SeaMonster blog
-
John Boehner’s discouraging view of climate science
An editorial that just went up at the WaPost challenges house speaker John Boehner’s position on climate change. If I could make one political wish, it would be that this issue be de-toxified. I wish conservative politicians were not forced by their voting base and campaign funders to make preposterous statements about climate change and…
-
Lifestyles of the species-rich and famous
Below is a guest post (her first!) by Dr Emily Darling, about one of the 17 chapters of her PhD dissertation: The ongoing loss of coral cover and flattening of reef architecture is leading to dramatic and drastic changes for coral reef ecosystems. But not all reef-building corals are affected in the same way. We…
-
How to make fish-friendly trawl nets
Dan Watson has just won this year’s James Dyson award, a student competition with the simple brief “Design something that solves a problem”. The problem Dan chose was bycatch – the capture of types of sealife that fishermen don’t want and throw back either because there’s no market for them or they have no quota for them.…
-
When I got lost at sea
A little while ago I got lost at sea and washed up in an old lighthouse in London’s docklands. As luck would have it, I found myself in a room full of people sitting on blue and white striped life rings on the floor. Turned out I was in just the right place for the…
-
A pair of seahorses for your weekend
Tomorrow I’ll talking at the Royal Institution about seahorses. In my moochings around the net for cool things to show the kids I found these awesome vids by liquidguru of a severn’s & a pontohi’s pygmy seahorse. So tiny! They come from a clutch of recently described mini-seahorses from SE Asia. (check out the enormous…
-
Mayor Bloomberg makes a case for climate change in politics
Below are some excerpts from New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s piece, making the case for addressing climate change in our national politics and for Barack Obama. Note Bloomberg was the commencement speaker at UNC last spring. The devastation that Hurricane Sandy brought to New York City and much of the Northeast – in lost…
-
Science is the key to economic growth
A nice op-ed by Neal Lane in today’s NYT, however, IMO Obama’s record on support for science is mixed and could be improved. Mr. Romney seems to have lost sight of the critical role of research investments not only in developing new medicines and cleaner energy sources but also in creating higher-skilled jobs. The…
-
Small wonders photo contest winners – amazing
Brittle star (8x). Dr Alvaro Migotto; University of Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil /Courtesy of Nikon. see the rest here
-
Walking on water
My three daughters and one of my dogs, in the sound behind the Outer Banks, in Avon, NC. Dec 2011 by me.
-
Climate change 101 lecture readings, video lectures and resources
This is the assignment and the resources I gave to the students in my Marine Ecology class last week for today’s lecture. Enjoy! Let’s focus on first learning what climate change is and how it effects the physical and chemical properties of the ocean: What is the greenhouse effect? What are greenhouse gases? Which are…
Got any book recommendations?