Are you afraid of the deep, dark ocean? If so, you’re not alone. Thalassophobia (fear of deep water) seems all too common these days from web articles titled “10 Bioluminescent Organisms That Better Cut That Freaky Sh*t Out Before I Call The Cops,” to sci-fi thrillers like “The Meg” (2018) to Tumblr posts like that of user jaclcfrost: “make no mistake i love the ocean with my whole heart but deep water terrifies me so much.. what’s goin on down there? nothing i want to be a part of.” Indeed, the deep ocean – aquatic, cold, dark – is about as opposite an environment from our own as we could imagine. As laid out in the 2018 book Beasts of the Deep: Sea Creatures and Popular Culture: “The deep sea offers us an oppressive and foreboding context – a space unexplored, unknowable, and overwhelming.” But what is the cost of viewing over 70% of our planet with aversion – and who benefits from it?

For centuries, humans have imagined all manner of monsters inhabiting the ocean’s depths. Yet, despite decades of research, little has changed about how we talk, or think, about the deep sea. When I was young, I was fascinated by the “alien” life that inhabited the deep. “We know more about the surface of moon…” Sir David Attenborough assured me in BBC’s Blue Planet (2001), than we know about the deep sea. It wasn’t until I was offered a place on a research expedition in 2017, however, that I would see this world for myself. One morning in September, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, I squeezed into the Pisces V submersible – a metal sphere no bigger than a small sedan. The water changed from blue to black as we descended to 1000 meters (~3280 ft). We were entering into a fabulously unknown world… Or, so I thought.

Mr. Terry Kerby, our submersible pilot, greeted each animal like an old friend (This was the Pisces V’s 889^th dive, after all). Barracks, rattails, Chaunax, Callogorgia, Corallium, Desmophyllym, Chimeras, Dories, Ophiuroids… I was taken aback by how normal these animals looked. The fish were not the deformed oddities I had come to expect. The crabs just looked like crabs. The corals, like corals. Wasn’t this supposed to be an alien frontier?

I learned an important lesson on that expedition: What most people believe about the deep ocean is, at least partly, a lie. There are many reasons why deep-sea imagery might be misleading. For one, can be difficult to get a sense of scale. Ambiguity, paired with fear and imagination, is what makes animals like the Viperfish (Chauliodus spp.) look like something that could eat you for dinner, rather than its actual length of ~30 cm (~12 in). In 2012, an exhibitionput on by the Australian Museum displayed an “oversized model anglerfish” which has since circulated around the web, passing as a real specimen (Most midwater anglerfish (Melanocetidae) are rarely more than a foot long!). The infamous mugshot of the “blobfish” (Psychrolutes marcidus), aka the “World’s Ugliest Animal,” shows the violent result of a trip to the surface. As researchers Alan Jamieson and colleagues write, “…take a domestic cat, scour its hair off, drown it in near-freezing water, pressurize it to 300 atmospheres, photograph its face, and then declare it ugly. The cat scenario would certainly be met with immediate disgust and outrage but it is exactly what the image of the blobfish portray.” Others wish to incite fear, shock, or disgust. If you search the phrase “Deep Sea Creatures,” pages of image results are inevitably returned of twisted, grotesque, and bizarre creatures – some real, many fictional. All of this works to reinforce thalassophobia.

So, people fear the deep ocean. So what? Why should we care?

The real issue with fearing the deep sea is that it is actively under threat, and there is little public outcry in response. The more people hate the deep ocean, the less pressure there is to protect it. Fear has always been a powerful political tool. From colonization to resource extraction, exploitation of an area has always been easiest when people believe either (1) nothing lives there, or (2) what lives there has no value. When the former can no longer be claimed, tactics usually shift to the latter. In the case of the deep ocean, decades of research and exploration have long since shattered the illusion of an empty abyss. Thus, we shift to the latter. People protect what they love. What does that mean for what they hate?

The deep ocean is part of our planet, subject to all its challenges and human impacts. Currently, over 3,400 deepwater drills extract oil and natural gas from the Gulf of Mexico, alone. As was vividly illustrated by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, which spewed an estimated 3.19 million barrels of oil into the Gulf, this is not without risk. To combat this need for oil, people are shifting to electric vehicles, but this has consequences for the deep ocean, too. Many areas of the seafloor are rich in rare earth elements needed for batteries like Nickel, Cobalt, and Lithium. Thus, deep-sea mining is being explored as a means of satiating this demand, threatening to “clear cut” an area roughly the size of the continental U.S in the Pacific Ocean. Deepwater fishing not only removes targeted species from the deep sea, but also more than 38 million tons of unmanaged, unintentional, or unused species (“bycatch”) each year. Even fishing gear alone can be destructive. Around 48 million tons of “ghost gear,” or fishing gear lost at sea, are unintentionally generated each year – about the weight of 240,000 blue whales. Ghost gear may entangle and kill sea life for decades and, as most gear is made of highly durable nylon, is one of the largest sources of plastic pollution in the ocean. If deep-sea ecosystems manage to evade all these threats, however, there are still rising CO₂ levels and seawater temperatures to contend with.

If we want to protect the deep ocean, then we must actively change the way we talk about it. The deep ocean is a tapestry of beautiful environments that should be viewed with awe, interest, and fascination. For scientists, we must change how we present this place, shifting the focus away from its “alienness” to its complexity, uniqueness, and vital importance. For the public, we must make an active effort to learn about the reality of the deep ocean and combat misinformation. With resources available like NOAA’s Deep Ocean Education Project and livestreams of deep-sea dives, there’s never been a better time to learn about our deep oceans. Fear is never neutral. Being conscious of how emotions like fear and disgust can be used against us is a crucial step towards ocean stewardship. The deep sea is a frontier, but it is much less scary, and way more interesting, than you might think.

The post  The Cost of Fear: How Perceptions of the Deep Sea Hurt Conservation first appeared on Deep Sea News.

The post The Sports Cars of Worms first appeared on Deep Sea News.

In case you live under a rock…Amelia Earhart, the pioneering aviator, disappeared on July 2, 1937, during her attempt to circumnavigate the globe. She and her navigator, Fred Noonan, were flying from Lae, Papua New Guinea, to Howland Island when they vanished over the Pacific Ocean. Despite extensive search efforts, no trace of Earhart, Noonan, or their aircraft, a Lockheed Electra, was ever found. The disappearance sparked numerous theories, ranging from crash-and-sink scenarios to theories of Earhart being captured by the Japanese. Despite decades of speculation and search missions, the fate of Amelia Earhart remains one of aviation’s greatest mysteries.

On Saturday, Deep Sea Vision, an oceanic exploration firm headquartered in South Carolina, sonar imagery potentially depicting Earhart’s aircraft resting on the floor of the Pacific Ocean. Utilizing advanced unmanned underwater drones and a 16-member expeditionary team, the company surveyed over 5,200 square miles of seabed between September and December. Deep Sea Vision’s founder, Tony Romeo. is former U.S. Air Force intelligence officer and aviator and divested his real estate business in 2022 to embark on oceanic exploration, driven by a desire to contribute to the search for answers surrounding Earhart’s disappearance.

The identified plane-shaped entity lies approximately 100 miles off Howland Island, where Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, were scheduled to refuel before their untimely disappearance.

But not everyone is convinced, including Dr. Andrew Thaler of Southern Fried Science

I am also skeptical and I think the Lizard above sum’s it up quite nicely. Granted it is in plausible location. Sure it looks like plane. However sonar is notoriously difficult to deduce meaningful shape from at this level of resolution. This could just as easily be another misshapen bit of wreckage that in sonar looks like an airplane. Second, the big old World War II deposited a lot of airplanes and other vessels on the seafloor in South Pacific.

Also the swept wings of this “plane” do not really match that of Earhart’s Lockheed Model 10 Electra. Of course both could be broken and bent into exactly same angle…

Clearly, better sonar imagery and ROV/HOV dives are needed before this could even be considered plausibly Earhart’s plane.

The post Has Amelia Earhart’s Plane Been Found? first appeared on Deep Sea News.

In 1964, the Antarctic oceanographic research ship USNS Eltanin made the above photograph of the sea bottom west of Cape Horn. The Poles: the final frontier. These were the voyages of the USNS Eltanin. Its 10-year mission: to explore strange new polar worlds. To seek out new life and survey new sealfoors. To boldly go where no man has gone before! Between July 5, 1962, and December 29, 1972, Eltanin conducted 52 Antarctic research voyages, covering approximately 80% of the Southern Ocean and traversing a cumulative distance of 400,000 miles. During these missions, Eltanin gathered magnetic profiles of the seabed, which played a crucial role in substantiating the theory of continental drift by confirming the phenomenon of sea floor spreading.

But back to the aliens. When the above image was published, due to its regular antenna-like structure and upright position led many to postulate was of extraterrestrial origins…an alien antenna

The initial public reveal of this intriguing image occurred when it grabbed attention in the New Zealand Herald on December 5, 1964, under the headline “Puzzle Picture From Sea Bed.” However, the enigma only deepened as additional layers unfolded. In 1968, Brad Steiger contributed to the intrigue with an article in Saga Magazine, suggesting that the Eltanin had captured something truly baffling—a curious apparatus resembling a fusion of a TV antenna and a telemetry antenna at with the height of 1.6 meters. Note there is no idea of scale in the original image so the height was pure conjecture. Various theories continue to circulate during that period, ranging from suggestions that it was a mere fragment that had accidentally dislodged from a vessel to more speculative notions, including the belief that it might be a clandestine endeavor of the Russians, or even more far-fetched hypotheses involving extraterrestrial involvement.

The biologist Dr. Thomas Hopkins, would say of “I wouldn’t like to say the thing is man-made because this brings up the problem of how one would get it there … But it’s fairly symmetrical and the offshoots are all 90 degrees apart”

But apparently all these UFO enthusiasts had missed the 1971 book The Face of the Deep by Bruce C. Heezen and Charles D. Hollister. Hollister who had already identified the mysterious object as Cladorhiza concrescens, a carnivorous sponge. As pointed out by Heezen and Hollister, in 1888, Alexander Agassiz drew the odd creature in Three Cruises of the Blake. From 1877 to 1880, the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey dispatched the steamer Blake on three cruises of discovery—two expeditions to Florida, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean and one off the eastern Atlantic coast as far north as the Gulf of Maine. These cruises were designed to increase knowledge of the depths of the oceans and the animals and plants living on or near the bottom and to pioneer technological advances in oceanography You can access the entire Agassiz’s Three Cruises of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey steamer “Blake”, in the Gulf of Mexico, in the Caribbean Sea, and along the Atlantic coast of the United States, from 1877 to 1880 online. Agassiz described the strange sponge as having a long stem with ramifying roots deeply embedded in the mud, adorned with nodes bearing four to six club-like appendages, covering extensive portions of the seabed like bushes.

Below is screen grab from remote operated vehicles from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute from one of my dives of Cladorhiza concrescens on the seafloor. Indeed the Cladorhizid carnivorous sponges often have these very spectacular forms with 90 degree angles and intricate structures. I always refer to C. conscescens as the lollipop tree sponge.

However, this identification by Heezen and Hollister remained large ignored. In 2003, a discussion on email list prompted marine biologist Tom DeMary to reach out to A. F. Amos, an oceanographer who had been aboard the USNS Eltanin in the 1960s. Amos had know of the identification of the antenna as sponge and direct DeMary to the book by Heezen and Hollister. DeMary then shared this more broadly.

The post Alien Antenna on Deep-Sea Floor first appeared on Deep Sea News.

One species of anglerfish was filmed off the coast of Monterey, California, revealed drifting and tumbling along, humming Taylor Swift songs.  One of these may not be true.

While it was conventionally thought that anglerfish females swim upright with their lure positioned ahead, a case of inverted swimming emerged about two decades ago—a surprising deviation from the expected norm. Cue original Top Gun reference here. 

Recent research, adding eight new observations to the pool, proposes that this inverted swimming might actually be the norm for these fish. In these instances, the anglerfish maintained a rigidly straight body, with their unpaired fins erect and the lure held downwards when inverted. The tendency of these fish to swim closer to the seabed suggests a potential focus on bottom-dwelling prey. This inverted orientation likely aids in swiftly luring prey away and clearing the path for a well-aimed strike—a tactical advantage in their hunting strategy within the depths.

Stewart, Andrew L., et al. “Upside‐down swimming: in‐situ observations of inverted orientation in Gigantactis, with a new depth record for the Ceratioidei.” Journal of Fish Biology (2023).

The post The Upside Down Feeding Fish of the Deep first appeared on Deep Sea News.

The post A very special PSA from Deep-Sea News first appeared on Deep Sea News.

And now I’m wondering if my lab and research group should adopt the same. I’ve worked hard to try to establish a specific lab culture for my group and to give us focus but this remains far from a set of operating principles.

As far as the research mission, I’ve taken a lot of inspiration recently from the Hedgehog Concept and hitting the sweet spot.

Three Circles of the Hedgehog Concept. pic.twitter.com/F4hQuRw31Q

— Blufrog Studios (@Blufrog_Studios) July 9, 2014

Adapted for scientific use…

1. Understand the science and research you are truly passionate about.
2. Identify the science and research you do better than anyone else or perhaps better the science and research that is unique to you
3. Determine the science and research that leads to the greatest impact as you choose to define it (e.g. publications, citations, conservation or policy impact, public knowledge, significant contribution to knowledge, etc.)

And to be honest, scientists most often focus 2 and 3 and forget completely to fully engage what they are passionate about. By the way, I am thinking my sweet spot is resarch at the interstection of energetics, body size, and biodiversity.

As I set squarely in the middle of my scientific career, I am thinking more about re-engaging my passion for science. With this thinking, I have set toward developing a set of core values for my research group, a set of operating principles that drives the actions and behaviors of myself, research scientists, graduate students, technicians, and undergraduates who all work in my lab.

As a first crack, I came up with these

1. Do awesome science with awesome people. And to make that happen…
2. Awesome science requires safe spaces for awesome people.
3. Awesome science is open and inclusive. Awesome people are diverse.
4. Awesome science stems from being hard on ideas but easy on awesome people.
5. Awesome science require playfulness.
6. Awesome science stems from the pursuit of answers above the pursuit of papers, prestige, and payment

And now I want your feedback! What are your lab’s core principles? What is missing from this list?

Hedgehog Photograph By Lars Karlsson (Keqs) – Own work, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=950134

The post What Are Your Research Group’s Scientific Core Values? first appeared on Deep Sea News.

boon·dog·gle
/ˈbo͞onˌdäɡəl/

noun:  work or activity that is wasteful or pointless but gives the appearance of having value.

verb: waste money or time on unnecessary or questionable projects.

The end of 2018 was tough for the Ocean Cleanup and its founder, inventor, and CEO Boyan Slat.   In September, the 2000 foot-boom and supposed plastic collection device, was first deployed about 240 nautical miles offshore of San Francisco where it was tested for two weeks.  The boom was then towed an additional 1,400 miles off the West Coast, about halfway between California and Hawaii, to begin collecting plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.  This was supposed to be the first real-world proof of concept and trials of the device in the Pacific Garbage Patch.

Note that the previous prototype in the North Sea also failed at a shallower depth in calm seas. Of course, the next step is to build a bigger one and place it in rougher and deeper seas.

But in November, Ocean Cleanup stated the system was not holding plastic it collected.  This lack of plastic collection arose from the system moving too slowly at times to hold plastic within the U-shaped collection area.  The system is supposed to work by currents pushing plastics into the booms and nets.  Yet slow and complex currents in this region of the Pacific allowed plastics to float out of the device again.

In late December, 60-feet of boom had detached due to material fatigue.  Slat then indicated that this likely occurred due to wave action placing stress on the boom. The fracture was caused by material fatigue, he wrote. That’s likely because of the intense action of the waves that puts tremendous stress on objects in the water.

So to recap, the Ocean Cleanup system cannot either collect plastic or withstand the Pacific Ocean.

 In a September interview with NPR, he said the device averages about four inches per second, which his team has now concluded is too slow. The break in the barrier was due to an issue with the material used to build it.

However, both of these issues could have easily been avoided by more appropriate simulations, analyses, and information prior to construction and deployment.

When the material failure occurred, it wasn’t due to the result of a major Pacific storm. It was just normal wear and tear, Slat said

Understanding material stresses is a key component of an engineering project and one that is well understood before construction.   Note as well that the system is not something actually new, but is a modification of RO-BOOMS used in oil spill clean up since 1988.  I am confident the specifications for use and the ocean states the booms can operate in are well known by the manufacturer and previous users alike. [UPDATE: The booms used ar eno longer the RO-BOOMS.  It is a completely different design, a recent internal iteration which may explain the failure.]

And while currents are complex, a whole field of physical oceanography exists and provides readily the information to know the current regime in the area.  If more detailed temporal or spatial resolution is needed, the Ocean Cleanup team should have conducted more field studies to gain the data on the currents beforehand.    The Ocean Cleanup has always seemed poorly developed and executed, ignorant of the best science and data available, blatantly dismissive of critique, and far too hurried.

This rush to place the device in the ocean for both good publicity and for the feeling of accomplishing something is unproductive at best and dangerous at the worst.  And it clear that Slat is committed to an overly ambitious timeline no matter the consequences.

Founder & CEO Boyan Slat announced the news in a December 31 blog post, saying “setbacks like this are inevitable when pioneering new technology at a rapid pace”, and maintaining that ” these teething troubles are solvable, and the cleanup of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch will be operational in 2019″.
Read more at http://www.mysailing.com.au/latest/ocean-cleanup-s-20-million-plastic-catcher-breaks#1R7mecWOPU9tLbJl.99

I get no pleasure in saying I told you so but…

As noted in a recent article featuring Dr. Goldstein,

But a critic who has followed Slat’s project since he unveiled it more than five years ago said the failure was predictable and that systems deployed closer to shore stand a greater chance of slowing the deluge of plastics spilling into the world’s oceans.

“I certainly hope they will be able to get it to work, but this is a very difficult environment where equipment breaks, which is why you normally do things closer to shore, where things are easier to repair,” said [Dr.] Miriam Goldstein, director of ocean policy at the Center for American Progress

In 2014, Drs. Kim Martini and Drs. Miriam Goldstein, a physical and biological oceanographer, provided a detailed technical review of the feasibility study here at DSN. Note the two of them pointed nearly 4 years ago about these issues.

….The modeling studies severely underestimate potential loads and tensions on the moored array and boom. Therefore, they are insufficient to properly design a mooring concept and estimate potential costs…

Since the authors had access to ORCAFLEX, a professional software package to design offshore marine structures, a full-scale mooring array could have been modeled to estimate loads and tensions on the moored array, but was not.

Structural deformation of the array and loss of functionality by ocean currents are not addressed…

Yeah. So these exact failures were predicted four years ago.

As this article clearly lays out, we should focus our funding and time, on more promising solutions to the ocean trash problem.

The post The Continued Boondoggle of the Ocean Cleanup first appeared on Deep Sea News.

User u/Karzdan posted the above image** of Nereis sandersi  to the Reddit forum. The polychaete worm is known from hydrothermal vents and described relatively recently by Blake in 1985.   Interestingly, N. sandersi is eyeless.

Furthermore, the presence of sunken depressions in places where eyes usually occur in N. sandersi is unique for the genus. The occurrence of such depressions is reminiscent of blind cave-dwelling vertebrates which have only vestigial, non-functional eye rudiments remaining from ancestral progenitors which had sight. The very large peristomial ring and enormous palps would appear to be appropriate sensory replacements for a sightless animal in the deep sea. -Blake (1985)

And so begins the Photoshops

**note I am trying to track down the original photographer of the image to credit them here. UPDATE: credit goes to Nicolas Gayet from Paulo Bonifacio lab.

The post Photoshop Battles with this Image of a Hydrothermal Vent Polychaete Worm first appeared on Deep Sea News.

The early years

1. Could your parents afford to live on the good side of town? The one with the right schools? Did they send you to that elite private school?

There are clear advantages to attending a top-tier high school as is evidenced in a study of college admissions data. The Harvard Crimson recently reported that in Harvard’s Class of 2017, 6 percent of admitted students came from only 10 high schools. Eleven percent of high schools with students admitted to Harvard sent 36 percent of students, while 74 percent of schools sent only one student. [link]

2. For Christmas, your birthday, or because, did you get your own computer?

In every country, students reporting “rare” or “no use” of computers at home score lower than their counterparts who report frequent use…gains in educational performance are correlated with the frequency of computer use at home. [link]

3. Could they afford for you to participate in all those afterschool STEM activities with their fees and hidden expenses?

Afterschool programs can have an impact on academic achievement. Improved test scores are reported in evaluations of The After-School Corporation (TASC) programs in New York City (Reisner, White, Birmingham, & Welsh, 2001; White, Reisner, Welsh, & Russell, 2001) and in Foundations, Inc. elementary school programs (Klein & Bolus, 2002). A more recent longitudinal study showed significant gains in math test scores for elementary and middle-school students who participated in high-quality afterschool programs (Vandell, Reisner, & Pierce, 2007) [link]

Those who are admitted to UC are likely to participate in more precollege activities. The study also shows that there is a positive correlation between student precollege participation in these activities and their college experience, academic and civic engagement although the relationship is rather weak. The results also reveal that the participation in extracurricular activities and volunteer and community services is a significant predictor on first-year GPA and persistence. The more activities students participate in, the higher their first-year GPA is and the more likely they persist with their current college programs. [link]

However, we found that a substantial portion of students, particularly those in lower-income groups, are not fully engaged in a well-rounded school experience that includes activities — and too often, it’s because of cost. [link]

4. Did they send you to that cool summer camp?

Steven Infanti, associate vice president for admissions at Harrisburg University of Science and Technology, said a STEM camp experience is something that makes him take a closer look at a student’s application. “When I look at an applicant who has a 2.5 [GPA], which would be kind of a borderline admit for us, but I see on his application, I participate in this camp…that shows a lot of initiative and someone who has a passion,” he said. [link]

5. Did you get to travel to the ocean on vacation? Could you afford to travel abroad?

From a prominent university’s website,

High school study abroad programs, and even international vacations, are fantastic opportunities for cross-cultural understanding, learning, and personal growth. For that reason, they can certainly be helpful experiences to draw on when applying for colleges. [link]

6. Did you get to learn to scuba dive?

Being a scuba certified is not at all recquired for being a marine biologist.  Although I do scuba dive and am a divemaster, I rarely if ever use it for my research.  However, many “career advice” websites online definitely recommend it.

There are no certification requirements for marine biology. However, because diving is a large part of marine biology, many schools recommend that students become open water certified and take a course in scientific diving. [link]

7. Did you get to participate in all kinds of wonderful experiences because you had free time? Were you blessed and did not have to work a full- or part-time job?

Data was collected from a very large sample of students when they were in 8th, 10th and 12th grades, and again two years after they graduated. The researchers compared groups by controlling for their economic background, ethnicity, gender, and prior educational experiences. They measured outcomes including standardized test scores, school grades, courses taken, attendance, staying out of trouble, educational and occupational aspirations, post-secondary employment and college enrollment. In general, results showed a pattern of negative effects for students who worked during high school. In particular, working in the final year of high school had a significantly negative effect. These negative effects occurred even from working a small number of hours per week… working during high school undermines students’ commitment to and identification with school and subverts traditional academic goals. [link]

8. Could you even afford to stay in high school?

Using data from the 2008-2012 American Community Survey, researchers at the Urban Institute found that nearly a third of the 563,000 teenage dropouts left school to work. These 16- to 18-year-olds were disproportionately male and Hispanic, and ended their education either at the beginning of high school or nearing the end. Roughly 75 percent of them are native-born Americans, the new study said. [link]

The college years

9. Could you afford not to go to the best school?

Of the 113 Supreme Court Justices, 40% of them attended an Ivy League university. Currently, all of the nine Justices went to an Ivy League. In CNN’s top 100 startups list, 34 of the CEOs went to Harvard…A study conducted by the US Department of Education in 2015 revealed that a decade after enrolling in a four-year college degree, the average income of a typical student is $40,500 USD a year…at the very least you’ll receive on average $19,200 USD more than the standard US college graduate [by attending an Ivy Leage University] [link]

Even when there isn’t a policy of exclusion, students at elite universities join networks of professors and alumni whose members offer each other information, support, and advice that isn’t available to outsiders. [link]

In a corporate environment that still largely favors white men, an Ivy League college degree opens doors that would otherwise remain closed for most. In recent years, I’ve interviewed successful people in a variety of industries. Among them: One of two black presidents in the history of the Harvard Law Review (the other was Barack Obama) who now runs a multi-billion dollar private equity firm, and a Yale graduate Latina female CEO of the Girl Scouts. In both cases, intelligence and perseverance got them far. But they also both agreed that an Ivy League education afforded them pivotal opportunities for their careers today, decades after graduation from those hallowed institutions. For both minorities – the Ivy “stamp of approval” became the first in a long list of achievements. [link]

Tech founders with Ivy League degrees also tended to start companies that produced higher revenue and employed more workers than the average, the report added. [link]

And while Princeton and some other Ivy League schools have generous financial aid programs, this is not the case among all universities.  It is near impossible to get an accurate view of what a typical amount of loans a student is burdened with after four years.  Take Duke University,  several reports suggest the average student loan debt is $25,000.  However, take note of the term average.  Only 37% of the student body is receiving Federal Student Loans.  This begs the question, how is this average actually calculated?  In my time at Duke as a faculty member, the dozen or so students worked in my lab as part of the Federal Work Study Program, meaning they come from lower and middle socioeconomic classes, were taken on $25,000 per year.  So pardon me if I don’t believe the average total student loan debt for Ivy League schools is low.  These universities have large student populations who can afford to attend and not take out student loans as reflected in that 37% amount.

Just keep in mind that low-income students cannot afford 95% of colleges.

10. Did they tell you that they would meet 100% of your financial aid only for you to realize that meant pile you up with school loans and work study?

Yeah me too.

11. Could you afford to leave your home and not financially help your elderly, sick, or young family members while you pursue your dreams? Could you afford not financially support your spouse and children?

Likely to be parents of young children: Roughly half of independent college students, or 4.8 million students, are parents of dependent children. Seven in 10 student parents are women, with women of color in college are especially likely to be student parents.

Twice as likely to be living in poverty: 42 percent of independent students live at or below the federal poverty line, compared with 17 percent of dependent students. In fact, nearly two in three college students living in poverty (72 percent) are independent. [link]

12. Could you afford to move to college? What about all those hidden fees and costs? Parking? Transportation?

Almost 74% said extra activities like study abroad programs and unpaid internships are important to reaching professional goals. But the same percentage (74%) had to turn down such activities due to a lack of money.  Expenses beyond tuition were higher than they thought, too. The top 5 expenses students said were “much more than expected” include: Textbooks: 63% Housing: 56% Food: 46% Exam prep classes: 45% Moving: 41% [link]

13. Could you afford your books?

the average cost of college textbooks has risen four times faster than the rate of inflation over the past 10 years. That has caused 65 percent of students to skip buying required texts at some point in their college career because of a lack of affordability. [link]

14. Could you afford a computer?

Yeah its time to update that one from high school. It should be obvious how not having your own computer could be damaging but take this one students perspective (also see this post),

The problem with not having a laptop comes with online assignments. It may be even more for me as a cs major, but even in gen ed courses we often had to submit assignments online or do readings online which is easier with a laptop. You can survive without one as you can use the library computers at your college or if you have a desktop you can do all your online things there- but it would be easier to just whip out your laptop wherever you are (cafeteria, empty classroom waiting for class to start, etc) to work on assignment [link]

15.  Could you afford the time for extracurricular activities, lectures, clubs, student events? Did you need to work a full- or part-time job while attending college?

More than two-thirds of independent students work on top of going to school, and the majority work at least 20 hours per week…39 percent of dependent students work at least 20 hours per week). [link]

16. Did you not participate in that marine biology volunteer opportunity because you needed to work?

Volunteer research that prevents a student from making money. Remember that most financial aid packages REQUIRE a student to make a certain amount of money over the summer. If they aren’t getting paid to do research, then they are either adding to their debt or working two jobs, neither of which is setting them up for scientific success. [link]

17. Did you not do that great educational experience at sea because you could not afford the hefty fees?

While again I don’t agree, the Semester at Sea Program is often promoted for the aspiring marine biologist.  That at least $25,074.  Keep in mind that both the University of Pittsburg and Virginia pulled out of the program for “safety concerns and complaints that its suggestions for program improvement were being ignored.”

18. Did you not take those field summer courses because you couldn’t afford it? Did you not participate in a summer research opportunity because you could not afford to not work for a summer?

I am obviously biased serving as the Executive Director of a marine laboratory.  As an undergraduate, I took summer marine biology courses for credit…at the marine lab I currently serve as the director.  These courses were invaluable for round out my education and kick-starting my career in marine science by offering experiential learning.  Likewise, a paid Research Experience for Undergraduate one summer launched my career in deep-sea biology.  These experiences are vital.

In conclusion, students with research experiences reported disproportionate gains in their ability to apply critical thinking skills in a novel context, and gain a greater understanding of the scientific research process. Many students who did not participate in research reported gains in general critical thinking skills from their coursework, but out-of-class research experiences were more effective in helping students to develop the intellectual abilities and capacities particularly valued for doing research…students who engaged in an authentic research experience, with adequate amounts of both challenge and support, described gaining an appreciation of the process of scientific research and an understanding of the everyday work and practice of research scientists. Though other out-of-class experiences clearly offered a host of benefits, student reports indicated that participation in research is a more effective way to socialize novices into the scientific research community by helping them to develop the mastery, knowledge, skills, and behaviors necessary to become a scientist. [link]

19. Did you not participate in a great paid opportunity on overseas or even across the nation because you did know how you would afford your travel there?

20. Did you purchase all those extra study guides for the GRE? Did you take the GRE training course? Could you afford to take the GRE multiple times? Could you afford to send it to numerous graduate programs?

You can read all about my views on the GRE here.  I’m not a fan but the fact of the matter is many schools still require this boondoggle of a test.

21. Did you apply to multiple graduate programs and pay all those additional application fees? Did you pay to travel to the visit those prospective graduate schools?

Given that most acceptance rates are less than 20%, applying to several programs is advised.  The application fees typically range from $50 to $100 per graduate program.

If you don’t think all of this matters, consider that,

The percentage of students enrolling in graduate school increases with family income. Among dependent 2007–08 four-year college graduates, 39 percent of those from families in the lowest income quartile, 42 percent from middle-income families, and 45 percent from the highest income quartile had enrolled in graduate school within four years of college graduation. [link]

Graduate School Years

22. Did you have enough money to take a gap year and travel abroad to visit the oceans you want to study?

In my experience, students that have traveled more extensively and have more life experiences fair better in graduate school.  No hard data here merely anecdotal but worth considering nonetheless.

23. Could you afford to move to graduate school?

Moving from Arkansas to Boston was more costly than I anticipated.  Gas, U-Haul trailer, food, and one night in a very cheap hotel all added up.  I couldn’t afford any of this and charged it all to my credit card.

24. Did you buy all those books your advisor recommend you have and read? What about the ones you will need for your research and courses?

Several books a scientist needs on a regular basis, far more often than would be convenient or practical to obtain from a library.  In many cases, these highly specialized books may not even be in the university’s library.  And because these are specialized and low print run volumes, the prices can be astronomical.  These are often out of pocket purchases.  Right now there are three books on my wishlist I simply cannot justify or find the extra fund for: Compendium of Bivalves: Full-color Guide to 3,300 of the World’s Marine Bivalves for $294.51, Reproduction, Larval Biology, and Recruitment of the Deep-Sea Benthos for $169.07, and Pattern and Process in Macroecology for $106.45.

25. Can you afford the computer and software you needed for your research?

That cheap, outdated, and slow laptop leftover from college is going to need a major upgrade.  Time for a new computer because science is becoming more and more computational and data driven.

Referring both to the modelling of the world through simulations and the exploration of observational data, computation is central not only to astronomy but a range of sciences, including bioinformatics, computational linguistics and particle physics…Computation has been an important part of science for more than half a century, and the data explosion is making it even more central.  [link]

26. Could you afford to travel to that conference or collaborators when you grant, or travel awards weren’t available?

If your advisor has grant money to cover your travel or you are lucky enough to obtain a travel grant or award you are set.  However, if not then you will need to find a creative way to pay for it on your own.  These professional conferences are tremendous benefits to your career and you cannot afford to miss the opportunity to network and hear about the latest advances in the field.

Nearly all (91%) gained new contacts that improved their research, in-the-field conservation, science communication, and/or conservation policy making. Two thirds (64%) gained ideas, contacts, and/or lessons could lead to publications. Over a third (39%) gained new ideas, contacts and/or lessons that led to grant proposals, and 36% gained contacts that led to funding. A conference is not just an avenue for a scientist to present their research to the wider community, but it can be an important venue for brainstorming, networking and making vital connections that can lead to new initiatives, papers and funding, in a way that virtual, online meetings cannot. This is why conferences matter. {link]

27. Can you afford to live on an income of $10-25k per year? Could you afford not to support your family while you pursue your career? Does your partner have a stable and high paying job?

The current poverty levels in 2018 are for 

• One person $12,140 $15,180
• Two people $16,460 $20,580
• Three people $20,780 $25,980
• Four people $25,100 $31,380

The average graduate stipend in science is $20,000-$30,000 per year.  This puts any graduate student with a family below or near the poverty level and nowhere near the middle class.  “Middle-income households – those with an income that is two-thirds to double the U.S. median household income – had incomes ranging from about $45,200 to $135,600 in 2016”

28. Can you afford your own health insurance?

Most universities do not offer health insurance to graduate students.  Health insurance for a graduate student is going to be obscenely expensive if you need to get it independently.  Current cheapest plans with high deductibles, i.e. do not ever, ever need any medical assistance, will average $440 per month.

29. Can you afford that scuba or field gear you will need for your research?

Some gear, e.g. wetsuit, hiking boots, backpacks, binoculars, is considered personal and will not be covered by a grant or your advisor.  There may not even be funds currently available to purchase these things.  When I worked in the Antarctica Seas as part of my graduate research, I needed a set of good set of wrap around polarized glasses.  There was $100 I did not have.  You need to get in the field to get that data though.

30. Can you afford to be social over drinks and food with other scientists you need to network with?

Networking is a must and nobody in science seems to give a damn if you cannot pay.  You can try to drink cheaply but at some point, that restaurant or bar bill is going to be out of your control.  When I was a graduate student, this senior professor came to dinner and charged up a tremendous bill with a fancy entree and a bottle of expensive wine. This while ordered water and the cheapest dish I could find on the menu.  When the bill was brought, the professor stated we would just split the bill evenly “because it was easier”.  By the way, as aside, here if you are a faculty member and ever pull stunts like this YOU ARE AN ASSHOLE.  Pardon my language but its true.  If you are faculty member you should really be following the pay down rule; the faculty member should always pay for the food and drinks of the all the students.

31. Can you afford to wait a long time to be reimbursed for expenses from your university?

The major invisible difficulty that I’ve observed has been the reimbursement process. It’s common practice for people to spend their own money on scientific supplies and then apply for reimbursement from their grant, actually receiving the money 3-8 weeks later. For people without substantial cash flow, this can lead to credit card debt and future problems. [link]

Postdoctoral Fellow and Faculty Years

32. Can you afford that new set of clothes to interview in?

if you’re interviewing for a job, you might want to pay some attention to the way you dress. Because interviewers — yes, even a committee of curmudgeonly old tenured faculty members, most of whom don’t wear Armani themselves — are going to make judgments about you, fair or not, based on how you present yourself. And what you wear is part of your overall presentation. [link]

33. Can you afford to be social over drinks and food with other scientists you need to network with?  Do you have the funds to take care of the people in your lab group?

See above. Don’t be an asshole.

34. Did you just realize you are 35-40 haven’t paid off your school loans and just started to contribute to retirement?

A scientist doesn’t start thinking or paying into retirement plans until that first faculty position is landed.  With the current track record of 5-6 years of postdoctoral or soft money research positions until landing a permanent position could mean being 40 before landing that first job.

To afford a comfortable retirement, a 40-year-old couple with household income of$100,000 should have amassed savings of 2.6 times salary, or $260,000, according to research by J.P. Morgan [link]

35. Can you afford for your partner not work or do they have a mobile job?

Yeah with all that moving around for graduate school, postdocs, and faculty positions good luck to your partner trying to find a meaningful career.

36. Can you afford to wait a long time to be reimbursed for expenses from your university?

See above

38. Can you personally afford to float your research and travel needs between grants?

It happens and it sucks.  Are you just going to stop doing research?  Not go to conferences?

39. Do you have the funds to pay for society memberships?

A lot of grants will not pay for society memberships.  So there is that.

So this all leaves us needing a lot of money to get from Point A to Marine Biologist.  Conservatively, I estimate that cost, to ensure the greatest amount of success, to be $591,395 to make it to Associate Professor. Granted you could choose not to do some of these things, I didn’t do many of the things listed above as undergraduate or high school student and here I am.  But it was a tremendous amount of struggle and sacrifice for me being from a lower socioeconomic group.  If you poor and then non-white and non-male on top of that, the disadvantage is even greater, the proverbial one-two punch.

But let this sink in for a moment.

Nothing above is out of the recommended, ordinary, or expected.

We have created a system that to succeed it costs

half a million dollars.

This is not the kind of science I want.  The beauty of being a marine biologist and scientist should not be only those privileged enough to pay the price.

More reading

• Poverty in the Ivory Tower
• A field guide to privilege in marine science: some reasons why we lack diversity

Below the tab, my calculations for putting real numbers on the costs of this pathway.

The post Can you afford to be a marine biologist? Or a scientist? first appeared on Deep Sea News.