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Yankee Ingenuity

In 1972, research technician Asa Wing sewed yards of fine-mesh material into a giant conical sampling net designed for biologist Richard Backus, who studied fishes, an ongoing research area at WHOI. The Falmouth Armory building provided the only smooth, clean surface large enough to make the net. According to Backus, Wing “was the proverbial Yankee jack-of-all-trades, and running a sewing machine was one of a long list of things he could do.” (Photo by Jan Hahn, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)