Author: Kyle Frischkorn2

I’m a graduate student in Dr. Sonya Dyhrman’s microbial oceanography laboratory at Columbia University and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. I use genes and genomes to study how bacteria in the ocean interact with one another, and what these interactions mean for the environment. My writing has also appeared in Scientific American, Atlas Obscura, and Eater. I’m probably on a boat in the middle of the ocean, but you can still follow me on Twitter @kylefrischkorn. Visit website »

Sampling up a Storm

I’m writing from where L’Atalante is currently parked, 18S 170W, right in the middle of a giant, anomalously high sea surface chlorophyll patch. Such a high concentration of chlorophyll—a pigment that helps photosynthetic organisms harvest energy from sunlight, and the one that’s responsible for the green color of plants—can mean but one thing in the…
Navigating the South Pacific Using DNA

I’ve never been good at navigating. When I come out of the subway I invariably turn the wrong direction, even though I already have my nose buried in Google Maps, and then walk around the block to save face.
A Swirling Stew of Trichodesmium

Greetings from the center of that eddy I mentioned in my last post! We’ve been here for five days so far, but tomorrow we are finally moving on.
Trichodesmium is Everywhere!

We have completed the first two stations of the OUTPACE cruise and we are steaming to Station 3. By noon tomorrow we should be in the center of an eddy that our colleagues back on dry land have used satellite data to identify.
OUTPACE Cruise: Setting Sail

The OUTPACE 2015 cruise has set sail on February 20! We left port in Nouméa at 8:30 a.m. last Friday morning. I lost sight of land around 10 a.m. or so, and I won’t see it again until we return to port in Papeete, Tahiti on April 3.

Sampling up a Storm

I’m writing from where L’Atalante is currently parked, 18S 170W, right in the middle of a giant, anomalously high sea surface chlorophyll patch. Such a high concentration of chlorophyll—a pigment that helps photosynthetic organisms harvest energy from sunlight, and the one that’s responsible for the green color of plants—can mean but one thing in the…
Navigating the South Pacific Using DNA

I’ve never been good at navigating. When I come out of the subway I invariably turn the wrong direction, even though I already have my nose buried in Google Maps, and then walk around the block to save face.
A Swirling Stew of Trichodesmium

Greetings from the center of that eddy I mentioned in my last post! We’ve been here for five days so far, but tomorrow we are finally moving on.
Trichodesmium is Everywhere!

We have completed the first two stations of the OUTPACE cruise and we are steaming to Station 3. By noon tomorrow we should be in the center of an eddy that our colleagues back on dry land have used satellite data to identify.
OUTPACE Cruise: Setting Sail

The OUTPACE 2015 cruise has set sail on February 20! We left port in Nouméa at 8:30 a.m. last Friday morning. I lost sight of land around 10 a.m. or so, and I won’t see it again until we return to port in Papeete, Tahiti on April 3.