EurekAlert! - Science News: Marine Science Portal

Public Release: 5-Jul-2012
US Drought Monitor shows record-breaking expanse of drought across US
More of the United States is in moderate drought or worse than at any other time in the 12-year history of the US Drought Monitor, officials from the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln said today.

Public Release: 5-Jul-2012

Science
Scientists discover new trigger for immense North Atlantic Ocean spring plankton bloom
On this July 4th week, US beachgoers are thronging their way to seaside resorts and parks to celebrate with holiday fireworks. But across the horizon and miles out to sea toward the north, the Atlantic Ocean's own spring and summer ritual unfolds. It entails the blooming of countless microscopic plants, or phytoplankton.

National Science Foundation

Public Release: 5-Jul-2012

Science
Eddies, not sunlight, spur annual bloom of tiny plants in North Atlantic
Researchers have long believed that the longer days and calmer seas of spring set off an annual bloom of plants in the North Atlantic, but University of Washington scientists and collaborators discovered that warm eddies fuel the growth three weeks before the sun does.

National Science Foundation, NASA

Public Release: 5-Jul-2012

Science
Climate change suspended reef growth for 2 millennia
According to a paper published this week in Science, natural climatic shifts stopped reef growth in the eastern Pacific for 2,500 years.

Public Release: 4-Jul-2012

Proceedings of the Royal Society B
Humidity increases odor perception in terrestrial hermit crabs
Max Planck scientists have found that the olfactory system in hermit crabs is underdeveloped in comparison to vinegar flies. While flies identify various odor molecules, crabs recognize only a few odors, such as organic acids, amines, aldehydes, or seawater. Humidity enhanced electrical signals induced in the crabs' antennal neurons as well as their behavioral responses to the odorants. The olfactory sense of vinegar flies was not at all influenced by the level of air moisture.

Max Planck Society, EU Marie Curie Intra European Fellowship

Public Release: 4-Jul-2012

Marine Pollution Bulletin
Seabirds study shows plastic pollution reaching surprising levels off coast of Pacific Northwest
Plastic pollution off the northwest coast of North America is reaching the level of the notoriously polluted North Sea, according to a new study led by a researcher at the University of British Columbia.

Public Release: 3-Jul-2012

12th International Coral Reef Symposium
12th International Coral Reef Symposium
The 12th International Coral Reef Symosium will bring together 2,500 people from some 80 countries to communicate their science and hear their latest advances from the international experts in coral reef science.

Public Release: 3-Jul-2012

Water Research
Global warming favors proliferation of toxic cyanobacteria
Cyanobacteria populations, primitive aquatic microorganisms, are frequently encountered in water bodies, especially in summer. Their numbers have increased in recent decades and scientists suspect that global warming may be behind the phenomenon, and are particularly concerned by the increase in toxic cyanobacteria, which affect human and animal health.

Public Release: 3-Jul-2012
SMOS satellite measurements improve as ground radars switch off
Over a dozen radio signals that have hindered data collection on ESA's SMOS water mission have been switched off. The effort also benefits satellites such as NASA's Aquarius mission, which measures ocean salinity at the same frequency.

Public Release: 3-Jul-2012

Society for Experimental Biology 2012
Diving shrews -- heat before you leap
How does the world's smallest mammalian diver survive icy waters to catch its prey? A recent study of American water shrews presented at the Society for Experimental Biology meeting in Salzburg has surprised researchers by showing that the animals rapidly elevate body temperature immediately before diving into cold water.

Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada

Public Release: 2-Jul-2012

12th International Coral Reef Symposium

Nature Climate Change
Fish learn to cope in a high CO2 world
Some coral reef fish may be better prepared to cope with rising CO2 in the world's oceans -- thanks to their parents. Researchers at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies today reported in the journal Nature Climate Change, encouraging new findings that some fish may be less vulnerable to high CO2 and an acidifying ocean than previously feared.

ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies

Public Release: 2-Jul-2012

Biological Conservation
NOAA researchers see dramatic decline of endangered white abalone
Scientists from NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service report a significant decline of endangered white abalone off the coast of Southern California in the journal Biological Conservation.

Public Release: 2-Jul-2012

Nature Nanotechnology
Paints and coatings containing bactericidal agent nanoparticles combat marine fouling
Scientists at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz in Germany have discovered that tiny vanadium pentoxide nanoparticles can inhibit the growth of barnacles, bacteria, and algae on surfaces in contact with water, such as ship hulls, sea buoys, or offshore platforms. Their experiments showed that steel plates to which a coating containing dispersed vanadium pentoxide particles had been applied could be exposed to seawater for weeks without the formation of deposits of barnacles, bacteria, and algae.

Public Release: 1-Jul-2012

Nature Climate Change
Rising heat at the beach threatens largest sea turtles, climate change models show
Climate change could exacerbate existing threats to leatherback sea turtles and nearly wipe out the population in the eastern Pacific in the 21st century. Deaths of turtle eggs and hatchlings in nests buried at hotter, dryer beaches are the leading projected cause of the potential climate-related decline, according to a new study in the journal Nature Climate Change by a research team from Drexel University, Princeton University, other institutions and government agencies.

Cooperative Institute for Climate Science, Earthwatch Institute, Betz Chair Endowment of Drexel University, Leatherback Trust

Public Release: 30-Jun-2012

Society for Experimental Biology 2012
Acid-wielding worms drill through bones at the bottom of the sea
Tiny "bone-devouring worms," known to both eat and inhabit dead whale skeletons and other bones on the sea floor, have a unique ability to release bone-melting acid, scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego have recently discovered.

Austrian Science Fund

Public Release: 29-Jun-2012

Geology
Sandy beaches, hydrocarbon reservoirs, tectonic tilting: It's all about geology
Topics in this new batch of Geology papers posted online 29 June include ecospace utilization; Little Bahama Bank; climatic asynchrony; oceanic crust; sand budgets; the Alpine fault's seismic hazard to New Zealand; volcano behavior; gravity oscillations; chemical weathering in the Critical Zone; giant wave ripples; the location of high peaks as a function of drainage network; and soils as ledgers recording transactions of energy and material between Earth's plants, rocks, water, and atmosphere.

Public Release: 29-Jun-2012

Geophysical Research Letters
AGU journal highlights -- 29 June 2012
Featured in this release are research papers on the following topics: "Section of Atlantic circulation driven by transient southern Africa current," "Prediction system to protect astronauts from solar storms," "Streamflow changes following the 2010 Chile earthquake," "Reanalyses find rising humidity in the Arctic," "Local factors important for water availability," and "Peat-based climate reconstructions run into murky waters?"

Public Release: 29-Jun-2012
NSF funds University of Miami, Navy Postgraduate School research in ocean dynamics
Funded by a grant from the NSF, a study led by University of Miami's Dr. Igor Kamenkovich and Naval Postgraduate School's Dr. Timour Radko will investigate critical oceanic processes involved in Large-Scale Eddy-Driven Patterns (LEDPs). This will offer offer a more complete and realistic description of LEDPs, directly applicable to observations and comprehensive climate models. The project will also help describe the eddy transport of important tracers like heat and carbon caused by the LEDPs.

National Science Foundation

Public Release: 29-Jun-2012

Ecotoxicology
New technique could reduce number of animals needed to test chemical safety
A new way of testing the safety of natural and synthetic chemicals has been developed by scientists with funding from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council. Their research, published today in the journal Ecotoxicology, could reduce the number of fish needed to test the toxicity of a range of chemicals including pharmaceuticals and environmental pollutants.

Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council

Public Release: 29-Jun-2012

Global Change Biology
Britain's urban rivers bounce back
After decades of pollution, typically from poorly treated sewage and industrial waste, rivers in or near Britain's major urban areas are regaining insects such as mayflies and stoneflies that are typical of fast-flowing, oxygen-rich waters.

Public Release: 28-Jun-2012

Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry
Pollutants could pose health risks for 5 sea turtle species
Researchers at the Hollings Marine Laboratory and four partner organizations have measured for the first time concentrations of 13 compounds in five different endangered species of sea turtles that approach the amounts known to cause adverse health effects in other animals.

Public Release: 27-Jun-2012
US research vessel winds down visit to Vietnam as part of joint oceanographic research program
U.S. scientists and Vietnamese researchers will discuss coastal ocean circulation and land-ocean environmental trends this week as the R/V Roger Revelle, an auxiliary general purpose oceanographic research vessel, continues its nine-day port call in the city of Da Nang. Owned by the Office of Naval Research and operated by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the vessel arrived in Vietnam June 22. Its visit highlights partnership between ONR and the Vietnamese Ministry of Science and Technology.

US Office of Naval Research

Public Release: 27-Jun-2012
Pressure testing of new Alvin Personnel Sphere successful
The human-occupied submersible Alvin reached a major milestone in its upgrade project on June 22 when its new titanium personnel sphere successfully completed pressure testing, reports the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the vehicle's operator.

National Science Foundation

Public Release: 27-Jun-2012

Dissertations and Features
A nanoscopic look at the estuary's green algae
The pico is a very small unit, even smaller than the nano as it is the equivalent of 10-12. The biologist Aitor Alonso has devoted himself to studying green algae of this imperceptible size existing in the Bilbao estuary, paying particular attention to the area beyond the Nervion estuary. This has enabled him to identify six genera and 11 nano- and picoplanktonic species that until now had not been cataloged in these waters.

Public Release: 26-Jun-2012

Geology
Evidence of oceanic 'green rust' offers hope for the future
"Green rust" played a key role in making the Earth habitable and may now have an equally important role to play in cleaning it up for the future.

Natural Environment Research Council, Danish National Research Foundation, National Science Foundation, Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada