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Created, written & designed by John Pavlus / Screencasts produced by Smashcut Media / Music by Jeff Alvarez
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Background on this week's stories:
#1. CSI: Colossal Squid Investigation
Discovery, Reuters and Newsweek all covered the dissection of the largest specimen ever caught of the largest invertebrate on Earth.
The BBC and The Guardian homed in on the squid's basketball-size eyes, and their coverage includes some pretty compelling video.
The squid in question was caught by a commercial fishing crew in New Zealand in February 2007. Unlike the giant squid, no colossal squid has ever been photographed in its natural habitat.
#2. An inconvenient (and uncute) truth
Conservationists often champion a single, highly visible species in order to convince the public to preserve the ecosystem on which it depends, even if their primary goal is the preservation of the ecosystem itself. Of these species, known as charismatic megafauna, polar bears are a textbook example. (As we discovered at a convention of climate change skeptics, polar bears are a flash point for those who oppose the regulation of carbon emissions, as well.)
Only now it appears that they aren't the most threatened species in the Arctic. That dubious honor belongs to the narwhal, reports a team of international researchers in a paper in the journal Ecological Applications. (It's part of a larger package on the impact of climate change on the Arctic.)
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Add CommentAwww. How come I can't subscribe to The Monitor from iTunes anymore? :(
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