Popular Writing
News as of Late-2024
My essay about the intellectual boosts caused by a bilingual upbringing just came out in Psyche. I think this one is an interesting read. The topic is quite different from my normal popular science articles about the ocean. Read it here.
Plus, new in Reefs.com: Hawkfishes, a small family of small but clever fishes. And, an article about the biodiversity crisis, and how to measure it, for Die Furche.
News as of Mid-2024
More contributions to Austria’s intellectual weekly, Die Furche: The thrills of scuba diving, and the new generation of robots. Also, in Esquire Philippines: Danjugan, a very special place.
I published two articles on mudskippers (one, and two) in reefs.com, which is an online mag which I have appreciated for a while as a great source of in-depth fish information.
Also, I wrote for Diver’s Alert Network about the brain science of fear, and how fear is altered with inert gas narcosis. Last, but certainly not least, I wrote about the geology of the chocolate hills in Bohol in the Philippines for Esquire.ph.
25 Future Dives out!
Out now, with James D. Reimer, our book about environmental problems in the oceans of Planet Earth. Each environmental problem is explained as a dive briefing. Serious topic, explained in light language with some humor, lots of photographs to explain what’t going on and what could be going on soon. Don’t miss this one!
New as of early 2024:
Exciting times for my popular science writing in the first half of 2024, I got to contribute to magazines which I read and appreciate myself. For reefs.com I have contributed an article about new science investigating the large-scale relatedness of perch-like fishes. I have enjoyed reefs.com many times, some of their coverage of goby phylogeny is as good as a review in the academic literature, but with nicer pictures, and written more fluidly. Here is my article:
For Hakai I contributed an image of a minute shrimp which lives on the body surface of a seastar, probably its whole post-larval life on the same seastar. I generally really enjoy Hakai, they bring together biology & environmental & social issues in an intelligent way. Here is my shrimp shot:
I contributed more to Austria’s intellectual weekly, Die Furche: This time about the sleep of Octopi, and about the moon Mimas of Saturn. It’s in German. I enjoy writing in both English and German. All of my Die Furche contributions are here:
I also contributed to Esquire Philippines, about marine turtles, and sea slugs. Fascinating animals, and I have had the chance to film and photograph them many times, in Dauin and Apo Island. All of my Esquire contributions are here:
New as of 2023:
More contributions to Die Furche: Asteroids hitting Earth, and how to prevent that.
I had the pleasure to contribute to GRID Magazine, about the caves in Mabinay, in the center of Negros Island of the Philippines. The geology of the Philippines is fascinating & complex.
New in Die Furche in July 2023: An article about terraforming Mars. Not science fiction, actual science.
Esquire Philippines is providing quality coverage of environmental topics. I am happy to contribute to this coverage, with articles about muck diving, Tubbataha reefs and an invasive catfish from South America which now lives in the rivers of the Philippines.
I contributed to Wildlife Photographic with an article about the ideal way to start your journey from land-based photographer to underwater shooter. It’s a situation I have encountered when teaching underwater photography: folks who are very well versed in camera use on land, and want to translate these skills into underwater photography as efficiently as possible. I hope the article helps answer some questions for photographers in that situation:
I am also happy about two marine bio themed contributions to Die Furche, about the smartest fish in the ocean (who might that be?) and annelid worms with mouth parts which look like Christmas trees.
And, this new book of mine about what happens in the brains of scuba and freedivers is also out. Exciting!
New as of late 2022:
An article in Die Furche about neuroethics, a very important topic. Ethical or unethical behavior does not exist in a vacuum devoid of a neurobiological basis!
Also, I am very excited to contribute to AEON Magazine again, with an article written together with the well-known coral biologist Dr. James Reimer, about the burning question what will happen to the planet’s oceans in the distant and not so distant future if humans continue to mess them up. “The oceans will be suffering/destroyed/going downhill” is not a detailed enough answer for us as biologists. What will happen? Read the article!
New as of the 2nd half of 2022:
New Articles in Die Furche (in German), about mangroves and scientific misconduct, and how to avoid it. And an article in Science Connected Magazine about deep, mesophotic reefs. This is a topic which I as a tech diver and biologist would love to revisit with some fieldwork.
Happy people at the book release event for the Lives of Gobies.
New as of 2022:
The Lives of Gobies is out now! Get it while you can, I’m really excited how it turned out,
And, I am always happy to contribute to Die Furche, with an article about coral bleaching, a very important environmental topic. This is the overview page of all my contributions to Die Furche during the last few years.
Very exciting: A new book project with the extremely knowledgeable Dr. James Reimer. If you are a popular science publisher who wants to take it on please contact us! This is the tentative book cover, with a ling to more details about the project:
New as of 2021:
The Lives of Gobies is on pre-sale now! Excited! Published with Asian Geographic.
More contributions to the Furche, this time about the plans to colonize Mars. When stuck at home with the pandemic, it’s refreshing to let the mind fly far.
Also in Die Furche: The ethical questions which arise when brain implants record enormous amounts of very personal data. These are a person’s thoughts and brain states – it does not get more personal. Should the scientists who implanted the device even have access to these data? Should a patient be allowed to sell them?
This article in Die Furche is about the Anthropocene – the current geological period where a significant fraction of the processes on the surface of the planet are dominated by humans. As an example, I use hermit crabs which now use human rubbish as homes. I like to link the local – these crazy hermit crabs – with the global – the Anthropocene. It’s hard for anyone to get a grasp of planet-wide, long-lasting phenomena, and such links can help in building intuition. I’m grateful to Die Furche to have a platform to write about such complex, pressing contemporary issues for a general audience.
And, very honored to contribute to the July 2021 issue of Amazonas Magazine, the well respected tropical fish mag. My article, about the mountain stream gobies of Negros Island in the Philippines, made it into the Gobies special issue. Happy to get these fascinating fishes, and the environmental troubles they are facing, some platform.
New as of late 2020: More popular writing on the Mars Rover, this time about the astrobiology efforts of the Perseverance rover. What kind of life forms could there be, and which ones will likely not exist on Mars, or have existed there? For “Die Furche”, In German.
New as of mid 2020: I contributed to Die Furche again, the quality Austrian weekly for which I regularly write. This time I was writing about the new Mars Rover which is on its way to the red planet.
For Hakai I contributed an image of a cleaner wrasse removing parasites from the gills of a puffer fish in Bali. I like the high level of environmental/nature journalism which Hakai offers, and am always stoked to be featured there.
And, I am looking for a publisher for my new popular science book on gobies, which describes the fascinating biology of these small and pretty fishes in a manner accessible for the interested layperson. The book features lots of my goby photographs as well!
New as of early 2020: I had the chance to contribute more to “Die Furche”. One article I wrote covers invasive species, a topic close to my heart. Invasive species cause a lot of damage to ecosystems in many countries.
I also wrote an article about the molecular biology of the coronavirus, and about early studies of the level of contagiousness of the virus. Pro Tip: This is an RNA virus. If you read somewhere about the “DNA of the virus” then the author is incompetent, and you should stop reading right away and not share that article.
New as of December 2019: I wrote two more articles for the Austrian weekly “Die Furche”, covering the important and under-appreciated environmental threat of ocean acidification, and the fallacies in some of the “arguments” of climate change deniers. (In German).
Also, excitingly, my popular science book on extreme brain states, “Gehirn Extrem” is now available as an eBook (also in German, but super worth reading).
New as of August 2019: Very excited to contribute to Hakai magazine again, an article about the giant clam breeding program of the University of the Philippines. This is a quality popular science magazine dedicated to oceans and coasts, and I am happy to be a contributor there. And, equally exciting, I have also written for Die Furche again, this time about nitrogen narcosis, the inebriating effect of simply breathing air when scuba diving below about 30 meters.
New in June 2019: I wrote an article (in German) for the intellectual Austrian weekly “Die Furche” about the self, from the point of view of a neuroscientist.
New in May 2019: A first: some of my underwater photographs appeared in the renowned German magazine “Tauchen”. It’s a feature about the Dona Marilyn wreck in Malapascua, or what’s left of it. Many thanks to Stefan Baehr for collaborating on the feature!
New as of September 2018 – Gehirn Extrem, published by Felicitas Hübner Verlag, Germany: “Gehirn Extrem”, about the neurobiology of extreme brain states (in German):
These are three books of mine available on Amazon, a marine bio popular science book, a comedic political scifi drug novella and a popular science book about photography and brain research. All worth reading, interesting in very different ways!
During the last few years, I have written for a variety of popular science magazines, blogs and web pages. For “Scientific American – Mind” I wrote an article with Alex Holcombe, University of Sydney, about the differences and similarities between cameras and eyes. That article also got translated into German. Of course, my book “The Camera and the Brain” (see below) is dealing with a similar topic.
For the German edition of Scientific American Mind, “Spektrum der Wissenschaft – Gehirn & Geist” I wrote these articles on an enigmatic brain region called the claustrum, on dendrites. and on neurodegenerative diseases. For a while I was writing for scubadiverlife.com, about amazing dive sites in Australia (another one) and the Philippines, about gobies, dragonets, red indian fish, hyperbaric medicine and the perfect body for diving. And I wrote this article about photographing the wildlife on really deep dives for a popular photo webpage.
For PADI’s technical diving blog I wrote about nitrogen narcosis. Divers generally assume that once you dive shallower, the effects of narcosis go away almost immediately. That’s not quite true. For X-Ray magazine I wrote about fish brains. It can really, really help your underwater photography if you understand some aspects of fish brain function better! For Digital Photography School I explained how to take macro photographs underwater.
“Sex in the Sea” – an interesting popular science account about the often (from a human point of view) very weird reproductive biology of marine animals, by Marah Hardt, with several photographs of mine.
This is an excellent new book about wreck diving in the Philippines, written by Stefan Baehr, with a chapter about wrecks as marine life magnets by myself. The book has great pictures, mostly by Stefan, and it‘s both well written and very informative. There are lots of details about the history of all these cool wrecks as well as about the diving and travel logistics. It‘s in German – an English version will be published sometime in 2017!
A picture of mine of a sea cucumber defecating (really!) has been published in this nice children’s book about the strange and unusual sea cucumbers:
And, newly released in September 2017, “Die Vielfalt der Fische”, a really nice coffee-table-photo book with a best-of of my fish photographs from around the world, plus a lot of interesting info about the biology of these fishes. Available here.
Klaus M. Stiefel
This is an article I wrote for Hakai magazine, about marine animals in the sand between coral reefs.
A popular science article in Underwater Photography Magazine, about the ghost pipefishes. These are really unusual fishes, highly camouflaged, and with a very interesting reproductive biology. A link to the article is also here…. You have to download uwp magazine, but it’s a good magazine, so that’s definitely worth the effort.
I always enjoy contributing to Gehirn & Geist, the German edition of Scientific American – Mind. This article deals with tool use by animals. Here I am with the article, together with my friend Faye:
