Oceanography on ZME Science

Water-breathing scuba mask design still has a way to go

South Korean designer Jeabyun Yeon has just unveiled his new concept of a scuba mask that would allow anyone to breathe underwater without requiring air tanks. His design, named the Triton, includes two arms linked to a mouth piece. The branching arms are designed to extract free oxygen atoms from the water and supply breathable air directly to the user. But I'm not sold on it just yet.

Fukushima meltdown isotopes found on U.S. coasts.

The full extent of Japan's 2011 Fukushima meltdown is still being uncovered, with measured levels of contamination increasing in previously identified sites throughout the North American coast. While it's still too low to threaten human or ocean life, this confirms that the power plant continues to leak radioactive isotopes researchers report.

CO2 in the atmosphere heralds imminent food chain collapse -- and it's gonna start in the oceans

Bad news for us -- and fish.

Antarctic Ocean Sucks Down More and More Greenhouse Gases, But It's Still Not Enough

The Antarctic Ocean has been sucking more and more carbon dioxide - and this is both good news and bad news. For the Ocean's inhabitants, it's bad news because it increases acidity, which is extremely harmful; for everyone else, it's good news, because it mitigates the effects of climate change.

Greenland Glacier Loses Huge Chunk of Ice

Scientists have reported the break of a huge part of Jakobshavn Glacier, one of the largest ones in Greenland. A chunk of it roughly the size of Manhattan broke some time between August 13 and August 19.

Warming oceans could destroy corals in the Pacific and Atlantic, researchers warn

Coral populations are crucial to the health of oceanic environments, but corals are also extremely vulnerable to changing conditions. Researchers warn that warming waters and ocean acidification lead to coral bleaching which can cause massive damage across both the Atlantic and the Pacific.

What is the Portuguese Man of War

We'll take a look at the Man of War and see what you should do to stay safe on the beach.

Ocean trek reveals the massive diversity of the oceanic plankton [with photos]

In what's perhaps one of the most amazing marine science study, a team of researchers scoured the world's oceans fishing for microbes, viruses and other tiny life during a three and a half year trip aboard a schooner. The trip was long and arduous for sure, but ultimately it paid out - big time! The team collected 35,000 samples at 210 stations over the voyage, and found 35,000 species of bacteria, 5,000 new viruses and 150,000 single-celled plants and creatures. Most of these are new to science. Only a small fraction of the newly discovered and known species alike had been genetically sequenced, but results so far show just how interconnected and symbiotic marine life is. It also means it's also vulnerable in the face of environmental changes, particularly climate change.

NOAA to double size of California’s bay area marine sanctuary

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Obama administration and California lawmakers have announced a doubling of the size of the Cordell Bank and Gulf of the Farallones national marine sanctuaries off Northern California. “NOAA is expanding the boundaries of Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary (CBNMS) and Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary (GFNMS) to […]

Arctic ice melting much faster than thought

Using both modern and historic measurements, researchers now have a more extensive view of how the Arctic sea ice has changed in the past few decades, finding that the ice is melting much faster than previously expected. The ice in the central Arctic Ocean thinned 65 percent between 1975 and 2012, from 11.7 feet (3.59 meters) to 4.1 feet (1.25 m).

This is what the underneath of an iceberg looks like

We often say that you only see 10% of the iceberg, the rest being underwater. US photographer Alex Cornell actually got the chance to see that - during a trip to Antarctica, he managed to take pictures of an extremely rare phenomenon: a flipped iceberg.

Obama proclaims world's largest Marine Park

President Obama has signed a proclamation which will make the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument the largest marine reserve in the world. Up until now, the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument was a group of unorganized, mostly unincorporated United States Pacific Island territories managed by the Fish and Wildlife Service. They host many important species, including corals, […]

Huge waves observed for the first time in the Arctic Ocean

Ice melting means waves have more room to develop and grow, and scientists aren't really sure what the consequences will be.

Study suggests global warming has in fact accelerated in the past 15 years

You’ve probably heard it a few times: the climate is indeed warming up, but it’s all good, because the rate at which it is warming up is slowing down. But a new study published in Geophysical Research Letters analyzing ocean warming (which represents 90% of global warming) claims otherwise. Accelerating global warming Contrary to the […]

NASA releases global salinity map

NASA has, for the first time, released a global map of ocean salinity. The first thing that popped up for me was the pulse of freshwater gushing from the Amazon, but other major features are worth noticing. An invisible seam divides the salty Arabian Sea from the fresher waters of the Bay of Bengal and […]

Dolphins call each other, not by name, but by whistle

Every bottlenose dolphin makes its own distinctive sound, a high-pitched “eeee” through which they announce their presence. However, dolphins are also great at mimicking sounds, being able to copy even intricate computer generated sounds; this made researchers curious to see if dolphins can in fact mimic each other’s sound, and how they use this ability […]

The El Niño turns out to be more chaotic than previously thought

Why would the El Niño be important for the rest of us that don’t live in the western part of South America? Well because it also influences the climate in North America, Asia, Australia, Africa, even Europe perhaps.. so that basically means the whole world. The El Niño-the southern oscillation or ENSO is a sort of a […]

The island that did not exist

Who doesn’t dream of a deserted tropical island..sandy beaches made of coral sand, with crystal clear water, blue like the sky – you know what I mean. And let’s say it would be somewhere off the coast of Australia, maybe near New Calledonia. That sounds perfect.. it’s a great place, a great place to imagine. Well, […]

New study estimates 1 million marine species - one third still unknown

The world’s oceans are teeming with life, a new census estimating almost 1 million species out there; but marine life is declining, with the main causes being overfishing, ocean acidification and coastal damage. Avoiding a crisis The new numbers are just estimates, but they are much lower than previous studies, which put the number of […]

Corals under attack summon friendly fish

The natural world sometimes has a magnificent way of dealing with its own problems – and this is exactly the case here. Coral threatened by toxic seaweeds emit a chemical signal which draws fish to eat away the danger. When Acropora nasuta corals come into contact with the toxic seaweed Chlorodesmis fastigiata, they scream for […]

Giant single celled organisms lurk on ocean's deepst point

Deep in the Mariana Trench, about seven miles below the surface, researchers found huge single celled amoebas, making them not only completely surprisng and amazing, but also the creatures living at the biggest depth found so far. The team from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego studied and catalogued these xenophyophores, single-celled animals […]

Glow in the dark waves on the San Diego shoreline

Strollers along the San Diego shoreline experienced their own kind of Northern Lights these past few days, only the western coast equivalent is less about skyline astral projections, and more about a grand neon blue light show luminating from within the ocean’s waves. And less cold. The event is actually a bioluminescence phenomenon and is […]

Dolphins talk like humans, study says

A team of researchers have shown in a recently released paper published in the journal Royal Society Biology Letters that dolphins actually communicate with each other through a process much in the way humans use. What has been mistaken for a long time as plain whisteling has now been proven to be a much more […]

Fool's gold is ocean's fertilizer

Bacteria and small plants at the bottom of the ocean require significant quantities of iron to survive and grow, just like us humans do. But their situation is extremely different, and they can’t just opt for an iron rich diet. So where does their iron come from ? Pyrite, or fool’s gold (as it […]

Scientists uncover amazing species 7000 m below water level

This amazing snailfish is just one of the animals new to science that have been uncovered by Oceanlab scientists; the expedition was studying one of the world’s deepest trenches, an environment thought to be void of fish of any kind, but researchers were surprised to find out that even the bottom of the trench was […]

Amazingly long fish filmed

Mark Benfield from Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge was undertaking a survey when he spotted this amazing oarfish at about 10 meters long. The fish is one of the longest in the world, and it’s general aspect resembles that of a serpent, so it’s possible it lies at the basis of some sea serpent myths. […]

Just in case you didn't know, there's a garbage island twice as big as France in the Pacific Ocean

I was surprised to talk to a bunch of people today and find out they didn’t know about this, so I figured this is definitely something worth knowing. Here’s the deal. There’s a whole lot of garbage floating around; a whole lot ! Some are above the surface, some are below. What happens is they […]

Blue whales singing lower every year, baffled scientists say

Blue whales are not only the biggest living creatures in the world right now, but the biggest ever to have ‘walked’ the face of the earth; they’re also the loudest for that matter. After recovering from near extinction in the beginning of the 20th century, blue whales are finally getting a part of the respect […]

17650 Species that have never seen sunlight

The researchers from the Census of Marine Wildlife have accomplished a truly amazing task; they have inventoried a fantastic abundance of marine species, more specifically deep sea species that live below the point where sunlight can penetrate the water, creatures that live more than 5 km below sea level, in a cold and dark environment. […]

The deadliest creature in the world

So, microorganisms and other humans aside, what do you think is the deadliest creature in animal kingdom? A snake, perhaps a lion or bear, a scorpion perhaps? Neah, not even close. The deadliest creature in the world is actually called a sea wasp. Specialists use the term ‘deadliest’ when they refer to venomous creatures, that […]

39 unbelievable underwater pictures that will blow your mind

First of all, I don’t know for sure if any of these are shopped or tampered in any way; underwater photography is really peculiar and has its own ways of manipulating light and perspective. But let’s not worry about that for the moment. Let’s just sit back, relax, and enjoy our planet’s wonderful waters. […]

Fossils of sea "monster" make T-Rex seem cute & fluffy

Well, that’s a bit of a stretch, but according to scientists, this giant fossil sea creature known currently just as “Predator X” had a bite that makes T-Rex seem “feeble”. This 15 meter long dinosaur had a crushing 33,000 lbs (15 tonnes) per square inch bite force. “With a skull that’s more than 10 feet […]

First sparks of life could have appeared from volcanoes

Jeffrey Bada is a researcher at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. He and his colleagues reanalyzed the classic experiment concerning the origins of life conducted by Stanley Miller who along with Harold Urey realized what we know today as the Miller-Urey experiment. This experiment showed that organic compounds can be created with no relative difficulty from […]

Fish that communicate by getting red

Most fish can’t even recognize the color red – let alone use it for some precise purpose. However, the exception here are some deep sea fish, yet Enneapterygius pusillus found a really interesting way of communicating. It literally glows in a deep red color, signaling different forms of intent. According to a study conducted in […]

Mexican mangroves 'vital for fishing industry'

A few days ago, I wrote about the damage that a well intended, but wrongly conducted mangrove restoration could cause; the article itself was focusing on the Philippines. It is time to underline (again) the importance that they have on ecosystems which rely on them way more than you would probably guess.Just a few days […]

Bikini corals are recovering from atomic blast

Bikini Atoll (also known as Pikinni Atoll) is an uninhabited 2.3-square-mile (6.0 km²) atoll in one of the Micronesian Islands in the Pacific Ocean. Its historical importance lies in the fact that along with more than 20 nuclear weapons tests between 1946 and 1958, the world’s first test of a practical dry fuel hydrogen bomb […]

Crawling, not swimming fish discovered

A University of Washington fish expert claims to have discovered a whole new species of fish, that would rather crawl into crevices than swim, and that may be able to see in the same way that humans do. Well this is certainly something unexpected, and there is no species that does the same kind of […]

Mysterious compound could in fact be the key to ocean life

To understand this, you need just a very basic knowledge of chemistry, nothing fancy. When small parts of organic matter break down, they could go into rivers or ponds where they could cause a buildup of yellow-brown organic matter that amasses as the tiny plants die. Of course, this matter decomposes into something which is […]

Mysterious creatures found in Antarctica seas

The return of three Antarctic marine science research vessels marks the crowning of one of Australia’s most ambitious International Polar Year projects, a census of life in the Antarctic seas. The ships (Aurora Australis and collaborating vessels L’Astrolabe from France and Umitaka Maru from Japan) came back from the Southern Ocean, their decks overflowing with […]

The hand of blood: man makes sure no ocean water remains pristine

A new study has shown that not even a square meter of the world’s oceans has been left untouched by human activities. Oceansystems face probably the largest of threats from humans including overfishing, pollution, and rising ocean temperatures and ocean acidification caused by global warming. The study has been led by an international team of […]

Submersible Robot Runs on Sea's Heat

This sounds truly great, and I was quite surprised to see it, but it’s a reality. Scientists invented the Prius of ocean-going submersibles — a new “green” robotic glider that runs on energy absorbed from the heat of the sea, rather than batteries. This is one of the best ways of achieving energy.Another thing […]

Plankton To The Rescue

Nature has a way of defending itself and even things which we fail to understand play their part. For example, the reef helps protect the shore from devastating waves and tsunamis – and the recent tragic events were in a way just a reflection of what we are doing to the planet. Massive man made […]

Climate Change Threatens Drinking Water

As sea levels rise coastal communities could lose up to 50 percent more of their fresh water supplies than previously thought, according to a new study from Ohio State University. This is not just bad news for them; it is a warning for everybody.Studies have shown how altwater will intrude into fresh water aquifers, given […]

Ocean Life Fading screaming for help

…and we refrain ourselves from doing anything. The reefs and marine creatures are dying slowly but certainly because of human activity – we are pretty well past the point of denying it. There are numerous ways to destroy it, be it through global warming, ocean acidification, overfishing, and so much more; many would say […]

Deep Sea Discoveries

Life emerged and evolved initially in the water – every creature we see today stems from creatures who initially evolved underwater. But even after so much time, there there are many things don’t understand about marine ecosystems, and to be quite honest, the ecosystems we probably know least about are underwater. Researchers from Fisheries and […]

Iron Fertilization Of Oceans against global warming

Global warming is a hot topic everywhere in the world, and probably have ourselves to blame for that. The careless use of resources combined with greed and lack of respect for mother earth could be what leads to our demise. The signs are everywhere but at first they were more obvious in the oceans. […]

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