In the search for extraterrestrial life, we Earthlings naturally look for signs of water or the green, lush lifeforms that cover our planet. But the Universe is not just our mirror, and our imaginations must stretch way beyond the familiar. Last summer, a student in the MBL Microbial Diversity course was inspired to take up this challenge, leading to her new publication, “Purple is the New Green," in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters. “During the course, I encountered so much biodiversity that the astronomy community is still missing in their models to search for extra ..read more

“Secrets of the Octopus,” a docu-series featuring MBL Senior Scientist Roger Hanlon, premieres this Sunday, April 21, at 9 PM ET on the National Geographic channel. It begins streaming Monday (Earth Day) on Disney+ and Hulu. Narrated by Paul Rudd and produced by James Cameron, the show stars Alexander Schnell, former MBL Grass Fellow, who had Hanlon on her PhD committee and has co-published eight scientific papers with him on cuttlefish. Tune in for the many-armed reveals! Trailer below ..read more

For this feature, National Geographic photographer David Liittschwager embedded in MBL Senior Scientist Roger Hanlon's lab to observe octopuses and draw on Hanlon's expertise about their behavior.  With their bulbous mantles, squirming arms, and clouds of ink, it’s no wonder that octopuses—from the kraken to Ursula in The Little Mermaid—have inspired folklore for centuries. But in reality, these cephalopods are smart, curious, and full of personality. For these images, photographer David Liittschwager spent weeks at Roger Hanlon’s laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and at Anna Di Co ..read more

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Media contact: Diana Kenney dkenney@mbl.edu; 508-685-3525 The cold, treeless tundra landscape that encircles the Earth just below the Arctic ice caps - including much of Alaska and Canada - is known to contain huge stores of carbon in its frozen soils. But a big unknown in global change biology has been whether a warming climate will cause this carbon to be released as carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, creating a positive feedback loop into climate change. Today, a massive synthesis study published in Nature confirms that climate warming shifts the dynamics of tundra environments and makes the ..read more

Mosquitoes are the deadliest animals in the world, causing nearly 1 million human deaths a year. Two species are chiefly responsible for this mortality: Anopheles gambiae, which transmit malaria in tropical climates, and Aedes aegypti, found in cooler, urbanized environments where they transmit dengue, yellow fever, zika, and other viruses. In an inspired project in the MBL Neurobiology course, faculty and students set out to create a catalog or “atlas” of the cells in the nervous system of Aedes larvae. They focused on the ventral nerve cord, a central hub for controlling mosquito behavior, p ..read more

Mosquitoes are the deadliest animals in the world, causing nearly 1 million human deaths a year. Two species are chiefly responsible for this mortality: Anopheles gambiae, which transmit malaria in tropical climates, and Aedes aegypti, found in cooler, urbanized environments where they transmit dengue, yellow fever, zika, and other viruses. In an inspired project in the MBL Neurobiology course, faculty and students set out to create a catalog or “atlas” of the cells in the nervous system of Aedes larvae. They focused on the ventral nerve cord, a central hub for controlling mosquito behavior, p ..read more

This article on the sudden evolutionary appearance of myelin quotes Robert Gould, an MBL Society Member and former Whitman scientist. Charles Darwin proposed that evolution is driven by gradual variations in organisms that have a survival advantage in a changing environment. But University of Maryland evolutionary biologist Karen Carleton says that scientists have long grappled with the quandary that “evolution can happen abruptly, as described by Steven Jay Gould in [the theory of] punctuated equilibrium.” The question has always been: How does this happen? A case in point is the sudden appea ..read more

Like moths to a flame, MBL-ers spontaneously streamed from their labs and offices to bask in the solar eclipse on April 6, which reached 88.8% totality in Woods Hole. Nature and science are always in conversation in Woods Hole, and this shared celestial event was no exception. No, this isn't a rock festival - it's scientists, students and staff watching the eclipse in Waterfront Park. Credit: Diana Kenney   ..read more

The late David Remsen, who directed the MBL’s Marine Resources Center, was as keen a naturalist as can be found anywhere on Earth. He grew up in Woods Hole, swimming in its bays and turning over rocks to see what crawled beneath. Later, as chief of MBL’s specimen-collecting operations, he continued to amass an encyclopedic knowledge of the animals and plants living in and around Woods Hole. Remsen was a prolific contributor to iNaturalist, a website for sharing observations of species. Between 2008 and 2022, he published 2,741 observations that run the gamut from birds to flowers to insects to ..read more