Cephalopodcast

Box Lunch Media offers video resources for marine educators. I have not had any pesonal experience with them, but their media products look interesting:

• Biodiversity
• Biomes
• Education Models
• Marine & Coastal
• Native American Stewardship
• Rain Forest
• Stewardship
• Wetlands
• Teachers Guides

I am thinking about ordering the Journey of the Loggerhead DVD created by Environmental Media. Anyone ever seen this video, or have experience with Box Lunch Media? Let me know. Thanks!

Our hosting provider just bumped up cephalopodcast.com’s disk space by 50MB and monthly bandwidth by 3GB, all for free. Thanks, Laughing Squid!!!

After a bit of resistance, I finally took the plunge into Second Life. It is my first trip into a synthetic world, or MMO¹.

In Second Life, users can fashion all manner of structures and objects. Most of these seem fairly primitive and industrial. There doesn’t seem to be much capacity for organic expression. I suspect this is mainly due to limitations in bandwidth. That is, it’s easier to simulate the repeating, rectilinear pattern of a brick wall than it is to recreate a convincing tree. But as a consequence, even though most users try to emulate the real world, I have found little evidence for any kind of ecology in Second Life. This is especially noticable underwater. Most of these areas are devoid of any kind of development and look more stark than the abyssal plane. So whenever I am in the game, I make an extra effort to look for examples of aquatic life. So far I’ve found a shark, an orca and a horseshoe crab. If you know of any others, please send me a note. And if you are in SL, look for my avatar, Calamari Ricardo.

• Additonal reading: A world based on creation attracts socialisers, explorers, and E-bayers.
• Laukosargas Svarog’s island of Svarga is a fully-functioning ecosystem, adding life or something like it to the verdant-looking but arid pallette Linden Lab offers with its world. SLURL link.

Update: Thanks to Eric Rice (aka Spin Martin) for the aerial and aquatic tour of Slackstreet.

Like the Marine Photobank, Coral Reef Alliance makes available free images for non-commercial use.

The Coral Reef Photobank helps educate the public about coral reefs and their amazing inhabitants, and raises awareness of the need for coral reef conservation. These images can be downloaded on a royalty-free basis at no cost for non-commercial use.

• Coral Reef Alliance - Coral Reef Photobank

I’m going to have to try these recipes.

Geologic and Paleontologic Cook Book: How to make edible goodies for teaching and fun!

• Ammonites in a Blanket
• Cephalopods in a Blanket
• Cephalopod Celery
• Cheese and Bugles Coral Reef

If you know of links to other recipes, or want to submit a recipe yourself, please contact Stephen F. Greb at the Kentucky Geological Survey. The only guidelines are that the activity, model, or exercise, should use food to illustrate, demonstrate, or explain an earth-science concept, and that the activity, model, or exercise can be safely eaten (at least in part) when finished.

• UPDATE: Can’t believe I missed the Octodog, your Frankfurter Converter ™

MacResearch.org lists a couple dozen scientific widgets for the Mac. Categories include astronomy, biomedical, chemistry, geology and math/physics. So if you want a periodic table on your dashboard, check it out.

• MacResearch.org: Scientific Widgets Roundup