Wednesday Paddling

Last Wednesday's "non-library" activity of the day was the prom fashion show. This Wednesday, I chaperoned the Marine Science kayak trip. We're worked on a scavenger hunt, and the wind finally died down enough for us to paddle out in the river.






The best part of the afternoon. Learning that I was specially requested as the second adult. Thanks guys!

Aquarium People-Watching, in greater depth

As promised in an earlier comment, I wanted to share about my return visit to the aquarium Thursday afternoon. If you've been reading regularly, you'll remember that we were challenged to spend 5 minutes observing one exhibit. Always the meta-observer, I watched the people just about as much as I watched the jellyfish. Having time to return to the aquarium today, I planned to sit by the same exhibit. Despite any intentions I entered with, people-watching became the focus. I started to take notes on what people said as they walked up to, or right by, the exhibit. Because I can't capture the "glance and go" cell phone camera crowd, I stuck with recording those people who commented in the proximity of the jellyfish. Now I will greatly overreach in cataloging their comments.

(Taking notes by the jellies. Seth will probably observe that my sitting there with a pencil changed the situation, but I think most people were too self-focused to notice me. Besides, with the comments they were making, what did they have to hide?)

Most common were polite little blips of comments, proof that the seer existed, and general, approved of the jellyfish. They place the seer in relation to another visitor and, I can only assume, work to build a bond between the two. "Oooh, jellyfish." "Look, (insert person here, such as grandma, mom, etc." "Cool." or "Coooooool!" The word cool was repeated by hundreds of guests. Am I becoming an English curmudgeon because I wanted them to use a word that meant something, one that couldn't be used to describe absolutely any animal in the building?

While cool functions as a judgmental statement, albeit a positive one, there were also other jugmental statements that weren't so kind. "They're not cute" made me wonder about the girl's standards and the general human-centered viewpoint we bring to aquariums. "I hate jellyfish. They hurt." interested me because this woman was the only person who commented on anything that either didn't relate to the senses or only related to the sense of sight. If you read the Aquarium article I recommended previously (http://www.threepennyreview.com/samples/newberry_su04.html), you'll consider the irony that we use almost exclusively visual language to describe aquariums, despite the fact that many aquarium residents have no use for vision.

Although I now think that I might backtrack on my previous statement just a little. People did try to make the jellyfish seem more less alien by comparing them to more familiar items. Most common was mushrooms, but one person mentioned cauliflower. One might argue that they chose items that carry connotations of particular smells, textures, and tastes, but I want to straddle the line on reading too much into these overheard statements. :)

"Bonk. Bonk. It's like that movie where they're hopping on the jellyfish." "They're upside down." This only stood out because I witnessed many Nemo searches in the coral reef exhibit, and one person said he spotted Bruce in the kelp tank. While all of these are technically impossible since they're imaginary characters, I especially think it's unlikely that there's a great white shark in the tank featuring Monterey Bay wildlife. It just serves to reinforce for me the powerful pull that Disney has on popular culture.

(In case you wanted to know more about the spotted jelly.
Yes, all the comments were made in the presence of this sign.)

We also have the 'bad science' people, the ones that prove that ocean literacy needs to be taught at some level.
"The legs fell off that one." Oh yes, those elusive jellyfish legs. They probably did fall off, didn't they?
"We already saw the jellyfish over there." This isn't really bad science as much as a lack of understanding about ocean diversity. Does this person go to the zoo and stop after they've seen one primate?
"Are these anenomes?" I'm guessing this person had never seen an anenome or a jellyfish before, and perhaps was illiterate. Or is that too harsh. When Seth worked at Disney, he learned to be patient with guests because even normally smart people sometimes left their brains at home when they went on vacation and would ask questions that should be obvious to all. But what about "Look at the spots on their shells." Where do I even start with that one?


Then there were the incomprehensible statements. "Jellyfish aren't as cool as penguins." This could also go under judgement or humanism, but I'm curious about the comparison chart for that one.
"This is just like a wedding I went to." Really? You can see the tank in my photo. Let me know if you have clues. I guarantee that they did not remind me of any weddings I attended, although my imagination is intrigued.

A few people tried to be scientific, even if they didn't necessarily add much to the general school of knowledge. At least they were making observations. "Where are their minds? Maybe inside the tentacles?" "It's gliding. It's falling. It's gliding. Now it's falling. Gliding again." etc.

(This will only make sense to people who have visited the aquarium. I also spent a half hour laying on the floor (out of the way) on the 2nd floor observation area of the deep sea exhibit. I was experimenting with taking photographs of the giant window. I'm on my back with my knees up on the left side of the photo, and my hand is over my stomach. Note how the sea turtle has just come into the space between my hand and my knees, which wasn't planned because the camera was on a ten-second delay.)

(Bad photo, but you get a sense of the crowds at the exhibit. Same tank looking at the first floor.)

Wow! Squid edition.

Speaking as the girl who was given permission to act as "recorder" during Biology dissections in high school, today's squid dissection was really cool! I can't deny that I turned away a few times and inadvertently shrieked at others, but it was a great experience. Perhaps this is because we had a great teacher, a Stanford graduate student who also blogs daily about her love of cephalopods. Check it out at http://www.science20.com/squid_day. Short and fun tidbits for those of us drawn to invertebrates.

We also learned (from her) that our program's cosponsor William Gilly, who's been leading many of our science sessions, and who put up with about a million of my geography/biology questions on our Sunday drive from Hearst Castle, is a blogger for Scientific American. There's no shying away from science here. http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/expeditions/2011/06/20/squid-studies-changing-seas-and-shrinking-squid/ I have a good feeling that Seth and I will be learning a lot more about cephalopods in the coming months. Also, if you're looking for a free Humboldt squid to dissect with your class, here's the link for you. http://gilly.stanford.edu/outreach.html. We talked about uses in Art and English. If you want a squid, I can hlep you come up with a project.

So you probably know what's coming for you. 10 things I've learned about cephalopods, mainly Humboldt squids, in the past few days. Hold on to your hat.

1. Squid are all muscle. This makes them about the best possible animal for a snack. They're pursued by everything from dolphins to albatross. Also, when you eat calamari, you're usually eating the mantle (head), cut into rings with the organs cut out from the center. However, the entire squid is edible.

2. The hardest part of a squid is it's beak, which is comparable to a bird's beak. It's made of chiton, and it's very strong. Gilly told us about being bitten by a squid while trying to place a camera on it (a story in itself, I'm sure). He didn't feel the bite because of possible numbing agents in the squid, but he needed 15 stitches. He realized the severity of what was happening when he saw the squid on his arm and red blood on the boat deck. Squid have blue blood.

(Squid beak in center circle)

3. Humboldt squid are "reproductive machines." They only live a few years, but their reproductive systems are bigger than their circulatory systems. The female's egg mass is the size of a small car! The male lays spermatophore packages around the female's beak, but no one has actually ever observed their mating rituals.

4. You can't tell the sex of a squid until you cut into it's mantle. Another thing you learn from cutting one open is its approximate age. The tiny (breadcrumb-sized) statolith works like a "black box," recording information about the squid's age and the water temperature during its development. It also helps the squid maintain equilibrium in the water.

(Squid heart. I believe that this is the systemic heart, but it could be a brachial heart. Don't quote me on it.)

5. Squid are some of the only animals on earth to move using jet propulsion. They're only methods of defense are their ink and their escape abilities. They can easily adjust the water flow (yes, I'm simplifying this dramatically) to swim in any direction.

6. Squid ink is edible. Squid can also change the patterns of their inking. They can mix it with water to create a general smokescreen effect. Or they can mix it with mucus and create a pseudomorph, a shape that looks like a tasty treat. That way they can escape while the predator goes after their ink.

(Ink pouch)

7. You cannot keep Humboldt squid in captivity. Because they are all muscle and live in the ocean where they'd never run into a hard surface, they bang themselves repeatedly into the glass until their mantles hemorrhage. Researchers are trying to study them in their natural habitats.

8. Squid have both chromatophores and photophores. The photophores on the ends of the tentacles look like little drops of light and draw fish in for the squid to eat. There's still a lot of research being done on chromatophores, but know that the entire squid can change color instantly. In one instance, when a camera was placed on a squid, it varied it's color pattern to match the frequency. To see this camouflage ability in action, you can look here. http://youtu.be/ZbNsMVQzca0

9. Humboldt squid have eight arms and two (longer) tentacles. The tentacles have sharp teeth, and can quickly grasp the food. Arms work to keep food from escaping.

(Measuring Squid)

10. When measuring squid, you should measure just the mantle. If you hear reports of squid lengths that seem impossibly long, see if the person is measuring by stretching out the elastic tentacle. This is what some people do to exaggerate the size of their finds.

I have one more day to ask questions. Anything you want to know? I also have the name of a cuttlefish breeder if you're interested in helping replenish the supply.

(NOAA research boat for the afternoon exhibition. Whales, plankton, and for some, seasickness.)

Thoughts on Sea of Cortez and Aquariums, Part 2

This quotation is several pages, but it's why I'm putting it by itself. This is the crux of The Sea of Cortex and of understanding how Steinbeck felt about ecosystems and human communities.

Out own interest lay in relationships of animal to animal. If one observes in this relational sense, it seems apparent that species are only commas in a sentence, that each species is at once the point and the base of a pyramid, that all life is relational to the point where an Einsteinian relativity seems to emerge. And then not only the meaning but the feeling about species grows misty. Once merges into another, groups melt into ecological groups until the time when what we know as life meets and enters what we think of as non-life: barnacle and rock, rock and earth, earth and tree, tree and rain, rain and air. And the units nestle into the whole and are inseparable from it. Then one can come back to the microscope and the tide pool and the aquarium. But the little animals are found to be changed, no longer set apart and alone. And it is a strange thing that most of the feeling we call religious, most of the mystical outcrying which is one of the most prized and used and desired reactions of our species, is really the understanding and the attempt to say that man is related to the whole thing, related inextricably to all reality, known and unknowable. This is a simple thing to say, but the profound feeling of it made a Jesus, a Saint Augustine, a Saint Francis, a Roger Bacon, a Charles Darwin, and an Einstein. Each of them in his own tempo and with his own voice discovered and reaffirmed with astonishment the knowledge that all things are one thing and that one thing is all things - plankton, a shimmering phosphorescence, on the sea and the spinning planets and an expanding universe, all bound together by the elastic string of time. It is advisable to look from the tide pool to the stars and then back to the tide pool again.

Wow. I don't know if you've after tried typing passages (or poems) that speak to you, but it's similar to reading aloud in that it's a much more intimate experience. On the most superficial level, I had never realized that the paragraph was that long, but this time I also paid more attention to all of the disciplines to which he refers. Everything is connected.

Thoughts on Sea of Cortez and Aquariums, Part 1

(View of aquarium before tidepooling. You can see more clearly here that the aquarium is a renovated cannery.)

Yesterday the group met with Craig Strang, who helps run the Lawrence Hall of Science at Berkeley. He's been instrumental in introducing the discussion on ocean literacy in the k-12 classroom. He strongly believes that every students needs to be taught basic facts about the ocean to to understand the ways in which the earth (including humans) are affected by the ocean and the effects the ocean has on the earth (including humans.) More information about this can be found on the Ocean Literacy site http://oceanliteracy.wp2.coexploration.org/. This has been a longtime collaboration with Lawrence Hall of Science, NOAA, the College of Exploration, the National Geographic Society, and the National Science Foundation.

(Manmade tide pool behind the aquarium that directly connects to the bay. They also host a scuba program there. )

Because we were visiting the aquarium for a behind the scenes tour and because Craig recommended it, I read an article by emeritus professor Todd Newberry on that compared aquariums and zoos. It also got into some interesting philosophical content. Here's an excerpt.

First, let's recognize the aquarium for what it really is. What people encounter there is not nature itself, nor the sea in miniature. It is a series of stage sets and show windows. The more we try to pretend that we are looking through a porthole in Captain Nemo's submarine, the more we see a fish tank. The ecology is compressed, confined. We are at a show. The action on the stage is a tightly controlled representation—a selective "re-presentation"—of nature. The aquarium's exhibits have been filtered through multiple human decisions on the way to creating an illusion. An exhibit succeeds, I think, when we participate in its illusion, as we might in that of a magic show or a play. The tired phrase for this-the one about the suspension of disbelief-implies accurately that an aquarium is really a theater. Even its stage is an illusion: in the aquarium, the surface of the sea has been rotated from horizontal to vertical and, like the biblical waters, parted so we can walk dry-shod through darkened depths.

Like the actors in our human plays, the fish in an aquarium, though doubtless the real thing, are in a kind of ecological disguise. In these artificially simplified habitats, they must lead simpler lives than they would in the wild. But like the human actors who make us see some of life's truths with unnatural clarity, the fishy ones can help us focus on just a few events and relationships out of the welter of them that we would encounter if we were in uncontrived nature. Notice (but for now notice only) how these anchovies school tightly together, but those clown fish keep their distance from one another. Watch (but for now watch only) how these jellyfish drive their way downward while those drift through their descent. The illusions of the tanks, like those of the theater, do not fake, they portray. As a visitor, my opportunity is to see through the aquarium's managed portrayals, into the sometimes unmanageable complexities of life in the sea.

An aquarium, then, is a theater. Alive as its exhibits may be, it can be compared, as well, to that other extremely filtered place, a museum. Even in an aquarium with giant exhibits, such as the Monterey Bay Aquarium or the Aquarium of the Pacific, we are in a museum with fish tanks instead of dioramas or paintings along its walls. And after a while, many aquariums, like many museums, produce the same behavior in most people, that of just moving on. There is so much to see! It is too big a meal. After an hour or two, I almost expect a docent disguised as a waiter to come up and ask me, "Are you still working on it?" And so this habit of trudging on, moving along. I call it "glance and go."

The group was challenged to each find an exhibit and sit quietly for 5 minutes. I chose to look at the bubble jellies, and I probably had 40 families pass by (it's a busy aquarium), and even when children wanted to linger, parents pushed them forward. More to see. Bigger animals. Animals with faces. Don't waste photos on jellyfish. When children asked questions, parents didn't bother the read the materials or even try to answer. No modeling curiosity and research here. But it wasn't all that dramatic. The jellies were beautiful. I looked for patterns in swimming, size and breathing speed connections, spot and texture differentiations, and thought about how I need to be reminded to slow down.

(First time a contained environment has been able to grow kelp. Top of the exhibit.)(Same exhibit from the general visitor view.)

You can read the entire article here. It's not too long, and it might make you reconsider how you visit zoos, aquariums, and museums.
http://www.threepennyreview.com/samples/newberry_su04.html

(Back of one of the exhibits with easy access for animal care.)

This is part one because a long related Steinbeck quotation will be posted tomorrow. We're using the Sea of Cortez as key to understanding the philosophy and themes in all of Steinbeck's books.

Tide Pooling

(Look at my fun waterproof boots.)

If you ever are offered the opportunity to muck about in a tide pool, I recommend it. We spent over two hours traipsing around, poking under rocks, and lifting up kelp deposits. Susan was kind enough to loan me a pair of waterproof boots, and I stayed dry and warm even while wading through knee-deep water. I also saw the best side of the other teachers-helping each other find the critters we were searching for, holding out hands as a stabilizing force for people whose feet were less sure, and modeling curiosity about all of the creatures we came across. There was at least one abalone, a few fish, a fair number of crustaceans, an overwhelming number of anemones, and millions of jelly-type animals that we didn't always recognize on our own as alive.

(That large gray object on the right is actually a colonial tunicate. I reached my hand in the water to use it to poke the jelly substance immediately to the left, and it was soft. Just about everything you see here is alive.)

(This octopus shouldn't have been in the intertidal. It's now in Gilly's cephalopod lab.)

Steinbeck and Rickett's used to go collecting in the tide pools around Monterey. Reading my post about writing and Cannery Row, you might also remember the the metaphor of a tide pool is the essential metaphor for Cannery Row throughout the book. At our lecture preparing us for the experience, the scientist discussed the importance of looking slowly at details instead of surveying the vistas. This goes against human inclinations, and he challenged us to spend 5 minutes at two different times staring quietly at the same tide pool. The animals living in the pools can feel our approach, sense our shadows, and taste our presence in the water. They need time to adjust to us, and we notice more as we watch the interactions that unfold under the water.

(Bird rock that's appeared in the distance in many of my photos. 6am was the low-low tide of the day.)

(You can see better here how far out we walked.)

Tidepools are also a metaphor for Steinbeck's writing on a larger scale. He cared about symbiosis in communities, and the ways that different species rely on each other. Both he and Ricketts challenged the status quo of organizing (sterilized preserved) animals by phylum, categorization and instead found value in observing living communities. You can see this theme of community design and survivability in all of his fiction and nonfiction writings. Steinbeck observed communities, human and aquatic, in their natural environments, and he let their actions speak for themselves.

Hearst Castle...and elephant seals

It's been longer than I intended, although I'm sure people don't mind waiting a day for a post. I loved visiting Cambria, and the food there might be better than any other place I've ever visited with the exception of Lopez. If you want recommendations for places to stay or places to eat, I'm happy to oblige. Today started at 7am in Big Sur and the final lecture ended at 9:30pm in Monterey.

This is significant because I need to leave at 5:45am to spend a few hours observing tide pools. In particular, I'll be studying strongylocentrotus purpuratus (aka purple sea urchins) in a small group while wandering through the intertidal zone. However, after the cold early morning jaunt, it's off to the Monterey Aquarium. Hurray.

Cambria is close to San Simeon, which is known as being the home of Hearst Castle. Hearst Castle has always seemed like a historical Disneyland to me, and until this weekend, I believed that Orson Welles' Citizen Kane was an accurate representation of Hearst's life. Taking Hearst Castle as a "Neverland" of the 1930s and 40s, it was a fascinating cultural study. Here's a 10 list about Hearst and his famous castle on a hill. It's by no means exhaustive, and I've tried to comb through my notes for items that may not be widely known.

1. Steinbeck and Hearst hated each other. (We actually visited Cambria and Hearst Castle because we were required to vacate our hotel in Monterey. They were previously booked, and this was the only way to secure the rest of our stay.) While we've spent the last few weeks examining working people in California, this allowed us to see a different side of California history.

2. Hearst was actually very liberal in his younger days, and he was head of the democratic party for 14 years at the beginning of the century. He advocated for workers' rights, and he thought he would be a great representative of the working man. He ran for mayor and governor, and he even had dreams of the White House, but he didn't win the elections.

3. Hearst believed (or at least stated) that he was democratic in his selections of artwork and architecture from around the globe because he shared his collections and estates with people who were not able to afford to travel to Europe. Of course, astute observers might argue that this is simply the justification of an obsessive shopaholic.

4. It was considered a scandal that Hearst never officially divorced his first wife, showgirl Millicent Wilson, even though he lived with his mistress Marion Davies for over 30 years. Wilson was Catholic and didn't believe in divorce. (Secret 11. She lived in the estate that inspired Fitzgerald's description of Jay Gatsby's estate in The Great Gatsby.)

5. Hearst was an "outrageous rich boy" at Harvard before he was expelled. He was editor of the Lampoon because his dad could help fund it. He was known to walk an alligator on a leash around campus. He once gave his teachers chamberpots with their names engraved in gold...on the inside.

6. Hearst hired Julia Morgan (another glass ceiling shatterer---look her up) as the sole architect on the project, and she worked on the building and landscape design for almost 30 years.

Customize your own slideshow

7. Hearst didn't want to destroy trees in building Hearst Castle. He moved several oak trees from his patio because he didn't like the way they dropped leaves into his pool. This took many workman, 600 ton cement boxes, and several weeks of time.

8. Hearst had a zoo that he based on the "best German designs of the late 1800's." This meant that the animals enjoyed the luxuries of metal bars and cement floors. Among other animals, his animal collection included polar bears, penguins, lions, and zebras. The Hearst property still has zebra that graze with the black Angus.

9. Hearst had two libraries in the castle, a personal one, and an 80 foot long one that he shared with his visitors.

10. At his death, Hearst left 60 million in the Hearst Foundation to support the arts. He also donated the castle to UC Berkeley. They rejected it because of the cost of upkeep. The state took it instead with the stipulation that they could not sell the artwork. Currently, it's the only CA state park that makes money. (If you watch the slideshow, you'll also see that the state has the odd requirement that all of the fruit from the hundreds of trees that line the property must fall to the ground and be used for compost. The landscaping was beautiful, but in a state with many poverty issues, this seems like an unnecessary mandate.)

Any more you want to know? Other than that the aforementioned elephant seals are in the slideshow.

Monterey and Chesapeake Bay Comparisons

As an update to yesterday, having grown up near the Chesapeake Bay, I took part in a follow-up discussion with the presenter yesterday that compared revitalization of the Chesapeake and Monterey Bay regions.

People in the middle of the 20th century knew that the water quality of both had diminished, yet the Monterey Bay has been rehabilitated in a way that the Chesapeake Bay has not. Dr. Pulombi offered several potential explanations for this.

Looking at the geography, the Chesapeake Bay is shallower, and there's a higher density of people who live in the areas immediately surrounding the Bay.

The California coast is regulated by laws in the state of California, and the California Coastal Commission is quite strict. In contrast, the Chesapeake Bay runs through several states. Agricultural runoff regulations are not uniform and are not regularly enforced. In terms of blue crabs, Maryland has stopped winter harvesting of females to protect the population, while Virginia has not.

On the human side, the technology industry benefited the California coast because of the vast profits associated with it. A few individuals with substantial funds could pay to clean up the bay and found the aquarium and research institute.

Finally, and significantly, the marketability of the keystone species play a role. "Sea otters are furry and cute, while oysters are very, very tasty." I can tell you with certainty there's an "aawwww" factor around here with sea otters that doesn't occur with oysters.


So, no real answers, just some observations.

Sea Life of the Monterey Bay

Oh Seth, you had to ask to learn more about sea life in the region. Today started the biology section of the institute. Little did you know that I'm way over my head in marine biology terms at the moment. Things like the differences between "lottia digitalis" and "siphonaria maura," for example. Or looking at the effects of "Pacific Decadal Oscillation" on pelagic communities. We're working with a holistic biologist** from Stanford, the director of Hopkins Research Station, and a senior scientist from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. Understanding that the majority of teachers aren't science teachers, we got some interesting comparisons such as acrea based on "universality of niche" to Tom Joad's final speech in The Grapes of Wrath, and a line of poetry to the jelly(family) food web.

Here are two creatures from the Monterey Bay that I can almost guarantee will be new to most of you.

The first is the vampyrus (vam-pyro-tooth-us) infernalis. Even though of you without a strong Latin background might notice some similarities to modern English words.



It's a "living fossil." When it's threatened, it assumes a pineapple posture to protect it's mantle by placing its arms in a protective posture. As if that weren't enough, it also squirts bio-luminescent particles from its arm tips that create an enormous and distracting display around itself.



The second was only discovered in 2007, and it was given the name "chetopterus pugaporcinus." You're welcome to translate, but I'll hint that the name is based on the appearance.




In the last 15 years, Humboldt squid have shown up in great numbers from more tropical climates due to rising water temperatures, reduced oxygen in the water, reduced competition, and reduced predation. They're depleting the hake fish population. I don't know if they're considered an invasive species, but the researcher used the word "invasion" to describe what's happened.




It's late, and we need to read The Tragedy of the Commons and several responses for our morning sessions tomorrow. Feel free (except Seth) to skip the next part. It's taken directly from my notes.

When European explorers arrived on the California coast in the 18th century, fish and wildlife were plentiful. Grizzly bears fought on the coast over sea life that washed up on the beaches, and condors ate from the sea as well. Between 1789-1811, 39,173 sea otter pelts were taken. Each pelt could be sold to the Chinese for 30 dollars at a time when 90 dollars bought you a house in San Diego. But, otters play an important role in the ecosystem. They protect sea kelp forests by eating sea urchins and abalone who eat kelp. Because the California waters are cold and sea otters lack blubber, every adult sea otter ate approximately twenty pounds of seafood each day. The kelp forests were devastated. This set a pattern where people hunted animals to extinction, altered the ecosystems, and found new animals to hunt. In order, they hunted otters, whales, seabirds, and abalone. (I'm not including the sardines and canning industry. I could.) Meanwhile, in the early 20th century, Julia Platt, Ph.D., fought against the pollution of the canning industries. She broke glass ceilings all over the world, and she even became mayor of the town of Pacific Grove when she found out she would have the power to create a marine conservation area and wildlife refuge if she did so. Onto the 1930s and sea otters were thought to be extinct. While building the Bixby Bridge on US1, a colony of 30-50 was discovered. Fishermen wanted to shoot them because they ate abalone, but some were moved to Monterey Bay. The otters liked the marine area, and soon the kelp forests began to rebound. With the kelp forests came more fish and with more fish came the seals. The seals brought tourists as well as the interest of Julie Packard (of Hewlett-Packard money) who helped conceive of and fund the Monterey Bay Aquarium. It's one of the best research facilities for aquatics in this country, and it's also increased tourism to the area. (Tourism is now the second largest industry behind agriculture. There's more wildlife viewing than wildlife processing, and maintaining a healthy ocean has become part of the economic model.

*I'm pretty sure this is obvious, but I wanted to make sure people knew that these aren't my photos. :)
**Holistic biology is really interesting. It started for the non-science majors at Stanford because they were overwhelmed by the science focus of the school. It encourages students to examine systems and communities (as Ed Rickett's recommended) as an integrated whole.
***If you want to learn more, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute has an excellent website at http://www.mbari.org/
****I saw my first two sea otters out in the bay this evening. They're just as cute as I expected. It was even better because it was a chance occurrence that I walked out back during the 5 minute break.