Carnival of the Blue 37

On this World Ocean Day, let us celebrate our ocean world and take note that June 11, 2010 is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Jacques Cousteau, one of our great ocean heroes.

Much of my ocean love and commitment was formed watching The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau as a young boy, and I'll never forget the intense excitement of each new episode. Thank you Mr. Cousteau!

Thanks also to Jacques' needly friend (top left) who lives on my desktop and reminds me daily to enjoy the ocean instead of just studying, protecting, or otherwise working there.

And now the fun begins with our once in a while ocean quiz. What links World Ocean Day, Jacques Cousteau, and World Cup football (soccer for you Americans)? We’ll get to that interesting and little known story just below, but first to the business at hand, this month’s Carnival of the blue.

Carnival 37 marks the 3rd year of Carnival of the Blue, first seen on World Ocean Day 2007. This month’s hosts and posts are not only the same salty bloggers from that first carnival showing up again, there has been a bit of a changing of the guard, something I’ll choose to view as a sign of vitality in the ocean blogging sphere.

Of course, some denizens of the deep have been kicking around for a long time, like Deep-Sea News and their authoritative Anatomy of an ecological catastrophe series, including Miriam’s What to expect in the Gulf and Kevin Z’s What to expect in the deep Gulf. Sorry Miriam, it looks like Kevin goes deeper.

With more on the oil spill, blogfish and your goggled host wonders whether oil spill cleanup is doing more harm than good, and GrrlScientist explores the proper response to oiled birds, clean or kill? at Living the Scientific Life.

More oily blogging from Jeremy at The Voltage Gate who looks for lessons from the aftermath of the largest oil spill in history, in Saudi Arabia following the Gulf war.

Typically offbeat, even on the subject of oil spills, The Southern Fried Scientist informs us that unguided deep-sea research is essential for national and global security. You'll have to judge for yourself whether he's making any sense. With even more Southern Fried Science (which BTW has to be one of the best blog names ever) Bluegrass Blue Crab asks who wins the Gulf smackdown in Oil Spill vs. Dead Zone.

Jason Goldman at The Thoughtful Animal wonders if whales and dolphins should have "human rights," and also in the category of comparing us to ocean animals, Zen Faulkes asks if octopuses feel pain as deeply as mammals on NeuroDojo...which brings up the least important question of the day, what is the actual true plural of octopus? Any definitive answers from the cephalopodists amongst us?

What does a fish see when it looks in the mirror? BioLoser Wendy Ouriel has a surprising answer, one that seems remarkably human.

If you're getting tired of thinking by now, go to your ears and have a listen to Marah Hardt's humpback whale experience, and you'll be gland you clicked the link.

Or you can vicariously visit with:

-the abundant and interesting stormy petrel with Nate at the Drinking Bird,

-Limulus polyphemus, the crab that may have saved your life, with Matthew Wills at Backyard and Beyond,

-Green nudists with Susannah at Wanderin' Weeta--you'll never guess who she caught coming out of their shell,

-sandbar sharks, with WhySharksMatter of Southern Fried Science,

-whale sharks, Belize's Gentle Giants, on Oceana's The Beacon,

-some lovely tide pool anemones, including the one with perhaps my favorite animal name of all time, Anthopleura elegantissima, with Jill on Count Your Chicken! We’re Taking Over!

-the prodigal frog (huh, what's that?) with Darcy on Of Winds and Water,

Or, if you're tired of wonderful ocean animals, you can try visiting a beautiful beach, with Derek Miller on penmachine.com

Now about that Jacques Cousteau quiz...probably most of you don't know that Jacques was actually quite a footballer in his day. In fact, Jacques even showed his resourcefulnes early in life when he invented a new piece of football gear after sustaining a minor but painful injury. His football gear is still widely used, just like the aqualung, but you wouldn't know it now that the name has been anglicized from the original name, the "Jacques Strap."

And on that salty note, time to let you know that next month's carnival of the blue will be at the highly informative and thoroughly functional Water Words That Work. Got a wet post you want included? Use the handy BlogCarnival submission form or submit posts directly to dotoftheblue@gmail.com

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