by Erik Olsen Roger Hanlon is one of the world’s foremost experts on one of the planet’s most amazing creatures: the octopus. For decades, he has undertaken expeditions around the globe to study these intelligent creatures. Now, Hanlon and engineer and oceanographer Derya Akkaynak are on the homestretch of an eight-year odyssey to find out
By Gabriel Popkin The heat-trapping gases humans release into the air are warming the planet. But humble soil-dwelling bacteria and fungi also release heat-trapping gases, and those gases could determine just how hot it gets. Now new research adds to the worry that the microbes will make climate change worse. Soil microbes digest dead plants
react-empty: 219 react-text: 223 By Miriam Wasser The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published a report Wednesday detailing how climate change is affecting oceans and the frozen world. It’s the final of three special reports, and, like the previous two, it has implications for New England. If you’re picturing a polar bear standing on a
MBL Associate Scientist Michael Shribak and Senior Scientist Joshua Rosenthal collaborated on this study, reported in the August issue of The Biological Bulletin, which features marine biology research. The Biological Bulletin is published by the Marine Biological Laboratory and the University of Chicago Press. Newswise — Writers know the power of the pen, but scientists
The partnership between MBL and commercial vendors is critical to the success of the MBL’s courses, particularly the Advanced Research Training Courses. Starting with four vendors in 1970, this partnership has grown to 155 vendors loaning over $24 million in equipment, software, and supplies each year, effectively making MBL one of the largest demo centers
MBL Ecosystems Center scientists Jim Tang and Faming Wang are among the authors of this research, which was conducted at a Cape Cod salt marsh. By Elizabeth Pennisi, Science LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY– Experts consider salt marshes foot soldiers in the battle against climate change: In the U.S. Northeast alone, they sop up enough carbon every year
By Boris Tsand For most people, the mention of plastic pollution conjures up images of large garbage patches floating in the open ocean, thanks in part to the proliferation of such images on social media. The public’s preoccupation with these forms of pollution is mirrored in academia; studies in plastic pollution often focus on ocean
By Steven Withrow Human beings now have the technology to rewrite our genetic codes and the codes of every organism on Earth. What is more, this technology has been around for billions of years—bacteria naturally evolved it as a mechanism to fight off viral invaders—only to be discovered in the early 2000s by researchers working
By Eric Boodman You’ve swum with one, stepped on one, maybe swallowed one. This unsung invertebrate could teach us about aging WOODS HOLE, Mass. — In case you were wondering, Kristin Gribble is not a basher of fruit flies or roundworms. She wants to be clear: She bears no ill will toward those invertebrates so
By Jeanie Chung Margaret Gardel, the Horace B. Horton Professor in the Department of Physics [at the University of Chicago], found her area of study through a series of serendipitous events. Her graduate research at Harvard focused on filamentous actin, a polymer found within cells in multicellular organisms. In living cells actin drives cell motion