Year: 2011
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How to spot a mimic octopus
Love this ID chart from xkdc. HT to Ben Shearon.
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Underwater as Outer Space
NASA, the Canadian Space Agency, and a bucketful of researchers (including yours truly) rolled into a tiny town in British Columbia this week, with a 52-foot “Mobile Mission Control Center” and two submarines in tow. Our subs are helping us study a pair of lakes – in particular, some wild-looking carbonate structures in them. But…
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Breaking news: 357 dead sharks found on illegal fishing vessel in Galapagos National Park
Check back on SeaMonster or go here for updates and related posts I’m in the conference room of the Galapagos Science Center overlooking the harbor of Puerto Baquerizo Moreno on the island of San Cristobal in the Galapagos. There is a lot of commotion around a new addition to the habors fishing fleet: a rundown small ship from…
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Humpback whale speaks, says “Thank you”
Well, maybe not in so many words. Not in English anyway. But to those who believe that animals don’t experience emotions–and I gather they still exist–I challenge you to watch this and tell me you don’t understand how the whale feels [Show starts about 6:30 in] [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBYPlcSD490[/youtube] P.S. Don’t try this at home kids.
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Great white shark jumps into research vessel
Talk about jumping the shark – from the Guardian… And what a fiasco. Hat tip to Adrian Stier. Marine researchers in South Africa had a narrow escape after a three-metre-long great white shark breached the surface of the sea and leapt into their boat, becoming trapped on deck for more than an hour. The incident occurred while…
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Coral reefs get the CSI treatment
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6TqPxxvWvc[/youtube] It’s a shame Sherlock Holmes never learned to Scuba dive because he could have put his sleuthing skills towards bringing in coral reef villains. Pioneers in the field of underwater forensic investigation are the International Coral Reef Initiative (ICRI) and the Coral Reef Alliance (CORAL) who are working together on the Coral Reef CSI project.…
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Helen Arney sings ‘Animals’ (with moderate levels of fish-related naughtiness)
I’ve just about finished washing off the mud after spending the weekend getting rained on in a field in Suffolk (England). Among the festival of delights at Latitude – awesome music, literature, comedy etc – was the wonderful songwriter/comedian/science geek Helen Arney. Here’s Helen singing about animals and the things they get up to make…
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Crabes et crevettes (1929) – Part I
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jP16_fgkePE&feature=related[/youtube] It seems we only have room in our hearts for one pioneering French underwater filmmaker because few people remember the life and works of Jean Painleve. He began making underwater movies in the 1920’s – some on location and some in aquarium tanks – and was renowned (in France at least) for his offbeat blend…
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Stellers Sea Cow
I am in the Galapagos Islands reading The Unnatural History of the Sea by Callum Roberts. I often buy ocean gloom-n-doom non-fiction, read a chapter, then put it on my shelf. This one is different. Dr. Roberts is an academic marine ecologist based at the University of York in England. He is highly respected as a…
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Zen garden with squid: A photo essay
I love fish markets — I always feel like a kid in a candy store, looking for the strange and interesting creatures and parts thereof hidden on a back shelf or down a back aisle. So I seek them out where’er I go. I’ve not been to the famed Tokyo fish market I’m afraid, where…