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pharyngula | February 14, 2007Greg Laden was there, and has a nice blurry picture of me picking my nose.
grrlscientist | February 13, 2007
Helix Nebula,
photographed by the Spitzer Space Telescope Nasa/JPL-Caltech/K. Su (University of Arizona)
The Helix Nebula is a cloud of gas with the dead star appearing as a red dot in the middle of the nebula, like a red pupil in a green monster's eye. What created this nebula?
This has surprised astronomers, because when the star died and expelled its outer layers, the dust in this system should have been blown away.
A favored explanation is that the dust is being freshly churned up by comets smashing into each other in the outer fringes of the white dwarf's system.
The dead white dwarf…
cmcclain | February 12, 2007So we all know that seamonsters are whale wedding tackle. Joe Nickell over at the Skeptical Inquirer discusses the "Mysterious Enitites of the Pacific Northwest". Included is Cadborosaurus, the sea serpent, which Joe attributes to decaying basking sharks, odd shaped rocks, and otters swimming in formation. That is all well and good but I provide another explanation for mysterious enitites in the Pacific NW. Marijuana usage.
The Pacific NW is a hotspot, along with Northern California, Colorado/New Mexico, and New England. Oddly enough, I think sea serpent sightings are also high in New…
cmcclain | February 12, 2007
From 120m in the North Sea. A frogfish maybe from the genus Antennarius
grrlscientist | February 12, 2007
Western honeybee, Apis mellifera.
Image: William Connolley.
When I was in graduate school, I nearly decided to study social bees for my dissertation work, but in the end, I decided to pursue my greatest passion, birds. However, despite this, bees have long been a favorite animal of mine, and if I had my own place to live, I would be keeping social and semi-social bees of various species, particularly native species.
But it looks like the nation's bees are not doing very well: something is killing them. The domesticated western honeybee, which does much of the pollintation of crops, has…
tqa | February 12, 2007As you may know, today is the 198th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin. Birthday wishes have been posted on a number of blogs, as an assortment of scientists and scientific enthusiasts mark the occasion. For my own little tribute to Mr. Darwin, I'm going to talk about why he is the subject of such admiration from scientists when others who were involved in the discovery of the history of life are not.
The admiration for Darwin has little to do with what the Discovery Institute calls, "The Deification of Charles Darwin." This is not a case of where we, "celebrate the birth of [our]…
petnoyer | 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. They enjoyed a similar victory protecting seamount habitat in the Mediterranean last year. How do they do it? Generally, it's localized autonomy with tender loving support from headquarters in DC. If cold corals count where you live, then that's your agenda.
The press release is here.
grrlscientist | February 12, 2007
Charles Foley, a biologist for the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), has been searching for a legendary white giraffe in Tarangire National Park, Africa, since 1993.
"By 1994 the sightings stopped coming in, so I assumed it had died, either at the hand of man or beast," Foley said in a WCS press release. "I never stopped looking though."
Foley's diligence paid off when he was conducting an aerial survey of the elephants earlier this month and saw a glimmer of white amid the trees. His photo, taken from a plane flying some 62 miles an hour (100 kilometers an hour), shows a pale giraffe…
cmcclain | February 11, 2007
So if I can manage to save my next three years of salary, and not spend any money on Guinness rent, I will be really close to affording a C-Quester. Of course, it going to be a little more expensive because I am going to want all the options and acessories like:
Dome Protection
Lifting Points
Halogen Lights on the Bow
Aircon
Racing Stripes
Fenders
Extra batteries (a must)
Off Road Package (i.e. Heavy Duty)
Epirb
Sonar/Underwater Communication
Extra high pressure air bottles/Oxygen Refill (a definite must)
To bad I don't know what all these are. Epirb? Doesn't matter, I am sure I…
thescian | February 11, 2007A conversation between my two year old neice and her mother (my sister).
"Let me check your temperature, Nethra."
Nethra waits patiently as my sister sticks the thermometer into her mouth. After the thermometer is pulled out Nethra makes a motion as though she was eating the thermometer.
"No, Nethra! You can't eat temperature. It's not like food. You have to read it."
A harmless category error (ascribing a property to something that cannot have that property). Adults make category errors too - claiming Creationism as Science, for instance; a bit more subtle but certainly not as harmless as…
cmcclain | February 11, 2007Every once in while, I read something on the internet that boils my blood. Last year it was the utter nonsense coming from the beauty industry about the benefits of deep-sea water (Which won me a Fuzzy). Now it is ramblings from Nick Szabo. Who is Szabo?
Nicholas Szabo holds a Juris Doctor degree from The George Washington University and a Bachelor's degree in computer science from the University of Washington. He has substantial experience in the areas of Internet security, e-commerce, and software engineering, and is widely read in history, economics, and science.
Apparently, all this…
cmcclain | February 11, 2007When we talk about conserving fish stocks what do we mean? I see conservation as allowing fish to maintain healthy viable populatoons so we can maintain long-term sustainable harvest. Overfishing is the enemy not fishing. Often someone tries to convince the public that you have fisherman on one side and environmentalist on the other. Thanks media! But in reality the priorities are not so different, or should not be. Successful management of a fishery means jobs in the long run.
The days of mom and pop fisherman are long over and replaced by international conglomerates with business models…
cmcclain | February 11, 2007
What does 78.1 million U.S. dollars buy you? Presidential election? A month's supply of prescription medication? Health care? A house in California?
Definitely not enough money for any of those. What it does buy is a shiney new ship from fine Norwegian shipbuilders and a visit from royalty. Who else are you going to have build a ship? NERC (National Environmental Research Council, UK) and the National Oceanography Centre recently welcomed thier new addittion to the family. The RSS James Cook will see her first expedition to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
petnoyer | February 11, 2007You 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 fish feed millions of people. I apologize for any misgivings. I actually like surimi and bologna. Baloney and cheese sandwiches are my favorite snack to bring kayaking. Seriously. They stay fresh all day.
The commenter also pointed out that I need to do more research before I write about this stuff…
grrlscientist | February 10, 2007I stumbled across a little test that diagnoses which world leader you are most like. Since I share my test results with you, (below the fold), I hope that you share yours with me. Yes, non-Americans can also take this test.
What Famous Leader Are You?personality tests by similarminds.com
petnoyer | 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 well. It's good to have new writers. We need more.
To be honest, the "Science Week" challenge caught me off guard. Deep Sea News always writes about science. We never drag on about ourselves. Craig and I are invertebrate biologists interested in the physical and evolutionary processes that maintain…
cmcclain | February 8, 2007
[For the 5th installment of Just Science, I asked Brian Romans a PhD candidate in the Department of Geological & Environmental Sciences at Stanford University to post on his research. You can catch his blog at http://bromans.blogspot.com/]
As we all know, the deep sea contains fantastic records of ancient oceanic conditions. The deep sea also holds clues about the continents. In this case, we can use deep sea sediments to better understand how Earth surface systems respond to climatic fluctuations. The inherent relief between continental and ocean plates drives the transfer of sediment…
tqa | February 8, 2007In an article made available today on the New England Journal of Medicine's website, University of Chicago researchers report on the results of a study that assessed how the moral beliefs of physicians affect their advice to patients. There is good news and bad news in this study. The good news is that most physicians believe that they have an ethical obligation to inform their patients of all possible courses of action, including those that they believe are morally objectionable. The bad news is that there is a substantial minority who do not think that they need to tell the patient about…
grrlscientist | February 8, 2007The 42nd edition of I and the Bird is now available. I and the Bird is a blog carnival that focuses on wild birds in the blogosphere; ornithology, birding and bird photography.
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tags: birds, blog carnival, nature