Year: 2011
-
Fish Know to Avoid the Spear
A successfully speared medium sized Oriental Sweetlips Plectorhinchus orientalis. This is towards the upper end of the size range of fishes typically targeted by Papua New Guinean spear fishers. Fish are not as dumb as people sometimes think: marine scientists have found that fish that are regularly hunted with spearguns are much more wary and…
-
Daily Sea Monster: the Phyllosoma
In retrospect, it seems I might trace the first recognizable step in my path toward a career in marine biology to sitting in Miss Evanson’s 2nd grade classroom at Barcroft Elementary one day in . . . well, I won’t tell you when, but I came across Dr. Seuss’s incomparable treatise on marine biology McElligot’s…
-
The Silent World
A few months ago I happened to pick up a copy of Jacques Cousteau’s classic first book, The Silent World, less from a burning desire to read it than for the mysterious and evocative cover photo, and out of a sense of comradely solidarity with this pioneer submariner. It gathered dust on my bedside table…
-
Ryan Hipwood riding some sick slabs!
Ryan is an amazing surfer and some of these rides on ferocious waves like the opening sequence at Shippies and the eventual rides at Teahupoo are insane. [vimeo]http://vimeo.com/21368104[/vimeo]
-
Revisiting the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill
Claudia Dreifus recently published a great interview with oceanographer Dr Samantha Joye in the Science section of the New York Times (here). Until a year ago, the marine scientist Samantha Joye studied a fairly obscure natural phenomenon: the seepage of oil from undersea deposits into deepwater environments. Then, in the wake of the BP Deepwater Horizon…
-
Galapagos intertidal research
This is a cool video produced by Pat Davison, a photographer and professor here at UNC in the School of Journalism. It is about research being done by Lindsey Carr and Pamela Reynolds (two PhD students in my lab) on San Cristobal Island in the Galapagos. I plan to post a lot of Galapagos-relataed content in…
-
New study finds growth of corals on the Belize Barrier Reef is slowing
A new study just published in PLos One (Castillo et al 2010) indicates massive corals (Siderastrea sideria) on the outer reefs of the Belizean Barrier Reef are growing more slowly than they did during the early and middle 20th century. Lead author Karl Castillo (a post doc in my lab) is from southern Belize near…
-
Great white shark attack video!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4YjmwCs6H0&feature[/youtube]For our young male readership…
-
Soul Surfer trailer: the Bethany Hamilton story comes to the big screen
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWeOjBCi3c4[/youtube]
-
Who pays for overfishing? Poor people in Africa
The pervasive detrimental impacts of overfishing on marine life and ecosystems have been widely publicized in recent years, ratcheting up calls for stricter regulation and protection. A counter-argument commonly heard in debates on this issue is that fishing (like coal mining, oil drilling, pillaging of old-growth forests, etc.) provides essential jobs, revenue, and food, particularly…