Science and Sustainability

welcome to

science and sustainability

low waste living led by facts

recent posts

follow me on instagram

ocean.alanna

Science and Sustainability
• Marine Scientist 🌊
• @umiamirsmas BSc 🙌
• @umassdsmast PhD Student 🎓

Did you know that the average (6kg) load of laundr

Did you know that the average (6kg) load of laundry releases an estimated 700,000 microfibers? These mix in with the wastewater out of our pipes, and eventually end up in our waterways and oceans. Since most of us own synthetic plastic clothing, including acrylic and polyester, these microfibers double as microplastics. Synthetic microfibers are the most common plastic pollutant in some areas, and can be mistakenly consumed by marine life, causing buildups in their gastric systems. For years I have been on the lookout for something to prevent my laundry routine from releasing microfibers into our water systems, and finally came across @planetcare.solutions ! This company produces are super easy to use filter that retains microfibers and prevents them from escaping the filter tube. Here are a few reasons I love this company:
🌊 First of all, Masa and Neza, the women behind the company, are so nice, knowledgeable, and passionate about ending microfiber pollution.
🌊 In independently conducted tests, the PlanetCare Filter caught 90% of microfibers, which is seriously an amazing result.
🌊 Their system is totally circular and this is the only company I’ve found to operate this way! Each filter lasts about 20 washes, and after finishing up with your set of filters, you return them to PlanetCare. They reuse 95% of the filter cartridge, and the remaining 5% is recycled.
🌊 It’s easy to set up, and can be attached to an existing washing machine. No plumber required, you can do this yourself in just a few minutes!
•
So excited to share PlanetCare with you all! This is one company making a huge difference and making it so easy for the rest of us to do our part too 💙

One of the most fun things about going to sea, for

One of the most fun things about going to sea, for me at least, is getting to see all kinds of cool marine life. Sometimes those of us in marine science who don’t work with sharks, mammals, or turtles get a little salty about what we call the charismatic megafauna effect - the more charismatic an organism is, the more public attention they get, funding, things like that. There are a lot of parts to our work that aren’t as well publicized, but I will admit I do enjoy whale watching on the job. Sometimes I get asked what the coolest things I’ve seen at while sea for research are, so here are a few favorites:
• a larval billfish (larval fish can be somewhat translucent at small sizes) that had eaten another larval fish, so we could see the fish in the other fish’s stomach!
• a small pod of orcas in the Gulf of Mexico, honestly before that I had no idea the Gulf of Mexico had orcas.
• I’m no pro at mammal ID so can’t say what kind of dolphins, but once had a pod of probably 20-30 dolphins hang out with us.
• So many schools of squid!
• A seabird (I think a booby) that caught a flying fish MID AIR.
• Saw a group of a few mammals that at the time were identified as Bruce’s whales, but have recently been determined to be an entirely newly defined species, the Rice’s whale.
• River otters swimming in the ocean - sounds weird but it happens!
• A group of juvenile manta rays (this was at a port stop but still counts).

There are tons more and I can’t include everything but those are some of the highlights! Tell me your coolest ocean experience 👇

Say hello to my little friend 🐙 Here’s how I

Say hello to my little friend 🐙 Here’s how I came to acquire this tiny squid on my last cruise. Ships cost a lot of money to be at sea doing research, so we are constantly collecting data and doing operations, even in the middle of the night. When we are doing our night ops, like CTD casts for example, the deck lights are on so we can see what we’re doing. Squid are attracted to the light, so often we get these large assemblages of squid at the surface. It’s really cool to see! But sometimes an extra vigorous squid will jump out of the water, and it will land on the deck. The lights we use at night obviously aren’t comparable to daylight visibility, so most of the time we don’t notice until the next day when the squid is already dead (sad) and dried up. I ended up rehydrating and preserving this one in ethanol. I had some colleagues who actually found a giant squid while at sea, and that specimen is now at the Smithsonian. Mine isn’t quite as awesome as that, but still cool! Do you know any fun facts about squid? .
•
#squid #cephalopod #cephalopods #cephalopodsquad #squids #oceanscience #oceanschool #oceanography #womeninoceanscience #marinebiology #marinebiologylife #invertebratesofinstagram #invertebratezoology #tinysquid #giantsquid #specimenpreservation #fieldworklife #science #researchcruise #ecology #oceanlife

GIVEAWAY!! • So excited to partner with @mypixie

GIVEAWAY!!
•
So excited to partner with @mypixiecup to give away a two size combo pack of their menstrual cups! This is an awesome opportunity for someone who has never used a cup before to try it. What I love about Pixie Cup is that for every cup they sell, they donate one to a person in need. Aside from being super low waste and sustainable, these also save so much money over time. Details on how to enter are:
1. Like this post!
2. Tag someone who needs to see this in the comments. More comment tags = more entries!
3. Follow me @ocean.alanna and @mypixiecup 🙂

More details: This giveaway is not affiliated with instagram. It is only open to people 18+ and in the United States (sorry!). No purchase necessary. Contest will close Saturday, February 13th, 2021 at midnight EST. Winner will be announced the following day!
•
#earthfriendly #goingzerowaste #greenliving #liveeverydaylikeitsearthday #livingconsciously #lowimpactlifestyle #passonplastic #plasticfreeearth #plasticgamechanger #periodcup #pixiecup #mypixiecup #menstrualcup #happyperiods #putacupinit #giveaway #ecofriendly #zerowaste #sustainablelivingtips #yayforearth

Anybody else feel like they could use a big change

Anybody else feel like they could use a big change this year? I hope this is cool with everyone, but I decided to change my handle from greenmarinescientist to ocean.alanna. I initially chose an anonymous handle because I wanted the account to remain anonymous. That didn’t last too long: someone in my graduate program found it, then an old coworker did, then friends from undergrad did, so my cover was blown. After that I ended up including my name in my bio so people could follow along with my science presentations and publications. At this point it just makes more sense to use my name on here - one kind of funny side effect is that I get DM’s from people thinking I’m some kind of organization, or calling me Marina thinking that’s my name. So it’s time to switch! One fun fact about me is that I’m very into houseplants. If we haven’t met please introduce yourself! And even if we have I’d love a fun fact about you or what your favorite sea creature is 🐟
•
#marinebiology #marinebio #womeninoceanscience #womeninacademia #oceanscience #oceanography #greenliving #liveeverydaylikeitsearthday #lifeaquatic #livingconsciously #positiveimpactmovement #sustainability #scicommer #scienceinsta #ecoblogger #lifeinacademia #discoverunder10k #earthfriendly #green2021 #goingzerowaste #oceanchemistry #fisheriesscience #science

When I got back to shore, my mom immediately asked

When I got back to shore, my mom immediately asked if walking on land felt funny after being on a boat for a while. Not really, since the water was pretty calm the whole time, and it’s a big boat. But here are some things that were different or weird when I got back: .
- I was allergic to all my pets again because I hadn’t seen them in 6 weeks (thankfully my body has adjusted to them again) .
- I almost fell 87 times on the stairs in my house because the steps are so short compared to the ones on the boat .
- I’ve been getting a lot of bloody noses I think because it’s so cold and dry here and getting back from a comparatively warm and tropical climate was a pretty drastic shift .
- I now have unlimited internet access and I’ve been obsessively reading the news to make up for everything I missed while I was away .
- I definitely need to drink more water because I was intentionally drinking a lot of water on the ship to stay hydrated and now I haven’t been paying much attention to it .
- I feel like my body still hasn’t quite gotten back to the right time zone, especially because my hours on the boat were weird to begin with .
- It’s so cold here which is gross .
- Cooking! On the boat there’s a cook so we don’t have to worry about that at all, and prior to that in quarantine the hotel took care of our food, so meal planning has been a hard habit to get back into .
.
That’s pretty much it for now, despite some weirdness it’s been nice being home! .
•
#marinebiology #marinebio #shiplife #shorelife #oceanscience #oceanography #onaboat #researchvessel #greenliving #liveeverydaylikeitsearthday #earthdayeveryday #thelifeaquatic #teamzissou #livingconsciously #positiveimpactmovement #sustainability #plasticpollution #scicommer #scientistsofinstagram #scienceinsta #ecoblogger #lifeinacademia #fieldwork

Here are three big reasons we went to sea! One of

Here are three big reasons we went to sea! One of our primary project objectives was to deploy these autonomous sampling floats. There are a number of functions that different floats can perform, but these are unique in that they measure nitrate and nitrite. This is accomplished spectrophotometrically, as nitrate and nitrite can be measured in the UV visible spectra. My responsibility throughout the cruise was to measure various nutrients including nitrate and nitrite colorimetrically so that we could validate the readings from the floats. Ultimately the floats will be a huge factor in mapping the nitrate and nitrite in our regions of interest! .
•
#girlsinoceanscience #womeninoceanscience #graduateschool #marinebiology #marinescience #marinescienceresearch #marinescientist #oceanography #oceanscience #oceansciences #savethefishies #stemeducation #steminist #womenintechnology #womeninresearch #womeninstemfields #womentransformingscience #fieldresearch #researchcruise #floats #remotesensing #autonomousfloat #nitrate #nitrite #biogeochemistry #nitrogencycle

Why did you decide to reduce your environmental fo

Why did you decide to reduce your environmental footprint? The reason I got into plastic free or zero waste or sustainability or whatever buzzwords we wish to use was because on my first trips to sea I was kind of horrified to see trash way out to sea away from land in the Gulf of Mexico. The nice thing about the research community, at least in my experience, is that if there is debris that is spotted, people on the vessels make an effort to remove it. On the cruise I was just on, we pulled in this old shoe and found a fish and two crabs living inside! You’re probably thinking, “Alanna. That’s ridiculous. Fish and crabs live in reefs, not in shoes.” The crazy thing is that this isn’t uncommon! Any object that is floating either surface or somewhere mid water column can act as a Fish Aggregating Device, or FAD. Basically organisms are attracted to objects like this and end up establishing communities around them. This can be dangerous for animals like fish and crabs, which might become stuck, entangled in, or try to eat whatever the object might be. Someone out there probably has no idea their shoe was floating around in the eastern tropical North Pacific Ocean, which highlights why we need better options for closing the loop on products that have reached the end of their useful lifespan.
•
#zerowaste #goingzerowaste #earthfriendly #lowimpactlifestyle #reducewhatyouproduce #livingconsciously #passonplastic #choosetorefuse #sustainableliving #green2021 #greenliving #reduceyourfootprint #sustainablelivingtips #yayforearth #liveeverydaylikeitsearthday #earthdayeveryday #oceanplastic #womeninoceanscience #take3forthesea #5minutebeachcleanup #goingplasticfree #trashtagchallenge #dontlitter #fishaggregatingdevice #fishhabitat #oceanpollution #plasticpollutionkills

Load More... Follow on Instagram