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about 8 years ago
Manta Ray hot lunch Marianas Variety (Press Release) — The Manta Ray Band will be having a hot lunch this Saturday, Feb. 6, 2016, to raise funds for their trip to the Tumon Bay Music Festival on Guam next month. The lunches are $5 each and include fried chicken, lumpia (fried spring roll ...
about 8 years ago
gulfnews.com Whale shark sightings along UAE coast not alarming: experts gulfnews.com Dr. Elsayed Ahmad Mohammed, Regional Director, Middle East and North Africa, of International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), told Gulf News that the recent appearances of the fish make sense given the whale shark feeds close to the surface and often ... and more »
about 8 years ago
KHON2 Whale shark surprises tour group off Haleiwa KHON2 A group led by North Shore Shark Adventures was visited by a whale shark Friday morning, the intimate experience captured on video. They were about three miles off Haleiwa when the shark slowly emerged. “It swam right up to the boat, really slow ... and more »
about 8 years ago
Thanh Nien Daily Carcass of beached whale shark to be preserved by Vietnamese scientists Thanh Nien Daily The Nha Trang Oceanography Institute in central Vietnam has decided to preserve the carcass of a whale shark that died after it got caught in a fishing net last week. Fishermen and local authorities on Thursday handed over the dead fish to the institute. Giant whale shark to be embalmed for scientific researchVietNamNet Bridge all 2 news articles ...
about 8 years ago
National Geographic Manta Rays Get Crittercams for First Time Ever National Geographic We didn't think suction cups would work because manta ray skin is really rough like sand paper. We knew suction cups worked well on the smooth skin of whales. The cups were originally designed to move pieces of glass. But we gave it a try, and with a ... Scripps Grad Student Receives Prestigious Environmental FellowshipScripps Oceanography News all 4 news articles » ...
about 8 years ago
Video From a Whale Shark's Point of View National Geographic Their goal was to deploy Crittercams on whale sharks to get a glimpse of the sharks' underwater world and to better understand their behavior along the reef. Like most people, Wilhelm had never seen a whale shark. He worked on the Crittercams for about ... and more »
about 8 years ago
Zap2It Dominic Monaghan on meeting the Whale Shark: 'I had this sort of out of body experience' Zap2It “Wild Things With Dominic Monaghan” returned to Travel Channel with its third season on Wednesday (Jan. 27). The premiere, aptly titled, “Majestic Mozambique,” finds our host on the hunt for the elusive — and quite massive — Whale Shark. Early on in ... Monaghan knows where the 'Wild Things' areVirgin Islands Daily News all 9 news articles ...
about 8 years ago
CBC.ca Brian Keating swims alongside La Paz's mysterious whale sharks CBC.ca They're such huge animals," said Keating, who saw his first whale shark less than 15 minutes out of the bay. By the day's end, Keating had met at least a dozen whale sharks. He even managed to snap a few underwater photos from their tail end as proof.
about 8 years ago
FIS Fishing ban for giant manta ray FIS The Ministry of Production (Produce) has banned the capture of the giant manta ray (Manta birostris) in the Peruvian marine waters, in order to preserve this species on the coast of the country. The measure, established by a ministerial decree, is in ... and more »
about 8 years ago
The National Whale shark seen swimming in Abu Dhabi marina The National ABU DHABI // A whale shark between three and four metres long has been seen swimming in the marina at the InterContinental Abu Dhabi. Employees at the hotel first noticed the fish at 1.45pm on Friday and quickly took a video and photos to capture the ...
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Tuesday
Mar102015

So long DSN, and thanks for all the fish!

Yesterday I officially stepped away from blogging at Deep Sea News.  The increasing family commitments of having two toddlers in the house effectively killed all available blogging time; I’m sure other new parents can relate!  Writing there was an absolute ball and I made great new friends and colleagues like Craig McClain, Miriam Goldstein, Rick McPherson and Holly Bik; here’s to you guys!  Going forward my outreach efforts will focus primarily on Twitter.  Find me there at @AlistairDove and @Wheres_Domino

Sunday
Oct072012

MOVING TO DEEPSEANEWS.COM

My main blogging efforts are focused at DeepSeaNews.com these days, where I am lucky enough to blog alongside a wonderful team of people consisting of Dr. Craig McClain, Dr. Rick Macpherson, Dr. Holly Bik, Miriam Goldstein, Kevin Zelnio and Kim Martini.  I won’t be updating this blog very often, except perhaps when I have something burning a hole in my conscience which doesn’t fit the scope of DSN.  In the meantime, I am active on Twitter @para_sight and I also keep an eye on my friend @Wheres_Domino, an adventure seeking whale shark in the Gulf of Mexico.

Sunday
Apr102011

ITTB - the caboose

Here’s the last part of my conversation with WREK scientist/DJs Pete Ludovice and Bill Hung. In this bit we’re talking about collaborations with Georgia Tech and the engineering of the aquarium.  Check out the rest of their archive here, and listen live on Wednesdays at 12 (details in the link).

Friday
Apr082011

ITTB episode 3 of 4

Here’s episode 3 of my conversation with WREK scientist/DJs Pete Ludovice and Bill Hung, for their show Inside the Black Box.  In this bit, we’re talking about how field and aquarium-based research inform each other.  See the rest of their archive here, and tune in on Wednesdays at 12 for a webcast dose of “science only funnier”

Wednesday
Apr062011

ITTB episode 2 of 4

Here’s episode two (of four) of my conversation with WREK scientist/DJs Pete Ludovice and Bill Hung. In this bit we’re talking about whale shark research in Mexico and the idea of conservation by payment for ecosystem services.  Check out the rest of their archive here, and listen live on Wednesdays at 12 (details in the link)

Sunday
Apr032011

Inside the Black Box interview

Two weeks back I did an hour long radio interview with WREK 91.1, a public radio station out of Georgia Tech, for their science show Inside the Black Box, which is described by its hosts Pete Ludovice and Bill Hung as “Science, only funnier”.  Pete and Bill are both faculty members at Tech and also stand-up comedians. 

I am going to post the interview here in four more manageable parts over the next week or so.  Here’s Section 1, where we talk about how public aquariums came out of the naturalist movement of the Victorian era.

If you just can’t wait for the rest (and who could blame you, he says, sotto voce and without a hint of irony…), the whole interview with lead-ins and musical breaks is here.

While you’re at it, put a reminder on your calendar to listen to their live webcast each week on Wednesdays at 12.  They have sponsorship from NSF and do great work; I appreciate their permission to post the interview here.

Monday
Mar282011

Good news everyone! </Prof. Farnsworth>

I am excited to say that I will be joining the Deep Sea News network of marine science bloggers.  For those who are not familiar with DSN, they’ve been producing kick-butt marine science bloggy-type content since 2005 and are currently the most popular marine bio blog on the web and the only one listed in Google News.  Joining that community means I can work with some of the best mar-sci bloggers around and hopefully we all riff off each other to produce great content and host the sort of excellent discussions that I have always found so rewarding about blog audiences.  Its a sort of critical mass that’s much more manageable in a blog network than going solo.

I am going to hang onto this domain, because there will be times when I want to write about stuff that is not DSN material, so don’t drop this page from your feed reader just yet.

My first post is a general intro to the natural history of whale sharks and may be very familiar to folks who’ve followed this blog for a while.  Once its set up, I’ll post the link to RSS feed of my posts at DSN here.  But really, you should subscribe to ALL of DSN’s stuff, you can’t go wrong.

Monday
Mar282011

New DSN feed

For those of you like me who are hapless RSS junkies, here’s a link for my new feed at Deep Sea News and here’s the feed for ALL DSN content.  Go on, Google Reader beckons you, you know you want to…

 

Thursday
Mar242011

Why's it always gotta be about poo?

After the outrageous popularity of a previous post here about a whale shark dookie so big you could see it from an aeroplane, now this YouTube video of a white shark telling some cage divers exactly what he thinks of their taste in SCUBA fashions:

At the risk of being labeled “Dr Shark Poo”,  I have a few quotes in this article discussing exactly what’s going on here.  In short, why is the poop yellow? (digestive and blood pigments) why are the fish eating it? (nom nom nom) and why study shark poo anyway? (a figurative treasure trove of physiological data). Roll over there and check out the rest of the article.

Sunday
Mar132011

Science all a Twitter

Craig McClain at DeepSeaNews did a nice piece last summer about what Twitter is and why scientists should use it.  I bring it up because in this brief hiatus from active blogging, I’m still on Twitter and so are lots of other marine science folks, most of whom are talented and funny and taking full advantage of the short form Twitter provides.  I can be followed @para_sight, but you should also check out people like @DrCraigMc, @DrBondar, @sfriedscientist, @kzelnio, @DrChrisKellogg, @Dr_Bik, @edyong209, @oystersgarter, @BoraZ and @WhySharksMatter

Saturday
Mar052011

A little quiet-time

Sorry for the lack of updates lately.  After the frenzy of activity in brazil, things have been a little hectic at work and there’s lots to do at home, so not much time for researching or writing right now.  It’ll pick back up again in the near future, but for now I need to focus on some other things.

In the meantime, you should check in on some of the other fine ocean and science blogging out there

Deep Sea News

Southern Fried Science

Cephalopodcast

Ya Like Dags?

Cephalove

Carnival of the Blue

Not Exactly Rocket Science

SeaNotes

 

Tuesday
Feb222011

At least you could do water changes with a teaspoon

With a grateful hat tip to DSN’s DrCraigMc via Twitter, I give you (well, really the Telegraph gives you)- TA DA! - the world’s smallest aquarium.  Click the link or the pic to see it in all its diminutive glory.

At just 10mls, you have to be *really* careful about overfeeding

Just for scale, the Ocean Voyager exhibit at Georgia Aquarium would hold 2.4 billion of those bad boys.  That means that aquariums effectively span 9 orders of magnitude in size.  We’ve come a long way, Anton Dohrn

 

Tuesday
Feb222011

Whale Sharks on Mother Nature Network

Our whale shark genome project is featured in this short video on Mother Nature Network this week.  It’s got some sound bites from the Georgia Aquarium president David Kimmel, as well as Emory University research scientist Ryan Weil and yours truly.

Sunday
Feb202011

As promised, more of the Johnson Sea Link

When we were on the Abrolhos research cruise aboard the HBOI/CEPEMAR ship Seward Johnson recently, I posted a little clip of the outside of the sub.  In that post I promised better quality and longer clips when I got back to land.  So here, (in HD goodness if you want it) is long-time pilot Don Liberatore giving a neat history of the Johnson Sea Link 2 submersible.  What I find most interesting is his comment about how he got into being a sub pilot in the first place: sitting on the dock in the 70’s he and some buddies saw the HBOI ship pull into port with the original JSL1 or Clelia (not sure which) on the deck and he thought “how cool is that?”.  This comment is exactly what I meant in my recent post about the importance of Human Occupied Vehicles (HOVs), or submersibles, for inspiring people to careers in marine science.

The 500pixel column width here on the blog is a bit limiting; if you want to see it in HD, roll over to the YouTube channel and check it out