"Robotic Mussels: Saving New England's Shoreline"
Warming seas are causing mussels to die off along the New England shoreline, with the Gulf of Maine warming 99% faster than any other large body of water on the planet. Professor Brian Helmuth and his team at Northeastern University are using tiny logging devices and robotic mussels to measure the temperature of the rock surface where the mussels live, finding that it's too hot for them to survive. The decline of mussels is seen as a warning sign for the health of the entire ecosystem, and researchers are studying how other organisms, such as sea stars, are responding to climate change as well.