8 Antidotes to the Stupidity of “Shark Week”

This year , Discovery Channel promises Shark Week will feature fewer fake documentary and more genuine skill . But with shows like“Return of the Great White Serial Killer”on the agenda , it ’s percipient Discovery still has a lot to learn . For critically disposed viewer , here are eight alternatives to those episodes of Shark Week still taint by pseudoscience and reverence - mongering .

8) LWON’s “Snark Week”

Since 2013 , the writers at the always - splendid science blog The Last Word on Nothing have devote one workweek per twelvemonth to rescuing Shark Week from the shark , with a little something they call “ Snark Week ” :

Every twelvemonth , the Discovery Channel drop a hebdomad reminding us how dreadful sharks around the world can be . It ’s a week of half - truth , embellishment , and occasional outright fable . But military personnel , it ’s practiced TV .

But what about all the brute that are n’t sharks ? Do n’t they want to wipe out us too ? In fact , yes , they do . Pretty much all of them . And thanks to the hard working diarist at LWON , you will learn about five such dreaded beast this week . Are they authentically dangerous ? Sure , why not ? Are they interesting ? Absolutely . Are they terrifying ? Well , they are now .

The first animal on this hebdomad ’s agenda ? The duck - billed platypus — an on the face of it adorable puppet with a venomous closed book . ( It ’s poison . The secret is poison . ) See alsoprevious years ’ Snark Week entry .

7) Cow Week

In a similar vein as Snark Week . “ Cow Week ” was a serial created by BoingBoing ’s erstwhile science editor , Maggie Koerth - Baker , who called it “ a tongue - in - cheek look at risk analysis and why we fear the things we fear . It is inspired by the Discovery Channel ’s Shark Week , the popularity of which is for the most part driven by the public ’s fascination with and fear of shark . Turns out , cows obliterate more citizenry every year than sharks do . ” ( It ’s genuine . )

Each installing in the four - part series , which originally tend in 2012 , focuses on a cow - related death , and includes “ information about the gravid movie ” plus tons of links to helpful resourcefulness , like Popular Mechanics’cow onslaught selection guide .

6) JacquesWeek

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCUl9v1YQuE

Deep - ocean biologist Andrew David Thaler call in JacquesWeek “ an choice to Shark Week for those who either do n’t get the Discovery Channel or just want something different . ” The gist is round-eyed : Every night this week , Thaler will be watch out 2 - 3 classical documentaries featuring fabled sea IE Jacques Cousteau , andleading live give-and-take on Twitter with the hashtag # JacquesWeek .

I ’ll be honest , I ’m glow out on Shark Week . After several twelvemonth of intense livetweeting , post - show debunking , and high - level review article … I encounter that I just do n’t have much more to say . Some show will be dear . Some display will be great . Some show will be forged .

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Jacques Cousteau has never rent me down . certainly , sometimes the science is off ( pretty much everything in unreasoning Prophets of Easter Island is incorrect , for example ) , but that ’s because the Calypso crew was working at the bound of human noesis , and their work come off dear , heartfelt , and compassionate . And so full of marvel . Much of what Cousteau ’s team did was done for the very first fourth dimension .

You ’ll retrieve the full # JacquesWeek agenda over at Southern Fried Science . Many of the documentaries have been sourced from stream services ( Tuesday ’s double characteristic includesWorld Without Sun , andThe Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau : Mysteries of the Hidden Reef , both uncommitted via YouTube ) . Those that be on DVD only ( Jacques Cousteau ’s River Explorations , The Complete Odyssey , andPacific Explorations ) have been pushed to the remainder of the workweek , to give anyone interested in watching a chance to order them online , though Thaler sound out he ’s “ ensured that there ’s at least one freely - useable Graeco-Roman Cousteau motion-picture show each night , so that everyone who want to can enter . ”

5) Great White Shark Dissection

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKwstv3S94I

In this 2012 episode of the striking scientific discipline series Inside Nature ’s Giants , veterinary surgeon Mark Evans and a squad of expert travel to South Africa to dissect a 15 - foot - long dandy white shark . leave off the ominous soundtrack and striking prefatorial voiceover , the short documentary provides a rarified and familiar look at the anatomy , conduct , and evolution of this powerful sea predator .

4) Giant Skate Dissection

There ’s more to shark week than great white sharks ! There are upwards of 400 unlike species of sharks ( meet some of them here , in this fantabulous episode ofThe Brain Scoop ) , and even more if you include rays , skate , and sawfish , to which shark are closely touch . All of these animals belong to the subclass of cartilaginous fishes known as elasmobranchs . The picture above have an impromptu dissection of a Raja binoculata , the world ’s enceinte metal money of skate , which marine biologist Chris Harvey - Clark mention to as a “ step - on shark , ” for reasons that should be obvious .

Elasmobranchs are delightfully weird animals , not just physiologically — did you notice that the skate in the video above has reversible jaws?—but genetically . In 2011 , researchers attain that members of elsmobranchii are the only make out jawed vertebrate on Earth that are missing a portion of their genome known asthe HoxC cistron cluster — a tremendously authoritative surgical incision of hereditary codification that was once remember to be indispensable .

https://gizmodo.com/this-alien-looking-fish-just-rewrote-the-book-on-develo-5867515

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3) What if There Were No Sharks?

Joe Hanson of It ’s Okay to be Smart looks at what could encounter if the hundreds of metal money of shark were to vanish from the world ’s Ethel Waters . A skilful mix of ecology and preservation science .

2) Jonathan Bird’s Blue World: Sharks

Jonathan Bird ’s Blue World is a fantastic marine biology documentary series created by PBS and YouTube . The communication channel boast more than 20 gripping sequence on sharks and shark biology . Really , really good stuff .

1) Marine Biologist David Shiffman

David Shiffman is a marine biologist and scientific discipline educator who studies shark ecology and preservation . You may have get a line him on Twitter under the handle@WhySharksMatter , onthe marine biological science blog Southern Fried Science , orhere on io9 , recommend for sharks and addressing their misrepresentation in the medium .

For the past four twelvemonth , Shiffman has used Twitter as a platform to fact - chip and comment on Shark Week episodes as they send , and his criticisms of Shark Week ( which he recently condensed into a cogent post forVox ) , have beeninstrumental in convincing Discovery Channel to spend more of its yearly serial publication focused on science and conservationinstead of pseudoscience and fearfulness . He even give up off this yr ’s series witha helpful leaning of ways to assure if Shark Week has really better . It ’s no surprise , then , that Shiffman has become a sort of unofficial ombudsman to Shark Week .

get hold of the source at[email protected]and@rtg0nzalez . Top image viaRob Lowe ’s 2014 Shark Week Promo . Cow exposure credit : Liam Moloney| CC BY - SA 2.0 .

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