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Ok, I'm a few days late in posting this, but here's the latest podcast from Me, Travis, Peter, Jason and Sci. Our topic of the month: Fieldwork! Which we stay on for, oh, maybe a few minutes before getting sidetracked... :) Enjoy! PS Our previous podcast about life as a grad student can be found…

Scientists worry way too much about the impacts of our work. We want our papers to mean something, for people to really want to read them. Of course, the true test of whether your paper is important is that future papers cite you as a reference. What makes one paper cited by everyone and another…

...And it PURRS.

So, Shark Diver set out a challenge for Ocean of Pseudoscience Week that I simply had to look into. He wanted to know whether there's any science backing the notion that Bull Sharks, Carcharhinus leucas, have extraordinarily high testosterone levels and might thus be usable as a source for legally…

Sure, the field days sound exciting and magical, don't they? So, of course, it's hard not to want to paint the picture that that is what it's like to be a marine biologist. But I don't get to do that kind of work often. Here's an average day in my life, a work day, is like: 5:30 am Wake up. Roll…

Graduate Student. Marine Biologist. Science Blogger. I put on a lot of hats in my daily life, and the end result is that when someone asks me what I do for a living, I usually want to answer "I'm a Marine Biologist." Sounds good, doesn't it? Recently I've had a few people ask to interview me, and…

The sea is a dark and often mysterious place, and it's no wonder that the fear and fascination with the marine world has led to more than a few inaccurate claims. The crew over at Southern Fried Science have decided that this week is all about busting pseudoscience and the myths that surround our…

Sorry I've been so MIA. The ship pulled back into Pearl Harbor on Friday, and currently I'm trying to get back to the swing of things on land, catch up on everything I missed for the past month, and find a place to live, so I'm kinda busy. In the meantime, enjoy the adorableness (c/o Zooborns)…

Boy, diving all day every day sure makes you miss a bunch of stuff on the internets. Here's a quickie catching up of things I should have told you about already: Jason tagged me in a meme because I have some kind of substance*. It would be breaking web etiquette not to follow suit. So here's the…

For the past five days, I have been snorkeling and diving at Pearl & Hermes Atoll. P & H is one of the prettiest places I have ever been - stunning, vibrant reefs, calm, blue waters - the works. It's stupid pretty. The atoll has the highest standing stock of fish and the highest number of…

We just spent two days at French Frigate Shoals, most of which I spent diving or sleeping. Our research is going very well, which keeps me pretty busy, but I still find time to snap a picture or two. Here are some shots of the cruise so far!

We spent the past day at Nihoa. Even from afar, its jagged shape seems somewhat ominous. It blows my mind to think that people used to live on this island! There seems to be no source of fresh water, and the only source of food is the blue depths off shore, which are patrolled by territorial beasts…

So I've spent almost a day now on the H'i'ialakai, and I've learned a couple things. 1. I do not have my sea legs yet, Have you ever seen that episode of Family Guy where the whole family, including Brian is in the back of a van, and everyone is making fun of Brian because he can't seem to stand up…

It's official - I am on board the Hi'ialakai and we are underway, headed to our first stop Nihoa. Want to know where I'm at? Follow me around using NOAA's Ship Tracker. The Hi'ialakai is "HA", and you can click the link on the left sidebar to get it pointed out. Click "show latest track" to zoom…

So, you may have heard this rumor that I, on occasion, do things other than blog, tweet, or facebook. It may seem shocking, but I do have a day job (if you can call it that - a graduate student's job never seems to be restricted by sunlight). For the past couple weeks, I've been getting my butt…

I'm pretty happy with my results: I write likeMargaret Atwood I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing! Try it yourself. It's a pretty good way to waste 30 seconds or so.

I think we all need a little happy right now. So, here you go: This is Yoshi, my dear friend Kira's newest family member. Isn't he just the cutest?! Those blue eyes are just irresistible. More adorableness below the fold.

By the latest count, ScienceBlogs has lost 11 bloggers over its mismanagement of the PepsiCo sponsored blog (which is now RIP). That's around a quarter of our Sciblings. Notably, we've lost some of my favorite bloggers, like Brian Switek and Scicurious. With the strong reaction many had to this…

I, like many of my fellow SciBlings, am less than ecstatic that PepsiCo now has a blog here at ScienceBlogs. It needs to have the Pepsi logo on it. It needs to be 100% clear that the content may be shameless advertising for a major corporation. Right now. But what ever happened to innocent until…

The other day, Jason, Sci, Travis and I got together to chit chat about various aspects of grad student life. You know - likes, dislikes, how we ended up in grad school, etc. Anyhow, here's our little chat for your enjoyment: You can also download the MP3 directly for your iPod, etc from this link…

Zombie-me, c/o Joseph Hewitt, who happens to havea cool RPG game open source thing, if you're curious. You may have noticed that ScienceBlogs has gotten a little... strange today. That's because it's ZOMBIE DAY! There are a ton of posts around the site about the various biological, philosophical,…

I've linked to all kinds of posts of this on Twitter, so I figured at this point I may as well just post it myself. Prepare for heartbreak.

My weekly dose of cute this week follows on my last post. They are, of course, my two adorable cousins, which I think are the cutest Homo sapiens ever. :)

"Christie! Christie!" My four-year old cousin tugs eagerly on my jacket. "I wanna see the fishes." Mouse (on the left) and Tuna (on the right), my two adorable cousins "Ok, Tuna, we can go see the fish." My little cousin loves the word 'tuna'. She says it all the time. Tuna, tuna, tuna. Everything…

HT to wonderful Kira of Bird, Bugs and Beyond

Wave breaking in Alabama (Photographer Dave Martin/AP) versus wave in Hawaii (Photographer Clark Little) Which do you prefer?

I have spent about a week trying to figure out how to start this review. You see, I've had a lot more time than I thought to write it. I brought Vanessa Wood's Bonobo Handshake with me on my vacation assuming that it would give me something to read during the long hours I've spent traveling between…

"We must not forget that when radium was discovered no one knew that it would prove useful in hospitals. The work was one of pure science. And this is a proof that scientific work must not be considered from the point of view of the direct usefulness of it. It must be done for itself, for the…

You simply must read these. Though, I wouldn't recommend reading them at work. Of if you're underage. These are definitely not PG-13 rated blog posts. From the ever wonderful Scicurious: Friday Weird Science: a tote for your scrote, a recepticle for your testicle and the fantastic Jason Goldman: A…

Oil supplies the United States with approximately 40% of its energy needs. Billions upon billions of gallons are pumped out of our wells, brought in from other countries, and shipped around to refineries all over the states. 1.3 million gallons of petroleum are spilled into U.S. waters from vessels…