Cephalopodcast

While browsing through the PBS website for the Kings of Camouflage, I came across a link to a free UN document of cephalopods. It is available in a manner similar to the sea turtle anatomy book PDF. However, it is produced by the UN Food and Agricultural Organization, so it’s emphasis is more on cephalopods as a fishery. Still, there is a lot of great info and illustrations in there. And it appears that educators can reproduce and distribute the information freely as long as they provide proper attribution.

Cephalopods of the World
www.fao.org/docrep/009/a0150e/a0150e00.htm
…free downloads of illustrated fact sheets on nearly every living cephalopod.

There are similar documents available on other marine organisms too:

• 548 Species Fact Sheets (bony fish, crustaceans, marine mammals, algae, shellfish, sharks, cephalopods, etc.)
• FAO Sea turtles of the world
• FAO Marine Mammals of the World
• FAO Sharks of the world, Part I and Part II

[via Make]

Back in my LFS days, we gave new customers this rule of thumb: one gallon of water for each inch of fish. So these little lighbulb aquariums wouldn’t make good starter tanks. But they are tiny and cute. And now you can learn how to make your own.

• Instructables: Light Bulb Shrimp Aquarium
• Palmtop Aquariums

[via TONMO]

PBS airs another oceanic special, this time on cuttlefish. My tentacles are tingling!

Cuttlefish: The Brainy Bunch by Kaufmann Productions
a film by Gisela Kaufmann & Carsten Orlt
Premiers Tuesday, April 3 at 8 pm

Join NOVA on a voyage beneath the waves, where you’ll discover a bizarre, alien-like creature like no other. It’s an animal with eight sucker-covered arms growing out of its head, three hearts pumping its blue-green blood, and a doughnut-shaped brain. It has the ability to change its color and shape to blend in with seaweed and rocks, and it has a knack for switching on electrifying light shows that dazzle its prey. Perhaps most surprising of all, this animal is quite intelligent, with a highly complex brain. In this program, underwater cameras capture the extraordinary, transformative powers of the cuttlefish.

• Cuttlefish camo videoclips
• Anatomy of a Cuttlefish (web interactive)
• Cephalopod links and books to accompany the program
• Teacher’s Guide: Kings of Camouflage (nb: taping rights-can be used up to one year after the program is taped off the air.)

I am thinking of hosting a webcast/Skypecast during this program. Would anyone be interested in joining a simultaneous conversation while the show is airing?

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[via Consumerist]

Continuing our series on weird aquariums, here is a video showing a combo deep fryer and goldfish tank.

Because oil floats on water, despite the massive heat (163 degrees Celsius) the goldfish simply stay away from the surface and all is well. They eat the crumbs of croquettes and other fried foods that fall to the bottom, and can live in there for 5-10 years as they happily clean away, ignorant to the fact that certain death awaits any potential escapees.

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Trolling the Google for sharky news so you don’t have to:

Swim At Your Own Risk is your daily dose of all things sharky… oh, and we’ll also try to fill you in on any other aquatic antics we stumble upon.

• SAYOR: squid
• SAYOR: dolphin
• SAYOR: sharks

Mi hombre no necesita huevos de tortuga
My man does not need turtle eggs.

The folks over at Deep-Sea News, along with Argentinian supermodel Dorismar, want to remind all Catholics that sea turtles are not fish and make an inappropriate option for Lent fasting.

Because of the common misconception of sea turtles as ‘fish,’ it is estimated that as many as 10,000 endangered green, loggerhead, and olive ridley turtles are taken for feast food each year during Catholic religious holidays. Other species, such as leatherbacks, are also at risk as their eggs are poached in massive quantities throughout Latin America.

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PBS is airing its tenth installment of Journey to Planet Earth series tomorrow. The show is hosted by Matt Damon, which is kind of annoying. Expect a disheartening survey of the many ills facing our planet’s oceans interspersed with optimistic words about mankind’s resourcefulness and the hope that technology and international cooperation will someday solve all these problems.

STATE OF THE OCEAN’S ANIMALS
Premiers March 28th, 2007 at 8pm on PBS
Check local listings

Nearly half the world’s marine animals may face extinction over the next twenty-five years. Global warming, over-fishing, and habitat destruction are emptying the world’s oceans. Join host Matt Damon as “State of the Ocean’s Animals” takes a hard look at the future of our watery natural world: the beauty, the incredible animals, and the dangers that threaten them.

Features scenes from the Pacific Northwest (whales, salmon and sea otters), Florida (sea level rise and its effect on loggerhead turtles), Japan (the slaughter of dolphins), China (shark fin trade), and the Antarctic (threats to Emperor Penguins).

• Journey to Planet Earth - State of the Ocean’s Animals
• Educational materials, including Teacher Guides.

What would happen if Apple decides to make a service like Tivo’s recently announced remote video and picture sharing service available to .Mac subscribers via AppleTV? There is already photocasting via .Mac accounts. So maybe videosharing is already available somehow? Seems like there could be a pay-per-view scheme in there somewhere for video podcasters.

TiVo has just announced a new service that will allow users to route video content directly to other people’s Now Playing lists. [T]he unnamed feature lets anyone with a PC and broadband connection upload vids or photos to a special site, where they are then sent to a specified list of subscribers…Unlike YouTube or Google Video, the uploaded content is strictly controlled and not open to the public….

So wouldn’t it be neat if, in a future iteration, AppleTV not only received video but also sent it? Your television room could become a broadcast studio as well as theater.

Had a birthday recently. My aunt, ever the crafty lady, gave me a nifty little gift. Instead of merely including the cash in the birthday card (note, that’s Caulerpa algae on the cover), she folded it into an origami squid for me. Thanks!

• Octopot (designed by my aunt)
• Origami with Dollar Bills (Hardback)
• Origami squid I (not my aunt’s)
• Origami squid II (not my aunt’s)
• Papercraft flying squid

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The Underwatertimes has an article that purports to show a baby shark with webbed feet. Looks more like the myxopterygia (i.e., claspers, intromittent organs, valva) of an adult reef shark.

myxopterygium (mix-op-ter-ridge-ee-um): The copulatory organ or clasper of Elasmobranchii and Holocephali; rod-like extensions of the inner side of the pelvic fins. It is composed of the long stem cartilage, a shorter distal cartilage, the dorsal terminal cartilage (or rhipidion, fan-shaped for dispersing sperm in a radiating spray during copulation), the hook-shaped terminal cartilage (or claw) which has a cutting edge on its inner margin, and the narrow, sharp spur. The claw and spur serve to anchor the clasper in the female oviduct and a groove along the clasper enables the sperm to reach the oviduct. The siphon contracts to propel sperm into the oviduct.

So basically, this shark died with an erection.

Upgrading the Cephalopodcast blog to WordPress 2.1.2. Molting our old shell and pumping pixels into our digital skin to test out the new one.

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Happy Pi Day.

Pi, Greek letter, is the symbol for the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. It is approximately 22/7 and is usually calculated to 3 digits, 3.14. With the use of computers, Pi has been caculated to over 51 billion decimal places. Pi is an irrational number meaning it will continue infinitely without repeating. The symbol for pi, pi, was first used in 1737 by William Jones, but was popular after it was adopted by the Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler in 1737.

• piday.org with free T-shirts!
• Wikipedia: Pi Day
• A nice animation of pi

Next up, Mole Day.

This is a test. This is only a test. This a test of the MarsEdit system. Is it better than Ecto? And is there a way to do hyperlinks and styling with a push of the button instead of having to type out the HTML by hand? If I make a post with MarsEdit, then find a simple typo and go back to fix it, is there a way to make the original post date stamp stick?

UPDATE: Melrin Mann inadvertently suggests TextExpander as a possible solution to the HTML coding.

UPDATE: If I had bothered to click on the button in the User Interface, I would have seen that MarsEdit has HTML tags a click away, or via keyboard shortcuts. Doh! But I am liking TextPander better. And I still don’t see how to keep sticky dates.

It’s an odd day when I hear news on a national television network before seeing it on the Internet. But that was the case today with this story from ABC. There’s video at the sites below.

The Thortons and a group of their friends had traveled to the Dominican Republic to swim with whales in a sanctuary off the coast. On the last day of their week-long trip, they were snorkeling near a sleeping mother and her calf. Mother whales push their calves to the surface to teach them to breathe, so the calf was above the adult.

A whip of the mother whale’s tail sent Gwen Thornton flying 20 feet, knocked another woman unconscious, and broke Randall Thornton’s leg. It was all recorded on video by another of the divers.

• Snorkelers Survive Run-In With Humpback Whale
• Utah tourists recount whale attack near Dominican Republic

Humback Whales are large, filter-feeding animals. They do not have teeth, but instead use hair-like plates of baleen to sieve planktonic prey from the water. They are are not known for unprovoked attacks.

In United States, the Marine Mammal Protection Act protects marine mammals from harassment by humans.

This brings to mind another odd interaction between humans and whales. In the early 90s, Lee Tepley, a wildlife videographer, and his assistant were pursuing a pod of pilot whales. One of the whales grabbed the assistant and pulled her down to about 40 feet. Tepley videotaped the encounter and it has often appeared on “Animal Attack” shows.

• Pilot Whale Attack Stock Footage (video)
• U/W Videographer Fined For Harassing Whales

UPDATE: In an unrelated event, a Japanese fisherman was “attacked” while trying to rescue a sperm whale. Sadly, it seems he perished in the encounter. Details are scant but dramatic video is available.

An angry whale knocked a Japanese fisherman out of his small boat on Tuesday, and the whole thing was caught on tape.

The man had been trying to rescue the whale, which had strayed out of open waters.

The body of the fisherman was later discovered by divers. He was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.

The whale started to thrash and threw two other fishermen from another boat into the water, as well.

[via X-ray Magazine's Blog]

[via CTURTLE]

Download a free PDF copy of the Anatomy of Sea Turtles by Jeanette Wyneken, Ph.D. Not for the squeamish if parasagittal dissections make you squick. It includes black and white illustrations by Dawn Witherington and color photographs.

…a fundamental background, reference photos of normal anatomy, and diagrams to guide novice or professional biologists, stranding personnel, and veterinarians. Species identification, standard dissection techniques, standard measurements, and basic anatomy are covered with a diverse audience in mind.

• Download the entire book in English [PDF, 25.6M]
• Download the entire book in Spanish [PDF, 27.4M]
• Download various sections.