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Pinpoint Accuracy

February 18, 2014

WHOI microbiologist Craig Taylor used a lathe to fashion this device out of polycarbonate. It is an inlet port for an underwater instrument called the submersible incubation device. The central post contains crossed passageways through which water flows to a central valve and then to specified chambers where microbes in the water can be incubated or preserved. The shape of the inlet port allows it to draw samples from layers as thin as one centimeter with minimal mixing of fluids immediately above or below.(Photo by Cherie Winner, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)