Achilles Tang

No matter how sophisticated modern medicine becomes, common ailments like fungal infections can outrun the best of the world's antibiotics. In people with compromised immune systems (like premature babies, AIDS victims or those undergoing chemotherapy for cancer) the risk is very high: contracting a fungal infection can be deadly. View the full article

Most wild species are expected to colonise northwards as the climate warms, but how are they going to get there when so many landscapes are covered in wheat fields and other crops? (2009-02-25) View the full article

Researchers have found that a human vascular condition called cerebral cavernous malformation is caused by leaky junctions between cells in the lining of blood vessels. By combining studies with zebrafish and mice, they found that the aberrant junctions are the result of mutated or missing proteins in a novel biochemical process, the so-called "Heart-of-glass" CCM pathway. View the full article

The evolutionary tendency of corals to alter their skeletal structure makes it difficult to assign them to different species. Researchers have used genetic markers to examine coral groupings and investigate how these markers relate to alterations in shape, in the process discovering that our inaccurate picture of coral species is compromising our ability to conserve coral reefs. View the full article

Fossilized pregnant fish was one of the first animals to have sex. A pregnant fossil fish at the Natural History Museum in London has shed light on the possible origin of sex, according to a new study. Dating from the Upper Devonian period 365 million years ago, the adult placoderm fish Incisoscutum ritchiei is one of the earliest examples of a pregnant vertebrate and contains a five-centimetre-long embryo. View the full article

Sinkholes penetrating the bottom one of North America's Great Lakes -- Lake Huron -- unexpectedly harbor exotic ecosystems akin to those in permanently iced-over Antarctic lakes and deep-sea, hydrothermal vents and cold seeps. View the full article

Researchers have discovered potentially disease-causing vibrios (Vibrio cholerae, V. parahaemolyticus and V. vulnificus) in Norwegian seafood and inshore seawater. View the full article

"Psychedelica" seems the perfect name for a fish that is a wild swirl of tan and peach zebra stripes and behaves in ways contrary to its brethren, including bouncing like a ball along the seafloor instead of swimming. The fish, which has rare forward-facing eyes like humans, also has a secretive nature. That could be the reason they weren't spotted by divers until just last year nor described in the scientific literature until now. View the full article

thread closed upon request.

Marine biologists recently solved the half-century-old mystery of a fish with tubular eyes and a transparent head. This fish's unusual eyes can rotate within a transparent shield that covers the fish's head. This allows the barreleye to peer up at potential prey or focus forward to see what it is eating. View the full article

The mystery of how some marine animals produce light has come one step closer to being solved. Researchers have discovered that krill, the luminous crustacean, can use special and previously unknown muscles to regulate light intensity. View the full article

A dramatic increase in carbon dioxide levels is making the world's ocean more acidic, which may adversely affect the survival of marine life and organisms that depend on them, such as humans. View the full article

There are no plans to do any T-shirts nor any plans to be involved in Aquarama this year.

Sea spider. I had one crawling on my wetsuit once when I was diving... i think its my lsat dive photo thread. They eat soft corals, sponges, anemones, clams, etc.....

In late 2007, hundreds of dead and stranded seabirds washed up on the shores of Monterey Bay, their feathers saturated with water and coated with an unknown substance. After an intensive investigation, scientists determined that a massive "red tide" bloom of marine algae had produced a foamy soap-like substance that stripped the natural waterproofing from the birds' feathers. View the full article

Commercial fishing in US Arctic waters is to be banned at least until its effects are understood, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council has decided. View the full article

Two saltwater superstars -- cobia and Florida pompano -- are regarded by connoisseurs as being some of the world's best seafood. Both cobia (pronounced COE-bee-uh) and pompano (POM-puh-no) have firm, mostly white flesh that's perfect for grilling, pan-frying or baking. View the full article

Chemists have synthesized an algal toxin that accumulates in mussels. This may help develop a method to detect the toxin in these molluscs before they are served up for human consumption. View the full article

Trees do it. Bees do it. Even environmentally stressed fish do it. Now biologists have discovered that Japanese sea corals engage in "sex switching" too. View the full article

While the nation as a whole gained freshwater wetlands from 1998 to 2004, a new report documents a continuing loss of coastal wetlands in the eastern United States. View the full article

Protecting drinking water and preventing harmful coastal "dead zones," as well as eutrophication in many lakes, will require reducing both nitrogen and phosphorus pollution. View the full article

Researchers' explanation of how common, startlingly dense layers of photosynthetic phytoplankton form moves the scientific community a step closer to being able to predict harmful algal blooms, a well-known example of which is red tide. The work also opens new perspectives on other phenomena, like predatory feeding by larger organisms at these ecological hotspots. View the full article

Tiny creatures - growing rapidly on seacage netting - cause serious problems for fish farmers. View the full article

The quick decline of a tiny shrimp-like species, known scientifically as Diporeia, is related to the aggressive population growth of non-native quagga mussels in the Great Lakes, say scientists. As invasive mussel numbers increase, food sources for Diporeia and many aquatic species have steadily and unilaterally declined. View the full article

A new study suggests that adherence to a dietary pattern close to the Mediterranean diet, with high consumption of fish and olive oil and low red meat intake, has a significant impact in women skeletal health. Results suggest that this eating pattern could have bone-preserving properties throughout adult life. View the full article