Our own Miriam G took home gold in Southern Fried Science’s Ocean Story Slam! Here was her entry. Check out the other Ocean Story Slams at SFS.
For a mere $15.50 you can own science blogging pure gold! Including Deep Sea News’ winning contribution, among many more!
One of my favorite local science writers, T. DeLene Beeland, interviewed Craig in the News and Observer. Go and gaze at his handsome goatee.
I’ve been interviewed by Ava at The Reef Tank, a community blog for aquarium enthusiasts. I discuss about how I got into marine science and conservation among other topics. Go check it out and check out The Reef’s website.
Craig was recently interviewed for Radio In Vivo, a Science in the Triangle radio program. It was s nice discussion of his research in deep sea ecology and body size evolution. If you have an hour to spare while your typing code or counting amphipods, give it a listen.
Radio In Vivo January 27, 2010 Guest: Dr. Craig McClainMarine researchers Craig McClain and Kevin Zelnio, both of Duke University, run a Web site (DeepSeaNews.com) that experienced an enormous spike in readership when the Raleigh Sewer Monster became a two-day Internet wonder (its Youtube video has more than 7 million hits). They had better information than many print sources, and they now take that responsibility seriously, they said.
“The day of scientists just doing science and not interacting with the public are over,” McClain says.
KZ and I take over the pages of the Charlotte Observer…well we get a paragraph in coverage of Science Online 2010.
Out of Science Online 2010 came many things, perhaps the best for Kevin and I is Miriam joining us from Oyster’s Garter. Let’s just say this shit just got real. If you don’t know how bad ass Miriam is then there is no help for you. Miriam not only developed Oyster’s Garter to be one of the shining examples of marine science outreach on the web while simultaneously working on a Ph.D. but served as chief scientist of SEAPLEX to quantify and explore the Pacific Garbage Patch, no small feat for a graduate student. Her scientific and outreach work epitomize the new generation of scientist with an integrated program.
So in a swift move Kevin and I moved quickly on ScienceOnline to assimilate her into the DSN collective. This represents a new chapter of this blog and we’re going to blow your socks off.
…or Center depending on where you live. Although in the US we feel the need to discard oceanography Portugal is a little more forward thinking.
Portugal’s Minister for Science and Universities, Mariano Gago, has announced plans to set up a cutting-edge research centre in the Azores Islands to study the deep Atlantic. Minister Gago unveiled the initiative on Saturday during the inauguration of new facilities for the Azores University’s Department of Oceanography and Fishing at Horta on Faial Island. “The potential of the (Atlantic) depths is so great that it justifies a specific programme of this nature”, Gago said. The future research centre, he added, would be “open and competitive” with a view to attracting international specialists and projects.
A couple of new deep-sea expedition blogs to add to your RSS feeds…
An excellent and and often funny blog about a recent hadal expedition
After their triumph in 2008 obtaining footage of the deepest fish ever caught on camera, the team behind the Hadeep project, run by the University of Aberdeen’s Oceanlab, are back. This time they’re off the coast of New Zealand, looking to send Alfie, their plucky deep-sea camera-equipped lander, down into the lightless depths of the Kermadec Trench. Several thousand metres down, surrounded by crushing pressure, the unmanned submersible will attempt to take more film of the deep-dwelling creatures attracted to the bait it carries. This time, though, Alfie will be joined by other, newer equipment, including the top-secret experimental Hadal-Lander C, only recently built by Voyage Leader Dr Alan Jamieson! The team will be providing regular updates from the New Zealand Research Vessel Kaharoa of what they find.
A new blog just from an expedition to cold seeps and whale-falls off Japan
Nick Higgs is on a research cruise off Japan to find out more about the amazing ecosystems that form around dead whales on the seabed. He is a PhD student at the Natural History Museum and the University of Leeds. The team are going to visit the sunken remains of two sperm whales that were experimentally implanted in 2005 at a depth of 925m in Sagami Bay Japan – they had previously died after being stranded on the seashore. Nick is investigating the bone-eating ‘zombie worms’, Osedax, and how they bore into the whale bones. He wants to understand what these borings look like so that I might be able to find them in fossil whale bones. He also wants to know how much damage these worms do to the bones and how that might have affected the fossil record of whales. Might there be gaps in the fossil record?
This is a cool National Geographic video about research done by Duke Marine Lab researchers Ari Friedlander and Pat Halpin. I love the graphical representation of the data they get from the tags showing the whale twisting around on the seafloor.
Below the fold is an interview with Ari for PlumTV about marine biology, photography and climate change.
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