Marine Biology News:
Courtesy of Science Daily
Researchers are close to unraveling intricate cellular pathways that control molting in blue crabs. The discoveries could revolutionize the soft-shell crab industry, generating new jobs and additional profits for the US fishing industry along the coastal Southeast.
Deep under the sea, a fossil the size of a sand grain is nestled among a billion of its closest dead relatives. Known as foraminifera, these complex little shells of calcium carbonate can tell you the sea level, temperature, and ocean conditions of Earth millions of years ago. That is, if you know what to look for.
In their natural form, conch pearls are among the rarest pearls in the world. For more than 25 years, all attempts at culturing pearls from the queen conch have been unsuccessful -- until now. For the first time, novel and proprietary seeding techniques to produce beaded and non-beaded high-quality cultured pearls from the queen conch have been developed by scientists.
One of the first set of studies to examine what tourists and recreation enthusiasts actually think about coral reef ecosystems suggests they are a rare exception to controversies over human use versus environmental conservation -- their stunning beauty is so extraordinary that almost everyone wants them protected in perpetuity.
Biologists have explained why corals spawn for just a few nights in some places but elsewhere string out their love life over many months. A new study shows that corals spawn when regional wind fields are light. When it is calm, the eggs and sperm have the chance to unite before they are dispersed.
|
Click here for more Marine Biology News |
| |
Oceanography News:
Courtesy of Science Daily
The Alps are growing just as quickly in height as they are shrinking. This paradoxical result comes from a new study by a group of German and Swiss geoscientists. Due to glaciers and rivers, about exactly the same amount of material is eroded from the slopes of the Alps as is regenerated from the deep Earth's crust. The climatic cycles of the glacial period in Europe over the past 2.5 million years have accelerated this erosion process.
The seriousness of current global warming is underlined by a reconstruction of climate at Maxwell Bay in the South Shetland Islands of the Antarctic Peninsula over approximately the last 14,000 years, which appears to show that the current warming and widespread loss of glacial ice are unprecedented.
Despite the fact that summer 2009 had more sea ice than in 2007 or 2008, scientists are seeing drastic changes in the region from just five years ago and at rates faster than anticipated.
Deep under the sea, a fossil the size of a sand grain is nestled among a billion of its closest dead relatives. Known as foraminifera, these complex little shells of calcium carbonate can tell you the sea level, temperature, and ocean conditions of Earth millions of years ago. That is, if you know what to look for.
Deep-sea ecosystems occupying 60 percent of the Earth's surface could be vulnerable to the effects of global warming, warn scientists.
|
Click here for more Oceanography News |
| |
Ocean Conservation News:
Courtesy of Ocean Conserve
Reuters: Canada will launch an investigation into why far fewer sockeye salmon than scientists had predicted returned to the Fraser River on the Pacific Coast this summer. Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced the judicial inquiry on Thursday, saying the federal government was concerned about the declining sockeye population. Federal government scientists had predicted that as many as 13 million sockeye salmon would return to the river this year to breed, but it is now estimated that ...
National Public Radio: IRA FLATOW, host: You're listening to SCIENCE FRIDAY from NPR News. I'm Ira Flatow. And for most of us, whatever lies behind - beyond the beach is pretty much a mystery. Maybe you've been snorkeling or you're scuba diving a few times a year or you watch "Shark Week" on the Discovery Channel, but do you really know the ocean? Someone who has been there, done that, walked the depths of the seas, literally, is Sylvia Earle. She's lived in a coral reef, celebrated birthdays ...
Canadian Press: Once, caribou wandered over the Arctic tundra in herds that took days to pass. So great were their numbers - even 20 years ago - that they were able to shake off man's puny imprint on the great barren lands like so many flies on a rump. "There was so much caribou all over that even our plane, our scheduled flights, couldn't land on the airstrip," recalled Alfonz Nitsiza of Wha Ti, a tiny aboriginal community northwest of Yellowknife. "The caribou were on the airstrip. It ...
Agence France-Presse: An international fisheries group set up to protect Atlantic tuna has done the opposite and driven one species of the fish, the bluefin, to the edge of extinction, environmentalists said Thursday. On the eve of a 10-day meeting in Brazil of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), environmentalists accused the group of ignoring the advice of its own scientists and setting fishing quotas for bluefin tuna that have drastically depleted ...
Reuters: The United States on Thursday sought formal talks with Mexico to settle a spat between the neighbors over which international body should hear a complaint about "dolphin-safe" tuna. In March, Mexico filed a World Trade Organization complaint challenging U.S. labeling rules for tuna caught using methods less harmful to dolphins that swim near the fish. The United States bars the "dolphin-safe" label on tuna caught by boats using purse seine nets that also snare dolphins -- a ...
|
Click here for more Ocean Conservation News |
| |
NOAA News:
Courtesy of NOAA
Senior NOAA officials today commissioned NOAA Ship Pisces, the nation’s most advanced fisheries research vessel, and dedicated a new fisheries laboratory in Pascagoula, Miss.
A Senior Scientist at NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory, Dr. Solomon accepted the 2009 Volvo environment prize for her pioneering scientific contributions and subsequent impacts on environmental policies.
NOAA scientists took off Saturday on the second phase of a mission that, when complete, will provide a detailed view of how carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are distributed globally. Monitoring the increasing levels of greenhouse gases and black carbon aerosols in the atmosphere is crucial to understanding human-caused climate change.
Scientists researching the causes and impacts of the dead zone in the northern Gulf of Mexico have been awarded more than $2.4 million for the first year of an anticipated $12 million multi-year NOAA research investment.
NOAA has awarded the Smithsonian Institution’s Environmental Research Center and several partner organizations $946,000 for the first year of an anticipated five-year, $5 million collaborative project to study the degradation of nearshore coastal habitats in the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays.
|
Click here for more NOAA News |
| |
|
|
|
|
