For an organization looking for ways to kill cancerous cells, such powerful chemicals are an inviting weapon.

William Fenical directs the Center for Marine Biotechnology and Biomedicine at the Scripps Institute for Oceanography in California. He says that about nine kilometers underwater lies what may be an even more promising source of medicine -- mud.

“Close to seventy percent of the surface of the earth is really deep ocean mud.”

His team studies microorganisms living on the ocean floor.

“These muds contain about one billion cells in the volume of a sugar cube.”

For comparison, that is one-million times the organic matter you are likely to find in a similar amount of soil on land. The large number of sea creatures excites Mr. Fenical.

“For the last fifty years, microorganisms that occur on land have been exploited for the production of antibiotics, cancer drugs, and cholesterol-lowering drugs. What we believe is that the ocean is a completely new resource for such microbial products.”

His team already has two drugs in development. And he believes there will be many discoveries of ocean-based medicines.

A small blood-sucking crustacean has been discovered in the Caribbean waters off the Virgin Islands. The creature may help increase scientists’ understanding of how disease is passed among marine animals.

The new species is called Gnathia marleyi. It was named for the reggae star Bob Marley. Paul Sikkel is a marine biologist at Arkansas State University. He says the species is the first new find in the crustacean-like gnathiid family in twenty years.