How Do You Think They'll Dispose Of Tillikums Body? :/

New Species of Shieldtail Snake Discovered in India 

by Enrico de Lazaro

The Khaire’s black shieldtail (Melanophidium khairei) is described in a paper recently published in the journal Zootaxa by an international team of scientists led by Dr. David Gower of the Natural History Museum, London, UK. The newfound species occurs in southern Maharashtra, Goa, and northern Karnataka. It is the most northerly member of the genus…

(read more: Science News)

photographvia: David J. Gauer et al.

Satomi’s pygmy seahorse (Hippocampus satomiae) is the smallest known seahorse in the world with an average length of 13.8 millimeters. (via)

dragon 🐉

Happy Valentine’s Day my marine bio lovelies! I give you, all the above! Shark Love! Instead of something cheesy to give your admirer, why not make a donation to your favourite conservation group? Show them you care not only about them, but the marine environment too!

7 types of fog you didn’t know had names

Fog comes in several distinct varieties that are influenced by nearby bodies of water, landscape features and other local factors. Here are some of the most impressive forms of it on the planet.

Vaterite … from fish ears to crystal lattices

Deep within the ear of a fish you will find a little bone, an otolith. This bone acts as part of the sensory system of the ear, part accelerometer, part gravity sensor, part sound sensor. Otoliths are formed from calcium carbonate minerals, and different species of fish exploit different types of CaCO3 mineral. These CaCO3 “polymorphs” all have the same chemistry, but the arrangements of atoms within the crystal lattice of each are different, just as diamond and graphite are two polymorphs of carbon. Usually, a fish otolith grows as aragonite, sometimes as calcite, a different polymorph of calcium carbonate, and sometime as the third CaCO3 polymorph, vaterite.

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Killer whales are smart animals. This is what they do in their natural habitat:

Not this:

Customer: So seeing a whale is guaranteed, right?

Me: Well, it is the open ocean and they are wild animals so we cannot control when and where they are-

Customer: Yeah, but I’m paying to see a whale. How long until we see one?

Me: 

Persistent Sexual Harassment Is a Primary Reason Women Leave STEM

““The absence of women within STEM programs is not only progressive, it is persistent,” Hope Jahren writes in a recent essay in the New York Times.

“Indeed, despite programs designed to interest girls in STEM, GoldieBlox, and supermodels celebrating the virtues of coding, the fields are still overwhelmingly male and seem virtually resistant to change. Jahren, a geochemist and geobiologist, argues that the problem is hardly one of enthusiasm, but rather widespread sexual harassment in the fields that, unsurprisingly, goes unpunished.

The kind of sexual harassment Jahren describes is hardly that of a Mad Men episode: groping and outright dickishness are easier to label and condemn as sexual harassment (and it’s worth noting that STEM has a problem with that too).

Rather, it’s the kind that prioritizes men’s feelings, and their expression of them, over the simple act of treating a woman as a professional colleague. Jahren persuasively argues that the persistence of this kind of behavior—the constant demand from both male colleagues and academic advisors that their feelings be acknowledged and legitimized—is one of the reasons women leave STEM fields.

An email forwarded to Jahren by a former student asking her advice typifies the problem:

[The student] forwarded an email she had received from a senior colleague that opened, “Can I share something deeply personal with you?” Within the email, he detonates what he described as a “truth bomb”: “All I know is that from the first day I talked to you, there hadn’t been a single day or hour when you weren’t on my mind.” He tells her she is “incredibly attractive” and “adorably dorky.” He reminds her, in detail, of how he has helped her professionally: “I couldn’t believe the things I was compelled to do for you.” He describes being near her as “exhilarating and frustrating at the same time” and himself as “utterly unable to get a grip” as a result. He closes by assuring her, “That’s just the way things are and you’re gonna have to deal with me until one of us leaves.”

It’s hard to imagine that the sender of the email thought that it would earn him the romantic admiration of his female colleague, coupled as it is with a vague threat likely meant to convey the authentic intensity of his attraction. And yet, as Jahren writes, this behavior has “been encountered by every single woman I know.”

Read the full piece here