For when it’s Thursday and everyone needs a little bit more cute, cuddly, and slightly slimey things in their life…Etsy never let’s us down.

I have seen a lot (LIKE A LOT) of fun ocean arts and crafts in my day, but I couldn’t help but SQUEEEE when I saw these adorable woolen nudis by artist Arina Borevich. They are perfectly detailed, true to form, and I need them all. So please go to her ETSY shop right now (craftshop27) and buy them….and send me one.

HT/Chad Thompson for sending me this and making my day a little bit brighter with all my favorite sea beasties.

The post #SlugLyfe first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Just wanted to take a moment of gratitude today to thank all the people who have followed us and made DSN what it is over the years. Especially these turkeys (and those not pictured because I couldn’t find clipart with more turkeys). Sometimes science can be a very lonely place, but these guys keep it entertaining to say the least.

So here’s to good pie (judgment free) and good people. Cheers.

The post From Our Family of Turkeys to Yours first appeared on Deep Sea News.

I am not sure when this obsession with both small and large things began. One of the earliest photographs of me is in a giant rocking chair. With a big smile on my face, I am dwarfed by the colossal piece of furniture. Sadly, in researching this post I discovered this rocking chair is not the largest. That title is bestowed to a towering rocking chair, a 56.5 feet tall behemoth in Casey, Illinois, not only the world’s largest rocking chair but also the largest chair in all of America. I will of course need to visit, and photograph, myself next to the massive chair. Another photograph to add to my photo collection of myself with oversized objects. The world’s largest Adirondack chair and me…got it. Largest chest of drawers…done. Largest frying pan…visited. Giant 6-foot tall cheese grater…photographed and almost bought. I could go on and on.

I never realized I could get paid for my obsession. I did not at some point in high school realize or declare I wanted a vocation focused on extreme sizes. Nor was such a trajectory flagged as a possibility on those mandated vocational tests. I got flagged for being perfect for cake decorating. No joke. Nothing about decorating tiny or giant cakes. Of course, who would even think you could make a career out of a passion for size, except maybe Guinness World Records? No, I came by it all by accident.

As an undergraduate, I applied for a summer program to conduct research with a biologist. Knowing at the time I wanted to be a marine biologist, I applied to do summer research counting fish on the coral reefs of St. Croix. An unshockingly, popular choice among undergraduates, I did not get the position. My second and third choices were the only other ocean-based projects in the program. When the scientist involved with my second choice project called to invite me to work with him that summer, I didn’t even remember what the project was. I wasn’t really concerned with the specifics of the other projects because how could I not be selected for my first choice, St. Croix, dream project. Opposed to the beautiful tropical beaches of the Caribbean, my destiny would be to work in a windowless lab all summer in Boston. The project didn’t exceedingly interest me at the time as I wanted to be a field scientist and microscopy in the lab sounded…well dull. But working in an air-conditioned lab in the big city sounded better than living with my parents in rural Arkansas working in the intense Southern heat sweating in a factory. So off to Boston I went. Within a few hours of the first day, I fell in love with the project. So much so I asked that scientist, a preeminent deep-sea biologist and expert on the body size of marine invertebrates, if I could pursue a doctorate with him.

In the biological world, size is more than a novelty. How an organism relates to the world around it is determined by its size, and understanding what influences size is key to understanding the diversity of life itself.  That summer I measured the size of 100’s of tiny snails and when I returned to pursue my Ph.D. I measured thousands more. In total I measured 14,278 deep-sea snails. The largest no bigger than Abraham Lincoln’s head on the face of the penny. The smallest the size of his nose. Those snails I measured were collected from off the coast of New England from depths of over 600 feet to well over 18,000 feet, from the shallows of the New England continental shelf to the abyssal plains.

Why would anyone measure close to 15,000 snails? In the late 1800’s Henry Nottidge Mosely wrote: “Some animals appear to be dwarfed by deep- sea conditions.” By the 1970s, Hjalmar Thiel of Universität Hamburg observed that the deep sea is a “small organism habitat.” Increased depth typically translates into less food in the oceans with the deep-sea being a very food poor environment. As you might expect this has profound effects on the body size of deep-sea animals. Thiel’s seminal 1975 work demonstrated that with increased depth, smaller organisms became more dominant. At depths greater than 4 kilometers on the vast abyssal plains where food is extremely limited, you find some of the most diminutive sizes. In a particularly striking example of this, my doctoral advisor Michael Rex and I calculated those nearly 15,000 deep-sea snails I measured could fit completely inside a single Busycon carica, a fist-sized New England knobbed whelk found along the coast. But by measuring all those snails, Mike and I were able to document exactly how size in these snails changes over a 3.5 mile increase in depth. That study was the first of its kind and remains the largest number of deep-sea animals ever individually measured.

But to say that all creatures of the deep are miniaturized overlooks the complexity of size evolution in the deep sea. Some taxa actually become giants. The Giant Isopod, a roly-poly the size of very large men’s shoe, and sea-spiders the size of dinner plates, quickly dispel the Lilliputian view of the deep sea. Although all those deep-sea snails are smaller than their shallow-water relatives, shockingly Mike and I also found that they actually increase in size with greater depth and presumed lower food availability. To further confound the situation, other scientists have reported the exact opposite pattern in other types of snails, whose size decreases with depth. The same appeared to be true in other taxa, such as crustaceans. How can the deep-sea be both a habitat of dwarfs and giants?

To answer that, I turned from the Earth’s largest habitat to one of its smallest—islands. On islands both giants and dwarfs exist. The diminished kiwi and the enormous Moa of New Zealand, the colossal Komodo dragon on the island of Komodo, the extinct pygmy elephants on the islands of the Mediterranean, the ant-sized frog of the Seychelles, the giant hissing cockroach of Madagascar and the giant tortoise of the Galapagos represent just a few of the multitudes of size extremes on islands. In 1964, J. Bristol Foster of the University of East Africa demonstrated that large mammals became miniaturized over time on islands. Conversely, small mammals tended toward gigantism. This occurs with such frequency that scientists refer to it as “Foster’s rule” or the “Island rule.” Big animals getting small and small animals getting large.

My colleagues and I discovered a similar pattern in 2006 between shallow and deep seas. As shallow-water gastropods evolved into deep-sea dwellers, small species became larger and large species became smaller. Interestingly, size did not shift in a parallel manner. Larger taxa became disproportionately smaller sized—that is, both converged on a size somewhat smaller than medium. I’ve since observed this pattern in radically different taxa, such as bivalves, sharks, and cephalopods.

The fact that islands and the deep sea have so little in common represents a wonderful opportunity that allows elimination of several hypotheses. Of course, what the deep sea lacks is food. The absence of sunlight precludes plants.   Thus, for the majority of organisms living there, the food chain starts with plankton, dead organisms and other organic debris descending from the ocean’s surface. Less than five per cent of the total food available drifts to the sea floor, leading to an extremely food-limited environment. On islands, less food is available because the small land areas support fewer plants at the base of the food chain.

In either case, island and deep-sea animals need to be efficient and creative in their acquisition of food. In both habitats, there may not be enough total food to support populations of giants only. Unable to travel long distances to search for food or to store large fat reserves to fast through periods of food scarcity, smaller organisms are also at a disadvantage. If these contrasting evolutionary pressures were equal, size would be driven to an intermediate. However, the selection against larger sizes is greater, leading toward an evolutionary convergence that is slightly smaller than the intermediate size. Thus, differential responses to food reduction by different- sized organisms may resolve the outstanding paradox of divergent size patterns in the deep. In the interests of reaching this ‘golden medium’, some species become giant while others miniaturized.

In that summer of 1996, as a clueless undergraduate, I started my scientific adventure that fueled my obsession with size. Two decades later, I still am excited by the body size of animals. Much of my research, and the students who work with me, is dedicated to understanding how the expansive variety of sizes on Earth from bacteria to blue whales emerged. Did I mention the great selfie I took recently with a giant whale vertebra the size of coffee table?

The post Craig With Big Things (and Small Things) first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Dr. M’s Really Damn Good Advice #1: “Be passionate. Others will tell you that science should be an emotionless endeavor. Well good luck with that. If you don’t get super excited about what ever you are studying then you are probably not going to make it.”

You guys. This is EVERYTHING. PASSION IS EVERYTHING. I tell all the kids I teach science stuff to or mentor about science stuff, that this is the #1 thing you need to be a good scientist. Hell, this is just good overall life advice. If you aren’t passionate about what you are doing…. then why are you doing it?

Dr. M’s Really Damn Good Advice #2: “Embrace the World Around You.”

You like Beyoncé? Well, I freaking lover her. Can I tell you 3 ways that Beyoncé and the Rocky Intertidal are related. You damn well bet I can. Will you always remember those three things every time you hear a Beyoncé song? Chances are good. Relevance is Power. Embrace the World Around You.

Dr. M’s Really Damn Good Advice #3: “Don’t forget why you wanted to do this. When you get those rejections and your scientific career is generally weighing you down, remember why you do this… It is because sorting little snails and worms out of decaying stinking wood is the best thing that has ever happened to you.”

 I wouldn’t be the first to say it, nor will I be the last. While this is REALLY damn good advice, this is also REALLY damn hard advice. There will be times that you will most definitely forget why you are here (But then you will come back to this post and remember your brilliance!). Ocean science is full of awesome, squishy, crazy things! Ocean science is also full of crap. Sometimes, you will need to be able to wade through both. Also remember that while worms and snails make Dr. M happy….he is a nerd. Other things like seaweeds, and jellyfish, and genomes, and waves, and rum might make you happy….but you are probably a nerd too. So carry on.

Dr. M’s Really Damn Good Advice #4: “Say Things Others Do Not”

This one might be slightly cheating cause it was a DSN groupthink that included Dr. M that created this line, but this is my post so I get to do what I want. One of my most favorite DSN core values challenges the status quo of science. To say what needs to be said rather than what the PR department at your university said you could say.

Dr. M’s Really Damn Good Advice #5: “I believe that effective science communication, from the scientists themselves, must be based on a model with better integration between research and outreach. And importantly, we must teach these models to our students.”

Some advice I wish all scientists could take to heart. Not only is science communication an actual thing, but you can do it too! So many scientists I have come across, just don’t see the world this way. And the most unfortunate part is that students suffer because tools needed to do this well aren’t being presented in the classroom. It’s a spiral of doom!

Dr. M’s Really Damn Good Advice #6: “10 Reasons Why Dolphins Are A$$holes”

Need I explain further….

Dr. M’s Really Damn Good Advice #7: “Own it.  Love it. Define yourself. For all my struggles, I have won.  And so will you.”

Excuse me guys, I have something in my eye.

Real Talk: The first time I read this, I was sitting in my lab and it had been one of those real awful days. I had just started grad school and I was having an “Oh shit what did I sign up for” moment. You may be familiar. Nothing was working, classes were overwhelming, I had no secured funding, struggles were indeed real. Reading that last line from Dr. M’s “I Am Science and a Nerd” post got me through it. I felt a little less alone in a pretty dark place in my life. If this crazy bald man who studied something as weird as the Deep Sea could do it…I could do it. Thank-you Dr. M for all you have contributed to our field and for truly paving the way for the crazy kids like me to continue your legacy of work. I’ve been owning it, loving it, and defining myself ever since. And everyone else should too.

The post Some REALLY Damn Good Advice first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Living on the eastern seaboard of the US for many years, Dr. M. has no doubt enjoyed the cool, crisp cocktail regionally known as the Gulf Stream. It’s sort of a southern equivalent of the mimosa, which of course is a respectable excuse to begin drinking on a Sunday morning, and not stop until just before dinner. Delicious, yes, but not nearly strong enough to slake the thirst of our leader. With a few tweaks of the original recipe, here is the Atlantic Gyre:
2 oz. Brandy
2 oz. Dry White Rum (10 Cane, Angostura)
1/4 oz. Blue Curacao
6 oz. Lemonade
Champagne
Mix all the ingredients in a cocktail shaker, excluding the champagne; pour into a pint glass filled ¼ full of course crushed ice. Fill and top off with the champagne, garnish with a thin lime wedge & sprig of mint.

 Dr. M. is a complex man, having more facets than the Hope Diamond. Did you know he is not only obsessed by Southern home-made biscuits, but actually worked as a biscuit baker? To blend his love of biscuits with his love of the sea, here is a rich, smooth cocktail called the Sea Biscuit, after the creamy white, delicious echinoderm of the genus Clypeaster.

In a cocktail shaker add the following:
2 oz. Vanilla Schnapps
2 oz. Premium smooth white rum (Plantation Three-Star or Vizcaya Crystal White)
4 oz Horchata*
4 oz Full Cream Milk
Lightly shake the mix and pour into pint, adding ice to top off the drink, with a mild sprinkle of allspice on the top.
*you can substitute the pre-made product Rum Chata for the horchata & white rums

Other than biscuits, Dr. M’s has another obsession that wrestles him in his sleep and grips his thoughts in daytime. It is his White Whale, an archtypal beast of lore that he has been seeking but has yet to find. Being the largest of the large, the Colossal Squid doesn’t disappoint the imagination of what the deep-sea can conjure, nor the reality it’s based on. To Dr. M. and his beloved cephalopod, here is The Colossus:

2 oz. Pomegranite Liqueur
½ oz. Grenadine
2 oz. Dry White Rum (Brugal, Diplomatico, Matusalem)
1 oz. Gin
Juice of ½ lime
4 oz. club soda
Mix all ingredients together in a cocktail shaker with large ice cubes; shake and strain into a large glass. Add a dash of Cherry Bitters for the finish. Feel the cocktail’s tentacles work their way into your brain.

Some people think they are busy, but Dr. M. must drink more workahol that just about anybody I know. He coordinates with grant-writing teams, acts as a managing journal editor, trains his field crews, communicates with the press, writes scientific papers like a madman, and of course, simultaneously pens several different blogs, including Deep Sea News. As a twist to the old and well-haled drink of yore with the well-fitting name of The Wrangler, here is a version scaled-up to meet the needs of our boss. I call it The Commodore:

2 oz. Rye Whiskey
1 ½ oz. Dark Rum
5 oz. Orange Juice
5 oz. Ruby Grapefruit Juice
5 dashes of Angostura bitters
In a shaker put all of the ingredients except the ½ oz. of dark rum; pour into a pint glass and fill with cube ice to the top; add the remaining ½ oz. of Dark Rum as a float on top, garnish with a small sprig of fresh rosemary. Also fights scurvy.

Over the decade, Dr. M. has posted about his deep, somewhat disturbing, passion for Kraken Rum on the pages of Deep Sea News. Not only does this dusky rum shimmer with the darkness of the abyss, bear the piquant tang of the Spice Islands, and a inflicts a burn that would cause any buccaneer to reel, but their neo-Victorian steam punk meets Ernst Haeckel artwork is worthy of endless tattoos. Indeed, rum is often the fuel of creativity, and without the nourishing and enriching powers of rum drinks, Dr. M. wouldn’t be who he is today, so in honor of our leader, here is The Big Kahuna:

2 oz. Kraken Rum
2 oz. Macamadia Nut Liqueur
1 can sugar cane-based Cola soda
Fill a pint glass ½ full with cube ice, add the Kraken Rum and Macadamia Nut Liqueur, then fill the rest of the way with the cola, stirring lightly.

The post Five New Delicious (and Fittingly Strong) Cocktails in Honor of Dr. M. first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Calling all scientists!!!

Looking for a way to make a big impact with relatively little effort ? Do you like talking about your research to a captive audience that won’t run away? Do you actually remember how to write a letter that’s not an e-mail? (Seriously though….).

You are in luck. The group “Letter’s to a Pre-Scientist” are currently looking for science pen pals to inspire kids who might not normally interact with REAL scientists.

This is something that could take less than 30 minutes of your time, yet make a huge difference for a young person. Who knows, you might even find some of that much needed inspiration as you trudge through proofreading that last grant application.

To participate, you just sign up at www.prescientist.org and commit to writing four letters a year to your pen pal. Tell all your science friends.

The post Letters to a Pre-Scientist first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Well now 8 year olds of the world (and those who still act like it) can rejoice as I blow your mind with what other sources you can inadvertently obtain those ‘leafy veggies’ of the sea. Here are 10 Not-So-Obvious Ways Seaweeds are in magically delicious foods that you might not have realized.

1. Bacon

Recently, a couple of genius scientists at OSU decided that making seaweed that tasted like bacon when you fry it would be a good idea. They did other more science-y things too, but ultimately, this is the best idea I have ever heard of. They should get a freaking Nobel Prize. NSF shut up and give them all your money.

2. Ice Cream

Phish Food…coincidence? Nope.

Ben & Jerry have just know this whole time….

3. Pudding

A little seaweed in your Snack Pack? Yes, please.

4. Twinkies

Seaweed…now that’s the stuff.

5. Beer

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any better. Boom it did.

6. Chocolate

I think chocolate lovers might just be addicted to seaweed…milk, dark, white…don’t matter….it’s everywhere.

7. Pizza

The secret is in the sauce.

8. Marshmallows

Not even marshing your mellow. They are jet-puffed full of seaweed.

9. Candy

Bears, worms, sour patches…if it’s gummy, seaweed will be in your tummy.

10. Frosting

Seaweed. It quite literally tops the cake as the most awesome thing in the ocean.

Beyond the 10 deadly sins we have covered already, seaweed has even broader commercial applications, just perhaps not in the form you were thinking.

These leafy rulers of the world are widely harvested for the unique compounds they contain. A different compound depending on the class of seaweed, but they are chalked full of things like algin, carrageenan, and agar.  Once extracted from their respective weeds, these compounds have properties that make them useful as thickeners, emulsifiers, foaming agents, and congealers.

Bottom line. They are the glue that keeps all the magical foods in the world together. Chocolate, Frosting, Ice Cream…would be sloppy goops. Non-foamy beer. Pizza without sauce. A life without seaweed, would be no life at all.

So eat up and with every bite remember….Seaweed is the best thing that ever happened to you.

The post 10 Not-So-Obvious Ways Seaweed is the Best Thing That Ever Happened to You first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Coral reefs are in crisis. They are fragile. They are complex. And they are disappearing faster than we are able to understand them.

This threat is exacerbated by an ecological battle raging on reef lines between corals and seaweeds. When fish are removed, seaweeds run rampant, and corals suffer. This negative feedback loop is often mitigated with the implementation of Marine Protected Areas (MPA).

Essentially….Save the fish, Save the world coral.

MPAs globally are established on the premise that they will not only protect critical reef habitat, but also act as a source for larval export to surrounding regions. This is known as the spillover effect and it represents a central tenet in the creation and management of these areas.

However a seminal study, out today in Science, demonstrates that coral and fish larvae can actually distinguish the differences between protected areas and degraded ones on the basis of the reef’s chemical scent alone.  Resounding larval choice for healthy reefs puts into question the validity of the critical “spillover” process for these areas.

Exploring three different marine protected regions off the Coral Coast of Fiji, Dr. Danielle Dixon and her team were able to provide outstanding evidence in laboratory flume studies for the case that when coral and fish larvae are given the choice between water taken from an MPA and that of a non-MPA (representing healthy and degraded reefs) that they will chose the former. Over and over and over again. This pattern held true for three different coral species (genus: Acropora) and 15 species of reef fish spanning multiple families and taxonomic groups.

As if that was not remarkable enough, this larval behavior is dependent on the presence of cues stemming from certain coral and seaweed species in the water. For instance, they discovered that larval fish prefer water treated with corals that are more susceptible to stress over those that are less. With presence of more susceptible corals on a reef being a good indication of a healthier area where such sensitive corals may persist. Furthermore, larvae were able to distinguish between different types of seaweed cues.  They found larvae dissuaded more by the scent of seaweeds that had a higher likelihood of blooming then those that might not necessarily take over a whole reef. A seaweed-dominated reef not exactly representing good habitat for a baby fish and especially a baby coral.

Once Dixon and Co. had discovered these trends in the lab, they wanted to corroborate these findings in the field, a truly monumental task. Using special tiles to track where larvae landed in both MPAs and non-MPAs, these researchers found that although larvae were present in the non-MPAs, they were not settling there. Conversely, larvae were found settled in abundance within MPAs.

Undoubtedly, the ability of fish to find a healthy habitat to call home is critical, even more so for corals that are unable to move after they settle.  This study is the first to establish that fish and coral larvae can smell the difference between MPAs and non-MPAs and are actively choosing to settle in a more suitable, coral-filled habitat over one that is dominated by noxious seaweeds.

Due to the fact that the reefs surrounding these MPAs have degraded beyond an unknown tipping point, connectivity between areas is minimal, and spillover does not appear to be occurring. This does not in any way mean that Marine Protected Areas are not working to their intended purpose, quite the contrary. They are most definitely effective. However, with this knowledge we are now aware that they just might not be enough. Managers must look into ways to enhance the “Call of the Reef” or the good smelling corals that attract settlers and decrease the tremulous odor of algal domination to help guarantee a better future for reefs everywhere.

Reference:

Dixson et al., “Chemically mediated behavior of recruiting corals and fishes: A tipping point that may limit reef recovery.” (August 2014,Science). http://www.sciencemag.org/content/345/6199/892 

The post What the "Call of the Reef" is Telling Us first appeared on Deep Sea News.

When California resident June Emerson snapped a photo of her children playing at the beach, she didn’t expect it to generate international news. Although the kids seem to be adorable, that isn’t what captured the attention of the media. In a wave behind them, you can see the outline of a large animal swimming by (or being “terrifying” and “creeping up on them,” as the Daily Mail called it).

The media, including local, national, and international outlets, wasted no time in calling it a shark. However, as Jason Goldman wryly noted, “not all grey things with dorsal fins in the ocean are sharks.” This animal  is almost certainly a dolphin. I asked a dozen shark scientists and a handful of dolphin scientists, and all quickly agreed that this is a dolphin.

As I’m no fan of merely appealing to authority (though I’ll trust someone with years of training over the painful to read comments on many of the news pieces), I’ll share with you how we can tell. First, let’s clean up and brighten the image. Since I am not a photoshop master, let’s borrow a cleaned up and enhanced image from KTLA.

Even though the image is somewhat blurry (understandable, as June was trying to photograph her children and not the animal behind them,) there are still easily identifiable features that clearly show that this is not a great white shark, but a dolphin.

Lets compare the rough outline of a great white shark with that of adolphin (images are from Wikipedia, H/T to Pete Thomas for finding them and pointing them out to me).

On a great white shark, the pectoral fins are relatively far from the head and relatively close to the first dorsal fin (#1) . Like all sharks, great whites have a second dorsal fin (#2). Like all sharks, great whites swim by moving their tail side-to-side (#3).

Though I used a side-view drawing for convenience, these features are all easily seen on the real thing.

On a dolphin, pectoral fins are relatively close to the head and relatively far from the dorsal fin (#1). There is no second dorsal fin (#2). Unlike sharks, dolphins swim by moving their tails up and down, resulting in a drastically different tail shape (#3).

Again, these features are all easily seen on the real animal.

So, now that you know what to look for, let’s compare June’s image with the features of a great white shark.

Now let’s compare June’s photo with that the features of a dolphin.

In a pseudo “debate” with me (we never actually communicated directly) for CNN, Shark Week producer Jeff Kurr noted that there have been a lot of juvenile great whites in this area. That’s absolutely true, and it’s a good sign for the conservation of the species. However, that’s hardly evidence that this is a great white. He didn’t note that there are also a lot of dolphins in the area, and that they’re often observed surfing in the waves.

The cynic in me can’t help but notice that many news articles noted within the text of the article that this could easily be a dolphin, yet hardly any used “dolphin” in their headline. It isn’t hard to imagine an editorial discussion along the lines of “eh, it may be a shark, it may be a dolphin, more people will click the link if it talks about a big scary shark near cute innocent children.” Though not exactly rare, this kind of fear-mongering “if it bleeds, it leads” journalism has had a significant negative impact on public perception of sharks, and by extension shark conservation policy, and by extension the population status of threatened species.

June and her children were in no danger, which also would have been true if the animal photo-bombing them was a juvenile great white shark. Many species of sharks are in danger, and sensationalist journalism such as much of the coverage of this “photobomb” does them no favors.

The post Here’s how you can tell that the “shark” photobombing kids is actually a dolphin first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Last Friday I delivered a preliminary talk on the opening night of ScienceOnline Oceans.  I am extremely flattered by the invitation and the enthusiastic reception to my talk.  Many asked me to post my slides online but I felt I needed to go a step further to provide more discussion, links, and points that an 10 minute presentation allowed.  I want to thank the Deep-Sea News team, Kevin Zelnio (@kzelnio), John Bruno (@JohnFBruno), and Liz Neely (@LizNeely) for many important discussions. These people have influenced me more than words can say.

1. I come from ocean outreach from a perspective that is much different from others.  I am first and foremost a scientist.  One that completely believes in research but equally in outreach.  I am scientist communicator. I also come from the perspective of building, with the help of many others, Deep-Sea News over the last 8 years.  In these years we have had many failures and successes.  I believe we have reached success.  Our community is amazing. Our hit rate reached 1 million last year and is expected to increase well over 2 million this year.  There is no indication that our popularity is tapering off.

2. Be Strategic. Be Deliberate. Coming from the perspective of a scientist, I often worry about finding time to do this.  I also want to do this effectively. We have to be more deliberate and strategic in the way we approach outreach online.   Otherwise we are wasting time.  In October 2011, all of us at DSN converged on Atlanta to hold a DSN retreat.  We collectively discussed our future. More importantly we discussed what we were trying to accomplish and the values that defined us.  We implemented this new collective vision in late 2011/early 2012 and something magical happened.  Our hit rate increased dramatically.  We went from linear growth to exponential growth. Go back and look at slide two and you can see for yourself this amazing transition.  It doesn’t matter what your mission is as long as you clearly define, understand, and work toward it.  Otherwise you are wasting time.

3. Branding…Branding…Branding...This, and the point of above, may seem corporate or trite but they matter.  At the retreat, we also decided to brand.  As Lois Geller at Forbes states “In one sense, perhaps the most important sense, a brand is a promise…You know what you’re going to get with a well-branded product or service.”  In this sense, you know you are getting at DSN.  We have outlined it in the core values. Most importantly for me is our tone, reverently irreverent, and that it comes directly from the mouths of scientists. Of course, our brand is visualized in the giant squid with an eye patch.  Why a giant squid? Because the giant squid can be a panda for the ocean. The eyepatch? Well this is DSN.

4. Find Your Niche and Story.  This applies across scales to a social media collective, blog, and individual posts.  Our brand, mission, and values are who we are.  We are consistently these day end and out.  But they are ours and they reflect a lot of who we are in non-online world.  When I add new people to the our online collective that match our niche.  Your niche and story may be different.  And that of course is ok. Of course not everyone agrees with our unqiue approach.  A recent comment on our blog

“This “oh-so-hip” presentation of a very interesting phenomenon is regrettable. I stopped reading halway [sic] through it as I couldn’t take any more. Just present the science. Tarting it up for people to read is pointless. Such readers have no value. Too bad, I would have liked to learn the real scinece [sic] presented here.”

I cannot disagree more with this commenter.  Our “tarting it up” is a core value for us. I mean have they read DSN before? We make science accessible, relevant, current, and of course fun.  You know what happens to science writing that isn’t these things?  Nobody reads it.  Readers, no matter their backgrounds and expectations, all have value.  They pay the taxes that fund our research.  We are part of the same community.  Frankly, I don’t want to live in a world where we cannot have fun and openly communicate about science.  Part of this is just telling a good story.  People listen to good stories.

5. Get a Super Team.  Everything you see in the Deep-Sea News Empire is a community effort.  I work hard to surround myself with people who are smarter and even more passionate about the oceans and outreach than me.  DSN wouldn’t exist without all of the contributors here.  But this is only one part.  I also believe in surrounding myself with a great community.  I am blessed on Twitter, Facebook, and here at the main site with a community of readers and commenters.  You are also DSN.  We put this idea in our core values too.

We believe the conversation between the public and science should not be one way. Vision, growth, and intelligent progress can only come through an open conversation that includes all stakeholders. We strive to provide a platform for diverse voices to be heard.

6. Embrace the World Around You. I despise the term public outreach.  As if I’m somehow not a member of the public.  I don’t feel like a scientist when I’m buying groceries or in traffic.  I’m a member of the public. This “public outreach” view has lead to a culture of science separate from society.  Instead science is embedded in society and culture.  The oceans greatly influence who we are. To ignore this simple idea spells disaster.  I get no greater joy than blending science with pop culture.  Old school hip-hop and bivalve genomes.  Hell yes. Internet memes. Let’s get some science in there. Science must be relevant and current.

7. Network + Good Story = Viral.  People crave a good story.  The local story-telling hour conducted here in the Triangle has taught me that people will come out in droves just to hear some really good stories…no matter the content. Whether sea cucumber who feed through their anuses or modern presidential elections impacted by ancient coastlines, people want to hear a really great story. A story they can tell others.  To get that good story out there you need a network.  An ocean super team.  Through our multiple social streams we tap new audiences, ones who share it with their friends, and continue to do so.  The DSN network is large and our traffic high because of our great readers who share DSN content.

8.  Stop Taking Refuge in Our Irrelevance.  I often hear from scientists that they don’t do outreach because no one will care about their research and interests.  But here is the ironic part.  No scientist goes to work thinking they do boring research.  I didn’t waste my time on 5 years of graduate program and decade of research thereafter because I thought snails were boring.  Snails are the best f’n thing since sliced white bread.  They aren’t even close to boring. So scientists have the passion. We just simply need to convey that to the public.  If you take only one message away from this post this is it:

Producing something popular on the internet is as much about passion as it is about good content. With passion and the right writing style, you can make any type of science cool. 

I firmly reject the idea that  sex, dinosaurs, chocolate, health, or climate change is the only the public cares about.  I’ve banked 8 years of my life on it.  I have 5 million hits at DSN that makes me think I’m right. Case in point.  My friend and colleague Chris Mah (@echinoblog) has a blog just about echinoderms.  That’s it.  In the few years he’s had a blog, Chris has amassed more hits than the population of Miami.  That’s an outreach win.

9. The Deficit Model is Dead. As the source of all information states, “[The deficit model] attributes public scepticism or hostility to a lack of understanding, resulting from a lack of information. It is associated with a division between experts who have the information and non-experts who do not. The model implies that communication should focus on improving the transfer of information from experts to non-experts.” We keep using this model in science outreach.  We’ve done it for decades.  We keep repeating the same message.  We raise our voices when people don’t change their behaviors or listen.  It is not working. What we need is better stories and personal connections.

10. Create prestige for public scholarship. As I mentioned before, the demand on our time requires we first and foremost publish, both the number and the impact matter.  We must write and ultimately receive grants to both maintain our research (to produce more papers) and keep grant funds flowing through our departments and universities.  Depending on the institution, we may also be required to teach and mentor students, and potentially do it well, and provide service to the school in the form of committees.   Of course part of the investment in mentoring is to ultimately increase our own research output.  These are the direct demands on our time that directly influence our careers.  This is the formula for success in traditional faculty positions.

This formula doesn’t include outreach.  People are surprised to hear that DSN is not part of my day job.  I and the others here do this in our free time.  And if we didn’t do it, in academia and among our colleagues we would be just a successful.  This must change.

I think it will change if we scientists begin to demand it. We are amidst a revolution in science. In the next decade, the landscape of science will radically change.  This revolution is being brought about two forces. One is the increased call for openness–open access, open source, open data, open conversations (via social media), open review, open participation (via citizen science). Two you cannot continue to fund science at 5-10% and expect the model to be sustaining especially when universities run more like businesses than institutions of learning.  As part of this revolution the formula will change too. Those not on board with the new science will get left behind.

11. Stop Treating Outreach & Research as Separate Entities. This new formula begins with us treating outreach as integral part of research instead of something we do when research is over for the day. People ask how I engage in outreach and research.  I accomplish because I can’t honestly tell you where one ends and the other begins.  And I don’t sleep.  Imagine a world where we create science anew. That is exciting.  Graduates read the literature and engage the online community through social media.  Scientists tweeting photos of the organism under their microscopes. Scientist live plotting data online.  This is the model we need. We train students and colleagues to conduct outreach in separate classes, programs, and times.  This must stop.  I think a new model incorporates the two explicitly.  I am trying out this model with Sizing Ocean Giants. Halfway through the semester it appears to be a success.  

12. Become a Nerd of Trust (extra point) Everyone lately is discussing that social media may be feeding into our ivory tower.  Simply put the conversations on social media are still one way from academic to the public.  I don’t think this true.  Scientists online have become nerds for trust.  Need someone to answer a starfish question. Chris is there. Need DSN to identify a bizarre ocean animal, debunk mermaids, or provide conservation advice? Hell that’s our bread and butter.  We are becoming a service industry.  The best example of this I see is on Facebook.  When my friends and family have an ocean question, I’m their nerd.  When I have a health question, I ask my friend the medical doctor.  A weight lifting friend, I as my friend a fitness coach.  I surround myself with people who are experts on a variety of subjects.  I ask for their input and advice everyday.  Any single conversation may be unidirectional from expert to the naive, but our collective conversations are constant back and forth.

The post Lessons From Creating an Online Outreach Empire first appeared on Deep Sea News.