Comment on Environmentally, you’ve got to hand it to Sauron by Meg

I don’t know you at all but wow I loved this post so much. Hilarious.

Environmentally, you’ve got to hand it to Sauron

And now for something completely non clam-related…a speculative essay about LOTR as an environmental allegory, drawing on my posts to social media last week that clearly struck a nerve. I’m the first to admit that Sauron’s rule of Mordor was highly problematic. But frankly, I think those concerns, focusing largely on his foreign policy, have …

Continue reading Environmentally, you’ve got to hand it to Sauron

Comment on The Biodiversity Collections Crisis by llewelly

@dantheclamman.blog there are lot of rich and powerful people, who did much cause and exacerbate most of the current ecological crises, and they want to destroy the evidence of what they've done.

The Biodiversity Collections Crisis

You might be familiar with the concept of the present “biodiversity crisis“. There is an increasing consensus in the ecological research community that the current loss of species this planet is experiencing is not sustainable, in the sense that the loss of some species may precipitate the loss of more, in an accelerating spiral. The …

Continue reading The Biodiversity Collections Crisis

Comment on Thoughts of a clam by Why eating clams sometimes makes us sick – Clamsplaining

[…] am often asked if I eat clams. The answer is yes: while I love to observe live clams and appreciate their abilities, I will eat a good clam chowder or plate of grilled scallops if presented with the chance. While […]

Comment on Research Explainer: How giant clams record their diet in their shells by Dan Killam

You can click through the link at the bottom to read in a traditional web page format!

Comment on Research Explainer: Comparing the daily shell diaries of giant clams and scallops by Research Explainer: How giant clams record their diet ...

[…] to measure the temperatures they grow at, compare the growth of ancient and modern clams, and even look at how much the clams grow in a day! Today though, I’m talking about my most recent paper, which looks at how we can use the […]

Comment on Research Explainer: How I learned to stop worrying and trust the clams by Research Explainer: How giant clams record their diet in their sh...

[…] chemistry of the growth lines of giant clams to measure the temperatures they grow at, compare the growth of ancient and modern clams, and even look at how much the clams grow in a day! Today though, I’m talking about my most […]

Comment on Research Explainer: The chemistry across a “forest” of giant clams by Research Explainer: How giant clams record their diet in their shells...

[…] of my past work has looked at using chemistry of the growth lines of giant clams to measure the temperatures they grow at, compare the growth of ancient and modern clams, and even look at how much the clams grow in a day! […]

Comment on Oh, the seasons they grow! [research blog] by Research Explainer: How giant clams record their diet in their shells – Clamsplaining

[…] can serve as a diary of their lives. Some of my past work has looked at using chemistry of the growth lines of giant clams to measure the temperatures they grow at, compare the growth of ancient and modern […]

Research Explainer: How giant clams record their diet in their shells

You are what you eat, and clams are too. We’re made of atoms, which come in “flavors” called isotopes, relating back to the mass of the atoms themselves (how many protons and neutrons they have). Nitrogen, for example, comes in two stable (non-radioactive) forms called nitrogen-14 and nitrogen-15. Much like scientists can track the composition …

Continue reading Research Explainer: How giant clams record their diet in their shells

Comment on You are isotopes (Part I) by Research Explainer: How giant clams record their diet in their shells – Clamsplaining

[…] you eat, and clams are too. We’re made of atoms, which come in “flavors” called isotopes, relating back to the mass of the atoms themselves (how many protons and neutrons they have). […]

Comment on A hinged shell does not a clam make (QUIZ) by Gerard

Loved reading this thankk you

This blog is now followable on Mastodon!

If you use Mastodon (or another Fediverse service), you can now follow this blog from there. As you might know, Mastodon is one of my favorite places to communicate science, so this is a cool feature for me! You can follow me by searching “@dantheclamman.blog@dantheclamman.blog” from your Mastodon page. Or maybe you’re already viewing this …

Continue reading This blog is now followable on Mastodon!

Research Explainer: Comparing the daily shell diaries of giant clams and scallops

In 2020, I got an interesting email in my inbox from another mollusk researcher! Niels de Winter had emailed me, who I was familiar with from his past work on big Cretaceous rudist bivalves and giant snails. Niels had seen my paper published that year on giant clam shell isotopes from the Gulf of Aqaba …

Continue reading Research Explainer: Comparing the daily shell diaries of giant clams and scallops

What cyborg clams can teach us about the ocean

Every clam is a door into the sea. If the “door” of its shell is open, the clam may be happily breathing, or eating, or doing other weirder things. If the door is closed, it may be hiding from a predator, or preventing itself from drying out at low tide, or protecting itself from some …

Continue reading What cyborg clams can teach us about the ocean

An open letter to Stephen Colbert from a clam expert

Recently, a bit of an amusing clamfuffel arose when the Gulf Specimen Marine Lab, a research institute in Florida, began posting about a supposedly 214-year-old clam they named “Abraclam Lincoln”, in honor of potentially sharing a birth year with Honest Abe. The story went viral, and while some of their clammy claims turned out to …

Continue reading An open letter to Stephen Colbert from a clam expert

Why I like scicomm on Mastodon!

Over the last couple weeks, I’ve seen hundreds of academics, nerds and everyday people I know open new accounts on Mastodon, in a phenomenon that has been called the great #TwitterMigration. Mastodon is an open-source microblogging platform similar in format to Twitter, but running on thousands of servers interconnected with each other in an open …

Continue reading Why I like scicomm on Mastodon!

A coral, a worm and some clams walk into a bar…

The tree of life is often portrayed as a neatly branching structure, with each division point cleanly delineated and separated from its neighbors. The truth is that the various twigs of the tree of life often overlap and become tangled in a process we call symbiosis. I’ve talked about symbiosis before on this blog, which …

Continue reading A coral, a worm and some clams walk into a bar…

New job! Where I’m going and how I got here

Well folks, it finally happened. I found a permanent scientific job. On January 31st, I’ll be starting as an Environmental Scientist at the San Francisco Estuary Institute (SFEI), working on the Nutrient Management Strategy (NMS) program. NMS is a group trying to understand how nutrient supply in the San Francisco Bay works. The SF Bay …

Continue reading New job! Where I’m going and how I got here