Author: Josh Witten

http://www.thefinchandpea.com

The Power of Positive Thinking

Upwell‘s Rachel Dearborn has a thoughtful post over at Medium arguing for more positivity in communication about conservation that emerged from her visit to the Circumnavigating Hope workshop in London.

Doom and gloom can be overwhelming. The seriousness of a problem can actually stop people from acting constructively, because humans are mercurial things.

What if the stories we told about the ocean weren’t all doom and gloom?

Can we foster a kind of hope that inspires people to protect our planet’s most precious resource?
– Rachel Dearborn

Can we create hope and build momentum? The workshop spawned the #OceanOptimism hashtag on Twitter where you can see folks giving it a try. You can also visit Upwell or subscribe to their Tide Report for doses of science, fun, and hope.

Adjusted for Accuracy

In the wake of the sensational story about a larger shark potentially killing and eating a smaller shark, shark conservation advocate and researcher David Shiffman has posted a series of overwrought shark headlines paired with versions that have been adjusted for accuracy.

My favorite is “Shark seen swimming in ocean. You know, where sharks live”.

David has invited readers to submit their own suggestions.

*Hat tip to Andrew David Thaler of Southern Fried Science.

Filling Up the Map

Screenshot 2014-06-10 15.20.45Eva is off today, which gave me a chance to get update the Have Science Will Travel Map. While Eva has done a wonderful job highlighting the writing of others about science-y destinations, I have done a miserable job of adding the destinations she has been writing about here at The Finch & Pea. Let’s blame it on the end of the school year chaos and my kids, like usual.

One of the biggest treats for me was getting to add the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan as a location for Eva’s “Dark Side of the Moon” post. The Baikonur Cosmodrome was the launch site for Luna 3 in 1959, which was the first probe to actually take images of the far side of the moon (ie, never visible from earth due to tidal locking).

Mitochondrial Royalty

front-matterOur own Michele Banks provided the cover art for a mitochondria themed issue of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B (B is for Biological Sciences). The Royal Society traces its roots back to 1660. Philosophical Transactions dates back to 1665 and the splitting into A and B dates to 1887

We could not be prouder of Michele for contributing to the merger of art with this long scientific tradition, nor could we be prouder of the Royal Society for showing excellent taste.

Science for The People: Extreme Medicine

#268 - Extreme Medicine
#268 – Extreme Medicine

This week, Science for The People is on the frontiers of medicine, from the fabulous to the foolhardy. They talk to Dr. Kevin Fong, co-director of the Centre for Aviation Space and Extreme Environment Medicine at University College London, about his book “Extreme Medicine: How Exploration Transformed Medicine in the Twentieth Century.” And they’re joined by Dr. Sydnee and Justin McElroy, hosts of the podcast “Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine.”