petnoyer

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March 27, 2007
Did you ever want to write a letter to the Pope, but you didn't know what to say? Well, here's your chance to write that letter. Sea turtle advocates did all the work for you, and they vastly improved your only likely chance of an audience. Your voice will be one of thousands calling upon His…
March 25, 2007
My understanding of what makes a good children's book changed dramatically about 15 months ago, when my baby daughter Clara Lynn was born. Before that time, I thought a good children's library would be a mix of Dr. Seuss, Dick and Jane, Sesame Street, and Winnie the Pooh. These were the stories I…
March 22, 2007
This Sunday (March 25) the Discovery Channel will be broadcasting the series Planet Earth at 8pm ET/PT. Footage of Davidson Seamount will be broadcast in the Deep Ocean episode at 10pm ET/PT. Expect to see some gorgeous gorgonians and some handsome fly-trap anemones. Discovery Channel put together…
March 20, 2007
Here's a short list of 21 things you can do with a deep sea coral. 1.Raise awareness of deep-sea habitats 2.Display in a museum (e.g. Smithsonian NMNH) 3.Make a GIS database (Etnoyer and Morgan 2003, 2005) 4.Make photographs for books and pamphlets (Glover and Earle 2004) 5.Make jewelry 6.…
March 13, 2007
National Geographic explorer-in-residence Dr. Robert Ballard led a team of scientists to explore the "twilight zone" near 100m depth around the Flower Garden Banks region in the Gulf of Mexico last week. Every cabin, van, and workspace on the support vessel SSV Carolyn Chouest seemed to be wired…
March 7, 2007
Wired Magazine is running an interesting story on Nautilus Minerals and their plans to mine the seafloor off Papua New Guine. The media offerings and graphics are pretty sharp.
March 4, 2007
Secrets of the Gulf Expedition is broadcasting live footage of submersible surveys at 100m depth around the Flower Garden Banks in the Gulf of Mexico. This is the cutting edge of exploration technology. Check it out here: http://www.immersionpresents.org Every few hours they run a live broadcast…
February 28, 2007
Your definition of what's deep and what's not depends on your perspective. If you're an oceanographer, 200m is deep. If you're a snorkeler, 50 feet is deep. If you're a reef-building coral, 50 meters is deep. Craig and I forego our usual definition of deep (200m) this week so we can alert you to…
February 20, 2007
What's 200 feet long, has 18 ways to reproduce, and breaks into pieces? The worm. Vermes. National Geographic is running a beautiful multimedia story about Hawaii's Unearthly Worms. This week couldn't ask for better recommended reading material, except... "where did all the words go?". Nat Geo has…
February 20, 2007
The ocean is a many-layered thing. If you ask a marine biologist to tell you about these ocean layers, they'll talk about the "photic zone" and the "oxygen minimum zone". These gradients in light and oxygen influence the type and variety of animals you will find there. But if ask an oceanographer…
February 18, 2007
Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) scientists working in the Arctic Ocean unraveled the geological origin of many mysterious mounds, called "pingos", off Canada's north coast. Pingos are small, dome-shaped, ice-cored hills about 40m tall, found along the coast of the Tuktoyaktuk…
February 16, 2007
DSN Valentine Kate Winslet reminds me of mermaids. Were they ever so beautiful...? She is shown here hunting giant squid. Photo by Annie Leibovitz, in Vanity Fair
February 15, 2007
"Does the brainpower of the folks who read DSN have what it takes to save the planet and win a cool 25 M at the same time?", asks author and "Best of DSN" judge Clark Thompson. "I figure if anyone can get this [carbon sequestration challenge] to work it's the kind of folks who read DSN. So, get the…
February 12, 2007
The "panda-people" at World Wildlife Fund are promoting a recent success protecting deep-water habitats in the "coral-rich waters off north-west Scotland". It makes me laugh just to read those words. 20 years ago folks would scoff. WWF seems to be ahead of the curve in deep-water conservation.…
February 11, 2007
You can see from yesterday's post and comments that we are tapping into the science of fish baloney. A commenter took offense to my remarks and misspelling of surimi, a processed food product made from pollock. Pollock, hake, and cod are Gadiforms in the families Gadidae and Moridae. Together these…
February 10, 2007
This is Science Weekend. Any thing you read here should be interpreted within the context of picnics, cartoons, and sushi dinners. The last five days of Science Week featured stories from colleagues contemplating important stuff like sea cucumbers, sediment transport, and blue smokers. It went…
January 31, 2007
SEED Magazine is running a welcome news story on a Japanese/EU agreement to ease their collective appetite for tuna. This is a very important development. The Japanese have been a significant source of politicial pressure at ICCAT in the past. This cooperative atmosphere for marine conservation may…
January 30, 2007
The Bush Administration announced major budget increases totaling more than $140 million over the fiscal year 2007 request "to support coastal and marine conservation efforts in fiscal year 2008." The press release announcing this new funding can be found here. Highlights include: * $123…
January 25, 2007
Tomorrow (Jan 26) will see the public release of Charting the Course for Ocean Science in the United States for the Next Decade: An Ocean Research Priorities Plan and Implementation Strategy which outlines the national ocean research priorities for the United States for the next ten years. The…
January 17, 2007
Our Best of the Abyss awards were conceived to recognize important deep-sea happenings around the world, and intended to pay our humble respects to all the hard working scientists, technicians, and policy makers that make our postings possible here on the blog. If it wasn't for these people, we…
January 16, 2007
Just when you thought you escaped the onslaught of annual reviews in the media, along comes a slacker post from the Deep Sea News. Craig tasked me with this weeks ago, but I quickly passed the responsibility to a bevy of impartial judges willing to slog through last year's material in search of…
January 13, 2007
A new article in Journal of Geophysical Research by Gouretski and Koltermann shows global warming estimates since the 1950's are positively biased 0.2 - 0.4 °C due to discrepencies between temperature readings from the expendable bathythermograph (XBT) device and Conductivity-Temperature-Depth (…
January 9, 2007
The Ocean FilmFest begins its fourth year in San Francisco January 20-21. My second resolution is to make this the last year I miss it. At least one of these films features the deep. Aquanauts, Jerome Scemla , 53 min, France The real Captain Nemo: exploration of the deep ocean from William Beebe's…
January 6, 2007
Slate recycled an old story about Giant Squid just before Christmas. Daniel Engber's review provides lots of interesting links and factoids about ammonium and bouyancy control in Architeuthis . He also touches on their potential vulnerability to sesimic surveys, citing a New Scientist article about…
January 6, 2007
New York Times is running a nice article called "Old Men and The Sea" about two remarkable marine biologists that passed this year, Drs. Cadet Hand and Joel Hedgpeth. Hand was partial to sea anemones and Hedgepeth preferred sea spiders. We provide these links to share our mutual admiration, and to…
January 5, 2007
I don't know if you guys caught the comment below from Bruce Strickrott, Chief Pilot of the DSV Alvin. We have been trying to get this guy to write something for Deep Sea News for about a year now. Why? Because Alvin pilots Bruce, Anthony, Gavin, Pat, and Duncan (among others) have gone where no…
January 3, 2007
Natural Resources Defense Council is leading the fight to make the Pacific Ocean off California a more peaceful place for migrating whales. So far, they have strong support from the California Coastal Commission, who denied the US Navy sonar training exercises once before. A review is due on…
January 1, 2007
I was worried that 2006 might pass without a sea change for deep-sea research until I ran across an article by Grasmueck et al in Journal of Geophysical Research that made my paradigm shift. Recent deep surveys by the researchers from Rostenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science at…
December 30, 2006
An article called "Science 2006" (SEED Magazine, November 2006) discusses a group called Science and Engineers for America that is making important headway in Washington. Please check it out. This kind of advocacy in Washington is mission critical. Important federal agencies responsible for global…
December 26, 2006
My favorite thing about Christmas is the stories. To me, the holiday comes wrapped in pictures, histories, tales, and yarns just like the gifts setting under the tree. The feast begins after Thanksgiving Day as networks broadcast animated snowmen, elves, and reindeer. Classic stories like Miracle…