So yesterday I learnt what being at sea is actually like. I don’t think many of the crew were bothered, but we were rocking around all over the place. It’s especially fun when nothing stays where you put it and you can play a game of human pinball through the corridors, having no control of the room you end up in.
The shakedown station was delayed for this reason; sampling in 6m waves is not the easiest. Instead, I focused on my plan for sampling.
However great our research is, we can’t really prove anything about the physical world. The problem lies in us being human. If you think about how easy it is to trick the human brain, or how much of an effect your previous experiences have on how you see the world now, it makes sense to be skeptical. That said, we can have confidence in the beliefs we have, if these beliefs are based on reason and repeated observation – science.
To test whether what we believe is right, we would have to try every single possible occurance and make sure the believed process happened in every one. Long, right? So the way we do it is to find just one example of where a belief doesn’t occur. Instead of trying to find if every vegan is starving by looking at them all globally, just look for one that isn’t (me – great, we can no longer believe that ALL vegans are starving).
So, we know that the changing climate is changing the proportions of different plankton species in the Arctic and the timing of their occurrence in the year. Copepods eat some of these plankton, so could be affected by these changes. To look into this, I’m going to look across different areas where we know there are different plankton populations. I’ll look for any differences in the amount the copepods eat, the amount of eggs they lay, and whether these eggs hatch. Some of the areas I’m looking at will have lots of food for the copepods, and some will have little. The quality of the food will differ too – some is more nutritious than others. Hopefully, I’ll be able to see what they’re eating.
I think I’m now finally getting used to the rocking ship, although the gym confused me. Rowing and running whilst swaying is disconcerting for my poor brain, too many movements in too many directions. It has calmed down a bit now though, and will probably get calmer when we’re further north. Added I haven’t really felt sea sick so far, super proud of my inner ears!
Current status:
Meals skipped:0
Times cheated on vegan diet:0
Times tempted by desserts:infinite and constant temptation.
Part 4 – where are the whales?
Marine Biologist Mayhem 