American Scientist

As individuals, we may often feel as though we don’t have much ability to change the world around us. A single voice speaking up, or one person taking action, might not bring about noticeable differences, so we can easily become discouraged and disenfranchised from the myriad systems we must operate within during our daily lives.

We could take inspiration, however, from the countless organisms in the ocean. Sea life includes billions of zooplankton, many of which gather together in large groups to make a daily vertical migration in the ocean as they search for food. For many decades, researchers have believed that these teeming swarms of organisms were simply going along for the ride on ocean currents, without much agency. Even though the groups of these organisms are huge, it wasn’t thought that they could have much influence beyond the scale of their own bodies, especially in comparison with the immense energy of the wind and tides. But as John O. Dabiri details in “Do Swimming Animals Mix the Ocean?,” recent laboratory experiments and computer modeling show that these swarms have the capacity to produce effects on scales that far exceed the size of any individual in the group. These collections of sea life may be responsible for extensive mixing of the ocean waters, with implications for nutrient distribution to the deeper areas of the ocean, and also with potential importance in modeling the heat capacity of the ocean as a consideration with respect to climate change.

On a related topic, this issue’s Sightings column (“Fins Working Together”) looks at new research into the swimming efficiency of trout, based on the vortices produced by the specific layout of their fins. That work has implications for the design of underwater vehicles, which are regularly used in ocean monitoring and may be a key to further understanding the role that marine life play in ocean mixing.

Another article in the current issue delves into work on an even smaller scale than the zooplankton—to the level of molecules. In “The Emergence of Directed Evolution," Harrison Ngue discusses the steps scientists followed that have lead to the ability to tailor the function of proteins and RNA through evolutionary processes. Researchers start out with a goal for which they wish to use a protein or other molecule, such as an enzyme that can function under high temperatures, and they identify a protein that can function a little bit in this direction. Researchers can then nudge the protein toward their function goal using a process similar to natural selection. They may use a gene editing technique to create many variants or mutations of the protein, and then screen for which ones work best. The genetic code for those higher-performing proteins is then amplified and diversified. In this way, the process is repeated over and over until a protein with the right function is developed. Researchers don’t know at the beginning of the work which changes will need to be made to the protein’s genetic code, or what order of iterative steps to use to reach their goal—that pathway emerges during the carrying out of the research. Frequently, the path that the directed evolution process takes to reach a goal is not the most immediate, and there are often dead ends along the way. But the research has been remarkably successful and has proved itself piece by piece over time.

Are there other examples from which you take inspiration in your research work to remind yourself that small changes or advances can add up to make a larger difference? Join us on social media or write us a message through our website to tell us about it.