Shark safe surfboards?

If you wanna surf with sharks, maybe you should try Sharkcamo gear. It's stripes for your board or body that are hoped to repel sharks.

Sharkcamo was created based on the scientific fact that Mother Nature protects certain species of animals with distinct coloration patterns. The technical name for this phenomenon is aposematic pattern coloration.

The sharkcamo guys claim they've tested their theory, and it works.

I'm skeptical, but it can't hurt. And they look good anyway.

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Prospectors claim Pacific coast for green energy

Is this the new gold rush out west? People are staking claims to large stretches of the west coast, with plans to harness ocean energy in the form of waves and tides. This is good, right? Energy produced without making CO2.

But wait, is there anybody planning the future, figuring out what parts of the ocean are good for energy, and where we should reserve the ocean for other things? No, not yet.

We'd better watch out, or we'll get another mess like western water laws, the crazy quilt claims for using river water that make no sense and harm conservation efforts.

Wave energy makes sense, but we need to decide where to put these things. Otherwise, we'll be sorry when we figure out we put some in the wrong places.

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The bluegill that ate Japan

Or at least ate Japan's fish. The problem is so bad that the Emperor is apologizing for bringing bluegill into Japan in the 1960s.

Chicago mayor Richard Daley gave bluegill, the state fish of Illinois, as a gift to the current Emperor in 1960. Hoping to create a new delectable food source, Japanese fish biologists established the bluegill in lakes. Now, bluegill are eating and depleting some native species, and they've become an official nuisance. "Its cultivation started as there were great expectations of raising them for food in those days. My heart aches to see it has turned out like this," Emperor Akihito said.

To control the bluegill, there is a "catch and eat" policy for bluegill. Who knew that these nice little fish could be such a scourge. How long until we have a Bluegillzilla horror movie?

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Jellyfish swarm attacks UK

A salmon farm was wiped out last week, by a jellyfish swarm that stung and suffocated salmon in a cage. Now a second swarm is floating off the UK shore. It's Frank Schatzing's Swarm.

These "purple stinger" jellyfish are known from waters further south, but their appearance in a mass off the UK is a big surprise in the cold water of November. And nobody expected a killer swarm that could devastate a salmon farm.

One thing that gives jellyfish a boost is the removal of fish due to overfishing, so we may see more of this in the future if we don't stop overfishing our oceans.

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Why does overfishing happen?

Because it's too hard for fishermen to leave fish in the water, according to a prominent fishery manager.

It's as if you put a kid in front of a bowl of candy and say "take just one"

says fishery manager Dan Furlong, as quoted in the Hartford Courant.

I guess overfishing is a simple problem, fishermen just can't resist taking too many fish. And at least one manager doesn't think we should expect fishermen to resist the temptation to overfish.

Wow, I'm amazed. The kids who came to my door on Halloween were all more restrained than Mr. Furlong's fishermen. Nobody whined for more fish...er I mean candy.

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