Scientific American

Warming Ocean Current Might Create Coral Refuges

Tue, 01 May 2012 10:30:00 EST

Global warming is expected to have devastating effects on coral reefs, but recent research points to a few exceptions.

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From the Archive, 1912: What We Know About Icebergs

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 14:00:00 EST

Editor’s note: we are publishing this article on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the RMS Titanic on April 15, 1912

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Tropical Depression: Your Saltwater Fish Tank May Be Killing the Ocean

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 10:30:00 EST

Tropical fish tanks in restaurants, hospitals and homes evoke feelings of tranquility and beauty. They even lower stress levels prior to medical procedures and encourage Alzheimer's patients to eat sufficiently . But what's good for humans may be bad for the sea.

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Titanic : Resonance and Reality

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 10:30:00 EST

The tragedy [More]

"Chum Cam" Helps Catalogue Endangered Sharks

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 13:15:00 EST

Scientists have been trying to answer the question of whether marine protected areas, where sharks and their prey are off-limits to fishermen, are indeed home to more sharks than non-protected areas of the ocean.

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Raise It or Raze It?: How Will the Stranded Italian Cruise Ship Be Salvaged?

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 05:00:00 EST

At more than twice the size of the Titanic, the Costa Concordia was the largest passenger vessel ever to sink when it capsized off Italy's northwest coast on January 13. So far, Italian authorities say of the more than 4,200 passengers and crew on board, at least 18 are confirmed dead and 14 unaccounted for , and the insurance costs may reach $1 billion, according to Moody's Investors Service. Now salvage companies around the world are gearing up for the mammoth task of recovering the ship, a challenge made all the more complicated by its precarious spot. "The wreck's on the edge of deep water, and can drop another 200 feet [60 meters] or more," says Mike Lacey, secretary general of the International Salvage Union.

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Japan Tsunami Rubble May Be Headed for Hawaii

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 10:59:00 EST

The earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan last March created an estimated 25 million tons of debris, large amounts of which washed into the ocean. Soon after the disaster, satellites photographed and tracked large mats of wreckage--building parts, boats and household objects--floating off the Japanese coast. Now, according to computer models developed by Nikolai Maximenko and his colleagues at the University of Hawaii and at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the detritus is on course to reach the northwestern Hawaiian Islands early this year.

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Gene Therapy Could Help Corals Survive Climate Change

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 15:17:00 EST

Editor's note: Climate Query is a semi-weekly feature offered by Daily Climate, presenting short Q&A's with players large and small in the climate arena. Read others in the series at http://wwwp.dailyclimate.org/tdc-newsroom/query/climate-queries .

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"Hockey Stick" Scientist Cross-Checks Critics: A Q&A with Michael E. Mann (preview)

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 07:00:00 EST

Climatologist Michael E. Mann is most famous for what he calls one of the “least interesting” aspects of his work. In the 1990s he used data from tree rings, coral growth bands and ice cores as proxies for ancient temperatures, combining them with modern thermometer readings. This annual record of temperature variations over the past millennium offered insights into natural climate cycles. As an “afterthought,” he included a graph of average temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere going back to the 1400s in a 1998 paper (he later extended it to A.D. 1000). That “hockey stick” graph, which shows temperatures bouncing up and down before rapidly rising more recently, became an icon of climate change.

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Swept from Africa to the Amazon (preview)

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 08:00:00 EST

The Bodele depression at the southern edge of the Sahara is a fearsome, forsaken place. Winds howl through the nearby Tebesti Mountains and Ennedi Plateau, picking up speed as they funnel into a parched wasteland nearly the size of California. Once there was a massive freshwater lake here. Now the lake is a shrunken puddle of its former self. Across most of the landscape, there is nothing.

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Temperatures--Not Acid--Could Cook Coral to Death

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 17:01:00 EST

One of the biggest natural tragedies of recent years is the deterioration of Australia's Great Barrier Reef , a vast structure of coral off the continent's east coast that supports a profusion of wildlife. In addition to overfishing and nutrient pollution, the world's largest natural structure has suffered from rising ocean temperatures. But, perhaps less well known, Australia's west coast has some massive reefs of its own, offshore in the southeastern Indian Ocean. Massive stony corals of the genus Porites swell to the surface, and new research published February 2 in Science suggests those located in the colder waters farthest south are growing better than ever --thanks to warming ocean temperatures.

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Controversy: Can Repeat Concussions Cause Lou Gehrig's Disease? (preview)

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 07:05:00 EST

Kevin Turner was a premier athlete in the National Football League, a fullback who could run, catch and block. At 6' 1" and roughly 230 pounds, he was slightly undersized for his position, but he had tremendous thrust in his legs and used all of it to launch himself into players who were bigger than he was. He played for the New England Patriots from 1992 to 1994, then joined the Philadelphia Eagles, with whom he stayed until his abrupt retirement in 1999. Some called him “the Collision Expert”--a nickname he got because of the gouges he collected on his helmet.

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Meth Hype Could Undermine Good Medicine

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 07:00:00 EST

The 1936 film Reefer Madness developed a cult following because of its over-the-top depiction of the evils of marijuana. Getting stoned and going to a midnight showing became a ritual for many college students.

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Miraculous Microbes: They Make Holy Statues "Bleed"--and Can Be Deadly, Too

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 08:00:00 EST

The Killer Bacteria Hall of Fame no doubt houses the usual suspects: Yersinia pestis , perpetrator of the Plague; Treponema pallidum, the spiral-shaped culprit in syphilis ; and Vibrio cholerae , the swimmer that causes cholera . But you have probably never heard of one of the inductees.

Serratia marcescens is a forgotten but ubiquitous bacterium that can produce a red pigment called prodigiosin and likes to hang out as a pink film in the shower grout and toilet bowls of less-than-scrupulously clean homes. The pigment is so persistent that giant amoebas called slime molds that dine on S. marcescens turn red just as flamingoes that eat shrimp turn pink. Yet the picture emerging of this unsung organism is increasingly sinister.

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Disc Spins Its Way to $1-Million Oil Spill Cleanup Prize

Sun, 16 Oct 2011 10:00:08 EST

When oil started spewing from BP's Macondo well in April 2010, there weren't too many options for cleaning it up. Concentrated slicks on the ocean surface could be set ablaze. Booms kept oil off the shores, as long as the waves stayed calm. And chemical dispersants of unknown toxicity could be sprayed to break up oil patches.

But thanks to the Wendy Schmidt X Prize that won't be true next time. A company from Illinois known as Elastec / American Marine won the $1-million first prize by tripling previous cleanup rates.

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Can Coral Nurseries Bring Reefs Back from the Brink? [Slide Show]

Fri, 14 Oct 2011 12:30:00 EST

The wind tosses Gaby Nava's hair as the small fishing boat skims across the glassy water just off the port of Veracruz, Mexico. She smiles at the shallow bay and the Gulf of Mexico sprawling across the horizon.

"We are very lucky today. Hardly any waves. Most of the time when we come out here it's much more choppy," the marine biologist shouts over the engine roar. "It's better for Acropora palmata to be in moving waters."

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Young Children Think Differently about Ownership

Sun, 09 Oct 2011 09:00:08 EST

MINE! That word appears early in life. Toddlers have an idea of ownership. They also have an idea of what can be owned, and what can’t. [More]

How Dangerous Is It to Use Cyanide to Catch Fish?

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 13:40:00 EST

Dear EarthTalk : I heard of a practice called cyanide fishing, which is used mostly to collect aquarium specimens, but I understand it is also used to catch fish we eat. Isn’t this very unhealthy? --Phil Seymour, Albany, N.Y.

Cyanide fishing, whereby divers crush cyanide tablets into plastic squirt bottles of sea water and puff the solution to stun and capture live coral reef fish, is widely practiced throughout Southeast Asia despite being illegal in most countries of the region. The practice began in the 1960s in the Philippines as a way to capture live reef fish for sale primarily to European and North American aquarium owners--a market now worth some $200 million a year.

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Eating the Lionfish

Sun, 31 Jul 2011 09:00:08 EST

The red lionfish sports maroon and white stripes to complement its venomous spines. A native of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, the red lionfish and one of its cousins have rapidly established a new domain from Cape Hatteras to the coast of Mexico. [More]

Absence of Top Predators Brings Unanticipated Changes

Sun, 17 Jul 2011 11:00:08 EST

Humans have played a role in large animal extinctions since time immemorial. The giant ground sloth of Texas . Siberian mammoths . A bear-size wombat in Australia . We harry our competitors for meat--and our predators--out of existence. Or at least to the margins of the planet. [More]