This half-inch starlet anemone, Nematostella, lives in salt marshes, adapts to a wide range of environmental conditions, is easy to culture, and scientists have decoded all its genes. This makes it a perfect model animal for WHOI biologist Ann Tarrant, who studies animals' responses to pollutants. She is investigating what genes Nematostella activates to detoxify contaminants, including oil and dispersant from the 2010 BP oil spil in the Gulf of Mexico. (Photo by Ann Tarrant, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)[back]
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