This 12-page piece was assigned during a Marine Vertebrates course at Shoals Marine Laboratory in the summer of 2007 - shortly after my nineteenth birthday. The assignment was to explore our personal interest in the study of marine biology, and to address current topics in marine conservation. Drawing on lectures from biologists and aquaculturists, as well as information from the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment and the 2003 Pew Oceans Commission Report, I discussed biodiversity in the Gulf of Maine and its importance to both fishermen and scientists.

Excerpts:

"I grew up in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in an ancient house so familiar with the Piscataqua River that it had a distressing tendency to show up in the cellar and garden, leaving mussel shells in the driveway and seaglass on the pebbled beach."

"The tantalizing hauls produced by the scallop reserves are very attractive, but they are not proof that the sacrifice will pay off. Fishermen will have to give up the big fish they have now for the vague promise of more, bigger fish in the future. It’s a difficult choice for them to make, and the decision cannot be made without their endorsement. Scientists cannot take the sea from the fishermen, even if it is ‘for their own good.’"

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I wrote this essay for an Ecology and Philosophy class in the spring of 2007. The assignment was to discuss the ethical and moral implications of a current scientific topic, using several philosophical approaches. I argued that while 'deep ecologists' and anthropocentrists find genetic engineering to be unethical, their own motives in denouncing it are questionable and based on flawed reasoning. Although some of my ideas have changed since I was 18, the essay brings up some interesting points about genetic engineering, including the excerpt below.

Excerpts:

"Deliberate human engineering made dogs out of wolves and turned weeds into rich corn and rice millennia before science was considered a legitimate way to make a living; for better or worse, genetic engineering made the very concept of ‘making a living’ possible. Anywhere humans farm, anywhere we keep dogs or graze cows or pick fruit or choose mates, we engage in deliberate genetic selection, with comparatively little thought given to the ethicality of it all. Is that attitude still morally relevant?"

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The short, powerful legs of Stagnohippus allow it short bursts of speed in land and water, but it is helpless in the face of the fast terrestrial predators that Parahippus has evolved to run from. Just as leafy plants cannot compete with fast-growing grass, Stagnohippus cannot compete with its new cousin, nor can it flee from its attendant predators; a new evolutionary strategy is called for. There are still plenty of soft, leafy plants that Stagnohippus can chew… if it can begin to forage for aquatic plants. And what better way to escape from fast terrestrial predators than to slip into water?

This research paper on the evolution of Pelagicaballus devius , the marine horse, is part of the fictional species assignment that later became my research presentation, "Survival of the Fantastic: the Evolution of Pelagicaballus devius and Creative Integration in the Life Sciences."