Since Jacksonville’s most eastern border is  the Atlantic Ocean, marine biology is a subject of interest to some. In fact, Jacksonville University is building it’s own Marine Science Research Institute. The completion date is scheduled for August 2010, which isn’t that far into the future in the grand scheme of things (about the time of Talk Like A Pirate Day 2010). The MSRI will be JU’s first “green building”  seeking Silver LEED Certification through the U.S. Green Building Council.

So anyway,  over at Southern Fried Science are those two marine biologists. One calls himself southernfriedscientist, but his name is actually Andrew.

Andrew is a graduate student in North Carolina studying deep sea biology. When not in the lab, he spends his time out on the water, usually swearing at his boat while simultaneously sacrificing some important tool to Poseidon in a desperate attempt to make the motor start. That is, assuming he can get his truck running long enough to actually put the boat in the water.

The other calls himself  WhySharksMatter, but his real name is  David.

David is a graduate student in South Carolina studying shark conservation. He is the author of the upcoming book “Why Sharks Matter: Using New Environmentalism to Show The Economic And Ecological Importance of Sharks, The Threats They Face, and How You Can Help”. His time is divided between educating the public about sharks, spending days at a time at sea playing with sharks, and eating horribly unhealthy foods.

Under what Southern Fried Science calls it’s The Best Marine Invertebrate Blog Posts is posted incredibly useful information, such as Malaria, Bedbugs, Sea Lice, and Sunsets: Can’t We All Just Get Along? ; The Other 95%: Man-Sized Sea Scorpion Fossil Found In Germany ;  or Echinoblog: Giant Green Brittle Stars of DEATH!! When they ATTACK–AGAIN! (this one might be useful  for TLAPD 2010).

dolphins are actually jerks?

Still drifting  along on our deep-sea journey, we find that WSM believes “Dolphins are actually jerks”.  This belief might be offensive to JU because its university’s mascot is a dolphin. He did, however, recieve the 2009 3 Quarks Daily science blogging prize, so JU should overlook the transgression. In the post, The ecological disaster that is dolphin-safe tuna, WSM makes the following observation (among many others):

Tuna is one of the world’s most economically important fisheries, directly employing tens of thousands and feeding millions. The main way that tuna is caught is through purse seines in the Eastern Tropical Pacific. Basically, after a large group of tuna is located, a miles-across purse seine net is closed around them via a group of small boats associated with a large factory ship.  It’s an effective way to catch large amounts of fish for not a lot of money.

WSM’s post explains [why WSM thinks dolphins are jerks]  some environmentalists  (such as Greenpeace)  mean well, but are not always helpful.  This is indicted by the title of the post, which includes the phrase “ecological disaster”.

Mmmm ... Yellow Fin

Yellow Fin image courtesy of Sustainable Sushi

Many restaurants across the country,  even if they’re not solely dedicated to sushi,  serve  seared, rare Ahi [Yellow Fin] tuna.  I think it makes sense to catch as much tuna as possible. (Maybe Ahi wouldn’t be so pricey).

So WSM may be right – dolphins are actually jerks despite a long maritime tradition of respecting dolphins.

[ AVAST ME HEARTIES !! ]

(Hat Tip to Reuters blogger Felix Salmon, who despite all his blathering about economics, occasionally posts hilarious links, which is where I found  Southern Fried Science and associated blogs.

CORRECTION: Hat tip to commenter Doug for rightly pointing out the pink dolphin’s natural habitat. The dolphin shown is not a jerk.  According to Cryptomundo, which is where this image is courtesy of,  the dolphin is an Amazon River Dolphin (or Boto), Inia geoffrensis.