By Gary Griggs and Charles Lester The California coast is an edge. It’s the place where 1,100 miles of shoreline meets the largest ocean on the planet. Many different forces collide there, and a lot of exciting things happen. The coast is a geological edge, zippered to North America by 800 miles of the San […]
It’s becoming clear that plastic pollution is everywhere, even at the northernmost tip of the planet. Scientists have recently found chunks of polystyrene on ice floes in the Central Arctic Ocean, about 1,000 miles from the north pole—an area that could not be accessed before due to sea ice, the Guardian reports. But the international […]
When the Aztecs founded Tenochtitlán in 1325, they built it on a large island on Lake Texcoco. Its eventual 200,000-plus inhabitants relied on canals, levees, dikes, floating gardens, aqueducts and bridges for defense, transportation, flood control, drinking water and food. After the Spaniards conquered the city in 1521, they drained the lake and built Mexico […]
A new study highlights how our laundry contributes to major oceanic pollution. The Hudson River could be dumping about 300 million clothing fibers into the Atlantic Ocean per day, according to new research published in the Marine Pollution Bulletin. For the study, researchers collected 142 water samples throughout the length of the Hudson River and […]
By Marlene Cimons Seafood lovers be warned. That delectable slab of seared tuna on your plate soon could become a lot smaller—and more scarce—thanks to climate change. As ocean temperatures climb, many species of fish—tuna among them—likely will shrink, decreasing in size by as much as 30 percent, according to a new study published in […]
By Louisa Casson We know our oceans and coastlines are choking on plastic. We’ve all seen plastic bottles, food wrappers and plastic bags polluting beaches, and been horrified by the stories of marine creatures like seabirds and whales starving when their stomachs become packed full of plastic. Scientists have shown that up to 12 million […]
By Katherine Ripley On Aug. 19, around 4 p.m., 5,000 salmon escaped from Cooke Aquaculture, an aquaculture farm in the Puget Sound in Washington. There have been some anecdotal accounts of animals behaving strangely in response to the solar eclipse that happened on Aug. 21. Could this salmon jailbreak have been the animals’ reaction to […]
As ocean waters warm and acidify, corals across the globe are disappearing. Desperate to prevent the demise of these vital ecosystems, researchers have developed ways to “garden” corals, buying the oceans some much-needed time. University of Miami Rosenstiel School marine biologist Diego Lirman sat down with Josh Chamot of Nexus Media to describe the process […]
We know that the massive amount of plastic that’s continually dumped into our oceans can end up in the stomachs of marine species (and ultimately on our plates), but why would they want to eat it? Well, new research suggests that fish are not just accidentally gobbling up our plastic trash—they could be actively seeking […]