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.

July 8, 2012

A new fad may be sweeping through Shark Bay, off the coast of Western Australia: conching. Researchers have seen bottlenose dolphins there bring conch shells to the surface and dump out fish. And the behavior seems to be getting more common.

The dolphins in Shark Bay use some pretty crafty strategies to stir up a meal. One is called “kerplunking” — the dolphin slaps its tail on the surface above a seagrass bed to scare out the fish. Another is called “sponging” — the dolphin uses a sponge to protect its beak as it pokes around the bay floor.

July 1, 2012

If people are keeping their distance from you, looking away, or discreetly placing a hand over their noses, it might be time to check your breath. The aroma of that shrimp with garlic sauce you had for lunch just might be keeping other people away.

Odors play an important role in the way fish congregate, too. If a fish is particularly smelly, others may keep away from it. And one way for a fish to pick up a bad smell is to swim through pollution.

July 1, 2012

It’s important to check out the neighbors before you move into a new place — are they loud, are they tidy, and, especially, is there an odor of death wafting around their digs?

The answer to that last question seems to play a role in where young damselfish settle on a coral reef: The odor of a predator keeps them away.

Damselfish hatch near the surface, and spend their first few days drifting or swimming with the currents. After that, they pick out a nearby reef as a permanent home.

June 24, 2012

The bays and wetlands around the American coastline are constantly changing. Some of the changes are natural, but some are caused by people. A network of instruments around the country is helping scientists understand these changes, while providing critical information to those who help manage coastal development.

June 17, 2012

We’ve all seen video of large schools of fish moving as one — all of its members seeming to turn, dart, or flow much like a single organism. Marine biologists are still trying to understand how that works — how hundreds or thousands of fish can move together so easily. In other words, they’re trying to work out the rules of the road.

One recent study found that the rules may be much like those that human drivers are supposed to follow on the highways: keep your eyes on the car ahead of you, and don’t follow too closely.

June 10, 2012

When you’re cruising along in an airliner, one of the last things you want to hear the captain say is, “Sorry, folks, we’re about to hit a little turbulence.”

But while turbulence in the sky is not a good thing, turbulence in the oceans is. It’s good for the organisms that live there, it’s good for the planet, and it’s good for us.

June 3, 2012

For fishing fleets in the Gulf of Mexico, one of the biggest threats to success is the annual “dead zone” -- a region off the coast of Louisiana where fish and shellfish all but disappear.

Yet the dead zone isn’t really dead. In fact, it teems with life. Unfortunately for the fishing fleets, though, it’s of the microscopic variety. It kills or chases away the bigger life by using up all the oxygen.

May 27, 2012

In the summer and fall of 2006, large numbers of dead fish, crabs, and other organisms washed up on the beaches of Oregon and Washington. They had died of suffocation -- there wasn’t enough oxygen in the water to keep them alive. And the culprit could be our changing climate.

May 20, 2012

As the last ice age drew to a close, thick sheets of ice that covered high northern and southern latitudes began to melt. Over several thousand years, that caused sea level to rise by around 60 or 70 feet.

But around 14,500 years ago, the flow of melting ice increased from a trickle to a torrent. Sea level jumped another 50 feet or so in just a few hundred years, drowning islands and causing coastlines to retreat by many miles.

May 13, 2012

If you camp out on a tropical island, it’s a good idea to have some mosquito netting to keep the little bloodsuckers at bay while you sleep. And the same rule may apply to some parrotfish that sleep on tropical coral reefs. The fish make their own netting, which appears to keep away the underwater equivalent of mosquitoes.

Before they nod off, some species of parrotfish surround themselves in a thick cocoon of mucus. It’s produced by glands near the gills, and it takes a half-hour or so to make.

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