THIS ARTICLE IS republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. An oil tanker carrying jet fuel was recently hit by a cargo ship while at anchor 13 miles off the east coast of England. This set off a series of large explosions and a huge plume of blackContinue Reading
I expected to meet a dreaded “man-eater,” but when I saw it, I realized that it was a defenseless animal, more afraid of me than I was of it. That moment aroused my curiosity, and I decided to learn more about sharks. I travelled to the island of Guadalupe offContinue Reading
Seaweed forests have become a much-plumbed well for anyone seeking solutions to some of the world’s biggest environmental problems. Companies with a climate-conscious bent are using seaweed instead of petroleum-derived materials to make products like sustainable shopping bags and furniture. Growing more seaweed forests has been hailed as a wayContinue Reading
The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Most of life’s engines run on sunlight. Photons filter down through the atmosphere and are eagerly absorbed by light-powered organisms such as plants and algae. Through photosynthesis, the particles of light power a cellular reaction that manufactures chemical energy (inContinue Reading
Years ago, on the Gulf of California, Palacios began implanting small acoustic devices in rays that transform them into data messengers. Fishermen, hired for the task, capture the animals and then return them to the water. This strategy is known as passive acoustic telemetry, and although seemingly invasive, is carriedContinue Reading
The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Prochlorococcus bacteria are so small that you’d have to line up around a thousand of them to match the thickness of a human thumbnail. The ocean seethes with them: The microbes are likely the most abundant photosynthetic organism on theContinue Reading
