SONG: Sleeping Cathedrals
SONG: “Sleeping Cathedrals”. (OGG version here.) ARTIST: grant. SOURCE: Based on “World’s biggest whale graveyard found in Indian Ocean off Australia”, ABC News (Australia), 10 […]
marine biology
Whale graveyard reveals unknown prehistoric species.
This has been in a few different sources, including Australia’s ABC News, but the crew of a scientific submersible celebrated discovering an active “whalefall” in […]
Hammerheads “thermal hustle” for better hunting
BBC’s Discover Wildlife reports on a shark study that finds some simple ways hammerhead sharks are shifting to cope with the warming seas from climate […]
Wearing octopus camouflage
Nature reports on materials engineers stealing the secrets of octopus skin to create substances that can change color and texture on demand: Very small sub-micrometre […]
Caribbean whales have viruses we’ve never heard of.
Science Daily reports on pilot whales and orcas in the Caribbean which DNA analysis has revealed are carrying “invisible” viruses we’ve never detected before: The […]
Octopus color-changing pigment is recreated.
Science Alert reports on the latest superpower to be replicated in the lab with a UC San Diego team producing xanthommatin, the pigment chemical responsible […]
Snot drones for whale science
Knowable Magazine reports on a new use for remote-controlled drones — to collect DNA samples from whales blowing mucus out their blowholes, and to simply […]
Ghost sharks have teeth on their foreheads because it’s sexy.
PhysOrg redefines what “attractive” is for the deep-sea set, thanks to a study that has found male ghost sharks grow a retractable, tooth-covered rod out […]
Sea star killer found. Now what?
bioGraphic celebrates the discovery, at long last, of the phenomenon behind a mysterious wave of rather horrific sea star deaths on America’s Pacific Coast. Now, […]
SONG: Something’s Knocking on the Door
SONG: “Something’s Knocking on the Door”. (OGG version here.) ARTIST: grant. SOURCE: Based on “China’s Bold Plan Unveiled: A Deep-Sea Space Station 6560 Feet Underwater […]
Science Art: Cyamus boopis, Lütken, 1895.
Cyamis boopis is one of the cyamidae better known as a whale louse. This particular species is from Scandinavia, as illustrated in the book An […]
Gigantic, ghostly crustaceans could live over half the ocean floor.
New Scientist plumbs the depths in search of foot-long white shrimp-like creatures that might be one of the most populous creatures on the bottom of […]
Science Art: Portuguese Man-Of-War, Tongued Sarsia, by Philip Henry Gosse
This image comes from Philip Henry Gosse’s A Year at the Shore, specifically, the month of October. (The year isn’t specified, but the book was […]
Science Art: Periophthalmus koelreuteri, 1942.
This is a mudskipper who is being drawn here solely for the qualities of its bulbous, beautiful eyes. The illustration is from page 453 of […]
Krill sniff penguin poop
And, says National Geographic, it makes them take evasive maneuvers, ready to dodge their Antarctic predators: In Antarctica’s Palmer Station lab, scientists put wild-caught krill […]