News by Subject Biology

A zebrafish view of the world has been forensically analysed by researchers at the University of Sussex to reveal that how they see their surroundings changes hugely depending on what direction they are looking.

African weakly electric fish, commonly called baby whales, use incredibly brief electrical pulses to sense the world around them and communicate with other members of their species. Part of that electrical mechanism exists in humans -- and by studying these fish, scientists may unlock clues about conditions like epilepsy.

A team of scientists and students, conducting research aboard the R/V Akademik Ioffe, will offer select museums, as well as classrooms and citizen scientists worldwide, an opportunity to explore with them in real time a dramatically changing Arctic Ocean, and to discuss their research in the first-ever live, interactive broadcasts from the fabled Northwest Passage.

It's a mystery how cleaner shrimp partner with would-be fish predators -- sometimes even climbing in their mouths -- without getting eaten. A new study reveals how the shrimp convinces fish not to eat them, and the fish conveys that it's a friend and not a foe.

The University of Haifa (Israel) and two teams from the IMDEA Networks Institute have developed an innovative autonomous system, SYMBIOSIS, to monitor real-time schools of fish. This system, which combines optical and acoustic technologies, will be environmentally friendly and will provide reliable information about the condition of marine fish stocks, something that at the moment is practically impossible to achieve without investing enormous resources.

Scientists published the first hearing tests on a wild population of healthy marine mammals. The tests on beluga whales in Bristol Bay, AK, revealed that the whales have sensitive hearing abilities and the number of animals that experienced extensive hearing losses was far less than what scientists had anticipated.

A graduate student at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego and colleagues from NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries have discovered the world's first known manta ray nursery.

Local conservation actions can significantly boost coral's resilience to, and recovery from, climate-induced thermal bleaching by reducing other energy-sapping stresses the coral faces, a Duke-led study finds. Scientists found they could reduce the extent of bleaching by half if they removed or reduced populations of coral-eating snails from affected reefs. The coral's recovery from bleaching was also enhanced.