Oceans

Earth

Enormous floating barrier will corral ocean trash

A floating giant barrier has been designed to trap plastic trash in the ocean. But no one’s sure how well it will collect much of the most worrisome type.

Life

Bacteria are all around us — and that’s okay

Scientists may have identified less than one percent of all bacteria on Earth. But there’s a reason to keep up the hunt. These microbes could help us understand and protect our planet.

Animals

This penguin prey knows how to fight back

Scientists attached cameras to gentoo penguins off the Falkland Islands. The video revealed that their tiny prey can sometimes win in a fight.

Ecosystems

New tools aim to better predict blooms of toxic algae

Scientists across the United States are developing programs that can predict when blooms of toxic algal may occur.

Life

Bird poop helps keep coral reefs healthy, but rats are interfering

Eradicating invasive rats from islands may help boost numbers of seabirds. The birds’ droppings provide nutrients to nearby coral reefs.

Earth

Scientists Say: Upwelling

This is a process in which a substance rises and spreads out over something else. Upwelling happens in the ocean, inside the Earth and even in a planet’s atmosphere.

Animals

Here’s what narwhals sound like underwater

Scientists eavesdropped while narwhals clicked and buzzed. The work could help pinpoint how the whales may react to more human noise in the Arctic.

Animals

Deep-sea expedition led researchers to doomed octopus nursery

The ill-fated octopods may be a sign that a healthy population is hiding nearby.

Ecosystems

Small swimmers may play huge role in churning the seas

Hoards of migrating shrimp and krill can cause large-scale water movements in the ocean, a new study suggests.

Animals

Ocean heat waves are on the rise — and killing coral

Ocean heat waves are becoming hotter and more frequent. And one can be blamed for the 2016 coral deaths on the Great Barrier Reef.

Earth

Pacific garbage patch may be 16 times bigger than thought

The giant ‘garbage patch’ that floats between Hawaii and California weighs at least 79,000 tons, a new estimate suggests.

Oceans

More than half the world’s ocean area is actively fished

Fleets harvest fish from 55 percent of the world’s total ocean area. Just a handful of countries play an outsized role fishing the open ocean, far from coasts.