Marine biologist Tierney Thys has fallen head over heels for a big, goofy fish: the Mola mola, or giant ocean sunfish. In studying the mola -- where they go, what they eat, what eats them -- she's also hunting for clues to the behavior of all life in the open ocean. With their enormous, odd bodies, peaceful habits and lust for jellyfish, these giants can be key to understanding life in the open ocean. Thys and her team are tagging and tracking molas worldwide to learn about how they live, and how climate change may be affecting all ocean life.
Thys is a National Geographic Explorer with a passion for marine education. She was also past director of research at the Sea Studios Foundation, a team of scientists and filmmakers that makes media to raise awareness of environmental issues -- including the PBS series Strange Days on Planet Earth and targeted videos that influence policymakers and businesspeople. Sea Studios was also instrumental in helping eBay stop the trading of invasive species.
Yes, plastic straws are bad, but they’re just a teeny drop in the giant ocean of plastic we’re swimming in. Here are other everyday plastic objects that we could put on the discontinued list.
Continue readingBy Liz Jacobs and Thu-Huong Ha Our brains work in mysterious ways. They make us laugh, they make us cry, and sometimes, they make us 19-year old geniuses. The 11 speakers in this All-Stars session specialize in areas of the brain as diverse as personality, trauma and gender, but they all agree: Our minds […]
Continue readingYesterday’s featured TED video comes from a new TED-Ed partnership with the marine biologist Tierney Thys — whose passion (aside from swimming with the giant Mola mola fish) is sharing new ideas in science using amazing film and images from underwater expeditions. The first product of the Stories from the Sea series is “The secret […]
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