In total I was more than a year on this ship, so I guess it’s just adequate to also be a little sad that I will never ever set foot on it again!
On the 22nd of October Vera Hechtl excellently defended here MSc thesis on the “Abundance and Activity of Bacteria and Archaea in the Surface Microlayer of the North Sea and Adriatic Sea”.
Congratulations Vera!
Filmmaker Thom Hoffmann made a very informative video of our last BASS cruise off Helgoland Germany capturing the science, challenges, and beauty of studying the ocean’s most dynamic layer.
The 2025 Microbial Oceanography Course in Rovinj has wrapped up! Amazing people, a stunning environment, and perfect weather made it a huge success.
This years Microbial Oceanography course took place in Rovinj, Croatia. We performed an experiment studying the interaction of a herbicide with algae and bacteria. The data we produced are very interesting already.
Sarah Bowen successfully defended here MSc thesis on single cell activity of bacteria during a phytoplankton bloom. Congratulations Sarah and best of luck for you future career path.
Back again after 30 days at sea. We successfully finished the Nereides cruise from Iceland to the Azores, despite the changes in plans we had to make due to weather conditions and the prospect of hurrican Erin crossing our path. The scientific life on board has been documented on the Instagram channel of the microbial oceanography group and the Rudolphina New Magazin of the University of Vienna. Go check it out!
This August, the Nereides team will set sail on an exciting scientific journey, tracing the path of the northwestern deep waters of the Atlantic.
Funded by the European Research Council (ERC) and led by Gerhard Herndl, the Nereides project dives into the mysterious world of the dark ocean, investigating how microbes interact with sinking particles in the planet’s most remote depths.
Stay tuned as we uncover the hidden life that thrives where the sun never reaches!
The First Lego League is a competition that combines robotics, research, and teamwork. The Lego Team ROOTBOTS of the Gymnasium Keimgasse in Mödling in Austria, that I was proud to support, qualified for the D-A-CH finals in Siegen, Germany. For this years topic “Submerged” they even built a Marine Snow Mobile able to collect small particles while diving.
Amazing what the young Keimgasse team around Christian Wurzer was able to achieve – Congratulations!
The Marine Snow Mobile was designed and fabricated all by the team. Pneumatic parts were sponsored by SMC.
Thomas Reinthaler