Squid, octopus, and cuttlefish – even to scientists who study them – are wonderfully weird creatures. Known as the soft-bodied or coleoid cephalopods, they have…
Your DNA holds the blueprint to build your body, but it’s a living document: Adjustments to the design can be made by epigenetic marks. Epigenetic…
For generations, scientists have relied on a handful of organisms to study the fundamentals of biology. The usual suspects—fruit flies, zebrafish, and mice, among others—all…
Cuttlefish can remember what, where, and when specific events happened – right up to their last few days of life, researchers have found. The results,…
What’s a hungry marine microbe to do when the pickings are slim? It must capture nutrients – nitrogen, phosphorus, or iron – to survive, yet…
Many animals have evolved camouflage tactics for self-defense, but some butterflies and moths have taken it even further: They’ve developed transparent wings, making them almost…
Much like the popular TikTok challenge where kids resist eating snacks, cuttlefish can do the same! Cuttlefish can delay gratification — wait for a better…
It sounds like a “Just So Story” — “How the Insect Got its Wings” — but it’s really a mystery that has puzzled biologists for…
When you think of swimming, you probably imagine pushing through the water—creating backwards thrust that pushes you forward. New research at the Marine Biological Laboratory…
Breakthrough in gene editing should allow scientists to answer key questions in biology. A team at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) has achieved the first…
The COVID-19 pandemic is a stark reminder that we move through a world shaped by unseen life. Bacteria, viruses, and other microscopic organisms regulate the…
Revealing yet another super-power in the skillful squid, scientists have discovered that squid massively edits their own genetic instructions not only within the nucleus of…
How did the monstrous giant squid – reaching school-bus size, with eyes as big as dinner plates and tentacles that can snatch prey 10 yards…
Millions of tons of plastic trash are fouling the world’s oceans, most of them tiny pieces of microplastic less than a quarter-inch in size. Even…
Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) study reveals the effects of Hurricane Nicole on deep-sea ecosystems and the carbon cycle. In early October 2016, a tropical storm…
When sparks fly to innovate new technologies for imaging life at the microscopic scale, often diverse researchers are nudging each other with a kind of…
New research from scientists at the Marine Biological Laboratory shows that marine bacteria are not just homogenous populations in the ocean and that different bacteria…
