ANDRZEJ KRAUZE
When Charles Darwin sailed on the HMS Beagle in the 1830s, he was following a well-established tradition of shipboard naturalists collecting samples of animals, plants, and fossils from ports of call to study back home. He stored his finds in a workroom in the stern of the ship and sent them to England in packages from cities along the route. These days, ship-bound biologists tend to do the same, sending their samples packed on dry ice for testing back in the laboratory. Between 2004 and 2006, geneticist Craig Venter and colleagues circumnavigated the world aboard the Sorcerer II as part of the Global Ocean Sampling (GOS) Expedition. Venter’s team collected, froze, stored, and shipped dozens of samples during the 32,000-nautical-mile voyage and upon their return, ...
