This is a guest post written by STEM education consultant Chris Anderson. Chris writes the science education blog Science Over Everything. 70% of the Earth’s surface is covered by ocean. The oceans contain 97% of the Earth’s water and are home to 50% of the Earth’s species. And while 40% of Americans live in … Continue reading
“It was as though a friend had suddenly turned into a homicidal maniac,” The Spectator of London reported in what has to be the most colorful description of storm surges published in the English language. That homicidal maniac was the Thames River, whose banks had overflowed on January 6, 1928, a week before the article … Continue reading
Every year scientists from around the world visit Antarctica to study a variety of aspects of the world’s southern sea. On President Obama’s inauguration day in 2009, scientists from the Palmer Long Term Ecological Research Station first visited their new sampling location on the West Antarctic Peninsula. In honor of the new president they named the station … Continue reading
This past weekend, Morehead City, home to UNC Institute of Marine Sciences, hosted the 30th Annual North Carolina Seafood Festival. It was an adventure in itself. There were rides, carnival games, locally-caught seafood, concerts and activities such as the ‘Flounder Fling.’ (Literally they toss giant flounder and not a stuffed replica of Flounder from The … Continue reading
John Muir once said, “nothing dollarable is safe”. He said this during the time that he voraciously debated with Gifford Pinchot on the how we as a society should view the natural world. While Pinchot focused on the sustainable use of natural resources for the next generation to use, Muir argued for a complete lack … Continue reading
Science grad students are asked terrifying questions on the regular, but the very worst one comes from our moms. It’s usually tacked onto an otherwise innocent conversation, when Mom will casually pause and say, “Honey, your latest oxygen flux data are truly fascinating! By the way, have you met anyone lately?” It’s enough to make … Continue reading
Warren County, North Carolina, doesn’t seem the most likely place for the environmental justice movement to have started. It’s a small, rural county northeast of Raleigh, and might have stayed just that if not for a decision to dump a toxic landfill in its midst in 1978. The response of Warren County’s primarily black residents … Continue reading
If you have been following this blog, you have become familiar with a myriad of issues facing our oceans today: acidification, global warming, over fishing, ect. Yet, what is actually being done about it? While most of the environmental headlines have focused on the Paris talks, only recently has news coverage begun to highlight the … Continue reading
Merry Christmas from UNdertheC! In blog tradition, we’re kicking off our holiday hiatus with a poem. (For more, check out Kelsey Ellis’ versions of Christmas classics, updated for grad students: The Twelve Days of Christmas and ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas.) See you in 2016! A Bioluminescent Christmas Below the grey Atlantic waves, a starfish … Continue reading
If you’re reading this blog, you have probably heard of the issue of overfishing. In sum, our appetite for seafood has grown larger than what the ocean can supply, and this ravenous demand has resulted in plummeting fish stocks. In fact, it has been estimated that we have reduced the populations of large ocean fish … Continue reading
