Jennifer Jacquet
I am an American post-doc based at the University of British Columbia, where I also completed my Ph.D.
jjacquet
Posts by this author
January 1, 2008
The book The Unnatural History of the Sea by Callum Roberts, a marine ecologist at the University of York in England, is the 2007 shifting baseline story of the year. Roberts pulls together the best historical studies of fisheries, photos, and woebegone descriptions of former marine abundance. A…
December 31, 2007
Happy New Year's Eve!!! I will announce the grand prize winner for the shifting baselines story of the year tomorrow (something to look forward to in 2008). Today, I give you the runners-up:
1st place: The story from the New York Times on the new Euro series speargun that was introduced in the U.S…
December 31, 2007
Hundreds of beach-going Brazilians were stung by a smack of jellyfish yesterday. "Authorities blamed an extreme heat wave over the southeastern region." Jellyfish smacks and stings: the Christmas gift that keeps on giving (thanks J.R.).
December 30, 2007
The Domesday Book of Giant Salmon (~$75), a story book of the biggest Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) caught since the 18th century, is an unexpected best-seller this year. A special edition of the book priced at $1311 sold out before it was even ready to be shipped. Good thing the Atlantic salmon…
December 27, 2007
Great news! All the hard work by the team at the Intersection and beyond is paying off and there are now two Congressmen supporting the call for a debate. From the press release:
NEW YORK - A Republican and a Democratic member of the United States Congress, who are each also scientists, are…
December 26, 2007
Over at Retrospectacle, Shelley titled her blog post "Fish Oil Reduces Alzheimers Risk." Who can blame her? ScienceDaily did it, too. I haven't seen the title of the original article in the Journal of Neuroscience, but I suspect the researchers might have even included something about fish oil,…
December 26, 2007
Shifting baselines is about the failure to notice change. Here, sort of sadly, is a prime example of it, from my buddy Jason Ensler who is a director with NBC (he directed episodes of "My Name is Earl," and "Chuck" this season as well as co-creating the under-appreciated "Andy Barker, P.I."). It'…
December 24, 2007
In the true spirit of Christmas, a man in Bremerton, Washington nailed Santa to a cross in his front yard. Horrible? Gruesome? Repulsive? Art Conrad says his crucified Santa is an artistic piece condemning the commercialization of Christmas. His neighbors are more disturbed, though, by the…
December 23, 2007
Seafood science is indeed a pet obsession. And I got an early Christmas gift in an email about the latest product from the Maryland-based seafood company Phillips: a new formed jumbo lump crab product (see photo). Called "culinary crab" the items consists of 4 to 8 gram formed lumps of crabmeat.…
December 22, 2007
The New York Times ran a great article today: As Cars Hit More Animals on Roads, Toll Rises.
Wildlife-related crashes are a growing problem on rural roads around the country. The accidents increased 50 percent from 1990 to 2004, based on the most recent federal data, according to the Western…
December 21, 2007
Australia elected a new prime minister a month ago on the platform of having their country join the rest of the world (sans U.S.) in Kyoto. Now look at what one of his first actions is--to call the Japanese on the carpet for their stupid whaling antics.
Australia's new environment minister: Uncle…
December 21, 2007
Beware the Huckabee. He knows how to use the medium. Scientists, take note. He knows what he's doing.
Holy Huckabee, Batman, could that cross be an accident?
December 19, 2007
The Best American Science Writing 2007, that is. Seriously, this book is good. First off, many of the articles center around medical conditions and who isn't interested if they or someone they love might one day face prosopagnosia (aka face blindness), depression, Alzheimer's, a Cesarean, or a…
December 19, 2007
Posted by Jack Sterne, jack@oceanchampions.org
Let me be the first one to say, "I was wrong." Jennifer asked a few weeks back whether fisheries subsidies were an issue for Ocean Champions, and I rambled on with a response about how it hasn't really been an issue since the original days of the…
December 18, 2007
Cory Doctorow blogged about these posters earlier today at BoingBoing, calling the WWF campaign "effective and haunting". I agree.
December 17, 2007
Dead Zone Widens. Thank You Ethanol!
Demand for ethanol is rising (dumb) and with it, an increased production of corn and use of nitrogen-based fertilizers. All those fertilizers in the corn belt make their way into the Mississippi River and out to the Gulf of Mexico, creating a dead zone where…
December 16, 2007
It doesn't get any better than this. My old buddy Ove Hoegh-Guldberg in Australia is the lead author on a paper in Science this past week that basically says we can see the end for coral reefs and its not far away. It says, in relatively simple language, here is the threshold (atmospheric CO2…
December 15, 2007
Half of the fish we eat is farmed. Read about how at least some of it is raised in this excellent article on Chinese aquaculture in yesterday's New York Times.
December 14, 2007
Sea grapes (served with coconut and curry), hand woven baskets full of urchins, sunsets, fishing boats, and yes, the invevitable McDonald's. Some photos from Suva, Fiji...
December 13, 2007
I went to the library at the University of the South Pacific (USP) today. Man, they're tough (see photo). If I had gone to USP, I'd be broke. For a first noise offense, the library demands a ~$20 fine. Second offense, the fine is doubled. Third offense, suspension of your library card for a…
December 13, 2007
Check out this summary of new findings on how sea lice from fish farms threathen wild salmon population in today's New York Times. I thought the article's title (which is not chosen by the reporter), Parasites in Fish Farms Threaten Salmon, Researchers Say, cast an interesting shadow of doubt over…
December 13, 2007
Archeological records show that outrigger canoes have been used in Fiji since at least the early 1800s but perhaps as early as the 1440s. It's possible that they have been around even longer. In this photo (ca. 1880), the Camakau, or traditional Fijian canoe, is in full sail. Such canoes were…
December 12, 2007
This is the chair of one officer in Fiji's National Fisheries Division. Dr. Daniel Pauly was one of the first scientists to address the wide divide between fisheries science in the North and the South. In a 1994 essay on this topic, he wrote, "...those working with the management of tropical…
December 12, 2007
Check out this slide show at BBC News about the Quirimbas National Park and Marine Protected Area (strongly backed by WWF-Mozambique).
December 11, 2007
Carl Zimmer has written another excellent article for the New York Times. It's all about scientists who are solving "gastronomical mysteries of these leviathans by creating the first detailed biomechanical model of a feeding fin whale." One of these scientists is friend and fellow UBC Ph.D.…
December 11, 2007
You can't have commercial fisheries in Chesapeake Bay, and eat your oysters too. That's the thesis of Angus Phillip's excellent article in the Washington Post on how Chesapeake's Oyster Population Has Reached Rock Bottom.
[Phillips] asked about the Chesapeake Bay Agreement of 2000, which set a goal…
December 11, 2007
Posted by Jack Sterne, jack@oceanchampions.org
All right, here's more grist for the mill on the issue of whether climate is a campaign issue, and the answer is pretty clearly "No."
This story on Grist analyzed the stump speeches of the major candidates and how much time they devoted to the issue…
December 10, 2007
But first, support it. It's simple. There ought to be a Presidential debate devoted to science and technology in the 2008 election cycle. Already, many prominent scientists agree. Here at Shifting Baselines, we have added our name to a list of blogs that also rally behind a political discourse…
December 9, 2007
In today's New York Times Magazine, there is a great short article on Fish-Flavored Fish to confuse your logic and your tastebuds. To feed demand from the fast food industry (who needs the fishy flavor before they deep fry) one aquaculture company has come up with a way to put the fishy flavor in…