From the Field / Life
Cold Pockets Inside Kelp Forests May Buy Marine Life Time
Divers and autonomous sensors are mapping small temperature refuges that broad ocean forecasts can miss.
Author profile
Iris Novak
Planetary science reporter
Iris Novak contributes science reporting and analysis to Helix.
Latest work
Life / Field Report
A Reef's Night Chorus Offers a Faster Clue to Recovery
Marine biologists are using hydrophones to listen for the crackles, pops, and low-frequency signals that reveal whether damaged reefs are becoming habitat again.
Iris Novak / Jul 16, 2026 / 7 min
Life / Discovery
Young Sharks Are Redrawing the Map of a Coastal Nursery
Acoustic tags show juveniles using a wider patchwork of estuaries and offshore habitat than shoreline surveys suggested.
Iris Novak / Jul 12, 2026 / 6 min
Life / Explainer
The Ocean's Carbon Pump Is a Food Web Before It Is a Machine
A plain-language guide to how plankton, sinking particles, and microbial life move carbon from sunlit water into the deep sea.
Iris Novak / Jul 3, 2026 / 9 min
Space / Field Report
Asteroid Samples Are Turning Organic Chemistry Into a Handling Problem
Fresh material from primitive bodies is pushing laboratories to separate cosmic chemistry from contamination introduced on Earth.
Iris Novak / Jul 1, 2026 / 7 min
Space / Visual Investigation
Mars Ice Maps Are Becoming a Grid for Future Fieldwork
Orbital radar and thermal data are being combined into maps that rank where shallow ice might be reachable by future missions.
Iris Novak / Jun 18, 2026 / 7 min