Did you ever go to write an abstract after realising what a crazy title you had offered? OK let me start as I mean to go on: Every day, every moment, an epic battle is raging across the globe. It's happening in the ocean. The evidence is both highly visible and totally hidden, depending on your perspective. In this talk, Willie will discuss the tale of an arms race involving trillions of sea creatures and why their struggle is vital to life on this planet. A group of phytoplankton, known as coccolithophores, are engaged in a surprisingly complicated arms race with deadly giant viruses. A virus is problematic enough when you're a human. Now imagine being a single-cell alga and mixing it up with the hugest virus you've ever seen. The coccolithophores are outgunned, but they won't go down with out a serious fight. The talk will start with a RadioLab interview (previously aired on National Public Radio in the US) by reporter Ari Daniel Shapiro who visited Willie to explain how our itsy-bitsy heroes take arms against a sea of troubles. Their discussion explores how this battle, and others like it, makes life on Earth possible. Willie will continue the dialogue using examples of his research on the coccolithoviruses and development of single-virus genomics approaches to study them and other virus leviathans.