cmcclain | May 17, 2007The Mineral Management Service under the Bush Administration is running wild on the PR campaign about the benefits of deep-sea oil platforms. Thanks to Scientific American and Reuters the MMS and big oil are getting some good press.
Deep-sea oil platforms may aid sea life: study HOUSTON (Reuters) - Deep-water oil and natural gas platforms may become be as beneficial as a federal study has shown shipwrecks to be in creating habitats for undersea plants and animals, the U.S. Minerals Management Service said on Thursday. "The biological analyses conducted during this investigation concluded that…
petnoyer | May 17, 2007
Speaking of incredible deep-working freshwater robots (Texas rocks), LA Times Science section has a great story on the Canadian underwater lumberjacks at Triton Logging. Inc. The enterprise has developed a remote-controlled chainsaw-wielding submarine called the Sawfish to harvest cedar, pine, spruce and Douglas fir from water 200 foot deep in freshwater reservoirs created by dam construction.
Triton's founder claims 45,000 untapped submerged forests exist in the world, and he's developing a fleet of remote controlled submersible chainsaws to harvest them.
The whole operation is apparently…
cmcclain | May 16, 2007Orlean's The Orchid Thief delves in to the psychosis for some that is orchid collecting. In this example, she covers John Laroche's arrest for poaching rare orchids in a Florida state preserve and his obsession to find and clone the uber rare Ghost Orchid. The mindset of a collector is not limited to orchids and is pervasive through our culture. McIntosh & Schmeichel (2004) suggest that "collectors are drawn to collecting as a means of bolstering the self by setting up goals that are tangible and attainable and provide the collector with concrete feedback of progress." Alternatively,…
cmcclain | May 16, 2007At the beginning of March, DSN reported on DEPTHX.
The picture is of DEPTHX. It weighs about 1.2 tons, shaped like a mushroom, and can navigate itself into your bedroom. Just kidding. Not really. It can swim through a water-filled cavern creating its own map. It has already explored La Pilita, a 115 meter sink. So be weary not to let your house fill up with water.
This week, DEPTHX explores the 1,000ft deep Zacaton Lake in Mexico, the world's deepest sinkhole. The goal is to both comprehensively 3-D map the Zacaton but collect water samples as well. However exciting this may be, the…
cmcclain | May 15, 2007
The answer is still no but read below if you care to know why you cannot eat monkfish (maybe better known as anglerfish).
In January, DSN praised the move by Wal-Mart owned ADSA to drop monkfish from their stores. Last week however several media outlets claimed Monkfish back on the menu & Monkfish no longer a fish to avoid! Fishupdate reports that ASDA is to lift is ban. What?
The problem is that several pieces of information have been confused.
Two species in the genus Lophius are marketed as monkfish, the Northeast Atlantic (off Europe) L. piscatorius and the Northwest Atlantic…
cmcclain | May 14, 2007 For the ultra rich in the next decade the Waldorf-Astoria is probably going to be a bit passe. "My pomeranians and I had spent every spring in the Waldorf, but now will it has become ever so cliche!" Luckily, this swath of society simply need to bookmark bornrich.org. whose "sole aim is to help you spend all your hard-earned money on the snootiest thingmazig around. Our people are working around the clock to find ways to empty your wallet and make you bankrupt."
Last week bornrich.org covered the Top 10 Futuristic Luxury Hotels. Of the elite list 4 are located in outerspace, 3 in warm…
petnoyer | May 14, 2007This is a play on words alluding to Andy Warhol's multimedia vents in the mid 60's. Like Andy's quote about 15 minutes of fame in the future, this dire prediction about the 'exploding' plastic inevitable has also come true. He was a strange oracle, indeed.
Best Life Magazine covers one of the most troubling trends in the world's ocean today- a North Pacific gyre where plastic outnumbers plankton by 6:1. The story chronicles the adventures of Charlie Moore of the Algalita Research Station and his researches in the open ocean toilet bowl for our contemporary society. This is one of the best…
cmcclain | May 11, 2007
Kick 'em Jenny is a 1300m submerged volcano residing about 8km off the Grenada coast and the only live submarine volcano in the West Indies. In 1939 an eruption here rose 275m above the ocean surface (see image below fold). Eruptions have been both explosive and simply lava flows and domes in the summit crater. Nearby residents often hear deep rumbling noises. A team from WHOI installed a seismic monitor over Jenny 250m below the surface. The instrument package will be moored to a surface buoy with a high-frequency radio (and solar panels) to send data to the village of Sauteurs on…
cmcclain | May 10, 2007 One of the benefits of my office being on the shore is seeing this some mornings. The behavior of sticking one fin out of the water is called jug handling.
cmcclain | May 10, 2007 Each of these gastropods are from the deep sea in the North Atlantic near 1500m. Each is is a few mm in height.
cmcclain | May 9, 2007I once had a corn chip that looked like Sammy Davis Jr. Unfortunately I was hungry and consumed it. I stumbled across this in my surfing around the web. Allah Fish!
Last year, in the U.K. an Oscar was found at a pet shop that resembled the Arabic Script for Allah. However, this is not the first Allah Fish. In 2003 a fish in India had marking on its tail fin with patterns resembling Arabic characters, on one side of the body reading "Laillah Illalah" (there is no God but Allah) and, on the other, "Sahni Allah" (warning from God).
cmcclain | May 9, 2007
In The Flamingo's Smile, a compilation of Gould's articles for Natural History, there is a lengthy discussion of the principle of decreasing variation within established patterns and the disappearance of .400 hitters in baseball. According to Gould the loss of .400 batting average reflects players getting better not worse. Imagine a range of batting averages whose mean is around .300, a very respectable value. Gould argued in the past that .400 was at the upper extreme of the batting average range. There were also many players who were quite below the average, resulting in a huge…
cmcclain | May 8, 2007In case you missed the link for the mp3 of A Marine Biologist. Here it is. Make sure you visit Darkest of the Hillside Thickets myspace page as well. You can beat these lyrics. Hopefully they will post the full set of them soon!
cmcclain | May 8, 2007Let's face it Marine Biologists are the rock stars of science not gene jocks , chem nerds, math geeks* but marine biologist. Finally, someone is going to give us our due credit.
*all who I rely on weekly
Marine biologist footage needed for rock video
Are you a marine biologist? Do you want to be in a rock video?
Hello all, this is Toren Atkinson, science lover and lead singer for the Lovecraftian rock band, The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets. You may, at http://www.thickets.net/toren/darkestofthehillsidethickets.mp3 or http://www.myspace.com/darkestofthehillsidethickets listen to/…
cmcclain | May 8, 2007
When I was a kid I had the best set of Return of the Jedi bed linens and curtains. I had a matching waste basket even. I loved those. As an adult I find it hard to get excited about bed linens. However, I really wish this set came in king. Maybe my wife and I get separate single beds so I can have these? Spooning my wife or sheets with Cephalopods and submarines...tough decision.
cmcclain | May 7, 2007 Rick Macpherson over at the unusually named Malaria, Bedbugs, Sea Lice, and Sunsets has an excellent post on why you should think twice about stepping aboard for fun and sun on a cruise ship. He details the new uber cruise ships, the Genesis Class and thier/your potential to kill off the places you love. In case you are not in the know, Royal Caribbean has announced it will build cruising's biggest ship ever with the development of a 220,000-ton, 5,400-passenger ship (43% bigger the Freedom Class, e.g. Freedom of the Seas , that debutset last June). The price tag ~1.5 billion dollars and…
cmcclain | May 7, 2007
The Challenger expedition of 1872-76 marks the transition form Victorian to modern science: from the world of the gentleman naturalist to the of Big Science, with its requisite institutional, collaborative and multidisciplinary framework and national funding support
-Koslow in The Silent Deep
Out of this 3.5 year, 69,000 mile expedition came 50 volumes of numerous pages covering every known phylum of organisms collected during the trip. Yesterday a reader noted, and I very excited to pass on, a link for the Challenger Reports. This online gift is the full 50…
cmcclain | May 7, 2007At the end of May, I will be out to sea! But alas never fear, because my dedication to the DSN reader is great! I will be blogging from sea about my daily exploits and pictures from the cruise. Stay tuned for the dates and link to the MBARI website.
cmcclain | May 5, 2007From ABCNews...
The 20 countries meeting in Chile agreed to impose the restrictions from October until a full scientific study can be undertaken on the effects of bottom trawling.China, the United States, France, Japan, Chile and South Korea were among the countries signing the agreement. Russia however did not sign and says it will continue fishing in the same way.
Мы мать Россия! Мы будем делать то, что мы чертовски хорошо пожалуйста!
cmcclain | 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 1800s by the look of the plates and figures. I really love and admire old texts, especially those many figures as does this one. The art was so descriptive and inspiring then, before the age of computer animation.
The lessons, or chaptes, include such grand subjects as:
Fish For Breakfast
The…