In an effort to end the country’s reliance on imported uranium, Dr Masao Tanada of the Japan Atomic Energy Agency has developed a fabric capable of absorbing uranium directly from seawater.

The famous Sharktooth Hill Bone Bed near Bakersfield has tantalized the imagination of scientists and laymen alike since it was first discovered in the 1850s. How did a six-to-20-inch-thick layer of fossil bones, gigantic shark teeth and turtle shells three times the size of today’s leatherbacks come to be?

The intricate symbiotic relationship between reef building corals and algae seem to rely on a delicate communication process between the algae and the coral, where the algae is constantly telling the coral that the algae belongs inside it, and that everything is fine. Without this communication, the algae would be treated as any other invader, e.g. a parasite, and be expelled by the coral’s immune system.

regon State University, the NASA Ocean Biology and Biogeochemistry Program, the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, University of Maine/Orono, University of California/Santa Barbara, University of Southern Mississippi, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Cornell University, and the University of California/Irvine.

North Carolina State University engineers have created a non-toxic ship hull coating that resists the build up of barnacles.

The first-ever comprehensive global report on the state of shellfish has been released by The Nature Conservancy at the International Marine Conservation Congress in Washington, DC.

Genetic pattern analysis strongly suggests that California and British Columbia urchins are not connected via larval dispersal and comprise two distinct populations. Sea urchins have one of the longest larval periods of any known marine invertebrate and it has therefore been tempting to assume that ocean currents must be mixing urchin larvae all over the place, making it difficult for any distinct populations to form. But research results from the University of California now indicate that these two Pacific populations are two clearly separated ones.

“The ‘underwater turbulence’ the jellies create is being debated as a major player in ocean energy budgets,” says marine scientist John Dabiri of the California Institute of Technology.

Jellyfish are often seen to be aimless aquatic drifters, propelled by nothing but haphazard currents and waves, but the truth is that these gooey creatures continuously contract and relax their bells to move in desired directions.

An expansion of vertical seagrass occurring some 25 million years ago was probably what prompted seahorses to evolve from horizontal swimmers to upright creatures. If you live in vertical seagrass, an upright position is ideal since it allows you to stay hidden among the vertical blades.

According to University of Washington geologist and tsunami expert Jody Bourgeois, the idea that chevrons – a type of large U- or V-shaped formations found along certain coasts – were caused by mega-tsunamis is pure nonsense.

The members of the genus Synodontis, commonly known as the squeaker catfishes of Lake Tanganyika, evolved from a single common ancestor according to a paper* published in a recent issue of the Journal of Evolutionary Biology.

As part of a reef restoration study, researchers removed 20 specimens of the Caribbean giant barrel sponge from the Conch Reef off of Key Largo, Florida and then re-attached them using sponge holders consisting of polyvinyl chloride piping. The sponge holders were anchored in concrete blocks set on a plastic mesh base. Some sponges were reattached at a depth of 15 meters and some further down at 30 metres.

Japanese eel (Anguilla japonica) larvae have amazing buoyancy compared to other oceanic plankton, and the reason may be a type of gelatinous goo contained within the body.

When researchers from the University of Tokyo measured the specific gravity of Japanese eel larvae, they found it to be as low as 1.019, rising to 1.043 – showing the larvae to be potentially lighter than seawater itself. (Sea water has an average specific gravity of 1.024.)

A Taiwan research team has successfully extracted a brain-boosting nutrient from squid skin, according to an announcement made by the Council of Agriculture’s Fisheries Research Institute.

The nutrient in question is phospholipid docosahexaenoic acid, commonly known as PL-DHA, a substance known to improve a persons memory and enhance learning ability.

A recent study on intersex abnormalities in fish living in the Potomac River watershed carried out by researchers from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Geological Survey showed that at least 82 percent of male smallmouth bass and in 23 percent of the largemouth bass had immature female germ cells (oocytes) in their reproductive organs. This number is even larger than anticipated.