The Short, Tragic Life of Herb's Uncle Mo Herb Urban's uncle Mo was a famous marine biologist and, later in his career, a terrible kisser. It all started with Mo's fascination with gray whales and the mystery surrounding what the beasts were eating. See, gray whales have strips of fingernail-like balleen instead of teeth and for years it was thought that they ate by straining plankton. But their balleen, it seems, forms too coarse of a screen to trap enough plankton to support a twenty ton mammal. Thinking Nobel Prize or a guest shot on Nova, Mo chartered a boat, found a whale pod, and followed them. A hundred meters from shore, the whales pulled up short and were soon besieged by scavenging shore birds. Donning hooded dry suits lined with chemical heating pads, Mo and his assistant Leroy plunged into the icy Bering Sea. At a depth of fifty meters they reached the bottom and became the first humans to watch gray whales feed. First the great mysticetes turned on their sides and burrowed their spade-shaped lower jaws in the sediment. Then they swam forward and "plowed" the sea floor, leaving huge furrows behind in their wake. The silt was then exhaled through the baleen leaving mouthfuls of burrowing mussels and worms. Mo and his assistant high-fived underwater: they had discovered the world's largest bottom feeder. But by digging these furrows, the whales had exposed the flesh of hundreds of soft-bodied organisms. Within minutes, thousands of shrimp-like creatures called amphipods arrived, and converged on the unearthed banquet to feed. Armed with efficient, calcaereous mandibles, the half-inch long amphipods went into a frenzy. The only part of Mo's body not protected by neoprene was the perimeter of his regulator. Namely his lips. Now, Mo could have gone back to the family business and become known as the mattress salesman who always smiles. But thanks equally to the tenacity of the scientist and to the wonders of prothetic surgery, Mo stayed in Alaska and continued to scuba dive ­ until the most recent forest fires, that is. Firefighters battling the Matanuska Valley fire this July were astounded to find Mo Urban dead in a burn site wearing wetsuit, mask, fins, and full scuba gear. Miles from the ocean, Mo did not appear burned and seemed to have died from internal injuries. When they finally put the pieces together, it turned out that one of those water-scooping helicopters had inadvertantly plucked Mo from the water and dumped him onto the burning forest.