When Barry Hicks, a biochemist at the United States Air Force Academy, received his scuba certification in 2015, he saw an opportunity to take his research underwater. Drawing on his background in fluorescent proteins, he wanted to study photosynthetic microbes.
Barry Hicks didn’t realize he had to account for brine shrimp crashing his thrombolite photoshoot.
Barry Hicks
During a research sabbatical in 2024, Hicks traveled to the University of Western Australia. There, he conducted fieldwork at Lake Clifton, a briny lake home to ancient thrombolites.
Thrombolites are rock-like structures built by complex microbial biofilms containing more than 2,000 species. Photosynthetic processes create calcium carbonate in the water, which gets trapped along with other sediments and sand to form these rock structures. Because researchers don’t know the microbes responsible for this, Hicks hoped to use nighttime infrared imaging to study where chlorophyll-containing cyanobacteria were concentrated and how they were distributed relative to other photosynthetic organisms.
Because infrared light does not travel far, Hicks had to get up close and personal with his subjects using lights about 30 times brighter than regular light bulbs. These lights were fitted with red-cutoff filters to eliminate infrared emissions.
From the moment he turned on the lights, Hicks said, “It was a nightmare.”
Lake Clifton was not just home to thrombolites, but its waters also hosted brine shrimp—tiny crustaceans also known as Sea-Monkeys. Hicks had no idea they loved the bright white lights needed for imaging. Instead of a clear image of thrombolites, the shrimp completely blocked his view.
“I don't know if there were tens of thousands, but they were just everywhere,” remarked Hicks.
Frustrated, Hicks purchased mesh netting from a marine supply store and built enclosures around individual thrombolites. The moment he turned on the white lights to take photos, the brine shrimp were back.
These pesky crustaceans not only left Hicks with unusable, blurry images, but also reminded him of a childhood memory. He recalled seeing a comic book advertisement for this fantastical family of Sea-Monkeys living in an underwater castle. For only one dollar and twenty-five cents, Hicks and his brothers could own their very own Sea-Monkeys. Intrigued, they bought packets of the tiny creatures. After the shrimp hatched, they provided a brief source of entertainment for the boys, but the novelty quickly wore off—or the Sea-Monkeys died within a week. Either way, they all eventually ended up being flushed down the toilet.
Perhaps this was karma for his childhood transgressions against Sea-Monkeys, but nevertheless the experience became an unforgettable lesson in the realities of field research.
“Chemists sometimes think that they're ingenious because we change the solvent polarity or we change the pH. We have very high control over very few variables,” said Hicks. “But as soon as you start doing field research, there are a lot of variables that you never even thought of, and you have no control over.”
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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