Scientists find undersea mountains, discover new species, and spy on fish
Scientists can now visualize the ocean floor in remote areas of the Arctic, observe rockfish hideouts, and see live images of coral cities thousands of meters under the sea’s surface. Soon their robots will be able to “live” on the bottom of the ocean – monitoring everything from signs of tsunamis to the effects of deep sea drilling. “We have very complex problems in the ocean, but we’ve been looking at
Advanced technologies reveal new knowledge about the lives and deaths of whales
Using genetics, Navy sonar, deep-sea submersibles, and toxicology, scientists are peering into the lives of whales – past and present – in ways never before possible. At a 3:00 PM press conference on February 19th at the annual meeting of AAAS, Steve Palumbi of Stanford’s Hopkins Marine Station, Christopher W. Clark of Cornell University, Craig Smith of the University of Hawaii and Roger Payne of the Oc
Navysundersea microphones — but sound pollution threatens
Why do whales in the North Atlantic Ocean seem to be moving together and coherently? What is impelling them forward. How do they communicate with each other, seemingly over thousands of miles of ocean? And how can this acoustical habitat be protected?
For nearly nine years Cornell University researcher Christopher Clark — together with former U.S. Navy acoustics experts Chuck Gagnon and Paula Loveday — has b
A leading Canadian fish farming scientist is stirring the scientific waters by arguing that it may be safer to risk introducing exotic salmon into a marine ecosystem than to farm native ones there.
“The biggest environmental danger we face from salmon escapes is when farming species within their native range, such as Atlantic salmon in the Atlantic Ocean,” says Dr. Ian Fleming, Director of the Ocean Sciences Centre at Memorial University of Newfoundland.
He is prese
Business as usual threatens future of fish – Scientists call on managers to incorporate new scientific understanding into fishery plans
In a scientific double whammy, researchers report that fishing pressure is causing fish to evolve to smaller sizes, just as new studies show that larger fish are critical to sustaining populations. In species such as Pacific rockfish, the big, old females not only produce exponentially more eggs than younger, smaller females, but their hearty larv
Steve Palumbi is no stranger to controversy. A marine biologist at Stanford University, Palumbi incurred the wrath of the Japanese whaling industry more than a decade ago by conducting the first genetic study of whale meat sold in Tokyo food markets.
Japan harvests more than 300 Antarctic minke whales every year for scientific research. The Japanese government, arguing that minke whales are relatively abundant, allows the slaughtered giants to be sold as food.
In the earl