Author: John Bruno
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Bisexual squid
Timed to coincide with the end of DADT (not really) is the announcement of the discovery of bisexual deep sea squid. Not that that is surprising to evolutionary biologists – same sex sex is far from unique in the animal world. Still, the mechanism of the encounter is for this species a little weird, even…
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Pushing the boundaries of dolphin communication
For all of you who dream of talking to dolphins (I know you are out there!) here is a story in the NYT: Up to now, dolphins have shown themselves to be adept at responding to human prompts, with food as a reward for performing a task. “It’s rare that we ask dolphins to seek…
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Courtney Cox – forensic fisheries sleuth
While researching the health of coral reefs and the fate of the parrotfish, Carolina grad student Courtney Cox uncovered a conspiracy at Belize fish markets and restaurants. Mark Derewicz covered the fishy mystery here in Endevors magazine: Let’s face it. A lot of fish fillets look the same and taste the same. But when you buy, say, snapper…
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Earthquake destroys Belizean reefs
A new paper in Ecology (Aronson et al 2011) describes the effects of an earthquake on the already beleagured reefs of Belize. I edited the paper and coincidentally my lab was in Belize doing reef surveys when the earthquake hit (I flew home that day). Some of the students were a bit rattled, others slept…
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What causes short term changes in ocean heat?
From Skeptical Science by John Cook. Read it all here. Over the past 40 years, global ocean heat content has shown a long term warming trend. However, the warming hasn’t been monotonic. There are periods where ocean heat drops for several years before the warming trend resumes. On several occasions, this is due to large volcanic…
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Obama presses Iceland over fin whale hunt
From Andrew Revkin at the NYT: On Thursday, President Obama ordered government agencies to ramp up pressure on Iceland to end its slaughter of endangered fin whales, the second largest whale species. But the president stopped short of imposing trade sanctions. He issued a Message to Congress with the details, including this passage: Of particular concern to…
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Indo mornings
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/27708915[/vimeo] From Ben Wilson Surf
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Minds in the water
A movie by pro surfer Dave Rastovich of Surfers for Cetaceans. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3GExD8djwo&[/youtube] Surfers and the rest of us that enjoy or live off the ocean have a responsibility.
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Owen Wright wins Quicksilver Pro New York
Owen Wright, the 21-year-old rookie from DownUnder took out 10-time world surfing champion Kelly Slater in the final heat to win the first Quicksilver Pro New York. Thanks to hurricane Katia the surf was surprisingly good and the contest that was nearly cancelled due to hurricane Irene and doubters scoffed at (A surf contest in New York…
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John Cook wins Eureka award!
John Cook, creator of the must read climate change blog Skeptical Science, has just been awarded the Eureka Prize for the advancement of climate change knowledge by New South Wales Government: Debunking Climate Lies No Longer Hit and Myth Climate-change deniers have nowhere to hide thanks to an ingenious piece of software that detects inaccurate…