Some of my work on Antarctic fishes was featured in a PBS Terra/NOVA video recorded in Antarctica.
Under Antarctic Ice
In these Antarctic diving highlights by me (Paul A. Cziko), we bore through 2 to 6m (6 to 20ft) of sea ice to explore habitats where fishes and invertebrates interact with anchor ice that blankets the shallow seafloor, hollow ice stalactites (brine columns) drain salt from the maturing sea ice, and fishes must be fortified with special antifreeze proteins to survive the extreme cold.
Ice Fish Don't Melt
A New York Times “Science Take” video (and story) highlighting my work and paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS). I found that besides keep the fishes alive in the cold, the natural antifreeze proteins in the blood of Antarctic fishes also keeps internal ice crystals from melting. They thus accumulate internal ice over their lives.
First, Find the Ocean
Antarctic field work can be fun–and difficult. In this time-lapse video, we use a chainsaw to cut through 14 feet (4.25m) of sea ice. We needed a hole to dive through to recover a multi-year temperature record from a small temperature logger left on the sea floor.
Introducing The MOO
A video introducing my McMurdo Oceanographic Observatory (MOO) project, a live-streaming oceanographic observatory on the sea floor in McMurdo Sound, Antarctica. More info is available at moo-antarctica.net and on the MOO's youtube channel here.
A Cool Adaptation in Scallops
In my recent research, we found that Antarctic scallops avoid ice growth (cryofouling) on their mineral shells in supercooled seawater. Our investigations revealed that micro-structures on the scallops' shells likely prevent ice nucleation (initial growth) and reduce ice-shell adhesion forces if ice does attach. This is a supplementary video for our recent scientific research article.
Inaudible Melodies
My team and I discovered that Weddell seals regularly produce ultrasonic vocalizations underwater. Nine common call types were discovered having components with fundamental frequencies above the human hearing range (higher than 20 kHz). The highest-frequency fundamentals of these seal vocalizations are at about 50 kHz.