Artist Hiné Mizushima makes these super adorable models of microscopic crustaceans called Daphnia out of felt. Scientists like to get the real-world versions of these creatures drunk, and use them to study how alcohol affects the nervous system. I suspect that Daphnia are cute drunks.

Via David Ng

Here's an incredibly cool video showing the prow of a massive ice breaking ship as it plows through Antarctica's Ross Sea. The footage is sped up, to pack two months of travel into five minutes. But, unlike a lot of time-lapse videos, this one also has a really informative audio track, in which marine scientist Cassandra Brooks waxes poetic about the many different kinds of ice and explains why she and her team were out there, breaking through the stuff, to begin with.

Bonus: At the end, you get to see the absolute adorableness that is penguins on high-speed fast forward.

Via Deep Sea News

Please enjoy this very serious, scientific Tumblr that posts exactly what it promises — pictures of the strange and fantastic creatures that live deep in the ocean ... with googly eyes photoshopped onto their bodies.

The specimen above is an animal known as the pigbutt worm. Yes, seriously. With the googly eyes in place, you can't quite get a full understanding of how weird looking this animal is, so please be sure to check out the "before" photo, as well.

The site is maintained by a deep sea ecologist (he's anonymous, but I've verified that this is true). So you can trust the information provided here. For instance, when readers ask how the heck a pigbutt worm counts as a worm:

The pigbutt worm, Chaetopterus pugaporcinus, is a very weird looking worm, for sure. All Annelid worms are segmented, and the pigbutt is no exception. If you look at an ordinary earthworm, you can see those segments, but in Chaetopterus pugaporcinus, the middle segments are super inflated compared to the rest of its body. The rear segments are visible in the area that looks like the anus on a mammal’s buttocks (although others have noted that this section of the pigbutt worm looks more like a disembodied vulva than a floating buttock).

Ambergris is often referred to as "whale vomit", but that's not really correct. A more accurate analogy would be to say that ambergris is like the whale equivalent of a hairball. It's produced in the whale digestive tract, possibly to protect intestines from the sharp, pointy beaks of squid — you'll often find squid beaks embedded in the stuff. Most of it gets pooped out. But the big chunks of ambergris have to exit the other direction. In the human world, these lumps — which have the consistency of soft rock or thickly packed potting soil — are famous because we use them to make things like perfume. The ambergris washes up on beaches, people collect it, and sell it to make cosmetics.

Anyway, that's what usually happens. Recently, a dead sperm whale washed up on a beach in Holland and the conservationists who dissected it found a huge quantity of ambergris in the animal's intestines.

That news made me realize that I'd never actually seen a picture of ambergris before, so I went hunting around to see what the stuff looked like. That's a photo of a lump of ambergris, above. But it's not really indicative of what ambergris looks like all the time. In fact, as far as I can tell, the stuff comes in a wide variety of shapes and colors — ranging from stuff that looks like small brown pebbles to yellow-green globs covered in bubbly nodules. The diversity is worth perusing. This website, for a company that buys and sells ambergris, has several nice photos. And Google image search turned up a plethora of pics that really capture how different one lump of ambergris can be from another.

When ocean scientist Andrew Thaler found an old, outdated water level gauge, he found a way to give it new life — turning it into a tool to measure public interest in sea level rise. Instead of tracking water, the Sea Leveler tracks how much people are talking about water on Twitter.

From the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary Facebook page, here are two lobsters doing it — apparently in the missionary position.

But looks can be misleading. What's actually going on here is external fertilization — that is to say, procreation without any of the potentially awkward penetration. Male lobsters produce spermatophores, packets of sperm, which they attach to the female's sternum. That's what you see happening here, according to the Sanctuary. Later, the female will use that sperm to fertilize her eggs.

Thanks to David Shiffman and Carin Bondar!

Say you're a marine biologist and you want to study the little bitty creatures of the sea — shrimps and worms and things like that. How do you go about capturing them?

Why, with an underwater vacuum, of course.

At the PNAS First Look blog, David Harris writes that this "SCUBA-tank powered vacuum, called an “airlift,” inhales shrimp, sand fleas, marine worms, and 'things that would swim away if they had the chance.'"

"The earliest sawfishes likely arose in the shallow Tethys Sea, that ocean surrounded by the ancient continents of Godwanda and Laurasia, during the Cretaceous period at least 60 million years ago," writes Dr. M. at Deep Sea News.

These "sole survivors of an ancient bloodline" now number only seven species which roam the muddy bottoms of coastal areas, bays and estuaries. 

All sawfishes can move easily between fresh and saltwater and often venture deep upstream into rivers. The sawfish lifestyle puts this both their size and saw near humans.  All seven species are considered critically endangered by the IUCN.  As much as we have impacted them, sawfish have also greatly influenced our culture.

And now, they're one of the most threatened species on our planet. Thanks, humans!

More: Exaltation to Extinction for Sawfishes [Deep Sea News]]]> http://boingboing.net/2013/02/19/an-appreciation-of-the-sawfish.html/feed 6 http://boingboing.net/2013/02/19/sci-fi-scenes-that-use-real-oc.html http://boingboing.net/2013/02/19/sci-fi-scenes-that-use-real-oc.html#comments Tue, 19 Feb 2013 18:33:31 +0000 Maggie Koerth-Baker http://boingboing.net/?p=214038

Jason Isley is an underwater photographer, which means that the strange and wonderful creatures you and I go ga-ga over are really just part of a workaday routine for him. This is a fact which has gotten him into fights on the Internet ...

I made a comment online recently that I was growing tired of nudibranches and was immediately bombarded with abuse and comments from ‘nudi-lovers’. Allow me to clarify: It’s not that I actually dislike the little flamboyant slugs, but once you have shot a few thousand images of nudies and other common macro life, I was running out of ways to maintain my passion for photographing them. I’ve shot them from countless angles and under a variety of lighting configurations. I know there are now lots of different techniques and gadgets to spice things up, like snoots, external macro diopters, and bugeye lenses, but for me, I really wanted to do something entirely different.

The result: A clever, cheeky series of photos that pair real underwater life forms with little miniature figurines from the hobby store and the toy store.

This is how the vast majority of sea cucumbers reproduce — by rearing up and releasing a stream of gametes (that is, sperm or eggs, depending) into the water.

WARNING: This video may be considered not safe for work. Especially if you work for or with sea cucumbers.

The absolute best part about this video: As far as I can tell, all of the facts in it are, in fact, true.

The seahorse: Naturally hilarious.

Still from video of giant squid, courtesy NHK/NEP/Discovery Channel.

Discovery Channel and Japan's NHK teamed up to capture video of one of the most elusive and fascinating deep ocean creatures: the giant squid. The joint press release announcing the air date of this long-coveted footage contains the sort of prose I wish we were also seeing in this week's round of CES announcements:

With razor-toothed suckers and eyes the size of dinner plates, tales of the creature have been around since ancient times. The Norse legend of the sea monster the Kraken and the Scylla from Greek mythology might have derived from the giant squid. This massive predator has always been shrouded in secrecy, and every attempt to capture a live giant squid on camera in its natural habitat, considered by many to be the Holy Grail of natural history filmmaking, has failed. Until now.

Above and below in this blog post, still images taken from their video of the "glittering," 10-foot-long cephalopod. The team encountered it last July about one kilometer below the surface of the sea near Japan's Ogasawara Islands, about 620 miles south of Tokyo.

According to the announcement, the Discovery/NHK joint production team spent more than 285 hours in the abyss, with 55 sub dives, some at depths of over 3,000 feet. The crew included scientists such as oceanographer and marine biologist Dr. Edie Widder, marine biologist Steve O'Shea and zoologist Dr. Tsunemi Kobodera of the National Science Museum of Japan, in addition to engineers, technicians and sub pilots.

They used "two deep sea submersibles with panoramic views, ultra-sensitive camera systems with light invisible to squid, bio luminescent lures and secret squid attractants." I hope we'll hear more about the camera rig and cinematography.

In an interview with AFP, Kubodera said the giant squid would have measured eight meters long if its two longest arms weren't missing.

"He gave no explanation for its missing arms."

Still from video of giant squid, courtesy NHK/NEP/Discovery Channel.

Pseudopterosins are a family of naturally occurring chemicals with the power to reduce inflammation, skin irritation, and pain. In other words, they make a great additive in skin cream. If you want skin that less red, pseudopterosins can help. Want a lotion that soothes your face after a particularly vigorous round of exfoliation? Call on pseudopterosins.

Pseudopterosins come from a coral called Pseudopterogorgia elisabethae. That's it in the photo above. For years, researchers and pharmaceutical companies thought they were sustainably harvesting P. elisabethae because, instead of simply gathering any of the coral they could find, they merely pruned it — leaving plenty of the creature to grow back.

But, it turns out that this is a really good example of a frustrating problem — what seems sustainable is not always actually sustainable. Doing the right thing, environmentally speaking, isn't as intuitive as we'd like it to be. (Also, pruning an animal isn't like pruning a plant.) At Deep Sea News, Dr. M explains:

After prunings in 2002 and 2005 and before the annual spawning, Christopher Page and Howard Lasker examined 24 pruned corals and 20 unpruned corals. What the researchers found is that although colonies appeared healthy pruned corals produced less eggs. ... Why would pruned corals produce less eggs and sperm? When organisms are injured more energy is diverted away from reproduction and toward repair. Interestingly, this pruning may actually also creating artificial selection. If workers are targeting larger and fuller corals to prune, then smaller less thick corals will be reproducing more and eventually become more dominant.

This is why science is important. Because, frequently, "common sense" isn't really all that sensical.

Read the full story

While you were eating Thanksgiving turkey, surrounded by loving family and friends, one whale was all alone, swimming through the Pacific Ocean with no one to talk to and no one to care.

Since 1989, researchers have been tracking this specific whale based on its distinct vocalizations. Baleen whales — a category of cetaceans without teeth, separate from their toothy dolphin/beluga/orca relations — are famous for producing eerie, underwater songs and scientists think those sounds are probably an extremely important aspect of participation in whale society. Baleen whales lack keen eyesight and sense of smell underwater, so sounds are probably how they recognize one another, help each other navigate, and even find mates. But these vocalizations happen in very specific frequency range — between 10 and 31 hertz, depending on the species. The Christmas Whale, on the other hand, speaks at 52 hertz. Imagine brining a piccolo to a tuba party. That is analogous to the awkward position that the 52-hertz whale is in.

Scientists usually pick up the call of the 52-hertz whale sometime between August and December, as it makes its way through a Cold War-era network of underwater microphones in the North Pacific. Although this whale has apparently survived for many years and seems to have grown and matured during that time (based on its voice deepening slightly), it also appears to exist outside of whale social systems. It travels alone. Nobody answers its high-pitched pleas for love. Every so often, non-scientist humans remember that it exists and write sad stories about it. But nobody is sure why it sings out of range of its fellow whales.

It strikes me as the kind of horribly sad thing that should get made into a maudlin children's picture book. The central message: Appreciate the love you have and give love in return. This holiday season, remember the plight of the loneliest whale. Give thanks for the presence of the people who love you. Show affection to others.

Listen to NOAA recordings of the 52-hertz whale (these have been sped up 10x)

The Loneliest Mix is a fan-site where you can download 52-hertz whale audio and video clips.

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute's page on the 52-hertz whale

Research paper explaining how scientists capture whale sounds in the north Pacific.

For the record, squid come in shoals. Not quite as good as a squad. But still nicely alliterative.

Every time we go to the local aquarium, there is one sea lion in particular who likes to play a game with Sean.

She loves to chase after my keys as Sean throws them up in an arc against the curved glass of the aquarium. She'll do it for a long time and seems to uniquely enjoy it as much as Sean does.

This weekend, she REALLY wanted to play, and we drew quite a crowd. It was great fun for everyone, and I got some good shots while we were there.

Here's a link to the whole gorgeous photo set. I love this sequence, which is best viewed large. This encounter took place at the Long Beach Aquarium.

]]> http://boingboing.net/2012/11/07/sean-and-the-sea-lion-a-pinni.html/feed 23 http://boingboing.net/2012/11/01/salt-water-vs-infrastructure.html http://boingboing.net/2012/11/01/salt-water-vs-infrastructure.html#comments Thu, 01 Nov 2012 19:32:20 +0000 Maggie Koerth-Baker http://boingboing.net/?p=191555
Photo: Michael Tapp

Salt water is still winning. Unfortunately.

Remember back during the Fukushima crisis, when you heard a lot of talk about why the people trying to save the plant didn't want to use sea water to cool the reactors? There were a number of reasons for that (check out this interview Scientific American's Larry Greeenemeier did with a nuclear engineer), but one factor was the fact that salt water corrodes the heck out of metal. Pump it into a metal reactor unit and that unit won't be usable again.

Now, the corrosive power of salt water is in the news again — and this time it's ripping through New York City's underground network of subways and utility infrastructure. I like the short piece that Gizmodo's Patrick DiJusto put together, explaining why salt water in your subway is even worse than plain, old regular water:

When two different types of metal (or metal with two different components) are placed in water, they become a battery: the metal that is more reactive corrodes first, losing electrons and forming positive ions, which then go into water, while the less reactive metal becomes a cathode, absorbing those ions. This process happens much more vigorously when the water is electrically conductive, and salt water contains enough sodium and chloride ions to be 40 times more conductive than fresh water. (The chloride ion also easily penetrates the surface films of most metals, speeding corrosion even further.) Other dissolved metals in sea water, like magnesium or potassium, can cause spots of concentrated local corrosion.

Read the full piece at Gizmodo

Via Tom Levenson

This Washington Post article by Ian Shapira is the most comprehensive account I've seen of what happened to HMS Bounty, a replica of the 18th century tall ship which starred in the 1962 Marlon Brando "Mutiny on the Bounty" film, and various Pirates of the Caribbean movies. No definitive word on exactly what caused the accident, but many theories.

Of the 16-person crew, the Coast Guard rescued 14. They recovered the body of Claudene Christian, 42, and are still searching for Robin Walbridge, 63, the ship's captain.

In the LA Times today, a remembrance of Ms. Christian.

Even other sea captains are mystified.

Above, a Coast Guard photo of the foundering HMS Bounty.

(thanks, Andrew Thaler)

But the project showed that it's relatively easy for a small group of people to experiment on Earth's ecosystem without any oversight or approval from the global community at large. That's why the story made headlines. And it's why Scientific American's David Biello did a two-part feature on the experiment, writing about the background and interviewing Russ George, the scientist who launched the project.

George's ideas do have a basis in science. In essence, he's trying to replicate the effects of a volcanic eruption, which are associated with plankton blooms. George believes that the blooms are caused by large depositions of the nutrient iron. And, although other scientists think his goal of feeding salmon would defeat his goal of storing carbon, George thinks their findings are wrong. And he thinks this study will prove it. As a bonus, he's also hoping that the effect on salmon will reinvigorate the economy of a nearby Haida fishing village.

As for the legality of the project, here's what George told Scientific American:

This is Canada so it's British law, not American law. In British law, if you want to do something and you're not sure whether it's legal or not, you commission officers of the court to do an analysis and produce an official document, a legal opinion as to whether it breaks the law or not. This was done. The opinion was that with comparative studies and international laws we were absolutely in the clear. The claim that this is illegal is the design of the people who want to burn the books. This is the life of the village that they're trying to kill.

Read David Biello's interview with Russ George

Read David Biello's story about the geo-engineering experiment

This is actually a real life animal.

I know. I didn't believe it either. When it turned up in my Facebook feed, via my Aunt Beth, I assumed that this had to be a hoax photo. Had to be. I mean, just look at it. This animal looks like it should appear in pretty photos forwarded to you by your aunt that later turn out to be the result of a photoshopping contest on Something Awful, right?

But then it was on Wikipedia, too. And I thought, "Okay, it's still the Internet. Somebody is clearly just getting really elaborate in their trolling."

And I suppose that's true. If by "somebody", what I mean to say is "natural selection".

This is the Glaucus atlanticus. It is a type of nudibranch—shell-less mollusks known for their extravagant shapes and colors. It is venomous. And I am now almost completely convinced that it's not a joke.

The London Natural History Museum has some good information about these creatures, including the drawing at left, which was made in the late 1700s by Sydney Parkinson, the official ship's illustrator for Captain Cook's second voyage to the Pacific.

You see all those pointy bits Glaucus atlanticus? According to the Natural History Museum, those are called cerata. They are the organs where G. atlanticus stores the stinging cells that it steals from the jellyfish it eats.

Because it eats jellyfish. And not just any jellyfish—but Portuguese Man o' War jellyfish. G. atlanticus eats the jellyfish tentacles and, as part of the process of digestion, stores stinging cells from those tentacles in the tips of its cerata. Then G. atlanticus gets to be venomous, too. Fun! Sharing!

Here's how the Smithsonian Magazine blog described the process last Spring:

A gas-filled sac in the stomach allows the small slug to float, and a muscular foot structure is used to cling to the surface. Then, if it floats by a man o’ war or other cnidarian, the blue dragon locks onto the larger creature’s tentacles and consumes the toxic nematocyst cells that the man o’ war uses to immobilize fish.

The slug is immune to the toxins and collects them in special sacs within the cerata—the finger-like branches at the end of its appendages—to deploy later on. Because the man o’ war’s venom is concentrated in the tiny fingers, blue dragons can actually have more powerful stings than the much larger creatures from which they took the poisons.

In conclusion, there are two lessons to take away from G. atlanticus.
First, the Internet isn't always lying to you. Just sometimes.
Second, don't touch things that look pretty. Because they will probably kill you.

More at The Encyclopedia of Life

A scientific paper documenting the presence of G. atlanticus in Andhra Pradesh.

The Sea Slug Forum has a description, photos, and sightings.

The Joides Resolution is a large boat—more than 450 feet long and almost 70 feet wide. That's small compared to a lot of cruise ships, but big enough to house and feed and provide work space for 126 people. It's a floating city, with a movie theater, helipad, hospital, cafeteria, laboratories, and a giant drilling rig. But even a big boat can start to feel small when you have nowhere else to go, and no land in sight, for two whole months.

Some science can't be done on shore, and the Joides Resolution is one of the tools researchers use to learn more about the world beneath the waves. The ship travels the globe, serving as a mobile research station for scientists who want to study the bottom of the sea.

Between June 2 and August 1, 2012, a team of researchers, technicians, and support staff took the Joides Resolution north, to the cold waters off Newfoundland. Their goal: Collect samples of mud, clay, and muck from the ocean floor. Using a deep-sea drilling system, they lowered thousands of feet of pipe through the water, and forced it into the sea floor below. When the pipes were pulled back up on deck, they contained core samples—cylindrical logs that allowed the scientists to see layer after layer of sediment. By looking at what those cores are made of, the chemistry they contain, and the physical fossils buried deep inside them, researchers can begin to reconstruct what Earth's climate must have been like tens of millions of years ago.

On July 11th, while the Joides Resolution was still at sea, I got to interview several of the scientists on board. Paleontologist Richard Norris, geochemist Jessica Whiteside, and sedimentologist Chris Junium (along with communications officer Caitlin Scully) talked to me about their research, what they hoped to learn, and what it was like to live in a laboratory far from home.

These are the tubes that are driven vertically into the sea floor by the Joides Resolution's drilling rig. They'll come back up full of sediment from the bottom of the ocean.

You can listen to my full interview with the scientists via Soundcloud—or download it as a podcast. It's almost an hour long, but you'll learn a lot about how the scientists (and the rest of the crew) work, how they live, and what they study. I think it's interesting to hear this story straight from the people who are experiencing it, especially when you're talking about an experience that simultaneously brings together with an incredibly diverse group of people, while also thoroughly cutting them off from the rest of humanity.

In a lot of ways, the Joides Resolution is like the research stations in Antarctica. Truly an international effort—"more international than the International Space Station," as Richard Norris put it—it's also interdisciplinary. Scientists literally cannot do this kind of work on their own. In order for a science team of 30-some people to function, they have to work alongside 20 technicians and more than 70 crew members, including cooks, electricians, and welders. It creates a different sort of community and a different sort of environment than what you'd find in a lab on land. At the same time, as Chris Junium describes, everyone on that boat is very far away from their friends and their family for a very long time.

This is the Moon Pool, which the researchers talk about in the interview. It's a hole that goes all the way through the ship, creating a pool of sea water on the deck of the Joides Resolution. Besides serving as a launching port for underwater research vessels, the Moon Pool is also necessary for the drilling operations. The drilling pipes are so heavy that they can't be lowered over the side of the ship. If you did that, the whole thing would list. Instead, the drill goes down through the Moon Pool, down through the center of the ship, itself, keeping the weight balanced and the boat afloat.

We've also got a series of videos that will allow you to see some of the stuff the scientists talk about in the interview (and give you a way to hit the highlights without listening to an hour-long podcast).

In the first film, you'll meet some of the people who spent two months on board the Joides Resolution this summer, and get an inside look at what their lives were like.

The second film shows you how the crew of the Joides Resolution went about collecting those all-important samples of sea-floor sediment. It's not as simple as you might think. The Joides Resolution does its drilling in deep water. It can't anchor. Instead, the boat has to be carefully positioned so it doesn't twist and torque the drilling pipes as it moves on the surface of the water.

Finally, what do the scientists do with those sea-floor samples once they've got them? This last video follows the core samples from the ocean to the lab. You'll see how researchers keep track of hundreds and hundreds of tubes of muck, and find out how they make sense of what they're seeing. You'll also get to meet the Green Monster—a thick and frustratingly persistent layer of mud much younger than the sediments the researchers were hoping to find.

Learn more about Joides Resolution Expedition 342

See more photos from the trip

Watch more videos made on board the Joides Resolution

Then this happens ...

I have a sneaky suspicion that this video might be an advertisement for camera equipment. But whatever. It's beautiful. You win this time, viral marketers.

Watch the movie on Vimeo

Meet Richard Nolan: quartermaster of the Whydah, captain of the Anne, former coworker of Blackbeard—in general, pirate. He is also—at least through Labor Day—my friend Butch Roy.

Butch is an actor, a founder of the Twin Cities Improv Festival, and the executive director of Huge Theater here in Minneapolis. This summer, he took on a new role, playing pirate Richard Nolan in the Science Museum of Minnesota's Real Pirates exhibit.

When I first heard about Real Pirates I wasn't terribly excited. It sounded like the sort of kiddie-friendly, fact-lite thing that I tend to avoid on museum trips. I mean, for god's sake, there were actors running around going, "Arrgh," at people. But then I got a chance to talk to Butch about what, exactly, he was doing in the exhibit—and what it took to prepare for the role.

Butch and his cohorts aren't just playing pirates—they're playing real, documented people. What's more, all the actors had to build their characters from the ground up, using original historical sources and doing a lot of extra research on their own. They had to learn the skills of a pirate and the skills associated with their specific role on the ship. Butch, at least in theory, now knows how to load and fire an 18th century cannon. His fellow actor Michael Ritchie, who plays ship's surgeon James Ferguson, is up-to-date on all the latest medical research and techniques, circa 1717. The sheer volume of historical information Butch has picked up is absolutely fascinating.

I have no idea whether or not the actual exhibit, Real Pirates, is worthwhile as an educational tool. But you should DEFINITELY find one of the pretend pirates and take them out for a beer.

Maggie Koerth-Baker: I was kind of surprised to find that this whole exhibit was centered around a real pirate ship—the Whydah. And your character, Richard Nolan, is actually somebody who was on that ship. How do we know all of this?

Butch Roy: The Whydah is the only confirmed pirate shipwreck ever recovered. There are other ships that were rumored to be pirate ships. And there were other confirmed ships that went down—but mostly your salvage crews would raid those readily. This was a pretty famous ship that was a pirate ship when it was lost, and it stayed lost until Barry Clifford found it off the coast of Cape Cod. [Clifford is an underwater explorer. He found the wreck of the Whydah in 1984.—MKB]

The interesting thing is that everybody knew the Whydah was out there all along, they just couldn't find it. The bottom of the Cape is very sandy and it shifts enough to just swallow everything that sinks. Clifford found the wreck and he found the ship's bell with the name of the ship cast into it, which is how this wreck is verified. That's generally the problem, not finding artifacts, but confirming which ship the artifacts came from.

BR: First off, there were a couple of survivors of the wreck, from the Whydah and the other ships. This was actually a small flotilla of ships and two went down. The survivors were later arrested, including my character, who was captaining one of the other ships.

This is actually one of the places where the story sort of branches into legend—why the ships were off Cape Cod to begin with. The captain of the Whydah was Sam Bellamy, and he had his lover and child in Massachusetts. The story goes that he wasn’t allowed to marry her because he was poor, so he went off to join a salvage crew and then became a pirate and got rich. The legend is that he was wealthy now and was about to get out of piracy and take his love away and marry her. So Cape Cod wasn’t necessarily the destination, it was just as far as they made it. There was a huge 'Noreaster that they basically sailed right into. And the ship was heavily loaded at the time, so it was already riding low.

Our timeline also develops from trial documents. There was a huge press to put an end to piracy. So when the survivors were arrested they would be pressed for who was on your crew, when did you join, which ships were on, who else was on those ships. We can cross-reference it all from person to person and you can see who jumped to the ships and when and where they went from there. The Whydah was originally a slave ship that was owned by a company in Europe and would have been insured, so we know when it was taken by pirates [February 1717] and who would have been on board then. [The wreck happened April 26, 1717]

BR: It was a six-week process altogether. There was some information all of us had to learn—the basics of navigation, nautical tradition, world affairs at the time, life on the ship. And some of us ended up specializing, too. The ship's surgeon had to learn the medical knowledge of the time period.

They gave us assigned readings from trusted sources. And were were also given latitude to go looking for sources that would be checked out by the science museum, to make sure they were trustworthy. Turns out there's lots of incorrect information out there. People found old trial documents and those would sometimes have different accounts that contradicted one another. David Cordingly wrote a great book about famous pirates. [He means Under the Black Flag. Cordingly is a naval historian—MKB] The exhibit is actually owned by National Geographic, so we had access to supporting info from them, as well.

We would all bring in books, buy a copy and share it around. There was a lot of googling. We'd find just snippets of information. I was trying desperately to find more about my person, Richard Nolan. His early life is a fog and after becoming a priate he vanishes completely. Record keeping was done by hand and the spellings of names change and so you have to verify whether that’s actually the person. There was some stuff I found that I had to leave out. For instance, I do know that my character was captured in 1718 and pardoned—one of the very few official pardons ever issued pirates, only two in that year. Then he went back to testify in trials of other pirates on their behalf. I did find an example of Richard Nolan testifying in a trial, but the spelling was off and I can’t verify that’s him.

All I know is that he retired into normal life. We don’t know what he did professionally. He would just show up at these trials to testify on behalf of other pirates.

BR: There's a long a detailed answer that I give every day, but basically he was in charge of dividing up treasure and administering punishment on the ship. But he also represents the crew on matters of their welfare to the captain. The ships were incredibly democratic. That was really interesting. Everything can be put to a vote except when they’re engaged in battle. That was the only time the captain’s word was law. Even severe punishments could be voted down by the crew. [Richard Nolan] would be the one who would do a flogging if someone was too drunk to man their post or fell asleep at watch. If there was a quarrel on the ship, you can’t fight with arms on the ship, so he’d administer pulling up to a beach somewhere for a duel.

They’d have jury trials with the entire crew if there was a major infraction.

It's weird, but it almost has to work that way. It's the only way it could work. The exhibit leans pretty hard on the brotherhood between sailors. And that’s very evident for sure. For instance, if there were not enough hammocks to go around then everybody slept on the floor. But, then again, if you’re running a ship crewed by 180 outlaws and you start handing out 30 hammocks to 50 men you’re going to have a riot. Democracy was the only way it could work for survival's sake.

BR: There’s that, yeah. In a way, it's a funny microcosm for democracy in general. Here's another example. Sam Bellamy became a captain when he challenged the old captain, Benjamin Hornigold. Bellamy and Nolan were originally on another ship captained by another guy who wouldn’t attack English ships out of patriotism. Bellamy put it to a vote of the crew. Sort of market forces at work. And they voted Bellamy captain. Horingold was allowed to choose, he could rejoin the crew or be sent on his merry way. He ended up leaving, so they parted ways and he went off to a different ship. Edward Teach, who later became Blackbeard, went with him. But originally, Blackbeard and Nolan and Bellamy were all on the same boat.

People have a hard time digesting the democratic nature of piracy. The Whydah was originally a slave ship and pirates would free slaves all the time ... if they could sail. If you were a sailor, you were a sailor. Race didn't matter. Sixty percent of Blackbeard’s crew was black. And they weren't only free, but free and equal. Really, actually equal. If they knew how to sail. If there were slaves on a ship they took, and those slaves didn't know how to sail, the pirates would let them go with the ship and the rest of the crew to continue being slaves.

That's actually another thing. None of us use the term "nitty gritty" anymore. Not since we found out what it means. When you had people packed into a slave ship, they'd just be lying in their own filth for months. Months of this horrible passage. And all of that would build up. When the ship reached port and sold the people, someone had to go down below decks and clean all that out. That was getting down to the nitty gritty. All that waste and puke and everything that would be caked on the floorboards of the ship.

BR: Female pirates were included out of overwhelming demand and curiosity. The two that we have are the two that there's a lot of information about. [Mary Read and Anne Bonny] They were documented so well because they were an anomaly. There weren’t any women on the Whydah.

And there really was the idea that women are bad luck. But the flexibility of those notions is very bizarre. There’s no religion on the ship, but they replace it with really strong superstitions. But the superstitions are strangely flexible. You have accounts of women disguised as men, but there also are accounts of them being found out but being allowed to stay on because they’d proven themselves and once you’re in the crew, you’re in the crew.

Mary Reed joined the army as a man and she lived as a man for large chunks of her life. But they’d sail to other areas of the world that had different expectations of female dress and people would pick her out instantly as a woman because the differences were that clear. So were people ever really fooled really? It’s hard to pin that stuff down. We know they were willing to go along with it in some cases.

BR: Crews came from all over. This is one of those things that would be really divisive. You could have religion if you kept it to yourself. You weren’t forced to renounce it or anything. But there was no practice on the ship. In fact, clergy who were captured were treated very, very poorly. These men operated outside normal institutions and with a disdain for them as well. But, again, the superstition is weird. It was bad luck to have a woman on the ship—but if you do, and she gives birth, that’s good luck. And some of it was practical. Gambling wasn’t allowed either on the ship. That’s a safety issue. There's a practical side to some of these things that seem superstitious.

BR: The Navy is basically jail. Press gangs would press men into service in the Navy. You’d be bullied or threatened, if you're in debt. It was kind of a form of debtor's prison. And you’d come back from a tour in the Navy and then they’d charge you for your food and ammunition, so you could end up actually owing them money. Those were the ships that they couldn’t even bring to port because if they let men off they wouldn’t come back. So they’d anchor a mile out and send in the upper crew to pick up provisions. The lower crew would escape if given half a chance. Pirates could go to port without worry, because the boat is making them rich. They have more money than any honest sailor would make in a lifetime.

You get a vote with the pirates, and you don’t with the Navy, of course. In the Navy, the first mate would carry a starter, which is basically a lead weight wrapped in a cable that they were allowed to beat sailors with. There were regulations about where they were allowed to hit you. But no rules about why. So they’d just beat sailors half to death if you weren’t moving fast enough. You were basically an owned part of the ship. It was a system that gave way to very cruel conditions to work under. A lot of pirates were coming from that, and the articles of the ship [a contract/constitution document that every pirate on a ship had to sign] developed out of men coming from that. Flogging was the worst regular punishment you’d find on the pirate ship. But, even then, crew could vote to give you a pass.

And the pay: If you’re in the Navy, you could end up in debt or with nothing. Ditto for merchant ships, you were working for a couple coins a week. But every time a pirate ship takes another ship, you get an equal share. Merchant ships wouldn’t even put up a fight often. They don’t own the cargo. They have no personal investment. What do they care if the pirates take it?

BR: Obviously it doesn’t appear in any of the ships' articles, but it was sort of a known thing that if you were arrested you were going to say that you were forced into piracy. It didn’t help actually in court. But very few pirates didn’t say it. People went to the gallows saying that they were forced into it. But if you look at the conditions, it just doesn’t stand up to a whole lot of scrutiny. "They forced me at gunpoint to join this ship where I work less, get paid more, and nobody beats me. Oh, no! They made me do it!"

In fact, the carpenter was often the only guy on a captured pirate ship to be pardoned. Carpenters don’t need to resort to piracy to make a lot of money. But pirates need skilled carpenters. So it was actually believable that they’d be forced into working for a pirate ship.

I don’t know why Richard Nolan got pardoned. The anecdote is that he was just that persuasive and charming. There's no factual proof of that though.

BR: We have to speak in the present tense in the exhibit. We are acting like we're pirates from 1717, not modern guys dressed up as pirates. And that gets weird. I get kids poking me, going, "You're not real." Yes. I'm real. "Really?" Really. "Really, really?" Yes. Really. Really. Real.

Sometimes we have to convey the information we know to be wrong now in a way that states that, in character, you think it’s correct. So the latest paper published about scurvy at this time period goes back to saying that it’s caused by eating too many fruits and vegetables. Our surgeon looked at a lot of medical literature from the time and he found several times, multiple instances where people would figure out what was causing survey. But then the information wouldn’t get out there, or some crazy home remedy would come into vogue, and the knowledge would disappear again. But he has to portray somebody who believes incorrect information.

We also get a lot of people who want to show us how much they know and that’s goddam irritating. I had a guy who came in literally stroking his goatee. And he points to a gun in the display case where they say "powder" was loaded in it. And he asks, "Is that black powder or gun powder?" And I knew what he was doing. Those are technically different things and actual gun powder wasn’t widely used outside of China until 18-something. They used black powder on the Whydah. But the beauty of speaking in the present tense of 1717 is that I can say “Oh, you mean the powder we put in our guns. Yes.” And he’s like, "No they’re different things." And I’m like, "No they aren’t. We take that powder and we put it in our guns. It's gun powder." And he’s like, "I see what you’re doing. You're just arguing semantics." But it’s not, really. I'm being in character. And I love arguing with those people.

BR: Not remotely. I get asked the same questions a lot, over and over. I get asked about the food. I get asked where we go to the bathroom. That whole segment of questions. Lots of the audience is kids, of course. I practiced with my kids before the exhibit opened, and given all the things you could possibly want to know—the bathroom was number two on their list.

The awesome stuff is information people don't even know to ask about. We've gotten good at finding ways to lead people to it. Like the great sea turtles. For many years, giant sea turtles defied efforts by Royal Academy in England to subject them to taxonomy. That is because giant sea turtles are delicious. They’d try to get these specimens delivered to them by merchant ships or Navy ships and they would repeatedly end up with an empty shell and reports of how tasty it was. The turtles are great. They don’t eat often. All you had to do was turn them upside down and stack them up on each other. Keep them wet sometimes and you get fresh meat for a whole voyage. Apparently they were kind of fatty and a lot like lobster only gigantic.

And the sailors loved it. Their only other choice is hardtack, which you have to cut in half with a knife and bang the bugs out on the table before you eat, and then you have this captive sea turtle and several months where nobody is getting enough food. Furthering science wasn’t the first thing on their minds. So the Academy would send them out again and they'd come back with the empty shells again, like, "Here's the inedible part. Man, that was delicious. Happy science-ing!"

BR: I've not gotten a chance to try it out in the real world. Navigation, I think I have a fair grip on. I could talk my way through it. Our captain could do it, for sure. He could probably find his heading given the sun and stars. I spend a lot of time talking through how to load and fire a cannon, though, so I probably could do that if I had to. I rest easy knowing that, when the zombies rise up, I’ll know how to fire a cannon and sail a ship. Mostly. We all now know a ridiculous amount about this thing we will never actually do. It's weird.

The Real Pirates exhibit runs through Labor Day at the Science Museum of Minnesota. If you were to ask Richard Nolan, he would have to tell you that the Whydah is headed for Massachusetts after it finishes this layover in Barbados. Luckily, I can tell you that the exhibit will next be in Milwaukee.

Read a 1999 National Geographic story about the Whydah.

Check out Barry Clifford's Whydah page. His museum dedicated to the Whydah is located in Provincetown, Mass.

Scale worms are usually small, and there are many different species that fall under the common name. At least one, Arctonoe vittata, famously enjoys a complex relationship with starfish. The worm lives in the starfish's sucker feet. There's a possibility that this commensal arrangement—neither animal really gets any special benefit from having the other around, but they aren't hurt by it either. On the other hand, a 1979 research paper found that A vittata and its starfish host will seek each other out—mutually—through mazes. The starfish will even choose to move toward the worm over its favorite food. And it's still not really clear why that is.

So these are interesting worms. In fact, they can look damn-near cute—almost like little roly-poly pill bugs. But those are the small ones. This guy is different.

The scale worm species Eulagisca is native to the Antarctic. Scientist and Deep Sea News blogger Miriam Goldstein found him in the Scripps Benthic Invertebrate Collection. Check out his size compared to the coffee cup, and tremble.

Not scared yet? Let's talk about the jaws of the scale worm. Here's something that many scale worm species share—mouths that make them look like extras from Aliens. Miriam has a photo of this specific specimen's jaws on Deep Sea News, but it doesn't quite capture the full horror. Below is a Smithsonian microscope image.

Read the rest of Miriam Goldstein's post at Deep Sea News

Read about the horrific jaws of scale worms and see more microscope images, courtesy the Real Monstrosities blog

Read about the relationship between scale worms and starfish at The Echinoblog