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.
Currents at the bottom of the ocean can be just as fickle as wind currents at the surface. They can turn, speed up or slow down, and even reverse course. And they can change in just days or even hours.
That’s the conclusion of the most detailed study of sea-floor currents to date. Researchers anchored 34 instrument packages across a thousand-square-mile region off the coast of Mozambique, at the southeastern corner of Africa. The instruments monitored the currents for four years.
In the spring of 1956, a doctor in the Japanese village of Minamata reported an outbreak of a troubling new disease. It was seen mainly among children, and it affected the central nervous system. The disease quickly spread, with hundreds of cases reported, then thousands. It took years for scientists to work out the cause: poisoning from industrial pollution in Minamata Bay—the first known case of a disease caused by polluted seawater.
The parrotfish is like a house cleaner who does a great job of keeping things tidy, but sometimes breaks a glass. You want to keep them around, but you just wish they’d be a little less destructive.
For the parrotfish, the “houses” are coral reefs. They clean tiny organisms off the coral, keeping the coral healthy. But they also chip off pieces of the coral. If they chip away too much, they can damage the coral.
Parrotfish have strong teeth. They grind up the coral they chip off, then poop it out as grains that can wash up on the beach as white sand.
The exhaust produced by ocean-going ships can contribute to our warming climate. Most ships burn fossil fuels, so they spew out atmosphere-warming compounds. But some of their contribution to global warming may be a result of lower emissions—not of carbon, but of sulfur.
The many creatures that dig into the sediments at the bottom of the ocean are ecosystem engineers. Their burrowing, foraging, and even pooping change the ocean landscape—not just close by, but miles away.
Sediments have been described as the oceans’ compost heaps. They contain bits of rock and dirt washed out to sea by rivers. They also contain bits of organic material—everything from dead skin cells to the wastes of all the fish and other animals in the water above. And they’re loaded with bacteria and algae.
About 12 million tons of plastics enter the oceans every year—the equivalent of a full garbage truck every minute. The total includes millions of grocery bags. But restrictions on the bags appear to be having a positive effect. Several studies have found big reductions in the number of bags found on beaches.
Depending on which side of the country you live on, you probably either hate or love sea urchins. Off the coast of California, there are too many of the spiny creatures. They’re destroying kelp beds, harming the entire ecosystem.
But off the coast of Florida—and throughout the Caribbean Sea—there aren’t enough urchins. And without them, coral reefs are dying off.
The ocean floor near Los Angeles is the largest graveyard for whales yet seen. Surveys have found evidence of more than 60 whale skeletons there. Scientists have used sonar and video cameras to map a couple of ocean basins that are centered about 15 miles offshore.
Researchers have been studying the region for years, in part because it was a dumping ground for DDT and related chemicals. Scientists are seeing how that affects life in the ocean, and how it might impact human health.
The image of more than a hundred thousand aircraft carriers floating through the air might sound like a scene from a Doctor Strange movie. But the weight of all those carriers equals the amount of carbon dioxide that humanity has pumped into the air every year over the past decade or so—11 billion tons per year. The carbon dioxide traps heat, warming the atmosphere.
The oceans help slow that process by absorbing about a quarter of the CO2 from the air, according to a recent report. More CO2 was being absorbed in parts of the North Atlantic and Southern Oceans.
When a hurricane or tropical storm rolls through, most birds fly around it, or find refuge in the calm “eye” at its center. But not the Desertas petrel. It can ride out the storm, then follow the system for days—all to catch an easy meal.
The petrel nests on a tiny, craggy island off the northwestern coast of Africa. There are only a few hundred of the birds, which are about the size of a pigeon. They’re strong fliers: every year they make a 7500-mile round-trip to the eastern North Atlantic Ocean.
