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.
The birds that fill museum display cases may be silent, but they can tell researchers a lot about themselves and about their environment. In fact, they may be good resources for learning about changes in pollution and its effect on the birds themselves.
In 2011, for example, a team of researchers found that an endangered species of albatross has been ingesting a lot more of an especially toxic form of mercury since World War II.
Great “rivers” of water flow through the oceans -- currents that can be miles wide and hundreds of feet thick. Plotting their motions helps scientists learn how the oceans transport heat, minerals, and nutrients; how they interact with land; how they affect global climate, and much more.
There are a couple of main techniques for measuring the speeds of these currents. One is to go with the flow. The other is to sit still and let the flow go by.
If you drop a chunk of solid lead into a pool of liquid lead, the solid chunk sinks to the bottom like -- well, like a chunk of lead. But if you drop a chunk of ice into a glass of water, it bobs to the surface like a cork. The difference makes water a freak of nature. It’s one of the few substances that’s less dense in its solid form than its liquid form.
Pure water is densest at a temperature of 39 degrees Fahrenheit. As it gets warmer, its molecules need more space to spread out. So an even gallon of hot water weighs a bit less than a gallon of cold water.
On a solid surface, a penguin looks anything but graceful. Once it slides, dives, or flops into the water, though, it’s a completely different story -- the penguin soars through the water as gracefully as any of its kin soar through the air. In fact, you might say that the penguin is “flying” through the water.
You can’t feel it, but the earth beneath your feet is moving. Thin plates of rock -- a combination of the crust and some of the rock in the layer below, the mantle -- glide atop the deeper layers of rock -- a process known as plate tectonics. Scientists have used several techniques to measure this motion.
One way to measure long-term motions is by measuring the magnetism of the rocks on the ocean floor.
We tend to think of the oceans as chambers of silence -- watery cocoons with little or no sound. In reality, though, the oceans are noisy. Fish make sounds to attract mates. Whales send out their beautiful calls. Snapping shrimp “explode” little bubbles of air. Ships and submarines send out pulses of sound. And volcanoes, geysers, and other natural features create sounds of their own.
Sperm whales may not make the most exciting sounds in the oceans, but their sounds have created some excitement among marine biologists in Europe. Recordings like these have shown that many more sperm whales ply the Mediterranean Sea near Italy than anyone had expected. What’s more, the recordings have revealed new details about how the whales behave and how they migrate.
Cosmetics companies say that a good moisturizer keeps your skin looking young. And the youngest parts of Earth’s skin are well moisturized, too -- they’re at the bottom of the oceans.
Earth’s “skin” is the crust -- a thin layer of rock that makes up the planet’s surface.
There are two kinds of crust. One kind makes up the continents. It’s thick but lightweight, and it’s up to four billion years old. The other kind makes up the ocean floor. It’s thin but dense, and none of it is more than 200 million years old.
The law of the jungle -- whether on land or in the sea -- is usually that the big guys eat the little guys. But there are some exceptions. In the sea, one of those exceptions is a tiny organism known as Dinophysis. Not only does it eat creatures that are bigger than itself, but it waits patiently for the big guys to grab it.
It’s tempting to think of the oceans as a big mixing bowl -- pour in a little water here and a little there, and it all blends together. That’s not quite the case, though. Water from different sources forms ribbons, sheets, and blobs that tend to stay together for a while.
