cmcclain
Posts by this author
In 1964 S.B. Mirsa, a graduate student at Memorial University in Newfoundland, discovered a group of well-preserved fossilized soft-body animals. Subsequent research revealed the fauna were from the Ediacaran Period 635-542 million years ago.
Ediacaran was not officially recognized as a…
People are freaking out about the recent outbreak of shark attacks. This recent massive increase in shark attacks has media outlets claiming that a shark is "seeking human targets", "sharks are hunting humans", and maybe even developing a taste for human fish. O' my god grab the children and run…
I believe the mighty Mark Powell is to blame for this. But what can you do but join them?
All the writing about the Big 3, fueled an appetite for salmon. I thought what better way to start off every day this week with a little smoked salmon on bagel. Not two hours after I wrote the Big 3 post, I was purchasing smoke salmon from a grocer in my area who promotes their green image.
O'…
Beware when you go on tropical holiday. Species richness of bacteria is higher in those waters. For many organisms on land (birds, mammals, snails, plants, insects, and more) diversity increases as one progresses toward the equator. For many marine groups, snails for example, the same patterns…
If you read Blogfish, MBSL&S, and DSN, I think you see that Rick, Mark, and I are not advocating a complete ban on eating seafood. To the contrary seafood tastes good, especially with lemon and butter, and tastes even better if harvested sustainably.
It is no surprise that the recent Cooking…
I am a big fan of Slinkachu out of London. The art is best described by the subtitle of the project itself "A Tiny Street Art Project...little hand painted people left in London to fend for themselves." Visit the blog to see more.
8ft and 1 inch is the length of what is thought to be the largest fish ever line-caught fish. The massive halibut was caught by an angler in Norway. To bad Atlantic Halibut is on the Seafood Watch avoid list. Along with other Atlantic flatfish, halibut are still in decline. Moreover, the…
Here's a quiz for you kids. Which of the habitats above possesses the most microbes? A. Fresh Volcanic Basalt on the seafloor, B. Sargasso Sea Water, or C. Farm Soil
A recent study by led by Santelli in Nature provides an answer that may surprise you. It turns out at A and C are the right…
Via Kevin's Other Blog, which I thought we had assimilated, I see that Te Papa has made the lectures from the Colossal Squid event earlier this month available.
Dr. Steve O'Shea (asx)
Dr. Eric Warrant and Dr. Dan-Eric Nilsson (asx)
Dr. O'Shea on Science Express (mp3)
The last hours of the webcast…
Because of my previous trumpeting many of you may believe I scoff at anything non-mollusca. Untrue! I say! Indeed, I am friend of all invertebrate. My favorite books on my shelf is Barnes and Brusca & Brusca.
Just to prove I love all those squishy, squiggly, and slimey, I provide a link…
...just kidding. The latest Giant Squid catch measures in at 6m and 230kg. Bert Tober's trawler, Zeehan, was approximately 40km off the coast of Portland, Australia when it netted the monster on Sunday at a depth of 500m. Apparently, it took ten men to put the squid in the freezer.
One of most dynamic people I met at Cooking For Solutions was Paul Johnson who is the founder and president of the Monterey Fish Market. He is former chef, author of two books, and sets on the advisory board for the Seafood Watch Program. I like Paul most for his passion and no nonsense way of…
A week ago I had the oppurtunity to attend the Cooking For Solutions Event held at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. The discussions Thursday were insightful and provided much to contemplate. Over the next few weeks, as I find time, I will post on numerous topics that arose at the event.
One of the…
I see that some are still trying to claim echinoderms are cooler. I see the evil order now even has their own blog. Thankfully we still have a tiny little magazine you might have heard of-National Geographic. Photographer David Doubilet has a series on nudibranchs with some of the best…
By now you probably realize that Peter, Kevin, and I are more than ready to burn our terrestrial dwellings down in favor of living among sea creatures in some oceanic utopia. Peter and I have discussed several options for this.
To our list of potential inhabitable salty structures comes a new…
On a seamount near Macquarie Ridge lies a city several kilometers down. No mermaids, merman, or Snorkels reside here. Rather millions of brittlestars, living arm tip to arm tip, extend there tiny arms toward the surface to capture food. Much like a large city arises near a river, sheltered…
Hugh Bradner died this week at the age of 92. Bradner was a prominent physicist and professor emeritus at the Scripps. He worked on the Manhattan Project and later designed instrumentation for the fusion bomb. He was one of the first Americans to make a deep dive using SCUBA.
Interestingly,…
NR-1 is the navy's smallest nuclear-powered and only nuclear-powered research submarine. Launched in 1969, th 145' NR-1 (known affectionately as Nerwin) was designed for deep submergence work on the seabed ranging from recovery, repair, implantation, and observation. Given its nuclear reactor…
One of the best versions I have heard. Perhaps a funnier version below the fold.
This week I have found that my cup runneth over with work. Several things around the web have caught my eye which deserve substantial commentary. That's what you pay for, right? Unfortunately, today they get a link.
First, here is a specific example of push into the deep as shallow fisheries…
A new study lead by Chao in Science estimates that nearly 10,800 cubic kilometers of water are stored in artificial reservoirs. That is little over twice the volume of Lake Michigan. The authors estimate this quantity of water reduces global sea levels by -30mm, with an average rate of -0.55mm…
Findings by Daniel Odess, curator of archaeology at the University of Alaska Museum in Fairbanks, suggest that whale hunting dates back at least 3,000 years. Odess's team found a piece of walrus ivory inscribed with scenes of hunters in boats pursuing whales. Wood directly adjacent to the ivory…
Finally, I have a back up plan if this whole marine biologist thing doesn't work out.
And to continue with the theme of PowerPoint...
As I was catching up on all of my favorites blogs, I noticed that James Hrynyshyn at The Island of Doubt posted about the recent oddness at the Heartland Institute. To catch you up to speed the DeSmogBlog notes...
Dozens of scientists are demanding that their names be removed from a widely…