As if the sheer joy of eating them wasn’t enough reason to redouble efforts to save our lobster populations, scientists have discovered that a chemical in lobster (and crabs and shrimp) shells may be able to accelerate the healing of human wounds.

This contribution from the bottom-dwelling creatures of inner space will soon be tested in outer space, in the form of experiments to be flown on the next Space Shuttle launch, currently scheduled for an 11-day mission to the International Space Station beginning August 7.

The scientists involved in these experiments are looking at ways to treat injuries on long-duration space missions. Earlier research on astronauts has shown that humans in space suffer a diminished immune system response and consequent slow-healing of wounds and injuries.

Scientists from Harvey Mudd College (HMC) in California and the University of Louisville are collaborating with bioengineering and biomaterials company BioSTAR West. This effort is directed and led by Hawaii Chitopure Inc., a Honolulu based biomaterials company specializing in the U.S. manufacture of ultra-pure chitosan, a polymer developed from the shells of crustaceans, such as lobsters, crabs, and shrimp. The team has developed experiments using chitosan, which has recently gained approval in the U.S. for use in bandages and other hemostatic agents.

HMC Professor of Chemistry Shenda Baker says, “These experiments will study the effects of microgravity on wound repair and the ability of chitosan-based materials to accelerate the wound healing process, reduce infection and ultimately reduce wound scarring.”

For years, scientists have known that there were likely to be huge contributions to human medical knowledge from the study of the ocean’s massively diverse life forms. This contribution by one of the uglier denizens of the deep should spur us to accelerate our understanding of all life in inner space.

Copyright © 2007 Thomas M. Tripp

Yesterday was one of those increasingly rare days in my life when I get both of my daughters to myself for a whole day and we get to spend it on the water. Allie and Emily gave me a fishing charter day for Father’s Day and we decided to hire a captain I’ve just finished writing about for a regional boating magazine; Capt. Barb Fusco, of Mt. Sinai, NY.

Capt. Barb is also pretty rare. She is one of the very few female charter captains in the area and she has developed, in three short years, a huge and devoted clientele. A large part of that clientele is made up of women and families who appreciate her patient, sensitive approach to customers who may not have spent a lot of time on the water and even less time fishing. She truly enjoys teaching a youngster how to cast with a spinning reel or even just learn how to reel in whatever it is tugging on the other end of that line. Allie and Em have spent a lot of time on the water cruising with us, but not that much time fishing. Before I knew it, though, they were both throwing tins out 60 feet into schools of small blues crashing on baitfish. Amazing sight.

We left Mt. Sinai harbor early in the morning right after the high tide. The sun was already hot but Long Island Sound was flat and Barb’s Grady-White zipped around the head of Setauket and down into Smithtown Bay. As old as I am these days, I’ve finally learned how to start living more consciously, “in the moment,” as Allie would say. So, standing up on the bridge deck, hanging onto the overhead, I closed my eyes and sucked in the salty air, letting it refresh and relax me.

We set up a couple of slow drifts across some structure in the bay and picked a few short fluke, sending them all back to school to grow up and graduate from the 19 1/2th grade. Pretty but short. There were lots of birds diving on baitfish schools, lending some more optimism to the morning. We also starting assembling our own briny flock — sea robins, those toothless, spiny wonders
that make me think “Audobon meets Jurassic Park.” There wasn’t much of a breeze to help the drift and the doormats were apparently too busy imitating. . .uh. . .doormats. So we cranked up the Yamaha and headed back east a bit to a creek emptying into the Sound. The rocks and sandbars made it tricky to get close but Barb set up a couple of drifts across the mouth of the creek, using her favorite bucktail rigs to try to entice some bigger flat ones into our boat. More shorts, several more robins and a couple of calico crabs later, we decided we’d head even farther east to Buoy 11, where the rest of the fleet was already having similar luck. We decided to keep a few more blues for dinner and make a couple of last drifts.

Several crabs and MANY “Deadliest Catch” jokes later, we decided to call it a hot day and head back to the mooring ball in Mt. Sinai harbor. The girls had a blast pulling all manner of creatures, large and (mostly) small, out of the ocean and then putting most of them back. We only kept what we would eat right away. And we had some great conversations about fishing, family and how the ocean works. Oh, and why they call it “fishing” and not “catching.”

Truth is, we had a great day; brought home some dinner and had a father-daughters experience that’s hard to come by these days. Capt. Barb helped make that happen. She’s a good example of the best kind of charter captains, the ones that not only know how to connect you with fish, but also how to help you connect with something even more important.

© 2007 Thomas M. Tripp

One recent evening I was at a popular overlook near the mouth of a river that empties into Long Island Sound, watching with many others as a Bay Constable boat (unidentified to protect the guilty) attempted to attach a flashing light to the top of a locally maintained red buoy.  The Constable Himself was behind the wheel of the center console, while a summer employee was up in the bow, reaching with one hand for the buoy while desperately hanging on for dear life with the other.   For some reason, our Constable had chosen the absolute peak of the flood tide to accomplish this chore and the current was running at several knots while he tried to hold station with the buoy off his port beam.Well, things didn’t go so well and the Constable eventually edged farther downstream, the buoy sliding aft along his port rail, when suddenly he swung around the buoy to port and the tide and his steering ensuring that he would run over the mooring line for the buoy.  Now his prop is fouled, the buoy has been wrenched tight up against his port quarter.  He is forced to cut the mooring end of the line and limp slowly back upstream to the public launch ramp and unscramble things.Now, we all make mistakes from time-to-time, but this exercise had so many things running against it, including the tide, that it struck me as particularly inappropriate for somebody in a position of (presumed) experience and authority as our local Bay Constable.  Frankly, the mouth of this river is virtually unnavigable; in fact the Coast Guard has refused in the past to mark its entrance, considering it too dangerous to sanction navigation there.  At low tide, its possible to watch any number of boats run aground, or at least grind up impellers and water pumps in lower units as they scrape their way in and out of the waterway.I just expect the Bay Constable to know better.

Copyright © 2007 Thomas M. Tripp

If you are passionate about something you no doubt have some opinions, perhaps even strong ones, about that subject. Does that mean you have to share them with the whole world? No. Clearly, most people on the planet really don’t care what you, or I, think. But, we’re rarely alone in our passions and that’s probably how and why blogging has exploded on the Web. In any event, here’s another one.

The topic will always be related to the marine world — those things involved with that stuff that covers 80 percent of the surface of our planet. Anything is fair game — the ocean itself, man’s relation to the ocean, our activities on it, in it and below it; and all the wild and wonderful things that live in it.

Stop back periodically and see what’s new. If I do this right, there might be something to stir your own thoughts and opinions about the marine world. There’s lots to talk about and I can guarantee that I’ll wander all over the subject. I love talking about the ocean, and boats, and ships and science and biology and conservation and ecology.

Ah yes, I hear the ship’s bell ringing, and the 1MC blaring, “Ocean Lines, arriving.”

Copyright © 2007 Thomas M. Tripp