Meyer-Kaiser lab

Ladies and gentlemen, it is a good day in Destin, FL. I have my water bottle, sunscreen, and a hat because today, I will be on a boat 22 miles offshore in the Gulf. We have waited a year for this, but today, the SS United States will be deployed to become the world's largest artificial reef. The vessel was towed over from Mobile, AL starting on Monday. She arrived at her final resting place (or rather, 55 m above it) yesterday. Today, we are all systems go for an incredible sinking event.  There is lots of media coverage for this event, so I had four interviews yesterday. It was an honor to represent my team of collaborators who will study the ship as it transforms into a habitat.  You can join the action live online! The entire sinking process will be live-streamed at TheSSUS.com . If you see a woman with a bright, beaming smile and a teal long-sleeve shirt with a giant WHOI logo, that's me!

DRAGON exploring a shipwreck in Hathaway Pond. The diver on the left is Fred Marin, a WHOI engineering technician.  "I felt like it was going to lay eggs on me." - Fred Marin DRAGON was designed for biomimicry, but it seems the engineers might have done a little too well. My dive buddy for the day, Fred, was a little creeped out by the soft robot's motion. I'll admit, DRAGON did look a lot like a worm. It bent and wriggled, whereas most robots spin and pitch.  With a sharp inhale, I watched the DRAGON robot swim through the water. I let my breath out slowly, focused my camera, and triggered the shutter - one photo, two photos. Another breath in, and I counted in my head to slow my inhale. DRAGON bent this way and that, sweeping its own camera to take in the submerged boat. Three photos, four photos, and I breathed out through my regulator.  We were only underwater for about 10 minutes, but I took a few dozen photos. Fred captured video. In a kayak above us, robotics p...

L to R: Me, imaging expert Dwight Coleman, the 3D model of Quest , Alvin pilot Benen Elshaks, and Alvin team lead Bruce  Strickrott. Photographed at the RCGS gala.  The card reader on my hotel room door flashed green, and I pushed the door open with my shoulder. It seemed heavier than it had that morning. My feet hurt. I slapped the wall to flip a light switch, and the yellow glow felt out of place against the midnight city outside. As the door slammed shut behind me, I collapsed onto one of the fluffy queen beds and pulled off my shoes. It had been a long day.  This week was the annual gala of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. Among other events, the Society celebrated its successes during the Heroic Age Expedition, which took place last summer. RCGS partnered with WHOI to explore two shipwrecks in the Labrador Sea - Quest , captained by Ernest Shackleton, and Terra Nova , captained by Robert Falcon Scott. Even though both Shackleton and Scott were most famous ...

The room was full - absolutely full. A late arrival made his way awkwardly through the rows of chairs to the only empty seat remaining. I saw heads bobbing and weaving to get better views of my slides. Proudly, I shared my shipwreck research with the crowd.  The Cape Cod Maritime Museum has an incredibly cool lecture series called History on Tap. Participants enjoy cups of locally-brewed beer while listening to a seminar on some historical topic. The atmosphere in the museum's basement auditorium is very relaxed, but the audience is deeply engaged.  Over about 45 minutes, I shared research I had conducted in Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, the Gulf of Mexico, Palau, and the Labrador Sea. The last portion of my talk, focused on two far northern shipwrecks that I had visited this summer, was new - I had never presented that project publicly before. It was a pleasure to share the history of two iconic exploration ships and how they have become habitats in the Labra...

Sunset on Georges Bank, seen  from F/V Western Edge My body is weird.  I was seasick for 24 hours straight, barely managing to keep water and a few bites of bread in my stomach - and in one case failing. I laid on the floor of the wheelhouse on F/V Western Edge during every transit, because that was the only place I felt stable. My body screamed at me to get low, get comfortable, and if possible, fall asleep. I could power through well enough to collect my samples at each station, but other than that, I was useless.  As soon as we finished our last station, almost to the minute, my body decided it was fine. The captain turned back toward land, and all of a sudden, I could eat, I could walk around, I could do anything. I mean, thanks, Body, for acclimating, but way to go on the timing.  Facing the other direction from the above photo With our return to New Bedford, the field work for my scallop project  is complete. We have every sample that we need for our anal...

Hurricane Isaias forecast from the National Weather Service. The red area is Destin - Fort Walton Beach, FL. I am supposed to be diving right now.  I packed my rebreather this week, put my wetsuit in a suitcase, made sure I grabbed my fins. But fate would not have it be so. In the year of a Super El Ni ño, when there were supposed to be a lower number of hurricanes in the Atlantic than normal, my trip still got weathered out. There was one hurricane. It made landfall exactly where I was planning to go. Two days before I was supposed to be there.  If the universe is sending a message, it is addressed to me in particular.  I left the rebreather at home, delayed my flight by a few days, and then made my way to Destin - Fort Walton Beach, Florida. We may not be diving this week - I'm told the visibility offshore is so bad, you can't see your own hands underwater - but there are still plenty of reasons for me to be here.  Ladies and gentlemen, the SS United States is goi...

Any comic book or graphic novel fans out there? This post is for you!  A while ago, I was contacted by an MIT professor teaching a class: CMS 306 Making Comics and Sequential Art. In that class, students learn to draw and narrate stories using sequential panels, much like a comic book. A classic assignment is for students to team up with a scientist and tell the story of their research.  Now, I love a good science-art collaboration. I see metaphors for research in modern art museums, and I find my scientific experiences reflected in music , dance , and drawing . When I saw the professor's email, I jumped enthusiastically on board.  There were actually two teams of students who chose my work. One created a comic about larval dispersal to shipwrecks, and the other team focused on how shipwreck materials impact recruitment. The recruitment team used a resurrected ship captain as their narrator, which was a really cool twist! The final, colorized version of their comic appe...