The past few weeks turned out to be pretty busy for me online (at least compared to the past oh, 24 months), though from this site alone, it may be hard to tell. Since much of my posting has been at other places I thought a quick summary of the months posts (and links) would be helpful for those interested:
- Sergeant Major (Abudefduf saxatilis) – A post at Larval Images about one of my favorite ecosystems and one of the great juvenile fish that are commonly found there.
- Budget Hacking – A post here about the importance of NOAA for the myriad jobs they do, many of which are important for public safetly and economic security in addition to research. A post that I feel is a very important read, especially as the 2012 budget fight may still cut NOAA deeply, including the satellite’s needed to track and predict severe weather events as well as we do. Without NOAA’s work I think it is safe to say the Alabama death toll would have definitely been significantly higher.
- Gulf of Mexico Dolphin Mortality Event – Posted as Scientist in Residence at Deep Sea News – in which I use the data from NOAA to take a more slightly more detailed look at deaths of dolphins since the oil spill in the Gulf, and explain the box and whisker plot.
- Dolphin Whiskers – now only Babies – published a few days later here, to address the concern that there is a higher that normal number of babies washing ashore, but the graph, as presented by NOAA and in the MSM, does not really support that claim. So again come out the box and whisker plots.
- My ‘Seascape of Fear’ – A second posting as Deep Sea News Scientist in Residence, I discuss my recent trip to Belize as a teaching assistant for a coral reef fish ecology class and the arrival in Belize of the highly invasive Lionfish.
- How does a floating plastic duckie end up where it does? – A guest Blog post at Scientific American Part of a four post series on drifting junk in the oceans and how, sometimes, they can help us explore and learn more about the ocean currents. Other posts in the series include a review by Lindsey Hoshaw of the book Moby Duck (I’ll post my own review here later, I liked the book quite a bit more than Lindsey), an interview by David Manly with Moby Duck author Donovan Hohn, and a Matthew Garcia review of Dr. Curtis Ebbesmeyer’s bookFlotsametrics and the Floating World about tracing accidental drifters and the information they can give us.
- Is It Time to Relax Fishing Regulations? – Another Scientist in Residence post at DSN, this was a response to fisheries biologist Ray Hilborn’s recent op-ed in the New York Times advocating a relaxation of the current fishing regulations. (Enric Sala, Peter Singer, Daniel Pauly and Mark Kurlansky all replied to the paper.)
- Finally, Reflections, posted here, in which I examine where I have been, where I am and the options going forward.
Hopefully in the next few days we will have a guest posting or two here by Johann. Discussing some of his recent adventures and science from his point of view.
In addition to the postings there are several new YouTube videos I uploaded in the past weeks, mostly of the underwater variety.
