小蓝俱乐部

Heading north with more daylight

After spending a couple of days visiting with my family in Stockholm, I boarded a ferry boat to Blidö and rejoined the Sorcerer II crew to head north to the Bothnian Sea. Before departing, we sampled in the bay outside Dr. Norrby’s summer house. The last days of fantastic summer weather had...

The last leg of the Volvo Ocean Race, the Swedish Archipelago and the Gulf of Bothnia Sampling Transect

The morning of June 25th we left Stockholm and followed the Volvo race boats into the Baltic to watch the start of the last leg of the race to St. Petersburg. Once again there were hundreds of boats on the water to watch the start of the race. As the race began we saw someone waving to Dr....

In the News

We docked in the Volvo Ocean Race Village for a week. It was very exciting to be so close to all of the activities surrounding the race. Over the week Dr. Venter and Karolina and I were interviewed by many local and national TV, radio stations and newspapers. Here are some links to a few of the...

The Volvo Ocean Race

We arrived in Sandhamn at 10 p.m. on June 15th. It was perfect timing because the Volvo Ocean Race boats were arriving around 11 p.m. The Volvo Ocean Race, formally known as the Whitbread “Around the World Race,” began in Alicante on October 11th 2008 and ends in St. Petersburg on June 25th...

Heading to the Mother Land 鈥� Sweden

After transiting through the Kiel Canal, the waterway that links the North Sea to the Baltic Sea, and welcoming Dr. Venter in a rainy Copenhagen, we embarked for Sweden, my home and one of the main destinations of our 2009 expedition. It was a proud and special moment for me when first mate,...

Sampling in Helgoland 鈥� A warm German welcome for the Sorcerer II

After a little more than two weeks in Plymouth, UK the Sorcerer II set sail on June 3rd. We were sad to say goodbye to our new friends at PLM, but we were grateful for their hospitality, friendship and scientific collaboration. We're looking forward to coming back through Plymouth in the fall....

Cornish Pasties and Jellyfish at the MBA

On Monday we were invited to the Marine Biology Association (MBA) and the Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for Ocean Science (SAHFOS) for lunch and a more extensive tour of the laboratories and SAHFOS. This was an excellent opportunity for crew members who missed the first tour. A beautiful table...

The Final Plymouth Sample

On Thursday, May 28th the Sorcerer II crew, accompanied by Dr. Jack Gilbert and two of his PhD students, headed out for one final sampling trip. The destination was E-1, a long term research station for PML located about 25 miles off the coast of Plymouth in the English Channel. As we...

First Sampling in Plymouth Reveals Interesting Blooms 鈥� BBC Cameras capture it all!

After a couple of days in Plymouth we were ready for the first of two intense sampling days together with the Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML). We had heard rumours about blooms of Phaeocystis, a conspicuous bloom-former in the North Sea and English Channel. When it blooms, it turns the...

The biggest synthetic genome so far has been made, with a smaller set of amino-acid-encoding codons than usual 鈥� raising the prospect of encoding proteins that contain unnatural amino-acid residues.

By creating a new genome, scientists could create organisms tailored to produce desirable compounds

Critics, however, argue that this effort is flawed from the beginning