“You operated on that eel?” I asked, my eyes opening wide. Nathan Marcucci, the manager of the aquarium at the San Antonio Zoo, nodded and pulled out his phone showing me a video of how, along with the Zoo’s veterinarian, he’d built a constant flow system to move water over the anesthetized […]
Field Trip to the Zoo Continue reading
Last week a producer from the BBC’s show More or Less contacted me with a question from a listener: Can jellyfish swim as fast as an Olympic swimmer? (I’m guessing this question was in part spurred on by Michael Phelps’, umm, race with a shark during Shark Week in 2017.) I LOVE
How Speedy are Spineless Swimmers? Continue reading
There’s something about self-isolation that longs for the wandering ways of the jellies. So I’ve probably spent a bit too much time oogling videos lately. Luckily, there’s been plenty to virtually drift off to. The Schmidt Ocean Institute captured video [click the link, that’s just a screen grab on the left] of
Some Jellies I Needed to See Right Now Continue reading
The news is terrible. I find myself picking up my phone and clicking the “News” ap on my phone every hour, twice an hour, three times. I’ve read all the stuff about dopamine hits from clicking and I get it. It’s an addiction. Plus, like I said, the news is bad so
How Do I Not Know This #1: Janthina’s Violet Liquid Continue reading
I’ve been getting Google alerts on the word “jellyfish” since 2010. For eight years a daily roundup of jellyfish news from across the web has been rolling across my inbox in the mid-afternoon. I’ve seen most of the stories several times. I’ve seen giant jellyfish drifting near video cameras on oilrig platforms that
On Protocooperation Continue reading
I’m pinching myself. SPINELESS is out in the world, and it’s been getting some incredible coverage. I’m going to give a rundown here, because each one of these shout-outs about jellyfish and our oceans’ health means so much to me. And what’s more, the variety of places where SPINELESS is showing up
Jellyfish Far and Wide Continue reading
There’s the cover! And wow, could it be any more beautiful? The stunning colors and elegant layout came from my publisher Riverhead books and the jellyfish drawings are by Ernst Haeckel, an Austrian naturalist/jellyfish expert/philosopher/physician/artist who lived in the late 1800s. If you haven’t ever seen Haeckel’s book of drawings called Kunstformen
While I was in the Netherlands earlier this month, the Naturalis Newsroom was gracious enough to feature me in not just one, but two episodes. The first was the subject of last week’s blog and the second was about science communication. That science communication, #scicomm, has become a thing worthy of a
I’m just back from the Netherlands, where bikes rule the road but canals force all the roads to meander and curve so you are never quite sure where you’re headed. I was lucky enough to have the chance to give a talk about jellyfish at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center, one of the oldest natural history
The Curious Case of the Jellyfish Curator Continue reading
It’s been a while since I posted here, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been busy with the jellies. Starting around Christmas, I went through an intense fact-checking/end-noting process with Spineless. I found that I could get through about a five pages a day–and the book is around 300 pages long. It was butt-in-the-chair, back-aching
Invertebrate Intermission Continue reading