Visit the kelpforest....

Of course, most scientists are in term of their projects, which take on life as their children.

But some biologists especially, share a commonality with parents of very young children. Pre-potty-training children. In that you develop a fascination with poop. My boss forwarded me and my coworkers the following article:

Whale Shark Poops on Camera - Scientists Rejoice!!!!

If you're not anywhere near mealtime, my coworker found the actual video:

Shark-cam captures ocean motion

I suppose if McCain/Palin had found any similar experiments funded with government money, you can imagine the brouhaha they would have raised. However, studies like this are quite legitimate in terms of fisheries management and looking at the health of entire ecosystems. As the scientist in the second articles says, "One way to work out what is going in one end is to look at what is coming out of the other."

I work on a project that studies what are called Coastal Pelagic Species, that is, species of small fish that form large schools near the coast and are thus a target of fairly large fisheries by humans. The major species in my area are Pacific mackerel, Pacific sardine, northern anchovy, and market squid. Another term for the these species is "Forage Fish," meaning that numerous other animals - larger fish, birds, and mammals - use them for food as well. My agency once did a study of sea lion poo, maybe not as extensive as the articles linked to, but looking through for the undigestible hard parts - squid beaks, otoliths (fish ear bones), scales - that could then be identified to species and the proportion of that species in their diet. This became one variable in a large mathematical model called a biomass assessment, that predicts how much of a particular species is out there swimming around this year, and how it should be divided up to a) keep enough adults out there to spawn for next year, 2) allow enough fish to be eaten by all the other animals that prey on them, 3) provide a percentage of the total to allocate to the people who fish for them for a living. Throw climate change into the mix - the reproduction of many of these species is heavily tied to water temperatures - and it begins to make things pretty complicated.

Something to think about the next time you enjoy a tin of sardines. Or not...* ;)

________

*Enjoying the sardines that is...it definitely should be thought about...

I think I forgot to document a month or two ago, that we ran out of diapers one day. Avalon had been only wearing them at night, so I asked her, "Do you think you can spend the night without them?" She affirmed this, so after making she went potty before bedtime, she did sleep through the night without incident. She had been pulling the same trickas Angus had, waiting for her night diaper to poo, so we stressed that she'd have to do it in the potty from now on. It was about three days, but finally I heard a yell from the bathroom, "Moooo-ommeeee!" and the mission was accomplished. Whee! There've been a few accidents here and there, usually if we forget to wake her up in the morning and she sleeps too long (like me, she's a very sound sleeper), but yay! After 7.75 years, no more didees in this house!

Last night, I asked my daughter to get her clothes off and hop in the tub. I don't know what she did to her hair, but she had so many knots it needed slathering with conditioner to comb them all out. When I looked down at her clothes, I noticed that under her pants she had been wearing first one pair of her own underwear, two pairs of her brother's, and then a blue pair of her own over those.

Maybe she misses the confinement?

Yesterday's entry in Dooce gives an hilarious accounting of Heather's dog finally passing a corndog stick he ate quite a while ago. Hilarious to me and other parents, I guess, who have not quite passed the obsession with poop that develops when you have un-pottytrained children. What really got me though, was that at the bottom of the article, complete with photo of the offending object that had made a complete migration through a dog's entire digestive system, were the ubiquitous Google ads - for corndog fryers, and corndog equipment.

Wonderful. The entire office has no water until at least noon, because of leak in the pipes. I did not discover this until after I walked in the door, went straight to Auntie Loo's, and used the facilities. And I mean I did not just return the ice tea rental. Of course, our new office manager had sent out an email, but I hadn't even turned on my computer yet. I stopped by his office, and not only is he dealing with this, but the Monterey office has no power, as well. Poor guy. I suggested signs, and he said if I did one for the ladies', he'd do one for the men's. Honestly, you don't want to go in there.

JE just took a car-full of people to Burger King to pee.

The good news is that we got our boiling hot/chilly cold water tap back in the breakroom. It doesn't work right now, of course, but I am sure glad to see it back. Talk about getting dependent on small luxuries...

Off to read otoliths for most of the day, I believe.

Yuck. Of course, right when I'm about to walk out the door, I discover Avalon in the middle of the kitchen floor, with her diaper half-hanging off. An extremely messy, poopy diaper. This was definitely a two person job, so I yelled of for John to come and put something down on the floor to put her on while I held her at arm's length. She was squealing quite happily, but wondering why she was dangling so far away from Mommy. Luckily there were some towels folded that hadn't been put away yet, so John spread one out, and I got her cleaned up. Didn't volunteer to do it, but I can't blame him, since he takes care of all that when I'm at work. At least he said he would get all the trash out before the truck comes - Tuesday is trash day. I let her run around nekkid for a bit while I hurriedly got my lunch together, since she has a bit of diaper rash - need to expose it to air once in a while and it heals much more quickly. Of course, she like being nekkid and it causes a big struggle when John goes to put her clothes on. My kids and my husband would be quite happy being nudists, I think. I, however, get cold, and certainly not while we're living in the same house as my father.

Finally out the door and to work. The weather is being weird, lately. Yesterday, it drizzled much of the day, which is out of character for August here. I suppose it fits with the mild El Niño we're supposed to be having. I had to take extra care driving to work- the roads were extremely slippery, and in southern California, everyone forgets how to drive when it rains. It's gray and dim again today. I wouldn't mind if it rained in earnest - we usually need it. And it's fun walking in a warm summer rain.

S. (my lead person) is sick today and D. (our boss) appears to be out as well - I suppose that means I have until tomorrow to turn in my annual report. It's mostly just cutting and pasting together the two semiannual reports, but it contains a lot more graphs. I still need to summarize the mackerel and sardine aging, look at what year classes are strong/weak this year, and update the landings between last July and this June. On top of that, I have been besieged by requests for recent landing updates from Monterey. People are getting antsy about how much of the northern allocation is left, although at the beginning of the month there were still 40,000 tons. Last year, they didn't even come close to closing the harvest guideline. Poor Travis up there, has no scientific aide help, and is doing all the receipts collecting, dock sampling, sample processing, etc, by himself, in addition to his other duties. So he's a bit behind on getting those to me, but I guess I have to phone and rattle his cage. He's probably up to his elbows in squid guts right now.

Bleh - I hate deadlines. I'll probably have to take this thing home and work on it.