Unhappy feet

I've just posted on Southern Fried Science about why we need a year of the penguin - the link to the article is here: http://www.southernfriedscience.com/?p=18133

But if there was any doubt that penguins are awesome, here's some more photos:

Save the Ocean Bowl !

As I write this, I’m sitting in a room surrounded by a pile of graded question papers for the Chesapeake Bay Bowl, the Washington DC/Virginia/Maryland/Delaware regional competition for the National OceanScience Bowl. For those who don’t know about these competitions, they are ocean science quizzes for high school students. The competition consists of alternating multiple choice buzzer questions and more detailed written question sections. The questions for both are submitted by marine science professionals from all fields of oceanography and marine policy. And boy, are some of these questions tough ! The judges, who are experts from universities and government agencies (such as NOAA, USGS and the Navy) frequently are stumped by the questions, that some of student teams breeze through. These students can be scarily smart. The Ocean Science Bowl competitions are like the Bletchley Park of upcoming marine science students. The events are also great for the volunteers, with expert judges, undergraduate and graduate students, and naval midshipmen asking question, calculating score, running around with question sheets – it’s a great chance for networking and mentoring.

But these great events were almost committed to the trashcan of educational initiatives thanks to US Congressional budgeting.Thankfully some funding was allocated for the events, although the events are running on a shoestring. The current event is largely being sponsored by one of the local universities and run with volunteers. 

Heaven forbid that a continent surrounded by oceans... with many States whose economy depends on the marine environment... with the largest navy in the world... with an enormous amount of ocean-borne trade... should invest in promoting excellence in oceanography and marine science....!

If like me, you are bewildered why this event should get the short funding straw, this article gives some ideas about what you can do to help keep these awesome events going.

You know nothing Jon Snow !

At the end of the the most recent Game of Thrones book (a Dance with Dragons)  there is quite a surprise ending...

I've been pondering what happens to Jon Snow... and here's my hypothesis. If you aren't up to date on the books/ just watching the TV show, don't read on, because.... SPOILERS !!!

So Jon Snow dies..., killed by the Night's Watch ... temporarily. He is brought back from death by the priestess Melisandre as the true King who will save the world. Why is this.... ? Because Jon Snow is in fact the illegitimate son of Lyanna Stark (Ned's sister) and Robert Baratheon. This effectively makes him THE rightful king and Melisandre's magic works upon him. Her visions of destiny were not in fact about Stannis, but Jon Snow.

Jon was adopted by Ned Stark as Robert was due to wed Cersei Lannister, for the good of the Kingdom, and swore himself to secrecy, keeping his vow despite the effect on his marriage. This also means that New was not unfaithful to his wife, which I always thought was out of character anyway because of his heightened sense of honor.

The fact that Jon has jet black hair like all of the Baratheon children (but unlike the Stark children)  possibly promoted him to look into the heritage of Joffrey - the suggestion that Robert's children weren't blonds immediately struck a cord with him.

Because Jon technically dies, this releases him from his vow to the Night's Watch, freeing him to become King of the North and lead armies against the white walkers.

Valar Morghulis ...!

71 Important Questions for the Conservation of Marine Biodiversity

What research needs to urgently be done by marine conservation scientists? Read our new paper in the journal Conservation Biology ... If you are a student wanting to do a worthwhile project, this is a great list of issues that are preventing effective marine conservation.

A Southern Fried Blogging Year

I have been somewhat quiet of late - one of the main reasons is that I've been busy writing articles for the marine science blog site Southern Fried Science (SFS) and have, sadly, rather let blogs for KrakenInTheAquarium go by the wayside.

As the end of the year is nigh, here are my top articles for SFS to share with my regular readers - Happy New Year !

Blackfish: the Science Behind the Movie

The Dark Side of Academia

No you’re not paranoid – there is a bias against publishing marine conservation papers

Distracted by abstracts: Tips for writing a good abstract for a scientific conference

Why we need ACTIVISTS not WHACKTIVISTS !

Don’t diss the dolphins

Wailing about whaling – the 2014 International Whaling Commission meeting

So what might Scottish independence mean for marine conservation ?

Mr Darcy’s Guide to Conference Etiquette – Part 1

Why #DoctorWho needs a science advisor!

Mr Darcy’s Guide to Conference Etiquette – Part 2

Ocean Optimism and Aliens

I bet James Bond never had to put up with this … why are there so many “experts” on biological issues?

Marine Conservation, Inspiration and a Great Big Geek

The birth of the Gothic genre

I am a fan of the Gothic genre - crumbling castles, moonlit ancient woodlands, gloom dungeons, cobwebbed hallways and delicious creepiness. I've seen half a dozen versions of The Woman in Black (1983) and get terrified every time I see the play (or even the passable Hammer movie with Daniel Radcliff; 2012). I have half a dozen versions of Dracula (all leather hardbound in dark wood paneled bookcases). Shoot, I have an iron wrought spiral staircase in my house leading down to the basement.

So I was excited to hear that starting this week at the British Library in London, is an exhibition on the Gothic genre (http://www.bl.uk/whatson/exhibitions/gothic/ ).

But what is the Gothic genre? I like a description which said that it was a type of literature that imbues "a pleasing sort of terror".

In 1764, the Castle of Otranto was published. Written by Horace Walpole (the son of a British Prime Minister), the first edition was claimed to to be a recently discovered manuscript written in medieval Italy, in many ways, a little like a Blair Witch Project of it's times. This is considered to be the first gothic novel.

The Mysteries of Udolpho was another famous gothic novel that followed a few decades after. This was written by Ann Radcliff, who basically developed the Scooby-Doo strategy of gothic writing - seemingly supernatural activities could eventually be explained by decidedly less paranormal human actions.

Probably the most famous theme and archetypes of the genre were initiated by the "romantics" of the early 19th century. With the famous grim summer house party in 1816 on the banks of Lake Geneva, where Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley and Dr John Polidori concocted creepy gothic stories one bored evening. This famously spawned Frankenstein from the imagination of Mary Shelly (published in 1818) and The Vampyre by Polidori (published in 1819). the latter was to become inspiration of Bram Stoker's seminal novel Dracula (1897) and ultimately the dreadful Twilight saga. The grim gloomy woods of the Olympic Peninsula and the fainting, languid, man obsessed Bella being a better heroine of an 18th century gothic novel, than the more liberated, feminist 21st century.

The current hit TV show Penny Dreadful is reference to popular, serialized gothic periodicals that cost one penny, the "pulp fiction" or perhaps comic books, of their time. these were really not great literature, and somewhat sensationalist to attract the masses, but one series Varney the Vampire, again was a model for the later Dracula.

In the US, the most famous writer of the gothic genre around this time (1830-40s) was Edgar Allan Poe. His novels and stories often featured decent into madness as a theme - one that would be echoed by another famous american author nearly a century later: H.P Lovecraft.

The gothic genre influenced many famous British literary writers of the later 19th century including Emily & Charlotte Bronte, Charles Dickens, Robert Louis Stephenson, and Oscar Wilde who all produce novels that could be considered to be gothic from Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights to  The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, The Portrait of Dorian Grey and numerous Dickens novels.
At the end of the 19th century, we see the publishing of Bram Stoker's Dracula as the capstone of a century of classic gothic writing.

So as can be seen above, the gothic genre far from being has spawned some of literature's most famous, atmospheric and memorable stories, and gothic stories are as popular today as they were two hundred years ago with hit TV shows such as Sleepy Hollow, Penny Dreadful, Haven, Teen Wolf, Grimm, American Horror Story and even frequent episodes of Doctor Who (probably the best being the episode Blink, but the recent episode Listen is another example). Keep that "pleasing sort of terror" coming !

The International Marine Conservation Congress (#IMCC3) closing speech

As has been apparent from recent blog entries, I've been been organizing the International Marine Conservation Congress, which was arguably a big success with lots of positive feed back, many enthused folks and 800-900 attendees, and over 7000 tweets about sessions on just day 1 of the meeting.

While I was at the meeting, I was co-opted by the marine science blog Southern Fried Science to be their newest correspondent, so I'm going to be moving most of my science-oriented musings to that site.

One of my first postings was my final speech for the conference which you can read in all it's geeky glory here ... enjoy