A Looming Oxygen Crisis and Its Impact on World’s Oceans

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Yale Environment 360, August 5, 2010

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The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is overshadowing another catastrophe that’s also unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico this summer: The oxygen dissolved in the Gulf waters is disappearing. In some places, the oxygen is getting so scarce that fish and other animals cannot survive. They can either leave the oxygen-free waters or die. The Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium reported this week that this year’s so-called “dead zone” covers 7,722 square miles.

Unlike the Deepwater Horizon disaster, this summer’s dead zone is not a new phenomenon in the Gulf. It first appeared in the 1970s, and each summer it has returned, growing bigger as the years have passed.

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Letter from SciFoo: The joys and sorrows of the Unconference

Posted on by Matt Kristoffersen

This morning I am sitting down at my desk with a small red notebook with the words “Google: Open Source Programs Office” on the cover. It is filled with my scrawlings from a meeting this weekend at Google Headquarters, known as SciFoo. The notebook was part of a standard meeting goody bag SciFoo dispensed, along with one of those very heavy plastic cubes that meeting organizers love to engrave as a memento of a never-to-be-forgotten experience. Since I never check baggage when I fly, I left the cube behind. SciFoo was a wonderful meeting, but not without room for improvement. I can sum my feelings up this way: love the small, empty notebook for recording thoughts, not so fond of the heavy, self-celebrating cube.

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