Cephalopodcast

As mentioned on Cephalopodcast #6, anyone who needs a last minute costume for Halloween can try this Instructable from Tool Using Animal. You can probably assemble it in less than 30 minutes out of commonly available office supplies. Plus an option for glow-in-the-dark action!

• Super quick last minute Squid costume

Another more involved invertebrate Instructable is the Halloween LED Jellyfish Costume.

It’s National Chemistry Week from October 21-27, 2007. And October 23 is an especially auspicious day, since it is Mole Day.

Celebrated annually on October 23 from 6:02 a.m. to 6:02 p.m., Mole Day commemorates Avogadro’s Number (6.02 x 10^23), which is a basic measuring unit in chemistry. Mole Day was created as a way to foster interest in chemistry. Schools throughout the United States and around the world celebrate Mole Day with various activities related to chemistry and/or moles.

For a given molecule, one mole is a mass (in grams) whose number is equal to the atomic mass of the molecule.

• Wikipedia: Mole Day

[via digg]

Design palettes inspired by the Great Barrier Reef available over at COLOURlovers.

COLOURlovers is a resource that monitors and influences color trends [and] gives the people who use color…a place to check out a world of color, compare color palettes, submit news and comments, and read color related articles and interviews.

• Landmark Colors: The Great Barrier Reef

Susan Scott writes a weekly column for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin called Ocean Watch. She started the column in 1987. You can search the online archives back to 1996. Below are a couple selections.

• Queensland beach is rich in cuttlebones
• Fishermen’s mystery bites are puzzling
• Squid pro quo: Giant differs from colossal

Today is World Ocean Day.

Whether you live along the coast or far inland, each one of us is connected to the world’s ocean. Make your ocean connection on June 8th!

Today also marks the start of the first Carnival of the Blue.

More events and activities will be posted here later today soon. Stay tuned.

Now that schools out, it’s time to enjoy some summer reading. And the folks over at The Ocean Project make it a bit easier for the ocean enthusiast. They have monthly Ocean Book of the Month recommendations.

Each month, The Ocean Project will highlight a book focused on our blue planet or environmental sustainability. Books for all age groups will be covered, non-fiction and fiction, prose and poetry.

If you have a suggestion, let them know.

• Ocean Book of the Month
• Previously: Beach reading for ocean enthusiasts

The Advanced Molecular Biology Laboratory, a science centric teaching facility based out of the Michael Smith Laboratories at the University of British Columbia, needs your haikus:

The [Science Creative Quarterly] is about to embark on a creative bioinformatics project that aims to collect a myriad of Haiku’s that reflect on an organism. These, we will collect and present as an exercise in phylogeny at a later date. Called the Haiku Phylogeny project. For more details, please go here.

Here is my contribution:
 

   PATTERNS IN THE SAND

   Heave ho, there she goes
   a sea turtle on the beach.
   Don’t disturb her nest.

• The SCQ’s Most Exceptional, Illustrious, Spendiferous Haiku Phylogeny Project
• Compulsory squid haiku
• A guide to defining the haiku form

The newest issue of Sea Stories is available. Sea Stories is a quarterly online journal of international ocean writing and art, published by Blue Ocean Institute.

Sea Stories…features contributions by ocean-lovers from all backgrounds and walks of life - writers, artists, educators, students, scientists, fishers, conservationists, explorers, and just regular people. Educators are invited to use Sea Stories in the classroom or as a publishing opportunity for yourself or your students. Join us in celebrating all things oceanic!

• Sea Stories

[via FCS]

The Alliance for Science is running an essay contest for high school students with the topic: Why would I want my doctor to have studied evolution? Essays are due March 31, 2007. First place prize of $300 to the winning student. And the teacher of the first place student gets $250 to “purchase laboratory equipment, supplies, or other teaching materials.”

On this day in 1809, a couple of significant figures were born: Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln. And even though it’s still a couple years off, it’s not to early too start planning for their 200th Birthday celebration. It will also be the 150th Anniversary of the publication of Darwin’s On The Origin of Species.

The objective of Darwin Day Celebration is to encourage existing institutions worldwide, such as municipalities, public and private schools, colleges and universities, libraries, museums, churches, private organizations and individuals to celebrate Science and Humanity every year, on, or near, February 12, Darwin’s birthday!

There is also an effort afoot to build a recreation of Darwin’s famous brig, the HMS Beagle. His trip around the Galapagos while onboard provided much of the inspiration for his theory of evolution.

[T]he Beagle Project…aim[s] to provide the most compelling events of Charles Darwin’s 2009 anniversary by building a sailing replica of HMS Beagle and sailing in Darwin’s wake. The build and Beagle’s arrival in the Galapagos in 2009 will be two of the most striking, iconic media events of the 2009 celebrations, aimed at firing the scientific imaginations of a new generation and celebrating the life and work of Charles Darwin, one of the greatest biologists ever.

• On The Origin of Species
• Darwin Day
• The Beagle Project and the The Beagle Project Blog
• Friends of Charles Darwin
• See also: Alfred Russel Wallace
• Writings of Abraham Lincoln
• Wikipedia: February 12

Some folks know St. Christopher as the patron saint of travelers. It is not uncommon to keep a small icon of him in a car for safe transit. My own little Honda has a slightly leggier talisman watching over us. Some might discount the putative protective power of cephalopods. But from this account in Panabasis, the Journal of the Janus Museum, you can clearly see there is precedence for their benevolence :).

Very pleased to announce a major museum acquisition, Ex Voto Pulpo, a contemporary anonymous painting on a steel sheet. For those not familiar with the term, an ex voto is a thanks offering to the Virgin or to a saint. Many, like our acquisition, commemorate a miraculous intervention. This particular ex voto is personally gratifying because it shows a cephalopod in a very sympathetic light - the octopus is saving the chap in the boat, you see, and not attacking him - its stern expression is a look of steely determination, rather than anger….

It’s always dolphins that get credited with epimeletic¹ behavior. Clearly there is a need to also consider the beneficence of octopuses as well.

(Via ponto, who has also documented recent less charitable encounters between certain Felis sp. and Architeuthis dux)

Daniel Bensen is a scientific illustrator who, along with his cohorts, dares to ask the question:

What if the Chicxulub bolide had missed the Earth?

Some of the weirdest animals on Spec are the balaenateuths or baleen-squids, a diverse group of flippered cephalopods with highly modified tentacles. They range in size from small, mesopelagic gems to immense filter-feeding giants. Absolutely nothing like them exists or has ever existed on Home-Earth.

As with squid and cuttlefish, balaenateuths possess ten tentacles, two of which are greatly elongated and whiplike. The whips terminate in a cluster of finger-like appendages (giving rise to the term “digibrachia” or finger-arms) that are partially retracted into chambers beneath the mantle when not in use. Six arms are shorter, more conventional-looking tentacles that may be equipped with rows of suckers or hooks. The last two arms, one on the top and one on the bottom, are greatly broadened and often internally reinforced with calcite or cartilage. Only capable of vertical motion, they superficially resemble a set of vertebrate jaws and are sometimes referred to as “gnathobrachia” or jaw-arms.

It seems to follow in the footsteps of Dougal Dixon, whose books New Dinosaur and After Man I cherished as a child and still thumb through to this day. A more recent approach was undertaken by Discovery Communications.

Much, much more can be found at The Speculative Dinosaur Project. Be sure to also read up on:

• Gigamouth shark
• Yellowfin arsegill fish

Strangely, all updates from Daniel’s site seem to end circa 2005. Anyone know what’s up with that?

The Delaware SeaGrant program produces short radio announcements on ocean topics called SeaTalk. They have material going back to 1998 in wav and mp3 formats. Wouldn’t take much to syndicate this stuff and turn it into podcasts. How about it Delaware? Don’t keep your content bottled up. Let me know if you need help.

As a public service in conjunction with more than 35 area radio stations, Delaware Sea Grant produces SeaTalk, a bimonthly series of 30- and 60-second radio announcements on subjects ranging from sharks to sand dunes to current marine science research. The series has been in production at the University of Delaware for more than 30 years.

SeaTalk Sampler

• 2007 stingray shuffle [.mp3]
• 2002 marine worms [.mp3]
• 1999 sea turtles [.mp3]
• 1998 tautog [.wav]

Students in Florida must now selected a career path in the 8th grade, choosing from a list of 440 occupations. Oceanographer does not appear to be one of them nor does marine biologist. (Granted that some argue that there is no such thing.) But if there were a listing perhaps the selection could include some of the images recently posted by Dr. Steve O’Shea over at TONMO.com (WARNING: bloody whale carcass vs. backhoe). It might also include this quote to describe the day-in-the-life of such a researcher:

We flew down, rented a car, got covered in blood, rented a motel unit to wash up, and then had to fly back up again that evening….

Scientist can learn a lot from a dead whale. Some of what we know of giant squid has come from the stomachs of their predators, the sperm whale. The sucker scars on the whales have also given us clues. But disposing of 60+ tons of animal is no small task. Officials in Scotland are currently faced with a such quandry. Some have infamously tried to blow them up. Others have towed them out to see and sunk them in an effort to better understand the recently discovered whale fall communities:

Scientists studying a whale carcass in Monterey Canyon recently announced the discovery of two new species of unique worms that feed on the bones of dead whales. In the July 30 issue of Science, the researchers describe these worms, whose bodies and feeding strategies differ from those of any other known animal. The worms have no eyes, legs, mouths, or stomachs, but they do have colorful feathery plumes and green “roots.” They use the roots to infiltrate the bones of dead whales, digesting the fats and oils inside with the help of symbiotic bacteria.

In the U.S., if you come across a dead marine mammal of any kind, it’s probably best to contact your local wildlife officials. Or you can try the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which has ultimate jurisdiction over protected marine mammal species.

With the updates to iTunes 7, I noticed the EcoGeeks podcast promoted on the front page of the directory. It is a video podcast from the folks at TheWildclassroom.com. From their about page:

As an organisation built by a group of next generation scientists, The Wild Classroom and sister site Explore Biodiversity work to promote an interest in conservation, ecology and biology in a manner appealing to our youth and young at heart.

As they say in their intro video, they are passionate about science and sharing their enthusiasm with students. The production values on their shows are pretty good, almost to the point where I wondered if it was a creation of Discovery Communication. But as far as I can tell, it is an independent, grant-funded production that is free for educational use.

They offer companion lesson plans for educators and give permission to use their videos in the classroom. However, I could not find the exact terms of usage spelled out on their website (is this Creative Commons licensed?). They also need input from teachers to help determine future programming.

This is pretty exciting stuff, kind of like a next generation JASON Project but without the cruft.

Sad, especially so soon after Australia’s Father’s day. Will miss you Steve. Crikey.

At 11am today, the 4th September 2006, Steve Irwin was fatally wounded by a stingray barb to his heart whilst filming a sequence on Batt Reef off Port Douglas for his daughter’s new TV series. Emergency services were called from Cairns Rescue Base and met Croc One, Steve’s rescue vessel at Low Isle on the Great Barrier Reef. The Croc One crew performed constant CPR during the thirty minute dash to Low Isle, but the medical staff pronounced Steve dead…

• Australia Zoo tribute page
• Online Memorial Tribute
• Reptiles Magazine interview, December 1998

My generation had Marlin Perkins and Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom. Not sure what Steve means to the current younger generation of wildlife enthusiasts. Like any public figure, he had his controversial moments. But I liked his unconventional style of popularizing nature and will miss him.

According to the Wikipedia entry, it is not the stingray poison that is thought to have killed Steve, but rather the puncture to his heart.

• Technical description of a person stung in the heart by a stingray and who survived