Guest Blog Posts: Related Content

  • Swimming With Sharks

    Lying in water only a foot deep, I watched the shark meander lazily through the mangrove, already exuding the confidence inherent of the supreme creature within its domain. It was hot here in Bimini, nearly 100-degrees and mosquitoes were thick and relentless, swarming on to any bare skin. Yet slipping my head just inches below the water’s surface I had entered another realm. I was absolutely transfixed watching these little sharks, perhaps 12 to 18 inches long; swimming beneath mangrove roots and over the muddy bottom with impressive deftness.

  • Searching for Cancer Drugs in the Ocean

    Ever since fourth grade I’ve wanted to explore the creatures and landscapes of the deep ocean in a submersible. It took awhile, but I finally got my chance this summer as part of the Deep Reef Observation Project (DROP).

  • An Intern Explores Ocean Careers

    I’m a high school student interested in pursuing marine science. I have loved the ocean since I was 3 feet tall and only getting my feet wet at the beach. I’m a senior in high school, and over the next year I have the task of selecting a college, but I’m also thinking about my major and future profession. I know how hard it can be trying to figure out what career you would like to pursue especially with sports, school clubs, and television influencing your decision. 

  • Saving Sharks and Dolphins, Near and Far

    Sophi Bromenshenkel is an unlikely shark-lover. She's eight years old and hails from Minnesota, a state that couldn't be further from the ocean. But a family vacation to Florida changed everything.

    When she saw a pregnant bull shark left for dead on a beach, Sophie knew she needed to help.

  • A Plague of Sea Stars

    Sea stars are important members of marine ecosystems, especially in the tropics. We may think of tropical coral reefs as being home mainly to fish and corals, but in fact these habitats are home to a huge diversity of ecologically important invertebrates.

    Sometimes, human influences can throw off the balance between these invertebrates, resulting in a cascade effect that negatively affects the entire coral reef ecosystem.

  • So You Think You're Smarter Than a Cephalopod?

    The blanket octopus can rip a poisonous tentacle from a Portuguese man-o-war and wield it like a sword to ward off enemies as it soars through the ocean trailing its webbed cloak behind it.

  • Witness to a Plastic Invasion

    It blew in for two solid days: a flotilla of plastic forks, soda bottles, rubber gloves, and other refuse. I tried to pick everything up off the beach, but when I turned around, you couldn’t tell that I had cleaned at all. When we went out in the boats, we had to go slowly in order to dodge the debris. Eventually the tide came in and swooped it all away.

  • A Pleasant Surprise: The Recovery of Bleached Panamanian Corals

    Last September, the Citizens of the Sea blog series brought you a story of doom and gloom from the reefs of Bocas del Toro, Panama. That is the time of year we typically study -- and celebrate -- the annual birth of baby corals in the area. We arrived to find very hot water (2010 turned out to be the hottest year on record), and in the shallows the reefs had turned a ghostly white. This was the most extreme coral bleaching we had ever seen since we started our studies there in 1998.

  • Listening for Clues About Sonar’s Effects on Marine Mammals

    Many animals depend on their eyes to navigate, find food, locate mates, and for other important activities. But marine mammals often rely on sound—sometimes far more than sight—for such critical daily tasks. Increasingly though, boat traffic, energy extraction, and other noisy human activities echo through the marine realm sometimes disrupting these animals’ behavior.

  • No Fouling Around

    Since the dawn of seafaring, humankind has had to deal with the pesky creatures that settle on ships—seaweeds, barnacles, and others that take advantage of the empty real estate provided by a clean hull. Fouled hulls make for slower speeds and for powerboats, higher fuel costs (drag is a drag).

  • Love Salmon? Listen Up.

    Salmon are one of the most widely loved varieties of seafood in the world. A ubiquitous alternative to meat and poultry, salmon wear a halo of healthfulness, as they are rich in protein and omega-3 fatty acids. But many wild salmon stocks are dwindling, which means that unless otherwise specified, the salmon you’re most likely to find in restaurants and stores is from a farm.

  • Peanut Butter and Jellyfish

    All over the world, people have been witnessing gigantic blooms of tens of thousands of jellyfish where once there were only a few. Fishers find them clogging their nets and costing them dearly. In Japan, giant jellyfish capable of reaching six feet across even capsized a boat that tried to bring them aboard. Where are these stinging menaces coming from and why are they everywhere?

  • Seafood for Thought

    Sunday, November 21 marks World Fisheries Day, an annual occasion observed in many fishing communities around the world. It’s a great opportunity—even for those of us who do not fish for a living—to pause and reflect on the importance of maintaining healthy fisheries.

  • Do Sharks Smell in Stereo?

    Animals, on land and in the ocean, live in a 3-D world, and they depend on their sense organs and brains to build the mental constructs that allow them to orient and navigate, which is crucial for hunting and fleeing. The process is far from simple. Humans, for example, use many visual clues to judge relative distance. Objects get smaller and blurrier with distance and parallel lines appear to converge, principles that painters mastered in the 13th and 14th centuries in their quest to turn a 2-D canvas into a 3-D experience.

  • A Tale of Sex and Stress in the Ocean

    Welcome to Citizens of the Sea, a new blog series where ocean life comes to life. Our book by the same name came out in September, but no sooner had it gone off to the printer than new ocean stories started streaming in. So every other week, we’ll use this series to explore some interesting aspect of marine life forms and their weird and wonderful ways of getting by.

  • Coral Reefs Need You

    For those of you who have had the opportunity to visit a coral reef, you know that it’s an experience you are unlikely to forget.

    Coral reefs are among the world’s most magnificent ecosystems. Their beauty alone makes them incalculably valuable, but beyond aesthetics, their importance to both marine life and humans is immense.

  • The Ingredients for a Hurricane

    I became interested in weather phenomena when I took physics in high school. At the time, I just wanted to understand how various things in nature worked. Unfortunately, most information about weather and hurricanes, whether in textbooks or on television, is merely descriptive: this is the sequence of events that we observe, and they lead to a hurricane. There is usually very little explanation of why it’s happening or the physics behind it.

  • Plastic Trash Plagues the Ocean

    Once upon a time, the ocean was considered the last place where we could still find an undisturbed environment. This was before the plague of man-made plastic trash flooded the seas. During my travels, I have realized that everything has changed. There is scarcely a place on Earth where plastic litter is not present. Standing on the decks of our research ship, miles away from any large urban areas, we have retrieved plastic from the deepest parts of the sea.

  • Pinning Down the Jellyfish

    Depending on whom you talk to, jellyfish are either fascinating, a nuisance, a toxic menace, or some combination of the above.

    Jellyfish plop into the media spotlight when their presence causes beach closures, or when an unlucky swimmer meets a jelly's toxic tentacle. They stimulate debate among scientists: some say that rising numbers of jellyfish are a sign of climate change and pollution, since the animals thrive in warmer, more acidic waters. Others say we don't know enough about their natural cycles to blame population booms on human activities.

  • World Heritage Goes Marine

    Last week, the United Nations’ World Heritage Convention went blue. Two of the largest and healthiest marine protected areas on our planet—the Phoenix Islands Protected Area in Kiribati and Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument in Hawaii—have now gained World Heritage status. Together, they more than doubled the marine area protected under the World Heritage Convention—now 1.6 million square kilometers (more than 617,000 square miles) or about 0.5 percent of the world’s ocean surface.

  • One Step Closer to a Healthier Ocean

    The year 2010 will likely be remembered as a tragic time for the ocean. Yet, despite the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, I have hope for our ocean’s future. Last week President Obama signed an Executive Order to implement our nation’s first National Ocean Policy.

  • The Invisible Loss: The Impacts of Oil You Do Not See

    Since late April, the world has watched a devastating oil spill from a BP drilling rig spread throughout the Gulf of Mexico and become one of the worst environmental disasters in the history of the United States.

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