England, Here We Come!

In calm and clear conditions on May 11 Sorcerer II set sail for Plymouth, England.  We enjoyed our brief stay in the Azores, but we were all excited to get to the U.K. and complete our North Atlantic crossing.  As I mentioned in previous entries, we took samples near areas studied by...

Land Horta! The Sorcerer II on Faial Island, the Azores

We sailed into Horta on the island of Failal Saturday, May 9th around 1pm.  The Sorcerer II crew was excited to visit the island but then again, we were just happy to walk on land and sleep in a bed that was not rolling from side to side! As usual when we arrive in a new port, we cleared...

North Atlantic Transit

After four days in Bermuda reconnecting with colleagues at BIOS and preparing for sampling across the North Atlantic, Sorcerer II departed on April 29th enroute to the port of Horta located on the island of Faial in the Azores.  There are nine islands in the Azores archipelago which is...

Bermuda: Back to Where We Started

Sorcerer II arrived in Bermuda around 7 p.m. on Saturday April 25th after a five day, 1,000 mile sail from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. During the crossing, the crew experienced some challenging weather to say the least.  Two samples were collected, and the CTD data confirmed what the J....

The Search for Environmental “Gems” Continues

As an original crew member of the Sorcerer II circumnavigation that began in 2003, I had not been sailing/sampling on the boat since September 2007. I arrived in Florida with a mixture of emotions. Although life on board can be tedious, I was excited to return and embark on this next leg of...

Back on Land

We arrive in Ft. Lauderdale and are all glad to be back on land for a few days. But we were also elated by the success of the first part of the expedition. This first journey was difficult because we had to deploy and test new equipment, to sample a diverse array of environments and...

Through the Canal

We are now out in the warm and saline Caribbean Sea, and the waters are an intense blue. The waters are so blue, there is very little in them: we drop the CTD and barely get 0.25 micrograms of Chlorophyll per liter all the way to the 50 meter mark. The clear waters of the Caribbean are very...

Miraflores Locks

We passed through the gigantic Miraflores locks on the Pacific side of the Panama Canal this morning, and now we are in front of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Station on Lake Gatun. The Sorcerer has sampled here on two other occasions, so to continue our time course evaluation, we ready the...

Going Green to Blue

As we round the southern most point on our trip we notice that the water has gone from blue to green, and that there appear to be surface current and eddies in the water. We decide to stop and have a look with the CTD. As we lower the instrument from the aft cockpit, we encounter a layer of...

Dr. Hend Alqaderi on paving the way for women in science in the GCC

Hend Alqaderi, a JCVI collaborator and mentee to Marcelo Freire receives the L’Oréal-Unesco Women in Science award

Leonardo Da Vinci: New family tree spans 21 generations, 690 years, finds 14 living male descendants

The surprising results of a decade-long investigation by Alessandro Vezzosi and Agnese Sabato provide a strong basis for advancing a project researching Leonardo da Vinci's DNA.

Genome Research Papers on Meningococcal Recombination, Psoriasis Variants in China, More

S. pneumoniae sticks to dying lung cells, worsening secondary infection following flu

Sailing the Seas in Search of Microbes

Projects aimed at collecting big data about the ocean’s tiniest life forms continue to expand our view of the seas.

What the Public Should Not Know

J. Craig Venter, PhD, argues scientists have “a moral obligation to communicate what they're doing to the public,” and that more studies deserve greater public criticism.

Scientists coax cells with the world’s smallest genomes to reproduce normally

The discovery could sharpen scientists’ understanding of which functions are crucial for normal cells and what the many mysterious genes in these organisms are doing

San Diego arts, health, science and youth groups to share $71M from Prebys Foundation

The J. Craig Venter Institute is the recipient of three awards totaling more than $1.5M to study SARS-CoV-2 and heart disease