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Dive Deep Into Jellyfish Lake

By Ailan Flowers, Palau Mission Academy Chapter

Recently, on Wednesday, February 28, 2018, I, along with my fellow Heir, had the amazing experience of going out to Jellyfish Lake in the Rock Islands of my home state — Koror, Republic of Palau — with incredible Palauan biologists of Coral Reef Research Foundation (CRRF).
Through a program that Heirs To Our Oceans and CRRF partner in – A Day With A Scientist — I was invited to be a marine biologist for a day at Jellyfish Lake. I had no idea what it would be like, but I decided to jump at the opportunity. I hadn’t been to Jellyfish Lake for over three years, and I knew the experience was going to be a ton of fun.…

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Hope for Wildlife on Planet Earth

Have you ever wondered what animals think and feel? Dr. Sylvia Earle reflects on Carl Safina’s famous Ted Talk, “What are animals thinking and feeling?”
By: Dr. Sylvia Earle

As I sat aboard the 340-foot National Geographic Lindblad Orion exploration vessel steaming through one of the most biodiverse regions on the planet, the Coral Triangle, and listened to Carl Safina deliver his mesmerizing talk, “What are animals thinking and feeling?,” I felt a stirring of hope for wildlife on planet Earth. With such incision, Carl confirmed what I have observed through my decades of diving into the blue: fish have personalities! Eels have intelligence! Whales have empathy! Sharks exhibit rationality! These cognitive faculties that some humans insist make us distinct from the animal kingdom are actually shared by many of the creatures living on this blue speck in the universe.…

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The Marvels of the Underwater World in South Africa

Mission Blue is proud to partner with Geo Cloete!
By: Geo Cloete, Artist

The ocean already beckoned me to spend my life with it long before I saw it for the first time. I was born miles away from the nearest coast. Yet deep in inside me, I knew that my life’s calling was linked to the ocean, and so I followed the long and winding road to where it meets the blue yonder.
I remember the day I arrived at the ocean crystal clear; paddling out, the sense of having arrived at home, was overwhelming. And when the ocean wrapped its arms around me, with a perfect wave, I knew that I was not only home… but I had also been warmly received.…

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There’s No Such Thing As a Jellyfish

By Michael Keller
There’s a wide world of seemingly alien, gelatinous animals living in the world’s oceans, and not one of them is a jellyfish. Ease into the workweek with this short trip through the diversity of Scyphozoa, Anthozoans, Cubozoans and their ilk with this video, which got an honorable mention at last year’s International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge. The video was made by Steven Haddock, Susan Von Thun, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute and jellywatch.org.

Before your mind floats too far into the ocean deep, take a look at these two Cnidarian-inspired creations.

You’re looking at an artificial “jellyfish” created by Caltech and Harvard bioengineers, who put a layer of rat heart cells on a silicone form. When the creation is hit with an external electrical field, it contracts and swims like its namesake.…

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