Oceans

East Antarctica, despite lagging behind West Antarctica, is still losing ice to the tune of some 50 billion tons per year

Antarctica’s Ice Loss Has Reached 250 Billion Tons Per Year

The continent's annual ice loss has sextupled since 1979, jumping from 40 billion tons to 250 billion tons in 2017

Shucked oyster shells lay beneath the moonlight at Fanny Bay Oyster Company on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada.

Oysters Open and Close Their Shells as the Moon Wanes and Waxes

A new study suggests the mollusks may widen and narrow their shells depending on movement of plankton, which shifts with the lunar cycle

Researchers often depend on fishing communities to learn what life is like for sharks out in the deep ocean.

To Study Rare Sharks, Scientists Are Heading to Fish Markets

Marine biologists are combing fish markets around the world to study what comes up in the nets, and sometimes the catch is full of surprises

Cormac Hondros-McCarthy, Lauren Shum, Parth Sagdeo and Ted Zhu celebrate their successful top prize spot at the Make for the Planet Borneo hackathon in Kuching, Malaysia in June 2018.

This Lobster Trap Aims to Protect Endangered Whales — and Fishers’ Livelihoods

A team of engineers is designing a low-cost, lineless, self-surfacing lobster trap that would prevent right whale entanglement

Threatened Bluefin Tuna Sells for Record $3 Million in New Year's Sale

The 612-pound fish will go to a sushi restaurant, but without intervention the prized species will not be on the plate for much longer

Found: Sailboat From Teen's Abandoned Round-the-World Attempt

Abby Sunderland's boat was dismasted in the Indian Ocean in 2010 during her controversial bid to become the youngest to circumnavigate the world solo

The American Heritage is enjoying a new lease on life as an artificial reef home to hundreds of deep-sea sponges and other marine creatures

He Was on Duty When the Ship Sank. Two Decades Later, the ROV Pilot Aids in Its Exploration

You can now explore a 3-D model of the wreck of the <i>American Heritage</i>

Kevin Lafferty emerges from the waters off Anacapa Island near Ventura, California, after spearing fish in March 2018. He’s advising a UCSB PhD student on research to determine if reef fish inside protected marine reserves have more or fewer parasites than depleted fish populations outside the reserve. It’s to test a pattern that has emerged in other studies: that parasites thrive with richness and abundance of marine life.

In Praise of Parasites

They worm into snails and infect the brains of fish. They’re also examples of sophisticated evolution and keys to ecosystem balance.

Victor Vescovo entering the Limiting Factor for his record-breaking descent.

Submersible Is First to Reach Bottom of Atlantic Ocean

U.S. equity-firm founder piloted the craft to the bottom of the Puerto Rico Trench, in a bid to reach the deepest spot in each of the world's oceans

Magnet, one of the endangered North Atlantic right whales returning to their wintering grounds in Georgia and Florida.

First Right Whale Calf in Two Years Spotted Off Florida Coast

A mother and calf were recently sighted along with several possibly pregnant endangered North Atlantic right whales

From 3-D Printed Gills to AI Dolphin Dictionaries, These Innovations Could Make Us More Like Aquaman

If you look beyond the movie, you can see how the underwater superhero's signature powers translate in real tech

Up to 1,000 octopus moms care for their brood.

The Top Ten Ocean Stories of 2018

From the most ancient animal known to a newly defined ocean zone, the world's watery places never cease to amaze

Pine Island Glacier

Past Global Flood Shows Antarctica's Ice Is More Fragile Than We Thought

Data indicates the West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapsed after a small rise in temperature, meaning sea level could rise faster than predicted

The Smithsonian's Mary Hagedorn and hundreds of colleagues collaborated on the project, which used cryopreserved elkhorn coral sperm to fertilize live eggs to create larvae.

To Help Corals Fight Back, Scientists Are Breeding Populations Separated by Hundreds of Miles

A new study demonstrates that assisted reproduction using cryopreserved sperm leads to offspring that might be more resilient in the face of climate change

We Finally Know What Sank the U.S.S. San Diego During World War I

After six visits to the ship and sophisticated modeling, historians have concluded that a German mine sunk the cruiser off the coast of New York in 1918

Adelie Penguins Poop So Much, Their Feces Can Be Seen From Space

Satellite images of the Adelie penguin's pink guano shows how their colony size and diet have changed over the last 4 decades

The so-called "Great Dying" depleted ocean oxygen levels, effectively suffocating nearly all of the planet's marine life

How Did the ‘Great Dying’ Kill 96 Percent of Earth’s Ocean-Dwelling Creatures?

Researchers say the prehistoric mass extinction event could mirror contemporary—and future—devastation sparked by global warming

Ichthyosaurs (Greek for "fish lizard") were large marine reptiles that lived alongside the dinosaurs during most of the Mesozoic era.

Like Whales and Dolphins, Prehistoric 'Fish Lizards' Kept Warm With Blubber

A new analysis of a pristine ichthyosaur fossil reveals that the prehistoric marine reptile had a layer of insulating fatty tissue

Smaller nanoplastics spread throughout the scallops' muscles, gills, gonads and other organs, while larger ones stayed mainly in the intestines

It Only Takes Six Hours for Billions of Plastic Nanoparticles to Accumulate in Sea Scallops

The particles accumulated with rapid speed, but it took up to 48 days for them to disappear from the mollusks’ systems

Baleen is the soft, hair-like structure on the upper mouth of whales, such as the humpback whale in this photo, which allows them to trap prey in their mouth.

Prehistoric Whale Jaw Bone Sheds Light on the Evolution of Baleen

Hidden in a museums’ collections for years, a fossil provides a link between past and present feeding mechanisms

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