Archive for category: Ocean Newswire

Seagrass Protects Coral Reefs from Ocean Acidification

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turtle grasses near Munson Rocks

The BBC reports on research pointing to the importance of seagrasses to protecting coral reefs against the impacts of ocean acidification, caused by carbon dioxide from fossil fuel emissions dissolving in seawater, causing unprecedented increases in the ocean’s acidity.

Dr. Richard Unsworth of Swansea University, along with a team of scientists from Oxford University and James Cook University in Australia, found several types of seagrass which may reduce the acidity of water around reefs, protecting them from erosion from acidifying seas. Read more

Saving the Oceans from Acidification Starts With an End to Fossil Fuel Subsidies

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Great Barrier Reef 008

We’ve described ocean acidification as potentially the “the gravest and most immediate planetary threat yet,” and as more and more research results become public, it appears that this threat is, indeed, every bit as potent as we had feared.Yet it has been a painfully slow process for ocean acidification to gain traction in the media and is still far from being a “mainstream” issue. So when the San Francisco Chronicle recently called for action to deal with the issue, we took notice. Read more

Infographic: Oceans of Garbage

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This infographic from MastersDegree.net lays it out there for all to see: Our oceans are getting more and more polluted, and most of the pollution originates from land, like plastics. These pollutants have a wide range of impacts on marine life, including getting caught up in the food chain, even at a microbial level. Scary stuff. Please share!

Ocean of Garbage

Greenland Sharks Are Dog Slow — So How Do They Eat?

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Greenland shark

Greenland shark part of a drawing in ‘Male Narwhal or Unicorn. Greenland Shark.” In: “An account of the Arctic regions with a history and description of the northern whale-fishery”, by W. Scoresby. 1820. Source http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/library/libr04

We’ve barely explored the world’s oceans, but when it comes to marine life living in the harsh conditions at the poles where few scientists and explorers can spend time, we are constantly being surprised by what we’re discovering. The Greenland shark — the largest shark in the dogfish family — is no exception. It’s slow — really slow — so scientists asked the logical question: “If it’s so slow, how does it catch prey?” The BBC reports on a recent study. Read more

Acid Oceans Turn ‘Finding Nemo’ Fish Deaf

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SeaWeb – Ocean News

Note: Newswire stories are provided as a courtesy of OceanDoctor.org. Content of these articles is provided by external sources.

Distant ‘waterworld’ is confirmed

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http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/50248000/jpg/_50248981_bean_image.jpg Astronomers have confirmed the existence of a new class of planet – a waterworld with a thick, steamy atmosphere.
BBC News – Science & Environment

Note: Newswire stories are provided as a courtesy of OceanDoctor.org. Content of these articles is provided by external sources.

The Other Final Frontier

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There’s a strong bang-for-the-buck argument to be made for ocean-depth missions.

The United States has been out of the space shuttle business for a few months now, but the country is still seriously considering spending billions of dollars to send astronauts back to the moon, to Mars or to a nearby asteroid.

It’s heartening that the pioneering spirit behind crewed missions into outer space has not been dampened by the nation’s tide of red ink. But with price tags like $50 billion to return astronauts to the moon in the next decade, there’s a strong bang-for-the-buck argument to be made for far less expensive missions headed in the other direction: down into the ocean depths, which remain largely unexplored and unseen by human eyes.

Read “The Other Final Frontier” in the NY Times…

Note: Newswire stories are provided as a courtesy of OceanDoctor.org. Content of these articles is provided by external sources.

A record 129 dolphins have stranded in Cape Cod over the past 3 weeks. (CNN)

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(CNN) — The unexplained beachings of scores of dolphins over the past month along Cape Cod, Massachusetts, is the largest “single-species event” of its kind on record in the northeastern United States, a marine mammal specialist said Monday.

A total of 129 common dolphins have been found since the animals began stranding themselves in early January, said Katie Moore, marine mammal rescue and research manager for the International Fund for Animal Welfare.

Read the full story…

Note: Newswire stories are provided as a courtesy of OceanDoctor.org. Content of these articles is provided by external sources.

Salmon Leaps in Fish Farm Boom

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A million portions of salmon each day, and that’s in the U.K. alone.

Even while the retail consortium reports continuing strong food price inflation this morning, it’s worth remembering how salmon prices have fallen over recent years.

What was a luxury has become commonplace in the 40 years since the first commercial haul of 14 tonnes of salmon from cages in Loch Ailort near Fort William.

Celebrating that anniversary with its annual report today, the Scottish Salmon Producers Association has set out a goal of 4% growth per year over this decade, increasing production from 144,000 tonnes last year to 210,000 tonnes by 2020.

Read the rest of the story…

Note: Newswire stories are provided as a courtesy of OceanDoctor.org. Content of these articles is provided by external sources.

Parrot Fish: The Constant Gardeners of the World’s Reefs

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Australian scientists have urged greater consideration for the brilliantly-hued parrot fishes that tend and renew the world’s imperilled coral reefs.

“Parrotfishes are the constant gardeners of the reef. They play a crucial role in keeping it healthy, suppressing weed, removing sediment and helping the corals to regrow after a setback,” explains Professor David Bellwood of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and James Cook University.

In a major new study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, Prof. Bellwood, Dr Andrew Hoey and Prof. Terry Hughes have investigated parrot fish populations on 18 coral island reefs extending from Mauritius in the west Indian Ocean to Tahiti in the central Pacific.

“Parrot fish fulfill a number of key roles on the reef. They remove sick and dead corals and clean areas for new corals to settle, they remove weedy growth, and they cart away literally tonnes of sand and sediment that would otherwise smother the corals,” Prof Bellwood explains.

Read the rest of this article at ARC Coral Reef Studies…

Note: Newswire stories are provided as a courtesy of OceanDoctor.org. Content of these articles is provided by external sources.