kevin z | February 9, 2008Not that Darwin, the other Darwin. Erasmus Darwin was Charles Darwin's grandfather. A doctor and naturalist in his own right as well. He also was a poet and penned down many verses in his life, often quite racy and sensual (for the pre-Victorian era). Here is a poem titled The Temple of Nature penned in 1802. Erasmus actually formulated his own theory of evolution which is similar in many ways to Lamarck's but includes the concepts of competition and sexual selection. This poem highlights some of that thinking.
Organic life beneath the shoreless waves
Was born and nurs'd in ocean's pearly…
cmcclain | February 8, 2008We asked Jeff Drazen, the exuberant doctor in the video, to pass along his comments about the encounter. The video is credit to Eric Vetter, Craig Smith, and HURL.
From Drazen: This video of a 16-18 ft long six-gill shark, Hexanchus griseus, was filmed from the PICES submersible (operated by HURL) at 1000m depth north of the Hawaiian island of Molokai. The dive was part of a project led by Eric Vetter (Hawaii Pacific University) and Craig Smith (UH).
Eric Vetter, Max Cremer and myself were in the sub at the time. We were conducting a bait experiment to examine scavenger abundance and…
kevin z | February 8, 2008I'm not even going to say anything. I want your jaw to drop just like mine did. Major hat tip to the guys at the Neutral Dive Gear: SCUBA Diving Blog. Go check them out!
Update: Comments 11 and 12 below bring to light evidence the video is faked. But we still think it is fun!
And now for a little narcissism. My 15 seconds of fame on the National Geographic Channel's series Naked Science: The Deep. This episode aired last Spring. Don't blink! You might miss me!
kevin z | February 7, 2008We came across these wonderful drawings of deep-sea creatures from artist Ben Lawson. He was gracious enough to let us share his drawings and sketches with you. Be sure to check out Ben's website for many more fantastic and imaginative artwork (I really like the poison plants collection) and be sure to contact him if you are interested in purchasing any of his works. If you have a weird and grotesque animal, he may be interested in drawing too. Enjoy!
More under the fold.
cmcclain | February 7, 2008
...it looks like I could put my knowledge to use sneaking drugs out of Colombia.
In the annals of the drug trade, traffickers have swallowed cocaine pellets, dissolved the powder into ceramics and flown the drug as far as Africa on flimsy planes -- anything to elude detection and get a lucrative product to market. Now, the cartels seem to be increasingly going beneath the waves, relying on submarines built in clandestine jungle shipyards to move tons of cocaine.
kevin z | February 7, 2008Hat tip to John Lynch, where you can find a lively commentary on this issue.
"Australia's government on Thursday released graphic pictures of Japanese hunters harpooning whales and dragging the bleeding carcasses onto a ship near Antarctica, calling it evidence of "indiscriminate" slaughter.
Japan denied one of the photographs showed a mother and its calf being killed, and accused Australian officials and media of spreading propaganda that could damage ties between the two nations.
The images were the latest salvo in the new Australian government's stepped-up campaign against Japan's annual…
cmcclain | February 6, 2008Beginning with Victorian science and progressing through the onset of modern deep-sea biology, the dominant paradigm was that the deep sea was a stable ecosystem. Organisms, and the communities that contained them, were unchanging because the deep ocean was buffered against climatic variability. Move head to the 1980's and beyond and the picture has changed considerably. Work led by John Gage, Paul Tyler, Craig Young demonstrates that many species exhibit seasonal reproduction. Work by Ken Smith and Henry Ruhl here at MBARI reveals an ecosystem where biodiversity shifts are triggered by…
kevin z | February 5, 2008One of our astute readers pointed us to this piece published in today's The independent titled The world's rubbish dump: a garbage tip that stretches from Hawaii to Japan. IF EVER there was a reason to join Craig in his Just One Thing Challenge. Now is the time!
"A "plastic soup" of waste floating in the Pacific Ocean is growing at an alarming rate and now covers an area twice the size of the continental United States, scientists have said.
The vast expanse of debris - in effect the world's largest rubbish dump - is held in place by swirling underwater currents. This drifting "soup"…
cmcclain | February 5, 2008I have to admit after being down in a sub and spending time looking at video feeds from ROV's, the crazy animals I see from the deep start to become commonplace. That is why the below video is absolutely off the freakin' hook! Drs. Eric Vetter and Jeff Drazen was in a submersible off the coast of Moloka'i when a 6-gill shark, at an estimated 17ft, swam within feet of the sub. UPDATE: Please note the follow post here in which Jeff Drazen discusses the encounter.
cmcclain | February 5, 2008How does fear drive a marine food web? That's right I said fear, as in blood-curdling-scream-I-think-I-just-wet-my-pants fear. Sharks just swim around and intimidate the hell out of other animals. What if a utopia state existed where sharks weren't invited and a society developed of peace, love, and understanding? What would that society look like?
In actuality we are not too far from that state as shark populations continue to decline. Frid and colleagues publish a model this week in the journal Oikos addressing the impacts of shark declines and "fear-released systems". The model is…
kevin z | February 5, 2008As a father of two, I realize the importance of finding good books and toys. My daughter is too young still, but my 27 month old son absolutely LOVES books and I absolutely LOVE buying him new and interesting books. I recently came across two children's books while perusing amazon.
The first is I'm the Biggest Thing in the Ocean by Kevin Sherry. This is the tale of an arrogant giant squid who points out to everything in the ocean that it is the biggest thing evah! Well, that might not necessarily be true... (you have to read it to find out!) Kevin Sherry put together a fun book with good…
cmcclain | February 4, 2008From CNN...
The Navy must follow environmental laws placing strict limits on sonar training that opponents argue harms whales, despite President Bush's decision to exempt it, a federal judge ruled Monday..."We disagree with the (exemption) judge's decision," White House spokesman Tony Fratto said. "We believe the (exemption) orders are legal and appropriate."
Bwahahahahaha.
cmcclain | February 3, 2008This is a tale of how a singular event can lead to two simultaneous outcomes, one absurd and one enlightening. Recently, I've needed to have a medical procedure to keep my body functioning. The first procedure over two years ago worked great till last fall. In December, I needed to have this procedure again.
The enlightening part: Kevin was nice enough to send a copy of the Civilization and the Limpet by Martin Wells. Although aware of Well's research, I was wholly unaware of this book. I triumphantly finished it yesterday and am admittedly impressed. The book is unabashedly Mollusc…
cmcclain | February 3, 2008
Now were off with #2:
The request: Use no plastic grocery and shopping bags for the next week. Use, and purchase if necessary, reusable bags. Recycle all plastic bags around the house at a participating location.
The reason: In the North Pacific gyre plastic outnumbers plankton by 6:1. The plastic can clog the stomachs of the marine vertebrates killing more than a million seabirds and 100,000 mammals and sea turtles each year. Moreover, plastics attract chemicals like DDT and PCB poisoning any animal digesting them. Plastics leach endocrine-disrupting chemicals that can alter…
kevin z | February 2, 2008If you are regular reader to Deep Sea News, you may be used to the strangeness that is the deep ocean. In fact, you may be immune to oddity by now, half expecting quirkiness in place of something resembling the norm. You, dear reader, may even not think twice about the bizarre hydrothermal vents that line the mid-ocean ridges and back-arc basins of our deep sea. Forget everything you learned about hydrothermal vents. Sure, water seeps down into cracks in the ocean floor, gets heated when it comes into contact with superheated rocks above a magma chamber, rises up through fissures carrying…
cmcclain | February 1, 2008A specially set-up and cleverly named company, CrabCo began an "experimental expedition" to test the feasibility of commercially harvesting two deep water crabs, the king crab and the red, or chaceon, crab. The aptly-named trawler Perseverance has pursuing these crabs for the past five days. But things did not go well.
We'd have liked to have brought in 1.5 tonnes as that's what we need [to make it viable]. However, after laying some 240 pots, on long-lines of 70 pots to a line over the past week in rough seas, the return was just 150kgs
cmcclain | January 31, 2008Here's a wonderful clip of Nancy Knowlton discussing her coral research in the tropics. Nancy is one of the world's premier marine biologist with an accomplished scientific career. Courtesy of Scripps Oceanography, UC San Diego, "Endangered Oceans" Explorations DVD, Volume 10 No. 3
cmcclain | January 31, 2008Recently scored a used copy of a book by Jacques Cousteau. Inside its covers lies a wonderful narrative and the pictures I present for this Friday's Pictures. As a fan of both Cousteau and the Life Aquatic, I can begin to see Anderson's inspiration.
petnoyer | January 31, 2008 The fourth season of LOST finally begins tonight on ABC. Hoo-rah!
Deep-sea fans weathered all sorts of abuses last season after John Locke blew up the Others' submarine "Galaga", and Mikhail used a hand grenade to flood the Looking Glass. The Looking Glass is an underwater jamming station equipped with a "moon pool" staffed by two tough chicks willing to throw down for the facts.
We figured the best we can do here at DSN to enhance your entertainment tonight is to give you a few facts about our favorite plot drivers- submarines and moon pools.
The "Galaga" looks like a shallow water…
kevin z | January 30, 2008
It is one biology's highest compliments to have a species named after you. But what if the above was your namesake? What does it say about your character? What does the author of that species description really think of the person it is named after? Perhaps these are the questions that geophysicist Michael Cousins is mulling over in his head after seeing Pachycara cousinsi, one 6 new species of deep-sea fish discovered in trawls from the southern Indian Ocean. His fiancé, Dr. Nikki King, was the lead author of these species. An early wedding present, or subliminal message? You decide!