Penn State Biologist Featured on Discovery Channel

The deep-ocean research of Chuck Fisher, professor of biology, will be featured during a segment of Discovery News, which will air at 9 p.m. Friday, 24 March, on the Discovery Channel. The show will be rebroadcast at midnight.

A Penn State research team comprised of Fisher, Frederick M. Williams, associate professor emeritus of biology, and graduate assistant Derk C. Bergquist, determined tubeworms that live in calm, cool, hydrocarbon-seep sites in the Gulf of Mexico require from 170 to 250 years to grow to two meters in length. Conversely, tubeworms near warmer, dynamic, hydtrothermal-vent sites grow more than a meter each year.

The scientists say the tubeworms studied at the cold seeps are the most long-lived noncolonial animals without backbones currently known. Their results were reported in the 3 February issue of the journal Nature.

During Friday's Discovery News segment, Fisher and Bergquist will be featured.