sea in Biological News

Venomous sea snakes play heads or tails with their predators

In a deadly game of heads or tails venomous sea snakes in the Pacific and Indian Oceans deceive their predators into believing they have two heads, claims research published today in Marine Ecology . The discovery, made by Dr Arne Redsted Rasmussen and Dr Johan Elmberg, showed that Yellow-lip...

Neuropathic pain: The sea provides a new hope of relief

A compound initially isolated from a soft coral ( Capnella imbricata ) collected at Green Island off Taiwan, could lead scientists to develop a new set of treatments for neuropathic pain chronic pain that sometimes follows damage to the nervous system. Currently this form of pain is very poorly ...

Evolution of a contraceptive for sea lamprey

In addition to providing fundamental insights into the early evolution of the estrogen receptor, research by a team at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine may lead to a contraceptive for female lampreys a jawless fish considered an invasive pest species in the Great Lakes r...

Enigmatic sea urchin structure catalogued

A comprehensive investigation into the axial complex of sea urchins ( Echinoidea ), an internal structure with unknown function, has shown that within that group of marine invertebrates there exists a structural evolutionary interdependence of various internal organs. The research, published in Bi...

Elevated water temperature and acidity boost growth of key sea star species: UBC researchers

New research by zoologists at the University of British Columbia indicates that elevated water temperatures and heightened concentrations of carbon dioxide can dramatically increase the growth rate of a keystone species of sea star. The study is one of the first to look at the impact of ocean a...

Fossil evidence of missing link in the origin of seals, sea lions, walruses found in Canadian Arctic

Pittsburgh, PennsylvaniaResearchers from the United States and Canada have found a fossil skeleton of a newly discovered carnivorous animal, Puijila darwini . New research suggests Puijila is a "missing link" in the evolution of the group that today includes seals, sea lions, and the walrus...

Geoscientists discuss sea level rise, extreme storm events and more

Boulder, CO More than 300 geoscientists will gather 12-13 March for the 58th annual meeting of the Southeastern Section of the Geological Society of America. The meeting takes place at the Hilton St. Petersburg Bayfront Hotel in St. Petersburg, Florida. Geoscientists from the University of Sout...

Rising sea levels set to have major impacts around the world

Research presented today at the International Scientific Congress on Climate Change in Copenhagen shows that the upper range of sea level rise by 2100 could be in the range of about one meter, or possibly more. In the lower end of the spectrum it looks increasingly unlikely that sea level rise wil...

Is the Dead Sea dying?

The water levels in the Dead Sea the deepest point on Earth are dropping at an alarming rate with serious environmental consequences, according to Shahrazad Abu Ghazleh and colleagues from the University of Technology in Darmstadt, Germany. The projected Dead Sea-Red Sea or Mediterranean-Dead Se...

Changing sexes on the sea floor

Trees do it. Bees do it. Even environmentally stressed fish do it. But Prof. Yossi Loya from Tel Aviv University's Department of Zoology is the first in the world to discover that Japanese sea corals engage in "sex switching" too. His research may provide the key to the survival of fragile sea ...

Global warming threatens Antarctic sea life

MELBOURNE, FLA.Climate change is about to cause a major upheaval in the shallow marine waters of Antarctica. Predatory crabs are poised to return to warming Antarctic waters and disrupt the primeval marine communities. "Nowhere else than in these ecosystems do giant sea spiders and marine pill...

Expeditions reveal gulf of California's deep sea secrets, as well as human imprints

Scientists from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego returning from research expeditions in Mexico have captured unprecedented details of vibrant sea life and ecosystems in the Gulf of California, including documentations of new species and marine animals previously never seen alive...

No place like home: New theory for how salmon, sea turtles find their birthplace

CHAPEL HILL How marine animals find their way back to their birthplace to reproduce after migrating across thousands of miles of open ocean has mystified scientists for more than a century. But marine biologists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill think they might finally have unra...

Discovery of giant roaming deep sea protist provides new perspective on animal evolution

AUSTIN, TexasGroove-like tracks on the ocean floor made by giant deep-sea single-celled organisms could lead to new insights into the evolutionary origin of animals, says biologist Mikhail "Misha" Matz from The University of Texas at Austin. Matz and his colleagues recently discovered the grap...

New life beneath sea and ice

Scientists have long known that life can exist in some very extreme environments. But Earth continues to surprise us. At a European Science Foundation and COST (European Cooperation in the field of Scientific and Technical Research) 'Frontiers of Science' meeting in Sicily in October, scientis...

Zoologists: Sea snakes seek out freshwater to slake thirst

GAINESVILLE, Fla. Sea snakes may slither in saltwater, but they sip the sweet stuff. So concludes a University of Florida zoologist in a paper appearing this month in the online edition of the November/December issue of the journal Physiological and Biochemical Zoology . Harvey Lillywhite ...

Arctic sea ice thinning at record rate

The thickness of sea ice in large parts of the Arctic declined by as much as 19% last winter compared to the previous five winters, according to data from ESA's Envisat satellite. Using Envisat radar altimeter data, scientists from the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling at University Co...

Fertilizers -- a growing threat to sea life

A rise in carbon emissions is not the only threat to the planet. Changes to the nitrogen cycle, caused in large part by the widespread use of fertilizers, are also damaging both water quality and aquatic life. These concerns are highlighted by Professor Grace Brush, from Johns Hopkins University i...

Scientists call for protected 'swimways' for the endangered leatherback sea turtle

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) World Conservation Congress this week adopted a resolution urging nations to protect the leatherback sea turtle and sharks from the world's industrial fisheries by identifying and creating marine protected areas along the Pacific leat...

Revealing the evolutionary history of threatened sea turtles

It's confirmed: Even though flatback turtles dine on fish, shrimp, and mollusks, they are closely related to primarily herbivorous green sea turtles. New genetic research carried out by Eugenia Naro-Maciel, a Marine Biodiversity Scientist at the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation at the Amer...

Study finds high mortality of endangered loggerhead sea turtles in Baja California

SANTA CRUZ, CA--Along the southern coast of Baja California, Mexico, scientists have been counting the carcasses of endangered sea turtles for a decade as part of an effort to assess and eliminate threats to loggerhead sea turtle populations. Their findings, published this week, are shocking: almo...

Decline in Alaskan sea otters affects bald eagles' diet

Sea otters are known as a keystone species, filling such an important niche in ocean communities that without them, entire ecosystems can collapse. Scientists are finding, however, that sea otters can have even farther-reaching effects that extend to terrestrial communities and alter the behavior ...

Ocean floor geysers warm flowing sea water

An international team of earth scientists report movement of warmed sea water through the flat, Pacific Ocean floor off Costa Rica. The movement is greater than that off midocean volcanic ridges. The finding suggests possible marine life in a part of the ocean once considered barren. With about...

Robot vehicle surveys deep sea off Pacific Northwest

The first scientific mission with Sentry, a newly developed robot capable of diving as deep as 5,000 meters (3.1 miles) into the ocean, has been successfully completed by scientists and engineers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and the University of Washington (UW). The veh...

Successful series of measurements in Arctic sea ice

Bremerhaven August 7th 2008. The German Research Vessel Polarstern had to prove its ice breaking capabilities in Arctic waters to gain data on two series of long-term research measurements. After working in regions up to latitude 82 N, Polarstern of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marin...

Acidification of the sea hampers reproduction of marine species

By absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and from the human use of fossil fuels, the world's seas function as a giant buffer for the Earth's life support system. The chemical balance of the sea has long been regarded as immovable. Today, researchers know that the pH of the sea's surface wa...

New study shows shallow water corals evolved from deep sea ancestors

New research shows that the second most diverse group of hard corals first evolved in the deep sea, and not in shallow waters. Stylasterids, or lace corals, diversified in deep waters before launching at least three successful invasions of shallow water tropical habitats in the past 40 million yea...

Domoic acid from toxic algal blooms may cause seizures in California sea lions

Scientists, reporting in the current issue of the online journal Marine Drugs , state that an increase of epileptic seizures and behavioral abnormalities in California sea lions can result from low-dose exposure to domoic acid as a fetus. The findings follow an analysis earlier this year led by F...

Deep sea methane scavengers captured

Leipzig / Pasadena. Scientists of the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) in Leipzig and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena succeeded in capturing syntrophic (means "feeding together") microorganisms that are known to dramatically reduce the oceanic emission...

Sydney harbors deadly diet for sea creatures

Contaminated seaweeds in Sydney Harbour could be threatening the small animals that feed on them, according to a new study revealing that the harbour's seaweeds have the world's highest levels of copper and lead contamination. Up to 75 percent of the offspring of small crustaceans that feed on ...

Clovis-age overkill didn't take out California's flightless sea duck

Clovis-age natives, often noted for overhunting during their brief dominance in a primitive North America, deserve clemency in the case of California's flightless sea duck. New evidence says it took thousands of years for the duck to die out. A team of six scientists, including Jon M. Erlandson...

Controlling a sea of information

Stanford, CACurators at one of the worlds most widely used biological databases, The Arabidopsis Information Resource, or TAIR, have joined forces with the journal Plant Physiology, to solve the flood of information dilemma. It is a first-of-its-kind partnership, which cuts out the middle person f...

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...

New method to estimate sea ice thickness

Scientists recently developed a new modeling approach to estimate sea ice thickness. This is the only model based entirely on historical observations. The model was developed by scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey and the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow. Using this new technique...

Is that sea otter stealing your lunch -- or making it?

This release is available in French. Hunted to near extinction, sea otters are making a steady comeback along the Pacific coast. Their reintroduction, however, is expected to reduce the numbers of several key species of commercially valuable shellfish dramatically, such as sea urchins and ...

Climate change in the Baltic Sea basin -- past, present and future

Titled Assessment of Climate Change for the Baltic Sea Basin (BACC), the book published by Springer-Verlag presents the first comprehensive survey of past and possible future climate change in the region, which extends over 13 countries around the Baltic Sea in northern and mid-Europe. One of the ...

Climate influence on deep sea populations

In an article published in the January 16 issue of PLoS ONE, Joan B. Company and colleagues at the Institut de Cincies del Mar (CSIC) in Spain describe a mechanism of interaction across ecosystems showing how a climate-driven phenomenon originated in shelf environments controls the biological proc...

Dam the Red Sea and release gigawatts

Damming the Red Sea could solve the growing energy demands of millions of people in the Middle East and alleviate some of the region's tensions pertaining to oil supplies through hydroelectric power. Equally, such a massive engineering project may cause untold ecological harm and displace countles...

Research shows loggerhead sea turtles threatened by small-scale fishing operations

Washington, DC. Ocean Conservancy Scientist, Wallace J. Nichols and University of California-Santa Cruz researcher Hoyt Peckham found surprising results in a recent peer-reviewed loggerhead sea turtle study that Nichols and Peckham conducted over the course of 10 years. The full study will be publ...

The sea ice is getting thinner

This release is available in German . The sea-ice is getting thinner - A closer look at the climate and ecosystem of the Arctic Ocean Bremerhaven, September 13, 2007. Large areas of the Arctic sea-ice are only one metre thick this year, equating to an approximate 50 percent thinning as com...