Comments on: Shark!

By: Christina Viering

Christina Viering — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 05:29:57 +0000

Sad that this is occuring to our wildlife.

By: Lab Lemming

Lab Lemming — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 01:52:59 +0000

An illness? Or the plankton fighting back?

By: TomJoe

TomJoe — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 00:01:05 +0000

Philip @5: more and more, we’re finding marine animals bearing land-based illnesses, or very close analogues. It generally happens in marine mammals, not fish – but that doesn’t mean it can’t.

I guess I’m not really that surprised. However while it is very interesting, it’s more than a bit disturbing. Are we talking more viruses, or are we talking bacteria? Also, just how much raw sewage is released into the ocean? Is that the most likely cause?

By: Sheril Kirshenbaum

Sheril Kirshenbaum — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 22:43:09 +0000

Thanks Erasmussimo, it appears to be fixed.

By: Erasmussimo

Erasmussimo — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 21:33:25 +0000

Sorry to commit topic crime, but there’s a problem in the topic “How Scientific Illiteracy Cost Us 20 Years on Global Warming”. The most recent poster left an HTML tag dangling, and now everything after that tag is taken to be part of a link he posted. If you click in the “leave a reply” text box, you jump to his link. It’s impossible to reply. Could you folks fix that?

By: Blogger

Blogger — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 20:31:46 +0000

Autonomy — leave that in the other thread.

By: Autonomy_Now

Autonomy_Now — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 19:48:18 +0000

Meyers and other “new atheists” are hindering rational dialog and, untintentionally, encouraging people of faith to remain steadfast in their religiosity and rejection of science. Free thinking atheist scientists need to show solidarity in our rejection of Meyers.

The commenters on his “science” blog are so inept and over-zealous that one can’t help but conclude that “new atheism” — if the activity on Meyers’s blog is any indication of its fruits — is close to earning full-fledged cult status.

Meyers’s main strategy is to encourage dozens of angry followers to shout down any dissenting view point, any idea that doesn’t conform to the narrow “new atheist” (=logically superficial) approach to criticizing religion. Just watch them all show up here soon to “pharyngulize” us. (Yes, the term ‘pharyngulize’ is actually part of their cult lingo.)

By: Sheril Kirshenbaum

Sheril Kirshenbaum — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 19:09:27 +0000

Thanks for adding that Philip H., the transmission of viruses to marine animals is worth more discussion.

By: Philip H.

Philip H. — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 17:31:15 +0000

@TJ #1 – more and more, we’re finding marine animals bearing land-based illnesses, or very close analogues. It generally happens in marine mammals, not fish – but that doesn’t mean it can’t. I know a marine animal vet who is gravely concerned about avian flu (not H1N1) becoming extant in marin epopulations, an dthat being a vector for pandemic. Rest assured, however, that there are some very good vets and pathologists workin gthis one.

And yes, most marine animals do die in the ocean. So did said shark, because the ocean, by definition, extends to mean higher high tide, whichh the surf hadn’t yet reached.

By: TomJoe

TomJoe — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 16:10:18 +0000

Blooger @3: LOL. I read it to mean that typically basking sharks don’t beach themselves, or die so close to land as to be washed ashore.