I am willing to bet most people have never heard of paleotempestology before. I hadn’t heard of it before I took a marine geology course. In a course I am taking this semester, we decided to reexamine the topic because a lot of individual studies are debatable. So, if the title of this post didn’t already give it …
Have you ever noticed a rip current at the beach? If you or someone you know was caught in a rip current, would you know what to do? If you’ve been paying attention to the coastal news along North Carolina recently, you may have noticed recent stories about rip currents and rip current safety. Dr. …
Having no publications to my name and only nebulous drafts of several (hopefully) publishable papers, I am not an expert on how to get published. This is why I attended a student workshop on this very topic at the 2018 ASLO summer meeting in Victoria, BC. In this workshop a panel of editors in chief …
Martín Benavides is a PhD student in Marine Sciences at UNC Chapel Hill. His research focuses on the variability of coastal shark communities in both time and space. He is also interested in the movement ecology of sharks in estuarine systems. Martín is a proud father of two boys and provides a unique prospective to …
Applications have been submitted. Recruitment weekends are near (or have already come and gone). Funding source notification dates are coming up. And most exciting of all–graduate school acceptances are around the corner. It is an exciting time to see your hard work pay off. But wait. Hold your horses. Here are some things you should …
The ocean is home to some strange and mysterious critters – including some that could give the Justice League a run for their money. From immortal invertebrates to flying fish, here are four super powered ocean animals. The one that can walk on land While there are a number of amphibious fish out there, …
The National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (NSF GRFP) application season is here. I was fortunate enough to receive a fellowship for my application is 2017 after an unsuccessful one in 2016. From one rejected and one accepted, here is a list of resources that helped get me through it, a bit of my personal …
Most productivity gurus say that when you hit a wall, you should switch tasks. This is how I ended up reading a paper about beavers who managed to hijack a wetland restoration for their benefit. So congratulations! You’re in the right place to learn some fancy philosophy terms and think about wetlands from a whooole …
As modern marine scientists, we spend a lot of time learning to effectively communicate science to various audiences. That’s mostly so we can make friends at parties, but has some nice side benefits like educating the general public, whatever. Sometimes though, and I’m probably admitting to a cardinal sin of outreach here, there’s a certain …
This post is part one of a series of guest post by Kevin Wolfe, a 2nd year PhD student at Texas A&M University- Corpus Christi, writer for Charged Magazine, co-founder of ScienceisFunnyFilms, and writer of funny Princess Bride related titles. I make my living torturing snails and playing with their brains. It must seem … Continue reading
Happy Film Friday! Some of the other UNdertheC bloggers and I have been taking a science communication class at UNC this semester. For our final project, we had to explain our research topics using a form of communication that was new to us. For my project, I chose to make a YouTube video explaining the … Continue reading
Written by UNC Undergraduate Katie Overbey What do you think of when I say the Galápagos Islands? Maybe you think of a pristine, uninhabited, untouched natural habitat, populated with animals like the blue footed boobie and the Galápagos sea lion. Or you think of a tropical paradise with gorgeous beaches. Maybe it conjures up images … Continue reading
With the release of the most recent IPCC report, comes science-backed news that we have all been expecting. Climate change is occurring at an alarming rate and lifestyle changes must be made to avoid catastrophe. If you need confirmation of this, read the report, or this great story from the New York Times instead. The … Continue reading
Scientists at The UNC Institute of Marine Sciences, the UNCW Center for Marine Science, the North Carolina Wildlife Commission, NC State CMAST, the National Parks Service, and the North Carolina Aquariums have been collaborating for quite a while to coordinate a sea turtle release. The day finally came last week, as members of the Peterson lab … Continue reading
Despite the human race perceiving the seas as the ‘first frontier’ since the establishment of our species, NOAA estimates that 95% of the world’s oceans remain unexplored. From what you know of satellite capabilities and many of the resources you’ve seen on this very blog, this statement might be confusing and even unbelievable. But I … Continue reading
Dinoflagellate; the combination of the Greek δῖνος/dinos, “whirling” and Latin flagellum, “whip, scourge.” I recently ran across a poem, written back in 2001 by a scientist named Mary Harrington who was in the midst of some phytoplankton research. She published her poem, transcribed below, in the Journal of Biological Rhythms. Science to follow! — FEEDBACK If the lazy dinoflagellate … Continue reading
Or in other words, do lionfish have ninja skills? Lionfish have been called the “Pirates of the Caribbean,” but “Ninjas of the Caribbean” might be a better nickname. Lionfish are predatory fish, native to the Indian and Pacific regions, that have invaded the Atlantic and Caribbean. See our previous posts about lionfish (Photo Friday, Marine … Continue reading
As we fish down the food chain, some of our traditional fisheries become less sustainable, while others (particularly the prey of species that we have overfished) seem to overrun certain parts of the ocean. Some fishermen turn to unconventional marine species as sources of sustenance for ever more demanding – and hungry – human populations. … Continue reading
Are the oceans a limitless resource? No. Clearly not, but we still have policies intact that treat them as such. We are overfishing down the food chain. Blue fin tuna is worth a small fortune and we dredge the deep sea to catch a fish called the Patagonian Toothfish to sell at market. Perhaps you … Continue reading
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