For a cool $125,000, you could be the belle of your next scientific conference ball, strutting in with this gorgeous “Jellyfish clip” attached to your LBD or BCD. Who wouldn’t want to be dripping in 2.97 carats of diamonds?

If shapeless invertebrates aren’t your thing, consider splurging on this “Two-fish clip” ($105,000), featuring 19th-century-inspired paillonné enamel fins:

Or perhaps the “Seahorse Clip”, where diamonds, amethyst, periodot and pink sapphire are nestled within an 18k gold and platinum lattice ($54,000):

And finally, at only $4,500 these diamond and green enamel “Shell ear clips” are are absolute bargain – why, they’re so glamorous they nearly pay for themselves!

The post Undersea jewelry (and sparkling diamonds) from Tiffany & Co. first appeared on Deep Sea News.

When we see images like the above it is hard to believe the ocean inspires us. In one of the most striking examples of our connection to the oceans, if humans, any number of us, live within 200 kilometers of a reef there are effectively no sharks.  This is not the behavior and these are not the actions of a species inspired by the blue around us.

In my favorite view of Earth, centered on the equatorial Pacific Ocean, virtually no land can be seen.  Although cliché to say, we do live on a blue planet.  So we must ask, how could the ocean not inspire us?

The environment influences us in profound ways, an argument so well articulated by Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs, and Steal.  For example, Diamond argued that a plentiful supply of food lead to dense populations that in turn supported a division of labor and more complex societies to form.  Another of my favorite examples, one garnered from working on an undergraduate degree in religion, of environmental influences on humans concerns how different cultures view life after death.  In the Abrahamic religions, originating in arid environments, hell is characterized by extreme heat.  In contrast, among Inuits their equivalent of hell involves extreme cold.

Maybe we are just missing the connections

Perhaps we just need to take pause to truly witness the ways our oceans impact our popular culture.  And when we do so, we realized the evidence is really all around us.

A search of Etsy on my favorite organism, the Giant Squid, returns over 350 handmade items—a potpourri of painted, crocheted, stenciled, etched and sewed items inspired by one of the ocean’s largest denizens.  A search for “ocean” returns well over 140,000 items ranging from starfish shaped soaps to a crafted wooden marlin to iPhone cases featuring the beach.

But it is not just arts and crafts we adorn with images of the ocean.  We decorate our bodies as well.  A search for “ocean tattoo” using Google Image yields 54,000,00 images and searching for “ocean life tattoo” yields 12,700,000.  Whereas not all the images appear to be of actual tattoos, there is no shortage of body ink inspired by the ocean and the life in it.  Nor am I convinced that all these tattoos are from marine biologists or of dolphins (doing a search excluding dolphin still yields 52,600,000).

I believe these examples begin to hint at a society where the ocean consumes our thoughts and activities.  Indeed for many the ocean defines our rest and renewal.  I was inspired to investigate this when friends mentioned mid-month about an upcoming trip to the Bahamas.  It was a trip that makes us all envious–a week of relaxing on the beach.  If you use Google Trends you can see an annual cycle where people begin searching for the term “beach” at the beginning of year, peaking late summer, and diminishing until the end of year when the cycle repeats.  Interestingly, searches for “beach” are even more popular (5x) than “ocean”.  Both are more popular than Googling for “Justin Bieber” (nearly an order of magnitude greater).  On Twitter, the hashtag #beach yielded 792,120 tweets in the past month alone.  Some of my favorites are below.

We also must not forget about internet memes, the way we disseminate information (loosely defined) often humorous and frivolous.  LOL Cats must move over for Sad Shark, Shellfish, and the Intertidal.

And another example exists in high fashion.  We need to look no farther than Versace, Mary Katrantzou, and Stella McCartney ‘s Spring/Summer 2012 collections. As Holly mentioned,  “This season the runways were flooded (ha!) with ocean-themed prints and marine-inspired design.”

When my wife and I recently bought our first house, our first major task was to repaint.  For our bedroom we settled, largely under my urging, on Vintage Map, the color of oceans on charts of yesteryear.  However, there exists a multitude of greens, blues, and even oranges (Ocean Sunset) that are inspired by the beautiful hues of the oceans.  And when choosing the colors for furniture, floor coverings, and other essential decorative elements we can continue to draw on the ocean.  Nudibranchs, provide a wonderful palette of colors to choose from, all coordinated by nature herself.

From Jaws, Abyss, Life Aquatic, and Finding Nemo, there is no shortage of ocean themes enlivening our contemporary cinema.   I am admittedly biased but my favorite movie of the last decade was the Life Aquatic inspired by the films and life of Jacques Cousteau.  Nothing is more iconic of Cousteau than the red beanie, worn by the characters in Life Aquatic, and now countless others seeking to connect to the ocean legacy of Cousteau.

Although these examples are focused on pop culture and may seem whimsical and fleeting, they are reflective of a very deep seeded connection to the ocean, one that runs the course of history both as a nation and a species.

And thus we are left with a remaining question…

Why can we not turn this deep seeded connection to the ocean into more successful ocean conservation and stewardship?

The post Making The Connection: The Oceans In Contemporary American Culture first appeared on Deep Sea News.

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The Bible (a.k.a. Vogue) has all the news:

• Sarah Burton at McQueen raised the humble barnacle into a mesmerising jacquard-weave peplum suit and seed-pearled face lace.
• Take a dip with spring/summer 2012’s most covetable accessories – Givenchy’s shark tooth pendants, Chanel’s conch-shell clutches and Versace’s mermaid adorned totes.
• Karl Lagerfeld plunged headfirst into the watery depths for Chanel’s spring/summer 2012 show, with a catwalk covered in giant coral and crustaceans, while Florence Welch sang from inside a white shell.

The post ARE YOU EXCITED ABOUT YOUR SPRING WARDROBE YET?? first appeared on Deep Sea News.

And of course, I bring my (reduced) shoe collection (trimmed to 45 pairs due to space restraints) and city chic wardrobe to complement this awesome science. While I get back to work on blog posts, I will tide you over with some sea-themed fashion finds from the always-deadly Etsy:

The post TGIF: Friday Fashion Finds first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Reader. Dear Reader. I am but a poor scientist with high fashion dreams. I do invite you, implore you even, to donate one of the below pieces to my present, uninspired S/S 2012 wardrobe if you feel so inclined.  In fact, such donations would solve all my wardrobe dilemmas for the Ocean Sciences Meeting in February 2012 which I have just decided to attend. Instead of drab business casual, I could kick it with couture.  Reader, I promise you, any kind donations will be rewarded with your name  in my acknowledgment slide at OSM12. (Anyone who has met me in real life will also know that I am NOT JOKING on this.)

The post Under the Sea at Paris Fashion Week S/S 2012 first appeared on Deep Sea News.

The post Lady Gaga enters the Invertebrate Wars first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Of all the planets in our solar system, ours alone is covered in a life-giving, liquid blanket of blue. It is out of these depths that Abyss, Proctor & Gamble’s biggest fashion trend predicted for 2009/10 emerges.  Abyss is an immersive experience that celebrates water as the new gold, and a sense of preciousness that is heightened by scarcity. It is mysterious, enigmatic and attractive. Abyss invites exploration and rewards it with rare treasures from the deep. You’ll recognise it in wet textures and finishes, in sensual undulations that soothe the eye and phosphorescent glints that catch it.

That’s right the fashion rage is called Abyss and it has already hit the runway. Calvin Klein released the Urban Mermaid collection this spring.  No I didn’t make this up.  So how can you make sure you doing it right?

• With your makeup, “Don’t be afraid of colour”
• “Keep blues translucent and focus on one element,” remember “The key to applying the intense colours of Abyss without looking garish is to go for translucency.”
• Minimal black that is blended and refined
• Let the shine sell the make-up
• For hair, “looser, more casual looks with a light touch” and try a look such as “Fresh Hair, Deep Texture and Tumbling Cascades.”

Of course all of this is old news for us here, we been doing this for years.  DSN fashionable before it was fashionable.

The post Deep-Sea News, Now More Fashionable Than Ever first appeared on Deep Sea News.