Gauging the effects of the BP spill
An array of undersea microbes is giving humans an assist in the cleanup of last year’s BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, though a Harvard biologist said Wednesday that the full effects of the 200-million-gallon spill on life deep beneath the sea remain to be seen. Peter Girguis, Loeb Associate Professor of the Natural Sciences and an authority on oceanic microbial life, said that several studies of the spill’s impact on the deep ocean environment are ongoing, and results so far have been inconclusive. That’s partly because the deep sea remains difficult for researchers to access, and life there tends to grow slowly, so that subtle effects on reproduction may take time to become apparent. Girguis spoke at the Harvard Museum of Natural History on deep-sea life and the effects of the BP spill, which began in April 2010 when safety equipment failed to prevent the uncontrolled release of natural...