk music.
Monster squid hunter extraordinaire Dr. Steve O'Shea will be dissecting giant and colossal squids and it will be webcasted LIVE from Te Papa Museum in New Zealand. It will be an event-filled week as Dr. O'Shea and his squidaliscious team of crack experts unlock the mysteries of deep sea squids, starting with the thawing!
"Thawing the frozen squid is the first challenge. There have been many suggestions (inlcuding 462 suggestions from the public!) about how to carry out this process. The temperature of the squid will be gradually raised, over several days, in the tank in which it will finally be preserved. It will be thawed in a saline solution to prevent decay of the outer tissue while the inner sections are still frozen. The squid might take up to four days to thaw."We will be live-blogging this once-in-a-lifetime event straight from DSN headquarters (location undisclosed) and will bring you such provocative tidbits of information as depth to frozen tissue, temperature of the tank, rigidity of the mantle, and other important information as we notified about them. Be the first in the blogosphere to know the time of first cut! Stay tuned to DSN for more details, April 27-May 2 (coincidentally Coral Week at DSN!)
Comments
This is at least 7 different types of WIN!
Posted by: kevindwhite | April 17, 2008 8:59 AM
Now, the only thing you didn't mention is how exactly it is that we can actually get ring-side seats to watch, live and in person. Or even, oh please tell me they need help with the dissection and there's somewhere we can volunteer for this honour? Can you, with all your clout somehow get me in on this!?!?!?
...Please?? Please?? I'll give you barnacles as a gift??
Posted by: keely | April 17, 2008 10:43 AM
Unfortunately, no public will be admitted in the dissection room, which is why we are webcasting it. We will also be blogging it (as live as possible). You can already read some stories about its preparation here: http://blog.tepapa.govt.nz/category/colossal-squid/
Posted by: Florence Liger | April 22, 2008 10:43 PM
A big thanks for having talked about this event on your blog. The response from the community has been awesome and we had a great time :)
We are now jumping to our next event, starting tomorrow morning: the examination of a pygmy right whale. There will be no video this time, but we will blog it live. It is going to last around 3 days. Stay tuned:
http://blog.tepapa.govt.nz/category/pygmy-right-whale/
Posted by: Florence Liger | May 4, 2008 9:35 PM