Radio Program
Our regular Science and the SeaTM radio program presents marine science topics in an engaging two-minute story format. Our script writers gather ideas for the radio program from the University of Texas Marine Science Institute's researchers and from our very popular college class, Introduction to Oceanography, which we teach to hundreds of non-science majors at The University of Texas at Austin every year. Our radio programs are distributed at to commercial and public radio stations across the country.
Most of us have little trouble naming the world’s largest coral reef system. It’s Australia’s Great Barrier Reef -- 1600 miles of coral, aquamarine waters, and other natural wonders.
The second-largest reef system is no less wondrous. But it’s pretty much anonymous, even though it’s not that far from home.
Vast ribbons of life undulate across the oceans and seas. They’re packed with fish, sea turtles, and sometimes even wriggling masses of sea snakes. These ribbons are known as driftlines. They’re collections of floating seaweed, sticks, and other debris. They form at the boundaries between ocean currents, where the debris is pushed together to form patches or lines. Some are fairly small, but others can stretch for miles.
The creatures that live in the deep ocean don’t have to be big to be scary. Consider an animal that’s only about a foot long, and about the same consistency as a jellyfish. Its spooky appearance earned it a spooky name: Vampyroteuthis infernalis -- “vampire squid from hell.”
Saudi Arabia is home to some of the most desolate land on Earth. In the giant Rub Al-Khali and an-Nafud deserts, temperatures can soar to 140 degrees Fahrenheit, and frequent sandstorms fill the sky with choking dust. Yet not so far from the desert, life is abundant: in the extensive coral reefs of the Red Sea. Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coastline is about 1100 miles long, and coral reefs fringe most of it. They’re home to several hundred species of coral, plus hundreds more species of fish, crustaceans, and other creatures.
The guy who came up with the expression “drinking like a fish” knew what he was talking about. Although it sounds a little kooky, saltwater fish have to guzzle saltwater to help them survive in a saltwater environment.
A fish has to maintain the proper amount of sodium, chloride, and other dissolved minerals -- the “salt” in saltwater -- in its tissues.
But the water around the fish doesn’t want to cooperate. It tries to even out the distribution of freshwater and saltwater by passing through a fish’s skin and gills.
TV shows like “Planet Earth” and “The Blue Planet” offer spectacular views of life in the oceans. These programs were made possible in large part by the work of a single man. He helped develop underwater photography and scuba diving, and he hosted the first TV show that regularly transported viewers into the undersea realm.
When a patient in ancient Greece was in great pain -- from headaches to gout to childbirth -- a physician sometimes prescribed a dose of fish. The patients didn’t eat the fish, though. Instead, the fish gave them an electric shock that numbed the senses. The Greek name for the fish was narke, and it’s where we get the modern word “narcotic.”
The west coast of Tasmania is raw and wet. Gale-force winds commonly buffet the island, which can get up to a hundred inches of rain a year.
It’s been a ritual for three decades. Every other day, circumstances permitting, a scientist from the University of Texas Marine Science Institute patrols a stretch of beach on Mustang Island, near the town of Port Aransas. Tony Amos notes the weather conditions, counts the number of people and cars, and lists the trash he finds. Most important, though, he counts the birds: herons, gulls, plovers, pelicans, and many others -- more than four million birds in all.
The last time NASA launched a craft named Aquarius, it wound up serving as a lifeboat -- it helped the three astronauts of Apollo 13 get home safely. The next Aquarius could help life across the entire planet by providing a new look at how the oceans respond to global climate change.
Aquarius is a joint mission between NASA and Argentina. The robotic probe could launch as early as late spring. It has several goals, but the main one is to monitor the salt in the world’s oceans.
