Oceans

By studying the genome of a kind of octopus not known for its friendliness toward its peers, then testing its behavioral reaction to a popular mood-altering drug called MDMA or 'ecstasy,' scientists say they have found preliminary evidence of an evolutionary link between the social behaviors of the sea creature and humans, species separated by 500 million years on the evolutionary tree.

Ecstasy Turns Antisocial Octopuses Into Lovestruck Cuddle Buddies—Just Like Us

The genetic and neurological similarities between octopuses and humans shed light on how creatures became social beings

An amphipod with its victim clamped on its back.

Kidnapper Crustaceans Use Tiny Mollusks as Unwitting Shields

Amphipods wear the so-called sea angels, which secrete chemicals that keep certain predators at bay, like backpacks

How Wireless Water-to-Air Communication Could Revolutionize Marine Research

Solving a longstanding puzzle, MIT researchers have developed a way of sending signals from underwater to airborne devices

How Much Plastic Does It Take To Kill a Sea Turtle?

A new study suggests one piece of plastic has a 22 percent chance of killing a turtle that eats it, and 14 pieces will kill half

The device is designed to function as an artificial shoreline, drifting with ocean currents and collecting plastic in a 10-foot net-like screen

2,000-Foot-Long Plastic Catcher Released to Aid Cleanup of Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Skeptics argue the device will endanger marine wildlife, exacerbate existing pollution problems

The remotely operated vehicle Hercules explores the hydrothermal vents of Lost City during a 2005 expedition.

Diving Deep to Reveal the Microbial Mysteries of Lost City

An expedition sets out this week to explore a field of hydrothermal vents in the deep Atlantic, one of the most extreme ecosystems on the planet

Until now, it’s been unclear whether the bonnethead's seagrass consumption was intentional or the result of indiscriminate feeding

Fish Are Friends, Not (Always) Food: Meet the World’s First Omnivorous Shark Species

Bonnethead sharks enjoy a diet of up to 60 percent seagrass, as well as crab, shrimp, snails and bonyfish

RangerBot is an autonomous underwater vehicle designed to identify and kill crown-of-thorns starfish by lethal injection.

Sea-Star Murdering Robots Are Deployed in the Great Barrier Reef

The RangerBot is a new line of defense against coral-eating crown-of-thorns starfish

Is it just instinct?

New Zealand Penguins Make an Epic, Pointless, Swim to the Southern Ocean

A new satellite study shows the penguins travel over 4,000 miles to feed, even though their home shores are teeming with food

This pipefish couple may seem the picture of romance, but the male may have something bigger and better in mind.

Pregnant Male Pipefish Are the Sea's Swaggery Swingers

Male pipefish, which take on the burden of carrying eggs to term, can compromise their own pregnancies if they see a “huge, sexy female” swimming by

Satellite Image of Hurricane Lane

Why Hawaiian Hurricanes Are So Rare

The islands are usually protected by their remoteness and a stable high pressure system, which has gone wonky in the last year

113 Sea Turtles Have Been Found Dead on a Mexico Beach

Officials are still investigating the cause of the die-off

This Fish Outlived Dinosaurs But Oil and Gas Drilling May Threaten Its Survival

Oil exploration is set to begin near the habitat of the critically endangered coelacanth, a type of fish that has survived over 400 million years

Svalbard has the densest population of surging glaciers in the world.

What the Surging Glaciers of Svalbard Tell Us About the Future of Rising Seas

Scientists look to the Norwegian archipelago's fast-moving glaciers to better understand how other accelerating glaciers will behave

The pores visible on the underside of this shark's snout are electrical field-sensitive ampullae of Lorenzini.

Magnets Help Keep Sharks Out of Fish Traps

Adding cheap magnets to the traps reduced shark and ray bycatch by a third and increased fish hauls by just as much, according to a new study

Stormy weather may have rained on these sea urchins' parade—and sealed their fate

See Shells of Sea Spuds on the Seashore

Hundreds of "sea potatoes"—actually the empty shells of a species of sea urchin—mysteriously washed up on Cornish beach last weekend

Coral and its symbiotic algae

Algae and Coral Have Been BFFs Since the Dinosaur Age

A new study shows that the relationship between coral polyps and zooxanthellae that produces colorful coral reefs began 160 million years ago

After 100 Years, Roald Amundsen's Polar Ship Returns to Norway

<i>Maud</i>, which sunk in Arctic Canada in 1930, was floated across the Atlantic to its new home in a museum in Vollen

More like not-so-great white shark. Like today's sharks, prehistoric sharks sported a vast array of body sizes, shapes, and ornamentations.

Megalodon Wasn't the Only Impressive Shark in the Prehistoric Seas

No longer thought of as "living fossils," ancient sharks sported a crazy amount of variety

Do you smell something, Bob?

Ocean Acidification Is Frying Fish's Sense of Smell

By the end of the century, the ocean is predicted to become two-and-a-half times more acidic, which is bad news for sea life.

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