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Oceans

The Boston Light still shines brightly at night in Boston Harbor.

Cool Finds

The Oldest Lighthouse in the United States Just Celebrated 300 Years of Service

The Boston Light still welcomes sailors to Boston Harbor

A Fresnel lens from the Boon Island Lighthouse off of southern Maine.

Cool Finds

The U.S. Government Is Suing for a Set of Lighthouse Lenses

The lenses could be worth up to $600,000

The monument protects an array of endemic, threatened and endangered species, including the sperm whale.

Obama Declares the First Atlantic Ocean National Marine Monument

With the announcement of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, Obama solidifies his legacy as an ocean guardian

Cool Finds

Awesome New Maps Show Alaska in High-Resolution Detail

The ArcticDEMs are the first set of detailed elevation maps of the Great White North

Hurricanes Madeline and Lester

Trending Today

The Science Behind Hawaii’s Double Hurricane

Having two cyclones in the ocean is not rare, but when they get too close to each other things can get crazy

LiDAR imaging of the bioherms beyond the Great Barrier Reef, which is marked in red.

Cool Finds

The Great Barrier Reef Has Been Hiding Another Massive Reef

The iconic coral reef sits above an even deeper one

Cool Finds

Rare Great White Shark Nursery Discovered Off the Coast of New York

Researchers find North Atlantic great whites spend their first 20 years in the waters off Montauk, Long Island

Papahānaumokuākea may be a mouthful, but now it's the world's largest marine protected area.

Trending Today

President Obama Just Created the World’s Largest Marine Protected Area

Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument is now twice the size of Texas

Journey to the Center of Earth

This 340-Million-Year-Old Ocean Crust Could Date Back to Pangaea

Researchers believe they’ve found the world’s oldest ocean crust

Cool Finds

Adorable Stubby Squid Found Off the Coast of Southern California

Researchers aboard the E/V Nautilus happened across a particularly cute stubby squid

New Research

Eerie Video Shows How Coral Bleaches

Time-lapse video captures the coral’s convulsions while it expels the algae that give it color

Move over, tortoises: These sharks take the prize for oldest living vertebrate.

New Research

These Ridiculously Long-Lived Sharks Are Older Than the United States, and Still Living It Up

The lifespans of these marine methuselahs may double those of oldest living tortoises, a creative dating method finds

California condors rebounded after almost going extinct—but that doesn't mean the precious, weird birds are in the clear.

New Research

Humans Still Threaten Endangered Condors

Thanks to industrial byproducts and pesticides, birds face more contamination than their cousins inland

Sharks are a broad and diverse group of species, but in the public imagination we tend to treat them all the same.

Humans Have Promoted the Reef Shark to Apex Predator

How these diverse predators ended up getting all the credit

Rising drought. Surging seas. Spiking temperatures. 2015 was just another year in a long pattern of Earth's changing climate.

Age of Humans

World’s Climate Hit Extremes, Shattered Multiple Records in 2015

From rising temperatures and ocean levels to record greenhouse gas levels, 2015 was a rough year for planet Earth

A brittle star swimming over a field of polymetallic nodules

Journey to the Center of Earth

Future Deep Sea Mining Sites Are Bursting With Rare Marine Species

The area is full of rare metals, but a new study shows it’s a hub for deep-sea diversity, too

The Great Blue Hole, a 354-foot deep cavern and popular dive site in Belize's Lighthouse Reef

Journey to the Center of Earth

Explore Some of the World’s Deepest Blue Holes

The Dragon Hole in the South China Sea is now the “world’s deepest” underwater sinkhole. Learn why these geologic wonders form in oceans around the globe

Corvette Stingray

These Sleek, Sexy Cars Were All Inspired By Fish

You’ve heard about the Stingray, but what about the Bionic Boxfish?

The purple orb, which may be a new species of nudibranch

Cool Finds

Researchers Find Mysterious Purple Orb in the Channel Islands

The creature stumped the team and could be a new species

The skeleton of a new species of beaked whale in Unalaska high school

New Research

New Species of Beaked Whale Discovered in Alaska

DNA analysis and a washed up corpse confirm this a new dark-colored species of beaked whale

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