The dungeness crab fishery in the US represents a $170 million market, but you may have seen in the headlines that this year’s crab pots will remain empty and fishing vessels are staying in their harbors. The root of the problem can be traced back to Pseudo-nitzschia, a common type of phytoplankton which produces a toxin … Continue reading
Venoms are complex chemical cocktails designed to be actively injected into another organism and wreak cellular havoc (not to be confused with poisons, which need to be ingested). Venoms have a rich evolutionary history, with each independently evolved lineage accumulating new duplicate genes that can then mutate and alter existing proteins to produce an extraordinarily … Continue reading
Can corals survive climate change? This is a question on the minds of many environmentalists and researchers these days. The short answer is: probably, but coral reefs as we know them likely cannot. Every coral may not go extinct, but reefs are degrading and will continue to do so if the status quo is not … Continue reading
Welcome to the second guest post in Larisa Bennett’s series about her semester at UNC’s Institute of Marine Sciences (IMS) through the Institute for the Environment Field Site program! Today, Larisa takes us out to sea for a shark research expedition. For more of Larisa’s aquatic adventures, check out her first post! Shark attacks along … Continue reading
This guest post was written by Julie Geyer. Julie is a research technician in Joel Fodrie’s lab at the UNC Chapel Hill Institute of Marine Sciences, where her work focuses on the ecology of seagrass beds. She graduated from Cornell University in 2014, where she worked in both Nelson Hairston’s lab, as well as in … Continue reading
This guest post was written by Anastasia Quintana. Anastasia is a 2nd-year PhD student at Duke (please don’t stop reading) who used to study marine parasite ecology at UCSB with Armand Kuris. Now she has switched fully into the social sciences, and studies with advisor Xavier Basurto how communities organize to manage their environmental resources. She is enthusiastic about … Continue reading
Guest post by Sarah W. Davies Ph.D. In 2012 I spent a month on Orpheus Island on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) in Australia. It was here that my Ph.D. advisor Mikhail V. Matz, Line Bay from the Australian Institute of Marine Sciences (AIMS), and myself embarked on a research project that would end up … Continue reading
Below is an interview with artist Guy Harvey. Thanks to Gainseville Coins (gainsevillecoins.com) for sharing the post with us. Dr. Guy Harvey is a self-made artist, an accomplished marine scientist who is heavily involved in conservation efforts, as well as a successful business owner. His brand has become widely recognized throughout the country, and indeed … Continue reading
Last Wednesday, our very own Kelsey Ellis defended her Master’s Thesis in front of a crowd of thousands of people. Just kidding, there weren’t quite that many people, but I’m sure it feels like that to a nervous student on the brink of one of the most stressful times of their graduate career. A ‘defense’ … Continue reading
In the Southern Outer Banks, taking walks on the beach is a routine activity rather than an aspirational line for one’s OK Cupid profile. I don’t know how an affinity for beach walking became the clincher for personal ads rather than, say, “likes cooking gourmet meals and then doing all the dishes,” but it’s true … Continue reading
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