Victoria Huber

11th Grader, Ocean Advocate, @PADI AOWD, Aquanaut. Ambassador at @EarthEcho and @MCNnetwork2022, Young Marine Biologist @thembauk, Sea Cadet @seacadets. She/her

[World Ocean Day @WorldOceansDay]

[repost by @wwf]

Take two breaths… did you do it? 👀

Now thank the ocean, because it produces half the oxygen you breathe – all day, every day!

🌏 It also absorbs heat and CO2 from the atmosphere. Really, it’s working round the clock to keep our climate in balance.

But our ocean is in trouble. Since the 1970s, populations of oceanic sharks and rays have plummeted by over 70%.

It’s vital we reduce the pressure from overfishing and climate change, protect habitats and reduce plastic pollution 💙Share this post to give our ocean a voice!

[Victoria Huber @OneGirlOneOcean]

YES!

[Victor Vescovo @VictorVescovo]

Just a small short on the timeline to build, and capabilities of, the Ocean Mapping vessel I am working on. Current activities are trying to get it "classed" by DNV to ensure quality and safety once built. Paperwork, but very important paperwork.

[WoRMS @WRMarineSpecies]

So, there they are, the @WRMarineSpecies top-10 marine species of 2025! Do you have a favorite?

https://t.co/OVs4dwuwyF

#toptenmarinespecies #taxonomistappreciationday #OceanDecade #GenOcean

[Florida Atlantic Harbor Branch @HarborBranch]

“Predicting an algae bloom is really the holy grail, right?”

Dr. Jordon Beckler, associate research professor at FAU Harbor Branch, and his research team brought along WPLG Local 10 as they deployed their new water-quality monitoring tool CAROSEL in Lake Okeechobee. #toxicalgae #lakeo #southflorida
https://t.co/D789eWxVMd

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

This is Hamopontonia physogrya, a rare and very small bubble coral shrimp, crawling into its symbiotic bubble coral.
https://t.co/RW2EjasJbW

[Bo Wang @BoWang87]

Nature figured out distributed systems millions of years before we did.

Meet the giant honeybee (Apis dorsata). No hive box, no protection—just thousands of bees exposed on a cliff face or tree branch. Their defense? A biological Mexican wave that makes predators freeze in confusion.

This is shimmering. And the science behind it is wild.

The Visual

Picture a dark sheet of bees covering an open comb. Suddenly, a ripple of light flashes across the surface—hundreds of bees flipping their abdomens upward in perfect coordination, creating a wave that propagates in under a second. To a wasp or bird approaching for a meal, it's disorienting. The nest surface seems alive, unpredictable, dangerous.

How It Actually Works

Three distinct "agent types" coordinate this defense:

1. Bucket-Bridging Agents (75% of participants)
The foot soldiers. These bees pass the signal neighbor-to-neighbor like a bucket brigade at a fire. They receive the cue from an adjacent bee, flip their abdomen, and pass it on. Velocity: ~0.32 m/s. Linear, reliable, slow.

2. Chain-Tail Agents (9%)
The end of the line. These bees get activated but don't propagate the signal further. They're the wave's trailing edge.

3. Generator Agents (16%)
Here's where it gets interesting. These bees flip their abdomens before the main wave reaches them. They create "daughter waves" that merge with the parental wave, accelerating the whole process by 41.5% to ~0.51 m/s.

Without generators, shimmering would be too slow to matter. With them, the colony responds in real-time to a wasp's flight path.

The "Special Agents" Hypothesis

Early researchers assumed the bees closest to a predator would trigger the wave. Makes sense, right?

Wrong.

Experiments with tethered wasps revealed something stranger: shimmering starts at specific "trigger centers" clustered around the nest's mouth zone—where foragers enter and exit. These aren't random bees. They're specialized.

The position of trigger cohorts doesn't match the predator's location. Instead, bees in these zones are primed to respond faster, possibly through age or experience. Think of them as sentinels—stationed strategically, not reactively.

The Visual Trigger System

Shimmering isn't automatic. Bees are selective about when to deploy it:

• Contrast matters: Dark objects against bright backgrounds (like a hornet silhouetted against sky) trigger strong responses. Reverse the contrast—light object on dark—and nothing happens.
• Size threshold: Objects smaller than ~4cm don't trigger shimmering. Below a certain visual angle (1.6–3.4 degrees), the threat isn't worth the energy.
• Light dependence: Shimmering peaks in bright daylight. At dawn/dusk, the colony switches to other defenses. The visual system needs illumination to work.
Why This Is Brilliant

Shimmering solves multiple problems simultaneously:

1. Predator deterrence: Wasps see the wave and abort approach. The movement is unpredictable, hard to track, signals a coordinated colony.
2. Internal alarm: The wave propagates mechanoreceptive cues and Nasonov pheromone through the nest, alerting bees to prepare for escalation—mass stinging if the predator persists.
3. Energy efficiency: Not every threat triggers full defense. The visual filtering (size, contrast, light) prevents false alarms.
4. Speed through parallelism: Generator agents create saltatory (jumping) propagation that outpaces simple neighbor-to-neighbor transfer. The colony literally shortcuts information flow.

[E/V Nautilus @EVNautilus]

Flying up a ridge along the Northern side of Haaheo seamount in #PapahānaumokuākeaMarineNationalMonument, the Nautilus Live team witnessed an amazing diversity of life and especially #deepseacorals.

[Travelers Against Plastic @TAPcampaign]

True love lasts a lifetime but plastic lasts even longer!

It can take more than 400 years for your candy-filled heart to break down. Valentine’s Day is coming up! And we challenge you to take a moment to show your love for our planet, as well as to your special someone.

[Elfa dos Insetos 🐛🦋 @ElfaDosInsetos]

Uma lesminha-do-mar (nudibrânquio), translúcida, bonitinha, singela e delicada, apenas fazendo suas coisinhas de lesminha-do-mar. Ela captura organismos planctônicos com um capuz oral revestido de tentáculos que leva o alimento até sua boca.

[Bigelow Laboratory @BigelowLab]

#BigelowLab researchers Nick Record, Rebekah Shunmugapandi, and Karen Stamieszkin were featured in a #MaineMonitor article today about their zooplankton research: https://t.co/s6JV5FPhLF 📸: David Fields.
#maine #ocean #science

[Oceaiii🐋🐬 @oceaiii]

A rare and beautiful sight: the critically endangered ornate eagle ray, gracefully gliding through the ocean depths✨

[Changing Seas @CHANGINGSEAS]

Ever wonder how sharks and rays are related? Senior Biologist at Mote Marine Laboratory Kim Bassos-Hull breaks down the subclass Elasmobranchii. https://t.co/sc653y85cT

[Science girl @sciencegirl]

Artist Guillermo Galetti, turns discarded metal into captivating biomechanical sculptures

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

Misleading packaging is illegal in Japan

[Eco tonic | wellness 🌿 @WisdomLifeHack]

Plant for your health.

[World Ocean Day @WorldOceansDay]

Here are four #HappyHeadlines for our ocean and our planet, from stronger protections for vulnerable rays and sharks to a major pause on deep-sea mining. Dive into this week’s happiest headlines and celebrate the progress happening right now.

[World Ocean Day @WorldOceansDay]

📸 @rubenl3

[E/V Nautilus @EVNautilus]

During the NA176 expedition, our team encountered a wealth of biodiversity, including many gorgeous #GlassSponges. In this video, you’ll get up close and personal with some of them.

[Victoria Huber @OneGirlOneOcean]

EXTENDED!
https://t.co/LpTY3eUViP

[Victoria Huber @OneGirlOneOcean]

Support Reintroduction of Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act - Sign the Petition! https://t.co/0qQazYZWYI via @Change