Natural history museums have entered a new stage of discovery and accessibility — one where scientists around the globe and curious folks at home can access valuable museum specimens to study, learn or just be amazed. This new era follows the completion of openVertebrate, or oVert, a five-year collaborative project among 18 institutions, including the UW, to create 3D reconstructions of vertebrate specimens and make them freely available online.
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At the Friday Harbor Laboratories, recovery is afoot. Scientists at this University of Washington facility in the San Juan Islands are working to help sunflower stars — a type of sea star — grow and thrive once again after their populations along the West Coast were devastated by a mysterious disease. “They’re gone in a lot of places, and a lot of what we’re doing here is testing out ideas for reintroduction,” said Jason Hodin, a researcher at the lab.
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Friday Harbor Laboratories’ sunflower sea star rearing lab recently was featured on the NBC show “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom Protecting the Wild.” It's part of an episode on the plight of the Pacific Ocean’s kelp forests — and what’s being done to save them.
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The ocean is full of otherworldly creatures, seemingly from alien planets with alien capabilities. In most cases, the award for craziest looking critter would go to an invertebrate. But many fish are contenders, too, and there’s an oddly adorable one common in northwest waters. What does it look like? Imagine a golf ball. Now put some googly eyes on it and add a suction cup to its belly.
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