Ocean Life
Searching for Life on the Seafloor
Smaller than a fingernail, like bits of downy red feathers, baby tubeworms cling to a vertical wall towering alongside the submersible Alvin 2,500 meters beneath the sea in 2006. Repaved…
The Latest Fashion in Bowhead Whale Songs
Whales, it turns out, are dedicated followers of fashion. There’s a style to the song…
Tracking an Elusive Chemical: Estrogens
On a crisp October morning, our small boat bobbed gently 10 miles offshore. The sun…
The Ocean’s Tiny Chemists
Once as I was flying cross-country over the middle of the United States, the woman…
Between the Beach and the Deep Blue Sea
Capt. Ken Houtler laughed when I remarked that I didn’t know the sun rose this…
A Drop in the Ocean is Teeming with Life
“The universe is made of stories …“ —Muriel Rukeyser There are countless stories in every…
Psychotherapy for Plankton
The scene: A diatom is out of its oceanic habitat and on a couch, talking…
Of Predators, Prey, and Petroleum
Protists are the Rodney Dangerfields of marine microbes. Although marine bacteria emerged as heroes in…
All the Pretty Jellyfish
<!– –> Pat Lohmann recently traveled to the tiny Western Pacific island nation of Palau…
Life and Death in the Deep Sea
It was an experiment they hoped would never happen. But when it did, they were…
Oil, Microbes, and the Risk of Dead Zones
In the scramble to get to the Gulf of Mexico to study the Deepwater Horizon…
Where the Food Is in the Sea, and Why
When you’re on a boat 50 miles south of Cape Cod on a calm day,…
Recycling Rare, Essential Nutrients in the Sea
In the vast ocean where an essential nutrient—iron—is scarce, a marine bacterium that launches the…
A Hunt for Unusual Seafloor Animals and Vents
The first expedition to search for deep-sea hydrothermal vents along the Mid-Cayman Rise deep in…
What’s Living in the Ocean?
In 2010, as the United States conducted its latest decadal population census, marine scientists completed…
New Ways to Analyze Ocean Imagery
<!– –> Moore Foundation grant sparks ocean informatics initiative Over the past decade, ocean scientists…
Scientists Use “ESP” to Track Harmful Algae
Researchers in biologist Don Anderson’s lab are celebrating a new arrival—a gleaming, 3-foot-high robotic instrument…
Are Whales ‘Shouting’ to be Heard?
When we’re talking with friends and a truck rumbles by or someone cranks up the…
Microbes Hitch Rides on Plastics in the Sea
This research was supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,…
Volunteer Gets an Oceanful of Experience
<!– –> It’s two in the morning, and I’m watching a remotely operated vehicle, or…
Salps Catch the Ocean’s Tiniest Organisms
Salps are sometimes called “the ocean’s vacuum cleaners.” The soft, barrel-shaped, transparent animals take in…
A Torrent of Crabs Running to the Sea
Joanna Gyory’s Ph.D. plans changed completely when she saw the crabs. It was her third…