Research

The McMurdo Dry Valleys don’t look like they belong in Antarctica. Largely devoid of snow, the landscape is mostly dirt and rock. When explorer Robert Falcon Scott trekked the area in 1903, he referred to it as “the valley of the dead.”

Tiny fragments of DNA permeate the air, soil, and water around us. This environmental DNA (eDNA) unlocks a non-invasive way to monitor biodiversity and detect species that might otherwise go unnoticed.

Looking at a jellyfish is like looking into the ancient past. Survivors from the late Precambrian Era, these organisms lived in an environment completely alien to the wide swath of modern Earth. They thrived during a time when the waters of our planet were largely anoxic, the lack of oxygen making them inhospitable to most animals existing today.