Welcome to the Southern Ocean/November 26

https://newslit.org/

Before you go on, an article in the May 8 & May 22 issue of Science News ran with a cover "Awash in Deception:  How science can help us avoid being duped by misinformation."  In the lead article titled: "The Battle Against Fake News," Alexandra Witze presents five suggestions on how to debunk bad information.  They come from the News Literacy Project (see the above link).

How to Debunk:

1.  Arm yourself with media literacy skills, at sites such as the News Literacy Project (newslit.org), to better understand how to spot hoax videos and stories.

2.  Don't stigmatize people for holding inaccurate beliefs.  Show empathy and respect, or you're more likely to alienate your audience than successfully share accurate information.

3.  Translate complicated but true ideas into simple messages that are easy to grasp.  Videos, graphics and other visual aids can help.

4.  When possible, once you provide a factual alternative to the misinformation, explain the underlying fallacies (such as cherry- picking information, a common tactic of climate change deniers.

5.  Mobilize when you see misinformation being shared on social media as soon as possible. If you see something, say something.

"Misinformation is any information that is incorrect, whether due to error or fake news.  

"Disinformation is deliberately intended to deceive."

"Propaganda is disinformation with a political agenda."

Sander van der Linden
Social Psychologist
University of Cambridge

Source:  Science News/May 8, 2021 & May 22, 2021

The honeymoon is over. After two gloriously calm days on the water, the Southern Ocean showed it’s true colors. No Sun to be seen today and the winds that had been so graciously at our backs coming out of the east, changed direction and now came at us from the Northwest. What that means is two things. Avoid the port side of the ship (unless you want to get very cold and wet) and the northerly aspect of the wind means that the waves are coming from the side and have caused a side-to-side rocking motion which is the stuff that tends to lead to that delightful little condition known as seasickness.

As I sit here writing this at 4:00 p.m., a group of Humpback Whales was spotted on the port side. The viewing isn’t great given the current conditions of the water surface, but I did see a number of spouts among the whitecaps. Speaking of Science, a hardy group of Birders gathered aft for Day 3 of one of the ship’s Citizen Science Projects. The birds don’t seem to mind the miserable (for humans) conditions of three meter seas and 30-40 knot winds. It was actually quite exhilarating and after eating so royally, the experience of being outside in harsh weather working on a service project did my heart good!

There were two more lectures today. One on Glaciation by Conrad Anker and one by Tim Jarvis on the 1911-13 expedition of Sir Douglas Mawson, a journey also recreated by Scott. We are scheduled to pass by two spikes of rock protruding from the Southern Ocean called “The Shag Rocks” within the next hour. We will arrive at South Georgia Island tomorrow morning if all goes to plan. We also had a mandatory all hands on board meeting to learn about South Georgia and to prepare our outer wear by cleaning off any unwanted biological matter that could potentially get introduced to the island. I was called a “Vacuum Party.” We also got an introduction to riding on a Zodiac including how to dress for it and how to get in and out of one.

Oh, and by the way, the entire ship’s human population tested Negative for COVID so today the bright spot has been that we won’t have to wear masks again on this voyage unless a Positive pops up in our final test as required for our visit to South Georgia.

That is a Positive! The Polar Latitudes Staff is a positive, the ship’s crew are a positive, the people I have met are a positive and the Lecturers have been a positive. Whether or not we get to see a full solar eclipse on December 3 is still an unknown. But the word of the day is Positive…or was it Negative? Or was it both?