Dude, Where's My Phyloplankton?

This is normally an apolitical blog, but since President Bush has ruled out any Kyoto-style deal on climate change at the G8 summit, you'll allow me a little soapbox rant.

Marine phyloplankton comprise a quarter of the world's vegetation, and chlorophyll (a biomass indicator of these plants) is the most frequent measured biochemical parameter in aquatic science (and is therefore the key metric in a world concerned about climate change).

More importantly, it's all I (and several billion other shrimp) have to eat.

This left Dave (who was visiting for the weekend) and myself feeling rather depressed, so I fired up the DVD player and gave him his birthday present a week early. 92 gut-munching minutes later, and the multiple perturbations on phyloplankton communities seemed less important, somehow.

Cannibal Rollerbabes

Apologies for my absence from the blogosphere, but I've only recently returned from visiting a cousin of mine, Lysmata amboinensis. I must have put on at least a couple of grams as it's a real plankton-fest throughout the Indo-Pacific Basin!

Although on vacation, talk inevitably turned to the reproductive characteristics of Lysmata Hippolytidae, which I suspect are hermaphroditic. Disappointingly, my cousin said he "didn't mind what they did in the privacy of their own coral, provided it was between consenting Hippolytidae". I suspect he reads The Daily Shrimp.

However, I was delighted to discover that we share an interest in anthropological film making, so we watched Kalman Szegvary's little known contribution to the genre.