Erin M. Cafferty

Toxic Gaslighting: How 3M Executives Convinced a Scientist the Forever Chemicals She Found in Human Blood Were Safe Decades ago, Kris Hansen showed 3M that its PFAS chemicals were in people’s bodies. Her bosses halted her work. As the EPA now forces the removal of the chemicals from drinking water, she wrestles wit...

www.propublica.org/article/3m-f...

Coastal economies rely on NOAA, from Maine to Florida, Texas and Alaska – even if they don’t realize it NOAA’s work has kept fisheries from collapsing, helped coastal ecosystems survive extreme heat and battled invasive species, among many other tasks essential to coastal economies.

Coastal economies rely on NOAA, from Maine to Florida, Texas and Alaska – even if they don’t realize it

Fearing Trump cuts, NOAA workers in WA hold ‘Save Our Science’ rally Raincoat- and boot-clad students, scientists and neighbors were among the dozens waving signs outside the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center early Wed...

www.spokesman.com/stories/2025...

A very pig butt looking round marble like animal that is pink. Photo by MBARI.

The “front” of a pig butt worm showing tentacles and a round body. Image by MBARI.

The bottom of a pig butt worm showing it’s odd bilateral butt cheeks. Images by MBARI

Scientists first collected a pig butt worm from the dark ocean depths near Monterey, California. The size of marbles, pigbutts are a near complete mystery. Officially described in 2007, scientists aren’t even sure if the pigbutt form is an adult, or just a very very awkward adolescent stage.

NOAA Is Getting Dragged Down Into the Mud Splinter is your home for news and opinions that challenge power in our political and economic system that's becoming more unhinged each and every day.

NOAA has been told to alter maps etc to say Gulf of America. Its Scientific Integrity Policy page is currently down, to be scrubbed of "diversity" mentions and such. Climate science is under attack. All international collaboration—interpreted broadly—must be run by political appointees. My latest:

In Australia its a cheaper to cause an oil spill than to get a nursing degree

In Norway they tax their oil industry and give kids free degrees while in Australia we subsidise the oil industry and charge kids a fortune to go to uni

Priorities matter

www.ices.dk/community/gr... ICES Workshop on the Oceanic Northeast Atlantic Ecosystem
📅10-14 February 2025 - for ecologists, biologists, oceanographers, social sciences, economists etc. with knowledge relevant to the Oceanic Northeast Atlantic

Bergen 🪄

Photo of MIT Technology Review magazine

a photo of a story spread in MIT Technology review. "Visualizing the movement of ships at sea"

a photo of a story spread in MIT Technology review. "Visualizing the movement of ships at sea"

a photo of a story spread in MIT Technology review. "Visualizing the movement of ships at sea"

I have a story in the Jan/Feb 2025 issue of MIT Technology Review magazine featuring ship movement data visualizations I made using NOAA AIS data. This originally ran in my @beautifulpublicdata.com newsletter. Always fun to see this in print!

Climate models drive variation in projections of species distribution on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland Species Distribution Models (SDMs) are tools for understanding climate-induced habitat changes, yet their outcomes depend heavily on climate model selection. This study compares biomass projections fo...

New article in PLOS Climate led by @raquelruizdiaz.bsky.social looking at the future of cod, snow crab, & yellowtail flounder on The Grand Banks 🇨🇦

Warming benefits cod but not snow crab or yellowtail

@fcyr.bsky.social @marineinstitute.bsky.social @plos.bsky.social
journals.plos.org/climate/arti...

Rapid predator-prey balance shift follows critical-population-density transmission between cod (Gadus morhua) and capelin (Mallotus villosus) - Communications Biology This study utilises OAWRS to demonstrate mass shoaling behaviour of predatory cod and their capelin prey in the Barents Sea. The result is a mass consumption event, skewing the predator-prey ratio wit...

www.nature.com/articles/s42...

OK this is the mind-blowing image of the week for me: the total global biomass of mammals.

Wild animals are a tiny proportion.

From a paper by Ron Milo Lab at Weizmann Institute, via a great Oxford lecture by @marionkoopmans.bsky.social

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

a collage of sea creature artworks including, a leaping green and purple amphipod, a hooded nudibranch in front of the crab nebula, two mating leopard dorid nudibranchs, a Euplokamis dunlapae ctenophore, a gossamer worm, a sea angel, a Euphysa jellyfish, a Bougainvillia jellyfish, a Polyorchis penicillatus jellyfish, a Gonionenums vertens jellyfish, a small orange nudibranch, a baby Dendronotus rufus nudibranch, a pink Beroe ctenophore, and a ruby octopus portrait

A collage of several more art works including a thick horned nudibranch on a piece of kelp, some Mnemiopsis leidyi ctenophores in space, Pacific Sea Nettle jellyfish in space, a pink tritonia sea slug on sea lettuce, a close up of a nereid worms holographic skin, a ruby octopus pressed against its own reflection in the water, a Bolinopsis microptera ctenophore glowing in dark water, a nereid worm writhing in an infinity knot, a Beroe ctenophore in the green salish sea, and an Aequorea victoria jellyfish also in seren green water above love blades of algae.

Hi lovely people! Would you mind boosting my Salish Sea marine science art? My contract job is going on an unexpected hiatus until sometime in July so I'd really appreciate the support.

Here's some of the prints on the site:

shop.noncompliantcyborg.com

🐙🦑🪼🌿🧪 #nudibranch #BSNM

Life on the Arctic Coast: Ørjan (53) Strives for the Fisheries in Båtsfjord Båtsfjord (High North News): While several fish plants are struggling or closing down, Ørjan Nergaard from Båtsfjord in Northern Norway is about to establish a new fish producer. "We are a different c...

www.highnorthnews.com/en/life-arct...

Boops, hums and farts: The mysterious world of fish communication From mysterious clicking noises in a fish tank in a lab, to humming haddocks and singing toadfish, scientists are discovering the wonder of underwater communication.

www.bbc.com/future/artic...

How are appropriate performance levels developed for MSC certification? A case study assessing shark finning Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification is based on an assessment of a fishery’s performance against three levels within the MSC Fisheries Stan…

Great news for sustainable fishing and ocean conservation- an updated and impoved standard to ensure that shark finning isn't happening on certified sustainable fishing vessels, from the world's largest sustainable fishery certification body (and my former employer) 🧪🦑🌎

The numbers do not add up for mathematics homework, according to a new study Supporting kids with math homework is a common afterschool activity. But beyond the basics, new curricula and teaching strategies are making it harder for parents to help and it's taking a serious tol...

phys.org/news/2024-03...

www.int-res.com/abstracts/me...

Decades-old Cans of Salmon Reveal Changes in Ocean Health Researchers used tinned fish to reconstruct parasitic population change, giving new meaning to the phrase “opening a can of worms”

www.scientificamerican.com/article/deca...

Metagenomic analysis of Mesolithic chewed pitch reveals poor oral health among stone age individuals... Scientific Reports - Metagenomic analysis of Mesolithic chewed pitch reveals poor oral health among stone age individuals

New ancientDNA paper out discussing the oral healt of Mesolithic Scandinavian HG's as well as the animals and plants they chewed 🦷

Led by Emrah Kirdök. I was happy to be one of the archaeology co-authors, working with a international and multidisciplinary group of fantastic colleagues.

DNA from stone age chewing gum sheds light on diet and disease in Scandinavia's ancient hunter-gathe... Genetic analysis reveals one of the teenagers probably had advanced gum disease.

The main points of the paper in the Conversation:

Mass seal deaths in southern Atlantic confirmed as bird flu Scientists warn further spread could threaten fragile ecosystem, as tests show seals died of H5N1 on South Georgia island

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Another great way to start off 2024 is by checking out this new, INSPIRING special issue in @TOSOceanography's journal, the FIRST ever on Building Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the Ocean Sciences, #openaccess at tos.org/oceanography...
We all wrote our own autobiographies!
🦑🧪

All the Fish We Cannot See | Hakai Magazine In a dark, unexplored layer of ocean, a hidden cache of fish might play an unexpected role in our climate’s future. It seems like a bad time for a new fishery.

How much carbon are the fish in one of the planet’s most unexplored ecosystems cycling from the ocean’s surface to the deep sea? Probably a lot. By the fab duo of writer Moira Donovan & editor @toughcitywriter.bsky.social 🦑 🌍 #biodiversity #conservation #geosky hakaimagazine.com/features/all...

Follow our @exetergses.bsky.social MSc alumnus @jamesgrecian.bsky.social who has just landed in Antarctica sampling fossilised stomach oil deposits of snow petrels to understand millennial-scale change in the Southern Ocean ecosystem. He will share here as he goes! 🌏 🧪 🦑 #ExeterCEC #Exetermarine

The eleven strategies are concentrated in three areas: (1) adapting research assessment criteria and program requirements (cyan), (2) offering training (purple), and (3) building communities (yellow). While Strategy 11 is part of the ‘build communities’ category, it is placed at the center to highlight the importance of building connections with others working on strategies in other areas. Institutions can support those working on the eleven strategies by allocating resources and monitoring impact. These activities are shown as two blue rings encircling the eleven strategies. The small multiples (small versions of the main graph) highlight the strategies that different stakeholders can directly use at their institutions.

📝Eleven strategies for making reproducible research & open science training the norm at research institutions.

Writen in collaboration with 50+ researchers involved in promoting open science after a virtual brainstorming event -was lots of fun !

doi.org/10.7554/eLif...

iScience

Seeing a Bayesian Ghost: Sensorimotor Activation Leads to an Illusory Social Perception
www.cell.com/iscience/ful...

Do you clean data in R?
Stop renaming, reordering, or dropping variables manually. Automate the work with your data dictionary. #rstats
cghlewis.com/blog/dict_cl...

Why do Atlantic salmon suffer from sea lice so badly while Coho salmon don't? 🐟 At Edinburgh university Blue Health Symposium, @salisburyfish.bsky.social explained how scRNAseq🧬🖥️ revealed that while both species have the same types of cells, these cells respond differently to lice!