Feature Channels: Marine Science

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One of the startling discoveries about life on Earth in the past 25 years is that it can − and does − flourish beneath the ocean floor, in the planet’s dark, dense, rocky crust.

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New study with 'shark-eye' camera reveals that biofluorescent catsharks increase light contrast underwater; might be used for communicating with each other.

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Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration was the major driver behind the global climatic shifts that occurred between 53 and 34 million years ago, according to new research led by the University of Southampton.

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Most stream-resident fish stay throughout winter despite the ice. This has been shown by Christine Weber, previous researcher at Umeå University, by tagging trout and sculpins with transponders to follow fish migration. Fish's general state of health is the single most important factor for surviving winter. The findings have been published in the journal Ecology and Evolution.

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As large rivers empty into the world’s oceans in areas known as plumes, they typically create gaps in the reef distribution along the tropical shelves—something that makes finding a reef in the Amazon River plume an unexpected discovery.

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A research team studying biodiversity at the Hannibal Bank Seamount off the coast of Panama has captured unique video of thousands of red crabs swarming in low-oxygen waters just above the seafloor.

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Just four hours south of the UC San Diego campus lives the most endangered marine mammal in the world: the vaquita porpoise. Despite the Mexican government’s ban on gillnet fishing in the northern Gulf of California, fishermen on the hunt for totoaba fish and shrimp continue to use the nets illegally, leading to the incidental capture of vaquita, which become tangled in the nets and drown. According to the World Wildlife Fund, the estimated 100 individuals remaining are at risk of becoming extinct by 2018 if incidental capture is not prevented immediately.

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Current measurement methods may be vastly underestimating the amount of plastic in the oceans. Due to ocean's movement, trash may be well below the surface, making it difficult to adequately measure and remove.

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The oceans hold more than four billion tons of uranium—enough to meet global energy needs for the next 10,000 years if only we could capture the element from seawater to fuel nuclear power plants. Major advances in this area have been published.

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A recent study by researchers at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, published this month in the journal Toxins, may finally put to rest the ongoing debate about whether to use cold or heat to treat jellyfish stings. Their systematic and critical review provides overwhelming evidence that clinical outcomes from all kinds of jellyfish stings are improved following treatment with hot packs or hot-water immersion.

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Field experiment aims to uncover new clues about how oil and other pollutants move in the ocean.

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The billions of single-celled marine organisms known as phytoplankton can drift from one region of the world's oceans to almost any other place on the globe in less than a decade, Princeton University researchers have found.

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A new University of Washington study shows that impacts associated with shoreline armoring can scale up to have cumulative, large-scale effects on the characteristics of Salish Sea shorelines and the diversity of life they support.

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The ecology of the Rhode Island shore has changed dramatically in the last two decades due to one relatively recent invader: the Asian shore crab.

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Evolutionary changes could lead to reduced fishery yields. A new IIASA study shows how alternative management practices could mitigate the problem in a key North Sea fishery.

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A series of seismic surveys for oil and gas planned for the mid- and southeastern Atlantic coastal areas of the United States pose a substantial threat to one of the world’s most endangered whale species, according to a group of renowned marine mammal scientists urging a halt to the surveys in a statement released today.

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Researchers visited Christmas Island, the world's largest coral atoll, to measure the effects of El Nino. Eighty percent of the coral is dead.

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Rylinn Sorini, who is currently a senior at St. Mary’s College of Maryland duel majoring in biology and environmental studies, grew up in Rockville, just a few miles from the Potomac River — home to some of the most sought after oysters in the United States. Last summer, she began researching the effects of plastics on Eastern Oysters as part of a paid internship through St. Mary’s Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SMURF) program. This year, she extended her research to include three additional experiments on oysters as part of her St. Mary’s Project (SMP), entitled “How Does Polyethylene Plastic Impact Crassostrea virginica (Eastern Oyster) Health?” Her findings reveal bad news for oyster lovers.

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Coral reefs are early casualties of climate change, but not every coral reacts the same way to the stress of ocean warming. Northwestern University researchers have developed the first-ever quantitative “global index” detailing which of the world’s coral species are most susceptible to coral bleaching and most likely to die. Based on historical data, the index can be used to compare the bleaching responses of the world’s corals and to predict which corals may be most affected by future bleaching events.

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Global carbon dioxide emissions are triggering permanent changes to ocean chemistry along the North American West Coast that require immediate, decisive action to combat. That action includes development of a coordinated regional management strategy, concluded a panel of scientific experts including Andrew Dickson, a professor of marine chemistry at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.

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New regulations by the government of Ecuador to protect the waters around the Galapagos Islands as a marine preserve, including main feeding areas for Galapagos penguins.

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Sometimes called the “graveyard of the Atlantic” because of the large number of shipwrecks there, the waters off Cape Hatteras on the North Carolina coast are some of the least understood on U.S.’s eastern seaboard.

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The ocean chemistry along the West Coast of North America is changing rapidly because of global carbon dioxide emissions, and the governments of Oregon, California, Washington and British Columbia can take actions now to offset and mitigate the effects of these changes.

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The journal Marine Resource Economics recognized James Anderson for his 1985 paper, “Market Interactions between Aquaculture and the Common-Property Commercial Fishery.” Most articles written 30 years ago have been forgotten, but some researchers are still looking at this one, Anderson said.

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A new study addresses a controversial hypothesis regarding the potential ramming function of the sperm whale’s head. This hypothesis was instrumental in inspiring Herman Melville to write the novel Moby Dick but its mechanical feasibility had never been addressed.

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New research on coral reefs suggests that existing biodiversity will be essential for the successful adaptation of ecosystems to climate change.

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Researchers are studying how marine mammals—which have naturally high levels of carbon monoxide—might shed light on the protective effects of carbon monoxide. The findings could help refine approaches for carbon monoxide-based therapies currently being tested in several ongoing clinical trials.

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A rescued sea turtle undergoing rehabilitation at the Seattle Aquarium became the first nonhuman treated in the hyperbaric oxygen chamber at Virginia Mason Hospital earlier this week when medical experts and marine wildlife veterinarians collaborated in an effort to compress internal gas bubbles that prevent the reptile from diving or remaining under water.

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Sandia National Laboratories has created an Urban Resilience Analysis Process to help cities consider infrastructure improvements to make them more resilient. The framework includes key elements of Sandia’s critical infrastructure modeling and simulation tools, risk-consequence assessment and systems analysis expertise.

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The formation of a distinct pattern of sea surface temperatures in the middle of the North Pacific Ocean can predict an increased chance of summertime heat waves in the eastern half of the United States up to 50 days in advance.

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Saving seagrass isn’t just a pipefish dream. That’s the claim of a new Practitioners perspective article written by researchers from Swansea University and Cardiff University who help run the marine conservation charity Project Seagrass.

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New Hypoxia-Nutrient Data Portal, created in partnership with the Gulf of Mexico Alliance, and Citizen Science Data Portal aggregate information gathered from multiple sources and organizations throughout the Gulf so that the data may be used to support informed strategies for protecting the long-term health of the Gulf and its waterways.

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A new study shows the economic and ecological impact of invasive species in the Great Lakes has been dramatically underestimated. In fact, according to researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a single non-native species in a single inland lake has racked up $80 million to $163 million in damage.

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NSU's Guy Harvey Research Institute has been tagging and tracking sharks and billfish for years - and they continue to amaze and surprise researchers.

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University of Washington oceanographers track 2,000 years of El Niño history, showing that it can shift in strength for centuries at a time.

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The world’s corals are dying, with tremendous effects on climate and ocean health – however, much about why coral dies is still unknown. Now, a team at the Weizmann Institute of Science has created a new experimental platform – a “coral on a chip” – that lets them grow coral in the lab to study the structures’ complicated lives at microscale resolution.

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Designed to help Florida’s multi-billion dollar sportfishing industry, the project is funded by the Bonefish & Tarpon Trust in partnership with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. It is the first of its kind and involves the design and testing of an experimental research project to grow bonefish for stock enhancement.

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Snapping shrimps, the loudest invertebrate in the ocean, may be silenced under increasing ocean acidification, a University of Adelaide study has found.

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UM Rosenstiel School researchers evaluated movements of highly mobile sharks in relation to protected areas.

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To clarify sharkskin’s ability to reduce hydrodynamic drag (academically contested for the past 30 years), researchers at Stony Brook University and the University of Minnesota recently conducted simulations on the ability of the small, tooth-like denticles that make up sharkskin to modify hydrodynamic flow with an unprecedented level of resolution. Far from easing the glide through the water, they found, the structures can actually increase drag by up to 50 percent.

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How do ocean gardens get nitrogen, which is critical to producing life, and will they get it differently in the future? It’s a critical set of questions that has been stumping oceanographers and leading them on a quest for answers.

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The fish-farming industry is increasing its use of plant-based ingredients in its feed and moving away from traditional feed made from fish, which could impact some of the health benefits of eating certain types of seafood, suggests a new analysis from the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future (CLF) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

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Barb Taylor is a conservation biologist with NOAA’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla, California, and she was the co-chief scientist on an expedition last summer to estimate how many vaquita remain. In this podcast, Dr. Taylor points out that, historically, several species of marine mammals have been rescued from similarly dire straits. But time is running out for vaquita.

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An interview with Mike Vecchione, a zoologist with the NOAA Fisheries National Systematics Lab and an expert on deep-water cephalopods (a group that includes octopods, squids, and cuttlefishes). In this interview, Vecchione describes this mysterious species, and what its discovery says about our understanding of life on Earth.

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Researchers analyze how nutrient pollution can negatively impact important ecological relationships.

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In 2013, Great White shark Lydia was captured, tagged and released aboard OCEARCH’s unique vessel in Jacksonville, Florida. Since then, the 2,000-pound shark has traveled over 35,500 miles, demonstrating the connectivity of Florida waters with Northeastern Atlantic waters off Europe.

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Scientists from NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA Fisheries) and the University of Massachusetts Boston have found evidence of Atlantic bluefin tuna spawning activity off the northeastern United States in an area of open ocean south of New England and east of the Mid-Atlantic states called the Slope Sea. Prior to this research, the only known spawning grounds for Atlantic bluefin tuna were in the Gulf of Mexico and the Mediterranean Sea.

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From beach shallows to the ocean depths, vast numbers of chemical compounds work together to reduce and store atmospheric carbon in the world’s oceans. Now, a team of scientists are working with new analytical tools needed to understand these molecular-level relationships

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'Four-Flavored' Tetraquark, Planets Born Like Cracking Paint, New 2D Materials, The World's Newest Atom-Smasher in the Physics News Source sponsored by AIP.

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Solid-liquid interface studies have a long history at EMSL. The insights gained from this research spans areas including terrestrial ecosystems, energy materials, aerosols and biological systems. With improved understanding of interfacial events, scientists working at EMSL have developed more predictive models and made significant advances in addressing real-world challenges. EMSL's focus on solid-liquid interface research has pushed the development of new instruments and techniques to better study these complex surfaces for even greater scientific results.