My latest story for the New York Times has just gone online. It continues my string of stories in which I look at the familiar and find it deeply strange. The previous one was about fireflies. Tomorrow’s story is about the surface of the ocean. It turns out to be a deeply weird thing–a gelatinous biofilm inhabited by a peculiar menagerie of microbes that play a vital role in our own well-being.
Originally published July 27, 2009. Copyright 2009 Carl Zimmer.