Author: Kate
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The Stingy Biology of Jellies & Sea Combs
Today, things are getting more and more colorful with sea jellies of all shapes and forms, with rainbow-light sea combs, and more. Sea jellies are usually called jellyfish, though they are far from fish, and sea combs are usually called comb jellies, though they aren’t jellies. Oh, the fun naming of taxonomy. Until very recently,…
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The Ancient Biology of Sponges
Are sponges the oldest animals? What kind of sponge is that squarepanted yellow idiot with the pineapple? Are the inner skins of sponges made up of sperm? From SpongeBob to nature, we’re talking sponges today.
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Underwater Forests: Seagrasses and Seaweed
How do you offset your carbon footprint? You plant trees. Right? Well, as we established in the episode on primary production, trees are actually not the major player when it comes to carbon offsetting. For that, we need to look at underwater “forests.” Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying we shouldn’t save the trees.…
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The Types of Plankton
Today, I will attempt to convince all of us that plankton is cool and worth our attention. We’ll talk about what plankton is and why it’s so important for our climate. Plankton is cool. There, you can quote me on that. That established, I’m also pretty fed up with plankton. I’m more than half-way through…
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The Tiny Biology of BACTERIA and VIRUSES
You would not exist without viruses. I cover the very basics of life and the not-so-alive viruses.
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Where Did Life START?
Where did life originally come from? How did we get from rocks and gas to living animals and human beings? No one really knows but today, we’ll get closer to the answer of the origins of life.
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How old is a fish? Tree rings in fish bones (Ep. 51)
We’ve all heard of tree rings that allow us to determine the age of trees. Counting the lines on a cut-down tree allows us to figure out their age pretty accurately. Unfortunately, this only holds true for ring-forming trees, and even among those, it is necessary to damage the live tree for such age determination.…
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Common Shrimp: from Egg to Dinner Plate
With humans overfishing the oceans, other creatures take over where fish are missing. Today, we follow a common shrimp on his journey through life—and through the journey to become our dinner. This is not a success story. The fight for the future of humanity seems to be filled with propaganda, misinformation, and contradicting facts. Even…
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What makes nature worth preserving?
I used to think fish were disgusting and ugly. The truth is, I had only seen dead fish. Swimming with anything from Garibaldi (Hypsypops rubicundus), a bright orange fish that likes to attack the shiny hook that attaches my camera to my body, to barracuda (Sphyraena barracuda), silvery shine and terrifying teeth, has changed my…