Have you ever seen a seahorse swim? Maybe you haven’t, because they are always doing this: Anyway, they are not very fast swimmers because they have tiny fins that they must rapidly flutter in order to move. As a result they often attach to a substrate or just float in the water column. These guys have … Continue reading
Tag Archives: Science
Science during wartime: The effects of atomic bomb tests on biology, ecology, geology, and geochemistry
This Youtube video, originally posted about 3 years ago, has been making the rounds in the blogosphere as of late. It is frightening and incredible all at once. It acts as a history lesson, showing us who the players were in the arms race and even mirroring the ramp up and end of the cold … Continue reading
The plight of the early career scientist (and grad student)
” How the world is failing at its climate goals” “Put the heat on subsidizing climate change” “Remember the government shutdown? It is still screwing over scientists in Antarctica” “Did climate change cause typhoon Haiyan?” These are just a few of the many headlines that have caught my eye over the past week. Everywhere I … Continue reading
Fixing a ‘Broken’ Ocean
“The ocean is broken.” So argues Ivan Macfadyen, an Australian yachtsman whose voyage across the Pacific Ocean is detailed in a recent and popular newspaper article from the Newcastle Herald. The article, a few bits of which I’ve excerpted below, presents a tragic portrait of our oceans—barren wastelands of trash and debris, with not a … Continue reading
Story telling in science? Is it valuable? The science says yes!
This recent article by Michael D. Jones discusses the merits of telling a good story. Right… So we know that already. What else do we already know? How about this: recent Gallup poll data reveal that only 57% of the American public believes that the main cause of global warming is human activity. Now, what if … Continue reading
Link Roundup: Week of October 21st
What role do Somali Pirates play in climate research: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/10/how-somali-pirates-almost-but-not-quite-halted-vital-climate-change-research/280621/ Belize to monitor MPAs with aerial drones: http://amandala.com.bz/news/unmanned-aerial-drones-police-belizean-waters/ An old but cool segment on pristine reefs in cuba (featuring Anderson Cooper scuba diving): The new IPCC report (as seen in our business as usual” post: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/09/27/science/IPCC-report-summary.html?ref=earth&_r=0 What the government shutdown did to science: http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/med-tech/what-the-shutdown-did-to-science-16051793 Continue reading
Business as usual: the unacceptable model
According to a new paper published in “Nature” this month, under the “business as usual” scenario (no greenhouse gas regulation, IPCC), the average air temperature of most places on earth will be hotter than any recorded temperature at that location from 1860-2006 (link to the paper). This means that the average temperature will be greater … Continue reading
The bastardization of open-access publication?
A new article has just been published in the journal Science, titled: “Who’s afraid of peer review?” The article can be found here. The author of the study, John Bohannon, created a fake PI at a fake university in a developing country and submitted a fictitious article to over 300 peer-reviewed journals (changing the author and … Continue reading