The oceans hide some of the most sophisticated solutions that nature has ever developed and are an inexhaustible source of inspiration for the robotics of the future as well. The Bioinspired Soft Robotics research unit, coordinated by Barbara Mazzolai, Associate Director for Robotics at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT – Italian Institute of Technology), has developed an octopus-inspired soft robotic arm that, thanks to the technology embedded in its artificial suction cups, is capable of sensing contact, estimating the intensity and direction of the applied force, and grasping objects autonomously, even in complex environments such as underwater settings.

A newly discovered fossil site in Egypt is reshaping scientists’ understanding of how marine ecosystems recovered after the asteroid impact that ended the Age of Dinosaurs. In a study published in Science Advances, researchers report that compositionally modern marine fish communities were already established just 4 million years after the end-Cretaceous mass extinction.

The site, known as Qreiya 3 and dated to 62.2 million years ago, preserves an exceptionally diverse offshore marine ecosystem from the early Paleocene. Hundreds of fossil fishes recovered from the site include more than 20 groups of ray-finned fishes, making it the richest and most diverse Danian fish assemblage yet discovered.

The fossils reveal that many fish groups common in today’s oceans—including early relatives of tunas, mackerels, jacks, moonfishes, and pipefishes—had already diversified shortly after the extinction event that wiped out non-avian dinosaurs. At the same time, several predatory fish groups dominant in Cretaceous seas are notably absent, suggesting a rapid ecological turnover in marine ecosystems.

Led by researchers from the Mansoura University Vertebrate Paleontology Center in collaboration with the University of Michigan and KU Leuven, the study provides some of the clearest fossil evidence yet that modern-style marine fish faunas emerged remarkably quickly after one of Earth’s greatest mass extinctions.