Arabian Humpback Whales

Scientists working with the Environmental Society of Oman and the Sultanate of Oman have been studying the strange case of the Arabian Humpback whale.  Recent research indicates that this population living in the Indian Ocean may be the most isolated and biologically distinct humpback whales in the world.  Scientists are very interested in these very unique whales who un like their cousins around the world, they do not migrate to feed and breed but rather stay in this isolated location.  DNA testing has shown that they are very distinct from other humpbacks and it is suspected they have been separated from the rest of the gene pool for about 70,000 years.  These whales are truly a rarity and thus need to be protected says the Environmental Society of Oman and further research will shed more light on these great animals.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/12/141203151808.htm

Orcas Around Spain and Portugal

Over the past decade there have been over ten thousand sightings of orcas around Spain and Portugal in the Straight of Gibraltar, The Gulf of Cadiz, and the Alboran Sea.  It is believed that these Orcas travel every summer into the Mediterranean following the migration of Red Tuna, their main prey.  In the spring the killer whales are found following the tuna into the Mediterranean Sea following the large schools of fish and in the summer they return to the Atlantic Ocean.  The migration patterns of these orcas has been previously unknown and it has not been until recently that further research has revealed the details of their movements along the Iberian Peninsula.  It is widely accepted that these killer whale population are in great danger and are at risk of various threats including the depopulation of red tuna their staple diet in that area.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/11/141126111120.htm
http://www.takepart.com/sites/default/files/styles/tp_gallery_slide/public/112862740.jpg?itok=eM0jNjJt

Polar Bears In Danger

Recent trends in loss of sea ice will have devastating effects on Polar bear populations in the near future.  Sea ice is shrinking every year and the effect son marine and polar life are tremendous, as sea ice becomes rarer during several months of the years polar bear will lose much of their natural habitat and entire ecosystems will disappear.  Researcher looked at projections for sea ice throughout the 21st century and the "metrics developed from polar bear energetics models" to predict the future of these endangered animals.  The longer periods of ice free environments will have huge detrimental effect son polar bear hunting and mating and will result in starvation and mass extinction in the Archipelago.  Researchers predict between ten and twenty five percent of the global polar beer population will disappear in the near future.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/11/141126144235.htm
http://assets.worldwildlife.org/photos/2330/images/hero_full/polar-bear-hero.jpg?1345901694

Protecting Fish Reserves

In recent years much has been done to try to protect endangered species of fish and coral reefs using fish reserves, but the success of these reserves will depend on government ability to enforce their codes.  Many fishing reserves are under threat from illegal fishing which some countries cannot control.  Off shore making parks are difficult to control and survey and thus many are the target of fisherman.  recent researchers believe they can predict where illegal fishing will occur looking at recent events and trends. The may a very useful tool as we try to defend the many endangered fish species around the world.  Apparently most fishing is centralized to one a few "hotspots" especially during certain lunar cycles.  Hopefully the work of these researchers will help the conservation effort in our oceans and dissuade others from fishing illegally in these marine sanctuaries.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/11/141113110304.htm
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Salty Farming

In the past few decades dew to rising sea levels and loss of fresh water preserves, a necessity for crops that can be grown in saline conditions has developed and researchers in the Netherlands seem to have come up with a solution.  A dutch researcher has been growing crops in varying saline conditions to test whether certain crops can survive in salt water.  His experiments have resulted in great success and he has identifies several species of potato and carrot that can not only survive but thrive in salty water.  These discoveries will have huge impacts in the future as the availability of freshwater decreases and oceans rise.  Many countries today suffer from a severe lack of fertile soil due to salinity, one such country, Pakistan, is receiving four different varieties of potato to grow there.  If this research continues to find success it may be an answer to many farmers prayers who live near the coasts or are running out of ready fresh water.

 http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/0b3bb38c09f333c7925eea57b543779c.htm
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Differing Effects of Climate Change

Recent studies on the change in climate have shown that the effects on different ecosystems is not consistent at all.  Specifically changes that enrich oceans with nutrients and make better ecosystems have a negative effect on trees and result in less rain.  Bryan Black from the uNiversity of Texas has lead he research looking into tree rings from the last 600 years and looked at the results of different climates and climate changes.  What he has fond is that during times of healthy booming oceans full of life and nutrients, tree populations have shown slow growth, indicating drought or disease.  Upwelling is an essential and natural phenomenon that bring cold nutrient rich water, but this may have an adverse effect on trees.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/11/141110083406.htm
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Effects of Off Shore Wind Turbines on Ocean life

Recently, researchers at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science have looked in to the possible negative effects the increasing number of turbines off shore on the coasts of the world.  Wind turbines are a great source of renewable and clean energy, but do they have adverse consequences for the sea creatures that live around them?  Helen Bailey, the research assistant proffessor at the university believes that the migration patterns of whales and dolphins need to be taken into consideration when building new wind turbines in the ocean.  Some researchers are worried the noise created by the machines could disorient or hurt marine life near the turbines and affect them in a negative way.  On the other hand these turbines could provide areas for new ecosystems as they act like artificial reefs or fish preserves.  Thus far not enough research has been conducted on the long term effects of off shore wind turbines on marine life, but current researchers know that this will need to be in consideration when building new turbine sin the future.  It is believed that these turbine should be kept away from areas where marine mammals, who are sensitive to sound, are more likely to pass by.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/10/141016123608.htm

http://www.siemens.co.uk/pool/news_press/news_archive/offshore-wind-turbines.jpg

Sneaky Sleeper Sharks

Recent studies conducted by Markus Horning of the Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State University suggest that the slow moving sleeper shark may be preying on Stellar sea lions.  Until recently it was widely believed that the incredibly slow sleeper shark, it only swims at 2 mph at most, were mostly scavengers but now these views have changed.  Horning has been tracking juvenile Stellar seals for 17 years and during this time he has recorded several strange deaths that are reported by the tags on the seals.  These tags indicate that the seals were killed by a cold blooded predator in deep water.  These findings make many believe that it was the cold blooded and sea floor dwelling sleeper sharks.  These sharks can grow larger than great whites and fishing records show that a there may be many sharks lurking in the depths.  These findings are non conclusive and more research is on going and may soon shed more light on these strange instances.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/10/141015143301.htm
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A Real Atlantis

During the several ice ages that have occurred in recent history, sea levels dropped significantly and added 40% of land to the continents say researchers looking at these now re-submerged areas.  When these great expanses of land were exposed they were home to plants and animals, including ancient people.  researchers are discovery ancient artifacts under the sea that point to prehistoric cultures and settlements that would have been on the coast.  Some of these sites are tens of thousands of years old and tell a lot about ancient peoples and their lives near the ocean.  Tis research has been named "Continental Shelf Prehistoric Research,"and combines the fields of oceanography archeology and geoscience.  Researchers not only look at the artifacts of these ancient civilizations, but also at ocean patterns and rising and falling ocean levels that would have affected these people.  These scientists working in this new field want support from European governments to help them progress in their research and study these sites before they are destroyed by erosion an other factors.  Researchers have found, hatchets, canoe paddles, hut foundations, simple flint blades, and many other items in these ancient sites.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/10/141006084908.htm

The Magnetic Sense of Dolphins

In recent research, scientists have found evidence that dolphins have a sense called magnetoreception, meaning they can perceive magnet signals.  This would mean that they could use the Earth's magnetic field to navigate through the oceans more precisely This would be a useful skill in follwing the migration patterns that lead them thousands of miles through the ocean.  Other animals are considered to have this skill, including: "turtles, rodents, insects, bats and even deer" says Dorothee Kremers, who works as an animal behaviorist expert at the Rennes University in France.  Researchers discovered this by using two identical barrels dropped into water, one was magnetized while the other was not, and then recorded how the dolphins reacted.  The dolphins swam much ftser over to the magnetized barrel than the unmagnetized one, which has lead them to believe that they can sense its magnetic field.  It is still unclear how dolphins can detect the Earth's magnetic field, it is possibly due to ferromagnetic particles in the dolphin's cells.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dolphins-may-use-magnetic-sense-as-gps/

http://blog.floridaholidays.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/dolphin.jpg

Horseshoe Crab Release

Over the past few years Rutgers University has released more than 250,000 horse shoe crabs into the wild near Cape May for several reasons.  Horseshoe crabs are an important part of the shore ecosystems, but there is a 90% mortality rate for these crabs in the wild, so Rutgers Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences grows these crabs and lets them develop enough to give them a better chance of survival and then releases them into the wild.  Horseshoe crabs are important for various reasons, they are an important food source for many endangered shore birds who depend on their eggs to make long migrations.  The decline in crab population has had a direct effect on the population of migrating shore birds, especially the red knot.  The horseshoe crab population is in danger from loss of habitat, commercial fishing, and pollution.  Fishermen use the horseshoe crabs when they are young as bait to catch eels and other fish.  The young horseshoe crabs are raised in large rectangular tanks where they can be observed which has allowed researcher to learn more about their habits and behaviors. Horse shoe crabs are also of interest to medical and drug companies because of a rare gene in their blood which they use to test contamination.   These scientists hope that their work will have a positive effect on not only horseshoe crabs but on entire ecosystems on the shore.

http://www.thedailyjournal.com/story/news/local/new-jersey/2014/09/29/rutgers-lab-churning-baby-horseshoe-crabs/16440393/
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Ancient Mollusk Recreated

Recently a 390 million year old mollusk was recreated using digital scanning and 3D printing at the university of Texas at Austin.  Until now, only fragments of fossils have been found of this rare and ancient mollusk, this has made reconstruction nearly impossible. But using the most complete specimen found to date they have built an accurate representation of what this creature would have looked like crawling on the sea floor millions of years ago.  Protobalanus spinicoranatus was resembled from fragments using something similar to a CT scanner, which is a fairly new technique, and then recreated using a 3D printer.  Instead of making a life size model the researchers made their's 12 times larger than the real spinicorantus, which is only one inch in length.  The tough plating and sharp spines on the mollusk give clues to the dangerous environment it lived in so many millennia ago.  This study is a great example of using modern technologies to better understand ancient wonders from the ocean.

http://images.nationalgeographic.com/wpf/media-live/photos/000/593/cache/ancient-mollusk-found-recreated-3d-printer_59370_990x742.jpg

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/09/120918-ancient-mollusk-reconstruction-3d-animals/

Deep Sea Mining

Over the past few thousand years man has been mining on land for precious metals like gold, silver, copper, and so on but now new developments in underwater mining has opened up a whole new way to dig for these materials.  The excessive mining on land for metals that people find desirable or useful has made it harder and harder to find easily accessible deposits of these valuable items.  But now a company called Nautilus Minerals is using giant machines to tap into the rich reserves of copper, gold and other metals deep with in the ocean (1600 meters).  The are finding mines with grades of over 8%, a massive improvement to the mine son land which average around .57%, these deposits deep within the pacific ocean rival those found before the bronze age on land.The CEO of Nautilus Minerals say that the technology to mine deep on the oceans surface is there it just needs to be used.  The machines they use to mine these metals weighs 760 tons and will break up and scoop up the valuable minerals on the sea floor.  The company hopes to start their mining of the coast of Papua New Guinea, and a similar mine on land would cost 6 times what it will under water.  There are some environment al concerns about the project but deep sea mining seems to be a viable method for the future.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/news/earth_climate/oceanography/
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Brown Tide

Researchers from Columbia University have been studying the "brown tides" that plague many US coastlines.  The culprit to blame for these dense clouds of murky brown water is Aureococcus anophagefferens, a microscopic algae.  This algae, which was first noticed in the 80's, has terrible ecological effects on the ecosystems present in these coastlines; and a large drop in natural flora and fauna has been observed.  Researchers say that Aureococcus is genetically wired to thrive in these coastlines and bodies of water polluted by human activity.  The genes that make this algae able to survive in murky but nutrient rich water has made it extremely successful in the waters where humans have been polluting it with lawn fertilizer, sewage and other providers of nutrients.  Aureococcus's success has come at the cost of other species in these environments who are pushed out by the overwhelming algae; shellfish and sea grasses have all but disappeared in some areas. Aureococcus actually excretes arsenic from its cells and blocks out sunlight for other plants.  Brown tide is a spreading problem witnessed in the Great lakes, China and South Africa now.

Article:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/140905153013.htm
Image: http://cdn.newsday.com/polopoly_fs/1.1306998.1247943585!/image/1060057217.jpg_gen/derivatives/display_600/1060057217.jpg