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.
Exploring the deep ocean is like exploring another world — it’s a realm unlike anything on dry land. In recent years, though, marine scientists have been taking the “other-world” concept to extremes — they’re working with astronomers and planetary scientists to study oceans on other planets and moons.
The best example is on Europa, one of the largest moons of Jupiter. Its icy crust appears to hide a global ocean — one that holds more liquid water than all of Earth’s oceans combined. That makes Europa a possible habitat for life.
Fishing is all about deception – convincing a gullible fish that the lure is really a tasty treat. That’s the case whether the angler is a human or another fish an anglerfish. The anglerfish is probably one of the ugliest creatures on the planet, but it’s also one of the most interesting. In some of its more than 200 species, for example, the male becomes a small parasite. It attaches itself to a female, then loses its vision and even its ability to move. It feeds off the female, and its only job is to fertilize her eggs.
A high-tech sentry is keeping an eye on the Texas coast, providing an early warning of dangerous invaders. And it may already have saved lives.
The sentry is known as the Imaging Flow Cytobot. Its quarry are microscopic organisms, known as phytoplankton, that cause red tides and other harmful outbreaks. They produce toxins that can kill the fish that eat them. The toxins can also build up in the bodies of oysters and other shellfish, making them harmful to anything that eats them -- including people.
Methylmercury is a nasty compound. It can damage the immune and nervous systems, and can cause severe birth defects. Fortunately, it’s rare -- we seldom come across it in our daily diets. In fact, almost all of the methylmercury in American food supplies is found in marine fish and shellfish.
On summer days here in Texas, the TV weather folks often tell us that the mercury once again topped a hundred degrees -- a reference to the days when many thermometers were glass tubes filled with liquid mercury.
The metal has been phased out of thermometers and many other products, though, because it’s toxic. But it’s still all around us -- in the soil, the air, the water, and even in many of the big marine fish we eat.
Scientists aren’t yet sure just how the mercury gets into the fish. But they suspect that bacteria in the water play a key role.
Their shells look like rocks, and are just as hard. Their innards look like...well, innards. Yet oysters are a popular seafood, their meat grilled, added to soups and stews, or slurped down raw. In fact, oysters are too popular for their own good. Overfishing has decimated oyster beds around the country -- a loss not just for the oysters, but for entire marine habitats.
Almost 2400 years ago, the Greek philosopher Aristotle noted that whales sometimes did something odd: They ran aground without, he noted, any apparent reason.
Whales still run aground -- thousands of them “strand” themselves every year, sometimes in groups of dozens or even hundreds. And scientists are still trying to fully understand the reasons.
Louisiana is disappearing. Over the last century, it’s lost about 2,000 square miles of its beaches and coastal wetlands -- an area as big as Delaware. Today, the loss averages about 25 square miles a year -- although in some years it’s much more. In 2005, hurricanes Katrina and Rita washed away more than 200 square miles in just a few days.
That’s not just a problem for mapmakers. The loss destroys habitat for fish, birds, and other wildlife. It damages tourism and other businesses. And it makes the coast more vulnerable to big storms, costing lives.
Motion in the ocean is all about shakin’ your booty -- if you’re a fish, that is.
A fish swims by contracting a complex network of muscles along the sides of its body, known as myomeres. The contractions “bend” the fish’s body, creating a wave that pushes against the water. The wave also moves the fish’s tail fin back and forth, which pushes against the water like an oar, generating most of the forward push.
But not every fish pushes in the same way. Swimming speed, agility, and endurance depend on the shape of the fish and its tail.
The orange elephant ear sponge is one of the gaudiest denizens of the oceans. It looks like a bumpy traffic cone, with the same brilliant orange color. And like a traffic cone, it may someday offer us protection against an unseen danger.
The orange elephant ear is found in the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, and other tropical waters around the world.
