Challenger Society's blog

If you have eaten an oyster in a seafood restaurant in the UK, it’s likely that it was a Pacific rock oyster (Crassostrea gigas), introduced to our waters from the Pacific. Pacific oysters are commonly farmed and offered on sale in the UK, as they are thought to be easier to cultivate and able to … More The Native Oyster Network – Restoring a forgotten ecosystem

Fishing and aquaculture provide over 17% of the world’s protein, with demand increasing at a faster rate than human population growth each year1. Fishing is the only remaining large scale hunting of wild animals, yet is lacking sufficient management practices to maintain sustainable fish stocks for the ever growing global populations into the future. Each … More Fish Forensics – Do you know where your fish comes from?

Artificial Intelligence – in 2019 the phrase is practically inescapable. From self-driving cars to AI-enabled smartphones; expert game-playing computers to AI weapons, there has been an explosion in the performance and applicability of machine learning techniques for a seemingly endless variety of tasks. Led by the likes of Amazon, Google, Apple and Samsung, companies around … More AI Oceanography – The ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ Comes to Marine Science

The Arctic is warming rapidly, up to twice as fast as the global average1. Hopefully I do not have to go into the specifics of what changes this might incur, both regionally and globally, as they will be both broad and far reaching2. But the issue in the Arctic is that this system is so … More A fishy tale from the changing Arctic Ocean

With the annual discharge of meltwater and ice increasing from the Greenland Ice Sheet in response to anthropogenic climate change, there is an obvious need to assess how this cold freshwater will affect the ocean both in terms of physics, but also biology and chemistry. The potential impact of increasing discharge upon the marine food … More Bridging physics and biogeochemistry: how will increased freshwater from Greenland affect the ocean?

Marine bivalves (shelled animals such as mussels or clams) provide a fascinating insight into the marine realm over the most recent centuries and millennia. Their annual growth bands, like tree rings, can be used to accurately work out the age of the shell and when it lived. Chemistry of the shells, through the oxygen and … More Using the longest lived animal known to science to learn about Atlantic climate and improve climate predictions

So you finished writing that long thesis, got it bound and submitted, congratulations! That’s it right? Well, not really. Definitely a reason to celebrate (believe me, I did), but you still have the oral exam, or viva to go. What is the viva? It is latin for viva voce (means ‘live voice’ – thanks google) … More Tips for viva

I’m at sea on the RRS James Cook for Christmas, New Year and January with a great team of scientists from Liverpool, Southampton and all over the world. Malcolm Woodward is on board and this is a great opportunity to capture his career story while we spend 42 days at sea and to find out … More Malcolm Woodward: Pushing the Boundaries of Measurements at Sea

As we approach the Azores it is time to update the Challenger Society on our progress on the FRidge cruise (@Fridge_GA13).  We have a whole host of old and new Challenger members on board the RRS James Cook including Honorary Life Member Malcolm Woodward who you will hear from later this month. We are sailing … More Challenger Society at sea: A message from the President