Ocean in Biological News

Navigating in the ocean of molecules

This release is available in German . Tracking down new active agents for cancer or malaria treatment could soon become easier - thanks to a computer program with which researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology in Dortmund aim to facilitate the search for suitable ...

University of Hawaii at Manoa researchers reveal ocean acidification at Station ALOHA

The burning of fossil fuels has released tremendous amounts of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) into the atmosphere, significantly impacting global climate. Were it not for the absorption of CO 2 by the oceans, the alarming growth of atmospheric CO 2 concentration would be substantially...

Scripps-led study shows ocean health plays vital role in coral reef recovery

The new research study led by scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego suggests that by improving overall ocean health, corals are better able to recover from bleaching events, which occur when rising sea temperatures force corals to expel their symbiotic algae, known as z...

World's largest ocean observatory takes shape

Canada is taking the world on a 25-year non-stop research expeditioninto the deep ocean. Over the next two-and-a-half months, a team of scientists and marine engineers are completing the installation off the British Columbia coast of NEPTUNE Canada, the world's largest and most advanced cabled ...

NASA satellite detects red glow to map global ocean plant health

Researchers have conducted the first global analysis of the health and productivity of ocean plants, as revealed by a unique signal detected by a NASA satellite. Ocean scientists can now remotely measure the amount of fluorescent red light emitted by ocean phytoplankton and assess how efficiently ...

MIT reels in RNA surprise with microbial ocean catch

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--An ingenious new method of obtaining marine microbe samples while preserving the microbes' natural gene expression has yielded an unexpected boon: the presence of many varieties of small RNAs snippets of RNA that act as switches to regulate gene expression in these single-celled...

Scientists urge world leaders to respond cooperatively to Pacific Ocean threats

More than 400 leading scientists from nearly two-dozen countries have signed a consensus statement on the major threats facing the Pacific Ocean. The threats identified as the most serious and pervasive include overfishing, pollution, habitat destruction and climate change. "This is...

International honor for University of East Anglia ocean researcher

An environmental scientist from the University of East Anglia (UEA) has won a prestigious international prize for her outstanding contribution to oceanography. Prof Karen Heywood will be awarded the Georg Wst Prize at a meeting of the European Geophysical Union assembly in Vienna on Wednesday ...

Australia, India, New Zealand join integrated ocean drilling program

The Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP), the world's largest ocean research program, has expanded its base of international and scientific support by welcoming Australia, India, and New Zealand as its newest Associate Members. Australia's and New Zealand's membership is agreed upon in a memor...

The University of Miami receives grants from Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd.'s Ocean Fund

MIAMI University of Miami's (UM's) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science is pleased to announce they have received two grants totaling $101,000 from Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd's Ocean Fund. One award for $51,000 will be used to re-energize and fully automate the scientific research...

Breaking the barrier: Discovery of anti-resistance factors and novel ocean drugs

Investigations into coral disease, red tides and other marine environmental issues have led to discoveries of new chemicals as a source for pharmaceuticals. These chemicals function as antibiotics for microorganism providing survival advantages and may be usable in human health care. Research ...

AAAS Symposium: Emerging threats to tropical, temperate and ocean ecosystems

Three outspoken conservation scientists will present the AAAS Symposium, "Emerging Threats and Research Challenges for Global Ecosystems" on Friday, Feb. 13 at 10:30. William Laurance, senior staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, and symposium moderator, recently co-o...

Census of Marine Life and ocean in Google Earth bring ocean information to life

Web visitors can now share the excitement of Census of Marine Life explorations as scientists uncover the mysteries of what lives below the surface of the global ocean. A world of marine discoveries including 50 different kinds of Arctic jellies, a colossal sea star, and Antarctica's biggest-ever ...

Ocean research officials hail completion of modernization for US scientific ocean drilling vessel

Senior officials from the U.S. National Science Foundation and the U.S. Implementing Organization for the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program today marked the occasion of the research vessel JOIDES Resolution sailing off from Singapore for science sea trials and transit to Honolulu, after a complete...

Europe cores in EUROCORES: Ocean drilling in EuroMARC

The oceans are our climate regulators, cover the sites of fundamental geodynamic, geochemical and biological processes and have high-resolution records of the Earth's history in store for us. Scientific marine drilling and coring is crucial to cast light on both the deep and shallow (sub-) seafloo...

Mysterious microbe plays important role in ocean ecology

An unusual microorganism discovered in the open ocean may force scientists to rethink their understanding of how carbon and nitrogen cycle through ocean ecosystems. A paper describing the new findings appears in the November 14 issue of the journal Science . A research team led by Jonathan ...

Mysterious microbe may play important role in ocean ecology

SANTA CRUZ, CA--An unusual microorganism discovered in the open ocean may force scientists to rethink their understanding of how carbon and nitrogen cycle through ocean ecosystems. A research team led by Jonathan Zehr, professor of ocean sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz, charac...

NOAA and NSF commission national study of ocean acidification

The first comprehensive national study of how carbon dioxide emissions absorbed into the oceans may be altering fisheries, marine mammals, coral reefs, and other natural resources has been commissioned by NOAA and the National Science Foundation. "Carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere th...

Complex ocean behavior studied with 'artificial upwelling'

CORVALLIS, Ore. A team of scientists is studying the complex ocean upwelling process by mimicking nature pumping cold, nutrient-rich water from deep within the Pacific Ocean and releasing it into surface waters near Hawaii that lack the nitrogen and phosphorous necessary to support high biologic...

Southern Ocean seals dive deep for climate data

Elephant seals are helping scientists overcome a critical blind-spot in their ability to detect change in Southern Ocean circulation and sea ice production and its influence on global climate. According to a paper published today by a team of French, Australian, US and British scientists in the ...

More acidic ocean could spell trouble for marine life's earliest stages

Increasingly acidic conditions in the oceanbrought on as a direct result of rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmospherecould spell trouble for the earliest stages of marine life, according to a new report in the August 5th issue of Current Biology , a publication of Cell Press. Levels of acidi...

Algae from the ocean a sustainable energy source of the future

MANHATTAN, KAN. -- Research by two Kansas State University scientists could help with the large-scale cultivation and manufacturing of oil-rich algae in oceans for biofuel. K-State's Zhijian "Z.J." Pei, associate professor of industrial and manufacturing systems engineering, and Wenqiao "Wayne"...

UD nets NOAA funding for Mid-Atlantic ocean observing

The University of Delaware has received $400,000 from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to continue development of an ocean observing system for the Mid-Atlantic region, spanning the waters from Cape Hatteras, N.C., to Cape Cod, Mass., and out to the continental shelf. Nea...

NOAA study shows eastern tropical pacific ocean dolphin populations improving

The numbers of Northeastern offshore spotted and eastern spinner dolphins in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean are increasing after being severely depleted because of accidental death in the tuna purse-seine fishery between 1960 and 1990, according to biologists from NOAA's Fisheries Service. ...

Study in Science cites impact of anthropogenic nitrogen on ocean biology, atmospheric CO2

VIRGINIA KEY, Fla. Since the 1980s Dr. Joseph M. Prospero, professor of Marine and Atmospheric Chemistry at the University of Miamis Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, has pioneered studies in the worldwide measurement of aerosols, fine particles suspended in the atmosphere and ...

Oxygen depletion: A new form of ocean habitat loss

An international team of physical oceanographers including a researcher from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego has discovered that oxygen-poor regions of tropical oceans are expanding as the oceans warm, limiting the areas in which predatory fishes and other marine organisms can ...

Researchers to develop ocean sanctuary 'noise budget' to evaluate potential impact on marine mammals

Like sentinels at their posts, an array of buoys equipped with underwater microphones and other sensors will be on duty in the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary off the coast of Massachusetts for the next 30 months, recording sounds from whales, fish, ships and other sources around the clo...

Giant ocean eddy shadows Sydney

CSIRO Wealth from Oceans National Research Flagship scientist, Dr David Griffin, says the birth of the eddy has been traced to last August. From satellite maps of sea-level we can see that it had been loitering this side of Lord Howe Island for some time and began approaching the NSW coast near...

'Nanominerals' influence Earth systems from ocean to atmosphere to biosphere

The ubiquity of tiny particles of minerals--mineral nanoparticles--in oceans and rivers, atmosphere and soils, and in living cells are providing scientists with new ways of understanding Earth's workings. Our planet's physical, chemical, and biological processes are influenced or driven by the pro...

Breath of the ocean links fish feeding, reefs, climate

An ocean odor that affects global climate also gathers reef fish to feed as they "eavesdrop" on events that might lead them to food. Dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP) is given off by algae and phytoplankton, microscopic one-celled plants that float in the ocean. Release of DMSP usually indicate...

Changes in ocean conditions in Sargasso Sea potential cause for decline in eel fishery

American eels are fast disappearing from restaurant menus as stocks have declined sharply across the North Atlantic. While the reasons for the eel decline remain as mysterious as its long migrations, a recent study by a NOAA scientist and colleagues in Japan and the United Kingdom says shifts in o...

Unfavorable ocean conditions likely cause of low 2007 salmon returns along West Coast

NOAA scientists are reviewing unusual environmental conditions in the Pacific Ocean as the likely culprit for the dramatically low returns of Chinook and coho salmon to rivers and streams along the West Coast of the United States in 2007. Researchers from NOAAs Northwest and Southwest Fisheries...

2008 Ocean Sciences Meeting -- media advisory 2

1. Press Conference Schedule The following schedule of press conferences is subject to change, before or during the Ocean Sciences Meeting. Press conferences may be added or dropped, their titles and emphases may change, and participants may change. All updates to this schedule will be announc...

Voyage to Southern Ocean aims to study air-sea fluxes of greenhouse gases

Scientists will embark this week from Punta Arenas, Chile, on the tip of South America, to spend 42 days amid the high winds and waves of the Southern Ocean. Here they hope to make groundbreaking measurements to explain how huge fluxes of climate-affecting gases move between atmosphere and sea, an...

Valuing ocean services in the Gulf of Maine -- New approaches for conflict resolution

Humans have exploited the marine resources of the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank, from marine mammals to commercially valuable fish and shellfish, for centuries. The result, says NOAA researcher Michael Fogarty, has been dramatic changes in the structure of the ecosystem due to the direct effect o...

Map is first to track global human influences on ocean ecosystems

For a bird's-eye view of human impacts on the Earth, scientists can study satellite images showing the continents in mottled colors that correspond to vegetation, desertification or human habitation. But those photos cannot tell them much about the big blue mystery, oceans, and how human activitie...

Coral reefs may be protected by natural ocean thermostat

BOULDER--Natural processes may prevent oceans from warming beyond a certain point, helping protect some coral reefs from the impacts of climate change, new research finds. The study, by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and Australian Institute of Marine Science (AI...

Antarctic expedition provides new insights into the role of the Southern Ocean for global climate

In the Southern Ocean, large quantities of surface-drifting plankton algae are able to significantly reduce the carbon dioxide content of the surface waters, which can affect the global carbon dioxide cycle. This is one of the results from an Antarctic expedition which has just drawn to a close in...

Pew Institute for Ocean Science awards 5 fellowships in support of global marine conservation

NEW YORK CITY -- The Pew Institute for Ocean Science (www.pewoceanscience.org) today announced the 2008 recipients of the Pew Fellowship in Marine Conservation, the preeminent fellowship in support of ocean conservation. The five awardees will each receive $150,000 to conduct innovative three-yea...

River plants may play major role in health of ocean coastal waters

Recent research at MITs Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering suggests how aquatic plants in rivers and streams may play a major role in the health of large areas of ocean coastal waters. This work, which appeared in the Dec. 25 issue of the Journal of Fluid Mechanics (JFM), descri...