HAPPY SHARK AWARENESS DAY! I’m not sure who decreed it so but every July 14th is Shark Awareness Day. It’s a time to appreciate our cartilaginous fellow travelers on Planet Earth with a generous supply of actual shark facts. To judge by what we see on cable television, sharks are cold-blooded psychopaths always in a brutal frenzy of hunting man and beast, ready to grab a tasty arm or foot at the first opportunity. LESS
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THIS POST HAS TWO PARTS: One is a terrific video about giant larvaceans, deep seazooplankton, featuring a cast of many other deep sea denizens and a terrific jazz piano score (It’s from the estimable folks at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, naturally). Then there’s the article from the quarterly science magazine Cosmos, focusing on research on giant larvaceans’ role in sequestering carbon in their “mucus houses” – yes, “mucus houses” – and sending it to
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Links to News, Research and Other Interesting Stuff on the Web “THE SWISS CONSIDER THE LOBSTER. IT FEELS PAIN, THEY DECIDE” A British scientist concludes it’s possible that lobsters feel pain when placed in boiling water, the Swiss order it no longer be done, a Boston scientist says it’s all hooey. “THE BLOODY PIRATE LIFE OF ONE OF THE OCEAN’S MOST ELUSIVE CREATURES” It turns out that giant squids steal from each other. “TRASH IN
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BASED IN THE UNITED KINGDOM, THE UNDERWATER PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR COMPETITION is probably better known in Europe than in the United States, but it draws entries from around the world and the photos are fantastic. The group has just announced its 2018 winners, competing in eight categories – Wide-Angle, Macro, Portrait, Compact, Behavior, Black & White and Up and Coming – plus three British Waters categories, Wide Angle, Macro and Compact. Here are two
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SCIENTISTS STUDYING A SPECIES OF RAYS CALLED LITTLE SKATES have demonstrated that walking capabilities had developed in fishes dwelling on the seabottom millions of years before the first marine animals climbed out of the oceans to become air-breathing, leg-walking land dwellers. And they show how they moved with a video of modern little skates – little skate is the fish’s common name, not just a description – do it, utilizing a set of fins to
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THE EXTREME COLD GRIPPING MUCH OF THE NATION at present is likely a factor in the deaths of three thresher sharks, whose bodies have washed ashore on Cape Cod in recent days. As northern waters cooled, the sharks were probably migrating south along the coast, got trapped in Cape Cod Bay and ended up at the shore near bay-side towns Wellfleet and Orleans, according to a news article about the freezing weather nationwide in the
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In Plain English…. Christmas Tree Worms! Happy Holidays! Ralph Fuller, Poseidon’s Web
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THE MISSION OF THE NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION’S Okeanos Explorer research vessel is to study deep-sea habitats all over Planet Earth, using remote operated vehicles (ROVs) to view life at the depths. Among its expeditions during the past couple of years: waters around the Hawaiian Islands, the Mariana Trench and the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument. THE GULF’S TURN During December, it’s turned its attention to the Gulf of Mexico, mapping and focusing
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DOING SOMETHING IS THE BEST REMEDY for marine biologists dealing with the continual cascade of depressing news about the fate of coral reefs, according to a recent article in The Atlantic magazine. “Everyone I spoke to talked about becoming very good at compartmentalizing—at acknowledging the scale of the tragedy, but also putting it aside to focus on their work,” wrote science writer Ed Yong in “How Coral Researchers Are Coping With the Death of Reefs.”
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THIS FANTASTIC VIDEO, ENTITLED “Meanwhile…” is outside my own goal of explaining things, but it’s an awesome visualization of undersea life directed and shot by Italian filmmaker Sandro Bocci, with original music by Maurizio Morganti. I found it posted on the website of Aeon, a nonprofit site committed to the spread of knowledge and a cosmopolitan worldview. CLOSE UP, SPEEDED UP On Mr. Bocci’s website, the Julia Set Collection, he says: ” …Meanwhile… shows the world of marine animals like corals
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