The Okeanos Explorer

From January through September 2016, a team of NOAA and external partners will embark on a journey with NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer to investigate and document deep-water environments in and around the Hawaiian Archipelago, the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands (CNMI) and the Marianas Trench Marine National Monument (MTMNM), and Wake Atoll section of the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument (PRIMNM). A multidisciplinary team of scientists, technicians, and engineers – both on board the ship and on shore – will conduct undersea mapping and remotely operated vehicle (ROV) explorations of the geological, biological, archaeological, and chemical features of these vast areas.

 Stockton University Biology professor, Dr. Tara Luke is participating in the evaluation of data collected during these dives!  You can follow her twitter feed here, and see the richness of diversity of life -- even at a few thousand meters below the ocean surface!!

Dolphins Quick Healing

From Science Daily, an article from Georgetown University Medical Center explains the research referring to dolphins and their ability to heal quickly. The article proposed different reasons for such an ability and how they are able to keep their shape after healing from a large gash, such as a shark bite.

They release a compound that helps fight infections. When cut, their blood is not near the surface therefore, they do not loose as much blood and are able to survive and heal quickly. The healing ability is "less like human healing and more like regeneration." Scientists are interested in finding out if the unique dolphin abilities can assist human injuries.

Zooplankton May be in Trouble

According to the University of Rhode Island's research on zooplankton, they may be forced to enter high predator areas. Since zooplankton are at the bottom of the food chain, their importance is unmeasurable.

They usually go into the deeper waters during the day where their predators can not reach them due to the low oxygen levels. At night they rise up to get their necessary nutrition. Global warming is enlarging the low oxygen water area making the normal oxygen water smaller. With less room, the zooplankton population may decrease because of the difficulty of dodging predators.

If less zooplankton are present in the aquatic environment, it will negatively affect the entire food chain.

Marine life close to extinction

According to an article on CNN , Marine life may be facing a mass extinction. Attributing factors to this are global warming, habitat loss and pollution. Included in this is the possible loss of the coral reef as well. The declining speed of loss is faster then was originally predicted. The article states that there are several attributes for the loss of the wildlife one of which was a coral bleaching that occurred in 1998 in which 16% of the worlds tropical reefs were lost. A similar loss is occurring in Japan but that is because of the power plants that were destroyed due to the earthquake.

I feel that there are many animals that are threatened or near to extinction and the world isn't really acting to do anything about it. There are smaller groups that ban together to try to save wildlife, and they do, but there are only so many animals that they alone can save. We need to come together and try to save as many animals as we possibly can.

Jawless Fish Demise Still A Mystery

According to the New York Times, jawless fish may have died off for reasons other than not being efficient predators. Jaws first appeared on fish around 420 million years ago. Prior to this, fish sucked their prey through their mouths. Today, however, only two types of jawless fish remain, lampreys and hagfish. A study that was performed shows that jawless fish coexisted with jawed fish for 10 to 20 million years. This lead them to question whether competition was the downfall of jawless fish. Dr. Philip Anderson, an evolutionary paleobiologist at the University of Bristol in England, studies fossils to research jaws. He found that 10 million years after the first jawed fish appeared, there were a variety of distinct jaws. Slender jaws for capturing, and thick and robust jaws for power appeared amongst others. A study suggests that perhaps jawless fish utilized different resources to survive longer. Although, no definitive answer is known right now, the scientists firmly believe that competition with jawed fish is not the key reason for their demise.

Box Jellyfish Have Eyes, Allowing it to See the World Above

According to an article published on April 28, 2011 in Current Biology, box jellyfish may be more complex than what meets the eye. Though it is well known that the jellyfish is a much simpler organism in comparison to a human, box jellyfish have no fewer than 24 eyes of four different kinds. Four of these eyes, called the upper lens eyes, always peer up out of the water, regardless of how the rest of the organism is oriented. Since box jellies live in mangrove swamps, it was hypothesized that the upper lens eyes help navigate the jellyfish around their environment. Anders Garm of the University of Copenhagen said, "It is a surprise that a jellyfish - an animal normally considered to be lacking both brain and advanced behavior - is able to perform visually guided navigation, which is not a trivial behavioral task. This shows that the behavioral abilities of simple animals, like jellyfish, may be underestimated." Scientists have known that box jellies have a unique array of eyes, which help the animal respond to light, avoid obstacles, and control their rate of swimming. When studied, the researchers noticed that the jellyfish used their upper lens eyes to navigate their way by means of looking at the canopy of mangrove trees. When the canopy was obscured from their vision, the box jellies could no longer get around and did not move. Garm says, "Instead of having a single pair of general-purpose eyes like most other animals, box jellyfish have several different types of eyes used for special purposes. This means that each individual eye type is dedicated to support only a limited number of behaviors. The eyes can then be built to collect precisely the information needed, minimizing the need for further processing in a big brain. The automatic orientation of the upper lens eyes to constantly look through the water surface is a clear example of this."

I thought this article was really interesting because I, like I'm sure most people do, assumed that jellyfish were stupid creatures that cannot do anything complex because of their simplicity. Also, I thought it was REALLY cool that they have so many different types of eyes, each with its own special purpose. It makes sense why each type of eye has only a certain number of functions, though, as Garm said. It cuts down on the jellyfish's necessity to process that information through the brain. So that explains why jellyfish have such a small brain and can still perform complex behavioral tasks, like navigating through a mangrove swamp. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to navigate myself through a mangrove swamp, and I'm much more complex than a jellyfish! Props to the box jellies. =]

Sea Squirts and Starfish and Eternal Life? Oh My!

Researchers at the University of Gothenburg have been studying asexually-reproducing marine organisms, such as colony-forming ascidians (sea squirts) and starfish, to try to unlock the riddle of aging. Animals that reproduce asexually by somatic cloning have special mechanisms that delay aging and provide exceptionally good health. It is useful to study these animals in order to understand mechanisms of human aging, says Helen Nilsson Skold of the University of Gothenburg. There is an enormous difference in the lengths of each organisms' life span here on Earth. Some of the organisms that reproduce asexually essentially have eternal life. For example, there are some deep-sea corals that have been around for tens of thousands of years! The team of researchers on this project have chosen to study sea squirts and starfish because their genes closely resemble that of humans. Skold says that her research "has shown that sea squirts rejuvenate themselves by activating the enzyme telomerase, and in this way extending their chromosomes and protecting their DNA. They also have the ability to discard 'junk' ... and older parts are simply broken down and recycled." In starfish, it was observed that the species that reproduced asexually had considerably better health that those that reproduced sexually. However, a consequence of asexual reproduction is that the species as a whole will have a very low genetic variation which makes them particularly vulnerable to climate change and new types of environments. "There is a high risk that these animals and plants will lose out -- and then we will lose important knowledge about the riddle of aging."

I liked this article because it reminded me of something my Bio I professor had talked about. When we were learning about DNA replication and the function of DNA telomerase, he had mentioned that researchers were looking into how to stop telomerase from cutting off the ends of DNA every time it replicates. If one could stop DNA from being cut off, we would essentially stop aging. This was also linked to a theory about how to stop cancer cells from dividing and spreading. I think it would be a great scientific feat if one day we could stop aging, but at the same time, that is messing with nature and the cycle of life. Everyone has to die sometime.

Article was found in Biology News - click here to read.