Resistance Is Futile: Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Network Effect

There’s no getting around it, science is a social enterprise. Go ahead, try and do some by your lonesome. Oh, you may putter and dial-twirl and churn out some damn fine solo research. But you’ll undoubtedly rely upon the prior research of others to get anywhere (that whole “standing on the shoulders of giants” business). And if you have any hope of your research rippling further than your lab, you need to avail yourself of a peer review process that opens-up your work to global scrutiny and verification.

Yup, science is a group effort.

And so, it seems, is science blogging. This IS social media, after all!

I’ve had a pretty solid and satisfying solo run here at Malaria, Bedbugs, Sea Lice, and Sunsets… four years, nearly 1000 substantive posts, hundreds of thousands of visitors from 196 countries. Not too shabby for a mostly coral reef conservation-focused blog written with a decidedly queer agenda. But no man is an island. Not even an ocean blogging man.

I’m pleased as punch to now join the close-knit family of ocean science colleagues over at Deep Sea News. I’ve admired the writing, humor, and camaraderie on display there for years; I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t gushing with pride when Craig invited me to join the crew. And I truly love that the folks behind Deep Sea News know their audience and work hard to maintain a highly social and interactive platform.

Over the years, I’ve come to call Craig, Kevin, and Miriam dear friends. Yet while I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Kevin and Miriam in the flesh (hell, we’ve quaffed a goodly amount of booze and broken bread together on several occasions), I’ve somehow not managed to meet Craig yet. I suspect this will soon change. And I’m thrilled at the prospect of now collaborating with Holly as well. I just hope I do them all proud!

For my part, I’ll continue to provide my particular take on ocean science issues. Expect a heavy focus on coral reefs, marine biodiversity conservation, marine protected area science, and the politics and practicalities of ocean resource management (which is more about managing humans than managing the resource). And I’ll try to keep the snark to a minimum.

But please do your part too! Tell me what you like, don’t like, what piques your interest or spurs your thoughts along the way. This is a two-way conversation.

Enough with the overture. As the plebe around there I’ve got a lot of heads to scrub. Craig said that if I do a good job, I won’t have to use my own toothbrush.

Conservation Transformational

Conservation International, one of the largest (by budget and size) biodiversity conservation NGOs on the planet, has given itself a facelift. Gone is the familiar green rainforest silhouette (left) that has represented the organization for the past 23 years. In its place is a modern, minimalist expression of CI's new mission. A simple blue circle atop a green base represents, according to Peter Seligmann, Chairman and CEO of Conservation International, "A healthy blue planet supported by a green development path."

CI's new logo isn't merely cosmetic. The organization with marine and terrestrial projects in 31 countries has been transforming itself over the past two years to be the one-stop, all climate change all the time NGO for a new conservation reality. CI is now retooling its structure in order to safeguard all the ecosystem services (or what it's calling securities) we receive from nature.

All of CI's existing programmatic activities are being reviewed, evaluated, and retrofitted to fit within the identified global priority areas of climate change, food security, freshwater security, human health, cultural services and biodiversity protection. In some cases, longstanding focus areas, such as CI's Center for Environmental Leadership in Business Travel and Leisure Division--which in part hoped to steer cruise ships towards environmentally sustainable practices--are being reduced in capacity or phased-out entirely.

It's hard to argue the rationale for CI's shift in focus, particularly considering my own area of conservation focus. Human exacerbated climate change is responsible for some of the largest scale coral reef destruction currently threatening the existence of an entire marine ecosystem. As a result of bleaching events correlated to elevated sea surface temperatures, live coral cover in the Caribbean has declined by 80 percent and throughout the Indo-Pacific by 50 percent. And the creeping threat of acidified oceans as a result of CO2-saturated seawater portends the literal dissolution of reefs before our very eyes.

But I've got to wonder at what cost transformation. The logo, the redesign of existing work groups, the future of some long-standing conservation investments, and the air transportation back-and-forth of global field staff and senior staff over the past two years as CI re-imagined itself. And considering that CI has faced strong criticism in the past on big budgets-big PR-small outcomes, I would hope this metamorphosis is not just about capitalizing on a shifting conservation funding landscape that seem to be favoring a shovel-ready climate change focus.

For the moment, I'll harbor hope in the bold risk-taking.

Non-Normative Ocean Conceptions Week At Southern Fried Science

Okay, that's quite the mouthful. What I meant to say was OoPS, as in Ocean of Pseudoscience Week.

The hillbillies over at Southern Fried Science have cooked up more than just beer in a coffee pot this time. To quote Andrew:

Over the next week we'll be tackling our favorite ocean myths, challenging conventional (yet strangely unsupported) wisdom about effective marine management and policy, smacking down some bad ocean science, blatant greenwashing, and straight up bull.

We'll also be counting down our favorite sea monsters all week long.

This could get ugly real fast, folks. So I'm planning on grabbing front row seats to the freak show.

I just hope they don't burst my bubble on that old chestnut, "The ocean is blue because it reflects the color of the sky." For mercy's sake, leave me something to hold on to!

The Game Is Afoot!

What looks like my blog posts here at MBSL&S, walks like my blog posts here at MBSL&S, and quacks like my blog posts here at MBSL&S, yet ISN'T MBSL&S?

I'm So Blue

Amongst my many reasons for resuscitating MBSL&S, most proximate is that I'm spending the weekend in Monterey, CA, where I'm attending BLUE: the global oceans film and conservation festival.

On one level, I'm representing my organization (and incidentally, our new PSAs won honorable mention here at the festival!). But mostly I'm here to rub elbows with friends, colleagues, and other ocean geeks. I've already bumped into Sylvia Earle, Jean Michel Cousteau, David Doubilet, Wallace Nichols, Carl Safina, Julie Packard, colleagues from Indonesia and Africa, and that's just the first day!

At the registration tables, some group was giving away red Cousteau beanies, and it wasn't long before schools of red-capped ocean nerds were seen aggregating in the streets and at the film venues. I'm old enough to realize the iconic impact in the Cousteau beanie. But I can't help but feel my irony rising as I prefer to now think of them as Zissou caps.

Tonight's keynote speaker was Julie Packard, founder and executive director of The Monterey Bay Aquarium. Her key message seemed to be that after factoring-in the impact of educational venues such as the aquarium, and after decades of environmental education, we haven't really moved the ball significantly on public perceptions of the importance of the ocean. Nor does the general public seem to position environmental issues (let alone ocean environmental issues) as a high priority in their lives. Packard listed numerous statistics from public polling compiled by The Ocean Project.

Packard certainly chose the right audience for her pitch to find more effective ways of reaching the public. The auditorium was standing room only with film makers, media, ocean environmental communication experts, and conservationists. If anyone should be able to move the ball on registering awareness, it's the combined talent in this room! The room was jam-packed with incredibly talented videographers, directors, writers, story-tellers, and photographers. The halls of the Portola Hotel (the festival's home base) were festooned with sumptuous ocean imagery. Sharks, waves, deep sea life, sea birds, seaweed, whales, storms, ships... some in high-def color, others in somber black and white. Video monitors were screening trailers of films to be shown this weekend. And throngs of festival attendees were ogling the visual bounty.

Indeed, we have done an incredibly effective job at capturing the public's attention and interest in the ocean. The public can't seem to get enough. But there's a disconnect. They seem to love the otherworldly strangeness of ocean life and the stories that are told by film makers. Hell, Shark Week is big business and big money--perhaps the biggest annual draw for attention focused on the ocean. But the public doesn't seem to care enough to do something to protect it.

The old chestnut that we only protect what we care about seems to be true. The challenge which Packard laid down for the room tonight hinged on that critical tension. How do we make people care. The Monterey Bay Aquarium is a vehicle for generating that empathy. But it's a tightrope walk, having to balance education and concern with entertainment and fun.

I'm curious to see if anyone tonight cares enough to pick up Packard's challenge and taker her call to action to heart. After all, the heart seems to be where all of this needs to start.

Just When I Thought I Was Out... They Pull Me Back In!

It was either that header or, "I'm baaaack!"

A confluence of really juicy events (some past, some present, and some on the horizon) have brought me out of my bloggy torpor. As I wipe the moss and mildew from my screen, chisel the keyboard and mouse from their surrounding matrix of sedimentary rock, and brush my tooth, know that Malaria, Bedbugs, Sea Lice & Sunsets is lumbering towards you once again in search of fresh brains.

Can I mix more metaphors in this post?!

While you no doubt wait at the edge of your seats for the gold I'm about to spin, satisfy your ocean blogging jones over at Southern Fried Science where my pal Andrew is punishing entertaining us all with a new, year-long series called Finding Melville's Whale: a discussion of the classic, Moby Dick, from a (mostly) marine biologist perspective.

More soon!

Back To The Blueprint?

What's 635 pages long, fully illustrated, weighs 5.4 pounds, cost millions of taxpayer dollars to produce, was written and signed by a blue-ribbon, cross-sectoral panel of ocean scientists, military, DC legislators, and business leaders, and endorsed by an august and prestigious science advisory panel? It's An Ocean Blueprint for the 21st Century, the final report by the US Commission on Ocean Policy published in 2004.

This isn't the first time I've called reader's attention to the Ocean Blueprint. Last time I did it was with some skepticism over whether the Bush Administration would take seriously any of the recommendations for action that were outlined in the 2007 IPCC Report on climate change (that just so happened to echo and reinforce similar recommendations outlined in the Ocean Blueprint three years earlier). Sadly, my skepticism was justified.

So here I am once again returning to the Ocean Blueprint curious to see what it had to say regarding a scenario that now unfolds as a result of the BP Gulf Oil disaster.

I refer to Chapter 24, Managing Offshore Energy and Other Mineral Resources, p. 357 (Rise in Deep-Water Oil Production):

Although production in the Gulf of Mexico's heavily leased shallow waters has been steadily declining, production in its deeper waters (more than 1,000 feet), which tend to produce more oil than natural gas, increased by over 500 percent between 1995 and 2002. In part, this growth was attributable to technological breakthroughs, the relative stabilization of crude oil prices, and the enactment of legislation in 1995 granting various levels of royalty relief to lessees willing to make the risky investment in the Gulf's deeper waters. Deep-water oil production now accounts for more than half of the Gulf's production. Additionally, the technology for ultra-deep-water development continues to advance with the drilling of a number of exploratory and production wells in water depths greater than 7,000 feet. Recently, a world record exploratory well was drilled in 10,000 feet of water.

Just for reference, BP's Deepwater Horizon blowout was a production well on the seafloor at a depth of 1,500 m (approximately 5,000 feet) of seawater, just shy of the boundary of what the Ocean Blueprint classifies as "ultra-deep-water" oil extraction.

Beginning on p. 361, the Ocean Blueprint outlines concerns regarding environmental safety related to offshore oil and gas production. While acknowledging that the US oil industry's environmental safety record has improved since the 1969 Santa Barbara blowout, numerous environmental issues associated with the development and production of oil and gas from the outer continental shelf (OCS) persist. Foremost among these are:

• Physical damage to coastal wetlands and other fragile areas by OCS-related onshore infrastructure and pipelines.
• Physical disruption of and damage to bottom-dwelling marine communities.
• Immediate and long-term ecological effects of large oil spills.
• Cumulative impacts on the marine, coastal, and human environments.

Continuing on p. 363, the Ocean Blueprint reiterates and emphasizes that,

OCS oil and gas exploratory activities in the Gulf of Mexico are now occurring in water depths approaching 10,000 feet with projections that the industry will achieve 15,000 feet drilling capabilities within the next decade. The technological ability to conduct oil and gas activities in even deeper waters on the OCS places a significant and important responsibility [my emphasis] on the Minerals Management Service (MMS) to collect the essential environmental deep-water data necessary for it and other agencies to make informed management and policy decisions on exploration and production activities at those depths [my emphasis]. Thus, as the knowledge base increases and the industry expands its activities further offshore and into deeper waters, new environmental issues are emerging that cannot all be adequately addressed under the current MMS Environmental Studies Program budget [my emphasis].

So what did the Ocean Blueprint authors recommend for action?

Recommendation 24-2, p. 364, states that the US Department of the Interior should expand the Minerals Management Service's Environmental Studies Program (ESP). Priorities for the enhanced ESP [and don't think that I'm not finding a sad irony in the ESP acronym in light of our current dilemma!] should include:

1) Conducting long-term environmental research and monitoring at appropriate outer Continental Shelf sites to better understand cumulative, low-level, and chronic impacts of OCS oil and gas activities on the natural and human environments; and,
2) Working with state environmental agencies and industry to evaluate the risks to the marine environment posed by aging offshore and onshore pipelines, particularly in the Gulf of Mexico.

'Aint hindsight a bitch?!

As we have learned, the Minerals Management Service was hardly the fierce watchdog of the People's interest that it was established to be. The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) has alleged that MMS has suffered from a systemic revolving door problem between the Department of Interior and the oil and gas industries. And MMS appears to have provided routine exemptions to oil interests from the National Environmental Policy Act's requirements of environmental risk analysis.

It wasn't until June 15, 2010, just hours before President Obama's Oval Office address to the nation on the Gulf spill, before the current Administration announced what they are calling "far-reaching changes" and funding necessary to "fix" the Minerals Management Service.

It's impossible to say how a serious consideration and implementation of the Ocean Blueprint's recommendations might have changed what we are dealing with today. We might still find ourselves mired in oily goo and facing the wholesale destruction of an ocean basin's ability to support life. But I continue to hope that someone in Washington will someday use the blueprint for more than just a doorstop. And Mr Obama, if you can't find your copy I'll be happy to loan you mine.

We're On A Mission And We're In A Hurry!

So sue me. I'm not above a little gratuitous self-promostion. In celebration of World Ocean(s) Day, the Coral Reef Alliance is debuting these new videos that help describe our work. Best of all, they feature the fabulous Dr Sylvia Earle as one of our supporters. Talk about street cred!

Hope you enjoy, feel inspired, and help support our mission!

Ripped From The Sea

It all started out nice enough. A Memorial Day outing to Half Moon Bay for some lunch, plenty of farm stands with early summer produce, and maybe some tidepooling at Princeton Beach. But that was all before my mood soured considerably on stumbling across this charming marine mortuary tucked away off Main street in downtown Half Moon Bay. Seascapes: Gifts of the Sea, calls itself A very special shop dedicated to everyone who loves the sea! Yeah. Everyone who loves the sea to death.

Dead snail remains, dead bivalves, dead sea stars, dead urchins, dead coral (LOTS of dead coral), dead sea fans, dead sea whips. Dead. Dead. Dead. And if you don't see something that piques your dead decorating or craft needs, the proprietors appear eager to locate any special dead request.

Appalled? Me too. Feel free to let them know.

It Wasn't Me

Absolutely pathetic.

Super Science Fellowships In Coral Reef Research

I bet you thought Reed Richards was the only Super Scientist. Well think again! A new research fellowship opportunity at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies is changing that (although it remains unclear whether you get a cape, a costume, or get to mix it up with Dr Doom).

The ARC Centre (an internationally renowned research center of 200 researchers and graduate students) has been awarded five Super Science Fellowship positions at James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland, Australia of which up to three positions will be filled in this round. ARC is seeking to recruit outstanding early career researchers in the following areas into their successful program addressing the Resilience of Coral Reef Ecosystems to Climate Change:

* Marine mega-fauna
* Quantitative Marine Ecologist
* Coral reef fish adaptation
* Coral adaptation and acclimation
* Coral Genome

Candidates with a PhD and an exceptional early career publication record are encouraged to apply. Appointees will have substantial freedom to forge a research program within the study area and to collaborate with leading coral reef researchers.

Appointments will be full-time for a fixed-term of 3 years subject to a probationary period. Anticipated salary is $72,500 per year. Benefits include a generous employer
superannuation contribution and attractive options for salary packaging.

Applications close on 31 May 2010.

Full fellowship descriptions here.

If I wasn't happily employed (or so damn old) I'd be emailing my CV at this moment.

You Live Here

It's Earth Day, so at some point today I hope you reflect on the fact that most of planet Earth is covered by this:

An ocean that moderates our climate like this:

An ocean which is full of a lot of these:

That support a whole bunch of these:

That feed these:

And these:

And these:

And that healthy oceans also support these:

And that healthy reefs and mangroves in turn protect coastal communities from the worst effects of these:

Or that research into chemicals found in reef life can help save lives through the development of these:

And that healthy reefs create financial security of nations through this:

And that healthy reefs are the primary protein source for more than 1 billion people like this:

So Happy Earth Day, and remember that our oceans are an important part of Earth too. And if you care about ocean health, you might want to contribute to a group like this:

Planes Or Volcano?

Tip of the hat to a stranded Karen James for pointing me towards this infographic, courtesy of Information is Beautiful.

UPDATE: 4/23/10
The producers of this infographic issued a retraction of their original diagram. Seems as though they grossly underestimated the CO2 output of Eyjafjallajökull. The volcano seems to be spewing nearly half as much carbon as Europe's airlines. A revised chart is below:

HT to Angelo for the update.

Sharktopus: Real Or Urban Legend?

There are rumors coursing through the intertubes that those rascals at SyFy Channel, the same folks who brought you Megashark vs Giant Octopus, Mega Piranha, and Mansquito, are in development of a movie that will be the heavyweight champ of all made-for-TV schlock: Sharktopus!

Somebody pinch me!

Allegedly to be directed by Roger "King of the B-movies" Corman, Sharktopus will no doubt be a gripping, edge of your sofa blood/laugh-fest. Get your TiVo's warmed up!

There's been an almost Cloverfield-esque frenzy of guesswork as to what the Sharktopus will look like. I thought I'd share just a few candidate depictions culled from just a few minutes of Google-ing. Enjoy!

Smarty Pants In Da Hizzle!

We here at MBSL&S are incredibly proud of our fantabulous ocean blogging scientist pal Miriam Goldstein on successfully passing her quals at UC San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography! Make way... make way for the Ph.D. CANDIDATE!

serious-fucking-w00t!

In honor of this event, I have given the MBSL&S troops the rest of the day off and $25 out of the register for beer. Congrats, Miriam, and we toast to you!

Snorkel Snax®? Really?!

UPDATE: 5/3/2010: It seems that the folks over at Sea Dine are ashamed of the light being cast upon their Snorkel Snax product in action. And justifiably so. I posted images from their own site showing unsustainable wildlife interactions while using Snorkel Snax®. That's a bit too much sunshine for a self proclaimed "Eco-Smart" company. Sea Dine representative Sonia Hillios demanded the images be removed. I've capitulated, even though fair use says my post is not an infringement of copyright when images are used ”for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research. I would call my use of Sea Dine's images "criticism". But do check-out the Sea Dine site for all the images the folks at Sea Dine are too ashamed to share. And feel free to let Sonia Hillios know what you think.

Really, SeaDine Snorkel Snax®? A coral reef just wasn't spectacular enough for you? Really?! Even with all those fish? And coral? And sea fans? And jellies? And whale sharks? And cephalopods? And sea stars? And sea cukes? And sponges? And sharks? And stingrays? And occasional mammals? Really? Just not enough going on?

You simply had to crank that reef up to 11 with some artificial fish food? But not just any old fishfood, your "proprietary blend of marine grade fish food"? Really?

And what's in Snorkel Snax®? Why, shrimp (a globally depleted commercial seafood) and Spirulina, a microscopic cyanobacterium. From your website:

Spirulina is a blue-green algae. It is a simple, one-celled form of algae that thrives in warm, alkaline fresh-water bodies. Spirulina contains unusually high amounts of protein, between 55 and 77% by dry weight, depending upon the source. It is a complete protein, containing all essential amino acids. The spirulina used in our product is high quality, human grade. Spirulina helps to improve the intestinal flora of fish thereby making them more resistant to bacterial infection.

Really, SeaDine? So what exactly were reef fish using to improve their intestinal flora before you guys came along?

It has natural pigments (Carotenoids, Chlorophyll and Phuycocyanin) to make sure that all the colors of fish stay bright and vibrant. Spirulina also stimulates production of enzymes that transport fats within the body. This allows the fish to convert fat into PFV (physiological fuel value) or growth rather than flab. Quality spirulina is a natural attractant, one of the best natural colorants, and it also stimulates breeding and reproduction.

SeaDine's Snorkel Snax® contains natural color enhancers and immunity builders such as shrimp and spirulina for brilliant color enhancement and exceptionally healthy fish.

Flabby fish, SeaDine? Really? Color enhancers? Physiological food value? Really?!

I mean, I know that to you guys reef fish seem to be chubby moochers looking for a handout, but really? They're doing just fine without the "immunity-builders," "color-enhancers," or the "physiological food value." I realize you're probably not regular blog readers over at SeaDine, but as I've talked about before, the practice of feeding fish while snorkeling or diving can have disastrous effects on coral reefs by altering predator-prey relationships and pushing delicate ecosystems out of balance. When people feed algae grazers like surgeonfish, the fish can eat less reef algae, causing the algae to flourish and potentially smother coral colonies. Not to mention that fish feeding makes for overly aggressive fish and presents visitors with a contrived impression of what healthy reefs look like.

Fish are really at their best when we are passive observers, leave no trace, and add nothing to the ecosystem.

Do you really think that these images on your website illustrate environmental sustainability? Really?

Just a tip. If you're trying to convince people that you care about something other than money, may I suggest taking to heart your own words and be the "Caring, Eco-Smart, Friends that will help Our Seas and Our Planet Survive."

Otherwise, all you're really doing is greenwashing.

Really!

The Squid's Fist

Bottle of 2008 The Squid's Fist Sangiovese Shiraz by Australian vintners Some Young Punks: $18.00

Look of envy on the DSN Team's face: Priceless

The Squid's Fist: 70% Sangiovese from Kalimna (Barossa); 30% Shiraz from the McLaren Vale; 1500 cases made.

It's Post-A-Jelly-Sighting Time!

How many times has this happened to you? You're diving along a beautiful coral reef or chilling-out at 40 feet in a spectacular kelp forest. Suddenly you notice the delicate, translucent beauty of a jelly drift past your dive mask. Perhaps you know the species, perhaps not. Either way you want to share the sighting with others. But how?

Look no further. Jellywatch has arrived.

Ken over at Sea Notes first featured this new online resource last week. Jellywatch is a collaboration between the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. The brainchild of MBARI researcher Dr. Steve Haddock, Jellywatch is hoped to be your one-stop-shop for tracking and identifying all things gelatinous in the ocean.

Take for instance the tiny, pale-pink goober in the photo above. It has a distinct bell. Trailing tentacles. Yep, definitely a jelly. But which jelly? The photo was recently sent to me by a colleague who was diving in Grand Cayman. A diver managed to capture a few images for later identification. When I received the image, I was stumped, so I reached out to a pal at the Bonaire Marine Park for ideas. He in turn had to contact someone at the Smithsonian. The conclusion? The jelly appears to be a juvenile Rhizostoma Genus (also called Barrel jellies). One key character is the presence of eight trailing bell "extensions" (not tentacles). Genus-level ID was as far as anyone would commit without seeing it in vivo.

But now with Jellywatch, this jelly sighting can not just get logged and mapped into a global GIS database, but the photo can be uploaded for a wider jelly-o-phile community to potentially help in identification. How cool!

And Jellywatch doesn't just stop with jellies. Users can also log sightings of red tide, plastics, squid, and charismatic vertebrates. Even observation of clean beaches or sea state can help benchmark conditions to better detect sudden changes.

I've already bookmarked Jellywatch and created an account. I can't wait to get started. Happy jelly watching!

Tipping Points

During a US House Armed Services Committee hearing last Thursday, March 25, 2010, Representative Hank Johnson (D-GA) was questioning Admiral Robert Willard, head of the U.S. Pacific fleet, about the stationing of 8,000 additional U.S. Marines and their families on the Micronesian island of Guam, a 212-square-mile American territory that is 30 miles long and from 4 to 12 miles wide.

After struggling for over a minute to articulate the concept of length and width in an effort to illustrate that Guam is, indeed, a small island, Representative Johnson succinctly summarized his fears of the imminent military build-up on Guam with the following mot juste (see video above): “My fear is that the whole island will become so overly populated that it will tip over and capsize.”

Admiral Willard, with just a slight pause responded, “We don’t anticipate that."

Phew! What a relief!

But seriously, WTF? Does Johnson actually think islands--made of rock--float on water like rafts? It sure sounds like he did.

A formal response from Johnson on Thursday, April 1 (yes, April Fool's Day) via his spokesman tries to clear up any doubt as to what the Gentleman from Georgia thinks:

“I wasn’t suggesting that the island of Guam would literally tip over,” said Johnson. “I was using a metaphor to say that with the addition of 8,000 Marines and their dependents – an additional 80,000 people during peak construction to the port on the tiny island with a population of 180,000 – could be a tipping point which would adversely affect the island’s fragile ecosystem and over burden its already overstressed infrastructure.

“Having traveled to Guam last year, I saw firsthand how this beautiful – but vulnerable island – is already overburdened, and I was simply voicing my concerns that the addition of that many people could tip the delicate balance and do harm to Guam.”

Well, glad we got that cleared up.

Deep Sea Biologist Plays Host, Makes History

Hot on the heels of his recent celebrity earlier this week in helping MSNBC demystify pictures of a giant ocean isopod making the rounds on the internet, Dr. Craig McClain, noted marine biologist, Assistant Director of Science for the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center, and creator of the popular ocean science blog Deep Sea News, made more headlines this morning during a startling press conference in Durham, North Carolina. In front of a gathering of local network media affiliates, science bloggers, and scientific colleagues from the Raleigh-Durham area, Dr. McClain announced his discovery of a previously unknown species of ceratioid (deep sea) anglerfish that he collected during a January 2010 research cruise to the Monterey Submarine Canyon off the California coast.

Collected while in a submersible at a depth of nearly 800 meters, McClain explained that the small adult male fish (seen at left), measuring no more than 9 centimeters in length, will represent the type specimen for the new-to-science species. Provisionally named the Bluto Anglerfish by McClain, formal taxonomic attribution awaits acceptance by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN). If accepted, the new fish species will be known as Cryptopsaras popeyensis mcclainii. A monograph describing the Bluto Anglerfish is expected to be co-produced by McClain in partnership with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute based in Moss Landing, CA.

Attendees could not have predicted what happened next. McClain shocked the assembled news and scientific crowd when he removed his red beanie to reveal the anglerfish permanently attached to the side of his head.

Assuring the crowd that the Bluto Angerfish was indeed still alive, McClain explained that he himself was now providing the life support for the fish. "Considering the challenges of locating mates in deep sea ecosystems where populations distribution may be patchy and intraspecies encounters rare," explained McClain, "Ceratioid anglerfish evolved a fascinating reproductive system that involves their becoming obligate parasites on the much larger female of the species." McClain admitted that he could not find it within himself to preserve his precious specimen in formalin. Instead, he elected to make marine biological history by serving as the first human host to a fish.

With camera strobes still flashing, the deep sea expert dimmed the lights and launched into a 45 minute lecture on the ceratioid reproductive process. According to McClain, once a male-female ceratioid anglerfish pair meets, the male bites into the female's skin, releasing an enzyme that digests the skin of his mouth and her body, fusing the pair down to the blood-vessel level. The male then slowly atrophies, first losing its digestive organs, then its brain, heart, and eyes, and ends as nothing more than a pair of gonads, which releases sperm in response to hormone signals in the female's bloodstream that indicate egg production. Despite McClains engaging and passionate presentation, more than a few audience members admitted being distracted by the intermittant bioluminescent blue-green flashes emanating from the scientist's new appendage.

Attendees appeared mixed in their reactions to Dr. McClains bold revelation. Science blogging doyen and Online Discussion Expert for PLoS, Bora Zivkovic, admired McClains commitment to his science and immediately booked the beefy symbiont as keynote speaker for ScienceOnline 2011. However, others were not so gracious. "He already drinks the lion's share of beer during visits to the Beaufort Marine Lab," complained Duke University Ph.D candidate and science blogger Andrew Thaler, "Now he's going to be drinking for two? What the fuck?!"

Perhaps predictably, local Fox News reporter Ann Petranlio hammered McClain with questions as to the inability of the new Health Care Reform Bill to adequately cover expenses incurred from obligate fish parasite exams.

But Craig McClain remained seemingly sanguine throughout the 30 minute barrage of comments and questions. "I'm not the least bit ashamed of Bluto," as he now refers to his piscine hitch-hiker. He summarized by explaining that his rationale to permanently affix the Anglerfish to his head was in part to raise the profile of deep sea biology in public discourse. But he later admitted that he also hoped that the increased media attention might secure commercial underwriting of his blog, Deep Sea News. "I'd be delighted to see Hollywood buy the rights to my story and really allow me to take Deep Sea News to the next level," said McClain. "I can even see myself being played by actor Michael Chiklis, or maybe even by that guy on The Travel Channel who will eat anything."