Ocean

For nearly 200 years, biologists felt they had seen it all when it came to nudibranch species, with only six types identified around the world. Then, scientists in Taiwan chanced upon another, the size of a grain of rice, that no one knew existed.

A deep-sea mystery that has stumped researchers for the past two-and-a-half years has a solution, with marine scientists finally determining the identity of a bizarre “golden orb” recovered from the Pacific in 2023.

Bus-sized cephalopods reminiscent of the legendary kraken may have sat at the top of the food chain, using their smarts to hunt down prey in the oceans of the Late Cretaceous.

The rules of biology have been torn up by a small fish in the Pacific that steals light-producing molecules it from its food to make it bioluminescent, providing an "invisibility cloak" it needs for protection. It's the only example of kleptoproteinism we know of.

It came from the depths. A severed foot that refused to die, regenerating in an act of survival unlike anything we’ve ever seen. It could be a great opening to a horror novel, but this discovery of a “real-life zombie” is no work of fiction.

An ancient Roman ship was repaired multiple times, with multiple techniques, and in multiple places around the Adriatic Sea before it sank, a new study suggests. The findings highlight the expansive nature of trade and technical transfer in the Roman Republic.

A new study reveals jellyfish not only sleep but do so for the same portion of their day as humans, spending about one-third of the day sleeping. The findings also suggest that sleep evolved way before the brain to help maintain cells under stress.

The first ever study to document a direct relationship between earthquake activity at the bottom of the ocean and phytoplankton growth at the surface changes the way scientists in the future will model ecosystems.

At the bottom of the ocean, where metal-rich hydrothermal vents exhale poison, a bright yellow worm has mastered an impossible art: turning lethal elements into armor. Meet Paralvinella hessleri, the deep-sea super-worm that turns arsenic into crystal.

Nitrogen fixation is a process where certain microbes convert nitrogen gas into ammonium, a form phytoplankton can use. This wasn't thought to happen in the Arctic, but new evidence suggests it might, offering a fresh supply of nitrogen to fuel life.

Oceanic manta rays make extreme dives of more than 1,200 meters – three-quarters of a mile – but it's not to feed. Instead, the mantas are calibrating their own kind of Google Maps as soon as they find themselves out beyond the continental shelf.

Scientists in China have devised a way to capture carbon dioxide stored in seawater, and convert it into biodegradable plastic precursors. This approach could reduce the acidification effect of CO2 emissions in marine ecosystems, with an added bonus.