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Articles about marine life, research, and adventures
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Aquafeed Sea cucumber article – July 2022...
Blue flashes of bioluminescence trail from my fins like pixie dust as I survey the project sea pen. How many sea cucumbers are visible tonight?
A review of just came out this month in a trade magazine called Fish Farmer (June 2022 issue, page 25). Here is what they said:...
“So, if the middle of the ocean is a desert, what do the tuna eat?”...
You are on a raft, drifting in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The rippling surface surrounds you, stretching in every direction to the horizon. There is nothing but salt water and an empty sky....
Tuna are built for speed. With a sleek stream-lined silhouette and powerful muscles, they slice through the water at speeds up to 50 mph....
It was 1964 and my 12-year-old self waited in line to see the new documentary by Jacques Cousteau, World without Sun. I was enthralled. Men living on the sea floor – aquanauts. Cooler still was the ‘d...
Often for a few weeks in summer, along the Southern California coast, there is a ‘red tide’. This happens when there is a sudden bloom of plankton called dinoflagellates (Lingulodinium polyedra, the s...
I live in England and lead a local chapter of the Society of Authors. A few months ago, I offered a free copy of my book, Pelagia, to my fellow authors that if they would consider reviewing it – shoul...
They are the digital Frankenstein’s monsters of our age – created, sentient machines who have consciousness, emotions, self-awareness and free will. They are often in our movies and TV shows: Gort, HA...
Last month I was in California and met with a men’s book club, who had just finished Pelagia. It was a great discussion, and I was grateful and encouraged by the feedback they gave me....
The love affair between humans and dolphins has gone on for millennia, reaching back even into ancient legends. Countless stories recount how dolphins come to rescue people in danger (they even save o...
On average, households pay 12-18% of their income for energy like electricity, gas, fuel for cars, etc. The percentage is much higher if we factor in the energy cost of producing food and the many goo...
Sketches from the field:...
After World War 1, Fritz Harber, a brilliant German scientist and Nobel Prize winner, explored a novel way to help his country pay off its overwhelming war debt by extracting gold from seawater. This ...
30 June 2063, Huang Marine Research, Marcelli Rise...
Sea cucumbers are the humble vacuum cleaners of the sea, quietly tidying the environment as they creep across the sea floor on hundreds of tube feet. I consult with projects growing sea cucumbers for ...
“Just ocean. No lands. No names. Still looks like a lot of nowhere. Why do you like it here?” Oliana met his eyes....
29 June 2063, Huang Marine Research, Marcelli Rise...
Once upon a time…...
A little over a month ago I received the free author’s copy of my book from my publisher Lion Fiction. Here in my hand was a distillation of years of my life and thoughts into a pound of paper or flur...
Don’t judge a book by its cover. A wise proverb, often applied to people more these days than books. When it was coined in the mid 1800s, book covers were plain – often merely the title. Today, howeve...
I do consulting for a number of mariculture – ocean farming – projects in the Indo-Pacific region. Currently I am working with one project, a social enterprise, growing the sea cucumber Holothuria sca...
Last year, NASA astronauts flew to the International Space Station on a commercial rocket built by SpaceX. Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of the company, has a larger dream than just taxi service to t...