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.

Edited: Replaced that wimpy hacked version of SRV’s Texas Flood with the full cut from the same concert that runs 9:34

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.

• 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?!

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

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!!

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.

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 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!

• Lise Meitner – Physics
• Shirley Jackson – Theoretical Physics
• Henrietta Swan Leavitt – Astonomy
• Laurie Marker – Biology
• Barbara Block – Marine Ecology and Biology
• Lisa Levin – Marine Ecology / Oceanography
• Cindy Lee Van Dover – Oceanography
• Rosalind Franklin – Biology
• B. Galdikas – Biology
• Meave Leakey – Paleontology
• Louise Leakey – Paleontology
• Mary Leakey – Anthropolgy
• Jane Goodall – Biology and Anthropology
• Sylvia Earle – Marine Biology / Oceanography
• Eugenie Clark – Marine Biology
• Marie Curie – Chemistry and Physics
• Irene Joliot-Curie – Chemistry
• Helene Langevin-Joliot – Physics
• Caroline Herschel – Astronomy
• Gerty Cori – Biochemistry
• Maria Mitchell – Astronomy (bio)
• Sue Hendrickson – Paleontology
• Jennifer Blank – Geochemistry
• Jill Tarter – Astronomy
• Beth Shapiro – Biology
• Lisa Kaltenegger – Astrophysics
• Amber VanDerwarker – Anthropology
• Elizabeth Catlos – Geochemistry
• Penny Boston – Biology
• Diana Northup – Biology

While most of these we came up with without resources, it helped for some of them that Johann has his “Scientist Trading Cards” list, which all of these ladies are on. I figure his lists are the equivalent to “class notes” for us. When we have time maybe we can do a part two… that and go back and hyperlink these to bio pages and lab pages. ed. Done!

Oh and for the record Penny Boston and Diana Northup have some of the coolest named study subjects (at least for Johann): Snottites and phlegm balls.

S’not funny. That’s what they study… no really.