|
|
|
More: next 50 >>
Google has applied for a new patent, this time for a water-based data center. The company plans to build several systems more or less at a close distance from the shore, as land is continuously being crowded by huge data centers, which use a lot of conventional energy. Each center, if approved by the US Patent &... |
8 September 2008
10:31 GMT |
 |
|
1. Gannets and boobies are coastal seabirds famous for their dive for fish. They have been thought to be related to the pelicans, but DNA analysis revealed that their closest relatives are the snakebirds and, more distantly, the cormorants. The oldest known relative of the gannet is the Odontopterix, which lived 50 ... |
12 May 2008
11:27 GMT |
|
|
Toothed whales represent the diving champions of all air-breathing animals. Sperm whales dive at depths of over 1,200 m (3,600 ft) for more than an hour, while Cuvier's beaked whale (a type of toothed whale) holds the record for diving amongst any sea mammal - 1,900 m (6,330 ft), that translate into 190 atmosphe... |
9 May 2008
04:25 GMT |
|
|
Clime can be modeled by living organisms. For instance, it is a well known fact that more rain falls over a forest than over other areas. Termites and ruminants (cows and sheep) release huge amounts of methane, a powerful greenhouse effect gas, in the atmosphere. A new research published in the Proceedings of the Nat... |
7 May 2008
03:35 GMT |
|
|
1. Since always, penguins have posed a huge issue for taxonomists. No one could say which group of living birds was closest to the penguins, because of their peculiar traits like the wing turned into a flipper and their oddly shaped feathers, which are uniform and resemble small stiff scales. For long, this made biol... |
5 May 2008
09:47 GMT |
|
|
This is one of the most sounding victories of cryptozoology. For long, the giant squids were thought to be just legendary creatures, the kraken of the northern sagas. Later on, the individuals washed ashore helped change this view. In recent years, fishermen even began to capture individuals. The one caught in Februa... |
30 April 2008
14:06 GMT |
|
|
The water, sea water in particular, is the realm of the algae. Algae represent the generic name for several groups of inferior aquatic plants that make photosynthesis. Thus, they require light in order to live. Part of the sunlight is reflected on the surface of the water. As we go deeper, the intensity of sunlight d... |
29 April 2008
11:14 GMT |
|
|
Pearls are the only gemstones of organic origin and the second most valuable after diamonds. Given this, it's no wonder that pearl fishing, even if dangerous and exhausting, is an occupation widely spread on tropical coasts, from the shores of the Indian Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico and Panama. The "producers" of... |
29 April 2008
10:14 GMT |
|
|
Nowadays, the seas belong mainly to fish and sea mammals. But during the Mesozoic time, the sea was a reptilian realm. There are very few reptiles living in the sea now compared to the times of the dinosaurs. 1.Today, there are seven species of sea turtles. They appeared during the Jurassic period (200-150 Ma ago), t... |
21 April 2008
11:26 GMT |
|
|
The sea level rise is well understood in the current conditions of global warming. Glaciers and ice sheets are melting fast. But it seems that we are largely unaware of the dimension of the phenomenon, as a new research presented at the European Geosciences Union conference in Vienna, Austria, this week, shows that b... |
18 April 2008
03:57 GMT |
|
|
A seaside cure may actually harm your health nowadays. A new research published in "Nature Geoscience" shows that we are in fact exposed to ozone smog on the coastal areas.The team led by James Roberts, from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colora... |
9 April 2008
03:23 GMT |
|
|
A protected area with multiple functions, Camargue Regional Park was created in 1970, in the department Bouches du Rhone, for protecting various bird species, wetland ecosystems and to find viable methods of exploiting the natural resources without degrading it. In 1990, the 85,000 hectares of the park were labeled a... |
7 April 2008
16:11 GMT |
|
|
Phoenicians made one of the most powerful maritime nations of the Mediterranean. No doubt, their most powerful colony was Carthage, in northern Africa, in today's Tunis, founded in 814 BC by Elissa, the sister of the king Pygmalion of Tyre, after her husband Acerbas was assassinated. Frightened for her life, Eli... |
7 April 2008
08:55 GMT |
|
|
The Bermuda Triangle turned famous because of the publicity made around the disappearance of sea and aerial ships recorded in an area of the Atlantic Ocean, the Sargasso Sea, located east of Florida's shore, including the archipelagos of Bermudas, Bahamas, and the islands of Haiti and Puerto Rico. Many believe t... |
3 April 2008
09:03 GMT |
|
|
The phrase "sex is one of the oldest professions" has got a scientific proof. A recent research published in the journal "Science" describes the oldest known animal "caught in the act." This ancient sexual encounter occurred amongst 565-Ma-old tubular invertebrates called Funisia dorothea.Funisia fossils were found i... |
3 April 2008
02:52 GMT |
|
|
Dolphins are considered the fastest sea mammals. Smaller dolphins reach 35-40 km (22-25 mi) per hour, but the orca or killer whale, that is in fact the world's largest dolphin, reaches 54 km (33 mi) per hour, which is a lot in the water. The question is: why not faster? The answer is given by a new research publ... |
1 April 2008
03:25 GMT |
|
|
Sharks gained their dominance in the seas owing to their formidable teeth-jaws, speed and senses. For hunting, sharks are endowed with keen sight, olfaction and hearing (they pick up sounds from 2 km (1.2 mi) away). The lateral line helps them detect vibrations produced by a struggle in the water, like the convulsion... |
28 March 2008
07:46 GMT |
|
|
Crocodiles are the closest living relatives of dinosaurs (if we exclude birds). Surprisingly or not, they evolved from land animals, fact revealed for example by their longer hind limbs. The first crocodiles during the Triassic (early Mesozoic) even ran on two feet!Now, a Brazilian team has described in a study publi... |
27 March 2008
05:29 GMT |
|
|
One group of huge marine reptiles that dominated the seas during the dinosaur eras (Jurassic and Cretaceous, 200 to 65 Ma ago) was represented by the plesiosaurs, long-necked small-headed carnivore animals with flippers resembling those of the sea turtles. These were the animals that inspired the legend of the Loch N... |
25 March 2008
04:51 GMT |
|
|
Sharks are amongst the least understood creatures. A complex mythology depicting the shark as a mystical animal emerged in many cultures. Polynesian myths and legends talk about Kauhuhu, the shark god, which lives in a deep submarine cave or palace that cannot be seen by anybody. Up to 11 shark-gods are found in the ... |
15 March 2008
07:46 GMT |
|
|
Sea can be as deceptive as a mermaid. There are sea anemones or sea cucumbers, and none of them are plants. There are even sea lilies, only that these "flowers" are related to starfish, sea urchins and... sea cucumbers. Crinoids or sea lilies amaze us through their diversified shapes and colors. Sea lilies are amongs... |
13 March 2008
16:51 GMT |
|
|
Real cases of people saved from drowning by dolphins are known from ancient Greek and Roman stories to the legends of the Polynesians and Maori of the New Zealand. There were cases of dolphins which defended shipwrecked people swimming in the water from shark attacks, till rescue ships appeared. But this behavior is ... |
13 March 2008
07:14 GMT |
|
|
Don't think that tsunamis are something connected only to the Indo-Pacific areas and that summering on the Mediterranean shores is safe. A mega-tsunami devastated eastern Mediterranean in 365 A.D. And this could repeat. A new research published in "Nature Geoscience" has detected the geological fault off the coa... |
11 March 2008
05:32 GMT |
|
|
One day, diseased brains may be cured. And I'm not referring to going to a shrink or taking pills. The sea cucumber skin has been the inspiration for a new material that may treat Parkinson's disease and other damages of the nervous tissue. This material could rapidly change from rigid to flexible and vice ... |
10 March 2008
06:17 GMT |
|
|
The killer whale, or orca, is one of those animals with an unmistakable color pattern that cannot fool even an uninitiated person. But now, researchers have taken pictures of a white killer whale near the Aleutian Islands (western Alaska). The beast of the myths turned into reality."I had heard about this whale, but ... |
8 March 2008
05:46 GMT |
|
|
Fishing is an activity well suited for relaxation on a weekend afternoon. Or so everybody thought before watching Deadliest Catch, a Discovery Channel show about the guys that go fishing for King Crab in the waters of the Bering strait. There's a real chance of death and injury there and the sea is pretty unforg... |
28 February 2008
04:18 GMT |
|
|
This seems to be the most extraordinary reptile of the seas to have ever existed. Measuring 15 m (50 ft) in length (as much as a humpback whale) and possessing teeth the size of cucumbers, the giant marine reptile lived 150 million years ago and it was first encountered in Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago located ju... |
28 February 2008
02:47 GMT |
|
|
1. Seals are of two types: eared seals (sea lions and fur seals) and true seals (earless seals). Scientists thought the eared seals and walruses had a common origin with bears and dogs from an ancestors that lived on northern Pacific shores, while genuine seals had a common origin with otters, in the northern Atlanti... |
27 February 2008
09:06 GMT |
|
|
There is only one true living sea lizard: the marine iguana (Amblyrhynchus cristatus), a native of the Galapagos Islands. Despite their terrific look, with short snout, black eyes, large mouth and the crest of spikes (which are in fact soft at touch), long, flattened and powerful tail, long, sharp claws that give the... |
26 February 2008
14:06 GMT |
|
|
Biscayne National Park is located at the southeastern extremity of the North American continent, in southeastern Florida. It comprises 750 km²(300 mi²) of islands, clear waters, reef corrals and mangrove forests, preserving Biscayne Bay, one of the top scuba diving areas in the United States.The zone was declared a N... |
26 February 2008
09:41 GMT |
|
|
1. The killer whale or orca is, together with the Great White Shark, the top predator of the oceans. The name of "whale" is deceptive, as this cetacean is not even a toothed whale, but a dolphin. That's right, the largest of all: males can be up to 8 m (26 ft) long and weigh up to 8 tonnes. The mouth is adorned ... |
25 February 2008
10:00 GMT |
|
|
The discovery of the tropical alga Caulerpa taxifolia in the Mediterranean Sea, at the end of the '80s, triggered a great warning signal. The "killer alga" was declared "harmful for the Mediterranean ecosystem", and its rapid reproduction an "ecological catastrophe". The alga appeared to have escaped from the Mo... |
25 February 2008
08:57 GMT |
|
|
1.The populations of Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and other parts of the southeastern Asia are called Malayan. These people originated in a migration of Mongoloid tribes coming from Taiwan. They first entered Philippines and from there colonized the whole Pacific and Indonesia. But before the Austronesian migrati... |
23 February 2008
02:56 GMT |
|
|
The Bible tells us about the universal deluge, whose unique survivors were Noah and his arch in which he had loaded a pair of each animal species of the Earth. After 150 years of drifting, Noah landed on the Mount Ararat and life turned back to normal. The echoes of catastrophic deluges were found in many civilizatio... |
22 February 2008
14:06 GMT |
|
|
We are looking for new worlds on other planets, and we don't even know the worlds hosted by our own. A large array of giant mysterious creatures have been found by a recent two-month expedition in the freezing waters of Antarctica, including huge sea spiders and worms. The new specimens have been found inhabitin... |
21 February 2008
04:31 GMT |
|
|
Snails make a group comprising over 75,000 species. Most snails are marine, but they also inhabit freshwater and terrestrial habitats, even dry ones. One group of sea snails are called Opistobranchia (the translation of the scientific name means "fore gills", as these organs, when existent, are located behind the vis... |
18 February 2008
10:39 GMT |
|
|
The coral reefs form the largest biological structures on Earth. And the largest coral structure in the world is the Great Coral Barrier off the shore of northeastern Australia (parallel to the Queensland's shore), located in the Coral Sea: it is 2,010 km (1,200 mi) long and 2 to 150 km (1.2-92 mi) wide, which w... |
11 February 2008
14:06 GMT |
|
|
The longest migration previously known was that of the Arctic tern (Sterna paradisaea), which nests in the Arctic zone, in the tundra region, and winters in the Antarctica (when there is the Austral summer). Due to this 19,000 km (12,000 mi) journey, the bird sees two summers annually and more daylight than any other... |
30 January 2008
05:47 GMT |
|
|
1. The shore seems to be the edge of the continent, but that's not true: the continents continue under the sea, on a strip edging each continent, and called continental shelf. How much of the continental shelf is covered by the sea depends on how much ice is stocked in the Polar Ice. 2. Around 10,000 years ago, ... |
28 January 2008
08:33 GMT |
|
|
1. You may believe that Mount Everest is the tallest in the world, with its 8,848 m (29,450 ft) in altitude. Yet, it was proven that the volcano Mauna Loa from Hawaii is taller by 2,300 m (7,660 ft), if we measure it from its base on the bottom of the ocean. 2. The mapping of the oceanic bottom revealed oceans are ex... |
18 January 2008
07:41 GMT |
|
|
1.Eared seals originated from Enaliarctidae, small mammals that inhabited the northern shores of the Pacific 12-13 million years ago. The first known eared seal is Pithanotaria starri, a small seal which lived 11 million years ago. Males were the same size as females.Eight million years ago, the first proper seals ap... |
16 January 2008
16:50 GMT |
|
|
1.European sailors navigating, a few centuries ago, in tropical waters could not believe their eyes: they were seeing mermaids, common in the sea folklore. The creature were fish-like from the waist beyond, had a pair of breasts in the chest area, and their flippers and heads vaguely resembled human head and arms fro... |
9 January 2008
15:32 GMT |
|
|
Try to hold your breath for more than 2-3 minutes, and those around you will have to call the ambulance. But the sperm whale can dive for more than one hour to depths greater than 1,200 meters (roughly 4,000 feet), with average dives of 45 minutes, to depths of 600-1,000 meters (1,968 to 3,280 feet). Elephant seals c... |
20 December 2007
03:56 GMT |
|
|
The largest river in Southeastern Asia, Mekong is also the 11th-longest river in the world and the 12th-largest in volume (discharging 475 km³ of water annually). Its estimated length is 4,880 km (3,032 mi), and it drains an area of 810,000 km² (313,000 sq mi). From the Tibetan Plateau it runs through Yunnan (China),... |
18 December 2007
06:48 GMT |
|
|
Ancient seas were dominated by huge monstrous reptiles, like plesiosaurs, marine reptile with flipper like members, similar to those found in modern marine turtles, but with very long necks, quite similar to the monster from the stories about the seasnake. They disappeared because of the same event that led to the ex... |
6 December 2007
05:04 GMT |
|
|
1.Ten million years ago, walruses were the most diverse seals of the Pacific Ocean; some ate fish, other mollusks and bottom invertebrates. Five million years ago, walruses of California ate clams and sucked their content, missing lateral teeth for this purpose; this is an extinct branch.Modern walruses evolved from ... |
5 December 2007
16:53 GMT |
|
|
Whales may be the largest animals ever, but, despite this, the pharynx of the baleen whales (true whales) is so narrow that they cannot swallow anything larger than a herring. Still, their enormous mouths suggest they have a huge gulp. And in some species, the so-called rorquals, that include humpback whales and blue... |
28 November 2007
05:40 GMT |
|
|
Today the largest living arthropod is the Japanese spider crab, Macrocheira kaempferi, which has a leg span of up to 4 m (13 ft) (but the body is just 37 cm (15 in) long) and a weight of up to 20 kg (44 pounds). (Arthropods are invertebrates with an exoskeleton and articulated limbs, like spiders, insects, crustacean... |
21 November 2007
05:30 GMT |
|
|
The Biblical flood seems to have turned Europeans from Stone Age hunter-gatherers into farmers. 'Noah's Flood' originated in a real event that took place millennia ago: the flooding of the Black Sea, an inland sea wedged between Europe and Asia, caused by the rising of the ocean levels (and of the Medi... |
21 November 2007
04:50 GMT |
|
|
Jade has been valued in Asia even from ancient times and now it comes with a new story: jade jewelry coming from ancient burial sites across Southeast Asia reveal one of the largest ancient marine trading routes, as revealed by a new research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.Geologica... |
21 November 2007
03:22 GMT |
|
|
|
|
