Getting Situated (This Bird Has Flown)

I carried my bright-orange duffel through the last of the crisp 60 degree new Zealand air and onto the C-17, which – unlike last Friday – took off and headed for Antarctica at 300 knots. One of the most comfortable flights ever, despite the reputation, owing to unlimited legroom and even more elbow room [...]

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Faster Than the Speed of Luggage

I spent 40 minutes sitting in a traffic jam on the taxiway at LAX. Dense fog had confused the pilot ahead of us about which way he was supposed to taxi. As those minutes ticked by on the already delayed flight, they trickled away from my margin for making my trans-Pacific connection to Auckland. [...]

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Funny sign alert #3

Needless to say, the possums are different in New Zealand.

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Please Tax My Carbon

The first of five articles I wrote about iron fertilization of the oceans for Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s Oceanus magazine is online. It’s an overview of the issue from scientific, environmental, economic, and regulatory angles. The other four articles look into each of those angles in a bit more detail and should be online soon.
Iron [...]

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Cute baby pictures #3

Against my better judgment, I continue with the cute baby pictures.
This is a Leptasterias pusilla, or six-rayed star, from Greyhound Rock about 15 miles north of Santa Cruz. Pusilla is Latin for eentsy-weentsy. Apparently, they can get to be a few inches across, but that’s about it. This one was nosing around the sea lettuce [...]

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Tanker of Iron Sails for Galapagos

The controversial “ocean restoration” firm Planktos has set sail from Miami with a hundred tons of hematite, vowing to dump it off the Galapagos to set off a huge plankton bloom. They’re making so much noise about it that bloggers everywhere and even the New York Times is paying attention. It’s exactly what we don’t [...]

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November: Time for a Squidly Carnival

Well, it’s a new month, and those dedicated bloggers at the Carnival of the Blue have racked up a whole bunch of new posts for you to check out in case surf.bird.scribble hasn’t been exactly pumping out the content lately.
 
This month’s host is the adorable cephalopodcast.com, a dynamite production that you can either read at [...]

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Scribbler Catches Smithsonian’s Gist

News flash: the hardworking staff of surf.bird.scribble is taking the science- can- be- fun- to- read- especially- if- occasionally- combined- with- surf- clips gospel to the world. Check out twice-weekly posts at the Gist on Smithsonian.com, along with other talented bloggers like Virginia Hughes.
Stay tuned to s.b.s. for stories too quirky to tell anywhere [...]

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Santa Cruz Howls at Blob-Free Halloween

One great thing about Santa Cruz is that they take Halloween seriously. This is the place where, in case you don’t remember, adolescent vampires ripped apart that boardwalk security guard in the opening minutes of the Lost Boys. (The boardwalk and roller coasters are still here, though they’ve had to find another security guard.)
Now [...]

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