Oceanography
Ocean Acidification and the Battle Between Coral and Seaweed
Ocean acidification creates plenty of potential problems for life in the oceans, but corals might have it the worst
May 17, 2011 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Hydrothermal Vents Fertilize Oceans With Fool's Gold
Deep in the oceans, hydrothermal vents spew superheated water full of dissolved minerals. The vents spawn diverse communities of unique creatures that not only withstand the extreme temperatures and acidity but even depend on the chemicals in the water to live. New research in Nature Geoscience sho...
May 11, 2011 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Humpback Whale Songs Spread From West to East
During humpback whale breeding season (July to October in the south), males all sing the same song. That song can evolve rapidly, and before long all the whales are singing the new tune. When scientists analyzed the songs sung by whales in the southern Pacific Ocean, they made a curious discovery—t...
April 14, 2011 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Fourteen Fun Facts About Squid, Octopuses and Other Cephalopods
Most people are familiar with cephalopods, even if they don't realize it. Those tasty fried calamari, for example, are squid, as are the octopuses you sometimes see on a restaurant menu. But the cephalopod world is huger and more fascinating than the limited taste of the restaurant world, as Wendy ...
March 10, 2011 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Marine Archaeologists Find Shipwreck Linked to Moby Dick
George Pollard Jr. was not a very lucky sea captain. In 1819, he became captain of the whaling ship Essex, out of Nantucket, Massachusetts, and headed for the Pacific Ocean. Just four days out, though, a storm struck and damaged the ship. Still, Pollard pressed on, rounding Cape Horn in January 182...
February 15, 2011 |
By Sarah Zielinski
The Shark That Will Give You More Nightmares Than Jaws
If the movie Jaws scared you away from swimming, perhaps you should avoid the "Journey through Time" section of the Sant Ocean Hall at the National Museum of Natural History. There you'll find a collection of fossil marine life dating back as far as 500 million years ago. In one case is possibly th...
January 26, 2011 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Finding Science in the Art of Arcimboldo
On a recent trip to the National Gallery of Art, I stopped in to see the Arcimboldo exhibit, which we feature in the magazine this month. When I saw the images in print, I had been fascinated by their weirdness—the artist made faces and heads out of compilations of images of fruit, flowers, books o...
January 07, 2011 |
By Sarah Zielinski
La Nina Brings Flooding to Australia
If you think everything is bigger in Texas, then you've never been to Australia, where an area as large as that U.S. state is now under water. And flooding across this section of the state of Queensland, north of Brisbane, could last for weeks. The culprit? La Niña.La Niña is the cold water counter...
January 05, 2011 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Looking Forward to the International Year of Chemistry
The United Nations has dubbed 2011 the International Year of Chemistry, with the unifying theme "Chemistry—our life, our future."The goals of IYC2011 are to increase the public appreciation of chemistry in meeting world needs, to encourage interest in chemistry among young people, and to generate...
December 30, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Ten Science Stories You Should Have Read
Is your office rather empty this week? Looking for something to read to fill the time? How about some great science and nature stories from Smithsonian? Here are my ten favorites from the past year:The Truth About Lions (January): Staff writer Abigail Tucker visits Craig Packer, who has been runnin...
December 28, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Where Little Fiddler Crabs Like to Hide
Life can be tough for a fiddler crab. So many other creatures find them tasty: migratory birds, shrimp, fish, raccoons, turtles, even other species of crab. Adults, at least, can dig themselves a burrow and fight off predators. But juveniles don't—or can't—seek shelter in the sand. They can hide be...
November 10, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Did Broken Buoys Fail to Warn Victims of the Mentawai Tsunami?
A 7.7-magnitude earthquake on Monday set off a tsunami that leveled whole villages on the Mentawai Islands of Indonesia. At least 343 people were killed, and more are still missing. Survivors say they had no warning that a giant wall of water was headed their way: two buoys off the islands that wer...
October 28, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Is the Tsunami Warning System Broken?
Survivors of the Mentawai Tsunami say they had no warning that a giant wall of water was headed their way
October 28, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Ocean More Diverse than Expected, Census Finds
Ten years ago a group of marine scientists founded the Census of Marine Life and set out to answer three questions: What did live in the oceans? What does live in the oceans? What will live in the oceans? More than 2,700 scientists would participate in the Census on more than 540 expeditions around...
October 08, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
The World's Oldest Living Organisms
Just how long has the world's oldest living thing been on this planet? That would be Siberian actinobacteria, and they've been here for some 400,000 to 600,000 years, longer than our species has existed.Photographer Rachel Sussman is keeping track of these ancient specimens. She's been photographin...
September 15, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Hurricanes' Dangerous Rip Currents
The U.S. East Coast is likely to miss out on most of the destructive forces of Hurricanes Danielle and Earl this week, with both just skimming by off the coast. But a miss on land doesn't mean that the storms have no effect. In fact, they've both brought powerful waves and, more worrisome, rip curr...
September 02, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
A Jellyfish Summer
Last week, Bruckner Chase of Santa Cruz set out to become the second person ever to swim across Monterey Bay. He intended to use the publicity surrounding the 14-hour slog to raise awareness about ocean issues.But then the ocean did a little awareness raising of its own. Thirty minutes into the swi...
August 30, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
The Mimic Octopus
The mimic octopus (Thaumoctopus mimicus) has some interesting ways to keep from being eaten. The brown-and-white stripes on its arms resemble the patterning on venomous sea snakes and the coloring of spiny lionfish. And it can vary its shape and positioning to look like a variety of different under...
August 27, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Hurricanes and the Color of the Oceans
Little kids draw the ocean as blue, but the seas are more complex in color than that. They can be a rich turquoise, like the shallow waters of the Bahamas, or a dark greeny blue, nearly black, out in the middle of the deep oceans. Depth and life, specifically phytoplankton, both influence the ocean...
August 16, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Jellyfish: The Next King of the Sea
As the world's oceans are degraded, will they be dominated by jellyfish?
August 2010 |
By Abigail Tucker
