Off to Arizona

April 26, 2009

Things will be quiet around here for the next week unless Eric feels inspired. I’m off to Arizona, sans internet, for the second of three field trips in my Ecosystems class. “But Arizona is not exactly on the ocean!” you cry. Ah, but it was on a vast inland sea in the Cretaceous, and we will be visiting a lovely fossil reef filled with corals and rudists.

As before, I will be attempting to tweet my adventures at @oystersgarter. I was tipped off that I didn’t make a lot of sense on my last attempt, so I will try to do better this time. And of course, the cell coverage might be intermittent.

To the Sonoran Desert!

3 Comments | Self-Referential | Permalink
Posted by Miriam Goldstein

Sunday Links: Business Cards of Meat Edition

April 26, 2009

  • Jezebel’s Abridged History of the Human Embryo is fascinating. Did you know that the classic anti-choice fetus photo was staged with a dead fetus? And that abortion was common and accepted pre-Enlightenment?
  • Bora explores the potential biology behind the Great Cilantro Divide – the chasm between people who love it and people who think it tastes like nasty soap. Also check out NPR’s take on cilantro haters – they might be missing the ability to detect the yummy fresh taste.
  • Compare 2009 Manhattan to 1609 Mannahatta. It’s easy to forget that NYC was surrounded by spectacular oyster beds and salmon runs, and had better soil and a far milder climate than Boston. The Indians and the Dutch knew what they were doing.
  • Cephalopod Tea Party is giving away cephalopod-swag! To enter their raffle, just tell them about your favorite cephalopod, mention them in your blog, or draw them a cephalopod picture. Yes, this is my entry into their contest – I want the cute lil octonecklace!

5 Comments | Sunday Links | Permalink
Posted by Miriam Goldstein

TGIF: Glowy jellyfish-puppies

April 24, 2009

Why make glowy transgenic jellyfish-puppies? Because…because…SCIENCE!

3 Comments | In the future we'll have..., Our furry friends, Star Trekkin' | Permalink
Posted by Miriam Goldstein

Subtle ways to tell your elephant seal that she’s not fat enough

April 22, 2009

Along with several other ocean bloggers, I recently received a email from AskMen.com plugging their Top 10 Ocean Rivalries piece. Though I generally think that bringing ocean love (or slime or violence) to new audiences is a Good Thing, some of the assholery at AskMen.com sets my feminist leg hairs on end. Then I realized that ocean love and mocking sexist bullshit are two great tastes that taste great together. So without further ado:

Subtle ways to tell your elephant seal that she’s not fat enough

Don’t you hate it when your special seal hauls up on the beach and you notice that she’s just not jiggling the way she used to? Blubber loss is a sensitive issue – after all, she’s spent weeks nursing a pup without eating. You can’t just bark “You’re losing weight and I find you less attractive!” You’ve got to make sure that’s she’s in the mood for love before she goes back to sea – as alpha male, it’s your job to get her pregnant before she goes back to sea for the year.

Don’t worry. We here at AskPinnipeds.com are here to give you the top subtle ways to tell your elephant seal that she’s not fat enough.

1) Dig her a comfy hole in the sand, but make it too big. When she tries to settle in but doesn’t fit, she’ll realize that she’s half the seal she used to be.

2) Couch it in terms of her health. What if she freezes in the deep sea or starves during molting season? Remind her that she’ll be going back to sea already pregnant, and that she needs her strength.

3) Playfully poke at her sides. She’ll feel self-conscious about her puny layer of fat and go back to sea early.

4) Pour sealant over her favorite section of the beach in order to glue the sand grains together. That way, when she hauls out, she’ll won’t even make a dent. Nothing plays on a seal’s self-esteem like undented sand.

5) If all else fails, “accidentally on purpose” squash her during mating. She’ll realize that if she was bigger, it wouldn’t be so unpleasant. That’ll show her!

13 Comments | Eeeeewww..., Ocean, Our furry friends, Sex | Permalink
Posted by Miriam Goldstein

Earth Day: Thinking Big

April 22, 2009

Happy Earth Day! For my Earth Day, I’m attending a seminar on Google Earth (totally hot interactive kmz documents await you, lovely readers) and thinking about the environmental effects of racism, socioeconomic interest, and partisan politics here on the US-Mexican border.

The new ever-so-impermeable border fence will definitely stop endangered bighorn sheep and desert frogs in their tracks, though it probably won’t do much about people desperate to feed their families. Though it’s good to recycle and cut down on plastic bags, the really big problems are going to need really big cooperative solutions.

Check out National Geographic’s photos of life along the border fence. Here’s my favorite – a juvenile mountain lion in southern Arizona.

Leave a Comment » | Doom, Environment, Getting it right, Things That Severely Annoy Miriam | Permalink
Posted by Miriam Goldstein

Vampire Ecology: Twilight vs. Buffy

April 20, 2009

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a hungry vampire must be in want of blood. It is also universally acknowledged that the sucking of said blood makes more little vamplings, whether by direct infection or by a Buffy-esque “whole sucking thing.” Vampires are top predators, and like lions and wolves, their population can’t outstrip their prey supply.

But since there are so many people, why aren’t we awash in vampires? That’s why Laura McLay at Punk Rock Operations Research is skeptical of vampires. Based on a mathematical model of their population dynamics, she calculates that:

The vampire population would either explode or die out, depending on the expected number of offspring per vampire. But if you take into account the fact that vampires live many, many generations (they’re virtually immortal) and may create thousands of offspring, the population explodes (if you assume that each vampire creates at least one vampire, on average, before it dies). With those numbers, vampires would not be living under the radar–they would be everywhere!

But basing her calculation off icky goopy Twilight, McLay makes a critical mistake. She left out human predation on vampires, fetchingly epitomized in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Brian Thomas, a theoretical ecologist, calculated the vampire ecology and population dynamics of the Buffyverse and found:

This [Thomas' assumptions] results in an equilibrium population of 36,346 humans and 18 vampires. Thomas then notes that interestingly enough the established population of Sunnydale on the show is 38,500 humans, pretty damn close to the equation result. Maybe Buffy needs to cut back on the slaying in order to let the vampires weed out that extra 2100 people, we wouldn’t want human overpopulation to lead to starvation.

But is this equilibrium stable? Will natural fluctuations in the vampire population prevent the equilibrium state from ever existing? Thomas then ran the model using several different initial population sizes and seeing whether they eventually moved to equilibrium, or spiraled off into an abyss where everybody died. Turns out the model is stable and the vampires and humans can co-exist forever! Hooray!

Check out Thomas’ original paper here (PDF).

So, because we are not neck-deep in starving vampires, clearly we are living in the Buffyverse. Down with mooshy sparkly vampires & limp, passive heroines! Up with snarly-faced evil vamps and ass-kicking Slayers! Now where’s my activated Slayer powers?

Punk Rock Operations link via Boing Boing, Buffyverse Ecology via JEByrnes a long time ago

44 Comments | Geek, Getting it right, Sciencey entertainment | Permalink
Posted by Miriam Goldstein

Sunday Links: Cute Lil Dalek Edition

April 19, 2009

  • Mark Bittman, the author of the indispensable cookbook How to Cook Everything, published a recipe for red snapper in his New York Times column. Grist Magazine pointed out that red snapper are dreadfully overfished. Monterey Bay Aquarium’s blog Sea Notes reports on the ensuing conservation controversy:

Somewhat surprisingly, perhaps, the mea culpa did not come forth. Instead Bittman replied that Seafood Watch is published by scientists, and not cooks. Well, no one wants to dispute that. Especially not us! Our Seafood Watch program’s credibility and authority comes from the fact that a team of in-house scientists independently assesses each species to arrive at a recommendation based entirely on science!

  • Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn may be declared a Superfund site. I used to live in the neighborhood formerly known as Gowanus Flats (since renamed Boerum Hill by developers) and I have a great fondness for the scrappy life – tunicates! mussels! fish! – hanging on in the canal’s oily waters. It has the potential be a great urban marine ecosystem and I hope it gets cleaned up.
  • Xtranormal lets you make your own 3D animated movies based just off text. Check out playwright/screenwriter Greg Machlin’s example. (Via Greg’s blog Insert Title Here)
  • Woody Harrelson defends assault on cameraman by claiming that he thought the guy was a zombie. This happens to me all the time.

    “I wrapped a movie called ‘Zombieland,’ in which I was constantly under assault by zombies, then flew to New York, still very much in character,” Harrelson said in a statement issued Friday by his publicist.

1 Comment | Sunday Links | Permalink
Posted by Miriam Goldstein

Award for best cephalopod paper

April 18, 2009

The Cephalopod International Advisory Council is sponsoring an award for the best cephalopod-related scientific paper published since their last meeting in 2006. They don’t say exactly what the award is, but if you’ve published a cephalopaper, why not?  Nominations are due July 15.

Leave a Comment » | Time to Make the Science | Permalink
Posted by Miriam Goldstein

The Great Turtle Race 2009!

April 17, 2009

Eleven leatherback sea turtles are vying for the Great Turtle Race championship! This event is meant to raise money and awareness of sea turtles’ peril – all 7 species are endangered due to destruction of nesting sites and drowning in fishing nets.

Deep Sea News has a special report from organizer Bryan Wallace:

Here’s a brain teaser for all of you deep-sea nerds out there: What do Pearl Jam, R.E.M., Conservation International, National Geographic, the Canadian Sea Turtle Network, Olympic swimmers, surfers, school kids, and scientists all have in common?

Give up? (You should. You’re never going to guess. This isn’t a sudoku puzzle.)

Answer: an online media event following 11 adult leatherback sea turtles on their trans-Atlantic migration from feeding grounds in Canada to breeding grounds in the Caribbean – The Great Turtle Race! The first turtle to cross the finish line and enters the Wider Caribbean wins!

Deep Sea News will also be getting in the act with the Iron Turtle contest – which turtles are EXTREME deep sea explorers? Meet the turtles and pick your winners!

1 Comment | Ocean, Sciencey entertainment, Subwarp travel | Permalink
Posted by Miriam Goldstein

Sea scorpions SCUBA on land in funny hats

April 15, 2009

Sea scorpions roamed the ancient ocean 500 million years ago. They were kind of like a cross between a horseshoe crab and a scorpion, and could grow to be the size of a crocodile. But these fearsome creatures might have something in common with Victorian ladies and hermit crabs – they might have worn hats (or pants, depending on your perspective) made out of other animals.

Based on uneven sea scorpion tracks, researchers figured out that sea scorpions must have been carrying weight on their left side. From National Geographic:

The odd drag marks could have been from the coiled shells of snails or similar critters, which the ocean-dwelling scorpions stuffed their tails into so they could venture above water, the researchers suggest.

Humid air trapped inside the shells might have protected the sea scorpions’ gills from drying out during brief forays into the open air—like reverse scuba gear.

No word on whether they went shopping with the helmet-shrimp.

3 Comments | Critters, Discovery | Permalink
Posted by Miriam Goldstein

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