HOST Damond Benningfield
DISCUSSION
What a volcano gives, it can also take away. Consider the tiny Pacific islands of Hunga Tonga and Hunga Ha’apai. They were built by an underwater volcano named for the […]
Radio Program
Our regular Science and the Sea™ 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 to commercial and public radio stations across the country.
HOST Damond Benningfield
DISCUSSION
For years, NASA’s mantra for exploring Mars has been “follow the water.” Places with water are the best homes for life, so probes have been looking for traces of water […]
HOST Damond Benningfield
DISCUSSION
A shark’s eyes can be scary—even if the shark is asleep. A recent study found that one species of shark appears to keep its eyes open about a third of […]
HOST Damond Benningfield
DISCUSSION
Bigger isn’t always better. A recent study, for example, suggests that big fish may have a tougher time adapting to the warming oceans. They might move to more comfortable waters […]
HOST Damond Benningfield
DISCUSSION
Timing, as they say, is everything. Consider an experiment conducted 75 years ago to show whether we might be able to control hurricanes. Scientists picked what they thought was the […]
HOST Damond Benningfield
DISCUSSION
Every summer, millions of moon jellyfish invade small bays in Puget Sound, near Seattle. Called “smacks,” the groups can grow large enough to be visible from the air. And they […]
HOST Damond Benningfield
DISCUSSION
The White Mountains of New Hampshire have some relatives on the bottom of the North Atlantic Ocean: extinct volcanoes that were built by a “hotspot” below Earth’s crust. The underwater […]
HOST Damond Benningfield
DISCUSSION
Life in the royal classes has its perks. In some ancient cultures, that even included their own color: purple. The upper crust of the Mediterranean often wore garments dyed purple […]
HOST Damond Benningfield
DISCUSSION
Earth’s warming climate is likely to have big impacts on tropical cyclones—the generic term for hurricanes and other big tropical storm systems. Studies have shown that the proportion of powerful […]
HOST Damond Benningfield
DISCUSSION
A healthy coral reef is a noisy coral reef. Shrimp, fish, and other organisms create a cacophony of sound that attracts other critters. And for damaged reefs that’ve been restored, […]