Relative to searches for Justin Bieber, et al., the number of searches for biodiversity is essentially zero. Even if we take Britney Spears, whose star is fading, searches for her name during 2011 outnumber those of biodiversity by about 23 to 1. That is, for every person who searches for biodiversity, 23 are looking for information about Britney Spears.

Pretty disheartening result, I must say, at least on the face of it. Roger is a bit concerned about the result as well.

But what does it mean? Do people care more about one rather mediocre pop singer than they do about the dwindling variety of life on the planet?

I think it’s a an interesting exercise, and the results fit what we might expect, but on thinking about it, I would not give the results much weight in answering any questions save “What term is searched more?”

I was a little concerned about the biodiversity search term as a representative of “conservation”, and the acceptance of this search as, shall we say, a positive interest equal across all possible search terms. How many people do we expect to search for “biodiversity” compared to searching for “Britney Spears” and how do people search for those two conceptually very different terms?

Since he started with the argument of people caring more about pop culture more than conservation issues, I would have liked to see a comparison using more than just the term “biodiversity”. Biodiversity may be the heart of conservation, but I think it may not be the first term to come to most peoples’ minds when thinking about conservation. It is a relatively recent term, and while widespread in science, conservation and management communities now, is it as widespread in the public? And perhaps more to the point, is it understood by the public that biodiversity is the core of conservation? Perhaps it would be more representative of the spirit of the comparison to use a series of conservation oriented terms such as “biodiversity”, “endangered species”, “wildlife conservation”, etc., instead of just the term “biodiversity”.

The graph above (and all to follow) begin at January 2010 and extend to March 2012. The results are normalized to the highest data point (which becomes 100). Pop culture again has far more searches than a collection of conservation related terms.

Maybe I am wrong, but I think the primary group of searchers for “biodiversity” are likely students. Someone looking for an answer for a homework question for 6th grade science class or studying for their finals in Bio101 in college. What would a student search for? To me the most logical searches would be “biodiversity definition”, “biodiversity examples”, “measuring biodiversity” and plain old “biodiversity”. Other people besides students would surely search for biodiversity, but I think that it’s a term that you really only search for once or twice. For most people it has an answer. “Biodiversity is …”, “Biodiversity is measured by ….”, etc. Sure, there are a small group of people, most likely people in ecology or conservation, that may search biodiversity heavily as a keyword for news items, etc., but I believe this would be a very small group.

Using Google Insights again, we can check the context of the searches for biodiversity:

Using Google Insights to check the context of the searches for (ulp!) Justin Bieber:

Google has equated a search as being equivalent to interest in the search term. I think it is logical to use interest defined this way to compare terms from similar categories. Comparing a pop star to a politician and a public scientist is a fair comparison. Comparing philosophies such as capitalism and socialism is a fair use of interest through Google searches. In the case of biodiversity, comparing a similar idea, such as ecosystem, would be a logical use. Just for fun I ran a few Google Insights comparisons keeping the search terms from similar categories:

Compare “Capitalism” and “Socialism”

How about comparing “biodiversity”, “ecosystem”, “genetic diversity”, “species diversity”

Notice the cycle for both “biodiversity” and “ecosystem”? I think this supports my hypothesis about the major search groups for biodiversity being students. There appears to be a strong periodicity that correlates to the school year. Low “interest” July and August, then sharply higher September through the end of November. December break? Sharp but short decline. January to April high again. May? Even higher (finals anyone?) then trailing off for June as the trimester and K-12 schools taper on out. Fits my hypothesis, but really need to look through a longer time series, and compare the pattern to other searches that should and should not be correlated with school activity. Is there a general decline in Google searches in the summer and Christmas holidays because of people spending more time away from the computer? Does that alone explain timing and magnitude of the pattern seen.

Finally comparing “Bieber” : “Obama” : “Santorum” : “Hawking” : “Darwin”

While I think comparing the number of searches for terms of similar category (e.g. concept, person, activity, place etc.) is a valid way to compare some level of interest, I think it’s getting on shaky ground to compare interest in an idea such as biodiversity, with a pop star, using the number of searches conducted on Google. It’s a situation of comparing apples and broccoli. It seems to me that the underlying assumption that the number of searches for a term is an equivalent measure of interest for any possible search term, allowing comparisons across broad categories is flawed. But then, that is often a tricky issue with proxies—understanding the assumptions and what they mean for where the proxies do and do not work.

Where I do think this is an interesting and potentially useful tool is sort of at the interface of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and outreach. For an outreach organization understanding how people search for the concepts you provide outreach for is important. Often the terminology used by people who are experts on a subject is very different from terminology used by those who are familiar with the subject, which is very different from the terminology used by those who are entirely unfamiliar with the subject. Understanding what terms are often used by the different groups and how they search for them allows an outreach group to craft their outreach so that it is more discoverable for their target audience and allows better communication (& hopefully positive impacts) with that group. This is the type of work we used to do with large focus groups and surveys when I worked in industry. While I think it’s still a good idea to use either a small focus group or survey to get seed data, with Google Insights online the same results could potentially be accomplished with carefully planned Google Insights mining alone.

Another science alphabet doodle. Maybe this will be turning into an Invertebrate Alphabet series. They are fun to do, even though they are a grand procrastination. I enjoy the hand lettering, exploring bits of my past.

As for the infra order Brachyura – these are the true crabs, with short tails folded under their bodies (Brachyura comes from the Greek brachys oura or “Short Tail”). There are over 6000 species of brachyura. Most are marine but there are about 1000 species that live all or a significant part of their lives in either freshwater or on land. They range in size from a few millimeters across to a leg span of 4 meters!

Brachyurans eat just about anything: detritus, seaweeds and sea grasses, mussels, fish, fresh carrion and each other. In turn they are eaten by pretty everyone as well: mainly other crustaceans and fish, but also birds, starfish, sea turtles and of course mammals including us. True crabs are a delicious and economically important food source—1.3 tons of true crabs were commercially captured in 2010.

The Aplacophora are a very interesting group of exclusively marine molluscs. These worm-like creature were once considered to be holothurians (sea cucumbers) but they were later identified as molluscs from their mantle and primitive radula (two key features of molluscs). Most have been found in very deep waters (as in 5km+ deep). Most of the discovered species live their life buried in the mud feeding on detritus and microscopic organisms in the mud. Some prey on cnidarians. Most are tiny (as in a few mm in length) but some tip the tapes in excess of 30cm long. All have no internal or external shell, though they do have calcareous spicules in their mantle. So far ~300 species have been documented. In the Mollusc Diversity Playing Cards the 2 of Spades is the large Aplacaphoran, Neomenia yamamotoi.

Desktop Sketching
Originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.

I’ve been doing more sketching so far this year, partly, because I realized I was getting massively burned out last year. I have always enjoyed art—drawing, textile design, type design—and a few years ago I was set to follow it full time. Then the opportunity to go back to school for marine science came up, and I had to jump at it. Unfortunately, being a full time student really reduced the time I had for other pursuits. Grad school squashed what time was available for artistic pursuits to nothing. For the past three years I have done almost nothing artistic. The last significant art project I worked on was the octopus scarf. The one exception is might be Science Deck cards, but I don’t count that because it is all digital design, and more and more, I need analog art mediums. I need to feel the art come to life in my hands.

This sketch was the first effort this year, born of frustration with progress in my writing and a burning need to find some way to detach from the thesis writing in an enjoyable, and dare I say it, me-centered moment or two. Fortunately, when I focus on art, I am pretty solidly focused, but it is a very different type of focus than writing or crunching numbers. Instead of a focus that becomes heavy over time, it is one that seems to make things lighter.

This year (and next) will be very stressful. Transitioning into a fast attack Ph.D. plan (total of 4 years of research/classes/study) quals, thesis writing, presentations, etc. To keep from going totally bonkers—a highly technical term—I absolutely need to have some down time nurturing the creative side. To further that end, I started making a concerted effort to sketch at least every other day. Not a resolution or a promise, but a goal, same as my goal of 120 dives and 120+ hours in the water this year. Doable, but if it doesn’t happen, it’s no big deal. Just something to aim for.

The sketch above was my desk at the time of the sketching. On the right is my Wacom tablet, to the left of it is the legal pad with notes for my thesis writing—yes, I write the first draft of each chapter longhand on legal paper. All my major note-taking methods (except drawing) are represented in the image:

1. Small Moleskines for taking daily notes.
2. A larger notebook (this one also a Moleskine on the left) with project notes, effectively my lab notebook.
3. Index cards above that for details about each video or photo frame (community composition, location, etc). Each card ends as a record (several records actually) in a database in the end.
4. A legal pad for writing manuscript rough drafts.

Scattered on the desk are several of my writing tools: a pair of Waterman Hemispheres and a Waterman Phileas. One of the Hemispheres has a matte black finish with a fine nib and is loaded with black ink. The other has a blue, marbled body with a medium nib and is filled with Noodler’s Polar Blue ink. The Phileas is a medium nib with blue Waterman ink, a real workhorse of a fountain pen, which was quite affordable in it’s day. It’s a little large for my hand, but still comfortable enough for hour long writing sessions. This one is now out of commission, as the end cap came off and got lost just the other day. I really like the Hemispheres. They are very nice pens. I do need to spend some time with the fine tipped one—a gift from Dad—to personalize the nib. It’s just a bit scratchy right now. Unfortunately, my favorite pen of all, a Parker Sonnet with fine nib, is not in the lineup since its nib met with the deck of the NOAA Ship Nancy Foster during the one evening of storm waves we had during our cruise last spring. It slipped longways off the desk and landed directly on the nib, doing quite a bit of damage. I’m hoping that the folks at the Fountain Pen Hospital will be able to affordably fix it by either replacing the nib or straightening it out.

I plan to post several new drawings and doodles here and at my Flickr Photostream.

If you like what they did (or even if you don’t) consider donating through them or directly to one of the marine conservation groups they support (my personal favorites include The Coral Reef Alliance and Shark Savers)

Going to visit my folks for the holidays is going to be great, don’t get me wrong, but going away for the holidays is also making like more complicated than it needs to be. Or is it that my normal levels of procrastination doing that? Or is it both?

As we get ready to head to Texas and celebrate Christmas with family, I am also in the process of:

• writing up 2 manuscripts,
• trying to put together a grant proposal
• finishing my plan of study
• studying for the General Exams (that will be coming as soon as I submit my plan of study)
• doing quality assurance on the video analysis that my interns did on the Crepidula project
• beginning work on the next set of ScienceDecks.com playing cards

Obviously this will be a working vacation. Gotta make sure that I have all the data files and GIS layers I need on the laptop, on an external drive and uploaded to Dropbox. All of the relevant reference papers are also going up to both Dropbox and Mendeley as well as being on the laptop.

Part of me is screaming to leave it all behind and just enjoy the next week or so with my family, but the realities of deadlines dictate otherwise. Still, I will be limiting myself to only 2-3 hours of focused work per day. 1-2 hours or so right after coffee and the balance right before bed. Maybe a bit of small task type editing during the inevitable downtime during the day when we’re between doing other things.

Edit: See SciCurius’ post on similar issue – Do you love Science? Well, that depends, do you like sleep?

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Open Water and Advanced/Technical/Science Dive Log Sheets - offered under Creative Commons By-NC-SA license. Please refer others to this page to share this version of the sheet.

• a header with cumulative dive number, date and location information
• A checkbox list of major dive types/activities
• Exposure protection & Weight
• Dive depth, duration, pressure group
• Start and end tank pressure
• Air, surface water and depth water temp
• Visibility, weather and REEF.org fish count information
• A generous comments section
• Buddies
• Cumulative dive times

The Open Water Log Sheets also offer:

• a small comment section to record dive boat, boat captain, dive master or similar information
• An instructor / buddy signature block

The Advanced Log Sheets also offer:

• Dive gas mode block to record dive gases used including size of tank and mix used
• Tally blocks to track cumulative stats (# dives and hours) for rebreather, the year, and science.

For those that own their own rebreather and want to track cumulative hours on that rebreather unit or cumulative hours since last major service I have a version that replaces dives for the year and sciece dives with cumulative unit rebreather dives and hours.

Both log sheet files print out 2 double sides log sheets per 8.5×11″ page (4 dives per page). The open water file prints 6 open water training dive logs then an additional 14 log sheets for normal dives, though more sheets can be printed easily. Please feel free to use these files for your own diving or diving program. I do ask that if you do use them, please leave a comment here, and if you find them really useful put a donation in the tip jar. I am willing to modify these files for special purposes, and as the files are licensed under CC BY-NC-SA license you may modify the files yourself as long as you share the resulting file yourself.

The obvious question is, “How?” We barely get by right now. We were forced to live off of our savings and house downpayment a long time ago. The first thought that came to my mind was a bake sale. Why not? Other people have done it. Eric was skeptical and laughed, thinking I was joking. I was dead serious. You don’t know if something will work until you try and regular channels aren’t working. We have to get creative to get what we want.

So I suggested my idea about CafePress again. He’s had an account set up there, but never did much with it. When I was brainstorming for ideas on how to make money to cover our bills if the PhD offer doesn’t come through, I thought of printing our leaf art onto T-shirts to sell. Eric read about other scientists who have turned to the online community for help and thought, “Well, maybe we CAN do it.” And so, Science Bake Sale was born.

Diver on Gray's Reef - Leaf art inspired by research dives on Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary

Please go take a look and see if you like what we have so far. We have plans for more CafePress designs and some marine biology and ocean themed original artwork and dyed clothing that will go up on an Etsy Store as well. Our first goal is to buy a replacement scooter, so Eric is sure to be able to complete his research dives.

After working a bit from home, I got ready to bike in to campus and walked out the door at 10:40am for a 45 minute commute, taking the cyclocross route along the coast that I like best. I felt well rested and my legs were ticking over really well, but as I got down to Noank, which is about 5km in, I had a sinking feeling. Had I remembered my dive computer? A quick check of the panniers confirmed that I had not.

Longer, but more scenic commute to school

I decided I really wanted the computer, so I turned around and added an extra 15 minutes to the commute. Now I would, at best, be 10-15 minutes late. The rest of the commute was great, with a new personal best for the route, minus the false start. It was a bit late to see much wildlife on the route, but I did see several herons and one scrambling woodchuck.

Joe was waiting in the dive locker when I arrived 10 minutes late. The tanks were already filled, so as I verified the blend and fill of my tank, we talked about the amazing women’s world cup game from the day before. Before heading off to get some lunch, we went up to see our dive safety officer (DSO) who had just gotten back from vacation. While he was away we had several dives and on one of them I flooded one of the locker’s canister lights. I wanted to tell him in person and find out what needed to be done to get it fixed.

Unfortunately, it was not just any light. It was his favorite light from Salvo (now Light Monkey) with a custom made cable so it would fit his rebreather rig perfectly. Ouch.

WLIS MySound Data Buoy

After taking my ass-chewing for flooding the light, I called Light Monkey, who set up a repair for us. They told me they could turn the lights around in one day. No way we could get them back in time for the WLIS dive, but we should still have them back by the end of the week. I boxed up the flooded light and a second light with a shorter cable that also needed some routine attention. Dive lockers are notoriously hard on gear! After almost 3 hours we managed to get everything taken care of and the lights off to Florida with express service.

Finally, we could get back to the dive. Instead of our original noon start time, we crawled over the seawall by the dive locker (that’s a real joy in doubles, mind you!) and into the water at 3:04pm. It was a great dive too. Visibility in the cove was about 5′ and filamentous algae covered the bottom. But as soon as we got out of the shallows, vis opened up to maybe 10′ and the filamentous algae disappeared, revealing a thick carpet of macro algae and sea grasses. It seems to be an especially good year for the sea grasses and kelp, denser and much larger patches than I remember any year before.

Beach to beach swim - Dive Locker on right side, sail boat launch beach on left.

The fish count went great. We saw fluke (a.k.a. summer flounder) (Paralichthys dentatus), cunner (Tautogolabrus adspersus), grubby sculpin (Myoxocephalus aeneus) and tautog (Tautoga onitis), as well as blue crabs (Callinectes sapidus), spider crabs (Libinia emarginata), and three horseshoe crabs (Limulus polyphemus), including a very large male. There were many young of the year winter flounder (Pseudopleuronectes americanus), from a half an inch to 2 inches long.

As we were finishing our surface swim into the beach (too shallow to dive with the surge, too deep and rocky to walk), we noticed the DSO’s pickup truck parked right at the sea wall. As it was a bit late, we knew he was waiting for us. As we climbed up on the beach, he asked after the dive, what we saw etc., then casually asked who the lead diver was. Joe and I had never really settled who the lead diver was. He has ten times my experience, but I had suggested doing the dive, so I took the responsibility (knowing the other shoe was about to drop, most likely on my gluteus maximus). Sure enough, in all the confusion about the lights, I had forgotten to fill out the dive plan log on the marine operations bulletin board. We had fully briefed the DSO, but someone asked the marine operations manager if the divers off the Point were university divers. He didn’t know, but went down to the marine operations bulletin board to see. Ooops! Lesson learned and reinforced well.

Ass-chewings, by the way, do obey the laws of gravity, picking up momentum as they go downhill.

Grubby Sculpin