The R/V New Horizon

It’s finally time to announce why I’ve been neglecting the poor Oyster’s Garter all summer. This Sunday, August 2nd, the first dedicated scientific expedition to study plastic accumulation in the North Pacific Gyre will depart San Diego. A collaboration between Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the nonprofit Project Kaisei, SEAPLEX (Scripps Environmental Accumulation of Plastic Expedition) aims to quantify exactly how much plastic is a lot, and what effects the debris might have on the base of the food web.

And I’m SEAPLEX chief scientist. Eeek.

But I couldn’t possibly lead a blog-less Twitter-less cruise. And I especially couldn’t work on this issue without giving people a chance to see the problem (virtually) first-hand. So you’ll be able to follow along with SEAPLEX through our blog and our Twitter feed. You can also sign up to receive email updates by joining the SEAPLEX Google Group.

Though our internet access at sea will be limited, we will be able to respond to your questions and comments. We are incredibly excited to go on this cruise and even more excited to share our observations with you. So get your RSS feeds ready – it’s going to be an interesting three weeks.

As anyone still reading might have guessed, I’m having trouble keeping up with both Ye Olde Oyster’s Garter, the Double X outpost, and my actual science. So, with much sadness, the Oyster’s Garter is going on hiatus until September. I’ll be back and raring to go by September 1.

In science news, I have a very exciting new project in the works (here’s a hint!) that will have a red-hot online outreach component. I’ll announce it as soon as the web parts are ready.

I’ll still be writing for Double X twice a week, and I would absolutely love more feedback over there. You do have to register in order to comment, but it only takes a few seconds. Isn’t it time to expand the glorious world of marine science into lady-blog-land?

The noir (and romance and haiku) of the latest government report on climate change:

Last week, the United States Global Research program released a report on the potential impacts of climate change in the United States. Based on a year and a half of work and a consensus from 13 federal agencies, the 198-page report makes the doom, gloom, and destruction that await us available to all. Still, who reads 198-page government reports? Well, I do.

So in an attempt to bring some amusement to a dark situation, I’ve summarized the main points of the climate change report using five different literary (ok, quasi-literary) styles. Each vignette is set in the year 2100 under the “higher emissions scenario,” which is a conservative estimate that presumes some kind of international reduction in emissions.

Read the rest here!

Shiny new science art, with a hint of vintage humanities:

I live in San Diego, so I visit our famous zoo a couple times a year. My favorite part is a lush, leafy canyon lined with tigers and tropical birds and tapirs. It’s a little piece of the Asian forests on which it’s based, an idyll untouched by the downtown skyline or nearby highway. Sure, the path is lined by earnest plaques about poaching and logging and the dire peril of endangered species, but I’m there for a pleasant afternoon stroll and I’ve never read them.

That’s the fate of most earnest attempts to educate zoo-goers about environmental peril. Nobody (except perhaps attendees of environmental film festivals) wants to pay $50 to be depressed and guilt-ridden. But the Vienna Zoo has a different vision. As covered by the landscape architecture blog Pruned, the Vienna Zoo has inserted the nasty side of the human world right into the animals’ enclosures.

More here.

In which I fall back on an oldy but goody:

It roams the ocean floor, always ravenous, always ready to kill. When it finds its prey, it pulls it apart with hideous strength and then eats it while the prey is still alive. What is this fearsome beast? Is it a shark? A kraken? The Loch Ness Monster? Nope. It’s a starfish. The most common starfish species on both the East and West coasts, beloved by millions of beach-going children, are actually mighty predators.

More here!

Latest at Double X:

On Sunday, NPR reported that more than 2,000 coyotes were living in Chicago, many inside the city’s highly developed downtown Loop. That’s not unusual. Since the elimination of wolves and the advent of suburbs teeming with tasty prey, coyotes have made their homes in cities from Los Angeles to Boston. According to the NPR story, urban coyotes are actually faring better than their rural counterparts, free from hunting and able to dine upon a bounty of rats and goose eggs. Though it seems counterintuitive for people with visions of roadrunner-chasing Wile E. Coyote, urban coyotes actually protect city-dwelling birds.

More here. With bonus naughty Coyote stories!

In honor of Pride Month, I’ll be hosting the LGBT edition of the Diversity in Science Carnival on Tuesday, June 30. (I’m pushing back the deadline due to travel the week before.) Send me anything you like about LGBT issues in science – for example, profiles of historic or modern scientists or issues particular to LGBT people working in science – and I will craft it into something delightful. Personal stories are welcome, but you certainly don’t need to identify as LGBT  to participate! If I don’t receive enough submissions the Carnival will consist largely of epic poetry praising the sparkly sequined cowboy hat I got at NYC Pride a couple years ago. You don’t want that, trust me.

The deadline is Sunday, June 28th. Submit via this handy form or just send it directly me via theoystersgarter at gmail dot com. Be sure to include URL, author, and a few sentences of summary.

In my last Double X blog post, I wrote about the Rock Stars of Science campaign. Dr. Isis has a different take:

The point of the campaign is to show people that science is hip, and cool, and sexy, and [insert other adjective here], but in each shot the scientists are fawning over the musicians.  The message this photo campaign sends is, “Yeah, being a scientist cool but, if I could be, I would really want to be [insert rock star name here].”  Thus, people looking at this campaign aspire to also be rockstars.  Not scientists.

And (via Isis), Bora scooped GQ back in 2006:

In this day of mass communications, it is logical to use modern technology to further your aims, so popularization of science should do the same. Turning some scientists into radio personalities, talk-show hosts, TV stars, movie stars and Internet stars (MySpace and blogs, for instance) should be a part of a multi-prong strategy to spread the scientific reasoning and rationality, as well as excitement for knowledge about the natural world.

What do you think? Could scientists become as famous as rockstars (and get featured in US Weekly – “Scientists! They’re Just Like Us!”)? Will this help change the perception of scientists as boring and science as a high-status but low-income career path? And frankly, do we actually need more scientists when there’s few decent jobs for the PhDs that we already have?

Latest Double X post:

Scientists are not famed for their looks or fashion sense. Personally, I love this about science. I work that “get out of performing femininity free!” card for all it’s worth, slouching about in science-themed t-shirts and ratty sneakers as often as I can. But if I want to get in on this next phase of science marketing, apparently I’m going to have to trade the “Evolution Kills” t-shirt for something more befitting a rock star. There’s a movement afoot to sex up science and scientists, and it’s got big advertising dollars behind it.

More here!

Is it coincidence that this upper-atmosphere lightening (called a “sprite“) resembles a mighty sky-squid? Or is fearsome Cthulhu sending us a sign? YOU DECIDE.

Thanks, Christi!