ocean

Microplastics May Heat Marine Turtle Nests and Produce More Females

Microplastics May Heat Marine Turtle Nests and Produce More Females

By Mariana Fuentes Have you ever considered that small pieces of plastic less than 5 millimeters long, or smaller than a pencil eraser head, called microplastics, can affect large marine vertebrates like sea turtles? My research team first discovered this disturbing fact when we started to quantify the amount and type of microplastic at loggerhead […]

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    How a Small Piece of Plastic Wrap Likely Killed a Harp Seal

    How a Small Piece of Plastic Wrap Likely Killed a Harp Seal

    A young harp seal that washed up dead on the Scottish Isle of Skye last Friday likely died of health complications after ingesting a small piece of plastic wrap, according to scientists who examined the animal. Scientists with the Scottish Marine Animal Strandings Scheme (SMASS) performed a necropsy on the animal and described it as […]

    Chile to Become First Country in the Americas to Ban Plastic Bags

    Chile to Become First Country in the Americas to Ban Plastic Bags

    Chile is set to become the first country in the Americas to ban plastic bags to help protect the environment and especially the ocean. Congress unanimously approved the measure on Wednesday. The bill was initially designed to outlaw plastic bags in Patagonia, but was later extended nationwide. President Sebastian Piñera celebrated the news. “We have […]

    Slow Motion Ocean: Why Are North Atlantic Currents Weakening?

    Slow Motion Ocean: Why Are North Atlantic Currents Weakening?

    By Alex Kirby The Gulf Stream is slowing, the North Atlantic is cooling. An international scientific study has found new and harder evidence that one of the planet’s key heat pumps, the currents which exchange warmth between the tropics and the Arctic, are weaker today than at any time in the last thousand years. The […]

    Great Pacific Garbage Patch Is Now Twice the Size of Texas

    Great Pacific Garbage Patch Is Now Twice the Size of Texas

    The Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) floating off the coast of California now measures 1.6 million square kilometers (about 1 million square miles), according to a startling new study. To put that into perspective, the clump of trash is about the size of three Frances, or twice the size of Texas. Not only that, the […]

    ‘Plastic, Plastic, So Much Plastic!’: Diver Films Sea of Trash Off Bali

    ‘Plastic, Plastic, So Much Plastic!’: Diver Films Sea of Trash Off Bali

    British diver Rich Horner posted footage of his plastic-infested swim off Bali’s Manta Point on Saturday. “The ocean currents brought us in a lovely gift of a slick of jellyfish, plankton, leaves, branches, fronds, sticks, etc…. Oh, and some plastic,” Horner wrote on Facebook. “Some plastic bags, plastic bottles, plastic cups, plastic sheets, plastic buckets, […]

    Watch Dramatic Elephant Rescue 10 Miles Off Sri Lanka Coast

    Watch Dramatic Elephant Rescue 10 Miles Off Sri Lanka Coast

    Sri Lanken Navy divers and wildlife officials saved an elephant that was swept about eight nautical miles (roughly 10 miles) off the coast of Kokkuthuduwai, Kokilai on Tuesday. The rescue team was able to carefully direct the animal towards the coast with ropes after a 12-hour effort. Dramatic footage of the rescue shows the elephant […]