#the sea around us

[thirdity]

Eventually man, too, found his way back to the sea. Standing on its shores, he must have looked out upon it with wonder and curiosity, compounded with an unconscious recognition of his lineage. He could not physically re-enter the ocean as the seals and whales had done. But over the centuries, with all the skill and ingenuity and reasoning powers of his mind, he has sought to explore and investigate even its most remote parts, so that he might re-enter it mentally and imaginatively.

Rachel Carson, The Sea Around Us

[uwmspeccoll]

Science Saturday

RACHEL CARSON

In 1951 Oxford University Press published American marine biologist and conservationist Rachel Carson‘s critically-acclaimed book, The Sea Around Us. It became one of the most successful books ever written about the natural world. Rachel Carson's rare ability to combine scientific insight with moving, poetic prose catapulted her book to first place on The New York Times best-seller list, where it enjoyed wide attention for thirty-one consecutive weeks. It remained on the list for more than a year and a half and ultimately sold well over a million copies, was translated into 28 languages, inspired an Academy Award-winning documentary, and won both the 1952 National Book Award and the John Burroughs Medal.

In 1958, Simon and Schuster published this special edition for young readers, adapted by Russian Empire-born American writer Anne Terry White, with illustrations by Rene Martin and maps by Emil Lowenstein. It also includes an additional chapter by Jeffrey Levinton, a leading expert in marine ecology, who incorporates the most recent thinking on continental drift, coral reefs, the spread of the ocean floor, the deterioration of the oceans, mass extinction of sea life, and many other topics. In addition, noted nature writer Ann Zwinger contributed a brief foreword. The last photographic image shown here is by American science photographer Fritz Goro.

View our 2021 Earth Day post on Rachel Carson’s most influential book, Silent Spring.

View more Science Saturday posts

[loneberry]

A sea lily marine animal on the sea floor of the Clarion-Clipperton Zone at a depth of 4,800m

“The deepest parts of the Pacific Ocean have rested undisturbed for millennia. But now creatures living thousands of metres beneath the surface may be confronted by new visitors: companies mining minerals key to the green energy transition.

“The International Seabed Authority (ISA), the UN-backed regulator, is preparing to consider the world’s first commercial deep-sea mining application as soon as July, despite many member states warning it is too soon for extraction to leap from land into water.”

///

“Ecological treasures on the seabed include creatures such as the transparent ghost fish, dumbo octopus and giant sea anemone, as well as microscopic worms that scientists say could hold the key to understanding human evolution.”

“The Clarion-Clipperton Zone in the Pacific Ocean, where most exploration has taken place, is ‘one of the most biodiverse sedimented marine habitats on our planet’.”

“Environmentalists say the plume of waste water emitted by deep-sea mining machinery could disturb ‘marine snow’, or carbon and nutrient-rich particles of biological matter, that usually settles on the seabed. Noise pollution may also disturb marine mammals.”

“Deep-sea ecosystems ‘take millennia to establish and can take seconds to destroy’, said Tony Worby, a marine scientist at Australian non-profit Minderoo Foundation. ‘We’re playing with fire to think we can go down to the deep sea and strip-mine it without massive repercussions.’”

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Capitalism is becoming post-terrestrial. The next stage of primitive accumulation is beginning—there’s currently a scramble for mineral resources in the deep seas…all in the name of the bullshit ideology known as “green capitalism.”

My heart breaks thinking about all the ways we abuse our precious oceans.

Rachel Carson has this to say about marine snow:

“When I think of the floor of the deep sea, the single, overwhelming fact that possesses my imagination is the accumulation of sediments. I see always the steady, unremitting, downward drift of materials from above, flake upon flake, layer upon layer—a drift that has continued for hundreds of millions of years, that will go on as long as there are seas and continents.

“For the sediments are the materials of the most stupendous ‘snowfall’ the earth has ever seen.”

“The sediments are a sort of epic poem of the earth.”

(Read the entire chapter “The Long Snowfall” in The Sea Around Us—it is breathtakingly beautiful.)

Now imagine, instead of that gentle silent accrual of marine snow, you have plumes of industrial waste and the infernal racket of machines in a world where so many creatures use sound to orient themselves. It makes me sick.

[hexjulia]

can someone suggest, essentially, a book that is The Sea Around Us but not outdated

[mosscollector]

"When they went ashore the animals that took up a land life carried with them a part of the sea in their bodies, a heritage which they passed on to their children and which even today links each land animal with its origin in the ancient sea. Fish, amphibian, and reptile, warm-blooded bird and mammal—each of us carries in our veins a salty stream in which the elements sodium, potassium, and calcium are combined in almost the same proportions as in sea water."

Rachel Carson - The Sea Around Us

[notyourtoday]

Caption on post -

"On average, about 130 people have been killed every day in Gaza over the past 10 months. The scale of the Israeli military's destruction of homes, hospitals, schools and places of worship is deeply shocking."

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, on Thursday condemned the ongoing lsraeli violence in Gaza as death toll surpasses 40,000.

Turk said that the situation is"overwhelmingly due" to the lsraeli military's failure to "comply with the rules of war."

By @middleeasteye on Instagram.

Link to post.

[bishicat]

tired old man reads the morning paper

[flowrfeast]

is it collag-ual now?

[yardsards]

i needed to express a sentiment in the creative stylings of @dunmeshiminimumwage

[cheecats]

Aaaand all The Divers are done!

Born just over a year after the second litter, these two are the baby brothers of the group and mark the final of Otodus' litters.

Otodus planned to have another litter following, but contracted feline panleukopenia virus over halfway through pregnancy and became gravely ill. She ended up being taken by the owners of her partner at the time, Roman, upon his pleading for her to go to the vet, leaving The Hammerhead Shark as the de facto leader for two and a half moons. She was treated, then later spayed, and kept confined to the owner's nest for recovery. She returned one day without explanation with her two young kits in toe. Roman was not in company. The circumstances of these two's births is a sore topic amidst The Divers, Otodus becoming quick to anger if there is any reference to Roman or her sickness & recovery. Any facts within are ancient history.

The Nurse Shark has a dynamic range of expertise, usually growing bored of his job roles and squeezing into another when he gets the chance. He has some medical and craft knowledge, but currently (and with the greatest longevity) has taken to food preparation and cooking for the group. While he knows how, he isn't confident swimming, preferring to stick to the shore or boats built by the group. He's probably the most "normal" of The Divers, although that's not saying much…

and The Great White Shark. My main guy. Debatably the WORST of The Divers. A violent asshole who sees the world as his playground, he's honestly just here for a good time. But his use to the group with strength, hunting and aquatic prowess are undeniable. Most of his siblings are at least somewhat uneasy around him, and for good reason.

DIRECTORY:

[Captain Otodus]

[Otodus' First Litter]

[Otodus' Second Litter]

[Otodus' Third Litter]

[podcast-hemocytoblast]

By the time cars were invented, Jonah Magnus was already well into the body hopping game, which raises the question: has he ever actually learn to drive? Did this man sit through driver’s ed? Or has he just been getting out of legal repercussions for his shit driving by telling the cops everything he knows about their deepest darkest secrets every time he gets pulled over?

[opens-up-4-nobody]

Suspirium - Thom York

[desertduality]

the hermitcraft snails invaded my dream last night but all they were doing was pulling pirate ships across the sand. and the sand moved like water. and then I fell off the boat and got run over

[letswonderspirit]

Doodles

[phoenixduelist]

The only S3 opening I accept is Izzy literally clawing out of the grave, yelling: 'None of you absolute TWATS bothered to check for a pulse??'

In a show where every tiny movement has 26280 meanings and possible interpretations, I refuse to believe that this death has absolutely none.

And I also hope after crawling out, his first half conscious journey is into Ed's and Stede's inn, sending both into a cardiac arrest

[theposhperyton]

All evidence suggests yes