kevin z
Posts by this author
June 18, 2008
Th Right Blue, a diving and undersea photography blog, has a fantastic story about diving in Sipadan Cave off of Borneo. Jacques Costeau dove here in the 1980s and discovered an underwater cave filled with sea turtle bones. Much like the deep sea, underwater caves are dangerous, dark environments…
June 17, 2008
Since PZ Myers and Bug Girl are brought up this important issue, we at Deep Sea News would like our K-12 educational systems to teach what REALLY happened to the ancient lost city of Atlantis. Faithful Deep Sea News readers are advised to wear this T-shirt in support of teaching the controversy…
June 17, 2008
Spring is in the air! Its the time of year to release your gametes into the water and make baby barnacles. But wait a second, you are a permanent fixture on a rock. Can't move. What is a young, lovestruck sessile she-male to do? Well, if you are hung like a barnacle you don't really have to move…
June 14, 2008
From WearScience.com. Hat tip to Ed "rocket boy" Yong.
I am partial to the cowboy scientist riding the wild microbe, but I'll probably get the guitar playing robot.
June 13, 2008
I like Miriam, she is a lady that gets it. Go there now and read her excellent post on the story behind the 6:1 ratio of plastic to plankton that is often touted in the media and why it is flawed."Though I admire Algalita's work, the 6:1 plastic:plankton ratio is deeply flawed. Worse, it is flawed…
June 5, 2008
Being a marine biologist is a tough occupation. Long stretches out at sea, weeks at end, with nothing but memories to accompany you.
This song is about trying to forget what you left behind at the docks. Being hundreds of miles from land. Its a hard feeling to describe.
There are times when you…
June 2, 2008
Congratulations to I'm a Chordata, Urochordata man, Dr. Byrnes!! He just turned in his signed PhD dissertation. Thats really awesome and I can't wait for him to get a job and hire me! Oh wait, he already has a postdoc lined up in an awesome lab.
As an undergrad I academically "grew up" in the lab…
June 2, 2008
If you haven't read the FAIL Blog yet, you are missing out one of life's great pleasures: laughing at other's failures! It was imperative I share this video from the FAIL Blog with Deep Sea News readers, to serve as a warning if nothing else. You MUST get the FAIL Blog into your RSS feed, it fits…
June 2, 2008
The first Carnival of the Blue of its 2nd year. Carnie creator Mark Powell posts edition #13 and brings it all full circle with the most massive, packed ocean blogging. Its great to see so many diverse bloggers contributing to this carnival. Well, what are waiting for, go learn something!
Is that…
June 1, 2008
"Epsilonproteobacteria, it turns out, are one of the predominant groups of extremophiles in marine systems. In one environmental DNA sample taken from a hydrothermal vent, Epsilonproteobacteria represented nearly 50% of the inferred diversity (Sogin et al., 2006)."
Christopher Taylor, the curator…
May 29, 2008
I really love that quote from Alex Wild, by the way.
Brian Fisher (my former Evolution T.A. from ye ole UC-Davis days) and Alex Smith make open access history by publishing a taxonomic paper in PLoS ONE. It doesn't matter that this paper is about ants, not deep sea ants either like those…
May 28, 2008
Last night I had the good fortune to meet Dr. Chad Orzel, who just so happens to blog right here on SEED ScienceBlogs at Uncertain Principles. Chad is a physics professor at Union College and blogs on everything physics! He was in merry ole Penn State for a conference so RPM, who blogs at evolgen…
May 25, 2008
Congratulations to the Phoenix landing team for an absolutely best-scenario landing! I tuned in for the landing on NASA TV online. Seeing all the tension and excitement at Mission Control got me positively bouncing in my desk chair. I was just amazed that everything happened exactly how it should…
May 23, 2008
One of my favorite group of musicians, known as MMW, released their next big idea - Viva la Evolution. This is an innovative concert/record idea. First they will write the songs, then tour instead of making a CD. During their tour they will use that opportunity to fine tune their notes and…
May 23, 2008
Seriously, who wouldn't want to hug the wearer of this totally awesome sucker-free shirt?
Get yours at Snorg Tees today!
May 22, 2008
AP stock photo.
Rex Dalton reports in the latest issue of Nature:"Humpback whale numbers in the northern Pacific Ocean have ballooned to nearly 20,000, the largest population seen since the majestic mammals were hunted nearly to extinction half a century ago.
The number of humpbacks hit an all-time…
May 21, 2008
Nature News reports in the latest issue:The chief of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has called for the creation of a National Climate Service to manage and disseminate information about global warming.
Like the National Weather Service, the service would fall within…
May 20, 2008
National Geographic Explorer and oceanographer Robert Ballard makes a case for serious exploration and mapping. Video is 18 min. long and recorded in February 2008 in Monterey, California. Dr. Ballard has been criticized on a few points (like favoring archeology over biology, *sniff*), but overall…
May 20, 2008
On April 24, 1895, Nova Scotian Joshua Slocum set sail from Boston harbor on Spray, an 11 meter long sloop. He was the first to solo circumnavigate all 74,000 kilometers (46,000 miles) of the globe, accomplished without the use of stellar navigation by dead reckoning. Slocum's name continues to…
May 16, 2008
The Cotton Factory has a new T-Shirt design!
It's teh awesome! On sale now for a ten spot.
May 15, 2008
Do you support the proposal to create a Marine Monument in the northern islands? Do you enjoy the slogan "You'll love how deep we go" as much as us? Do you find it absolute and utter bull-honkey that the CNMI legislature resolved to oppose the formation of marine reserve on unfounded grounds? Then…
May 15, 2008
They're at it again. Conservation group Greenpeace is accusing the crew of japanese whaling ships of "embezzling" whale meat from the whale "research". CNN reports: The environmental group said "large-scale embezzlement" was allowed as an "open secret" by the Institute of Cetacean Research in Japan…
May 13, 2008
Imagine you can redesign Google's logo. What would it be? Perhaps the two o's can be portholes in a submarine that is exploring the 'l' hydrothermal vent? Google tasked K-12 students nationwide to come up with future Google logo's in the Doodle 4 Google.Doodle 4 Google is a competition where we…
May 6, 2008
This is the final installment of VBS.tv's TOXIC-Garbage Island series. Part 12 is more of an epilogue of sorts. The bonus interview with Frederick vom Saal is very informative!
I would like to thank the producers and hosts of the film series. Even though I ragged on them quite a bit, the issue is…
May 4, 2008
Continuing the series of VBS.tv's TOXIC-Garbage Island series. Contains some vulgar language. It finally gets good. In part 10, "Its totally not like the money shot, its totally worse". Says it all right there, totally. Watch the net closely in part 11, disgustingly amazing.
May 3, 2008
Welcome to the 32nd edition of the Circus of the Spineless. It our distinguished pleasure to be host here at Deep Sea News. To make it easier for you to navigate through 95%+ of the diversity of animal life, I've developed a dichotomous key to help you work through it. Naturalists will undoubtedly…
May 1, 2008
It has been one amazing coraliscious week! I'm learning a ton and have enjoyed the guest articles and all the blogger contributions. Maybe you just can't get enough coral, like me?? Well have I got the cure! As Bruce Dickinson might have said had known how fabulous deep sea coral is, "Guess what? I…
April 29, 2008
Just a friendly reminder that Deep Sea News will play host to the Circus of the Spineless this month. Due to the excitement here at Coral Week, I will be posting the Circus on Saturday. Please get your submissions to me by Friday evening! You can leave a link in the comments here or email them to…
April 29, 2008
Reef City is sung to Sin City by Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris, a favorite song (and artists) of mine. Deep and shallow reefs alike under a multifaceted threat, but we'll not let them go down without fists wailing!
Reef City
This old reef has seen some days
Many changes through the haze
And…