A Life Illuminated with Dr. Edie Widder

Today, I want to talk about the deep ocean. And when I say deep, understand that the deepest part of the ocean is over seven miles down. That's 30 Empire state buildings deep. Another way to visualize it, if you dropped Mount Everest into the Western Pacific Ocean's Mariana trench, its peak would still be more than a mile underwater. The pressure at those depths is crushing at eight tons per square inch. The temperature is just above freezing, and it has long been thought to be completely dark. In fact, it is anything but. What we discovered largely in the last few decades is that the deep ocean is anything but empty.In today’s episode I’ll be talking with Dr. Edie Widder – one of the world’s leading oceanographers who has taken us to these depths and taught us a great deal about the creatures of the deep and the mysterious, almost magical ability of many of these deep-sea dwellers to literally make their own light – a phenomenon known as Bioluminescence.