You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.

We are headed to the deep sea today off the west coast of Ireland.

Sam Atholouse is one of just a handful of people who've seen what lives down there.

A mile or more below the surface.

And I don't know where this big giant sponge appeared, big giant trumpet sponge, like kind

of the equivalent of a gramophone sticking out from the wall.

So it was probably two meters wide, maybe three meters deep.

Now Sam doesn't dive down to the depths himself.

He views what's below through a camera attached to a fancy robot.

It reveals a part of our planet that looks like an alien world.

Branching bamboo corals, the size of a tree.

The corals reaching out over cliff edges, gigantic sponges, tiny little octopus called the

Dumbo octopus.

Because it has these little flaps beside its ears.

I can't make it look like a robot.

Sam's not there to gawk at critters.

As an underwater chemist, he's more interested in the chemicals these marine organisms make.

Chemicals that can be used for drug discovery.

We humans have been drawing medicinal inspiration from nature for a long time.

And that's where most of our medicines come from.

Drived or inspired by natural sources.

And a lot of those come from traditional remedy type of things.

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