Prof. HE Shunping's team from the Institute of Hydrobiology (IHB) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), along with researchers from the Institute of Deep-Sea Science and Engineering of CAS, Northwestern Polytechnical University, and BGI-Qingdao, have unveiled the evolutionary history and genetic mechanisms that enable deep-sea fish to survive in Earth's most extreme conditions, shedding new light on how life endures in such environments.

Waste generated by human activities has now reached the deepest point in the Mediterranean: the 5,112-metre-deep Calypso Deep in the Ionian Sea. A total of 167 objects — mainly plastics, glass, metal and paper — have been identified at the bottom, of which 148 are marine debris and 19 others are of possible anthropogenic origin. These results represent one of the highest concentrations of marine litter ever detected at great depths.

In JASA, researchers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution combine acoustic monitoring with a neural network to identify fish activity on coral reefs by sound. They trained the network to sort through the deluge of acoustic data automatically, analyzing audio recordings in real time. Their algorithm can match the accuracy of human experts in deciphering acoustical trends on a reef, but it can do so more than 25 times faster, and it could change the way ocean monitoring and research is conducted.

A new study by scientists and graduates at the University of Plymouth has investigated one aspect of how the future environmental conditions created by the changing global climate might affect earliest development within Christmas Island’s red crab population

Bacteria and other single-celled microorganisms in the seas around Antarctica are strongly influenced by water temperature and the amount of sea ice. This is shown by coordinated measurements taken off the coast of the west Antarctic Peninsula. "Even at two locations that are only 400 km apart on the peninsula – a very short distance on oceanographic scales – we found striking differences in the composition and relative abundances of microorganisms. These differences seem to be related to the differences in local climate", says NIOZ computational microbiologist Dr. Julia Engelmann. The results of this study by an international team of scientists led by NIOZ, are published in the journal Environmental Microbiome.

Researchers used in situ pH measurements and in situ UV-Vis spectroscopy to investigate the kinetically controlled growth of Co(OH)₂. They discovered that Co polyhedra with unconventional coordination play a crucial role in the formation process of Co(OH)₂, reshaping our understanding of the formation process.

It is widely believed that Earth’s atmosphere has been rich in oxygen for about 2.5 billion years due to a relatively rapid increase in microorganisms capable of performing photosynthesis. Researchers, including those from the University of Tokyo, provide a mechanism to explain precursor oxygenation events, or “whiffs,” which may have opened the door for this to occur. Their findings suggest volcanic activity altered conditions enough to accelerate oxygenation, and the whiffs are an indication of this taking place.

Scientists have discovered that whales move nutrients thousands of miles—in their urine—from as far as Alaska to Hawaii. These tons of nitrogen support the health of tropical ecosystems and fish, where nitrogen can be limited. They call this movement of nutrients a “conveyor belt” or “the great whale pee funnel.” In some places, like Hawaii, the input of nutrients from whales is bigger than from local sources. It’s critical to tropical ocean health, therefore, to protect and restore whales.

The megalodon has long been imagined as an enormous great white shark, but new research suggests that perception is all wrong. The study finds the prehistoric hunter had a much longer body—closer in shape to a lemon shark or even a large whale.

A modular metabolism may explain the environmental success of certain sulphate-reducing bacteria. This is the result of a study published this week in the journal Science Advances. A research team led by scientists from the University of Oldenburg, Germany, investigated the role of the Desulfobacteraceae family of bacteria that are very active in anaerobic sediments. The team reports that all studied strains possess the same central metabolic architecture for harvesting energy, for example. However, some strains possess additional molecular modules that enable them to utilise diverse organic substances. The results could lead to the development of new analytical tools to measure the activity of sulfate-reducing microbes directly in the seafloor and advance our understanding of their relevance for the climate