The regulatory bodies charged with managing and conserving fisheries across two-thirds of the world’s oceans are threatening marine ecosystems by significantly underperforming, according to an analysis published on Nov. 24 in Environmental Research Letters. Led by researchers from the Duke University Nicholas School of the Environment, the analysis comes as the United Nations prepares to enforce a new oceans treaty that will require collaboration with these regulatory bodies, called Regional Fisheries Management Organizations (RFMOs).

New research  finds that a combination of extreme climate events, sea-level rise and land subsidence could create larger and deeper floods in coastal cities in future. 

The study focused on Shanghai in China, which is threatened with flooding by large and strong typhoons, or tropical storms, producing storm surges and waves. To avoid disaster a major adaptation effort is required - which will almost certainly include raising defences and constructing mobile flood barriers, like those seen at the Thames Barrier in London. However, the team warn there is also the risk of “catastrophic failure” of defences due to rising water levels, especially due to the combination of subsidence, sea-level rise and higher surges during typhoons, as occurred in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.  

Teeth. Ocean. Predator. These are the three most common words used to describe sharks, according to a new global survey published in Wildlife Research, eliciting 1000 different text responses.

University of Alberta geochemists have discovered a missing piece to one of the great mysteries of science — the origin of life on Earth.

That fateful spark is believed to have occurred on the ocean’s floor, fuelled by warm, mineral-rich hydrothermal vents. But scientists have long puzzled over how the right fertilizer — particularly the forms of carbon and nitrogen necessary to create and sustain life — could have existed without the benefit of the sun.

After analyzing rock samples from hydrothermal vents drilled over a depth of about 200 metres into the crust in the South China Sea, Long Li and his team in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences found evidence of a chemical process — called abiotic nitrogen reduction (ANR), a reaction driven by minerals as catalyst — that likely produced the necessary nutrients for life. A key part of those is ammonium, says Li, crucial for the abiotic synthesis of organic compounds to develop the first life.