Achilles Tang

A new study indicates most of the world's low-lying river deltas are sinking from human activity, making them increasingly vulnerable to flooding from rivers and ocean storms and putting tens of millions of people at risk. View the full article

When a whale dies, it sinks to the seafloor and becomes food for an entire ecosystem. Researchers have discovered previously unknown species that feed only on dead whales - and use DNA technology to show that the species diversity in our oceans may be higher than previously thought. View the full article

Scientists recently named a new species of chimaera, an ancient and bizarre group of fishes distantly related to sharks, from the coast of Southern California and Baja California, Mexico. The new species is the Eastern Pacific black ghostshark. View the full article

Scientists from the Universities of Exeter and Plymouth are today calling for urgent research to understand the impact of renewable energy developments on marine life. (2009-09-17) View the full article

A new analysis of extinct sea creatures suggests that the transition from egg-laying to live-born young opened up evolutionary pathways that allowed these ancient species to adapt to and thrive in open oceans. View the full article

Temperature differences and slow-moving water at the confluence of the Clearwater and Snake rivers in Idaho might delay the migration of threatened fall Chinook salmon salmon and allow them to grow larger before reaching the Pacific Ocean. To find out if that's the case, a team of researchers is implanting young fish with acoustic and radio tags to track their movement and using hydrological sensors to measure water temperature and speed. View the full article

Scientists are calling for urgent research to understand the impact of renewable energy developments on marine life. The study highlights potential environmental benefits and threats resulting from marine renewable energy, such as off-shore wind farms and wave and tidal energy conversion devices. View the full article

Scientists have detected high numbers of heat loving, or thermophilic, bacteria in subzero sediments in the Arctic Ocean. The bacterial spores might provide a unique opportunity to trace seepages of fluids from hot sub-seafloor habitats, possibly pointing towards undiscovered offshore petroleum reservoirs. The findings could also hold important clues for solving broader riddles of bio-geography. The results also point to the potential use of microbes in offshore oil and gas exploration. View the full article

Scientists in Pennsylvania report that boosting production of crops used to make biofuels could make a difficult task to shrink a vast, oxygen-depleted "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico more difficult. View the full article

While developing a more efficient, safer way to extract venom, researchers noticed the venom delivered by an isolated population of Florida cottonmouth snakes may be changing in response to their diet. View the full article

Using light, scientists traced a fish's swimming response to the neurons that control it. Their technique could become a powerful way to learn how biological systems work. View the full article

In addition to global warming, carbon dioxide emissions cause another, less well-known but equally serious and worrying phenomenon: ocean acidification. Researchers have just demonstrated that key marine organisms, such as deep-water corals and pteropods (shelled pelagic mollusks) will be profoundly affected by this phenomenon during the years to come. View the full article

Gary Lindner and Russ Kikel at AmericanReef.com this month bring you another podcast, this one concluding their two part series on sexual and asexual coral reproduction. View the full article

Employment opportunities for graduates include work in aquaculture enterprises, research facilities, fish hatcheries, aquarium science publication, government natural resource agencies, public zoos and aquariums, and retailing, wholesaling, or self-employment in the ornamental fish industry. View the full article

We recommend only doing this with specimens known to be in good health, and that they should be kept at approximately room temperature for the duration of travel. View the full article

This article discusses conservation methods designed to protect species, not necessarily ecosystems. View the full article

One of the things that I am personally discovering about my rebirth into the world of aquatic plants is that there many skills of reefkeeping which are helping me to be a better aquatic gardener and likewise, there are many lessons that freshwater planted tanks can teach us as reefers. View the full article

Terry discusses common types of filtration found in reef tanks. View the full article

Terry discusses his continued efforts with his freshwater planted aquarium. View the full article

Intersex in smallmouth and largemouth basses is widespread in numerous river basins throughout the United States is the major finding of the most comprehensive and large-scale evaluation of the condition, according to new research. View the full article

A new article shows that DNA barcodes can quickly and accurately determine the species identity of specimens collected from of all seven endangered sea turtles. View the full article

For many of the types of fish we buy in stores or order in restaurants, the chance that an individual dies from fishing is several times higher than dying of natural causes. This may seem obvious to most (they had to get to our table somehow), but what may not be apparent is that the relentless pursuit of consumer-friendly fish product is having a massive impact on fish populations around the world. By repeatedly choosing only the biggest fish, or only those found in certain habitats, the fisheries industry may be permanently altering the genetic composition of fish populations. View the full article

Analysis of a rock type found only in the world's oldest oceans has shed new light on how large animals first got a foothold on Earth. View the full article

Like the robotic rovers Spirit and Opportunity, which wheeled tirelessly across the dusty surface of Mars, a new robot spent most of July traveling across the muddy ocean bottom, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) off the California coast. This robot, the Benthic Rover, has been providing scientists with an entirely new view of life on the deep seafloor. It will also give scientists a way to document the effects of climate change on the deep sea. View the full article

Scientists have found a rare species of algae that is tolerant of stressful environmental conditions and that proliferated in Caribbean corals when the corals' more-sensitive algae were being expelled during the sea-temperature warming of 2005. The research is one of the first times that anyone has had the opportunity to conduct a community-wide study of corals and algae before, during and after a bleaching event. View the full article