Rutgers professor of Estuary and Marine Ecology. And OCR friend Judith Weis sent us an article about how the environmental health can be determined by listening. The paper by Katherine Indeck (et al.) described in the article explored the sounds…
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2016 Progress Report – A thick year!
It has been my habit to keep our newsletters “short and sweet” – less than 500 words so they can be read in a minute or so. But I just finished compiling a progress report for our institutional funders to…
The Mills of the Gods grind slow…
This Friday morning (1/6/17) we were met with the fabulous news that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has denied the six seismic survey permits that were pending under the 2017-2022 Outer Continental Shelf Five Year Plan. My…
What WUZ that sound?
We’ve heard much about how little we know about the ocean; that “we know more about the surface of the moon than the bottom of the sea,” or that “less than 5% of the ocean has been explored.” Of course…
The enigma of the one-tooth unicorn
For a creature that figures so well into European mythology, the Narwhal carries with it surprisingly few myths of its own. As its Linnaean taxonomic binomial infers, Monodon Monoceros (one tooth, one horn) the narwhal was described by Europeans as…
Behold Beauty. Behold Power.
When the first extra-planetary astronauts shared a picture of the Earth rising over the moon’s horizon it gave all of humanity an opportunity to visually behold this beautiful blue planet we inhabit. It was both humbling and awe inspiring, and…
Report from Salt Lake City
Last week I attended the Acoustics Society Conference in Salt Lake City where I hosted a session on the Industrialization of the Ocean. There were a number of quality papers presented and some good ideas and comments presented on the…
Industrialization of the Ocean
Later this week I’ll be heading to the Acoustics Society meeting Salt Lake City. The meeting runs through the entire week with presentations and sessions on all matters acoustic – from Architectural Acoustics to Ultrasound Imaging. Animal Bioacoustics is among…
NOAA Tinkers with acoustical standards to appease industry
Some improvements were recently made to the acoustical standards but most were “academic” and just promised to remove some of the ambiguity from the regulations. But a troubling component was the somewhat arbitrary tinkering with the Low Frequency exposure thresholds – substantiated with…
The Poignancy of Earth Day
This year I am finding it hard to compose a cheerful dispatch on Earth Day. I’ve always been mildly skeptical about taking a single day to express our love of this fabulous planet and all that she provides. This is…