Marine Biological Laboratory

10/19/2026

It's National Estate Planning Awareness Week! 💛

Making a plan isn't about money — it's about making things easier for the people you love. A will lets you decide who cares for your kids, your pets, and the causes close to your heart.

Have you started yours? We've got free tools to help.

🔗 mbl.edu/give/planned-giving

10/19/2026

🔬 Happy !

Meet Arietellus plumifer, a deep-sea calanoid copepod collected 500 meters below the surface.

These tiny zooplankton live deep in the mesopelagic waters of the ocean (the twilight zone, collected as deep as 400 to 600 meters) during the day and undergo a huge vertical migration up to the surface waters to feed at night.

This specimen was collected at 500m (1640 ft) as part of MBL’s Oceanic Flux Program (OFP), which has been studying sinking particles to the deep ocean for nearly 50 years.

Image taken by JC Weber, a senior research assistant at the OFP, using a ZEISS Stemi SV-11 stereomicroscope in conjunction with an Olympus DP73 (17.3 megapixel) digital camera.

10/16/2026

👏 We loved welcoming this year’s The Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT fellows to the Marine Biological Laboratory!

During their visit, the fellows explored the MBL’s Marine Resources Center and Automated Aquatics Facility, visited the MBLWHOI Library to see its rare books collection, and learned more about the research and educational programs that make MBL a hub for scientific discovery.

Thanks to the Knight Science Journalism program for spending time with us in Woods Hole!

10/16/2026

🪝 “Start with the hook.”

That was the advice Samantha Jones, PhD, shared with students in Comparative Developmental Biology this week. An MBL alumna, podcaster, and science communicator, Jones spoke about how students can turn their interest in science into a career communicating it to others.

🔗 Read about what Jones (executive producer and co-host of the science podcast Tiny Matters and the chemistry podcast Chain Reaction, both by the American Chemical Society) told the class about her nonlinear path to a career in science writing: go.mbl.edu/n3hj0b

10/15/2026

🔬 Myth vs. fact? Let’s take a closer look at the impact of giving.

Learn how your support helps the Marine Biological Laboratory make groundbreaking discoveries.

🔗 Donate today: mbl.edu/give

10/14/2026

📣 APPLICATIONS OPEN!

Applications for the MBL's Advanced Research Training Courses are now open.

From microscopy- to neuroscience-focused courses, our ARTCs attract a broad population of ~500 trainees from ~300 institutions and ~60 countries every year.

🔗 Check out details for course offerings here: go.mbl.edu/ARTC27

📸: Courtesy of 2026 Physiology course.

10/13/2026

⏰ EARLY AND ROLLING ADMISSIONS!

Apply to early admissions round 2 for Semester in Biological Discovery program by October 15, with the final deadline on December 15.

Two new courses offered for the 2027 cycle are Neurobiology and Behavior of Marine Organisms and Neurogenetics: Genetic information in the brains of cephalopods.

We encourage undergraduate students on a neurobiology track to apply, but the courses are open to all SBD applicants regardless of major. Both courses give students hands-on laboratory experience with some of the unique model systems available at MBL.

🔗 More info here: go.mbl.edu/SBD

10/12/2026

Happy !

The video shows a branching network of Filoreta ramosa, a fascinating protist that can form interconnected, multinucleate networks.

One of the particularly interesting things visible in the video is the cytoplasmic flow through the network, with material moving through, into, and out of the larger hubs. Filoreta can also dramatically change its morphology depending on its environmental conditions, transitioning between more compact forms and highly branched networks.

The video was taken using a Tomocube, Inc. holotomography microscope.

Imaged by Erandi Sachinthanie, Andrew Kennard, Amaranta Kahn, Jason Bear, Annie Rowe, and John Spear from the 2026 Microbial Diversity course.

10/08/2026

Condensates have their roots in the MBL’s Physiology course, and new research about these cellular compartments that act as hubs for facilitating biological reactions continues to reveal novel insights into how cells function.

Among those continuing to push the field forward are members of the MBL’s condensate consortium: Amy Gladfelter (a professor at Duke University, current co-director of the MBL Physiology course, and former MBL Physiology course student) and past MBL Whitman Fellow Dragomir Milovanovic (a professor at the Charité Berlin University Institute of Biochemistry).

Along with fellow researchers — past Whitman Center Assistant Branislava Rankovic of the Institute of Biology at the Freie Universität Berlin and Gladfelter’s student at Duke University, Zachary Geisterfer — the pair published new evidence suggesting that RNA plays a vital structural role in organizing condensates at synapses, the sites where neurons communicate.

🔗 Read the full story here:

Condensates have their roots in the Marine Biological Laboratory’s physiology course, and new research about these cellular compartments that act as hubs for facilitating biological reactions continues to reveal novel insights into how cells function.

10/07/2026

Congratulations to MBL alumnus Karl Deisseroth, co-recipient of the 2026 in Physiology or Medicine! Deisseroth has been part of the MBL community for nearly three decades—as a student, lecturer, and faculty member. We’re proud to celebrate this remarkable achievement.

🔗 More info here: go.mbl.edu/p30rtz

Photo courtesy: Stanford University School of Medicine