Welcome to the new home of OGL news posts! We’ve redesigned our Newsletter to show you stories more often, with a brief overview in the email and the full story here. We always welcome your thoughts and questions in the Comments section.
We hope you enjoy this new way of exploring the latest activities at OGL!
You might know that many animals in the deep sea evolved from shallow water ancestors, but did you ever wonder what happens to their genes when they make that evolutionary trip? Researchers at OGL asked that question by looking at the mitochondria of two families of...
What animal lives more than 250 years but never eats a thing? If you guessed the deep-sea tubeworm Escarpia laminata, you would be correct—and also probably a deep-sea biologist! Escarpia laminata lives near deep-sea cold seeps, places where methane...
We are excited to share that the New York Times has published an article about OGL and our Genome Resource Rescue program. The article highlights 466 frozen flatworm fragments donated to OGL by Dr. Marian Litvaitis prior to her retirement, and our ongoing work with...
Have you ever wondered what goes on at the Ocean Genome Legacy Center? If so, you are not alone. We frequently receive questions such as: Who can use OGL’s collections? What is in them? Where do the samples come from? How do I contact and work with OGL? To answer...
Black corals are a group of largely deep-sea corals whose jet-black skeletons are highly prized for jewelry. But did you know that black corals are also among the longest-lived creatures on earth? Some individuals can live more than 4,000 years! Black corals may be...
Everyone knows that public aquariums are fun, but did you know that many of them also play important roles in conservation and research? OGL partners with public aquariums around the country to help discover and preserve the genomic diversity of the ocean. Since...
We are extremely excited to join Northeastern University’s Professor Bill Detrich, and the National Science Foundation’s Office of Polar Programs, in launching the new Polar Genetic Resource Collection (PGRC) at OGL! This collection will preserve thousands of DNA and...
It is Halloween again, and time for us to dress up and terrify our neighbors! Let’s look at the winners of this year’s spookiest creatures of the deep blue sea! Second place—Chondrocladia verticillata What if SpongeBob developed a taste for fresh meat? The answer is...
Calling all ham radio operators: The Federal Communications Commission has authorized special event callsign W4U to operate through Saturday, 11 September 2021. This special event station, the “Gulf of Mexico Underwater Forests,” will educate the worldwide amateur...
This month, OGL is welcoming a new postdoctoral fellow and two new co-op students! Did you know that some bacteria stab their competitors with poison darts? In her PhD research at UNC Chapel Hill, Dr. Lauren Speare showed how glowing symbionts use this strategy to...