jellyfish

Oceana's editor Suzannah Evans recently interviewed Taras Grescoe, author of the new book Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood. In the book, he circles the globe on a twofold mission: to consume exotic seafood and to explore why fish, crustaceans and marine mammals are disappearing. Drawing on the research of renowned fisheries scientist and Oceana board member Dr. Daniel Pauly, Grescoe explains the overexploitation of the seas and how we might restore the abundance of seafood for future generations. To read the full interview, visit http://oceana.org/newsletter.

Was there anything you couldn't bring yourself to eat? Because of the issues or you just didn't want to?

There were so many things I did eat, and my M.O. was to be an adventurous eater, but to have a list of seafood, things I wanted to try, things I hadn't yet tried. And as I became educated, [I would] cross things off the list. I was taking the reader through this process.

In Japan, there are 450 kinds of seafood on the market, I didn't eat gooey duck - not too many issues associated with it. Pufferfish, I ate. I regret eating whale. I'll never do it again, but it was interesting to figure out how to fit into Japanese culture. There are things I'm still interested in trying, particularly when it comes to mollusks and crustaceans. The one thing that was really problematic was live shrimp in Shanghai.

Maybe you've heard by now -- thanks to a fluorescent green protein (GFP) in jellyfish, three scientists have won a Nobel Prize in chemistry -- they've turned the protein into a way to watch the tiniest details of life within cells.

As the article states, "When exposed to UV light, the protein glows green and can act as a marker on otherwise invisible proteins within cells to trace them as they go about their business. It can tag individual cells in tissue. And it can show when and where particular genes turn on and off."

"GFP has revolutionized lab work in medicine and biology, enabling scientists to get a visual fix on how diseases spread in mice and lab-dish cells or whether cells respond to treatment."

Hat tip to the jellies!

[Image: A human embryonic stem cell illuminated by green fluorescent proteins.]

The financial collapse of the past few weeks offers striking parallels to the collapse of ocean wildlife. How is what’s happening on Wall Street and in financial capitals around the world like what’s happening in our seas?

Lehman Brothers and Canadian cod aren’t coming back.

The word “collapse” appears in nearly every thoughtful report on the financial crisis, and it’s also a common metaphor in the scientific reports on fishery depletion. It’s accurate in both cases because thelly notion that you can borrow more than you can afford, or spend more than you earn, inevitably produces a sudden and abrupt change when the money runs out.

In the fishery context, the notion that you can catch and kill very high levels of wild fish each year naturally leads to an empty ocean. For example, bluefin tuna fishing companies in the USA have not been able to catch their quota in the Atlantic. There just aren’t enough tuna to be found out there. By contrast, in personal financial terms, if you live off the interest and dividends on your investments, you can sustain that forever. But if you spend down your principal, you are on a path to going broke. The cod fishery off the eastern coast of Canada has never come back. Lehman Brothers isn’t coming back either.

It appears that jellyfish have invaded not just the oceans but the media, too.

Last week I told you about our marine scientist Margot Stiles' cameo on the CBS Early Show to talk about the jellyfish invasion. They aired a longer version of the story Sunday evening -- check it out. They included quite a bit of footage from our European office of jellyfish and our roving catamaran, the Ranger.

This morning the CBS Early Show featured our marine scientist Margot Stiles in a segment about this summer's preponderance of jellyfish. Why all the jellies? Suspected reasons include the overfishing and bycatch of their predators, such as the loggerhead sea turtle, tuna and swordfish, as well as pollution and global warming.

It's really hard being a Merperson in today's underwater ocean world. Destructive trawling destroys merpeople's homes, overfishing steals merpeople's friends, and mercury contamination, well, let's just say it makes it hard to think clearly about all the other problems.

Right now, one of the biggest problems is dating. Mermen and Merwomen are finding there's just no fish left in the sea. With that, Oceana and Save the Merpeople bring you The Merbachelorette. She swam ashore in New York to tell our crew about her experiences in underwater dating. Help us, help her. Save the merpeople.

Also, check out Save the Merpeople on Facebook!