This makes me smile even more: Phish's kids jumping in the tub with their brothers (on Father's Day)

This makes me smile: Phish glowstick wars at Bonnaroo 2009 in HD

Shark Science Outreach

From xkcd.

"This is equivalent to finding polar bears in Kansas"

The internet is a buzz with this recent discovery about basking sharks. From the discovery channel:

"In the western Atlantic, the world's second largest fish swims all the way from New England to the Bahamas and across the equator to South America, a new study finds. Scientists have long thought that basking sharks spent all of their time in cooler waters.
...
Basking sharks have long been shrouded in mystery. These fish, which can measure 35 feet or longer, are known to live in temperate waters around the world. Yet, no one has ever examined a newborn basking shark. No one has seen a pregnant female. No one knows where the animals give birth.

And until recently, no one knew where they spent much of their time, particularly in the winter.

To learn more, Skomal and colleagues attached a new type of satellite tracking tag to 25 basking sharks off the coast of Cape Cod, Mass. Once each tag was attached to a shark, it collected data on depth, temperature and light levels for a preprogrammed amount of time -- from 12 days to more than a year. When its time was up, the device popped off the animal and sent its data back to the researchers.

Tags came off in a wide range of locations, the scientists reported today in the journal Current Biology, from New England to the coast of Brazil in the Southern Hemisphere. Other locations included the Sargasso Sea, the Puerto Rico Trench, and the Guyana coast.

Five sharks traveled more than 2,400 kilometers (nearly 1,500 miles). One spent a month hanging out near the mouth of the Amazon River.

A closer look at data from six sharks showed that the animals traveled at depths of between 200 meters (650 feet) and 1,000 meters (3,300 feet). Some stayed at those levels for up to five months. The animals appeared to seek out water in an ideal temperature range. "

Wired also wrote up an article on this discovery which is where I got these pictures. They had a few interesting quotes:

"The basking shark is a benign behemoth. It swims at about three miles per hour with its four-foot-wide mouth gaping open, filtering through almost 500,000 gallons of water every hour for its plankton sustenance.

...

The extended range of the sharks suggests that the different Atlantic subpopulations — near the east and west coasts of both hemispheres — may actually be the same population.

“They might even be crossing into other oceans,” he said, “meaning there might actually be one population in the entire world.”

This possibility has implications for conservation biologists. The sharks are currently listed as “vulnerable” on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, due to the high value of their fins which are the key ingredient for shark fin soup, a tasteless but symbolic Chinese delicacy. The sharks’ livers, which can make up 25 percent of their total body weight, also fetch a high price for their oil.

“This tells us that if we allow sharks off British Columbia to be harvested, we might be impacting the entire population,” said Skomal. “We can’t just save the fish off of New England, we have to coordinate with all the fisheries. We have to divide up the pie instead of each having our own pie.”"

So humans, give the basking sharks a break, they are harmless and rare creatures of the deep. Boy would I love to dive with a basking shark, that would be the coolest thing ever. I did run into this video clip about a massive aquarium in Georgia that allows the public to come swim and dive in it. At first glance its kinda lame, diving in an aquarium? But considering its in Georgia, which doesn't have good diving to my understanding, and considering they have whale sharks in there, I think its a pretty cool concept. You can see whale sharks diving in the Caribbean, but they very rare. Note, basking sharks are different from whale sharks although both are gigantic and completely harmless to humans. More on whale sharks in this video.

Wait for it, wait for it...

"It's not screaming... it's just the air escaping"

The good and the bad news about eating crabs with melted butter...

As some of you know, by a long shot, my favorite food in the world is boiled crab with some melted butter. My particular favorite would have to be Texas Gulf Coast blue crabs because they are cheap and I think they are the most flavorful. Also, if you are inclined, its pretty easy to catch them with a crab trap and bait assuming you have some coastline or a boat. For bait you can use leftover meat from a meal or a gutted fish and the crab trap can be re-used for years so it can be a pretty cheap meal! There are some complications however.

First of all, it can be a lot of work to get the meat out, especially if you don't have much experience. The shells are thick and have to be cracked open and within the main body of the crab you have to pick out the meat just right to keep it in nice big chucks. This is actually one of the things I like about eating crab, it takes some skills and it slows you down. Since there is a natural speed bump to eating it you could sit there for hours (and I do) eating crab because your body digests the meat just as fast as you can eat it. Since crab meat is extremely lean I don' think there are health consequences to eating large portions of it. The other complication is that you have to cook the crabs alive and this brings me to the bad news.

Now cooking crabs alive is something that I have never enjoyed doing. These hardy little monsters want to live and they are not afraid of you. Given the chance they can and will take your finger off. Now that is something that I can respect. These animals have been engineered by nature to kick ass and not take names. With a thick shell and two big pincers they are ready for battle and I've been scarred a few times trying to pick them up. They also attack each other when you put them in a container together, which is obviously gonna kinda get in the way of you cooking them all alive. But I definitely have respect for crabs and I feel bad to throw them in a pot of boiling water... alive. However, until now I had assumed, like most, that crabs actually can't sense pain. Since crustaceans have no vertebrae it had been thought that crabs do not feel pain. A recent study proved that wrong:

"Not only do crabs suffer pain, a new study found, but they retain a memory of it (assuming they aren't already dead on your dinner plate). The scientists say its time for new laws to consider the suffering of all crustaceans.

The study involved using wires to deliver shocks to the bellies of hermit crabs, which, being hermits, often take up residence in left-behind mollusc shells. The crabs that were shocked scampered out of their shells, "indicating that the experience is unpleasant for them," the scientists concluded; unshocked crabs stayed put.

Another test was run to see what would happen if a mild shock was delivered, one just below the threshold that would cause the crabs to leave home. These mildly shocked crabs, along with crabs that had not been shocked, were then offered a new home. The typical reaction: They'd go inspect the new shell. Significantly, those that had been shocked were more likely to pack up and move to the new residence compared to those that hadn't been shocked. "

So that's the bad news, now I have a second layer of guilt for all the grabs I've killed and eaten over the years. I doubt this will sway me from my food passion but it might slow me down.

As I mentioned before, when I eat crab I like to keep it simple. Boil them and serve with melted butter. I might throw in some Zatarans spice and a coke but that's as fancy as I'll get. I had assumed the worst component of this meal for my health was the butter, but boy was I wrong. This brings me to the good news.

Recent studies on tooth decay have revealed that teeth can actually repair themselves given the proper diet. I read this in a fascinating blog post that cited some these studies and generalized the conclusions.

"Teeth are able to heal themselves. That's how traditional cultures such as the Inuit can wear their teeth down to the pulp due to chewing leather and sand-covered dried fish, yet still have an exceptionally low rate of tooth decay. It's also how the African Wakamba tribe can file their front teeth into sharp points without causing decay. Both cultures lost their resistance to tooth decay after adopting nutrient-poor Western foods such as white flour and sugar.

...

If I were to design the ultimate dietary program to heal cavities that incorporates the successes of both doctors, it would look something like this:

• Rich in animal foods such as meat, organs, fish, bone broths, full-fat pastured dairy (if tolerated) and eggs.
  
• Fermented grains only; no unfermented grains such as oatmeal, breakfast cereal, crackers, etc. No breads except sourdough because they typically aren't made from fresh flour.
• No nuts; beans in moderation, only if they're soaked overnight or longer in warm water (due to the phytic acid).
  
• Starchy vegetables such as potatoes and sweet potatoes.
  
• Moderate quantities of fruit, but no refined sweets.
  
• Moderate quantities of well-cooked vegetables.
  
• Sunlight, high-vitamin cod liver oil or vitamin D3 supplements.
  
• Generous amounts of pastured butter. <-----!!!
• No industrially processed food.
  

This diet would maximize mineral absorption while providing abundant fat-soluble vitamins. It probably isn't necessary to follow it strictly. For example, if you eat more mineral-rich foods such as dairy and bone broths, you can probably get away with more phytic acid. Or you might be able to heal cavities eating like this for only one or two meals a day, as Dr. Price demonstrated. "

That's great news for me because I love butter. Its also worth noting that the crab meat its self would also be considered good for teeth as well. I was very surprised by the fact that oats, including bread and cereal are actually very bad for your teeth. Its an interesting article and I'd recommend reading it in full.

Ok, to summarize. Eating crab with butter is good for your teeth, bad for the crab.