The ocean, covering more than 70% of the Earth’s surface, is home to an astonishing diversity of life, much of which remains mysterious and unexplored. In a groundbreaking effort to uncover the secrets of marine life, scientists have conducted the largest DNA study of the ocean to date. This monumental research effort has expanded our ...
Something extraordinary might be happening on a moon millions of miles from Earth. Imagine a world where sunlight never reaches the surface, where icy shells blanket hidden oceans, yet the possibility of life still flickers in the darkness. Europa, one of Jupiter’s largest moons, has captivated scientists for decades with the tantalizing idea that it ...
Picture yourself out at sea, gazing at the boundless expanse of ocean when suddenly, an enormous creature emerges from the depths, adorned with an unexpected accessory – a hat made of seaweed! Scientists have recently uncovered a few reasons as to why whales have been observed wearing kelp hats. Introduction This enchanting phenomenon, termed “kelping” ...
You know those little glow-in-the-dark stars that dot the ceilings of children’s rooms? Yeah, I didn’t have stars. Instead, I had little glowing dolphins, starfish, and sharks “swimming” on my ceiling at night. As it turns out, my room wasn’t the only place where some of these fish glow in the dark. Introduction A team ...
Our expert-vetted content is grounded in current scientific publications, yet we acknowledge science’s ever-evolving nature. Read our full editorial and disclosure policy. Introduction The air-water interface signifies a major barrier for most organisms. However, despite the difficulty, some creatures manage to temporarily breach this interface for a number of reasons including hunting, escaping predators, regulating body temperatures, and parasite ...
Imagine a place on our planet so vast, so mysterious, that it has no owner. Picture a realm teeming with bizarre life forms, where sunlight never shines and the pressure would crush a submarine like a tin can. This is the deep sea—a world that covers nearly half of Earth’s surface, yet belongs to no ...
Imagine a world where the boundaries between “fish” and “not-fish” blur, where the ancestors of birds and mammals once swam in ancient oceans, and where the line between what we call a fish and every other vertebrate is stranger than you might ever guess. The story of vertebrate evolution is a wild ride through deep ...
Imagine a silent world beneath the ocean, where darkness stretches for miles and the only clues about what lurks below come from mysterious echoes. Now picture the confusion when state-of-the-art military sonar, designed to detect enemy submarines, stumbles upon a massive, impenetrable layer that seems to move with the tides. The culprit? Not a new ...
Imagine plunging into a world where sunlight barely penetrates, and the darkness is suddenly broken by mysterious flashes of blue, green, and even red light. This is not a scene from a fantasy film, but a nightly spectacle happening deep beneath the ocean’s surface. In the ocean twilight zone, bioluminescent creatures paint glowing highways through ...
Imagine wandering through a tide pool, your eyes tracing the mysterious shapes hidden in the sand and seaweed. Suddenly, a shell moves—not with the gentle push of a wave, but with purposeful intent. It’s not a shell at all, but a crab carrying its home on its back, sometimes flaunting a flamboyant collection of decorations. ...
