Saturday, February 2, 2008

Hard Science: Ano Nuevo

Nicole Teutschel is with the TOPP's team at Ano Nuevo Island just a few short miles down the coast from the Bay Area in Northern California.

The site of an abundant Elephant Seal colony, she and her team have been tagging these simply huge pinnipeds with long range sat tags in the hopes of learning more about these amazing critters.

Oh, and Ano Nuevo is also home to more Great White sharks per square inch than almost any other site on the planet as well.

If you have some time to rip through some cool tracking data today have a look at the latest in Hard Science.

We're pretty sure these 2000lb seals just don't roll over to get sat tags placed on them:

TED: If You Don't Know You Should

What can we say about Marine biologist Tierney Thys?

One of the leading researchers of her time and one of the most engaging presenters of the 2003 Monterey Bay TED gathering.

Thys and her team are tagging and tracking Mola-Mola worldwide to learn about how they live, and how climate change may be affecting all ocean life. She's also director of research at the Sea Studios Foundation, producing targeted eco videos that influence policymakers and businesspeople. Sea Studios was also instrumental in helping eBay stop the trading of invasive species:

Cool Great White Shark Video

We love John West Tuna commercials. O.k, so the actual tuna is pretty basic, comes in a can, and tastes like...tuna.

But their commercials continue to set the bar for shark cool. First we had the guy inside the Mako, then the crazy Alaskan Bear. Here's the latest installment with a focus on what else? South Africa's-Flying Sharks.

In case you were wondering, there's really no tuna in the world that will make Great Whites sit up and act like this. If there was-the crew here at Shark Diver would have bought into this company a looong time ago!


L’Oreal and Sharks?

Shark-Based Emollients Being Removed from Skincare Products- That's the great news coming from one of the worlds top skin care companies this week.

Turns out for the past 30 years or so many of these companies have been quietly harvesting millions of shark livers for the raw product Squalene.

This gooey
shark moisturizer penetrates the skin quickly, making perfect for womens skin care products. Unfortunately, once the women of the world found out they were rubbing dead sharks on their bodies a mini riot broke out.

L’Oreal announced this week that it is moving towards getting this ingredient from plants in an effort to help save the ecosystem and save some deep sea sharks whose existence is threatened. Squalene can be found in olives and wheat germ.

Score one for the good guys, the corporate world just saved 10 million sharks from the chopping block.

Now, if we could only get Alibaba.com to understand this.