Tuesday, January 13th -National Geographic recently published "Ocean: An Illustrated Atlas" co-authored by Dr. Sylvia A. Earle (available for $40.95 at Amazon.com). Here's a snippet about the book and Dr. Earle by William J. Broad in yesterday's NY Times:
"In 1953, when Sylvia A. Earle began studying algae, the marine plants and related microbes were often considered weeds or worse. Boaters ridiculed them as scum that turned patches of sea into pea soup. Today, Dr. Earle notes that just one type — Prochlorococcus, so small that millions can fit in a drop of water — has achieved fame as perhaps the most abundant photosynthetic organism on the planet. It daily releases countless tons of oxygen into the atmosphere.
The tiny organism is estimated to provide the oxygen in “one in every five breaths we take,” Dr. Earle said in an interview. And it is just one of thousands of types of marine algae and photosynthetic microbes — everything from invisible cells to plantlike growths to kelp forests.
A student of the big and the small, Dr. Earle is a co-author of “Ocean: An Illustrated Atlas,” published recently by National Geographic. Its maps and graphs, prose and pictures detail how discoveries like the surprising ubiquity of Prochlorococcus are illuminating the sea, its immense impact on the planet and its habitability." Here's the full story.
Wednesday
December 10th 2008 - Shark fin soup is a delicacy enjoyed by wealthy
Chinese. When China was poor few people could afford it and demand for shark fins
was low. During the past decade, as millions of Chinese have entered the middle
class, shark fin soup has become an important status symbol at dinners and banquets
and demand for shark fins has exploded. In recent years sharks have killed an
average of 10 people each year. This makes big news. At the same time humans
have killed 100 million sharks each year. Shark fins are highly profitable
and sell for $500 per pound. According to Peter Knights of 
