Latest Dauphin Island, Alabama Stories

NASA scientists Maury Estes and Mohammad Al-Hamdan have been seafaring in the Gulf of Mexico, and one of them grew a bit green around the gills. It's not surprising that a space agency scientist might have trouble getting his sea legs, but what was he doing out there in the surf to begin with?"We were gathering water samples," explains Estes.That doesn't sound much like rocket science, but consider the following:At this moment, a fleet of NASA Earth-observing satellites is silently...

A wildlife expert said a 12-foot alligator that cleared a Dauphin Island, Ala., beach swam through the Gulf of Mexico to the island because he is blind. Wildlife Specialist Gary Casper said he was called by Marine Police after beachgoers spotted the reptile emerging from the water and vacated the beach, WALA-TV, Mobile, Ala., reported Thursday. It's a public safety hazard; a 12-foot alligator during tourist season on Dauphin Island on the beach when people are day and night swimming, Casper...

With their sedentary lifestyles and filter-feeding habits, clams have been silent witnesses to the changes that humans have inflicted upon their waters. These clams are silent no more, as Dr. Ruth H. Carmichael of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab and her colleagues have reported in their recent paper in the prestigious journal Aquatic Biology. Using stable isotope techniques, Carmichael demonstrated it is possible to identify and trace wastewater inputs to estuaries and coastal food webs by...

By Rob Young During moments like these, the country understandably feels sympathy for those who have lost property in the wake of Hurricane Ike. But there is an important question that should be raised while the nation's attention is once again focused on billions of dollars in damage. Should the federal government pay to rebuild along vulnerable shorelines such as Surfside Beach, Texas? Surfside Beach, which is at the west end of Fallets Island, had houses built out on the beach. Many of...