Big sale on Oregon Sea Grant publications and videos!

Now through February 28, 2014, Oregon Sea Grant is offering 20 to 30 percent discounts on all its sale-adpublications and videos.

You can purchase most of our publications and videos (including such favorites as the Oregon Coast Quests Book and Boats of the Oregon Coast) at a 20 percent discount, but three are available at a 30 percent discountPathways to Resilience, The Oregon Rain Garden Guide (printed copy, not pdf version), and Celilo Falls DVD.

To purchase online, go to marketplace.oregonstate.edu and use these promotional codes: 28Feb20% (20% discount) or 28Feb30% (30% discount available only on the three products mentioned above). Please note that you might not be able to use both codes in one order, so you may need to place two separate orders if you wish to use both codes.

 

Funds available for social science research

Oregon Sea Grant will release a special call for Social Science and Human Dimension Research proposals on Monday, February 3, 2014.

Researchers who intend to respond must submit a Letter of Intent by Friday, February 14. Full Proposals will be due Monday March 3, 2014. The principal investigator on each proposal must be faculty at any public or private institution of higher education in Oregon.

We expect to invest up to $300,000 in two to four projects addressing one or more of our strategic planning focus areas. Examples might include learning more about factors that help or hinder Oregon’s coastal communities in becoming more resilient to social, economic or environmental stress, challenges communities face in moving toward-ecosystem-based management, or community governance concerns and challenges.

Learn more:

Despite speculation, scientists see no Fukushima radiation risk in albacore

Japan’s nuclear disaster released hundreds of millions of gallons of radioactive water in 2011, sparking rampant speculation that a contaminated plume would reach the waters of North America’s West Coast.

Three years later, such speculation is alive and well on the Internet. But scientists in Oregon and California have collected samples of tuna, a fish known to migrate back and forth across the Pacific, analyzed them for radioactive isotopes, Cesium-134 in particular, from Fukushima – and found levels so low they are barely detectable.

Delvan Neville labels albacore samplesDelvan Neville, a PhD candidate in Radiation Health Physics at Oregon State University, has tested dozens of samples of albacore tuna for radioactivity. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s intervention levels for cesium 134 and cesium 137 is 1200 becquerels per kilogram. The highest levels he’s seen in his albacore, of both cesium 134 and cesium 137 combined, is 1 becquerel per kilogram – a level so low that his device couldn’t pick it up until he concentrated the samples.

“That’s more than 1,000 times lower than the point where the FDA would even think about whether they need to let people eat that food still,” he said.

Neville, along with OSU fisheries graduate Jason Phillips, is working with Dr. Lorenzo Cianelli, a marine biologist with OSU’s College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences , to learn more about the migration patterns of Pacific albacore. Their initial work was funded in part by Oregon Sea Grant and NOAA.

It was only the timing of their research – coinciding with the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and subsequent nuclear disaster – that led the scientists to consider radiation as a possible marker for learning which waters fish caught off the US Pacific coast might have traveled.

Learn more

 

 

Noted salmon biologist and fisheries historian to speak at OSU

Salmon, People and PlaceCORVALLIS, Ore. – Jim Lichatowich, a noted biologist and author, will discuss the fate of Pacific salmon during a presentation on Wednesday, Jan. 15, at Oregon State University. The free, public event begins at 7 p.m. in the rotunda of the Valley Library on campus.

Lichatowich will speak about his new book, “Salmon, People, and Place: A Biologist’s Search for Salmon Recovery,” which was just published by the OSU Press.

Joining Lichatowich will be Carmel Finley, an OSU science historian, and author of “All the Fish in the Sea,” which was published in 2012 by the University of Chicago Press.

In his OSU Press book, Lichatowich points out many misconceptions about salmon that have hampered management and limited recovery programs. These programs will continue to fail, he argues, as long as resource managers look at salmon as “products” and ignore their essential relationship with the environment.

Lichatowich served for years on the Independent Scientific Advisory board for the Columbia River restoration program, as well as on Oregon’s Independent Multidisciplinary Science Team and other science groups in British Columbia and California. He is author of the award-winning book, “Salmon without Rivers: A History of the Pacific Salmon Crisis.”

Finley and Lichatowich will discuss the status of salmon recovery, address its problems and outline the potential for revitalization. Audience members will have the opportunity to pose questions to the scientists, purchase books and have them signed.

Learn more

Shark Day in Newport next weekend

Shark Riddle CoverNEWPORT – Saturday is all about sharks as the Hatfield Marine Science Center celebrates its annual  “Shark Day” at the Visitor Center on Jan. 11.

Join Oregon Sea Grant’s marine educators and scientists for a day of shark science, with a full day of hands-on crafts, family activities and games.  The Shark Riddle film and education program will be presented in Hennings Auditorium in the morning and again in the afternoon.  The Visitor Center is open from 10 am to 4 pm, and as always, admission is by donation.

SCHEDULE:

  • 11:00am and 2:45pm – Film: The Shark Riddle (30 min)
  • 11:30am and 3:15pm – Shark based education program