After months of gloom, a report on the fate of the oil from BP's Deepwater Horizon spill offered a rare piece of good news. "At least 50% of the oil that was released is now completely gone from the system," said Jane Lubchenco, administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), at a White House press conference on 5 August.
Vernon Asper was one of the first researchers in the Gulf of Mexico to study the oil gushing out from the BP well. But it has not all been smooth sailing, reports Mark Schrope.
Some ecosystems bounced back after the 1979 Ixtoc I oil spill, but research quickly withered.
New England fishermen have mixed feelings about a programme designed to allow overfished species to recover. Mark Schrope reports on how catch shares have scientists fishing for answers.
With no end in sight for the oil gushing from the explosion site at the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, anxious US officials are looking to researchers who study the Gulf of Mexico and its idiosyncratic currents to help determine where all the oil is and where it might be heading.
With oil still gushing from an offshore well in the Gulf of Mexico, some scientists and environmentalists worry that US federal agencies have not done enough to gather precious data on the spill, now into its second month.
