A TED talk by marine biologist Kristen Marhaver about growing new corals.
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Category: Uncategorized
Help Conserve Reefs!
JOIN GROUPS LIKE the Coral Reef Alliance, R.E.E.F. and The Ocean Conservancy to help them promote reef health and conserve ocean life. Yeah, you’ll be asked for donations; if you can afford to travel, you can afford to donate.
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Help Save Mangroves!
MANGROVE FORESTS AROUND THE WORLD are being destroyed every day, especially in Asis. The most damaging cause is the constant need for shrimp farmers to abandon old sites and clear mangroves for new ones. An easy step we all can take is to take the Mangrove Action Project’s Farmed Shrimp Pledge to avoid farmed shrimp. You can read more about mangroves and their importance in “In the Mangrove Grove.”
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The Antikythera Shipwreck Yields New Hints of Ancient Roman World
ARMED WITH ADVANCED TECHNOLOGIES, MARINE ARCHAEOLOGISTS have returned to the “Antikythera Shipwreck,” the remains of a Roman-era cargo ship some 180 feet below the surface just off the Greek island of Antikythera. It was first discovered by sponge divers in 1900. In early October, the archaeologists revealed the discoveries from their 16-day 2017 expedition, including several important fragments of statuary – a plinth with two marble feet, part of a bronze toga or robe, a
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It’s a Lionfish Roomba for the Reef
IT’S LIKE A ROOMBA MACHINE THAT CAN VACUUM YOUR HOME, except that this robot vacuums up lionfishes. The folks who founded iRobot have used their expertise to develop the Guardian LF1, a robot that can chase the invasive fishes down to otherwise inaccessible depths. In many areas, Lionfish Derbies and the enthusiasm of individual divers have done an admirable job of culling lionfishes from diver-friendly depths. But it’s clear that large numbers of lionfishes survive in deeper waters,
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Fish Versus Fishes
Fish: The food you buy at a seafood counter Fishes: The animals, both individuals and species, primarily in the classes Chondrichthyes (sharks and rays) and Osteichthyes (bony fishes), that live in the water column. As in, “There are a lot of fishes on that reef…. and a lot of types of fishes.” On the other hand, an individual fish is a…fish.
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Sharks Are Likely Colorblind
A STUDY OF 17 SHARK SPECIES has determined that the animals have only one type of photoreceptor cells in their eyes, leading researchers to conclude that they are potentially completely color blind. The work by Dr. Nathan Scott Hart and colleagues at the University of Western Australia and the University of Queensland found that sharks have only a single long-wavelength-sensitive type of cone in their retinas. The findings were published in Springer’s online journal Naturwissenschaften
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Fish Watching Fish
IT APPEARS THAT DIVERS ARE NOT THE ONLY ONES who watch the fishes under the sea. The roughhead blenny at front center is clearly interested in the doings of the sharknose gobies (Elacatinus evelynae) sharing its coralhead on Bonaire. A ROOM WITH A VIEW Basically, that’s what these little blennies do: Sit in their windows in the coral watching the world outside. And grabbing plankton out of the passing current. The gobies, of course, are waiting for a client to appear,
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The Sunken Heritage of Midway Atoll
THE NATIONAL OCEANIC & ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION’S Okeanos Explorer is pretty much continually engaged in expeditions to understand the Earth’s seas and the life in it. BATTLE OF MIDWAY, JUNE, 1942 In this NOAA posting, Okeanos Explorer scientists/ explorers sought to mark this year’s 75th anniversary of the Battle of Midway and honor the legacy of the men who fought in this pivotal battle. LOST WARPLANES “Warbirds on the Seafloor: Sunken Aircraft Archaeology and the Search for
Read moreIt’s Shark Week. Here Are Some Actual Facts.
KILLER SHARKS! MEGA SHARKS! SHARK DISASTERS! Shark Weeks on cable is great for people who don’t really care about or know about sharks. But…. AN ALTERNATIVE VIEW Here’s a link to a Vox.com article I like from 2015 on “Sharks as you won’t see them on Shark Week: Intelligent and remarkably social animals.” FACTS. AND MORE FACTS! And here are some facts from the University of Florida’s Florida Museum on the risks of being killed by
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