week

Left to right: Week long progression of beautiful weather on day 1 to pouring rain on day 4. Sites: Cranberry Rd, Gouldsboro, ME; Bracy Cove, ME; Marshall Point, ME; and Newagen Seaside Inn, ME

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Reef research underway

Ecological relationships between marsh cordgrass, mussels, and fiddler crabs. Published in Hughes et al. 2013.

This isn’t even base camp… what the $#&% are we getting ourselves into…

Grab sampler (front) and corer ready for use!

Reef buddies

Maybe this Blue Planet moment will give you some idea. (photo credit: Sam Csik)

Top left: whitetip reef shark (Triaenodon obesus) Top right: crown-of-thorns starfish (Acanthaster planci) Bottom left: Moorish idol (Zanclus cornutus) Bottom right: goliath grouper (Epinephelus quinquefasciatus)

Sand dollar and sea urchin test – pen and ink

A comparison of heatmaps made using some common color schemes: red, black and green (top left), default heatmap colors in R yellow to red (middle left) and red & blue (bottom left), along with their corresponding simulation for red/green deficit on the right.

Weighing a sample on the microbalance

The same beach, Canoe Beach, during Hurricane Sandy. The waves are near 10 feet high in this photo

In case you were wondering, this is Comet Pan-Starrs. Thanks to Boston light pollution, it was not visible to the naked eye in Framingham. http://www.space.com/20056-comet-panstarrs-march-night-sky.html

Barnacles entombed in ice

A map of Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary. Dots represent right whale sightings, solid lines indicate previous shipping lanes, dotted lines indicate new shipping lanes. stellwagen.noaa.gov

I was moved to tears. (left photo credit: Sam Csik)

My lost and found glasses! Now part of the marine debris sculpture!

Basic diagram of the neurosecretory system of the American lobster, Homarus americanus. Edited from Skiebe 2001.

(Silbiger & Munguia 2008)

Forbes sea star and common periwinkle just chillin’ in the tank

Filtering water in the back of the MSC van!

Huge anenome at Pigeon Point!

Me and Pinar at the Ankara Half Marathon.

1856 portrait of Mr. Verne. All sea captains should have such a beard http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jules_Verne.gif

Thin layer of ice coating Fucus

This should probably be marine themed, but… well, feel free to imagine it is a spiny fish…

Tiniest spoon EVER!

View of the Bay of Fundy from a beautiful coastal trail in Quoddy Head State Park

Sometimes you meet unexpected friends in the intertidal

The light grey mud is presumpscot – glacial till!

Thanks to research in China, the proteins that make these jellies light up can now make your ice cream glow!

Blue clab – colored pencil

Exploring the expansive intertidal for Marine Ecology class surveys

Geoffrey Mutai finishing the 2011 Boston Marathon. His time of 2 hours 3 minutes and 2 seconds set a new record of the fastest marathon ever. (Photo: http://www.npr.org)

Don’t mind us, just destroying some echinoderm innocence.

Left to right: Scuba smurf inspects survey gear, Christine Newton sets up a transect line for survey

VW bug, Mexico. Photo: Jason deCaires Taylor.

Franklin’s 1770 map of the Gulf Stream (Image courtesy of NOAA Photo Library)

Snowy sunset at the MSC

Winning marathon times for the Boston Marathon 1933-2004. Open diamonds represent men’s times, closed circles represent women’s times. (Figure 2 from Miller-Rushing et al. 2013)

Pottery shards are likely from an ancient sieve, used in the step to strain the solid curds from the liquid whey.

Waves trickling through polished pebbles before Egg Rock. Nahant, MA, 2012.

A polychaete worm we found in the mud – check out those parapodia!

Small (left) gel rigs hold about 1/3 the number of samples of a large (right) gel rig.

The new Hughes greenhouse, to be completed this spring, just in time for collecting marsh plants!

We barely had a boat ride where we didn’t see one or both of these. It was seriously magical. (photo credit: Sam Csik)

Ode to a microscopic world. (photo credit: Joelle Kilchenmann, Hollis Jones & Janine Ledet)

Moose looks on as I filter water samples in the backseat of the MSC van.

My new shiny Dell! Did I mention it was touch screen! Hello 21st century!

Hiking in the New Hampshire White Mountains

Canoe Beach on a “normal” calm day

A map of Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary. Dots represent right whale sightings, solid lines indicate previous shipping lanes, dotted lines indicate new shipping lanes. stellwagen.noaa.gov

Jonah crabs and club tunicates

Castle Rock on a calm day at East Point.

North Atlantic sea cucumber with feeding tree extended!

Professor Matt Bracken helps students identify some inverts living in the mud

In this nutrient-poor bog, these carnivorous pitcher plants subsist by trapping insects in their “pitcher” filled with sweet nectar

Heterosiphonia japonica – the alga we were hoping to survey today

Littorine snails congregate on the scarce rocky refuges of the primarily sandy beaches of Costa Rica.

Fish printing on t-shirts is a great way to show off your artistic talents!

Helpers colored a marine animal or plant to add to our food web, and then we connected them with string to demonstrate links in the food chain.

Photo: news.cnet.com

Students reference their self-made field guides to ID species during a rocky shore survey on Georges Island

Asco-fix-em! Quick thinking and improvising are key for successful field work: if your tool breaks, patch it together with some seaweed!

A clear, penetrable membrane seals the body cavity of the lobster, but still allows blood to be taken as needed.

A little marble can make a big difference….

Rasit (my husband) armed and ready to put up his poster on phylogeography of inverts in the Mediterranean and Black Sea.

Good morning sun!

One of Maria’s many beautiful illustrations: search her name to see more!

Returning from a night snorkel tracking octopuses in Bonaire.

Our dear Kylla presenting her fancy statistical modeling of intertidal algal ecosystem biodiversity.

Liz Hemond and Prof. Vollmer at the Marine Science Center

Boo!!

Here’s part of a lobster nervous system pinned out in a Petri dish.

Map of the 11 sites surveyed in the Gulf of Maine

VW bug habitat plan. Jason deCaires Taylor.

Lugging these around is my exercise for the day

Right: Sand covering a head of Siderastrea siderea. Each point is a different grain of sand. (credit: Janine Ledet & Kali Horn) Left: sediment infiltrating the polyps of a Montastrea cavernosa. The arrows show the movement of one grain of sand, proving that corals can direct the movement of foreign substances. (credit: Andrea Burton & Joelle Kilchenmann)

Frozen tide pool

Morning in Bocas

Putting your face near poisonous animals is a staple of the 3 Seas immersive experience.

A real live nautilus! In the aquarium at California Academy of Sciences

It goes on and on and on and on.

Volunteer Scientist with The Science Club for Girls

Kylla lends her algae expertise to some COSA students

Ice layer in the high intertidal

The whelk Busycon spiratum – graphite

The growing tip of an Acropora cervicornis branch under the dissecting scope. Photo: Liz Hemond

Commemorative stamps released in 2006 representing various pursuits of Ben Franklin (Image credit: http://faq.usps.com/eCustomer/iq/images/AI7546-6.jpg)

Chris and Mariah dazzle students with fun facts about lobsters, crabs and snails!

Pit Organs have thousands of nerve endings that can sense temperature changes of less than a thousandth of a degree.

Green sea turtle – not actually an illustration, this is a sand sculpture I made on a beach (one of my more bizarre artistic hobbies)

Even the fetal pig thinks I am a good TA! Thats all the gratification I need….

The Sea Education Campus (SEA) in Woods Hole, MA, where the retreat was located. Photo: patricialapadula.com

Kylla and Brendan working on the shed – almost done!

Massachusetts Sea Level Curve from USGS. Click image to go to source.

Geoff explaining our awesome new seawater system amidst the construction of the new and improved pumphouse.

… and allegedly some ghosts.

Welcome to the bat cave. Spooky.

First light hits U.S. land each morning here at Quoddy Head Light

Tubes of sperm, eggs, and embryos!

Rate of Education Improvement in 49 Countries from 1995 to 2009

Runners stopping for water during the 2012 Boston Marathon. Photo: hunffingtonpost.com

cc BigA888 http://www.flickr.com/photos/biga888/6933668645/

left to right: White Band disease experiment, falcon tubes with coral fragments, the omniscient autoclave

Old-timey maps add gravitas to any explanation.

La Jardinera del la Esperanza, Punta Nizuc, Mexico. Photo: Jason deCaires Taylor.

Holy Man, Mexico. Photo: Jason deCaires Taylor. Unfortunately, this isn’t likely to be an efficient way to grow A. cervicornis… they need more room – but I will be interested to see how this looks in 1-2 years.

Our shiny new lab space at the Northeastern MSC! So many shelves and drawers and windows!

An owl helps with oceanographic research! Photo by John Lund, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute

The Vollmer Lab at STRI! I promise that water bottle will be out by the time experiments begin but it’s important to stay hydrated while moving heavy boxes and dodging cockroaches the size of small rodents.

Waves like this make diving a bit dangerous

Pyrexia? Why don't they just say 'fever'?!

Thanks to research in China, the proteins that make these jellies light up can now make your ice cream glow!

Dan Bluestein at the Marine Science Center

Just some of the contents of our lab’s outdoor storage shed… the “scientific equipment” we marine ecologists use.

This sign is no joke, those seals are huge! And they can move faster than you think…

Rachel Carson with Bob Hines conducting marine biology research in Florida in 1952. (Photo: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

Also this happened. That’s King Sebastian, our fearless boat driver and all around hero.

Left to right: Week long progression of beautiful weather on day 1 to pouring rain on day 4. Sites: Cranberry Rd, Gouldsboro, ME; Bracy Cove, ME; Marshall Point, ME; and Newagen Seaside Inn, ME

Top: Hollis Jones inspects a coral skeleton. That muddy rock has been around for longer than human civilization. Bottom: Bill talks about the history of Bocas reefs and explains how we can use coral fossils to tell us about the natural world of the past. (photo credit: Janine Ledet)

Steps to perfect blancmenge: 1) dry harvested irish moss and while waiting 2) teach an old dog new tricks and 3) take sexy seaweed shots. 4) Gather supplies. 5) Warm milk with chosen ingredients and irish moss. Once the ‘gel’ has been released from the seaweed 5) strain and put into individual serving cups. Let set overnight in the refrigerator and enjoy!

“What! We have to fit all our stuff into that little thing!”

Me at work in the Florida mangroves.

Worms!!

Fair-well my old Dell!

You can’t understand how good this looks until you’ve spent nearly 2 months living in a field station. They gave us homemade blackberry juice for goodness sake.

A terrific drawing of what I assume is my student, me and the fetal pig we dissected in lab.

Front view of RoboLobster

Catherine celebrates the big day with her father and sister.

Traditional New England Clambake

The essentials of Fucus reproduction

Tony’s Market: your local source of Pringles and cookies

Catherine celebrating the big day (right) with her father and sister. Brendan (left) starting his defense presentation.

Of course, we had to take a pit stop on our drive for some tidepooling!

Wiring success! Maybe I will start moonlighting as an electrician.

Ice Skating in the Boston Commons

I was lucky to glimpse this snail after a wave exposed it, before it quickly burrowed back into the sand.

Left to right / top to bottom: Make shift field lab in Darling Center Cabin, make shift field lab in the field (!), Maine-ly Meat Restaurant, Acadia NP, Alewife fish ladder in Damariscotta, ME, grass roll, and sunset.

Male releasing spermatangia (left pictures) and female releasing oogonia (right pictures). Note the female receptacle (top right) has ruptured and conceptacles inside the recepatacle are visible.

Kylla Benes measuring fucus reproductive effort.

I thought students might be squeamish about the fish – but they loved it!

No words.

Kylla and Me and the Wicked Half Marathon finish last year.

Ulva intestinalis in a frozen pool

Rainbow of colors seen in full spectrum (left) and with two types of red/green deficit: protanopia (middle) and deuteranopia (right). Images from wikipedia.

NC Analyzer

Sea surface temperature data collected by NOAA satellites. Notice the dark orange band indicating the warm Gulf Stream. (Image from www.science.nasa.gov)

Professor Bracken and our guide, Deb, deploy the CTD at our open ocean sampling site

Lauren Josephs squirts fluorescein dye into the water column. By measuring the dye dispersal over a time-lapse video you can get an idea of water turbulence around coral reefs.

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The proportion of megabytes for “Graduate School” and for “Everything Else”

Between Northeastern Tides

Sky of Blue, Sea of Green, Northeastern's Blog Marine!

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