Over the past decade, researchers have developed a variety of reliable real-time and archival instruments to study sounds made or heard by marine mammals and fish. These new sensors are now being used in research, management and conservation projects around the world with some very important practical results. Among them is improved monitoring of endangered North Atlantic right whales in an effort to reduce ship strikes, a leading cause of their deaths....

Continue reading...

Large-scale distributions of two important nutrient pools -- dissolved organic nitrogen and dissolved organic phosphorus have been systematically mapped for the first time over the Atlantic Ocean in a new study. The findings have important implications for understanding nitrogen and phosphorus biogeochemical cycles and the biological carbon pump in the Atlantic Ocean....

Continue reading...

Lionfish are uninvited visitors in Atlantic waters. Now, research suggests that the diet of these invasive fish could impact the distribution of other fish living in Bahamian coral reefs....

Continue reading...

Around the globe, the beloved characters of Walt Disney have become holiday icons as familiar as Santa and Rudolph, who, it turns out, most of us know best from Disney’s classic holiday TV special, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, which has aired to high ratings every December since 1964....

Continue reading...

Noelle and Darwinia are two adult female leatherback turtles that nest in Gabon, Western Central Africa. A research team has fitted each turtle with a small satellite tracking device, which enables the scientists to monitor their precise movements and observe where and how deep they dive....

Continue reading...

Mycobacteriosis is a serious disease that affects up to 70 percent of adult striped bass in the Chesapeake Bay. Two studies published in 2009 provide important new clues into how widely this disease is distributed, as well as how long it has been around in the Bay region....

Continue reading...

A study of the structure and evolution of the Gulf of Corinth rift in central Greece will increase scientific understanding of rifted margin development and the tectonic mechanisms underlying seafloor spreading and deformation of the Earth's crust....

Continue reading...

Oceanographers have discovered that seawater sound absorption will drop by up to 70 percent this century, due to rising atmospheric carbon dioxide causing ocean acidification. As a result, underwater sound could travel farther, and this could lead to growing noise levels in the oceans. Increasing transparency of the oceans to low-frequency sounds could also enable marine mammals to communicate over longer distances....

Continue reading...

A new study of Pacific Ocean sediments off the coast of Chile has found that offshore waters experienced systematic oxygen depletion during the rapid warming of the Antarctic following the last "glacial maximum" period 20,000 years ago....

Continue reading...

On December 9, officials from NOAA joined scientists from Rutgers University and other overseas institutions in a celebration highlighting the first-ever trans-Atlantic ocean crossing of an unmanned, underwater glider....

Continue reading...