It’s the very first World Oceans Day! Celebrate with the 25th edition of Carnival of the Blue, hosted by the fish-loving Mark Powell. Then sing to to the tune of “Fish Heads”: Fish blogs, fish blogs, smart & fun fish blogs, fish blogs, fish blogs, READ THEM NOW! YUM!
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Posted by Miriam Goldstein
Name a new species of jellyfish! The Bonaire Box Jellyfish’s genus name is Tamoya, but it doesn’t have a species name yet. Dust off your Latin, check out the contest guidelines in Year of Science 2009, and submit your entry by June 14.
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Posted by Miriam Goldstein
Since marine science and space seem pretty tight these days, check out Jonathan Lethem’s lovely and very bleak short story “Lostronaut.” It’s written as letters home from an astronaut stranded on a disintegrating space station with failing plant-based life support, and shouldn’t be read if you’ve got a space-faring loved one.
If reading the story makes you feel sciencey, Eric explored the science behind using plants for life support on the Science Not Fiction blog. But if reading the story makes you want to kick back and feel mournful, listen to Amanda Palmer’s amazing song “Astronaut.” I’m obsessed.*
*Yes, this entire post was an excuse to post this song.
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Geek, In the future we'll have..., Sciencey entertainment, Star Trekkin' | 
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Posted by Miriam Goldstein
Latest Double X post on the science of Pixar’s new movie Up:
Seeking scientific accuracy in Hollywood is a fool’s game. I’ve frothed at the terrible biology of Bee Movie and gnashed at the poor oceanography of Transformers and muttered at the unfortunate physics of Star Wars. So I wasn’t expecting much from Pixar’s latest offering, Up, what with the house floating along on helium balloons. But I was pleasantly surprised. The biology of Up is reasonably accurate—though Kevin the bird might harbor a dark secret.
Read the rest here.
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Posted by Miriam Goldstein
The latest Double X post:
Poor women. While normal intelligence can co-exist with ovaries, our delicate lady-brains can’t contain genius-level intelligence. Men and women might have the same average intelligence, but men have more variation, and thus more idiots AND genuises. At least that’s what former Harvard President and current Obama advisor Larry Summers implied in 2005 when he said that biological differences might explain the lack of female mathematics professors.
If Summers was right and biological differences are to blame, there should be fewer math-genius girls the whole world over. However, a new study that looked at worldwide data found…
Read the rest.
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Posted by Miriam Goldstein
I’m back, and can continue to neglect the Oyster’s Garter in person! Unfortunately the forecast is for “Overwhelmed, with a chance of running off gibbering into the night,” so things around here will continue to be slow. But you can always check me out twice a week at Double X. (Why am I not an equal-opportunity-neglecter? Cause the money from Double X pays for critical science supplies.)
A round of virtual applause and beer for Kristen’s sweet blog stylings. Many, many thanks to her for guest blogging, and I’m hoping that we’ll see more from her in the future. I think Electric Coral Porn is either the name of her New Wave band or her future blog.
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Posted by Miriam Goldstein
…I’m-a end up stuck in school. (That’s not what I wanna do, Jeremy.)
Good news, dear readers: your fearless blog-star Miriam has been spotted on the surfside Scripps campus. I imagine she’s currently drafting her “never again on my watch” speech to assure the traumatized in the audience that I’ll not be allowed to make dumb music, football, and psychology references under the auspices of TOG ever again. (Total disappointment was my original goal, but I could certainly be more parsimoniously disappointing and save everyone the hassle.)
Figure 1. OMG, that explains everything!
If you’re still bummed about dead coral babies and me getting electrocuted, well, thank you, and I’m sorry, and I have good news for you. The sun came back out today, so I can blog you goodbye on a positive note. True, my explanatory variable—one day of sunshine—sounds kind of trivial, but it’s all about shifting baselines. We’re so serotonin-addicted here in San Diego that when a cloud rolls in, instantaneous Seasonal Affective Disorder has us all muttering miserably like Milton in Office Space. Imagine what a whole month of May Gray does to our sunny disposition. You can refer to Figure 1 (originally from here) to see how treacherous it really gets this time of year. (This would easily be the funniest graph I’ve seen all year if it weren’t for this fad.) Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by kristenmarhaver
I’m proud to be at a (g)rad school where scientists not only figure out secrets of the earth (and the universe) but often employ interdisciplinary approaches to get the job done (IGERT cohort represent!). But, full disclosure: I’m even prouder to be from a school with more astronauts and a football team that didn’t dissolve after its first season. (This is because nerds from the Midwest love a solid running game as much as running regression analyses.) Between kicking as-trophysics and taking games, my alma mater scores $500M in research funding each year, and uses it to get mad interdisciplinary and high…Tech.
From my old A-town stomp-ing ground comes a high-profile example of the option offense, as executed by marine organisms. Chemists and biologist at Georgia Tech collaborated to study the secondary metabolites on the surfaces of marine algae using a new technology called desorption electrospray ionization mass spectrometry. (Can this please be the name of a new hair product, too?) The tool allows scientists to map the chemical properties of an intact biological surface to determine where on the organism a chemical is being used, not just that it’s “in there somewhere, doin’ something.” (This had long been standard protocol in chemical ecology.) Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by kristenmarhaver
Even without trading tears for electric shocks, graduate school is a painful, mostly thankless slog with rare moments of fun and rarer moments of reward. (NSF and Kristen sittin’ in a Petri, F-U-N-D-I-N-G.) If that weren’t lonely enough, try spending graduate school studying fragile, dying creatures in hopes of someday possibly contributing the tiniest bit of help to one of the biggest disasters mankind has caused. It almost makes you want to study fruit flies.
One of the few delights I have while studying (the end of) coral reefs is watching baby corals just after they’re born. Coral “birth” involves collecting gametes on night dives, mixing them on shore, having panic attacks while rinsing them and trying to keep them from dying and exploding in the lab, sleeping from 5 to 8 am, finding sanity in iPod shuffle mode, repeating for three days, then beginning the year’s experiments. Okay, that’s not the delightful part. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by kristenmarhaver
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