“55 feet remain visible after the crew of the Floating Instrument Platform, or FLIP, partially flood the ballast tanks causing the vessel to turn stern first into the ocean. The 355-foot research vessel, owned by the Office of Naval Research and operated by the Marine Physical Laboratory at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at University of California, conducts investigations in a number of fields, including acoustics, oceanography, meteorology and marine mammal observation.” - via Wikimedia Commons
Deep-sea isopods named after Greek gods and myths!
What do you do when naming new species at hadal depths? name them after Hades, Kerberos/Cerberus, Nyx (goddess of night), Erebus (god of shadows), and Apate (goddess of deceit).
Henry Knauber is a talented science communicator who has a knack for making even the most intimidating concepts seem fascinating. It was so much fun to speak with him about this new paper and we touched on everything- from how it feels to never see your new species alive due to oceanic pressure, to the best parts of working in deep-sea conservation.
I highly recommend you check out his instagram for more deep-sea stories and information.
https://www.instagram.com/abyss.arium/
You can listen to this episode at the link below, or visit https://www.newspeciespodcast.net for more platforms and RSS.
Deep-sea isopods come in all shapes and sizes, and Henry Knauber is excited to see all of them. In this paper, he and his coauthors describe
Five thousand feet (1,524 meters) beneath the sea in the Gulf of Mexico, an ancient, coral forest spreads across the seafloor. Among the branches of the deep sea corals are brittle stars, and it turns out these stars may play an important role in helping their coral companions.
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill of 2010 created a unique situation for scientists to better understand the relationship between deep sea corals and creatures that sit among their branches. Plumes of oil and gas from the spill drifted down from the surface to the ocean floor and covered the corals in a smothering “floc”, but a few years after the spill scientists learned that the coral branches that had a brittle star (Asteroschema clavigerum) were healthier.
How might the brittle stars be helping the corals? It’s tough to say for sure, but scientists think they have a pretty good idea. Brittle stars feed by extending their long arms to snatch nutritious particles falling in the water column. It is believed the sea star is able to brush away potentially smothering particles simply through feeding movements.
Read the whole story here
Illustration Credit: Catherine Collier, Tracey Saxby, Integration and Application Network, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science
A spokesperson for the National Science Foundation pointed to a National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Mathematics report as justif
I'm still stunned by this and other anti-science moves by the Trump administration.
Another example is the dismantling of the National Center for Atmospheric Research:
Universities that run the National Center for Atmospheric Research want to keep it from being dismantled.
"Knowledge creation that doesn't support our values will be suppressed" is now effectively an ideological plank of political and Christian conservatism in the US.
Those that desire to stamp out human intelligence when it doesn't pass ideological muster are by definition the same people kind of people who don't understand evidence based reasoning. Evidence is supplanted with conspiracy, reality with wish fulfillment, and ideological conformity replaces truth. The attack on science is part of a broader flight into the irrational by tens of millions.
Take the recent primary election Los Angeles. There's no evidence of fraud and vote totals are closely consistent with past voting patterns. But right-wing social media is flooded with confident assertions of fact that the election was rigged somehow. US House Speaker Mike Johnson even had this to say:
"so diabolical and so far upstream it's impossible to prove."
This is incredible. The speaker of the US House of Representatives is asserting without evidence that there's a sophisticated (to the point of being devilishly clever) high level effort to rig the election. It's already been the case for some time that if a conservative candidate loses an election that the first response of the conservative hoard is to cry election fraud. It's as though they can't imagine that anyone would disagree with their political views, which are of course the essence of truth, justice, beauty and the American way. Anyone disagreeing with them must then be deeply wrong, the kind of person who will of course have no qualms about engaging in voting fraud.
Simplistic circular reasoning like this is, so I've observed, pervasive on the right. This us vs. them mentality is rigid and broadly deterministic in how many Republicans see the world. It's so entrenched that those under the sway of this broadly functioning confirmation bias will even risk their lives to maintain their ideological identities. Let's not forget that during COVID, despite the quickly mounting death and disability toll, large numbers of conservatives fled into bubbles of denial and misinformation. Collectively we've learned nothing from this massive loss of life and how it was driven in large part by willful ignorance. In countless historical examples the rejection of reason is tantamount to the embrace of death.
What's driving the abandonment of reason by so many? This development demands an extraordinary response by defenders of reason and science that encompasses research, conferences, public engagement, lobbying and legislation. Do we just slip into a mini dark age without resistance, or do we fight back?
Ocean Exploration's Technological Revolution: Discover the Future!
Imagine a world where robots and drones dive deeper into the ocean than any human could ever go. Thanks to cutting edge tech like AI driven sensors, autonomous vehicles, and telepresence systems, we're entering an era where ocean exploration is more accessible, scalable, and collaborative than ever before.
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These innovations are unlocking new ocean mysteries, helping us understand marine life, ecosystems, and climate change with unprecedented clarity. It's not science fiction anymore, it's the future of ocean science!
Let’s explore the depths like never before!
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🔗 https://www.oceanography.com/
Using Ocean Research to Drive Sustainable Policy Decisions
Ocean research provides the foundation for sustainable policy decisions that protect our marine ecosystems. By using scientific data on ocean health, biodiversity, and climate change, policymakers can create effective strategies for conservation and sustainability.
Key areas of focus:
Marine conservation
Climate change adaptation
Sustainable fisheries
Pollution control
Protect our oceans by using research to drive better policy. 👉 https://www.oceanography.com
