Since I was the first blobfish in history to be able to tag along on a scientific research expedition (and also probably the last one, since I don’t know of any other blobfish who have the mutant ability to breathe in the atmosphere), I had been hoping to take advantage of my time on the JOIDES Resolution to introduce you to all 30 scientists on this expedition, but surprisingly, working 12 hours a day for 56 days straight is not as much time as you think it will be. So for my final post, I will have to just tell you why scientists in general rule.

We tend to think of scientists as people who know everything, but actually no one can know everything, not even a mutant blobfish. What makes scientists special is not that they know everything, but that they are not afraid to say, “I don’t know.” My new geologist friends know a lot about the Earth, but they are even more interested in the things we still do not know about the Earth. They are on this expedition because they have ideas of how to answer some of these questions, and studying the rocks from the Louisville Seamount Trail can help them find out if their ideas are right or not. If they are right, then we will all learn something new about the Earth.

Scientists are willing to work really hard to answer questions and discover new things. All of the scientists on this expedition worked at least 12-hours every day of this expedition, and some of them even stayed awake for 2 or 3 days straight to be able to complete their scientific work. This expedition is not the beginning or end of their scientific work, either. It is actually like the original Star Wars movie (i.e. “A New Hope” or “Chapter IV” or whatever George Lucas is calling it now. You know. The one where Luke Skywalker does not know yet that he is related to pretty much everyone in the movie.), in that, this expedition tells an exciting story, but there are at least three movies worth of stories that take place before this expedition began, of how, starting years ago, the scientists worked to prepare for this expedition, and then at least two more movies (if not multiple movies) of stories that take place after the expedition, as each scientist goes home and continues to study the samples from the cores and analyze the data until they find the answers to their questions.

Along with studying the cores while they have been at sea, all the scientists are also able to take home samples from the cores that they can use to do their research. They choose the rocks they want to sample during “sampling parties.” Each scientist has a special sticker that they use to mark off pieces of the core they want to look at more closely in their labs at home (My special sticker, that you can see on my fin, has a cow on it, because, as yet, Microsoft Word does not have any clipart of blobfishes).

One other thing I noticed about the scientists is that they tend to be creative and enthusiastic people. They have to be creative, because it requires creativity to figure out the answers to questions that no one else has discovered. They also obviously love what they do. They do not make a lot of money, but you can see their excitement when they discover something new, and that makes it all worthwhile.

Because they are creative and enthusiastic, our scientists were also a lot of fun to hang out with! Here’s what they look like:

This is my last blog post. Thanks for following along! I hope I gave you an idea of how interesting and fun science can be. Keep checking the JOIDES Resolution website, because new expeditions will be starting soon to answer more science questions, and you can learn all about them here.

Sincerely,

The Blogfish