SOUTH BOSTON, Mass. — If you’re the type of person who associates lobster with big, celebratory events, then you’re in luck. With prices lower than they’ve been in decades, something as simple as — well, a Tuesday night can be reason to celebrate.
 
It’s 6 a.m. at Medeiros Dock in South Boston. The sun is just coming up as lobsterman Steven Holler gets his boat, the November Gale, ready for a day at sea. He steps into his bright orange bib pants, slips on his galoshes and then effortlessly glides his boat to the bait dock.
 
He loads $700 worth of fish on to the deck. And by 6:15, Holler and his crew of one set off to haul lobster traps in the waters off Boston’s Harbor Islands.
 
Lobsters, lobsters everywhere
 
In 35 years in the business, Holler says he’s never seen a lobster season quite like this one. It all started this spring.
 
“We came out to haul that gear expecting to get 30 or 40 pounds and what we saw was just totally off the charts. Something we’ve never seen before. There were just lobsters everywhere,” he says.
 
Plentiful catches came early, flooding the lobster market up the East Coast. And since it was May, there weren’t enough tourists to eat them up.
 
And if there’s one thing we all learned in economics class: Surpluses make prices plummet.
 
Lobstermen in the Boston area are getting $3 - $3.50 a pound right now. Retail prices are a bit higher at around $5, which means that the price is running pretty equal to a bologna sandwich.
 
“I looked at a slip from last year and it was anywhere between $4.50 - $4.75 per pound,” says Holler. "The price we’re getting is something like you’d get in the '80s — mid-'80s. And we’re paying 2012 fuel prices, bait prices and labor prices.”
 
The problem in a nut lobster shell
 
Lobster is even cheaper further north: The Wall Street Journal reports that some lobstermen in Maine are getting as low as $1.25 a pound. And it doesn’t seem to be going up anytime soon, because now there’s another factor dragging prices down: soft-shells. Those are lobsters that have just shed their shells and are growing into new, bigger ones.
 
The shedding process usually doesn’t start until mid-July, but lobstermen this year have been catching soft-shells since May.
 
“A soft-shell lobster is veal in the lobster world,” says Holler. “It is tender. It is sweet.”
 
Sweet, but fragile — too fragile to ship long distances, which puts even more lobsters in the Northeast supply chain.
 
A solution: Eat up
 
“The public has to know: there’s a lot of lobsters out there,” says Holler. “So the more lobster people buy, hopefully it will be better for the industry and hopefully that trickles down to the fisherman.”
 
There’s one more big factor playing in this perfect storm: Canadian processing plants, which usually buy up any extra lobsters, aren’t. They had strong catches this season too and already have their own backlog of lobsters.
 
Still, Holler says he will keep setting his traps, even if it means catching too much of a good thing.
 

Shark sightings: reason to smile? (@ChathamShark/Facebook)

 
BOSTON — Maybe you've seen the photo or video: a kayaker just 100 feet off the shore of Orleans, Mass. … followed by a fin. And yet the recent shark sighting appears to be triggering more excitement than fear. We asked some experts to explain the phenomenon.
 
The business perspective
 
Paul Pronovost, editor-in-chief of The Cape Cod Times, said the tourism industry was doing its best to capitalize on the interest.

"A lot of merchants have T-shirts and hats and books and little souvenirs — all shark-related because that's what people are coming in and looking for," he said. "It's been fascinating, people coming down to the shorelines, some even brave enough to put their toe in the water, some putting even more than their toes in the water, and really being into this phenomenon — it's created quite a buzz on the Cape."
 
He didn't see any unusual rise in Cape tourism due to the fascination with sharks but he did think vacationers already there were heading to beaches where sightings have occurred.
 
The science perspective
 
While the shark sightings are fascinating to beach bums, they're even more exciting for marine scientists. Technology like acoustic and satellite tags are helping scientists track sharks and better understand the animals' behavior.
 
"Historically, all we really knew about white sharks was based on sightings," said John Mandelman, a researcher at the New England Aquarium. "But now with this new technology we're starting to learn a lot more about where these sharks are going … and that's very exciting, because [for] the Atlantic there's been an absence of information on white sharks, whereas other areas around the world have been able to gain a lot of information about their population."
 
Does climate change have anything to do with sharks swimming close to our shore?
 
"Theoretically, climate change will have an effect on various levels, not just on the sharks … I think in this case, though, sharks are still coming up here based on water temperature," Mandelman said. "I don't think anything is going to happen in a 4- or 5-year period that could be attributable to climate change."
 
Marine scientists think the warmer water temperature is why we have more seals appearing on our beaches and it's those seals … not kayakers … that are attracting the hungry sharks looking for their next meal.
 
The shark's perspective
 
We've heard what the experts say. But what does the shark think? What drove him to pursue that particular kayak? Well, the shark — and June's Massachusetts celebrity animal, the black bear — has taken to social media to explain what he's all about ... without the intermediaries. Here's a rundown.
 

BOSTON — If you've been spending early summer at the beach, you might have noticed something in the air. An invasive and quite ... pungent ... species of seaweed has made its way to the East Coast from Asia. Judy Pederson of MIT’s Sea Grant Program said the seaweed, which favors rocky shorelines and coves, could be squeezing out native species.
 
"We’re finding that over time these non-native species come in early, they grow faster or sooner than our native species and then they begin to displace them," she said. "And the native species they might displace are things like mussels, barnacles, sponges — things that are typically what we think of as our major New England species."
 
The seaweed has also become a hassle to state workers, who say they have no place to dispose of it — or the money and resources necessary to do so.

The National Weather Service says that this year, it will begin pushing text notifications to cellphones that alert users to hazardous weather conditions.

The text notifications will be sent to those people within the location of the severe weather. The Weather Emergency Alerts could also be used for local emergencies that require evacuation, AMBER alerts and presidential alerts "during a national emergency," the Weather Service said.

Tech site The Verge reports:

"The Wireless Emergency Alerts system will notify people of approaching tornadoes, hurricanes, typhoons, tsunamis, flash floods, extreme winds, blizzards and ice and dust storms by sending an up-to-90 character message to their smartphone. The system is only compatible with newer devices, and will not be available in all areas, but the NWS says that "millions of smartphone users" will start receiving messages soon. Apple intends to support the service this fall, but it's not clear whether the support will be limited to new hardware, or if all its devices will receive an update."

The Weather Service says users can opt out of the service.

The CTIA says that AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon are all participating in the system. They have more information on whether your phone is supported at their website.

Copyright 2012 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

No longer the sleepy, tactical event of old, the race now features a revolutionary new boat — the AC45 catamaran, made of carbon fiber and powered by a giant vertical wing. The high-tech boats are smaller versions of the vessels that sailors will be skippering in next year's big race.

"The boats are relentless," says Australian sailor James Spithill, who races for Oracle Team USA. "They are the most physical thing we've ever sailed and the most exciting thing we've ever sailed, and then probably the most demanding."

Spithill, also known as "James Pitbull," was a childhood boxer from Australia who left the ring for the sea. The youngest man ever to win the America's Cup, Spithill arrived in Newport skippering a class boat that's reinventing the game.

'Something That They've Never Seen Before'

These catamarans have also piqued the interest of Newport's residents. Even though this week's regatta is not the finals, Brad Read, chairman of the local host committee, says that with the right sailing conditions, the event just might knock the Topsiders off the locals.

"I'm really hoping it's windy because the people are going to just see something that they've never seen before," Read says.

Newport resident Halsey Herreshoff is excited to show off his backyard to a new generation of international sailors. Though their name is often mispronounced, the Herreshoffs are like royalty in sailing. Herreshoff's grandfather designed and built the first catamaran back in the 1870s.

Halsey Herreshoff has sailed all across the world from the Mediterranean to the Baltic, but he says, "I come back here, and I look out at my window and I see Narragansett Bay, and I think to myself, 'Yeah, those places were all great, but this is the best.' "

Like NASCAR On Water

Sailors like Spithill want to show people that sailboat racing has moved past the days of Ted Turner in a blazer. The regatta also allows sailors to get comfy with the high-tech craft because, as Spithill says, they're dangerous.

On a recent ride, the boat kicked up to 24 knots or so on Narragansett Bay. One hull lifted out of the water, and Spithill and his Oracle teammates leaned their bodies over its side. The boat balanced at a 40-degree angle, slicing through waters crowded with pleasure boats.

Unlike in the past, this new breed of sailing does not permit dead weight. Navigators, tacticians and other non-athletes can no longer just sit onboard during races. "If you can't put some serious horsepower into the boat, the guys [onboard] aren't going to carry you around," Spithill says.

Still, Spithill hopes the new boats will increase the sport's popularity. He wants people to view sailboat racing like NASCAR on the water. And as he threads his racing machine through waters off Newport, leaving the pleasure boats in his wake, you can't help but think he might get his wish. As every NASCAR fan knows, speed sells.

Copyright 2012 Rhode Island Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.ripr.org/.

Part 1:

Part 2:
 

A girl drinks from a tap in Rwanda. (jon gos/flickr)

We look at the increasing scarcity of water.

As the world’s population explodes, from 7 billion to 10 billion, will violence erupt over water the way it has over other natural resources, like gold, oil and diamonds?

Who will control water? And how much will it cost to access?

Guests:

• William Moomaw, director, Center for International Environmental and Resource Policy, The Fletcher School, Tufts University

• Shafiqul Islam, director of the Water Diplomacy Initiative; professor, Tufts School of Engineering

• Lisa Sorgini Marchewka, vice president, Oasys Water

The weather in Greater Boston as of 1 p.m. on June 7, 2012. (Google)

 
BOSTON — Despite the chill temperatures the week of June 4, Boston and Worcester have actually experienced the warmest spring since records started being kept in the late 1800s — and Hartford tied its record this year.
 
"If you average over January through May, we are well above average," said Mike Rawlins, a professor and manager of the Climate System Research Center at UMass Amherst.
 
Does this warm year bode long-term change? Rawlins said that despite variability from year to year, it does indeed point to a larger trend.
 
"We have been on a trend toward warmer springs, warmer years … the second-warmest spring on record now is 2010" for Boston and Worcester, he said. "So climate scientists would tell you, and we're in agreement, that the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations are leading to a warmer climate."
 
And if you're cold now, just wait a few days, Rawlins said: Temps are forecast to rise into the upper 80s.