When their kin aren’t attacking boats and porpoises or monitoring their large adult sons, some pods of orca whales are also known to attack the fearsome great white shark. Groups of these marine mammals are known to hunt and kill these giant fish in an epic battle of apex predators.…
Read MoreWe finally know how baleen whales make noise
Baleen whales, including today’s blue, humpback, and fin whales rely on sounds to live in their watery world. Their songs must be able travel far in the murky, dark ocean so that they can find their kin and migrate hundreds of thousands of miles. In the more than 50 years…
Read MoreEl Niño is back—here’s what that means
This year is going to be pretty unforgettable, and not in a good way. The National Weather Service has officially detected signs of El Niño, a climate pattern that temporarily warms up waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean and will change precipitation and temperature patterns around the world.. The last…
Read MoreLight pollution is messing with coral reproduction
A dark side effect of the electricity that helps society run around the clock is the pollution caused by our increasing numbers of lights at night. Light pollution can obscure stargazing, confusing sea turtles when they hatch, and also could be harming coral reefs. The light pollution from cities along…
Read MoreStaggering 3D scan of the Titanic shows the wreck down to the millimeter
Months of painstaking work analyzing over 16 terabytes of imaging and 4K video data has resulted in the first full-sized 3D scan of the RMS Titanic’s stunning, sunken remains. Per the BBC, specialists working for the deep-sea mapping company Magellan Ltd. began remotely piloting two deep sea submersibles during the…
Read MoreAn ambitious underwater ‘space station’ just got a major research collaborator
Today, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that it will be signing a new research agreement with Proteus Ocean Group, which has been drawing up ambitious plans to build a roomy underwater research facility that can host scientists for long stays while they study the marine environment up close. …
Read MoreNew AI-based tsunami warning software could help save lives
To mitigate the death and disaster brought by tsunamis, people on the coasts need the most time possible to evacuate. Hundred-foot waves traveling as fast as a car are forces of nature that cannot be stopped—the only approach is to get out of the way. To tackle this problem, researchers…
Read MoreBoaty McBoatface’s new mission is more serious than its name
Boaty McBoatface, the comically named autonomous submarine courtesy of a collective internet joke, will be among a fleet of underwater robots dispatched to the underbelly of the deteriorating Thwaites glacier in Western Antarctica. According to a press release this week by the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration, the crew of robots—including…
Read MoreThis tiny AI-powered robot is learning to explore the ocean on its own
The ocean is big, and our attempts to understand it are still largely surface-deep. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Organization, around 80 percent of the big blue is “unmapped, unobserved, and unexplored.” Ships are the primary way to collect information about the seas, but they’re costly to send…
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