The story of my academic life (in three cartoons...)

Hooded Seals get SatNav, too

Southern Elephant seals have been known for a while to be perfect "vessels of opportunity" for oceanographic as well as biological research. More recently, narwhals were also discovered as suitable carriers of oceanographic data loggers, which communicate their collected data through the ARGOS satellite system, and were aptly titled oceanographic unicorns.

Now hooded seals join the club, as they now also get to carry loggers and sat transponders on their heads:



According to the researchers in charge, these SRDLs (Satellite-Relay Data Loggers) weigh about 400 g, and have negligible impact on the seals. They represent a maximum of 2% of the body weight of the animal carrying them, which range in size from 30 kg – 1.5 tonnes.

Historical whaling tools retrieved and dated

As I blogged already last autumn, some whaling tools recently retrieved from bowhead whales witness both historical hunting techniques and the amazing life spans of these whales. Now an arcticle of the scientific journal "Polar Biology" has appeared with detailed information on the dating of these harpoon and lance fragments. See the article online here:

"The age of bowhead whales captured by Native Alaskan hunters in the Bering, Chukchi and Beaufort Seas has been estimated via chemical analyses of the eye lenses, and other techniques. The racemization-age estimates indicate that bowhead whales (Balaena mysticetus) have a lifespan of more than a century. Stone and ivory weapon fragments recovered from bowhead whales hunted in Wainwright and Barrow (Alaska) in 1981, 1992, 1993 and 1997, provided rough but independent assessments of the whales’ longevity; however, their date of manufacture was unknown. Adding further confirmation of these age estimates, this note describes bomb lance fragments recovered recently (2007) and about 30 years ago (1980) from bowhead whales harvested by Eskimo hunters that were “dateable” and likely manufactured between 1879 and 1885. (Source: Polar Biology's website).

What really sank the Titanic (apart from the iceberg...)

"Crime Scene Investigations" and "Forensic Evidence" seem to be ubiquitous and irresistible these days, and some people have decided to apply these techniques to another irresistibe and iconic desaster topic: the "Titanic".

So what good can come from applying modern-day material science to an old wreck? It turns out that the rivets might be part of the explanation. For those of us not familiar with historical ship-building, riveting was to early 20th century metal workers what welding is today, i.e. the most common technique to join pieces of metal together.




Apparently, there were approximately three million rivets used to in the Titanic's hull to connect all its metal plates. According to the authors of "What Really Sank the Titanic: New Forensic Discoveries", Jennifer Hooper McCarty and Tim Foecke, substandard rivet material and possibly also "riveter" craftsmanship may be to blame for the Titanic's fate.



Indeed, when inspecting the wreck, these researchers claim to have found several narrow slits rather than a huge gash, pointing to multiple hull breaches (due to failing rivets) instead of the big hole assumedly ripped open by the contact with the iceberg.

So although this is of course highly speculative, let's venture back into the past and have a look how "riveting" actually was done:

"At a central location near the areas being riveted, a furnace was set up. Rivets were placed in the furnace and heated to a glowing hot temperature, at which time the furnace operator would use tongs to individually remove and throw them to catchers stationed near the joints to be riveted. The catcher would place the glowing hot rivet into the hole to be riveted, and quickly turn around to await the next rivet. One worker would then hold a heavy rivet set against the round head of the rivet, while the hammerer would apply a pneumatic rivet hammer to the unformed head, causing it to mushroom tightly against the joint in its final domed shape. Upon cooling, the rivet would contract and exert further force tightening the joint. This process was repeated for each rivet." (from Wikipedia's post on rivets).

So for all of us making a living on ice-filled oceans: get decent welders to put your ship together!

Of course, you could also try to avoid hitting icebergs...

Polar Bear Knut - the sibling sequel (cont.)

In November I predicted a sequel to the marketing success story of Polar Bear ""Knut" - here it is: Polar Bear "Flocke" of the Nuremberg Zoo!

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LONDON, England (CNN) -- A fluffy white polar bear cub that has captured German hearts is making her first public appearance Tuesday at the Nuremberg City Zoo.

Flocke (FLOCK-uh), whose name means "snowflake" in German, was born at the zoo in December. She gained international attention in January after zookeepers said they had taken Flocke away from her mother because of concerns she would eat her.

The zoo's other female polar bear had recently eaten her two offspring, and the zoo was concerned that Flocke's mother would do the same.

Zookeepers bottle-fed Flocke and kept her warm with blankets and heatlamps.

Sweet pictures of the young bear being cuddled by her keepers or sleeping with her tongue sticking out boosted Flocke's popularity, and she quickly eclipsed Knut (knoot), the polar bear at the Berlin Zoo.

Knut was a sensation when he was born in December 2006, but at 16 months old he's no longer considered as cute as his Nuremberg counterpart.

Flocke has grown into a bouncy young cub who is learning how to use her large paws. The zoo's latest pictures of Flocke, from early last week, show her frolicking in her enclosure and paddling in a pool of shallow water.

The first chance to see Flocke up close is Tuesday, when the zoo is holding a media event with about 50 members of the public. Starting Wednesday, people visiting the zoo will be able to see Flocke in her enclosure from 9-11 a.m. and 1-4 p.m. daily -- "if Flocke plays along" and decides to step outside, the zoo said.

Antarctic season 2008 - here I come

In a few days I will be off to Buenos Aires and Ushuaia to rejoin the Adventure Fleet vessel "Akademik Sergey Vavilov". It will be a long season again - I expect to be home in the first week of April - but I have managed to put in a few days of "shore leave" in February.



This season is going to be as varied and complicated as it could be - 6 trips on 5 ships - so there should be plenty of stuff to write home about. In previous years I could have cracked a cheap joke about having no home and thus being forced to write to "the internet" but alas, that ship has sailed ;-)

Allow me to take a moment and make a quick list of 2007:

• moved into new enormous apartment with my girl (January)
• went on a spontaneous road trip around Argentina (March)
• got all the paperwork done & finalized wedding plans (May)
• finally joined a cruise around Greenland & Iceland (August)
• got married, had honeymoon in the mountains (September)
• finished another PhD article, got a nice job offer (November)
• got an even nicer job offer, submitted the article (December)

It is always weird to leave home and head out to the ships for weeks and months, but this time it might be the weirdest yet. Wish me luck and check out this blog or the "recent pictures" section in the coming weeks!

Some ramblings about the climate change debate

Reading up for my previous post about the Amazon rainforest and climate change, I was again reminded of the fact that the global climate change debate seems to evolve into a battle with two fronts. Let there be no doubt about it: global climate change is a fact. A vast majority of scientists - people who are trained to disagree, you could say ;-) have arrived at the conclusion that there is substantial evidence for dramatic changes going on in our climate. So why would there be a two-fronted battle?

Of course, on the one side you have your nay-sayers, sceptics and those who would rather believe in global conspiracies than in scientifically documented reports. These people will always be present in some number and typically also with some sort of agenda. Apart from the "conspiracy theorists", these people would say "it is only natural" or "there have always been ups and downs, nothing to worry". The more interesting fraction will claim that there is some degree of change in our environment, but that it is due to some hitherto unknown phenomenon, or due to some factors which have been downplayed so far.

Depending on the level of their conviction, on their underlying motivation and their agenda, it will be hard if not impossible to argue with some of these nay-sayers and come to some consensus. As in every argument where the stakes are high, you have to expect that you simply cannot reach a consensus with some part of your opposition.

So what about the other front of the battle? That is the truly surprising and truly frustrating element of the ongoing debate, as I see it: everybody and their dog seem to have become "global climate experts", and they appear with bold statements in the media and in the public debate. Unfortunately, many of these self-proclaimed or media-acclaimed "experts" and "scientific writers" and "environmental activists" do not have more than the most basic training in natural sciences, let alone ecology, geophysics or climatology.

It does not take long to select a few examples:

• the "polar ice cap" - so many statements about the status of the "polar ice" do not bother to discriminate between sea ice and glacial ice. Melting sea ice is linked with rising sea levels (hello, Archimedes!), retreating glaciers are linked to retreating pack ice distribution, the link between the "global conveyor belt" i.e. the oceans' deep-water circulation, and sea ice formation and distribution is strangely under-represented. Surprisingly many people do not even mention the fundamental differences between the "Arctic ice cap" - an ice-covered ocean - and the "Antarctic ice cap" - an ice-covered continent. Nor do they realize that even Arctic and Antarctic sea ice are affected by very different dynamics, and the "ice shelves" are by many believed to consist of sea ice, simply because shelf ice floats on the sea.

• "save the rainforest" - true, rainforests perform vital tasks in filtering water, releasing oxygen, and storing carbon. In fact, all forests on Earth perform these services to some degree. But tropical rainforests are not such great "carbon sinks" as many claim: they do not store any more carbon than is contained in their biomass, and they deposit almost nothing. That is the great tragedy of tropical deforestation: the soil that is converted into agricultural use is often so poor that it does not even serve as proper pasture. The one point where tropical rainforests do excel above temperate forests (which are much more important as carbon sinks, in that they deposit much more in their soil) is biological diversity. And unfortunately, the preservation of biological diversity is still regarded as a luxury rather than as a necessity.

• "glaciers as climate change thermometers" - how many examples of collapsing glacier fronts have been in the press, on Greenpeace campaigns, or on television programs? Common for all of them is a profound misunderstanding of glaciers acting as thermometers. True, glaciers are affected by air temperature, and they are also retreating in many locations all over the world. But to claim that air temperature alone is the driving factor of glacier extent is ignoring all the other factors that together make up the specific mass balance and dynamics of a glacier, like size, precipitation received, altitude, proximity to the sea, underlying bedrock etc. pp.

Also, in many cases reports claim that the status "before" the onset of climate change was "natural", while the current status "after" climate change is not. But where is the original extent, the reference line against which we should compare current levels? And how would such a reference be meaningful?

There are a number of other examples where some "experts" among the "supporters" as well as the "sceptics" are mixing up facts, misunderstanding or misinterpreting them. And this is the truly puzzling part of this: if somebody without proper medical training makes a bold diagnosis on a patient, very few people would be inclined to take this very seriously. But in ecology, geophysics, or oceanography, there seems to be a much lower threshold. Why?

So this is where I see the second "front" in the "battle" over climate change: the so-called "experts" (of both parties) who got it wrong. In between these two fronts, between the sceptics and the unqualified "experts" are the scientists and campaigners who actually know what they are talking about. The doctors who actually know how to diagnose a patient, if you like.

To stick with this metaphor, these doctors now have to deal with some opponents who claim that the patient is not sick at all (or that the patient is going to be all right, not to worry) while some other "doctors" enter the scene stating false diagnoses with great conviction.

Unfortunately, many of the unqualified "experts" are found among the supporters of climate change and in the conservation movement. Not only will many of these well-meaning but ill-informed "experts" react with hostility when challenged by scientists, they also play in the hands of the sceptics in a formidable way.

The great tragedy of this debate is that the ones to blame for all this confusion and especially for the existence of "experts" who got it wrong, are the scientists themselves. If the natural science education in the schools as well as the public outreach and communication of science to the public had been more thorough and more serious, I doubt that we would have this problem. Scientists will have to become and train better teachers, and they will have to become and train better science communicators.

WWF Says Warming Puts Amazon Region at Risk

BALI, Indonesia (AP) -- The impact of climate change plus deforestation could wipe out or severely damage nearly 60 percent of the Amazon forest by 2030 - making it impossible to keep global temperatures from reaching catastrophic levels, an environmental group said Thursday.

Several recent studies have suggested similar findings, but scientists say the size and complexity of the Amazon leaves many questions about the rain forest's future open to debate. Brazil's Environment Ministry did not respond this week to a request for comment.

"The importance of the Amazon forest for the globe's climate cannot be underplayed," said Daniel Nepstad, author of a new report by the World Wide Fund For Nature released at the U.N. climate change conference in Bali.

"It's not only essential for cooling the world's temperature, but also such a large source of fresh water that it may be enough to influence some of the great ocean currents, and on top of that, it's a massive store of carbon."

Sprawling over 1.6 million square miles, the Amazon covers nearly 60 percent of Brazil. Largely unexplored, it contains one-fifth of the world's fresh water and about 30 percent of the world's plant and animal species - many still undiscovered.



According to the WWF, deforestation in the Amazon could result in 55.5 billion to 96.9 billion tons of carbon dioxide being released into the environment by 2030, representing as much as two years of global carbon emissions.

(By Michael Casey, AP Environmental Writer, shortened for this bog)

International Polar Tourism Research Network now online

As polar tourism increases, so does the body of research that studies it. This newly launched website offers a comprehensive overview of literature on the subject of polar tourism (though mostly from a geographic viewpoint, as it seems) and is according to the website's own statement meant to "...foster increased connections between the many researchers studying polar tourism. In addition, the International Polar Tourism Research Network welcomes not only researchers, but also polar tourism operators, consultants, students and community leaders shaping the industry and phenomenon of polar tourism."



The creation of the International Polar Tourism Research Network is the idea of a group of polar tourism researchers who met in 2006 at the Annual conference of the Canadian Association of Geographer held that year at Lakehead University, in Thunder Bay.



The International Polar Tourism Research Network website is supported by the Université du Québec A Montréal (UQAM) and the Centre international de formation et de recherche en tourisme (CIFORT).

Unfortunately, that makes it a bit cumbersome to search, as this function is currently only available in French.

First allocation of fundings from Svalbard's environmental protection fund

(republished after Svalbard Science Forum homepage - news)

At 1 October 2007, the deadline for the first announcement of Svalbard's environmental protection fund, 26 different applicants had submitted 42 proposals for diverse projects and initiatives related to environmental protection in Svalbard. The total sum applied for was 11.2 Mio NOK and 46.4 % of the applications were research related.

The board of the fund has now allocated in total 1.7 Mio NOK to 15 projects and initiatives. Of these 15 projects 38% were research projects with a total sum of 640.000 NOK.

The Svalbard's environmental protection fund is pursuant to the Svalbard Environmental Protection Act. The fund's resources are used for projects and initiatives with the purpose of protecting the environment. The fund is financed by dues and funding allocation is dependant upon the income. The sources of income are the environment fee, fees fro hunting and fishing cards, the value of the flora and fauna which is handled in violation of the Svalbard environmental law and environmental compensations and enforced penalties set by The Governor of Svalbard.

The fund announces twice a year a call of proposals.

Click here to download the full list of accepted and denied proposals, with the respective sums applied for and granted. You can also find the file on my download pages.

More stuff on post-PhD perspectives

Proceedings of the 2007 International Polar Diving Workshop available

The Smithsonian Institute's Scientific Diving Program has recently held an international workshop on Polar Diving in Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard. The proceedings are now available here and I have also uploaded them on my own website's download section.

Here is an overview of the contents of this proceedings issue:




Interestingly, the workshop also covered the "USCGC Healy Diving Mishap" where two US coast guard divers died during an under-ice dive. According to the report, there were several serious and hair-raising issues with the divers' qualifications, the site and dive supervision, inadequate training of dive tenders (who apparently were also consuming alcohol), extraordinary amounts of lead weights used by divers ("... in excess of 60 pounds...") and the list just goes on.
As I had blogged a while after the incident, this had also some serious consequences for the commanding officer of the USCGC Healy (see original posting here).

But the proceedings also specify the national requirements for ice diving for the various polar research programs:





Although it is a pretty thick volume to read through, it definitely contains lots of valuable information on polar diving, and not only for scientific diving applications but also for the recreational diver or even underwater photographers.

Is funding of polar bear research by Exxon questionable?

In a world where scientists and university officials are discussing "profitability" of their departments, technology transfers and industry cooperations, industry-funded research has increasingly been subject of ethical debates. Now it even seems to have sparked a political debate as well. The US House Committee on Science and Technology is currently investigating ExxonMobil's motives for funding research by an astrophysicist into the impact of climate change on the polar bear population of western Hudson Bay in Canada.

Now anyone familiar with the matter at hand will pause for a moment and raise an eyebrow over the fact that Exxon has chosen an astrophysicist to study the potential fate of a polar marine mammal population, but we will let that one pass for now.

These Exxon-paid researchers, including Willie Soon of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, published their findings as a "viewpoint", which is not peer-reviewed. They conclude that the polar bears are not threatened by climate change (link).

Here is an excerpt of their abstract:

"We found that spring air temperatures around the Hudson Bay basin for the past 70 years (1932–2002) show no significant warming trend and are more likely identified with the large-amplitude, natural climatic variability that is characteristic of the Arctic. Any role of external forcing by anthropogenic greenhouse gases remains difficult to identify. We argue, therefore, that the extrapolation of polar bear disappearance is highly premature. Climate models are simply not skilful for the projection of regional sea-ice changes in Hudson Bay or the whole Arctic."

Now two things about that publication raise some more eyebrows: first of all, it is published as a "viewpoint" and thereby excempt from the usual procedure of peer review. It is noting "no significant warming trend...around Hudson Bay", a finding that stands in stark contrast to other studies published in peer-reviewed journals, p.e.

• Comiso, J. C. 2002a. Correlation and trend studies of the sea-ice cover and surface temperatures in the Arctic. Ann. Glaciol, 34:420-428. (link)

• Comiso, J. C. 2002b. A rapidly declining perennial sea ice cover in the Arctic. Geophys. Res. Lett. 29:1956 (link)

• Comiso, J. C. 2003. Warming trends in the Arctic from clear-sky satellite observations. J. Clim, 16:3498-3510. (link)

Also, the abstract ends with the following statement:

"Both scientific papers and public discussion that continue to fail to recognize the inherent complexity in the adaptive interaction of polar bears with both human and nature will not likely offer any useful, science-based, preservation and management strategies for the species."

This sounds more like a political statement (read: scientists have an agenda, and so do the media) than the conclusions of a scientific study that - especially in peere-reviewed publications - would try to be as concise and focussed on the data as possible, while avoiding opining and bold statements at all costs.

"It's hard to see this article as rigorous, sound science," writes chair Brad Miller (D) of the subcommittee on investigations and oversight in an open letter to the oil giant.

Bowhead Whale contained 1890's projectile

Another news item that I missed while at sea (from msnbc.com):

"A 50-ton bowhead whale caught off the Alaskan coast last month had a weapon fragment embedded in its neck that showed it survived a similar hunt — more than a century ago.

Embedded deep under its blubber was a 3½-inch arrow-shaped projectile that has given researchers insight into the whale’s age, estimated between 115 and 130 years old.



The whale had a bomb lance fragment lodged a bone between its neck and shoulder blade. The fragment was likely manufactured in New Bedford, on the southeast coast of Massachusetts, a major whaling center at that time, Bockstoce said.

It was probably shot at the whale from a heavy shoulder gun around 1890. The small metal cylinder was filled with explosives fitted with a time-delay fuse so it would explode seconds after it was shot into the whale. The bomb lance was meant to kill the whale immediately and prevent it from escaping.



“It probably hurt the whale, or annoyed him, but it hit him in a non-lethal place,” he said. “He couldn’t have been that bothered if he lived for another 100 years.”

The 49-foot male whale died when it was shot with a similar projectile last month, and the older device was found buried beneath its blubber as hunters carved it with a chain saw for harvesting.

UPDATE: an arcticle of the scientific journal "Polar Biology" has now appeared with detailed information on the dating of these harpoon and lance fragments. See the article online here.

Polar Operations Guide for AUV's online

Here comes another tidbit that floated into my newsfilter while I was at sea:

Here is a website that is result of a conference on AUV's. This acronym stands for "Autonomous Underwater Vehicle", the "untethered" version of a ROV, or Remotely Operated Vehicle, in both cases an underwater robot used in scientific, commercial as well as military missions).




Since the participants of that conference workshop wisely decided that their subject, best practices for AUV operations in polar areas, is still a budding field of expertise, they decided to turn it into a web-based project where users can contribute and participate in the accumulation of such expertise.

A must for "underwater exploration gear" freaks like me...

DNA detective work unveils Korean "bycatch whaling"

Another news bite from New Scientist (by Peter Aldhous):

"DNA detective work has revealed that fishermen in South Korea are snaring far more whales in their nets than they admit. The "bycatch" is so large that some observers believe whales are being netted deliberately, breaking the moratorium on commercial whaling set by the International Whaling Commission (IWC).

Whale meat can be sold legally in South Korea if the animals are caught by accident in fishing nets, but such deaths must be reported to the government. Between 1999 and 2003, fishermen reported snaring 458 minke whales. Now a team led by Scott Baker of Oregon State University in Newport says the true catch was nearly twice that number and threatens the survival of minke whales in the Sea of Japan.

Baker had South Korean colleagues buy minke meat from local markets and used DNA fingerprinting to determine how many individual whales the meat had come from. That alone did not reveal the total number of whales caught; the researchers calculated that figure by borrowing a technique called "mark and recapture". Ecologists estimate the size of an animal population by trapping, marking and releasing animals, and then seeing how many marked and unmarked animals turn up in subsequent trapping efforts. Using the DNA signatures of individual whales as markers, successive surveys revealed population data for the dead whales whose meat was being sold in the Korean markets.

With the aid of a mathematical model developed by Justin Cooke of the Center for Ecosystem Management Studies in Gutach, Germany, Baker's team estimated that South Korean fishermen caught 827 minke between 1999 and 2003 (Molecular Ecology, DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-294X.2007.03317.x). "This is a very exciting study because it finally provides a tool to establish the magnitude of the bycatch problem," says Phil Clapham of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Alaska Fisheries Science Center in Seattle.

"We suspect this is really a form of unregulated commercial whaling," says Baker. Given that a single minke whale can fetch up to $100,000, there is a strong financial incentive for fishermen to entangle whales in their nets.

Baker's team was also able to show that the average "half-life" of meat from an individual whale in South Korean markets is 1.82 months, suggesting that surveys to monitor for illegal meat should be conducted about every two months. Baker's project was backed by the International Fund for Animal Welfare and Greenpeace International.

The South Korean government has shown little enthusiasm for launching a monitoring programme of its own. Japan, meanwhile, has rebuffed attempts to discuss meat surveys at previous IWC meetings. The IWC meets later this month in Anchorage, Alaska.

Minke whales in the Sea of Japan are the subject of an ongoing IWC review. "This population is clearly in trouble," says Clapham, who is a member of the US delegation to the IWC. "It is being hit from Japan and Korea by bycatch, and probably by deliberate take."

From issue 2603 of New Scientist magazine, 10 May 2007, page 10

Fly your ROV as smoothly as a fish

I found this article on "electro-receptive navigation" while gathering data for a presentation on "animal navigation". But as it turns out, technology is yet again trying to mimick natural adaptations, as the following article shows:

"Robotic and uncrewed submersibles could operate more effectively by mimicking the way some fish probe their surroundings with electric fields, say researchers.

Many marine and freshwater fish can sense electric fields, but some also generate their own weak fields over short ranges to help navigate, identify objects, and even communicate with other fish.

"Currently, no vehicle is manoeuvrable enough to do work in tight quarters, such as coral reef monitoring, underwater structural inspection, or searching a submerged vessel," MacIver told New Scientist. "To do so requires not only a high amount of agility, but also being able to sense in all directions, so that you do not collide with nearby obstacles. Electro-location is perfect for this."

The researcher's electro-location system consists of two field-emitting electrodes and two voltage-sensing electrodes. These electrode pairs are arranged at opposite corners of a diamond, and were submerged in shallow water for testing purposes.

If the electric field is not disturbed by anything in the water, the two pairs of sensor electrodes should provide identical readings. But if something is placed within a few centimetres of the sensors, the field is disturbed and causes a variance in the sensor readings.

Since the position of the object affects the way the electric field is disturbed, a computer can use a series of sensor readings to determine the object's location. It is even possible to detect small objects by amplifying subtle perturbations in the field.

MacIver believes compact, agile submersibles could one day be covered in many electro-sensors - although he notes that weakly electric fish use many thousands. So the next step, he believes, is to develop an array of sensor electrodes and attempt more complicated tests.

Steve McPhail, who designs autonomous underwater vehicles at the UK's National Oceanographic Centre, part of the University of Southampton, also sees potential in the idea. "It sounds like this would be useful for small, agile subs operating close to the seabed or in tight spaces," he says. "An obvious advantage is that the sensors are quite cheap."

MacIver admits that it will be a long while before electric field sensors are anywhere near as sophisticated as those found in nature. "It has taken the machine vision community many years to 'teach' computers how to perceive simple objects using light," he notes. "We are just starting the process of understanding how to perceive simple objects using 'electro-sense'."

(Source: NewScientist.com)

I just wish they already had these sensors in place, since my dream of an "under-ice ROV" would also need this tight-quarter manoeuvrablility...

X-Ray Dive Mag #16

X-Ray, the free online dive mag, has recently published issue 16, including several favourite topics of mine:



• Reactive Oxygen Species (hey, that's one of my research topics!)

• newly discovered species under Antarctic Ice (hey, that's another of my research topics... ;-)

• Rebreather trim with Cedric Verdier (hey, my favourite RB author on my favourite RB subject!)

So, if you are similarly minded, or just want to figure out what a free online dive magazine actually looks like, check it out.

Actually, clicking on any of the headlines above will take you directly to the relevant section download (2-4 MB each) so you will not have to handle the entire file (16MB).

Also, you might remember the blog Divester by Willy Volk. Guess where he is hanging out now: yep, at X-Ray Mag's blog.

Watch out for the Walrus Webcam!

Norwegian and international researchers of the Norwegian Polar Institute have been studying walrus and other seals at their haul-out sites for many years, typically using ice-going research vessels, zodiacs, and aircraft as their means of transport and observation platforms.

Now that they have been re-visiting the most populated walrus haul-out sites for years, they decided to deploy more advanced and at the same time more efficient recording methods in their seasonal studies: webcams.



In recent years, the use of GSM- or iridium based webcams and automatic weather stations has been spreading and by now, researchers of the University Center on Svalbard are able to view online weather data as well as webcam footage of their field station in Rijpfjorden on the north coast of Northeast Land. This is vital, especially for the evaluation of flight and landing conditions for helicopters.

At least they had been able to, until their weather and camera mast blew down... ;-(



So the walrus researchers were eager to employ that same technology to keep track of walrus beaches, with iridium-uplinked webcams on four or five remote but well-established walrus haul-out sites. Here is a link to their project proposal.



Well-established among walrus, but also among walrus-watchers, which typically come there as individual expeditioners or as tourists aboard an expedition cruise.

So the walrus researchers thought that this might be a great bonus for their proposal: let's monitor walrus online, and if tourists step into the picture, let's monitor them as well!

In a rather amusing development of this story, this prompted the local newspaper, notorious for its mix of small-town news ("who is currently on the day-care waiting list?") and self-absorbed leaders about everything from Global Change to Norwegian-Russian diplomacy since the Cold War, to launch a fierce counter-attack article as well as an online poll titled "Do you mind being watched by the Polar Institute when you are out on field trips?"

Not surprisingly, the poll currently favors the protesters (62%) against those who do not mind appearing in a webcam image (35%). The total number of voters so far: 399 ;-)

If you are interested, join the Svalbard Pages Forum for a discussion of this topic.

The oceanographic unicorn

About a year ago I blogged about elephant seals which had been turned into "oceanographic vessels of opportunity" - researchers interested in the South Atlantic circulation were taking advantage of elephant seals' impressive range and diving behaviour by attaching oceanographic sensors to their heads.

Now their Arctic colleagues follow this approach by attaching similar sensor systems to narwhals, a small Arctic tooth whale species mostly known for their long tusks, which had in earlier times inspired unicorn myths.

"We've converted these animals into oceanographers," says Kristin Laidre of the Polar Science Center at the University of Washington.



The whales, which dive up to one mile deep to feed on bottom fish, already have provided the first winter temperature measurements in Baffin Bay between Canada and Greenland.



The region is part of the global "conveyor belt" of currents that brings warmer waters north, moderating the weather in northern Europe. An international science panel recently predicted global warming will slow those currents.

"Any weakening of the Gulf Stream because of climate change will immediately show up in this area," says Laidre's collaborator, Mads Peter Heide-Jørgensen of the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources.



Global climate models have basically been "faking it" when it comes to the ocean west of Greenland, said Michael Steele, a senior oceanographer at the Polar Science Center.

"There's just a huge data hole in this part of the world ocean in the winter," he said.

More about the narwhal project here on the NOAA pages.

Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS)

You are looking at it's newest member ;-)

From their website:

"The Association of Polar Early Career Scientists aims to bring together young researchers and early career scientists with an interest in Polar Regions from around the world. Polar research is inherently interdisciplinary and international. Many early career scientists, although sometimes well connected within their own specialization, often do not have strong contacts with other polar experts. This network will provide a forum for polar scientists to begin international and interdisciplinary collaborations early in their careers, fostering international science which is naturally important to polar research to improve our understanding of these systems on a global level.

Who are we?

This group represents a people with a wide range of scientific expertise and interests including glaciology, geology, permafrost, atmospheric science, oceanography, polar biology, space studies, biogeochemistry and paleontology and other fields. We also encourage participation from researchers and professionals interested in the social, historical, economic, and political aspects relevant to Polar Regions , as well as polar education and outreach. The International Polar Year 2007-9 is the perfect opportunity to establish such a network and ensure a strong legacy and continuation of international and interdisciplinary polar science for decades to come.

Who can join?

This interactive online network is accessible to anyone interested in polar research, from undergraduates through to senior scientists. The active membership, however, is restricted to researchers who are actively involved with Polar Regions and early career professionals with a polar interest. Register to the network here."

"Climate crisis" motivates high-speed train connection

Norwegian public media channel NRK released yesterday a news flash mentioning "the current climate crisis" as motivation for a high-speed train connection between two of its major cities, Oslo and Trondheim.

Norway's geography is largely dominated by mountains and fjords, and stretches over 1750 km, or almost 1100 miles. Therefore, commuter flights are the norm in most cases for both business and leisure travellers, with up to 25 daily departures from all city airports to the main hub, Oslo Gardermoen.

Norway is also one of Europe's major producers and exporters of crude oil, while its domestic energy consumption is largely covered by hydrostatic power plants.

For more info on Norway's rail systems, currently including one high-speed connection between downtown Oslo and its airport Gardermoen (56 km, 19 minutes), see Wikipedia.

Deep Sea - full of surprises

Sometimes I regret that I have taken up such a "shallow" topic as the sea-ice ecosystem. Partly, the reason was that I would get to go there myself, both to the ice-covered seas and - as scuba-diver - to the underside of the ice. However, as exciting and challening as under-ice scuba diving (open-ciruit or rebreather) might be, I usually only go down to a few meters depth there (max. approx. 15 m beneath the surface, on some deep ice keels) although water depths may range in >2000 or even >3000 m range in the polar basins.

So when I read about the seemingly never-ending discoveries, exciting possibilities and strange creatures found in the deep ocean, I always get immensely jealous. I should have dropped the "Jacques Cousteau Act" years ago and become a "serious" a.k.a. Deep Sea marine biologist!
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"WASHINGTON (AP) -- Peering deep into the sea, scientists are finding creatures more mysterious than many could have imagined. At one site, nearly 2 miles deep in the Atlantic, shrimp were living around a vent that was releasing water heated to 765 degrees Fahrenheit. Water surrounding the site was a chilly 36 degrees.

An underwater peak in the Coral Sea was home to a type of shrimp thought to have gone extinct 50 million years ago.

More than 3 miles beneath the Sargasso Sea, in the Atlantic, researchers collected a dozen new species eating each other or living on organic material that drifts down from above.

"Animals seem to have found a way to make a living just about everywhere," said Jesse Ausubel of the Sloan Foundation, discussing the findings of year six of the census of marine life.

Added Ron O'Dor, a senior scientist with the census: "We can't find anyplace where we can't find anything new."

For complete report, go here.

Finally something on "normal life"

Another empty promise of my bold blog title: having a normal life in between -and in spite of - all that:

Why, one might wonder? Why was there never something about that "normal life stuff"?

Here's why:



More PhD fun here.

Iceland to resume commercial whaling

BREAKING NEWS: Iceland resumed commercial whale hunting this Tuesday (AP)

Fisheries Minister Einar Kristinn Gudfinnsson told Iceland's parliament that Iceland's Ministry of Fisheries will begin granting licenses and permitting the hunting of nine fin whales and 30 minke whales before the end of August 2007. Licenses could be issued as early as today, and commercial hunting could officially begin this week.

Iceland, a country steeped in whaling tradition, originally complied with the International Whaling Commission (IWC) ban set in the 1980s, but has been hunting whales in the name of scientific research since 2003, in what environmental groups have considered an unfortunate loophole to the worldwide ban. Iceland also counts itself among a group of nations, including Japan and Norway, which passed an agreement to support the ending of the ban at this year's meeting of the IWC in June.

The resumption of whaling "is part of our main principle of sustainable use of all living marine resources," Asta Einarsdottir, a lawyer for the Ministry of Fisheries, told the AP. Einarsdottir also told the Agence France-Presse (AFP) that whale meat caught for research purposes is finding a growing home market in Iceland.

"None of the planned catches involve any endangered or threatened stocks of whales. They only involve abundant stocks," reads a statement by the Ministry of Fisheries, obtained by the AFP. Environmental group Greenpeace vehemently denounces such claims, announcing in a press release that, "Claims that the hunt is sustainable cannot be credible, since nine of the 39 whales that are to be targeted are endangered fin whales."

Economically speaking, Greenpeace believes that Iceland's decision to grant commercial licenses to hunt whales makes no sense.

"Iceland makes more money with whale-watching than whale-eating," noted Sack, who said that Greenpeace's response is to urge Iceland to capitalize on whale-watching and studying whales rather than commercial whaling.

In response to Iceland's announcement, Greenpeace is calling for all licenses to be revoked and is seeking support through an Iceland "Whale Tourism Pledge." Nearly 70,000 people have signed the pledge, which will go live later this week at www.greenpeace.org, promising to visit Iceland if the government stops whaling.

For full story, go to Iceland News or Associated Press News.

For Greenpeace's statement on the story, got here.

Recent developments in Climate Change

Recent evidence in the Arctic suggests that it is getting warmer...



However, first estimates indicated that this is taking place by far slower than originally expected.

The main source for this was quickly established...

Divenews.com: "Scientist's Persistence Sheds Light on Marine Science Riddle"

Now that's a headline to my liking ;-)

I found this on divenews.com which is of course on my regular blog watch list (via rss). So the story goes like this:

Dr. Gary Rosenberg of the Center for Systematic Biology & Evolution at the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, has been compiling mollusk data for years and this has, among other things, resulted in an online database dubbed "Malacolog".

Using this database, Dr. Rosenberg was able to contribute to a long-lasting debate on the so-called Island Rule (aka Foster's Rule), a principle in evolutionary biology stating that members of a species will get smaller or bigger depending on the resources available in the environment.

In Rosenberg's case of marine gastropods (snails) colonizing the deep sea, large-bodied species become smaller and small-bodied species become larger.

In his original 1964 paper in the journal Nature, titled "The evolution of mammals on islands", J. Bristol Foster proposed the simple explanation that smaller creatures got larger in the absence of so many predators that they had been used to on the mainland and larger creatures get smaller with the absence of food sources.

To this Rosenberg commented: "Only resource limitation clearly applies to deep-sea animals. We know there is less food available in the deep sea than in shallow water, but the area of the deep sea is much larger. ... A lot more study needs to be done on the relative importance of these factors, but clearly resource limitation is a key factor in the evolution of size."

Well, this is definitely one boost for long-term data collection efforts and especially for organisation of this knowledge into databases.

Good to see this kind of headlines in a mainstream scuba news feed, too!

French Farmer arrested for driving with bio-fuel

From The Independent:

"Olivier Lainé, 49, was arrested near his farm by French customs officers. He faces prosecution for driving a vehicle powered by an "unauthorised fuel" - namely pure vegetable oil, made from colza, or rape seed, grown on his own farm.

...

The use of vegetable oil as fuel is authorised for vehicles while operating on a farm. It is illegal to drive vegetable-powered vehicles on public roads because no tax has been paid on the fuel." (read full story here).

Why does the phrase "unauthorized fuel" make me uneasy?

Sweden gets 14-month-rule

According to a report by The Scientist, Swedish Parliament has approved of a law effectively limiting temporary employment to a maximum of 14 months (within a 5-year period). Unfortunately, this employment rule applies to all sorts of temporary contracts, including scientific positions.

This law is even more drastic than the infamous "Twelve Year Rule" in Germany, which was initially also meant as a tool to force universities to hire scientists as staff, rather than letting them jump from project contract to project contract.

Unfortunately, though, it has instead become an "expiry date" for young researchers - if you have not managed to secure a permanent position, i.e. professor or staff researcher, within 12 years of scientific employment, you are effecively unhireable - but in Sweden, you do not even get that far as its legislature already cuts off young researchers from even getting a PostDoc.

The ironic fact about this is that Sweden invests a total of 4.3% of its GDP in R&D, which is more than any developed country. Good for those old boys with professor hats on - too bad they do not get any PostDoc's any more - to do all the work...

PhD comics - Piled Higher and Deeper

Australia's scientists allowed to speak freely (maybe)

The Scientist reports:

Australia's top government science organization has completely rewritten its policy on public comments by staff this week, after admitting that the existing policy had discouraged staff from speaking about their research in public.

...

Crucially, the new rules don't require staff to seek permission from management before speaking publicly. "We have taken out the word 'permission'," Garrett said. "Scientists are CSIRO's frontline communicators, and we trust them to discuss their science, even in potentially controversial areas."

But others were concerned that the policy tells CSIRO staff not to advocate, defend or canvass the merits of government or opposition policies.

Ian Lowe, president of the Australian Conservation Foundation, warned that ministers in the past have seen any comment on the need to reduce greenhouse emissions as a challenge to policy. "I would like to be reassured that scientists will be free to tell the public what the science says, even if that makes politicians …uncomfortable," he said in a statement.

just reached the fourth level

I just came up with this "7-levels-of-enlightenment" kind of model for doing a PhD, and thought it might be fun to make it a post. This is based on observations of some colleagues, some friends, and myself. Listed are the level, a description of a candidate's main activity, and his/her emotional state.

First Level:
writing a proposal/applying for a position

-> anxiety/uncertainty

Second Level:
starting your project, fieldwork, experiment etc.

-> euphoria

Third Level:
realizing what has gone wrong, or what simply does not work

-> frustration

Fourth Level:
accepting that the likely result will not match your initial plan

-> fatalism

Fifth Level:
restructuring the available sample/data material

-> numbness

Sixth Level:
deciding on the new goal or deadline, and gritting of teeth

-> determination

Seventh Level:
approaching the end, struggling to deliver in shape and on time

-> exhaustion

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P.S.: If you are already (or almost) on the seventh level and wonder "what now?" you can find a comprehensive "six-week plan for recovery" at Just Another Day in Paradise, Maria's blog.

whale invasion - natural desaster or human misconception?

So here we go: first a fin whale dies in the Baltic Sea and gets carted off to the Japanese Embassy in Berlin to make a point (and certainly also to make a buck) for Greenpeace; then a bottlenose whale dies in the river Thames while a massive rescue attempt fails to transport it back to the sea.

What the appearance of these "whale tales" in the mainstream media represents is not so much a "natural desaster" as many reporters ad news editors would like to make you think; rather, it is underlining the fatal misunderstanding of "nature" being something incompatible, even alien, to people's everyday lives.



If you want to experience "nature", you pack a lunch box and the kids and drive up to a National Park where you can go on a "nature trail". Once you are done with nature for the day, or the National Park closes, you drive back to your ordinary "civilized" lives.

But if nature comes into these "civilized" lives and shows up, say in the shape of a whale having taken a wrong turn, everybody is surprised and startled, some people get emotional, and enormous resources are deployed to "reunite the poor creature with nature". Out of the civilized realm of central London, back into the "wild and untamed" North Sea!



Try to think like a whale for a moment: he/she certainly did not realize that this murky river water of the Thames is flowing through central London, and the idea that this was "unnatural" probably did not occur either. It just happened to be where he/she ended up, for reasons that may or or may not be related to pollutants affecting the whale's navigational capacities. Sure, it ended up there by accident, but this is certainly neither the first nor the last whale that has taken a wrong turn and got lost, and not more or less of a tragedy than a monkey in the jungle that jumped from one tree to the next - and missed.

If more people realized that we cannot draw such a distinction between "Nature" as being "pure and in perfect balance", another sphere "out there" that has to be fenced off and protected from us, and our everyday lives in the sphere of "Human Civilization", then such events would become more "natural" in more than one sense.

We are as much a part of nature as is a bottlenose whale, and we should start behaving accordingly again.

The Human Genome Project

I came across the Human Genome Project of NZ on a small sideroad of Dunedin, South Island, New Zealand.

Rather than the "real thing", this was not actually trying to decipher the human genome any more, but rather study the ethical implications - for New Zealand!

To give you some more of the "oddness of New Zealand" flavor, here comes christmas down under: