June 2020 Tide Bite

Greetings,
As human thoughts and actions this month continue to be dominated by the COVID-19 pandemic, it is appropriate that our Tide Bite relates to the actions of another virus.  In this case it is one that we believe struck living cells billions of years ago, and had a profound effect on the evolution of life on earth – one can even say a positive effect, since it seems to have allowed the development of complex organisms including ourselves.  

FHL Tide Bite

May 2020 Tide Bite

Greetings,
In the midst of this Stay at Home time when we hope all our readers are also staying healthy, it is a wonderful boost to read student success stories like Alyssa’s.   

FHL Tide Bite

April 2020 Tide Bite

Greetings,
This month’s Tide Bite chronicles a not-that-unusual career progression for Friday Harbor Labs’ scientists: going from a student in a course, to a student doing their own research, to teaching here themselves, to having their own graduate students come to learn the trade!  

FHL Tide Bite

March 2020 Tide Bite

Greetings,
This month’s Tide Bite describes the research of a PhD student who spent most of his graduate career at FHL, becoming part of the Labs and island communities.  This is a challenge because opportunities for funding here are limited, and while graduate students are famous for living on air, water, and ramen noodles, they still need to survive!   

FHL Tide Bite

February 2020 Tide Bite

Greetings,
Most readers are aware that FHL has been connected for over a century with marine biological and oceanographic work in the San Juan Islands. Fewer may know that there has been almost a century of geological work done here too, most of it with UW connections. 

FHL Tide Bite

January 2020 Tide Bite

Greetings,
Our first Tide Bite of the new year describes some work done below the tides here in the San Juans: a long-term monitoring effort on the status of communities of seaweeds and invertebrates attached to the rocky walls that characterize most of the channels between our islands.  

FHL Tide Bite

December 2019 Tide Bite

Greetings,
This month’s Tide Bite describes the experiences of a more advanced student than some of our other stories, which have often chronicled the adventures of undergraduates and graduate students.  Sebastian is a postdoc who shares the love of field stations, marine organisms, and San Juan Island that many others have expressed.  

FHL Tide Bite

November 2019 Tide Bite

Greetings,
This month’s Tide Bite highlights the blending of art and science – two fields that might seem at odds, but not at FHL!  We encourage these cross-disciplinary interactions, including Adam Summers’ work mentioned below and in previous events that combined poets, writers and marine scientists.   

FHL Tide Bite

September 2019 Tide Bite

Greetings,
This month’s Tide Bites describes a lovely story of biological serendipity and the enormous value of our scholarship program.  For over 100 years, students have been getting swept up in the passion of studying live marine organisms and their habitats while based at FHL.  

FHL Tide Bite

August 2019 Tide Bite

Greetings,
With this 72nd Tide Bite I am delighted to continue the tradition that Billie Swalla started in 2013.  I am the Interim Director at FHL; if you’d like to read a bit more about my background and philosophy, you can do so here. 

FHL Tide Bite