cmcclain
Posts by this author
May 4, 2007
As part of the Gutenberg Project to make available copyright-free (i.e. old) books available in print online, I came across Within the Deep by R. Cadwallader Smith as part of Cassell's "Eyes and No Eyes" Series Book VIII. I have no idea to the original print date but I am guessing mid to late…
May 4, 2007
Charles Messing graciously shared these pictures with DSN of crawling crinoids. You can see the full movie here.
Cenocrinus asterius, a larger species, in the process of crawling up a roch off of Grand Cayman Island at about 228m
Neocrinus decorus in normal feeding…
May 2, 2007
Benthobatis marcida (Chordata: Elasmobranchii: Torpediniformes: Narcinidae)
"It is a clumsy fish about a yard long, and very ugly. Being too slow to catch its swift prey in fair chase, it stuns them with an electric shock, and then eats them. The electric power comes from the…
May 2, 2007
I try to keep all posts here strictly on topic, after all this is Deep-Sea News. So if you are not interested in my personal life and only in the deep sea then stop reading now.
Last year on July 4, I faced the decision that no one with a dog should ever face. The vet looked at me and said…
May 2, 2007
In case your are unfamiliar with this group, Wespac is the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council in charge of policy for the management of fisheries in the EEZ around American Samoa, Guam, Hawaii, the Northern Mariana Islands and US Pacific island possessions. Funny things are going…
May 1, 2007
and live in underwater cities made of lollipops and children's dreams. And we will tour the ocean depths with Undersea Tourist Boats! O what a glorious future we will have when the year 2000 comes!
PZ turned me on to the Paleo-Future blog, a wonderful site where the future of yesteryear is…
May 1, 2007
So when I am down in a submersible, I worry about protection. What happens if I accidentally drop my USB flash drive out the window at 600 feet down? What if I am scuba diving and I need 8GB of memory? What if an evil deep-sea biologist snatches my USB wand and uses my data for his evil…
May 1, 2007
An oddly incomplete article is over at the Tenerife News Online. Despite its revealing title of An Interview with Professor Searle - MICHAEL - IN NEED AN INTRODUCTORY PARAGRAPH - WHO DID THE INTERVIEW ETC , Searle provides some interesting commentary on the first expedition of the RSS James Cook…
April 29, 2007
The oil freighter Esso Languedoc outside the coast of Durban (1980). The man who took it, Philippe Lijour, estimated the mean wave height when this occurred to be about 5-10 m. The mast on the starboard side is 25 m above the mean sea level. The wave approached from behind and broke over…
April 29, 2007
Exterior view of Phoenix 1000. Photo from U.S. Submarines
Regular readers of DSN know that Peter and I try to provide all the latest information on all the newest vessels. Regular readers will also know Peter and I have had little success raising the necessary funds from you are readers…
April 27, 2007
The twilight zone is a section of water extending from the euphotic zone down to 1000m. A new study demonstrates that this region acts like a gate and that little makes it to the seafloor.
...carbon dioxide --taken up by photosynthesizing marine plants in the sunlit ocean surface layer--does not…
April 26, 2007
Approximately 55 million years ago it was very bad to be a deep-sea animal. First the ocean temperature was rising. At the surface, temperatures rose anywhere from 5-10 degrees and in the deep around 5 degrees. The chemistry of the water also changed significantly. Oxygen became depleted. The…
April 26, 2007
Lucernaria janetae (Cnidaria: Staurozoa: Lucernariidae)
Stauromedusae are not entirely uncommon, but not entirely common either. In fact "stalked jellyfish", as they are sometimes known, are very rare in the deep sea and only about 50 species are described (5). Only one other…
April 26, 2007
It appears that the vessel rolled in heavy seas while the chef was slicing food causing a knife to lacerate his abdomen.
From iafrica.com
April 25, 2007
In the past, I have made the statement on DSN that there can be no such thing as a sustainable deep-sea fishery. My reasons for this are that
Deep-sea fish are slow growing and long lived due to the cold temperatures of deep water.
This results in low turnover, or replacement, of…
April 23, 2007
Image from surfersvillage.com. Surfer catching wave at Mavericks
If you want to know where the good surf spots are sure you could ask your local bro', or you could gather some geologist and map the seafloor at high resolution. Sure the first might cost you at most a cigarette…
April 22, 2007
A recently-discovered jellyfish has been found at newly discovered vents in the Pacific Ocean. Credit: WHOI
Last week while DSN focused on charismatic megafauna with notochords, a newly discovered species without pharyngeal slits at a newly discovered vent field was uncovered at 8500 feet…
April 19, 2007
A megavertebrate picture from the old private collection. A Chinstrap aboard the R/V Polarstern
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April 18, 2007
Sure I could have lab full of undergraduates, graduate students, and post doctoral fellows working away at my research. On the other hand I could use narwhals...that is if toxic algae doesn't kill them off too. Now if we could just get our cephalopod brethren to help out.
April 18, 2007
A special post from Alison Boyer whose research encompasses birds and body size evolution.
Penguins are remarkable divers, capable of diving to depths exceeding 200m. The largest penguin species, Emperor penguins (Aptenodytes forsteri), have been recorded diving to 535m and can hold their breath…
April 18, 2007
The offspring is at it again this time asking about the nocturnal habits of whales. Luckily, Cortunix over at Blog Around the Clock addresses just this question.
April 18, 2007
So you walk into the pet shop, you're looking around at all the little animals and you see a cute little turtle in a freshwater terrarium. You think to yourself "wow, that's really neat, a cute little turtle." What you might not realize is that a cousin of this pet store turtle holds some most…
April 16, 2007
Well son/daughter, their decomposing carcasses bloat up, sink to the deep, dark ocean floor, where other animals rip away their flesh and consume their bones*.
It may be a whole week of about vertebrates but I had to balance it out with a whale's tale of death and decomposition in which at…
April 13, 2007
Attributed to Aesop is the old parable of the tortoise and the hare. We all know the story and the moral. Slow and steady wins the race. Now lets add to the story a snail and mess with the plot a bit. In the new story both the tortoise and the hare are the winner, and no one thinks the snail will…
April 12, 2007
Aplacophora is a class of mollusks comprised of about 320 species. They were considered echinoderms until around 1987 when they were moved to Mollusca. Species ingest sediment while inhabiting burrows. A shell is lacking but the epidermis secretes a cuticle in which are embedded…
April 12, 2007
Going on as we speak is an experiment of monumental proportions. It may not seem that way to you sitting in front of your computer this moment, but to a kid in middle or high school I guarantee that it is their world! At least the highlight of their school day anyways...
As part of the GLOBE…
April 12, 2007
Kurt is up in heaven now.
My first book report was on the Cat's Cradle. A novelty read for a student in rural high school. "Why don't you just read To Kill a Mockingbird?" my teacher asked. I was hooked and proceeded to spend what little money I had on any used copy of a Vonnegut…
April 11, 2007
"Song of the Dredge", presented by Edward Forbes to the British Association at its annual meeting in 1839. Sung in the tune of Cream by Prince (kidding).
"Hurrah for the dredge, with its iron edge,
And its mystical triangle.
And its hided net with meshes set
Odd fishes to entangle!
The ship may…
April 11, 2007
Musings from Kevin... So you are out on the ocean and need some inspiration for the long nights by the dredge? Well, have I got the CD for you! Here are a few of my favorites that bring me back a mile or two below the surface (metaphorically, as I spend my time usually in front of a computer):
"…