Heh, I've done vodka once! For modern shipboard collections, time is still the enemy ($20K/day to run a ship exhausts a scientific budget quickly, not to menti

Heh, I've done vodka once! For modern shipboard collections, time is still the enemy ($20K/day to run a ship exhausts a scientific budget quickly, not to mention weather, etc). Surveys have multiple studies going on, so deck operations may be negotiated by scientists down to the minute. Many of the various molecular techniques require careful cleaning of surfaces and tools for each sample, so it's prohibitive to do "general molecular sampling". For unusual things - in spite of us being scientists, and loving unusual things - the rule is still "Tag it, bag it, look at it later". The "bag it" is usually formalin. If it looks interesting back in the lab, conduct a special study next year to collect some genetics. Of course, we're not expecting to find new phyla very often! So I'm absolutely sure that 20 years from now, someone could be going through my old bottles, find something truly weird that I missed, and wish that I'd thought to get some $!@#$$(## DNA!