Reflecting On The Semester

By: Michelle Watson

I remember when I first heard about this class. There were flyers posted all over the 2nd floor of Hodges like a “coming to you this fall,” kind of a flyer. I didn’t really know what all it would entail. I hoped that the class would be about marine life in some form or fashion. Being a person who originally wanted to be a marine biologist, I was hoping that if there was a class that put  the coastal environment and writing together that there would be some discussion about marine biology.  I did get some of that, but I also got more.

I think that out of all of my classes this semester I probably learned the most from this class. And I’m not just saying that! In some of my other journalism classes I felt that there was an assumption that everyone in the class knew anything and everything that there was to know about journalism. But in this class, I found that there was a lot more to writing than just being a journalist. Science communication might be about one of the hardest jobs out there. Most journalists’ brains are wired in a way that completely rejects understanding anything that math or science based. Journalists that are able to understand hard science and communicate well are rare.

There were somethings in this class that I found to be very influential on the way I view journalism as a whole but there were three things that I really think I’m going to take on to the next phase of my journalism career.

1. Framing: I don’t know why the concept of framing is not taught in other journalism classes. I think it’s a great way to get stories across to people that you might not be able to reach in the typical “Type A” news story. I think it’s cool that you can change your story to make someone else understand it and accept your ideas. On the other hand I think it’s important to know that not every person receives information in the same way. Knowing what audience you’re talking to and how they understand information is crucial.
2. Coastal Restoration and Restoration Authority aka CPRA: Being an out of state student, I usually don’t know about news that is central to Louisiana. Either I don’t hear about it or I simply don’t care. When we had our guest speaker Chuck Perrodin come in and talk about Louisiana’s diminishing coast I was shocked. While other people might have heard about Louisiana losing it’s coast, I had never heard of it before and was surprised. When Perrodin compared the amount of land that Louisiana was losing to the city of New York, it made sense. Ever since learning about this, I feel like I have become some sort of advocate for restoring the coast. I’m not sure what one little journalist can do, but I think it’s important that people know about the issue.
3. Scientists truly care about their work and how it’s represented: Shadowing the scientist really helped me know about how much scientists care. My interview with scientists throughout the semester showed me that scientists care – and they care a lot about what they do even if it may seem boring to everyone else. They love the work they do so much so that it hurts when people don’t understand the information, or when it’s misrepresented. One of the scientists I interviewed this semester got so emotional that they cried. I’ve never had anyone cry in an interview before. As a journalist,  I had to take a step back and realize that they were crying because they cared. In that moment, I realized just how important science communication is and how important it is to get it right.

These are just a few of the things I learned from this class. I’m glad I took the class and I think for any person that wants to be a better writer, journalist, policy maker, scientist, or just an overall better communicator would benefit from taking this class.

Record Heat Temperatures For 2014

Image is from here

By: Michelle Watson

Earlier this week I tweeted a link to an article posted by CNN. It talked about the one thing no one (at least journalists) wants to talk about – climate change.

The article talks about how 2014 has been the hottest year on record to date. Moreover, the hottest month this year was October ringing in at 57.1 degrees Fahrenheit for the world.

I thought that this article was very informative, interesting and good for the average non-scientist to read. On top of that, the word climate change was only mentioned once in the whole article. After learning in class that climate change is a word that journalists ought to avoid if you want readers to keep reading, I thought the author, Shelby Lin Erdman did a good job at that.

I decided to go ahead a dive a little bit more into Erdman’s background because even though her post was short, it made a lot of sense. And for someone like myself who is interested in reporting about science and science journalism, I thought it would be good to connect with her. After reading many science blog posts that are hard to read, it was refreshing to actually have something that I could understand.

When I looked her up, I didn’t get what I wanted. The first thing to pop up was of course was all of the stories that she’s done at CNN. There was another website that had many of her stories all pulled onto one page. What really seemed to bother me was that she had no profile or main page on CNN. If you typed her name in on CNN.com you would find all the stories she’s written but if you tried to click on her name on any of the stories nothing would pop up. There was no twitter page for her either.  It was aggravating.

I know of other news outlets that have a profile for every person on their staff – even if they’re freelance. Take for example Michelle Boorstein, a writer for the Washington Post who wrote a story about how religious beliefs affect how people view climate change. While her specialty is in reporting about religion, it was nice to see her write about something many journalists try to avoid – climate change. But that’s not what I’m getting at here.

For every writer on Washington Post, his/her name is highlighted as a link, his/her twitter page is listed so that you can tweet them about their stories, and there is a picture at the bottom with a description of what the writer specializes in. That’s what journalism today is all about – being able to connect with the writer and question or comment on their story. The fact that CNN did not have this bothered me. If anything you would think that a company that is based in television (founded in 1980) would be more up to date than a company that’s based in print journalism (founded in 1877).

The nature of journalism is changing and quite frankly, I wish some places would become more modern. I really liked Erdman’s post. That was the whole reason I even tweeted it – I wanted to give her credit but the lack thereof on CNN’s website to learn more about the writer made it difficult.

 

Picture is from here

By: Michelle Watson

Coastal environmental issues have long been a problem in the U.S. Marine biologist and famous science writer Rachel Carson informed the world about the environment and what to do to protect it.  However, enforcing policy on these problems did not become as apparent until the 1970’s, specifically under the Nixon Administration.

In the early 1900’s few coastal environmental policies were made. The National Park Service in 1916 made it so that places that were considered historical must be protected so that future children could see. In 1918, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act sought to protect birds that migrated from the U.S. to Great Britain and back. In order to hunt birds that are listed in this act you must have a waiver. Some of the birds on the list such as the Mississippi kite and swamp sparrow are birds that live along the coast. This is the first time that we see an effort being made to not just environmental policy but to coastal environmental policy as well.

If we break down coastal environmental policy into episodes, the most significant episode was under the Nixon administration. Environmental policy, laws, and concerns about the environment soared during these times. In 1970 the most familiar environmental agency in the U.S. the Environmental Protection Agency also known as EPA was founded. After that, environmental policy increased significantly. In 1972 the Coastal Zone Management Act was founded. This act allows state government and federal government to work together to keep a watch out on coastal problems. The Marine Mammal Act was passed in 1972 as well in order to protect specifically whales, dolphins, manatees and any other marine mammal in danger. Other environmental acts passed by the Nixon administration include the clean air act of 1970 and the clean water act of 1972.

Why was the Nixon administration so involved with environmental issues though? The reason this may be is because of the historical time period of the 70’s. The 70’s were a period dominated by the hippie culture where people were much more concerned with the environment. For example in 1970, the U.S. celebrated its first Earth Day. This decade was characterized by peace, and love for the environment. With ideas of loving the environment reaching a large pubic, it can be said that it was “cool” to want to save the environment. According to history.com, there were even announcements made during children’s television shows like the U.S. Forest Service’s Woodsy Owl, saying “Give it hoot, Don’t Pollute.”  If everyone else is doing it, then more people are going to want to do it as well, making it a social and cultural norm. With the creation of EPA and the Coastal Zone Management Act, we see the Nixon administration caring about the environment more so than their predecessors.

The environmental episode of the later 1970’s and 1980’s were characterized by the flow of coastal environmental policy continued into the next two decades with the creation of the Fisheries Conservation and Management Act in 1976 and the Ocean Dumping Act in 1988.

The coastal environmental episode of the 90’s was contributed by the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska. This oil spill immediately killed marine animals like orcas, sea otters, eagles and seals. The U.S. government responded by creating the Oil Pollution Act in 1990. This act was a direct result of the Exxon oil spill, requiring if a spill should ever happen again, oil companies should have a plan. To this day, the toxins of oil remain in the waters where this occurred.

 

Part 2:

The biggest coastal issue affecting Louisiana today is its diminishing coast.  Many organizations such as the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, also known as CPRA, have advocated for restoring the Gulf Coast and in some cases telling people that they need to move before the land disappears.

Resorting the Gulf Coast, specifically in Louisiana, has a lot to do with the faulty levees that were created in the 1930’s. These levees made by the government contribute to the loss of land in Louisiana. Before the creation of these levees the water from the Mississippi delta would flood the land and this would create more land, by allowing sedimentation to flow up and rest on the ground. The levees that we have now are not proper levees and are blocking the water that’s coming to make new land. A proper levee would allow water from tributaries to flow throughout the coast. Since the creation of the levees we have now, Louisiana has lost the land equivalent of New York City every 13 years.

There are many benefits to restoring the coast. According to a study done by a group of researchers at Duke University, the benefits of restoring the Gulf Coast include but are not limited to:

• Provides job opportunities in the Gulf Coast region and 32 other states
• Opportunities for well-established firms to utilize underused resources
• Creates work for many firms within the marine construction industry

 

What we see here is that coastal restoration would not only help biologically by saving the animals that live there and geologically by allowing natural sedimentation to create land, but it would also help the economy. Specifically, cities and parishes along the coast would have more jobs for people. Restoring the Gulf Coast, would help the U.S. too. Louisiana is one of the nation’s leaders in fishing and oil, making it a crucial part of the U.S. economy as well.

The biggest problem with restoring the coast is that is requires money, and a lot of it. Organizations like the CPRA get funding from the government to help with their projects. For example, as of October 3^, 2014, Louisiana received 340 million to restore the Gulf Coast. This money is for the coasts that were destroyed during the BP oil spill. But where does the rest of the money come from? People who are opposed the restoration of Louisiana’s coast say that restoring the coast is too much money. People don’t know if the money being used is tax dollars and some people don’t really believe that the coast is disappearing. Without people being informed about what’s really happening to the coast, they’ll never be able to understand what’s at stake.  However, if we don’t do something the state of Louisiana’s coast will be forever changed. It will only be a ghost of its former self.

 

Works cited:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0964569102000881

http://cggc.duke.edu/pdfs/CGGC_Gulf-Coast-Restoration.pdf

http://coastal.la.gov/about/

http://www.history.com/topics/1970s

What is a steroid shot really?

By: Michelle Watson

I’ve been meaning to write about my unfortunate sickness that I’ve had for the past two weeks. Ever since moving into the dorm rooms of LSU it seems like I have been permanently sick. Being an out of state student, it always seems like I get sick every fall semester that I come back to Louisiana. If it’s not allergies, it’s a cold, and if it’s not a cold, then it’s a virus. With the recent temperature drop, students all over campus are running to the health center to get better only to find out that they’re aren’t nearly enough physicians to go around.

I had an appointment this Wednesday. Surprisingly it wasn’t too difficult to get the appointment. I checked myself in and sat in the waiting room. There were at least 10 other students waiting for their name to be called. Some students had face masks, while others were on crutches. I sat there thinking, all I wanted was to be able to fall asleep at night and breathe out of both nostrils. I had developed a violent cough that only made itself present when I was about to go to sleep, keeping me up for hours and making my eyes tear up. I was miserable.

After sitting for about 1o minutes, my name was called. I was taken to another room where the nurse did her usual: taking my blood pressure, taking my weight, and taking my resting heart rate. After that, she walked out and told me someone else would be in with me shortly.

I never really knew what kind of “care” students were getting at the student health center. Did we have real doctors or just nurses? Either way, another lady came in about 5 minutes later and introduced herself saying she was a nurse practitioner – not a doctor.

She asked me what my symptoms were and I told her. I was consistently sneezing throughout the day, dry coughing at night, and had developed some congestion in my nose. In addition I had some acute back pain. I really didn’t know what was wrong with me. Coming from a family that has an abundance of allergy issues, I knew that whatever was happening to me was not allergies. The nurse practitioner listened to my symptoms , pulled out a stethoscope and told me to try and breathe.

After assessing me and looking at my file she told me that I most likely had a virus. (I’ve learned enough about biology to know that if you have a virus you just have to let it “run it’s course” and there’s really nothing they [the doctor] can do to make you feel better.) I thought that she was just going to turn me away but that’s not what happened. Even though I had a virus she told me, she could help alleviate my symptoms to help me get more rest. I thought GREAT! I’ll be getting some pills or something. I was actually getting a shot.

I’m one of those people who hates shots with a passion. I vividly remember going to the doctor as a little girl and the doctor having to chase me around the examination room just to hold me down and give me a shot. The fact that I had to get a shot at age 20, and was still scared showed me just how much I did not like them. After coming to my senses, I realized I was willing to do whatever to get better. The nurse informed me I was getting a steroid shot. I wondered…a steroid shot? What does that do? Is is the same shot that athletes use illegally? I had to figure it out.

When I got back to my dorm room I realized that I had gotten a type of steroid shot called a  cortisone shot. I’ve heard of those before, my mom had to get one when she tore her meniscus in her knee.  (Why didn’t the nurse just say that instead of steroid?) According to about health.com a cortisone shot is supposed to alleviate any type of inflammation in the body. While I was at the health center I remember the nurse telling me my membranes were swollen. Exhausted from the whole day, I sat on my bed and feel asleep.

Waking up the next morning, I realized that I did not have a violent coughing episode and that I had fallen asleep perfectly. I still had liquid in my nose and throat that I needed to drain by taking sudafed, but overall I felt better. After looking up some more about the shot, my beliefs of this shot being a illegal substance used by athletes was completely negated. It turns out, cortisone is a type of steroid, and there are many other types of steroids, specifically three types, anabolic, androgenic, and cortico.

With that being said, it has been two days and I am feeling great after having this “steroid shot.” I am happy to say that it was not the illegal version of steroids.

Marine Biodiversity Loss

 

By: Michelle Watson

For years the marine life along the coasts has been diminishing due to human interaction. In the early 1900’s it was found that railroad development, specifically in the Florida keys began to suffer. Now, another form of human interaction threatens the marine life that lives among America’s coast: tourism.

For places like the Florida Keys with abundant amounts of coral reefs, every year snorkelers, divers and boaters go out to see the beauty of the ocean. However, what most people don’t realize is that even this smallest amount of interaction can harm a coral reef.  Tourist activities like snorkeling where people put on a face masks and go in the water can be harmful if people aren’t careful. There are other big threats to coral reefs other than tourism, such as overfishing, the use of electrical currents to fish, sedimentation and coastal runoff. (Brannet. Anna)

Coral bleaching is another reason why marine biodiversity is diminishing. Coral bleaching, is the act of corals pushing out zooxanthellae, a type of plankton out of their system. Zooxanthellae’s are the organisms that give corals their color. Coral bleaching happens in extreme temperatures, usually when the water really reaches 80 or 90 degrees Fahrenheit. The problem with coral bleaching is that the corals need the zooanthellae in order to survive. The zooanthellae makes food for the coral and corals provide a home for the zooxanthellae. Coastal water temperatures are gradually increasing because of global warming.

In the last 20 years, studies found that the rate of coral bleaching is going up with the rate of climate change. According to Professor Kristine Delong who works in LSU’s department of geography and anthropology, frequent coral bleaching did not begin until the 80s after an El Nino wiped out about majority of Panama’s coral reefs. El Nino is a current of warm water that accumulates near South America in the Pacific ocean usually affecting normal weather patterns. Since then there has been coral bleaching in happening every 3 years. Delong says that there are two ways to look at climate change: biologically and geologically.

“Biologist [oceanographers] look at climate change and go look, the climate is changing and geological [oceanographers] go yes, climate is changing – but that’s what it’s supposed to do every 50,000 years,” said Delong. Delong works more on the geological stand point of climate change and said that geologists understand climate change from chunks of years rather than a small period. For example, geological oceanographers study ice ages while biological oceanographers look at decades of information.

There is a difference between natural climate change and anthropogenic climate change and the rate of change. From a geological perspective it’s normal for the climate to change every 50,000 years or so with ice ages, however there is no set time in which they can happen and that this happens naturally. She says, however, because it is a natural process there is no way of knowing when it’s going to happen. But lately the aggregate rate of climate change is increasing affecting the marine habitats and ecosystems.

Christopher Harley a zoologist at the University of British Columbia conducted a study to measure the effects of climate change on mussels and barnacle habitats along coastal Vancouver. He found that the temperature of the water was much warmer in 2009 and 2010 as opposed to the 1950’s. The result was that had an effect on the mussel and barnacle population. It was less than was there.

Moreover, the increase of CO2 and in the atmosphere results in ocean acidification, which can dissolve animals made of calcium carbonate causing a decrease in corals, mussels, clams and other marine animals made of calcium carbonate. Ocean acidification is the decrease of the ph balance in the ocean. One way this process happens is the increase of CO2 in the waters.

The opinions of what causes the biggest impacts for marine biodiversity loss vary from one expert to another. Marine ecologist, specializing in near shore ecosystems and small scale fisheries, Richard Lilley said anthropogenic impacts are the biggest impacts for marine biodiversity loss. Anthropogenic refers to pollution damage and environmental damage from human interaction. In some cases, this human interaction can be as simple as waste run off.

“Tourism can be both a benefit and a detriment to marine biodiversity. For example, in regions with heavy recreational boat use the anchor damage caused to sea grass meadows can be vast, destroying important nursery habitat for a number of fish and shellfish species.” Lilley said.

Sea grass is crucially important to the growth of marine life and stability of marine life. It helps not only small fish but also bigger marine animals by providing food. The manatee eats sea grass while the bottlenose dolphin eats fish that live in the sea grass. Additionally, many animals live there such as mussels, clams, and starfish to name a few. With the damage of sea grass comes the damage of a whole marine ecosystem (“Importance of Sea Grass”).

In the Florida Keys, it has been found that improper septic tanks would flow from the septic tank into the waters of the Florida Keys. In some cases researchers have found that the amount of human waste has been a significant factor to black band disease, a disease that attacks corals. Black band disease can be linked to human pathogen fecal waste.

Delong can remember other things that improper septic tanks could harm. “I can remember being a little girl and wanting to go to the beach [in the Florida keys] and not being able to go because of the amount of fecal matter in the waters.”

The question now is what to do to stop marine biodiversity loss. For one, tourists should be more aware of what they’re doing and how just simply touching a coral or an animal can hurt. There is the issue of keeping people happy, along with the issue of preserving marine life. To learn more about what the Florida keys are doing look here. Additionally people should educate themselves on climate change and the affects it can have not just on land, but in the ocean as well.

 

 

 

Works cited:

http://myfwc.com/research/habitat/seagrasses/information/importance/

Pictures from: http://www.archive.org/stream/nationalmagazine23brayrich#page/n540/mode/1up

Picture from: http://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/coral-bleaching-creates-a-vicious-cycle-of-further-bleaching-and-disease.html

Brannet, Anna P., and Thomas B. Davin. Coral Reefs : Biology, Threats and Restoration. N.p.: n.p., n.d. NOVA Science Publishers, 2009. Web. 5 Nov. 2014.

Litter…Elsewhere

By: Michelle Watson

In writing my last assignment for this class about the amount of litter found in Bayou Manchac and Bayou fountain, I found that Louisiana was ranked in the top 10 dirtiest states in America. But what seemed to be even worse for me was that Georgia was in the top list as well along with New York, my home state

While it is not a stretch that New York has a ridiculous amount of litter, it was very surprising to find out that Georgia had a considerable amount of litter as well. Maybe this was surprising to me because where I live in Georgia there is not much litter. In fact in 2005, Georgia passed a law that prohibited smoking in public places, because of this there’s not much cigarette bud litter or tobacco related litter.

While it baffles me that Georgia produces so much litter, it does not baffle me that New York does. In a city with a ton of people walking around, no wonder there’s a considerable amount of litter. Same goes for Louisiana, particularly New Orleans. New Orleans has a considerable amount of litter because of the amount of people that come to visit and come to party. So I looked around and tried to figure out why certain cities had more litter than others.

It turned out that most cities with a lot of litter have a big tourism industry (like New Orleans, New York, or Atlanta) and, that these cities had a higher population of young people living in them.  Young people living in big cities – Go figure!

So what does this mean? Does it mean that younger people are opposed to cleaning up more than older people. I for one, do not consider myself one of those young people. On top of that, the question is where is all of this litter coming from and why don’t people care about it ? Keeping America Beautiful Inc. found three reasons that most people litter:

• They don’t have to clean it up
• It’s not their property
• If there is litter already there, people are more likely to contribute to the already growing mass of trash.

What a lot of people don’t tend to realize, specifically young people is that cleaning up that litter is coming out of your pocket.  GreenEcoService.com found that in 2003 17 million taxpayer dollars were used to clean up roadside trash in Georgia. In Louisiana, 15 million taxpayer dollars were used. To find out about other states you can look on their website.

If people really knew how much they spent on litter that left after tailgating on LSU’s campus, or even more ridiculous, the litter that they throw out of their car window, maybe they wouldn’t do it anymore. Until then states will have to use our hard earned cash to continue to clean up what is already ours.

To make it simple, pick up your trash.

 

Louisiana ranks in the top 10 in the nation for water pollution

By: Michelle Watson

Louisiana ranks top ten in the nation for states with the most amount of litter. Litter can be in public parks, outside homes, or most commonly in bodies of water. Water pollution is nothing new in Louisiana. For example, take the 2010 BP oil spill that caught the attention of many Americans. However, water pollution in Louisiana can be a lot closer to home. A little over 20 miles away from LSU’s campus is where you can find Bayou Manchac and Bayou Fountain.

At one point in time, Bayou Manchac was an important river for ships coming through Louisiana. Today, with bigger ships, the river is too small for ship transport, thus has become a place for leisure and history. Yet pollution continues to flow throughout the river today. Bayou Manchac flows into Bayou Fountain, making a lot of the pollution that starts in Bayou Manchac flow into Bayou Fountain.

In 2009, Bayou Manchac was listed as a historic and scenic river, but with all the pollution filling up the waterway, people could no longer enjoy the river. Most of the litter comes from debris that collects against a tree or other natural sources.

In 2013, the state of Louisiana’s Department of Wildlife and Fisheries implemented the scenic river management plan that is supposed to monitor and improve the pollution of Bayou Manchac. This plan seeks to manage water quality, recreational use and the amount of litter that comes through the river. The plan also enforces new polices such as requiring every pipeline that goes through Bayou Manchac have a permit.

In this management plan it was found that some of the issues that Bayou Manchac had were the overflowing of septic tanks and other sanitary concerns. The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LEDQ) came in and reported that Bayou Manchac’s water quality was not up to par, despite the fact that the LEDQ does not consider trash as a water pollutant. Additionally, the amount of dissolved oxygen in the Bayou is crucially low. For animals living in the bayou, not getting enough oxygen can be life-threatening.

In addition to this plan, the Louisiana Natural Heritage program (LNHP), a group that detects where endangered or threatened species live, found that there were three species living in or around Bayou Manchac that were in danger. These animals are manatees, the eastern harvest mouse and the inflated heelspiltter. Manatees are considered an endangered species, while the inflated heel splitter, a species of freshwater mussel, is considered a threatened species. All three of these species however, need to be watched and preserved.

Despite the efforts that the state has done, local residents are the ones who get to see the day to day accumulation of litter pile outside their homes. They are the ones that are affected day in and day out. One of these locals, Johnathan Scott, is creator of the Bayou Manchac group, an organization that seeks to clean the bayou.

“I moved to the Bayou in 1998 and there was already a group of bayou neighbors swapping emails about flooding, water quality, litter, blockages, wildlife, and history,” Scott said, “The list grew quickly and we put it into a yahoo discussion group at www.bayoumanchac.org.”

Since then, the organization has grown to be heavily volunteer-based. It has even had other groups stem from the same idea as theirs, such as PaddleBR. PaddleBR was a group that was started to help remove litter that flows from Bayou Manchac into Bayou Fountain, so that people could go out and paddle-board on it. Creator of PaddleBR, Nathanial Klumb, does not like the litter that collects in the bayou.

“No, it’s not yours, but you feel better if you pick it up,” said Klumb.

On September 21, 2014, with the help of Volunteer LSU and PaddleBR, the Bayou Manchac group collected trash along Bayou Manchac. For four hours, over 1600 volunteers worked in the Louisiana sun removing nearly two tons of trash and litter from one eighth of the bayou.

Scott, of the bayou Manchac group, continues to push forward and make Bayou Manchac not just a place known for cleaning up, but a place where families can come out and enjoy the water. His most recent goal is to try to get paddle launches installed. But this can’t happen until we get a cleaner, better, Bayou Manchac.

“There are real opportunities for improvements to water quality, wildlife recreation and education, and we hope to move things right along,” Scott said.

But until then, people can help make this dream of a better Bayou Manchac a reality by volunteering to clean up with the Bayou Manchac group, or donating.

Dr. Kristine Delong and her Coral Reef Lab

By Michelle Watson

Scuba diving and impromptu vacations are all a part of Professor Kristine Delong’s marine research. Why just a few weeks ago, she left and went on a vacation. This Florida native had always had a love for the ocean but she wouldn’t come to fulfill that dream until later on in life.

Delong graduated with a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering, initially going down that path because her high school counselors told her to. She was good at science and math so to her counselors, she’d make a great engineer. It wasn’t until after years in the industry that she realized she hated the work.

Delong would then go on to receive her master’s degree and eventually her doctorate degree in Oceanography – what she always wanted. Here, at Louisiana State University, she was the first woman hired by the geography and anthropology department.

A few of her current works are centered on coral reefs and carbon dating. Radioactive carbon dating is a way to measure how old something is. Usually, this method looks at how much carbon 14, an isotopic form of carbon, has left in the object. If the object is older than 50 thousand years, radioactive carbon dating will not be able to measure how old it is.

For example, one of Delong’s pieces in her lab, is a tree bark stump from the Mississippi river that was older than 50 thousand years. According to Delong, this means that the tree stump is from the last ice age. From using tree stumps, her studies can help archaeologists find out a lot about the past.

The most interesting part of her lab however, was her collection of Coral Reefs. You can also use coral reefs to learn more about the past. To put it her way, “Your bones speak and you can learn a lot from your bones.” From the density bands located in the corals you can see what the climate was during that time. In her collection she had coral reefs ranging anywhere from Florida to Puerto Rico.

What really hits close to home for Delong is the amount of Coral Reefs dying in Florida. In fact as of three weeks ago, there are 22 endangered corals. Delong believes one of the reasons for this is human interaction and coral bleaching. Specifically in Key West, and Key Largo, tourism has become a big industry. This caused the human interaction to destroy some of the coral reefs that were there.

On the other hand, coral bleaching is the when coral reefs push all of the algae that are living in them out. This usually happens when the water temperature gets really hot. An alga gives corals food and color. Without algae the relationship that coral reefs depend on will no longer thrive, making the corals die. These are the problems that are affecting the coral reefs in Florida.

Other than being immersed in coral reef efforts and news, Delong teaches two classes at LSU, typically working 12 hour days. She also has two graduate students helping her with her work. In her spare time, when she’s not teaching, she likes to visit places across the world usually for her research studies, but also for fun. She’s been all over from Brazil to Whales. To have her put it, being a professor is one of the best jobs to have.

Audubon Aquarium of the Americas

New Orleans Aquarium

by Michelle Watson

Last weekend I attended the Society of Environmental Journalists annual conference in New Orleans. After listening to what the speakers had to say, we went to the aquarium with the passes they provided us. Coming from Atlanta’s aquarium that houses whale sharks, the aquarium in New Orleans was much smaller!

They had all of your typical aquarium attractions like sharks, eels, jellyfish, and catfish. There was even a frog exhibit with lots of exotic tree frogs! However, one exhibit seemed to hit a nerve: the penguin exhibit.

It was nice to see them swimming around and jumping in and out of the water, but to me it seemed as though the exhibit should have had more space. There were at least 20+ penguins in a really small exhibit. I’m usually not someone who gets upset about animals in captivity, but the lack of space that these precious animals had to move around in, made me very upset.

The two species housed in this exhibit are the Rockhopper penguin from South America and African penguins. These are both species that live in warmer climates with sufficient space to move around and migrate in.

Again, I’ve never be upset about animals in captivity…usually because I’m the one who likes to come and see the animals in captivity! The lack of space and water for these penguins to move around needs to be improved.

Snubfin and Humpback dolphins

by Michelle Watson

Rare Indo-pacific humpback dolphin playing and jumping. Flickrcom: Blue Dolphin Marine Tours.

Human interaction with the northwest coast of Australia could be potentially wiping out two recently discovered species of dolphins.

Living off the northwest coast of Australia, the snubfin dolphin and humpback dolphin have recently been studied to track the population difference and genetic make-up of these animals. This study published July 4th, 2014 in Volume 9, Issue 7, of PLOS science journal, was an effort to learn more about the conservation status of these species as well.

These two species of dolphins are considered to be near threatened by the International Union for the conservation of nature (INCU). Both require checking up on due to the lack of information provided on their existence.
Professor Anna Kopps from the University of Exeter in Cornwall, UK said, “Not much is known about the humpback and snubfin dolphins. In fact, the species Australian snubfin dolphin was only described in 2005…”

Seven scientists worked together to track these animals and gather results. These scientists work at different universities all around the world including the United Kingdom and Australia.

In order to better understand these creatures, they took a series of skin tissue from dolphins off the northwest coast
of Australia. There were four different locations from which they took dolphin tissue samples: North West Cape, Dampier Archipelago, Rosebuck Bay, and Cygnet Bay.

From this, they were able to remove the DNA from each particular dolphin to better understand their genetic make-up. In looking at this DNA they were able to see if a hybrid dolphin, a cross between a snubfin dolphin and a humback dolphin, would have one DNA copy from their mom and another DNA copy from their dad. It turns out, that the hybrid dolphin they found had this genetic make-up.

If the hybrid did have a copy of both a snubfin dolphin’s DNA and a humpback dolphin’s DNA then it could have different phenotype, or physical characteristics. Think of it this way: when you are born, you do not look like an exact copy of your mom or dad, instead you look like a mixture of the two. That is why in some cases a child will have their mother’s hair color and have their dad’s eye color. The same idea goes for a hybrid dolphin. A hybrid dolphin might have the mouth of a snubfin dolphin and the humpback of a humpback dolphin.

The pressing issue of hybridization is that the snubfin dolphin and the humpback dolphin both are considered near threatened species. If these two species begin to breed with one another it could possibly decrease the amount of one species. Additionally, human interaction with the northwest coast of Australia may be a contributing factor to the small amount of snubfin and humpback dolphins.

Kopps said, “…many resources are (planned to be) mined in north Western Australia which leads to large-scale habitat modification of the inshore environment possibly compromising snubfin and humpback dolphin habitat.” This could directly affect the snubfin and humpback dolphins populations.

Because there is so little information about these species, it is important that we try our best to keep their numbers high by limiting human interaction off the coast.