The cognitive dissonance between what happens (biologically) in that video, what the two intrepid heroes do, and what’s reported, fills me with dismay for society.  If that seems hyperbolic, bear with me.  Let’s break it down:

What the story says

Benchley-esque narrative: blah blah “terrifying moment”, “heart stopping”, “full force”, “massive beast”, “shouting in terror”, “inches from the shark’s jaws”, “brunt of the assault” blah blah.  The only kernel of truth is the very last sentence “the whale shark is only known to eat small fish and plankton and have never been known to harm or kill a human”  Talk about burying the lede…

What actually happens

Two RealMenTM are spearfishing in the pelagic zone.  You know, where whale sharks live.  To aid in their quest to bag a tuna, our intrepid heroes chum the water with a bag of cut fish.  One curious tuna flirts with death, but is saved by the arrival on scene of a harmless and curious whale shark: as I said, a well known inhabitant of the pelagic zone and commonly associated with tuna schools.  Also, and this is important, with an impeccable sense of smell and a fairly sizable appetite.  So, whale shark arrives to investigate the source of that delicious smell, giving Hero number 1 a nudge during his sniff test.  Hero number 1 then screams like a horror film teenager.  Hero number 2 decides not to take that kind of crap from no stinking planktivore, so he grabs the animals dorsal fin for a ride, in violation of pretty much every tenet of wildlife interaction.  Doing that would and should get you summarily expelled from any well managed whale shark ecotourism operation in the world.  Animal objects and banks away to avoid the irritation.  Aaaaaand scene.

So to recap, our two heroes created a situation by going into the whale shark’s habitat with a bag of what the whale shark likes to eat.  A whale shark shows up (duh), doesn’t hurt anybody because they don’t, but gets harrassed anyway, and then journalist (that’s Kara O’Neill at the Mirror) beats it up into some sort of horror story in a case of victim blaming par excellence.  Let me tell you, if that’s a horror story, then I’m Rob freakin’ Zombie, because I’ve got several similar videos (sans the harassment of course).  Every time there has been physical contact between me and a whale shark it’s because I was too stupid or not quick enough to get out of its way; this is an animal the size of a school bus and you need you have your head on a swivel.  Hero 1 did not, got bumped, but no harm no foul because the critter is intrinsically harmless.  The real foul here is how the incident is portrayed, and that’s what fills me with dismay.  How are we ever supposed to get folks to understand, ergo care for, ergo protect marine life if we keep trotting out rubbish like this?  The two guys in the video should be ashamed, and so should everyone involved at The Mirror.

#Fail

The post ZOMG Whale shark attack!!!! Or not… first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Over the last few weeks Deepstaria reticulum is again in the news.  Unfortunately, it has surfaced amongst some of the poorest journalism I’ve seen.

The first article that emerged was at the Daily Mail stating that 

The mysterious sea creature was spotted 5,000ft deep in the Gulf of Mexico two years ago, but it has only just been identified by marine biologists. 

Obviously this is wrong because my post, which the Daily Mail links to, is from two years ago where the specimen has been correctly identified. But the richest part is that the Daily Mail reported on this originally two years ago.  So the current Daily Mail post disagrees with the older Daily Mail post.

Of course once misinformation is put up on the internet it spreads like a wild fire.

Aol News

For two years a mysterious sea creature has been captured on video as it swims 5,000 feet below the surface, but scientists have been in the dark as to what exactly it is. Now, the mystery is solved: it is a placental jellyfish — after many arguments and speculations. NBC reports, “They believe it is a rarely seen jellyfish plodding its way, not at great speed, through the Gulf of Mexico. The video was actually shot by an underwater gulf rig camera.” 

The fish’s species was, at first, hard to identify because it appeared to have no eyes, mouth, tentacles, front or back.

 

NPR reports scientists first believed it might be a whale placenta. They ruled that out because it would have been a large target for predators at that depth and likely would have been eaten sooner. Then Deep Sea News Chief Editor Craig McClain noticed the creature had a sex organ similar to a giant jellyfish called Deepstaria enigmatica.

 

Case solved? Not quite.

 

According to the Daily Mail, it was a small detail — the hexagonal pattern on the creature’s skin — that gave strong evidence that this jellyfish is actually a Deepstaria reticulum, or a placental jellyfish.

 

The species is native to Antarctic waters, which are significantly colder than the Gulf of Mexico. Scientists don’t know how or why this particular jellyfish ended up in the Gulf.

 

So there are so many things wrong here I don’t know where to start.  So it’s not a fish.  Scientists never believed it was a whale placenta. Just random people online.   I noted in the original post, 2 years ago, the hexagonal pattern and the species identification.  The last two sentences are just all kinds of wrong.  There is literally nothing correct in those statements. Not a single thing.

SFGate and the Houston Chronicle actually decided to run with the title

After 2 years, scientists confirm mysterious Gulf of Mexico blob is rare jellyfish

So reading into the article

After two years of pondering, marine biologists in the past few days have confirmed that a mysterious pink blob seen on underwater video from the Gulf of Mexico is a big, rare jellyfish known as Deepstaria reticulum, according to The Daily Mail.

My other favorite part of all this is the statement below that keeps circulating as well.

BBC News reports that the Deepstaria Enigmatica is “thought to be one of the largest invertebrate predators in the deep sea ecosystem.”

Wait what?  That’s not right.  The BBC article actually doesn’t discuss Deepstaria what ever but a wholly different jellyfish Stygiomedusa gigantea.  

So nothing in these articles is correct, except the identification of Deepstaria reticulum. Interestingly, not one of these “journalists” have reached out to me for comment.  This is quite frankly lazy and sloppy journalism.  One that will continue to perpetuate.

In celebration of this spectacular cock up here is set of stock photos of a demographic diverse group of people face palming.  All our courtesy of friends at Shutterstock!

The post Jellyfish Journalism Fail first appeared on Deep Sea News.

On the morning of September 30th, 2010, 10:10 UK–the British organization responsible for the project–debuted a promotional video titled “No Pressure” on the 10:10 website.  In less than 24 hours, the video was pulled and replaced by this message:

“Sorry. We missed the mark with today’s ‘No Pressure’ video, and have removed it from our website. […] Many people found the resulting film extremely funny, but unfortunately some didn’t and we sincerely apologise to anybody we have offended.”

Four days later on October 4, 10:10 followed-up with another, rather more amplified mea culpa, this time from the Executive Director:

“As you may have heard, last week, 10:10 made a mistake by releasing a short film about cutting carbon which was supposed to be humourous but in the event upset a lot of people.  We quickly realised that we had made a serious mistake and took it down from our website within hours.”

“We also issued a statement apologising but there has subsequently been quite a lot of negative comment, particularly on blogs, and understandable concern from others working hard to build support for action on climate change.”

“We are also sorry to our corporate sponsors, delivery partners and board members, who have been implicated in this situation despite having no involvement in the film’s production or release”

“I am very sorry for our mistake and want to reassure you that we will do everything in our power to ensure it does not happen again.”

If you have yet to see the offending video, have a gander [trigger warning for violent images]:

As a bit of absurd, British comedy, I’d have to say, “Success”.  I’ll go on the record as saying I thought it was funny.  Dark? Yes. Harsh? Oh, mais oui. But funny.  The video immediately made me think of the classic Monty Python sketch, “Sam Peckinpah’s Salad Days.” It could have been a skit from the Chappelle Show or come from any episode of South Park.

The video was written by Richard Curtis, who also was the writer for the long-running Blackadder and The Vicar of Dibley TV series, and the film Bridget Jones’s Diary.  So needless to say, the man knows a thing or two about absurd, scatological, envelope-pushing humor.

But 10:10’s mission isn’t absurdist, shocking comedy.  It’s climate.

The Guardian has gathered a fairly complete round-up of post-10:10 analysis.  The video has been labeled, “the kind of stupidity that hurts our side.”  Others have asked, “What is the message? Who are the audience? The video literally doesn’t make any sense.” Even Randy Olson,  no stranger to marrying absurd humor to serious subject matter, went on the record with, “I think the film was horribly offensive. I also think Stephen Colbert should be boycotted for making a mockery of the U.S. Congress, Jon Stewart should be punished for his unwillingness to treat serious American politics seriously, and South Park should be banned altogether.”

Okay, forget that last one. [Though Randy’s got a point that I agree with–that maybe we’ve all got our asses puckered a bit to tightly over this.  Does every climate change outreach effort have to be yet anothert dreary, lugubrious doomfest?]

In any event, you’re left to wonder how this video could have gone so awesomely, stupendously, outrageously wrong for a well-meaning group trying to make an edgy, funny, and effective PSA on climate change.  A video of this production value doesn’t get slapped together overnight.  It’s got a star writer, X-Files star Gillian Anderson as narrator and actress,  special effects, a large cast, and a soundtrack. There had to be meeting after meeting to develop storyboards. And version after version of rough drafts that needed review and sign-off from the 10:10 team.

Yet no one on the 10:10 video development team, 10:10 leadership, or 10:10 board thought it was a miss? I’ve got a gut feeling that the 10:10 crew were so dazzled by their cleverness and edginess that they forgot their message-ness.

I think No Pressure will be instructive to the environmental movement for some time to come. The folks at 10:10 are already sifting through their video rubble.  In the latest message from their Director Eugenie Harvey, they plan, “to investigate what happened, review our processes and procedures, and share the results with our partners.  Responsibility for this process is being taken by the 10:10 board of directors.” Humor can be a powerful vehicle for education.  So can shock. And sex doesn’t hurt either.  But it takes balance, proportion, and knowing your audience as well.

Perhaps 10:10 will be a success, despite this video setback. We’ll certainly find out soon enough.

The post Under Pressure first appeared on Deep Sea News.

The post Fail Boat Sets Fail Again first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Isn’t she just so chipper!

Bonus mega ship launch FAIL compilation below the fold!

The post TGIF: Ship Launch FAIL Edition first appeared on Deep Sea News.

This, on the other hand, is not.

To reiterate, this is a giant isopod, a species in the genus Bathynomus, and more specifically Bathynomus giganteus (latin for gigantic). The following illustration is taken from Lloyd 1908 “The internal anatomy of Bathynomus giganteus, with a description of the sexually mature forms” (Memoirs of the Indian Museum 1:81-102).

The post Giant Isopod Fail first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Point 2: The Humboldt Squid while large at ~2m in length and 45kg is not as large as the Giant Squid at 10-14m in length and 200-300kg.

Point 3: The Humboldt Squid can be found at depths of 0-1000m. The Giant Squid, while its true depth range is unknown, is likely deeper, i.e. you will probably not find it in scuba diving depths.

Point 4: The Humboldt Squid is found in high densities along the California coast. You can probably see them on a dive or catch them fishing.  The Giant Squid remains elusive to scientist and the public.  You can cannot see them diving and rarely (i.e. almost never) catch them fishing.

Point 5: The Humboldt Squid is not in the same genus or indeed the same family as the Giant Squid.

Point 6: To summarize the Humboldt Squid is not the Giant Squid.

Point 7: To say a Humboldt Squid is giant is fine, to call a Humboldt Squid a Giant Squid is wrong.

Point 8: If you are a member of the press (Not the New York Times! I expected better), please get your @#$% together.  Its called research and it is is what you are supposed to do before you write your piece. You can see additional fun here. So no, thousands of Giant Squids did not wash ashore after an earthquake  and Giant Squid are not invading the waters off Southern California.

Point 9: And don’t even get me started on all that is wrong with this video. I will leave that for commentors.

The post Squid Fail first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Pilot Fail

The post TGIF: 2 Fails For the Price of 1 first appeared on Deep Sea News.