Satellites hovering hundreds of miles above earth; underwater autonomous vehicles traveling through the ocean; drones collecting snot above whales; and robots that move like fish; what do all of these things have in common (other than sounding like some futuristic world where robots and computers have completely taken over)?? Turns out, all of these things … Continue reading
By this point, most of our readers are probably pretty well versed in ocean acidification (just type ‘coral reef’ in the UNdertheC search box and you’ll come up with lots of interesting tidbits about ocean acidification). We know that increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (from human activities, including the burning of fossil fuels) is … Continue reading
Top down and bottom up: two ideas often discussed in biology. Specifically, the idea that an organisms population is controlled by both bottom up controls (things like the amount of food around, temperature, freshwater availability) and top down controls (i.e., predation). But today, I’ll be thinking about ‘top down’ and ‘bottom up’ in a widely … Continue reading
I have recently returned to coastal NC after attending the 2017 Biennial Coastal Estuarine Research Federation (CERF) conference in Providence, Rhode Island. It was an extremely productive conference that allowed me the opportunity to present my research, network with leading experts in my field, get out of the UNC bubble, and see lots and lots … Continue reading
It’s funny, sometimes, the random facts you remember from when you were growing up. One I vividly remember is my 9th grade biology teacher telling us that lecithin, a common additive in food and cosmetics, was originally derived from algae. Who knows why this fact stuck with me (maybe because she challenged us to find … Continue reading
Before writing this post, I did a quick search of UNdertheC looking for any hits related to ‘citizen science’, and surprisingly, nothing came up. I guess this means this will be the first post, tangentially related, to what is known as citizen science. So what is citizen science? The formal definition is: ‘the collection and … Continue reading
One of the very first things anybody learns about science is the scientific method. Observation, hypothesis, experiment, conclusion. It’s the scientific creed. The motto scientists live by. But, despite the seemingly simple 4-steps, in reality, the scientific method is a tortuous path that can be slow, complicated, winding, and at times, incredibly frustrating. To really … Continue reading
Now that 2017 has officially been rung in, we here at UNdertheC wanted to take a moment to look back to 2016 and review some of our most popular posts from 2016! But first, we’d like to thank the 18,000+ visitors that visited us this year! We couldn’t do it without you (and are genuinely … Continue reading
In the spirit of Thanksgiving (and in continuing tradition) we’re going to compile a list of all the reasons we have to thank the oceans! But because there are a lot, we’ll narrow it down to the TOP FIVE REASONS YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON THE OCEAN! ** ** Just wanted to make things a little … Continue reading
When most people think about the impacts of climate change on the world’s oceans, they’re first thoughts are things like ‘corals’ and ‘ocean acidification’. And while these are both excellent examples of how climate change affects the oceans, they’re not the only ones. Science magazine recently published a great article by Hunter-Cevera et al., 2016 … Continue reading
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