The University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science is in the process of judging the entries from their annual Underwater Photography Contest. This year the contest includes a “Fan Favorite” category for users to vote online. Five photographs have been selected and voting will continue untill 11:59pm on Sunday April 8th. Vote [...]
Emily Tripp Senior Writer A new study shows that Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are helping sea turtles survive. The study from an international team of scientists, led by the University of Exeter, explains that MPAs provide an ideal habitat for foraging and protects turtles from the negative aspects of fishing. The research team found that [...]
Emily Tripp Senior Writer Japan’s whaling fleet killed less than one third of the animals it planned this season, due primarily to sabotage by activists. They killed 266 minke whales and one fin whale, much less than the 900-whale goal they set out with. “The catch was smaller than planned due to factors including weather [...]
Emily Tripp Senior Writer Switzerland has joined Norway, Luxembourg, Slovenia, and Cyprus in banning the captivity of dolphins. Switzerland’s House of Representatives has voted to outlaw the keeping of dolphins in aquariums or for entertainment purposes. The Senate also banned the future importation of dolphins, meaning that the dolphins living in the country’s only dolphinarium, [...]
Emily Tripp Senior Writer Sharks are among the most threatened marine species in the world due to unsustainable fishing practices. They are killed primarily for their fins that are used in the Asian delicacy, shark fin soup. A new study by University of Miami (UM) scientists, published in the journal Marine Drugs, has discovered high [...]
Emily Tripp Senior Writer Sharks are known for their effortless swimming, but past studies have focused only on how their streamlined bodies contribute to the ease with which they swim. George Lauder from Harvard University focused his efforts on how the shark’s skin boosts is swimming capabilities. The skin of a shark is coated in [...]
Emily Tripp Senior Writer Over the last 32 years, warming in the North Atlantic has dramatically reduced winter sea ice cover in harp seal breeding grounds. According to a new study from Duke University, this has led to a sharp rise in death rates among seal pups. “The kind of mortality we’re seeing in eastern [...]
Emily Tripp Senior Writer Another outbreak of coral disease has damaged the reefs of Kane’ohe Bay, O’ahu. In March 2010, an outbreak of acute Montipora White Syndrome (MWS) destroyed over 100 colonies of rice coral, Montipora capitata. The same disease has reappeared and is killing corals again in Kane’ohe Bay. To date, the outbreak has [...]
Emily Tripp Senior Writer A new study has shown how an octopus living in the frigid waters of the Antarctic keeps itself warm. Low temperatures can affect the function of certain proteins that allow the nervous system to send signals. Molecular neurophysiologist Joshua Rosenthal and his graduate student Sandra Garrett of the University of Puerto [...]
Emily Tripp Senior Writer It is not uncommon for sharks to eat sea birds, but lately, researchers have been finding land birds in the stomachs of tiger sharks living in the Gulf of Mexico. “We’re the first to look this exhaustively at the diet of tiger sharks, as far as I know, and this certainly [...]
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