Feature Channels: Marine Science

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A group of the world’s leading ocean science and philanthropic organizations, led by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego, have come together to highlight the global ocean at the upcoming 27th Conference of the Parties (COP27) in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

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Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI)-led teams earned Gold and Silver Innovation Awards for seaweed solutions projects, presented at the first annual Seagriculture Conference USA 2022 in Portland, Maine.

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The number of trout in a southern Oregon stream system showed no decline one year after a fire burned almost the entire watershed, including riparian zone trees that had helped maintain optimal stream temperatures for the cold-water fish.

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The latest dinosaur discoveries in the Dinosaurs channel on Newswise.

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Scientists have discovered the origins of how animals adapt to and live in freshwater.

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Newly discovered turtle nesting sites in the Saudi Arabian Red Sea could help coastal megaprojects minimize their impact on these endangered species.

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“It was pretty incredible, actually. The whole brain lit up,” said Anna Andreassen, a PhD candidate at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).

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Living sharks are often portrayed as the apex predators of the marine realm. Paleontologists have been able to identify fossils of their extinct ancestors that date back hundreds of millions of years to a time known as the Palaeozoic period.

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Existing ways of calculating biodiversity dynamics are not very effective in detecting wholesale species community change due to the effects of ocean acidification.

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Model animals, such as mice and fruit flies, have provided scientists with powerful insights into how cellular biology works.

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The team of Prof. Alain Vanderplasschen, virologist and immunologist at the University of Liège, has published an article in the journal Nucleic Acids Research, reporting ten years of research on how a carp virus has been using a protein domain called Zalpha (Zα) to inhibit the defence mechanisms of the host cell.

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A new, simple, and efficient flow-based method allows researchers to pull a useful magnesium salt from natural seawater using easily available chemicals.

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Researchers have used the mathematical equations of chaos theory to analyse the data from long-term monitoring of an electronically tagged narwhal.

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Climate change and habitat destruction may have already caused the loss of more than one-tenth of the world’s terrestrial genetic diversity, according to new research led by Carnegie’s Moises Exposito-Alonso and published in Science.

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Seeking solutions to counteract a rapid rise in plastic trash, scientists at UC San Diego have developed biodegradable material that is designed to replace conventionally used plastic. In a new study, an interdisciplinary team of researchers has shown that the material biodegrades in seawater.

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The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) $5 million to participate in NSF’s ground breaking Convergence Accelerator Program. The project, led by WHOI scientist Anne Cohen, builds the world’s first Coral Reef Digital Twin, a 4-dimensional virtual replica of a living coral reef powered by state-of-the art data and models.

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Chula Faculty of Science has developed bioproducts to clean up oil spills in the ocean from their research on oil-eating microbes while getting ready to expand to industrial-scale production for ecological sustainability.

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The genetic fingerprint of the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis shows that the members of this evolutionarily very old animal phylum use the same gene cascades for the differentiation of neuronal cell types as more complex organisms. These genes are also responsible for the balance of all cells in the organism throughout the anemone’s life. The results were published by a team of developmental biologists led by Ulrich Technau of the University of Vienna in "Cell Reports".

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Biomedical research has long focused on certain model organisms, such as the mouse, fruit fly, and nematode worm C. elegans, partly because they’re easy to work with and partly because of their relevance to human biology. But the ocean is full of organisms that also offer an opportunity to develop new approaches to human health, and it turns out that the closest living invertebrate relative to humans is from the seas – a species of sea squirt called Botryllus schlosseri, or the star tunicate.

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Famous for their eight arms, octopuses leverage all of their appendages to move, jet through the water and capture prey. But their movements can look awkward and seemingly unplanned at times, more closely resembling aliens than earthly creatures.

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With another grant from the Florida Department of Health, FAU researchers will continue a first-of-its-kind evaluation of both the short-term and potential long-term health effects of harmful algal blooms among Florida residents.

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The endangered oceanic manta ray Mobula birostris is an iconic marine creature, and yet surprisingly little is known about them.

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Smoke from a Siberian wildfire may have transported enough nitrogen to parts of the Arctic Ocean to amplify a phytoplankton bloom. The work sheds light on some potential ecological effects from Northern Hemisphere wildfires, particularly as these fires become larger, longer and more intense.

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The University of Miami is offering its first cross-disciplinary course focused on climate resilience and taught by a variety of key faculty members from across the institution.

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As humans, we know that an active lifestyle gives us some control over our form.

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Arizona State University and the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory's College of Global Futures proudly announce the launch of its fourth school, the School of Ocean Futures, which advances learning, discovery and partnerships that shape a thriving global future. The school brings together ASU research and teaching facilities on the Tempe campus, in Bermuda and in Hawaii.

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A new method has been developed for identifying and prioritising research activities related to maritime safety and security issues for the Arctic and the North-Atlantic (ANA) region.

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Marine heat waves have decimated corals in recent years and the future looks bleak for tropical reefs if the pace of climate change continues at current rates.

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Climate models are unreliable when it comes to predicting the damage that tropical cyclones will do to sensitive coral reefs, according to a study published in the journal Earth’s Future.

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The skulls of tetrapods had fewer bones than extinct and living fish, limiting their evolution for millions of years, according to a latest study.

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How animals are able to interpret natural light sources to adjust their physiology and behaviour is poorly understood. The labs of Kristin Tessmar-Raible (Max Perutz Labs Vienna, Alfred Wegener Institut, University of Oldenburg) and Eva Wolf (Johannes Gutenberg University and Institute of Molecular Biology Mainz) have now revealed that a molecule called L-cryptochrome (L-Cry) has the biochemical properties to dis-criminate between different moon phases, as well as between sun- and moonlight.

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A new study led by scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and University of Washington Applied Physics Laboratory (UW APL) finds that marine predators, such as tunas, billfishes and sharks, aggregate in anticyclonic, clockwise-rotating ocean eddies (mobile, coherent bodies of water). As these anticyclonic eddies move throughout the open ocean, the study suggests that the predators are also moving with them, foraging on the high deep-ocean biomass contained within.

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Despite the high number, first global assessment shows illegal exploitation slightly declining.

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In a discovery that challenges over a century of evolutionary conventional wisdom, corals have been shown to pass somatic mutations – changes to the DNA sequence that occur in non-reproductive cells – to their offspring.

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The latest research on plants brought to you by Newswise.

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Inspired by a trip to the dentist, Dr Kate Quigley presents a new method for monitoring coral size and growth that reduces surveying time by 99%.

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Scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and European research institutions are calling for better protections for juvenile emperor penguins, as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service considers listing the species under the Endangered Species Act and the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) considers expanding the network of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in the Southern Ocean.

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Today scientists from Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (SoMAS) announced the culmination of a decade of science in a paper published in Frontiers in Marine Science, an international peer-reviewed journal, which describes a novel restoration approach used in Shinnecock Bay that has led to a 1,700 percent increase in the landings and densities of hard clams in that estuary, along with the expansion of seagrass meadows and the end of harmful brown tides – a result that brings the Shinnecock Bay back to its 20th Century glory for shellfishing and the result may serve as a shining example of a process to restore other estuaries around the country and world.

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Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), the world’s independent leader in ocean discovery, exploration, and education, today announced the appointment of Yessica Cancel to its executive team in the newly created position of Chief People Officer (CPO).

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This study is led by Dr. Chen Jianfang and Dr. Li Hongliang from the Second Institute of Oceanography, Ministry of Natural Resources.