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cmcclain | December 22, 2006To say sampling an environment covered by 1000's of meters of water is difficult would be an understandment. Sampling requires creativity, technology, and luck (mostly the latter). Equipment must be designed to withstand both pressure and saltwater. Both design, deployment, and maintenance requires considerable funding. Being a deep-sea scientist is perhaps a bit masochistic. So what equipment do we use?
Research Vessels-To access the deep sea you have to set sail. The ship needs to be both large and stable enough to access high seas. In addition, deploying equipment also requires A…
pharyngula | December 21, 2006It's a good ol' American tradition: the telling of tall tales in a perfectly dead-pan style. There's enough weird stuff in Kansas, though, that maybe the story is actually true.
cmcclain | December 21, 2006Yesterday marked the 10th anniversary of Carl Sagan's death (check out Joel Schlosberg's Carl Sagan Memorial Blog-a-Thon). He was brilliant at motivating the passions of the public about the unexplored. In some sense Peter and I are trying to follow in his large footsteps to enspire this same passion about the deep sea.
Perhaps a testament to his life and far reaching influence, Baross and team in 2000 named a new species of archaea, Saganella. The microbe was isolated from water near a hydrothermal vent and was found to survive from room temperature to 90C (195F).
I think, however, what…
cmcclain | December 21, 2006From Science Online...
In April 2006, Maya Tolstoy, a geophysicist at Columbia University, received some good news and some bad news during a research expedition at sea. The submarine volcano that she and her colleague Felix Waldhauser had been monitoring for years had recently erupted. This was exciting, because only a handful of other deep-sea eruptions have been detected (1), and it was the first time ocean-bottom seismometers were in place during such an event. However, two-thirds of the instruments were stuck in the new lava on the sea floor (see the figure). Would the remaining third…
grrlscientist | December 21, 2006Welcome to the second year of Carnival of the Liberals! I managed to gather together a wide array of essays that discuss various aspects of liberalism that you might enjoy reading and commenting on over the upcoming holidays. So, without further ado, let's get started;
The Fifth Column investigates how to curb the spread of fanaticism. Another essay from the same blog that will resonate with you asks if political smear campaigns are out of control?
Jen at One Plus Two writes about The American Dream, asking whether her life is truly fulfilled if yours is not?
My blog pal, Coturnix,…
grrlscientist | December 21, 2006
Image: Dave Rintoul.
Can you identify which owl species this is, dear readers?
cmcclain | December 21, 2006Light does not reach the deep-sea floor. This precludes photosynthesis and thus primary production (except in chemosynthetic communities like hydrothermal vents and methane seeps). The lack of primary production on the deep-sea floor results in these communities being intimately coupled to the production of food at the surface by phytoplankton. What fluxes down to the deep sea is a combination of decaying animals (from plankton to whales), fecal pellets, and photosynthetic material (phytoplankton to seaweed). This material (carbon compounds) is consumed by deep-sea species and either returned…
tqa | December 20, 2006A little passage from Hogfather for the Winter Solstice:
Ridcully, after a few more trial runs, settled on a song which evolves somewhere on every planet where there are winters. It's often dragooned into the service of some local religion and a few words are changed, but it;s really about things that have to do with gods only in the same way that roots have to do with leaves.
"-the rising of the sun, and the running of the deer-"
Happy Holidays to all, regardless of which holiday you might be celebrating during this time of year, as the days finally stop getting shorter and the sun begins…
sb admin | December 20, 2006by Revere, cross-posted at Effect Measure
We continue our summary of the Institute of Medicine "Letter Report" on non-drug non-vaccine measures to slow or contain the spread of an influenza pandemic of a severity similar or worse than that of 1918 (see previous post on models here). The IOM report examined several analyses of historical data from 1918 to see if it was possible to obtain information on the effectiveness interventions on the pattern of outbreaks in various cities in the US. It is well known that both timing and severity varied a great deal in that pandemic. The goal was to see…
tqa | December 20, 2006The kids and I get to London last night just in time to catch an early dinner and fall asleep. The kids, being used to Hawaiian Time (GMT -10) were up at 3 this morning. We went to see Father Christmas at a well-known London department store, and by the time we got to him at 10:30, I was already set to call it a day. The result was the following exchange:
Santa: And who's that there? (pointing to me)
Joshua: That's my dad.
Santa: And what does he want for Christmas?
Me: Oh, just a little peace and quiet.
Santa (Laughing): Well, I can't fucking guarantee that one, mate!
grrlscientist | December 20, 2006Is this a war on Christmas? Bikini waxing elves? Fruity drinks with umbrellas? A rainforest at the North Pole (nevermind that there is no land there)? Well, if these things interest you, then this, the 69th issue of Tangled Bank is for you.
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tags: blog carnival, Tangled Bank
purepedantry | December 20, 2006There is some good stuff on Scienceblogs right now:
Evolgen has an article about how the oft quoted 1% genetic difference between chimps and humans may hide much larger differences due to copy number and expression differences.
Jonah Lehrer reports on how the function of dreams may be to replay and consolidate daytime memories.
Mixing Memory mentions a paper that compares money and money-seeking behavior to drugs. Interesting. I never thought that Kara was into that sort of thing.
cmcclain | December 20, 2006
Let's face it Peter Etnoyer is a handsome devil. With my bald head and his underwear model looks we might just be the sexiest bloggers at Sb. Peter is also humble and would never sing his own praises. Thats why I didn't know that our very own Petey is the star of several wonderful videos over at Ocean Exploration. Head on over if you want to see our very sweet videos on corals and read more about Peter.
cmcclain | December 20, 2006
In one of the earliest papers on the deep-sea fauna, Mosely (1880, p.593) noted, "Some animals appear to be dwarfed by deep-sea conditions." Almost a century later, Hessler (1974) noted that "individuals of certain taxa are routinely so small that they are of meiofaunal size." Thiel (1975, p. 593) echoes these comments by noting the deep sea is a "small organism habitat." Consider that the entire collection of deep-sea gastropods from the western North Atlantic collected under the WHOI's Benthic Sampling Program (44 samples, 20,561 individuals) would fit completely inside a single Busycon…
purepedantry | December 19, 2006They must have interesting Christmas parties:
A tiny, six-legged critter that suspends all biological activity when the going gets tough may hold answers to a better way to cryopreserve human eggs, researchers say.
Tardigrades, also called water bears, can survive Himalayan heights or ocean depths as long as they have moisture.
When they don't, they produce a sugar, trehalose, slowly dehydrate and essentially cease functioning until the rain comes, says Dr. Ali Eroglu, reproductive biologist and cryobiologist at the Medical College of Georgia.
Tardigrades are not alone in their amazing…
cmcclain | December 19, 2006
In the first wave attack ordered by the Squid Overlords, deep-sea microbes will invade the air. As you already know the second wave attack will be flesh eating sponges. Image from Octopus Pulp
cmcclain | December 19, 2006Unlike other marine environments, the threats to the deep sea and it species are relatively new. Only recently has it been both economically and technologically feasible to exploit this environment. This means we have the unique opportunity to instigate conservation policy at the beginning, before drastic damage has been done, instead of trying to restore damaged habitats. Although action needs to be quick.
Reuters reports this...
Deep-sea fishing trawlers are bulldozing 4,500 year-old cold water coral reefs off western Ireland, a British marine biologist said on Monday. Dr Jason Hall-…
tqa | December 18, 2006My statistics class took up a great deal of time this semester, so this quote seems particularly appropriate:
No study is less alluring or more dry and tedious than statistics, unless the mind and imagination are se to work, or that the person studying is particularly interested in the subject; which last can seldom be the case with young men in any rank of life.
--William Playfair
(found in The Oxford Dictionary of Scientific Quotations)
cmcclain | December 18, 2006I couldn't resist the invitation from PZ, Afarensis, and John. I actually look much better in an elf costume than this. Don't ask.
cmcclain | December 18, 2006Joshua Rosenau over at Thoughts from Kansas reminded me about the recent reauthorizing and updating of the MSA. What's this mean for the deep sea?
From Oceana...
The legislation significantly improves the protection of deep-sea corals and sponges from bottom trawling and other destructive fishing gear. Fisheries management councils now have the authority to close areas to protect deep sea corals without first proving that the areas are Essential Fish Habitat, a very difficult process. Also, scientist will now have a greater role in setting allowable catch limits in all US fisheries. Other…