LAKE SUPERIOR — Choppy, windswept waves slap at the hull as our boat nears the last known location of the Lucerne, a schooner that sank to the bottom of Lake Superior in 1886. The wreck, just off a narrow sand peninsula jutting from the northern tip of Wisconsin, doubles as a suspected habitat for an elusive freshwater sponge called Eunapius fragilis. Finding these tiny aquatic organisms is the reason a trio of young scientists have set off with a local divemaster. The hunch is these sponges could be a source for new chemical molecules, which, in turn, could be the basis for new antibiotics. Looking north under overcast skies in late August, the lake stretches all the way to the gray-blue horizon line, which appears to seesaw back and forth.

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