Marine Jobs - Dr Gary Poore - Senior Curator - Crustacia, Museum Victoria.

Anth and Bron set sail on a cold and grotty morning for the land of salty radio. The weather forecast was so bad, that we have asked Bron to send it back as not being up to standard.

In slow moving news - A boat sank off Bermagui, and washed up on 90 mile beach in New Zealand seven months later....

Every wanted to stare down a microscope at body parts and hairs ? The job is to document and preserve 150 years of samples, as part of the whole invertebrate range.

Gary started in abalone in an attempt to lock himself into a lucrative career, but on missing the only job on offer in the area in the late 1960s, switched to the cute crustacea.

While we all think of lobsters and crabs when we hear the word 'crustacean', the vast majority of species are less than 1 cm long. And while we may think it is boring and not important, the young of the commercially important King George Whiting will only eat selected species that may only differ by the number of hairs on their legs!

Gary hates the paperwork of having write the discoveries up, and loves the diversity of his marine job and the new discoveries it brings, both by himself and his students....Gary has about a dozen organisms named after him...

William Dampier didn't just have a peninsular in WA named after him - he as a Pirate (Buccaneer), author, hydrographer and evolutionary biologist.

Diana's interest was stirred by a painting of him in London - the oil painting in a national gallery that called him a pirate and hydrographer - most other pirates were just hung.

He went around the globe 3 times, backpacked in Vietnam, talked to French Priests in Latin, was quoted by Charles Darwin in the development of his theory of evolution.

There are over 1000 words in the Oxford dictionary that are credited to Dampier, and the man's writing has influenced many of the leading lights of the day.

A Pirate of Exquisite Mind- The life of William Dampier: Explorer, Naturalist and Buccaneer, by Diana and Michael Preston (Doubleday books)

Anth gave it 4 seastars out of 5.

These plants grow to 30 m high - There have been large changes in the area that the kelp forests occupy. The distribution was charted in the 1800's as it was seen as a navigational hazard to sailing ships. It even has its own symbol, and the earliest chart seen was 1802.

Since WWII, aerial photography has been used as the tool of choice, and between then and now the lost as been large.

The loss appears to be due to fishing, removing the preditors (herbivores) that lead to greater pressure on the kelp. The kelp are targeted by urchins, which are capable of pulling down the kelp forests.

This is a classic example of where the effect of the change made by man are not immediately seen at the next step in the food chain, but pop up several links later in the web.

For more information, or to find out about kelpwatch, head to the website.

"I'd rather dance with you"

" Undone"

" La angulia"

Kings of Convenience

Sodastream

Truco and Zapekco

Global warming is not happening fast enough. If you want to dive, so somewhere deep in the Bay to avoid the surge. You have to be mad or very very keen to dive today (your call as to which category Brett fits into)