Welcome to Wednesdays Wet & Wild (formerly Wonderful Waterful Wednesdays), a weekly post at Danielle Meitiv’s Barefoot Blog that explores everything fabulous and fascinating about the sea, surf, and sands of our Blue Planet. This week, I’m sharing some of the amazing stuff I’m learning as I research my new sci-fi series. Enjoy!
Even before they took out Bin Laden, most people were familiar with the Navy SEALs (Sea, Air and Land Teams).
But what about the sea lions? The dolphins?
No, this is not just the stuff of Hollywood. Since the late 1950′s, the U.S.Navy has studied the ways that marine mammals can aid military efforts at sea. Today, the U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program trains and deploys more than 140 dolphins and sea lions from the programs headquarters in San Diego.
A U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program dolphin named KDog, wearing a locating pinger, performed mine clearance work in the Persian Gulf during the Iraq War.
The two primary species involved are the Common Bottlenose Dolphin and the California Sea Lion.
Flipper Enlists
Because of their amazing ability to use sound to navigate in the water – echolocation – bottlenose dolphins are naturals for locating people and objects in the sea, including sea mines.
Dolphins are especially helpful in the open ocean. They can make multiple deep dives without getting “the bends” or decompression sickness, which would be harmful or fatal to a human. Most recently, mine-hunting dolphins were employed in the port of Umm Qasr in southern Iraq.
Sea Lions Get Their Man
A MK 5 sea lion is about to attach the recovery hardware to a simulator.
Sea lions have been trained to locate and retrieve undersea objects. Like dolphins, they help to locate and tag mines. Unlike their dolphins comrades, sea lions don’t use echolocation, but their vision in low light and murky water makes them excellent seekers.
Sea lions have been employed to patrol around naval ships at port and to alert their human partners if human divers approach. These critters carry leg cuffs as part of their undersea equipment. If they locate a diver in the water, the sea lions attaches a cuff with a rope to the intruder’s leg, allowing humans above water to reel the trespasser in.
For more about sea lions and their cousins (as well as their mythological buddies), check out this post. To learn about dolphins and their whale pals, check this out.
BONUS: July Poster Giveaway
Love marine mammals? Then, you’re gonna LOVE this month’s special giveaway: a fabulous out-of-print NOAA poster, Marine Mammals of the Western Hemisphere. Everyone who leaves a comment between now and the end of July gets one entry in the drawing. Link to this site on your blog and get two entries.
Only one week left – get your comments in now!
UPDATE: Check out this recent CNN clip from YouTube, showing a reporter trying to evade a Navy dolphin and what the dolphin does to catch her man. Too cool!
Also – lest you worry about the health and happiness of these marine mammals (as I did), they are released into the ‘wild’ frequently for training and choose to come back everytime.
They also live long lives with the Navy. One female dolphin I read about was over 30 years old, with 20+ years of active service. Among the sea lions recruits is a 27-year old male who is still going strong. (The average lifespans of these critters in the wild are 25 and 17 years, respectively).
This weekend the Blue Frontier Campaign and its partners will convene the Blue Vision Summit. Hundreds of ocean activists from all over the country will descend on Washington, DC to learn about ocean issues, experience ocean-inspired music and art and lobby Congress for better ocean policy. Among the speakers and guests will be some of the best known and passionate ocean advocates in the world. This week’s wonderful waterful post is dedicated to a half-dozen ocean heroes and the wonderful work they do.
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
A Stylish Blogger
I’ve been given a Stylish Blogger Award! Yes, Danielle Meitiv’s Barefoot Blog has been recognized for it’s substance and style (well, it’s style at least) with this prestigious accolade.
So, what makes me a stylish blogger? No, it’s not the bare feet. I’ve been nominated for the award by my fellow blogging buddy and writing group member (writing groupie?), Patrick Ross. I first encountered Patrick’s creativity through his tweets about creativity (Conveniently enough, he tweets as @on_creativity), and have since become a big fan of his blog, The Artist’s Road.
There are three obligations that come with the award: as I recipient I have to post seven random things about myself, nominate five other blogs, and link back to the wonderful person who nominated me. As a bonus, I get to display the Stylist Blogger Badge on my blog! (Check it out at right).
Seven random things:
At the age of 6 or 7 (?) I proposed and debuted the role of Toto in a summer camp production of the Wizard of Oz.
I have a naturally deep, scratchy voice, which prompted double- takes and comments from strangers when I was young: “Where did you get that voice?” (Occasionally, I told them I stole it).
On a family trip to Senegal when I was ten, I was chased by a baboon wielding a dead parrot. My father had to scare him away.
I pursued majors in bio and French in college and one of my professors tried to convince me to pursue a PhD in French lit. I can no longer read the papers I wrote back then.
I shook hands with Nelson Mandela and attended a private speech he gave to the Independent World Commission on the Oceans in Capetown, South Africa.
While recovering from a break-up in grad school (you know who you are!), I learned to knit, spent a month brooding and completed a sweater. In the process, I developed a wool allergy and have never been able to wear it.
Before my first pregnancy, I couldn’t stomach the smell or taste of tomatoes or olives. Now I love both.
My five Stylist Blog Award nominees:
Eat The Damn Cake. Kate is an author and blogger who writes about beauty, body image, women and dessert. She does an “unroast” with each post, highlighting something she likes about herself. @EatTheDamnCake
Three New Leaves. Blogger Matt Madeiro turned over three new leaves in his life: he lost weight, started to travel and embraced a minimalist lifestyle. In addition to blogging about it, he wrote two great e-books: Simpler and Roots. @MattMadeiro
I met Jen, Shellie and Damian through a wonderful online blogging course given by social media maven Kristen Lamb, who’s pretty stylish as well.
Round of Words in 80 Days: Wednesday Check-in
Writing is going well. I’ve done my morning pages everyday except, gulp, today! (Will get to those as soon as I finish this post!). I sent a synopsis to my agent friend on Saturday. It’s for an erotic short story.
While waiting for her feedback, I started revising an older piece story that I think would also make a good erotic short story and I’m pleased with how it’s going.
This AM comments came back from the agent, however, so I’m putting the older piece aside. This week I’ll revise the synopsis to make it editor-ready (I’d sent her a rough draft to get feedback on the story) and enxt week I’ll start writing the story itself. I’ve agreed to get it to her in a month. Wish me luck!
I’ve met my blogging goals so far this week: Sunday and Wednesday posts and ROW80 check-ins. I’ve put aside the learning goals because I have so much writing to do. Of course, I’m learning while I’m learning “on the job” this way, so it’s all good!
For a description of the Round of Words challenge and my ever-shifting goals, check out this post. To follow everyone else’s progress go here.
Beachcombing is one my all-time favorite activities. And why not? It happens outdoors, by the ocean and it’s best done barefoot! There’s a certain mystery about it: I can never anticipate what I’ll find and I’m sure never to find the same thing twice. (This is also why I love shopping at secondhand stores).
Beachcombing takes patience, curiosity, and a love of discovery. One time you may happen upon the perfect snail shell; a smooth piece of glass the next. Look carefully and you’ll find a dozen treasures to take home, things you want to remember and show to your friends.
Surfing the web is a lot like this (minus the sandy toes). A lot of stuff gets tossed onto the shores of the Internet – it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer volume. But if you look carefully, there will some clear gems, people and ideas you want to remember and share with your friends. Here are a few of the special bits and pieces I came across this week.
Oceans & the Environment – Much of my personal and professional passion is dedicated to learning and writing about the environment and working to protect it for the future. Here are just two of the dozens of wonderful resources I turn to on a regular basis.
Speak Up For the Blue features the best of the ocean blogoshere, brought to you by Ocean Leaders from around the world. is the brainchild and passion of Andrew Lewin, a marine scientist dedicating his time to encouraging people to speak up for our endangered seas. I am honored to be included as one of Andrew’s Ocean Leaders, alongside such great advocates and personal heroes as Sylvia Earle and the Cousteau family.
The Lake Titicaca Frog: one of the cool and bizarre critters waiting for you at Arkive.org.
Arkive: With my two-and-a-half year old daughter poking her head under my arm as I try to avoid typos write this post, I have to toss in one of our favorite nature sites. Arkive is a collaborative collection of images and information about endangered animals and plants from all over the globe. With photos and videos of everything from elephants to octopus, frogs to eagles, my daughter and I are entertained for hours.
Gardening & Health – Gardening is something else I like to do barefoot. OK, not the serious digging, but I’m often out there shoeless, picking weeds and harvesting greens – or just admiring what’s come up. Being outside toes in the grass is good for you, as are all the yummy things I plant, so I’ll toss some health stuff in here, too.
When I was getting started with my new veggie garden, Kenny Point’s Veggie Gardening Tips was the first gardening blog I read and still one of my all-time favorites. Kenny introduced me to the joys and ease of growing garlic and fall and winter veggie gardening, which is A LOT easier than you think. This year he’s inspired me to plant goji berries – I’ll keep you posted on how they do! Subscribe to his blog for a free intro to veggie gardening.
The main garlic patch, mid-March. Now the greens are twice as big.
Mark’s Daily Apple is one of the web’s best intros to the ‘paleo’ or ‘primal’ type diet. After 27 years as a vegetarian, and 3 years as a reluctant meat eater, I’ve recently become convinced of the superiority of eating those foods that our bodies evolved to consume: meat, veggies and healthy fats – and eliminating those that are products of recent agricultural history: all grains and grain products.
The result: I feel better than ever, and although I was not overweight to begin with, I’ve lost 5 lbs in two weeks with only minimal exercise (so it wasn’t just ‘water weight’). Check it out. Another good intro to the primal lifestyle is Whole9Life.
Writing & Creativity
Time Management for Writers – Getting More Done in Less Time, by author and blogger Kristen Lamb. As a fellow ENFP, I can relate to her struggle to learn the organizational skills that come naturally to her more detail-oriented husband (mine is the same), and REALLY appreciate the insights and suggestions she shares. I’ve learned a whole lot about writing, online media from Kristen’s blog and even more from her online classes, so don’t be surprised if she shows up on my list in the future. You can find her on Twitter as @KristenLambTX
Writing is an art and the well that all artists draw from is called creativity. Patrick Ross, creativity explorer extraordinaire and the blogger behind The Artist’s Road, tweets as @on_creativity and sends out some really great stuff. If you’ve missed his gems, you can catch his weekly round up: Creativity Tweets of the Week.
Round of Words: Week Four Check-in
I’ve set three types of goals for this 80-day challenge. You can read the details about them here. Some of those goals are right on track:
Blogging: Twice weekly check-ins (Sunday & Wednesday) as part of a weekly Wednesday post, and now a regular Sunday mash-up.
Writing:
Morning pages (an exercise from the Artist’s Way): and EVERYday, so far. Nnot always first thing, but more often than not in the morning, so that’s something,
Daily/Weekly words: Over the past four weeks my writing goals have flip-flopped from revising to writing and back again. After attending a weekend retreat called “In the Company of Writers,” I’ve come back to my original goal of revising the current WIP (work-in-progress): the first draft of a fantasy novel focused on the sea. Since I’m back in revisions I’m going to drop the daily wordcount, and instead give myself a target of doing some revising everyday. I may make that more specific as I get further along – or not.
Learning: I didn’t even look at the Artist’s Way last week and skipped the artist’s date as well. Will jump back in at Lesson/Week Four in the upcoming week. Since I’m not creating but revising, my coursework will shift from Holly’s How to Think Sideways course to How to Revise Your Novel. But the goal to do some revising via Holly’s method everyday.
Check out all the other wonderful writers taking the 80-day challenge here.
And you?
How are your writing, revising, blogging or other goals coming along? How does your garden grow? I’m always looking for new resources and new online friends, so stop by and say hi below!
Welcome to Wonderful Waterful Thursday! WWT as I like to call it is the extra special blog post that follows what would otherwise have been Wonderful Waterful Wednesday, if I hadn’t spent an extra five hours waiting in Baltimore-Washington Airport for a flight to California…
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
What is a “Sometimes Ocean”?
If you’ve ever visited the shore and poked among the rocks, you’ve seen them: shallow puddles on the edge of the sea, cut off from the great Mother Ocean for hours, even days at a time. They’re tidepools of course, and a whole host of organisms have become adapted to living in them.
Some of the marine creatures common to tidepools in North America are sea stars and urchins, snails, barnacles, and crabs. And of course various kinds of seaweed or algae thrive in tidepools, providing all important cover and shade for the creatures who live there.
Living on the Edge
Life in a tidepool is a study in extremes. Temperatures rise and fall over the course of the day. Salinity too. A water evaporates the pool itself can shrink and at times disappear. Considering that conditions are relatively constant in the open ocean, these kinds of conditions are pretty unusual for marine creatures.
And while they may seem idyllic, dangers lurk in those placid little ponds. In the sea, there’s lots of space to flee and find food. Not so in a tidepool, where you’re trapped until the next high tide, which can be hours or days away. Some parts of the intertidal zone (the area between the high and low tide levels) are only submerged at the highest of high tides, while other areas are only uncovered during the lowest of the low.
The Whys of Tides
The rise and fall of the tides is caused by the gravitational pull of the sun and the moon on the oceans. When all three celestial bodies are arranged in a line (called syzygy), we get spring tides, which are higher and lower than usual. Quadrature is when the sun, Earth and moon form a right angle. This occurs during the quarter phases/half moons. The tidal range is smallest at this time – the highs are lower than
Every shoreline has its typical tidal range determined by the shape of the basin and where on Earth it’s located. In some areas the range can be as little as a few inches a day; in others many feet. The Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia holds the record for the largest range: more than 53 feet during a spring tide!
Most coasts have semi-diurnal (twice daily) tides, but a few shores experience only a single cycle.
Tidepooling at its Best
Rocky shores like those found in New England and the Pacific Northwest are my favorite places to explore. I have a very clear memory of holding a sea cucumber given to me by a park ranger in Acadia National Park in Maine. My dream of becoming a marine biologist was cemented that day.
I also saved a couple of sea urchins from a grim fate as souvenirs, but that’s another story.
Marine Mammals Poster Giveaway
This month’s giveaway is an out-of-print NOAA poster of Marine Mammals of the Western Hemisphere. Every comment left in the month of May equals one entry. Every link or reference to this blog on your site equals two entries. The drawing will be held on the 1st of May, so start your entries now!
Have you ever held a prickly sea star, caught sight of a crab scuttling through a tidepool forest, discovered a sea star clinging to the underside of a wet rock? Share your tidepool discoveries – and any other fond seaside memories – in the comments section below!
Happy Wednesday! For this week’s wonderful, waterful post, we’ll dive to the deepest realms of the ocean to check out the amazing, bizarre, and sometimes downright creepy-looking creatures that live there. In water 3000+ feet deep, where no sunlight penetrates, fish, squid, shrimp and jellyfish make their own light to help them seek out prey, avoid predators, and find mates.
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
How do they do it? These denizens of the dark create light, called bioluminescence or “living light”, through a chemical reaction. It’s similar to what happens when you break the inner tube of a glowstick: luciferin, a pigment, reacts with oxygen to produce light. The same process used by fireflies.
Most deep-sea creatures give off – and can only see – blue-green light, which travels through water better than other wavelengths (colors) of light. However, there is one family of fish, the Malacoseids or Loosejaws, that produces red light. These fish can use their light to hunt, without being seen by predators or prey!
The Better to Eat You With…
And what’s with those crazy jaws?!? While they may seemed designed to give nightmares, there is an ecological reason for those toothsome grins. Food is scarce down there. With so few prey, it takes a lot of time and energy to find a meal – once they get their jaws around something, they’re not letting go.
For more on the deep sea, check out some earlier posts, here and here, and one on climate change and the deep sea here.
These photos come from a 2002 NOAA* expedition: “Islands in the Stream 2002: Exploring Underwater Oases,” available on the NOAA Ocean Explorer website. “Ocean Explorer is an educational Internet offering for all who wish to learn about, discover, and virtually explore the ocean realm.” Check it out!
This week’s waterful post goes out by request to Lisa E. Arlt, a lovely person and talented writer whom I had the pleasure of chatting with this past weekend. As Lisa reminded me, once a writer, always a writer, no matter what life throws your way. Check out her writing and travels (she’s a former foreign service officer) here.
Have an idea for a Wonderful Waterful post? Let me know in the comments section below!
One of these can be yours. Just comment or link to Brave Blue Words!
Science Swag Giveaway – last chance to enter!
For the rest of the week (through April 1st), leave a comment and get entered into a drawing for one of the fab science calendars that I picked up at the AAAS conference last month. (You can check out my posts on the conference here and here). Each comment = an entry, so feel free to check out some older posts and comment on those too. Following this blog via Facebook will also get you an entry. Linking to this site from yours will get you TWO entires per link. Act now – the giveaway ends April 1st!
Subarctic sunflower stars, Prince William Sound in Alaska.Photo: NaGISA - Casey Debenham, University of Alaska, Fairbanks
Welcome to the inaugural post of a new feature here at Brave Blue Words: Wonderful Waterful Wednesday. Each Wednesday, I will feature one of the more than 1,200 beautiful and bizarrre creatures cataloged during the recently-completed Census of Marine Life. I’ve written about some of the amazing accomplishments and discoveries of the census here and here.
This week’s star (pun intended), is Pycnopodia helianthoides, the sunflower sea star. This trio was photographed in the frigid shallow waters of Alaska’s Prince Williams Sound, although they are found all along the West Coast. It’s one of the largest sea stars, and all those arms make it one of the fastest, too. Sunflower sea stars feed on their bottom-dwelling cousins (other echinoderms or “prickly-skins”), such as sand dollars, sea urchins and sea cucumbers. Their mere presence is enough to make those critters scramble for cover.
Some of my best memories of the sea come from the tidepools I’ve explored and the critters I’ve found there, including sea stars, urchins and the like. How about you? Ever hold a squishy sea cucumber? poked a seastar or scratched up your knees with barnacle kisses (ouch!)? Share your seaside experiences in the comments section below.
** LIVE WEBCAST – Clearing the Air: Managing Air Quality to Benefit Heath and Climate in India.
Dr. Sarath Guttikinda, an air quality expert from Delhi, India; Dr. William Lau, a climate scientist from NASA; and yours truly will discuss the links between air quality and climate in India, and what can be done to improve both. The event is free, open to the public, and will be webcast by Johns Hopkins University.
For the rest of March, anyone who leaves a comment will be entered into a random drawing for one of the fab calendars that I got at the AAAS conference last month, shown in the photo below. Each comment = an entry, so feel free to check out some older posts and comment on those too. Forwarding a post from the blog, RTing it on Twitter, or following this blog via Facebook will also get you an entry. One weeks to go – start your entries now!
Yes - one of these can be yours - just comment, forward or RT Danielle Meitiv's Brave Blue Words!
After covering a AAAS session on science and the media in my blog post last week, I’d planned to focus on another titled “Adapting to a Clear and Present Danger: Climate Change and Ocean Ecosystems.” Two of the talks stood out for me: one on the potential impacts of ocean warming and acidification, and the other on coral reefs, and all the threats they face. I had all my notes, including quotes from the speakers and abstracts of their talks. I’d even hunted down some of their earlier talks, and found cool graphics to accompany the post. Then, I sat down to write. But I couldn’t.
Why? Work’s been busy lately, especially since we’re trying to raise money for my primary project. I’ve been neglecting my WIP (work in progress: a first person sci-fi novel), and wanted to work on that. And on top of all that was simple procrastination – or so I thought. I should have suspected that something was up. I like writing this blog, and don’t usually look for excuses not to. So why was I having so much trouble?
Some people would turn to soul-searching at this point. I turned to the web. And what do you know? It turns out that I’m not the only one who gets tired of reading (and writing) about bad news.
Wait, Don’t Tell Me
Climate change is real. So is ocean acidification, the demise of coral reefs and the destruction of rainforests. Not to mention (but I will anyway), the loss of dozens endangered species, overfishing, air pollution, ocean dumping and oil spills…
Have your eyes glazed over yet? Were you tempted to stop reading, to find something positive to check out for a change? Me too. It’s natural. No one can take a steady diet of misery – it just wears us down. Some psychologists believe that we have a finite capacity for worry and just can’t take it all in at once.* The kids are sick, I’m being downsized, the mortgage is due, there’s a tragedy in Japan – oh, and the climate is changing? Take a number. Sometime we go numb, tuning out what our brains just can’t handle.
That’s not a cop-out. Humans evolved to handle immediate threats like hungry predators, and modern-day stresses trigger same basic fight or flight response. But our bodies can’t stay on high alert all the time. After a while, the alarms stop ringing, and we go back to business as usual. Without doing anything.
If You Can’t Say Anything Nice…
That’s another problem – what can we do? The problems I’ve mentioned are so huge, is it even possible for one individual to make a difference? Too often we scientists, reporters, bloggers and the like give folks the bad news without any ideas of what to do. Any reason for hope. Is it any wonder people stop listening?
Some studies** suggest that people resist doing anything about climate change – and even deny that it is happening – because it contradicts their views of a “just world.” Surely, if God (or the Universe or humanity, etc) is good, things can’t be that bad. Or it will all work out in the end. I have to admit that I fall into this camp sometimes. I have to or else I could never keep working and writing about the issue of climate change.
So now what?
What does that mean for someone like me, who lives and breathes this stuff all the time, and tries to educate others about it, too? Some take-home lessons:
Stay away from the apocalyptic messages – they cause people to tune out.
Give people reason for hope, including things they can do and info about efforts underway to make a difference.
Share as much good news as possible.
Enjoy all the wonderful things about people, the environment, life – celebrate! Those are the REAL reasons we work so hard to save it all, right?
As I said, I do believe in a just world. I know we humans have the capacity to address the challenges of climate change in ways that will make the world a better place for having done so. And we can even have a good time while doing so. To quote the incomparable Emma Goldman: “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution.” Keep fighting the good fight – and dancing all the while.
—————————-
What do you think? Does bad news about the environment cause you to tune out? Are there strategies that can help people see the threats – and the solutions? What things do you celebrate and work to save? Please share in the comments below.
BONUS: Cool Science Swag Giveaway
For the rest of March, anyone who leaves a comment will be entered into a random drawing for one of the fab calendars that I got at the AAAS conference last month, shown in the photo below. Each comment = an entry, so feel free to check out some older posts and comment on those too. Forwarding a post from the blog, RTing it on Twitter, or following this blog via Facebook will also get you an entry. Two weeks to go – start your entries now!
Yes - one of these can be yours - just comment, forward or RT Brave Blue Words!
References
* The Psychology of Climate Change Communication, published by the Center for Research on Environmental Decisions at Columbia University
** Feinberg, M., and R. Willer, 2011. Apocalypse Soon? : Dire Messages Reduce Belief in Global Warming by Contradicting Just-World
Beliefs Psychological Science 2011 22:34 Originally published online 9 December 2010 DOI: 10.1177/0956797610391911
Most science conferences are like little in-group parties, where people who know each other’s work intimately get together to discuss their latest results, and query each other about what to do next. Don’t get me wrong – I love them. You meet interesting people, learn A LOT, and come home with new ideas, and great T-shirts or shoulder bags. Since I am a generalist by nature, I’ve attending lots of different kinds of conferences: the Geological Society of America, the American Physics Society, the European Geophysical Union, the Estuarine Research Federation, and the Coastal Society, to name a few.
The AAAS Annual Meeting, which I attended for the first time this year, was completely different. The raison d’etre of “triple-A-S” is right there in its name: the American Association for the Advancement of Science. I didn’t really get what that meant until now. Instead of technical talks, where experts talk to their peers about the incremental advances in their area of science, this meeting was all about the big picture. Panels of speakers addressed different aspects of a single topic, speaking broadly about what was known, where the gaps and questions were, and what they’d like to see happen next. Scientists from different fields sat in on each others’ sessions, offering all sorts of interesting and cross-disciplinary questions and comments. The meeting wasn’t only for and about scientists, either. A number of panels focused on the communication of science, and the relevant of science to society. It was amazing. There was also a two-day Family Science Fair, which my son and nephews loved. I picked up all sorts of great science swag, including posters, bumper stickers, calendars and buttons, which I will start giving away next week.
Over the next few weeks I will report on some of these great sessions in depth, including:
Science Without Borders and Media Unbounded: What Comes Next
Adapting to a Clear and Present Danger: Climate Change and Ocean Ecosystems (I may have to dedicate two blog posts to this session, which included fabulous talks on coral reefs and ocean acidification by James Brady of MBARI, and Nancy Knowlton of the Smithsonian).
2050: Will There Be Fish in the Ocean?
Comparing National Responses to Climate Change: Networks of Debate and Contention (focusing on the differences between how climate change is viewed in the US and India – the two countries where I do my climate change work).
First up: science and the media.
Media Unbounded
“Science Without Borders and Media Unbounded: What Comes Next,” focused on the impact of the Internet on media, and featured a panel of journalists who focus on science and environmental reporting: Tom Rosenstiel, Director of the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, Elizabeth Shogren, reporter for National Public Radio (NPR), and Seth Borenstein, reporter for the Associated Press (AP). Kerry Emanuel, a researcher in the Program of Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) responded to their presentations.
Tom Rosenstiel gave a fascinating overview. The world of media is both shrinking and expanding. The editorial aspects are expanding: there is more commentary and discussion than ever. The reportorial component – where people actually go out to discover and confirm things – is shrinking. As more people get their news online, the print newspaper is fading, but publishers are not: most people still get their news from a handful of trusted sources like the New York Times, Washington Post, and others. However, since they’re not paying for it, newspaper budgets and pressrooms are shrinking. There are more readers, but fewer reporters. This has led to the loss of specialized beats, like the environment, particularly in local papers. This also means that reporters don’t get into stories in-depth, instead sticking to breaking the news. There are fewer interviews, less follow-up. What has this done to our public square? Perhaps the world we’re exposed to is smaller, our common knowledge pool is shrinking. As readers (and listeners) we’re spending less time learning about the larger world and more time on our particular interests.
Elizabeth Shogren spoke about how the Internet has made her job easier and more interesting. She can spend more time getting the interesting stories (because that is still a priority at NPR), and can do more with them. In addition to a radio report, she can – and is expected – to present a whole multi-media story, complete with online images, and videos. She can include information that didn’t make it into the recording, and give listeners resources for more information. She noted that the Internet makes information more accessible, and has the potential to make governing more transparent. Now, even if she can’t be on Capitol Hill at 1:00 AM to follow the debate on an important bill, she can get all the information – videos and transcripts – online. In theory, this takes away one of the tactics that lawmakers have used to ‘hide’ debates they didn’t want the public to pay attention to – but only if people take advantage of the information that is out there.
The Differences Between Researchers and Reporters
Seth Borenstein spoke about the incredible access that the Internet gives him to scientific data, allowing him to dig through the databases and reports about climate change that researchers routinely put up on their websites or on government and other shared sites. (I took note of these, and you can expect to here more about specific findings and studies in future posts). He used this access to disprove a recent claim of climate change deniers: that January’s temperature were colder than usual and therefore ‘proved’ that global warming wasn’t happening. Instead, he discovered that for the past 311 months – every month since February 1985 – temperatures have been warmer than the long-term average for that month. He followed with a statement that had all the scientists in the room groaning in disbelief. He said that IF January 2011 had been warmer, THAT would have been a story that his editor would have wanted to hear, but the fact that every month for nearly 26 YEARS had been warmer was not a story! The facts weren’t interesting – only the controversy. And this from a reporter who truly gets, and likes reporting on science and climate change. Is it any wonder that so many scientists are reluctant to speak to the media?
Kerry Emanuel took up this issue in his comments. He opened with a quote from Oscar Wilde to express how many scientists see the media: “In old days men had the rack. Now they have the press.” He noted the dichotomy in the modern media (and one that journalists rarely acknowledge): the media as the fourth estate, with high ideals vs. media as a business. Scientists sometimes get tripped up by this tension. They often assume (perhaps naively) that they and the reporter have the same objective: to get to the truth. Even if languages are different, the end result is usually good. However, that is not always the case – sometimes the journalist just wants to sell the story. Sometimes journalists bend the story into something they think will sell. This makes scientists wary – they have to determine where the journalist coming from. (Shogren’s response was that scientists need to do their homework, and learn more about the journalist who is approaching them. If they don’t like the kind of things he or she writes, the researcher doesn’t have to talk).
Global Warming Deniers: Who’s To Blame?
Shogren complained that she though the global warming debate was settled, but was frustrated to hear it coming up again. Disturbingly, she blamed it on the scientists, saying that they (we) hadn’t done a good enough job explaining it to the public! There was an immediate outcry: the science has gotten stronger, but the media keeps allowing the debate to be re-opened. She said that if there was controversy, they had to report it. Researchers said: there’s no controversy in the facts, but the media keeps giving the stage to fringe groups with vested interests in undermining the facts. Very interesting.
During the Q & A, I asked all the members of the panel how Twitter and blogs had changed the way they do their reporting, if at all. Surprisingly, there were few comments. (Perhaps they thought those venues were about information, not ‘news’). Rosenstiel said that the Internet gave any expert access to an audience (unspoken, but implied was the critique that it also gives access to the clueless, as well).
Coming up next: Climate change and Ocean Ecosystems.
Think that I have a clue about oceans and climate? Want more Brave Blue Words? Tune in next week for more on the latest from AAAS. And stay tuned for information about how you can win some of the great science stuff from AAAS!
Coral reefs are vulnerable to ocean warming and acidification. Researcher Nancy Knowlton says that there's still time left to save them - but not much.
The Census of Marine Life brought together thousands of researchers to “Make Ocean Life Count.” (I’ve written about it here and here.) But this amazing effort was more than just an enumeration of what lives where. The goal was much greater: to draw detailed seascapes of the many diverse ecosystems that make up the world ocean. And no ecosystem yielded more surprises, raised more questions, or led to more “ah ha!” and “no way!” moments that that of the deep sea.
The largest and most mystery ecosystem on Earth
The deep sea is defined as those waters too deep for sufficient sunlight to penetrate to support photosynthesis. This means that most of the organisms in the deep rely upon the sparse rain of organic matter from surface waters (where phytoplankton can capture energy from the sun. The exceptions are hydrothermal vents and cold seeps, where chemical energy is converted to food by bacteria. (I’ve written about some of those here).
The deep-sea includes the seafloor, and the pelagic zone. The seafloor is made of up continental slopes, abyssal plains, mid-ocean ridges, canyons, and seamounts, all of which support different types of life. The open water, below 200 m but above the seafloor is called the deep-sea pelagic zone. In this zone a third dimension is added: depth. The nature of water allows creatures to attain neutral buoyancy; living, feeding, and breeding with little interaction with either the surface or bottom.
From 200m – 1000m light penetrates but does not support photosynthesis. This is the mesopelagic zone, where creatures here live in perpetual twilight. Below that, in the bathypelagic zone, no light penetrates even through clear water on the sunniest days. Forever dark, it makes up almost 75% of the total volume of the ocean.
A food-poor environment with scattered oases of life.
The biodiversity of the deep sea is the highest on Earth. Embedded within the largely nutrient-poor deep seascape are oases of incredible richness. Small, short-lived, food-rich zones such as hydrothermal vents and whale falls (whale carcasses that have fallen to the seafloor) encourage rapid diversification into an amazing range of novel shapes, sizes and survival strategies. But these oases are rare. Only 0.5- 2% of the primary productivity from the surface ever reaches the deep-sea, making it the most food-limited ecosystem on Earth.
This limitation has placed enormous selective pressures on the organisms here, favoring both gigantism and dwarfism as strategies to survive. The energy needed to live is lower for large invertebrates than for small ones, favoring gigantism. Here’s one of my favorite examples: Bathynomus giganteus (the name says it all), an isopod found at 310-2140m. Most isopods are tiny, a few centimeters at most. This monster reaches 50cm – the size of a housecat! (For more about this crazy creature, check out this post by fellow marine blogger Kevin Zelnio).
Bathynomus giganteus - the giant isopod. I found one of these creatures (a dead one) on a beach in Rhode Island when I was in grad school. I left my prize out to dry and it was ripped to pieces by a raccoon! )
However with so little food available, big critters can’t congregate in large numbers, making finding a mate can be hard. Instead, some creatures have shrunk to to survive. While dwarfism is less efficient in terms of the energy needed to live, it allows a larger number of individuals to congregate and share resources. This increases the ability to find mates. On both ends of the spectrum, the need for both food and mates have forced deep-sea creatures to strike a balance between sex and size.
Although it is far removed from the surface, the deep sea is not immune to insults from above. Research from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) suggests that changes in the Earth’s climate can cause unexpectedly large changes in the deep-sea. I’ve written about that here. By far, the largest human impact on the deep sea is through fishing. Because food is so limited in the deep-sea, fish grow very slowly and are very easy to overfish. (This is why I NEVER eat orange roughy, also known as deep-sea perch, which is found at 180 to 1800 m). Management of this region is complicated by the fact that most of the deepest regions occur in international waters, and far from sight.
Seventy-one percent of the Earth is covered by oceans, and more than half of that is below 3000m. Yet, we have explored less than 5% of that area, and sampled only a few football-fields worth in any detail. The Census of Marine Life shed some light on this dark mysterious zone. I’ll highlight more of their findings in future posts.
Like what you see? Come on back – there will be lots more where that came from in 2011. Have a suggestion for a blog post? Leave it in the comments below! Want more Brave Blue Words? You can connect to me and this blog on Facebook and Twitter.
References:
Ramirez-Llodra, E., Brandt, A., Danovaro, R., Escobar, E., German, C. R., Levin, L. A., Martinez Arbizu, P., Menot, L., Buhl-Mortensen, P., Narayanaswamy, B. E., Smith, C. R., Tittensor, D. P., Tyler, P. A., Vanreusel, A., and Vecchione, M.: Deep, diverse and definitely different: unique attributes of the world’s largest ecosystem, Biogeosciences Discuss., 7, 2361-2485, doi:10.5194/bgd-7-2361-2010, 2010.
The planet is warming. The release of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, from the burning of fossil fuels and other human activities, is causing global temperatures and sea levels to rise, glaciers to melt, and climate patterns to change all over the world. It’s also affecting the oceans.
Since the Industrial Revolution, 30% of the CO2 that has been emitted through the combustion of fossil fuels has been taken up by the oceans. But it comes with a cost: ocean acidification, the “other” carbon problem. I’ve written about this before here. But now there may be some good news, a new way to reduce CO2 in the atmosphere AND acid in the oceans. Read on!
The chemistry of seawater is what allows the oceans to take up so much CO2. For you chemistry buffs, here’s how it works:
The more CO2 we introduce on the left, the more the equations are driven to the right: the more acidic (H+) the oceans get. Over long time scales – and I mean really long, like millions of years – the problem is solved through carbonate weathering of rocks. Instead of the above, where H2CO3 ends up creating more acid (H+), you get this:
* CO2 (from the atmosphere) + H2O (rainwater) ⇌ H2CO3 (carbonic acid)
* H2CO3 + H2O + silicate minerals -> HCO3− (bicarbonate ion) + cations (Ca++, Fe++, Na+, etc.) + clays (which ultimately end up in the sea).
Notice that while you still have HCO3−, there’s no free H+ running around to make the water acid. Instead that HCO3− is used by creatures like corals and foraminifera to make calcium carbonate (CaCO3) shells, and ultimately buried deep beneath the seafloor when those critters die.
Voila! Less CO2 in the air AND less acid in the oceans! Too bad it takes millions of years…
Or does it? Greg Rau of the University of California Santa Cruz conducted a series of experiments in his lab to see if he could make this process happen faster. He made a scrubber that mimicked the natural weathering process, using limestone and seawater. His process removed up to 97% of the CO2 from a simulated exhaust stream (the kind released from power plants). He had the gas flow over crushed limestone (weathering), then dissolved the resulting ions in seawater to make it more alkaline (less acidic).
When it’s scaled up, this process could be used to keep carbon dioxide from power plants out of the atmosphere by putting it into the sea as bicarbonate (HCO3−). Since many of these plants are located on coasts, and use massive amounts of seawater for cooling anyway, the scrubbers could be installed at existing facilities. A win for the atmosphere a win for the oceans – some good news for a change!
References:
Rau, G. (2010). CO2 Mitigation via Capture and Chemical Conversion in Seawater, Environ. Sci. Technol., Article ASAP. DOI: 10.1021/es102671x. Publication Date (Web): December 28, 2010
) 
