MPS Alum Publishes Book About His Journey to Israel

Posted on February 11, 2013 by RSMAS

Born in Cooper City, Florida, I have had a passion for science, nature, and the environment since I was a child. I grew up watching the Discovery Channel and Animal Planet, and give credit to shows like “Wild Discovery,“ “Blue Planet,” and “Walking with Dinosaurs” for instilling in me an intense appreciation for nature. As I grew older, I began to study biology and soon became hooked.

As I studied marine affairs at UM from 2008 to 2012, I incorporated my love of science with my intense desire to help others. I was active in many student groups, including the student newspaper and a philanthropic organization, Random Acts of Kindness. I also honed my desire to express myself through artwork and writing, and have used science as a subject for many of my articles and paintings. My experience in nonprofit work landed me a position on the constituency board for the Center for Autism and Related Disabilities at UM.

After graduating with my Bachelors of Arts, I started a blog called “The Written Blit” that showcases my artwork, my experiences, and my writings. I compiled my experiences and blog posts into my first book, “From the Blogosphere: Philosophy from My College Years.” A blend of introspective poems and philosophical essays, the book was my first epiphany. It is a coming-of-age piece that follows me as I try to make sense of myself and the world around me.

From May to December 2012, I worked for RSMAS’s Graduate Studies Office, which was my first true experience at RSMAS. I scanned, sorted, and copied files from the comfort of my own desk. As I did, I quickly bonded with my colleagues and supervisors. I fondly remember those days with the GSO team who profoundly enriched my life with their extraordinary work ethic, their interesting stories, and hilarious witticisms.

In August 2012, I lead RSMAS’ Fall orientation. This was a valuable experience that allowed me to connect with incoming graduate students. Because I was a new graduate student myself, I was able to establish a niche in the RSMAS community. Because I had spent my undergraduate period at the U, I was also able to give the incoming students advice about life in Miami.

Fall semester was a blur because I heavily invested myself in University activities. While I attended MPS events and worked for GSO, I actively participated in the Jewish community (such as Hillel and the Judaic Studies Center). At the same time, I pushed my writing to new levels through “The Written Blit.”

In December 2012, I traveled to Israel for the first time. When I returned in January 2013, I wrote and self-published my second book. “Birthright 2012: A Voyage into the Heart and Soul of Israel” follows my physical and spiritual journey in the Land of Milk and Honey. It is my second epiphany, the culmination of my search for identity. “Birthright 2012” combines personal anecdotes with science, history, and poetry, yet reads like a journal.

As I begin my second semester at RSMAS, I continuously strive to help others find themselves in our increasingly complicated world. I firmly believe that individuals have the power to change their circumstances for the better. I will use my experiences and my MPS degree to make that belief a concrete reality.

By: Andrew Biltman, MPS in Marine Conservation Alumnus

Student Assists with Rescue of Stranded Pilot Whales

Posted on January 28, 2013 by RSMAS

On September 1, 2012, the Marine Mammal Conservancy (MMC) provided me with a rare and unforgettable opportunity to assist with the rescue of stranded short-finned pilot whales. Earlier that day, a pod of 22 pilot whales beached themselves at Avalon State Park in Ft. Pierce, Florida. MMC rushed to the scene to assist with the mass stranding after receiving a call from Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute (HBOI).

I arrived on the beach later that afternoon and was directed to help transport the whales using a unique dolphin and whale stretcher. We moved the first of five juvenile pilot whales off the beach to a rescue truck destined for the nearby critical care facility at HBOI.

Following in my truck, I arrived at the facility to witness veterinarians and experienced staff members wading with the whales in a shallow pool at the center of the facility. At this stage, the animals had already been weighed, tagged, and provided antibiotics to fight infection. While absorbing the experience from the side of the pool, the director of the Marine Mammal Research and Conservation Program (MMRC) Steve McCulloch called me into the water. I was shocked at the offer and couldn’t refuse. He gave me a brief crash course in animal rehabilitation and subsequently placed one of the orphaned whales in my care once he was confident in my abilities. I slowly introduced the wild whale (technically adolphin considering its taxonomic classification in the Family Delphinidae) to its new enclosure, while making occasional eye contact and lightly gripping its pectoral fin, hoping to provide a sense of reassurance and commonality.

I spent hours assisting the orphaned whales in the pool, never losing sight of the momentous opportunity I was provided to play an active role in some of the most humble interactions between marine mammals and human beings. As day turned to night, everyone was called out of the water. It was time to see if the animals were stable enough to swim by themselves. To the relief of all, they managed to stay afloat, bringing their blowholes above the surface of the water to breathe periodically. Although extremely weak from their ordeal, they maintained a loose group and set a slow pace around the perimeter of the pool.

Elated by this small victory, I picked up a clipboard and spent the first night collecting critical data on respiration rates for the veterinarians and rehabilitation experts. The information was crucial to the rehabilitation effort, because it served as a baseline for evaluating the overall health of the animals in our care and also acted as an early warning sign should the animals’ condition start to deteriorate.

I spent the next two days assisting HBOI in various tasks, all focused on saving the lives of the whales in our care. These tasks included transporting supplies, sanitizing equipment, maintaining facilities, learning how to prepare diets, and training incoming volunteers to identify the animals and collect data. I also had the privilege to assist in tube feeding the whales. “Tubing” involved making special whale “milkshakes” and pouring the mixture down a tube into their stomachs. This procedure was necessary to ensure the hydration and proper nutrition of the whales, since they had likely never been asked to consume dead fish, much less accept hand feeding. Take it from my experience, there’s nothing natural about sticking your hand into a wild animal’s mouth, past rows of sharp teeth, but the process was critical to their survival.

Although there was no shortage of learning experiences during my stay at HBOI, learning to put my feelings on hold was perhaps the most helpful. A stranding is no time to allow emotions to get the best of your judgment and professionalism. Keeping this in mind, I was able to effectively absorb and retain information, complete all tasks with equal motivation, and take a measured approach to an emergency.

It was a sincere privilege to work with the remarkably selfless group of animal experts and volunteers of MMC, HBOI, and other rescue groups in what became an inspiring and life-changing event. Together, we saved the lives of the pilot whales in our care, and thereby created an everlasting bond between animals and the human beings that reached out to help them in a selfless act of dedication.

By: Ethan Kleinschmidt, MPS Graduate Student

Masters of Professional Science: Marine Mammal Science
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RSMAS Professor Lisa Beal Visits Cape Town School

Posted on January 10, 2013 by RSMAS

RSMAS Professor Lisa Beal was in Cape Town, South Africa in Oct. 2012 for the AGU Chapman Conference on the Greater Agulhas System. The conference was the first of its kind on the African continent and the first conference wholly dedicated to the Agulhas System, which has recently been suggested to play an important role in global climate change (Beal et al., Nature, 2011).

While in Cape Town, she and NOAA scientist Dr. Meghan Cronin visited a science class at the Sophumelela Secondary School to talk about oceans role in the climate system and the Agulhas current that helps shape the regional climate in South Africa.

The Agulhas Current flows as a fast and narrow stream along the east coast of South Africa and is the western boundary current of the south Indian Ocean subtropical gyre. The Greater Agulhas System comprises the sources and influences of the Agulhas current, including its leakage of Indian Ocean waters into the Atlantic south of Africa.

The Chapman Conference was highly multi-disciplinary, including research into the fisheries and ecosystems, coupled ocean-atmosphere processes, water masses and dynamics, and past and future states – through paleoceanography and modeling – of the Greater Agulhas System.

Dr. Beal was one of four lead conveners of the conference, along with Will de Ruijter from University of Utrecht in the Netherlands, Arne Biastoch from GEOMAR Kiel in Germany, and Rainer Zahn from University of Barcelona in Spain.

Click here to read more about Dr. Beal’s research on the Agulhas current.

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The disappearing of the largest lake in the Middle East

Posted on December 19, 2012 by RSMAS

The world’s third largest hypersaline lake, Urmia Lake is located 1267 meters above sea level in a closed continental drainage basin in northwestern Iran. The lake and its associated wetlands are home to 27 species of mammals, including the endangered Mesopotamian Fallow Deer, 212 species of birds, 41 reptiles and 7 amphibians. High levels of salinity – 200 ppt, which is 5.5 times more than average seawater – limits the fauna and flora that can survive within the lake. The most dominant flora is a green algae and the only marine zooplankton is a unique brine shrimp; Artemia urmiana, which plays a key role in the lake’s food chain, in particular as the primary source of food for migratory birds such as flamingos.

Although the unique and fragile environment of Urmia Lake is protected under the United Nations Ramsar Convention and registered as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve location, the lake and its surrounding wetlands have been subject to extensive disturbances since the early 1980s. One of the main developments that severely impacted the lake’s environment was construction of the dyke-type “Kalantari” highway to connect two major cities across the lake. As a consequence, natural water circulation, sedimentation pattern and evaporation rates have been significantly altered and high levels of heavy metal contaminants have been introduced to the lake environment.

Our study of the elemental distribution patterns in the lake’s sediments reveals high mercury contamination near the Kalantari highway. Moderate mercury contamination is also detected in the main rivers that supply water to the lake, indicating progressive human development in the Lake’s catchment basins. Another major anthropogenic disturbance comes from excessive damming on the Urmia Lake’s tributaries and poor water management in their watershed areas. As a result, the lake’s water level has dropped by as much as 9 meters over the last two decades. The lake has also been losing water to enhanced evaporation in its southern “sub-basin” due to construction of the Kalantari highway.

Covering an area of 5000 km², Urmia Lake is one of the largest bodies of water in west Asia and plays a crucial role in conditioning regional climate. Rapid shrinkage of the lake not only changes climate conditions in northwest Iran, but it also has a transboundary climatic effect on the neighboring countries such as Turkey, Azerbaijan and Armenia. Decreasing the lake’s surface area leads to expansion of salt planes with high albedo and affects the thermal balance of the atmosphere above the lake. Freshly exposed salt planes become new point-sources of toxic slat aerosols into the atmosphere, and can cause serious agricultural and health complications across the region. While enhanced global climate change cannot be ruled out as a contributor to higher evaporation rates at Lake Urmia, it is clear that anthropogenic sources have played a far more significant role in the graduate demise of the largest continental lake in the Middle East. The fate of Lake Urmia and the demand for saving it has increased tension between people and state authorities in a way that an environmental disaster has turned into a national security concern (“The Guardian” September 5, 2011).

Another important aspect of our research is the study of abrupt climate change in the history of the Lake Urmia. Long-term climate data can be used to assess the natural trends in regional climate and their effect on the lake’s water and sedimentary regime. During September of 2012, in collaboration with the Iranian National Institute for Oceanography, we conducted a field campaign in Urmia National Park and collected more than 20 meters of split cores from different locations around the Lake. The preliminary results of our study has revealed possible abrupt variations in past climate condition of the region, but the severity of such variability and its impact on Lake Urmia is the subject of our ongoing investigation.

By: Assistant Professor Ali Pourmand and graduate student Arash Sharifi of the Division of Marine Geology and Geophysics at RSMAS

RSMAS Undergrad Gets Involved – Takes Full Advantage of Time at Univ. of Miami

Posted on February 17, 2012 by RSMAS

Hi my name is Ian Chambers and I am a senior undergraduate marine science & biology major here at “The U!” Some of you may know me from Rho Rho Rho, or attending UMiami sporting events, or maybe just seeing me around campus. But what a lot of undergrads don’t realize is that I had the opportunity to be involved with many different things out at RSMAS in my 4 years.

I currently am working on an independent study in Dr. Michael Schmale’s lab, and my main objective is to characterize all the different cell lines that have been immortalized. Dr. Schmale’s lab is working to determine mechanisms responsible for the transformation of health cells to cancerous transmissible tumors in fish.

My research involves the use of fluorescent dyes on these tumor cell cultures, and imaging their DNA and mitochondria. I am keying in on differences of cells in order to describe and quantify the cancer lines. Above is one of my fluorescent images I’ve been working on, with the nuclei dyed green and mitochondria red.

Ian Chambers
Senior, Marine Science & Biology
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UGalapagos Update: More Photos of Spring Semester 2012

Posted on February 15, 2012 by RSMAS

Courtesy of University of Miami marine biology undergrad Sarah Miller, we have a second look (Click here for first look) into the UGalapagos Spring 2012 semester. These amazing photos make me want to book a one way ticket to the Galapagos ASAP!