The Squids 4 Kids outreach program I helped to start up is going strong! We've been doing a number of local dissections, both in and out of classrooms, and shipping squid around the country. They made the news in Florida:

With cameras flashing and video rolling Wednesday, six Canterbury Upper School seniors dissected a 4-foot-long Humboldt squid.

and North Carolina:

A chorus of "Gross!" came from students in the Honors Marine Sciences class at Ashley High School as 16-year-old Bryce Hensley pulled off the beak of a giant Humboldt squid during a dissection. . . . "I never even knew that squids had a beak," Bryce said of the Pacific Ocean cephalopod that's only found below 600 feet in the ocean.

Ahem. Let it be noted that Humboldt squid are often found above 600 feet--at night. In fact, they can come all the way to the surface, and believe me, it's a whole lot easier to catch them there than it is to haul them up from 600 feet.

Unfortunately, neither article got the origin of the Squids 4 Kids program right--the Florida piece cited the "Monterey Bay Foundation" and the NC story the "Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary."

Squids 4 Kids is actually a collaboration between Hopkins Marine Station (Stanford University) and NOAA's Southwest Fisheries Science Center. Just, you know. For the record.

[Also for the record: neither of those institutions is in any way responsible for the content of this blog, ever. I'm a free agent, yo.]