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Historical Ecology and Brittle Stars on Acid

I’m so close to being done with the semester. I have one last exam. It’s for a great class, but the final exam is killing me. It’s a take home exam, which means it’s far harder than what we would be subjected to in an in class exam. Well, except maybe the Marine Reaction and Transport exam…that one really HURT! Of course the three extra credit questions rocked for me at least… the answers were SRV, Deep Purple and the Stones. Most of the younger students had no clue. I hope he does similar extra credit when I take his Marine Geology course.

This morning while procrastinating over my take home exam, I read and summarized a new bit of research from the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Researchers there worked with a brittle star that is common in the north sea sediments to determine how it would react to short to mid term exposures to a more acidic ocean. This is highly relevant since the ocean has been growing slowly more acidic, and a large number of marine invertebrates, including many commercially important ones, have shells, or exoskeletons of calcium carbonates. As the ocean pH goes down, those creatures will be stressed trying to maintain their shells.

Who is going to be affected? The list is long and distinguished - Corals, lobster, crabs, shrimp, oysters, clams, scallops, mussels, pteropods, sea stars, sea urchins, snails, conch, crinoids and lots more.  What’s more many of these creatures are very important because they are bio-engineers creating habitat (corals and oysters) or they filter the water and sediments to keep them clean (oysters, clams, mussels).  Many are also key species in the diet of other commercially and ecologically important species. Understanding how these organisms will react to acidification is important if we are going to have any hope of protecting the ecosystem we rely on for so much of our food let alone recreation and other uses. Check out the discussion at The Other 95% (that’s all the world without a backbone).

I have also added a critical review of Franklin’s The Most Important Fish in the Sea. It is a significantly shortened, readers digest version of a critical review submitted for one of my classes.



So close…

Summer is almost here… 

It’s just one more week and I’m through with the semester from hell.

It’s not that any of the classes were that hard, though Marine Reaction and Transport comes close enough. The problem is that I got involved in many other activities and overextended myself again.

My last class was yesterday with Prof. A. Unfortunately, I had a team presentation to give, along with a group paper to turn in. My partner is a humanities type with little experience using PowerPoint, Keynote, or any other computer software for presenting… so… I had to do all the presentation design and development. For most classes I wouldn’t have sweated that too much, but this is Peter and Matt, both of whom I respect a lot and will be going out to sea with this summer. On top of that, I’m working with Peter on at least one DVD and now a video podcast expanding on the work in the previous DVD we made. 

Thursday we (my project partner and I) met to layout the battle plan. “Hmm… We have a 15 page paper and a 20 minute presentation due in 20 hours…What should we do?”

Two all-nighters later, everything is done. The paper was turned in electronically a few hours late (as in this morning), but we had a kick-*$$ presentation that will now be leading to participation in a published paper working with the same data set and expanding the analysis I did for the project. The analysis was quite the pain in the you know where, as the data is old, incomplete, and from an area I know very little about. Then again, maybe that helped me, since I had few pre-conceived notions and no idea of what had or had not been tried before. 

Just one more paper to write, three take home exams, and one in class exam. Then I can pass out.  For a week. Except Tammy has a “Honey please finally do” list I have been ignoring now for months that needs some action. And then there is the summer activities plan. And, of course, I owe her about a week of snuggle time.

Oh, and in my copious free time, I have managed to get an entry or two up at The Other 95%, though I doubt I will be able to contribute to Coral Week even sitting on a couple hours of video of deep sea corals and deep sea trawl fishing effects. Arggghhh!

Soon.


Summer Filling Up Fast

The semester is almost (but not quite) over, and already the summer is filling up fast.

  • I will as usual have 20+ hours a week working IT for the Science Department.
  • May and June will be making a 10-15 minute video DVD for deep sea trawling impacts on seamounts. Of course that means I have to go through a ton of footage to get the gems and the ones that really highlight the damage. 
  • End of June I will be taking a 1 week cruize to Stellwagen Bank to participate in a cruise looking at fishing effects, area closure effects etc using ROVs and towed video sleds.
  • There will be more video and illustration work June through August as part of an ongoing research piece with another of the professors. 

How the heck am I going to get in any dive time?!



Earthday 2008

At Avery Point the Earthday celebrations were yesterday (tree planting, drum circle, giveaways of CFL lights, recycled reusable water bottles, speeches, ice cream, CT DEP demonstrations, hybrid car showings - not bad for a campus of only 500 or so people. 

Since today is the more widely recognized day though… a few quick quotes / links

 
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtfully committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” 
Margaret Mead

 

Rick MacPherson of Malaria, Bedbugs, Sea Lice & Sunsets will be joining Kevin Zelnio of The Other 95% and Deep Sea News, Jason Robertshaw of Cephalopodcast and Karen James of The Beagle Project Blog for part of a 24 hour long conversation about the health of our planet. Their segment starts at 2200 GMT (that’s 6pm EST).

Thanks Rick for the book. Arrived safe and sound! Very beautiful too!
Highly recommended for all!

A few other links for your perusal this morning:

EcoDaredevil

The Times Magazine Green Issue

 Hattips go out to Rick, Kevin and Sheril

Update: Johann was sorta captured at the event playing football with some of the undergrads from school

Johann at at Avery Point\'s Earthday


Johann’s Journal - Science Week

Last week we went to Providence for two science conferences. I had fun. I sat in on some really neat talks. One was about lobster larvae and another was about Alaskan oyster farming. I ate mussels. I worked behind the front desk. We went to the beach party and had fun playing all the games and contests. I got a special award for helping. I made lots of friends.

The End.



A Typical Week of Craziness

Eric and Johann keep life full of surprises. Besides our normal insanity, three funny things happened this week that I had to write about. A few days ago Johann made up another joke. What do you get when you cut a $100.00 bill in half? My answer was scrap paper. He said you get two $50.00 bills. When he asked if I got the joke, I said yes, but that the joke didn’t make sense to me. I didn’t find it very funny. He said that was the whole point. His jokes are about life and life doesn’t make sense. I can’t argue with that.

Before our company came to visit, Eric and Johann offered to help me by scrubbing the tub. Johann came to get me after they had finished. He was very excited and proud to show me the great job they did. They had used the Ivory bar soap. I wrongly assumed Eric remembered where the cleanser was. The best part was that they used the squirt guns to rinse everything off. I was annoyed Eric didn’t use the cleanser, but at least they did use some kind of soap and it did look and smell clean. That was good enough for me. And they had fun doing it. I thought, how very Benny-&-Joon-esque. As long as they don’t start using my iron to make grilled cheese sandwiches and buy a tennis racket to make mashed potatoes, I won’t complain.

Today Johann wanted to help set up for the library book donation sale at the bookstore. Friday through Sunday you can go into the bookstore and buy books for the library that the librarians have selected to add to their collection. Annie, one of the bookstore owners, kindly allowed us to be part of it. Johann was put in charge of the children’s books. I helped him unpack several boxes and then we arranged the books as nicely as we could on the table.

There were two activity books for kids. One was aimed at things for boys to do, the other was meant for girls. They appeared to be reprints of old crafting and camping how-to books, which probably had the girls keeping their dresses neat while embroidering, instead of having fun playing in the dirt, and had the boys learning how to build fires, but not learning other important skills, like how to mend your own clothes.

Johann found a place for the books and then announced loud enough for everyone in the store to hear, “I put the sex books there, Mommy.” Wishing no one else had heard, but knowing everyone had, I looked around to see how the ladies around me were reacting. Jane, another one of the bookstore owners, was laughing so hard her shoulders were shaking. One of the librarians, who was much older, looked as if all the color had drained from her face. She scurried over and asked me if there were really books about sex and they didn’t want those for the library. I explained that Johann meant to say “gender” not “sex”. I showed her the two books, as I felt my face become completely flushed, and explained there was one activity book for boys and one for girls. She said she understood, but still had a look of utter shock on her face as she went over to Jane at the other table. She never did laugh. I laughed and shook my head, asking myself why I was the one that always had to deal with these situations. Too bad the TV show “Kids Say the Darndest Things” is no longer on the air. Talk about prime material!

Life is typically like that around here. In the years to come, I will have so many more good, wacky stories to tell!


Johann joins the NSA

Last week was very busy for us here. I volunteered to help out one of the people at the University who was in charge of organizing and putting on the NSA conference and the Benthic Ecology Meeting which were held back to back in Providence. Ostensibly I was supposed to be there primarily for IT support, but ended up helping with a variety tasks from stuffing bags helping people overcome issues with their presentations, to making lunch runs. Truth be told it was exhausting, but very fun - of course now I am paying the price for missing a week of school and school work…but it was worth it.

The organizer of the conferences knows Johann’s love of science and was very generous, providing Johann and Tammy with passes to get into the event and attend talks. As a family we attended a number of the talks, but the whole family ended up volunteering behind the scenes, stuffing programs and helping hand out newsletters, sell raffle tickets, etc… On Thursday the closing NSA evening event and opening Benthic Ecology Meeting event was a viewing of the IMAX movie Volcanoes of the Deep Sea with opening introduction by NSA member and deep sea biologist Richard Lutz. Richard also had a 20 minute question and answer period afterwords with several questions from the few kids in the audience including a pair of insightful questions from Johann.

We all had great fun, especially meeting some of the wonderful people involved in the meeting and attending it including Kathy Johnston, Richard Lutz, Sammy Ray, Roger Mann, Ken Chew and many, many others.

Johann and Tammy were invited back by everyone to the Saturday evening event to close the Benthic Ecology Meeting - a Beach Party in the hotel ballroom. Johann had a blast with playing volleyball with all the scientists and grad students. It was great fun and hilarious to watch the beach balls fliying into the chandeliers. (My legs are still killing me from all the running and diving.) They also had “Benthic Twister”, limbo contests, a Hawaiian shirt contest and a hula hoop contest. Who knew Tammy could hula hoop for hours straight?!

The highlight of the evening however for Johann was his receiving a certificate of appreciation and participation from the organizer. He had a photo taken with all the volunteers as he received his certificate. We will hopefully be able to get a copy of the photo soon to post. The certificate is now going up over his study desk. As one of the PhD students said “Wow, he’s gonna have a better C.V. by the time he’s in high school than I have now!” Heck he’s gonna have a better one than I do!!


New Real Estate

It looks like both Dad and I have some new digital real estate.

My father is a professional photographer and now has a web site to show some of his works. I love his bear series of photographs and hope you will too. The cool thing is that he is also providing some facts and conservation information about some of these magnificent animals. I often have to wonder if the work he will do as a photographer will have more impact in informing people’s opinion about nature and conservation than my plans as a scientist or science communicator.

My own photography has taken a back seat to school and I do miss it. I especially love doing underwater video and photo work. If I could make an impact by producing a book or being on the team that produces a book on the beauty of underwater life similar to the magnificent and inspirational books Reef by Scubazoo or The Deep: The Extraordinary Creatures of the Abyss, I would jump at the chance. I love underwater photography even more than doing nature photography above water.

Speaking of science communication, I will now be participating in a multi-author blog called The Other 95% (TO95% for short). It is a site mostly dedicated to talking about invertebrates and the latest news, science publications, jokes, videos, etc. related to inverts.

I just put up my first posting there, about recent discoveries of social and complex mating rituals in a species of octopus. I hope you will look at it and enjoy. I took this on in part to help myself become a better writer and in part to help spread the beauty of inverts, especially cephalopods.


Traveling Mint Paints

A handy sized travel watercolor paint set made from an empty mint tin.

Debby’s cool mint tin traveling watercolor paint set.

I stumbled across an excellent idea at Drawing the Motmot and thought that it would appeal to many in my family besides my wife and I.

My folks find themselves traveling often with my father being a professional photographer and my mother an artist. My mother, who has traveled quite literally since her birth, loves to spend hours enjoying nature, sketching, and painting scenes, while my father does his photography. Unfortunately, like Debby, by the time her gear allowance comes up, there is often very little room for paint sets and easels, especially if there is an airplane involved. Debby came up with a great little portable paint-in-miniature watercolor kit that fits in a purse or cargo pocket!

Tammy and I will be making a few of these for trips in our local area. Tammy loves to do watercolors and is excellent at it. Although I am nowhere near as talented as she is, I enjoy painting if I have the time. Johann loves painting and is very keen to paint during our nature walks now that spring has come.

I could spend hours going through some of Debby’s posts, especially with her beautiful sketches and travel tales… but, unfortunately, I must focus on school projects right now!


Thai Peanut Soup?

Since we decided to have Ramen noodles tonight, I thought a nice Thai Peanut Sauce would be great:

Thai Peanut Sauce Soup

  • 150 g crunchy peanut butter
  • 180 mL coconut milk
  • 3 cloves of garlic
  • 1 small onion
  • 2 Tbsp fresh lime juice
  • 1 Tbsp brown sugar
  • 1 tsp curry powder
  • 3 crushed dried thai peppers (or to taste)
  • fresh coriander
  1. Chop & mix everything but the milk and peanut butter.
  2. Blend everything together 1 minute or until smooth.

Simple quick recipe, yes? Except we were out of coconut milk. Unfortunately, this isn’t South Caye, Belize with coconut trees, so we took a family walk to the local grocery and got some bagels and canned coconut milk. In the store I read the ingredient list and the amount — 13.5 fl. oz. | 60mL. So I picked up three cans figuring a touch shy won’t hurt, besides we never go completely by any recipe.

We got home and I chopped everything choppable and added everything to the food processor. In goes the peanut butter and all three cans of coconut milk.

Hmm… smells good, but that’s a bit thin. Oh well, tastes good, though not as sweet or as spicy as I like. Still this will work well.

As I’m sitting down reading the email from my independent studies professor, Tammy was working through how a sauce recipe could turn out so thin. She figured it out and said:

“Um, Eric, each can is 400 mL. The recipe only calls for 180 mL…you put in all three cans?”

I don’t know where I got that 60 mL from! And I never double checked afterwards! Doh! Fortunately, Johann noticed it tasted similar to Tom Kah Gai, so it became Thai Peanut Soup with a simple addition of warming for a couple minutes.

Tammy looked at the can again and figured out what must have happened. I read the front of the can and it said 13.5 fl. oz. I read the nutrition label for anything Tammy might be allergic to. At the top of the label it states that one serving is 57 mL. I somehow missed the next line that said there was 7 servings per can. And I know I totally missed the 400 mL next to the 13.5 fl. oz. on the front of the can.

Tammy said now I know how it feels to be given only partial information on important issues where huge misunderstandings could have been avoided, not to mention a lot of heartache, if I had just included that one piece of key information!