Golden Globes

This universe of golden-yellow bubbles is actually a sample of Antarctic marine phytoplankton called Phaeocystis. The tiny yellow dots on each ball are actually individual algal cells forming hollow spherical colonies that can develop into large blooms. WHOI researchers Rebecca Gast, Julie Rose, and Dawn Moran collected these in 2005 in the Ross Sea, Antarctica. Gast’s research focuses on protists and other microbes and on developing molecular and culture techniques to study their biodiversity and physiology in extreme environments, including in extreme cold.(Photo by Dawn Moran, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)