Achilles Tang

While cancer touches the lives of many humans, it is also a major threat to wild animal populations as well, according to a recent study. A new article compiles information on cancer in wildlife and suggests that cancer poses a conservation threat to certain species. View the full article

Scientists are warning that a new form of unregulated whaling has emerged along the coastlines of Japan and South Korea, where the commercial sale of whales killed as fisheries "bycatch" is threatening coastal stocks of minke whales and other protected species. View the full article

A new NOAA report on the health of Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary indicates that the overall condition of the sanctuary's marine life and habitats is fair to good, but identifies several emerging threats to sanctuary resources. (2009-06-19) View the full article

As global warming whips up more powerful and frequent hurricanes and storms, the world's coral reefs face increased disruption to their ability to breed and recover from damage. "We have found clear evidence that coral recruitment -- the regrowth of young corals -- drops sharply in the wake of a major bleaching event or a hurricane," says the lead author of the study. View the full article

A new study provides the first global evaluation of how management practices influence fisheries' sustainability. View the full article

What do great white sharks have in common with serial killers? Refined hunting skills, according to a new article. Researchers have found that sharks hunt in a highly focused fashion, just like serial criminals. View the full article

A new NOAA report on the health of Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary indicates that the overall condition of the sanctuary's marine life and habitats is fair to good, but identifies several emerging threats to sanctuary resources. (2009-06-19) View the full article

I've dived around the region and have seen first hand the destructive powers of dynamite fishing... whole patches of reef devastated into coral rubble and no life in that zone. So so sad. Anyway, the planet is taking revenge back on us.... look at what's happening to the environment, back against us. Scary.

There are cynics who see only catastrophic answers to Earth's population explosion: War and pestilence come to mind. Then there are those who look a little deeper. Not even two feet deep, to be precise, into the placid tidal pools dotting the world's coastlines. It is on a coastal flat in the Pacific Northwest, that marine biologists are pinning their hopes on the quest for bigger and faster-growing oysters. View the full article

Scientists have returned after six weeks on the Cape Verde Islands, 800 kilometers off the West African coast. They collected air and water samples in the search for a link between Saharan dust storms and the biological productivity of the ocean. The results were intriguing: the waters off Cape Verde contain huge amounts of the recently discovered cyanobacteria ?UCYN-A?, an enigmatic fertilizer alga whose characteristics are puzzling to scientists. View the full article

Reductions in the flow of the Apalachicola River have far-reaching effects that could prove detrimental to grouper and other reef fish populations in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico, according to a new study that may provide new ammunition for states engaged in a nearly two-decade water war. View the full article

Changes in ocean chemistry - a consequence of increased carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from human industrial activity - could cause U.S. shellfish revenues to drop significantly in the next 50 years, according to a new study by researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). (2009-06-18) View the full article

A new report on the health of Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary indicates that the overall condition of the sanctuary's marine life and habitats is fair to good, but identifies several emerging threats to sanctuary resources. View the full article

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has released reports documenting the status of polar bears and Pacific walrus in Alaska. The reports confirm that polar bears in Alaska are declining and that Pacific walrus are under threat. Both species are imperiled due to the loss of their sea-ice habitat due to global warming, oil and gas development, and unsustainable harvest. View the full article

Forget the old folk tales about snakes hypnotizing their prey. The tentacled snake from South East Asia has developed a more effective technique. The small water snake has found a way to startle its prey so that the fish turn toward the snake's head to flee instead of turning away. View the full article

Aquatic ecologists say this year's Gulf of Mexico "dead zone" could be one of the largest on record, continuing a decades-long trend that threatens the health of a half-billion-dollar fishery. View the full article

Although worlds apart, the way fish learn could be closer to humans' way of thinking than previously believed, suggests a new research study. View the full article

Stocks of the UK?s Atlantic salmon along with varieties of domestic brown trout could be under threat from a deadly parasite according to new research. The agent - Sphaerothecum destruens ? was originally found in the US and is closely associated with ?invasive? fish species including topmouth gudgeon and could prove deadly to native salmonids (Atlantic salmon, brown trout). View the full article

Banning or restricting the use of certain types of fishing gear could help the world's coral reefs and their fish populations survive the onslaughts of climate change, experts say. View the full article

One long-standing climate puzzle relates to the Late Eocene and Early Oligocene. Profound changes were underway. Globally, carbon dioxide levels were falling and the hothouse warmth of the dinosaur age and Eocene Period was waning. In Antarctica, ice sheets had formed and covered much of the southern polar continent. But what exactly was happening on land, in northern latitudes? View the full article

Emergency plans to counteract global warming by artificially shading the Earth from incoming sunlight might lower the planet's temperature a few degrees, but such "geoengineering" solutions would do little to stop the acidification of the world oceans that threatens coral reefs and other marine life, report the authors of a new study. The culprit is atmospheric carbon dioxide, which even in a cooler globe will continue to be absorbed by seawater, creating acidic conditions. View the full article

Researchers have confirmed that zinc, copper and lead are present at high levels in the water and sediments of the Huelva estuary in Spain and have studied how some of these heavy metals are transferred to fish. The study shows that zinc, cadmium and copper accumulate in the body tissues of sole and gilthead bream. View the full article

Neurologists questions the safety of eating farmed fish, adding a new worry to concerns about the nation?s food supply. They suggest farmed fish could transmit Creutzfeldt Jakob disease -- commonly known as mad cow disease -- if they are fed byproducts rendered from cows. View the full article

Gary Lindner and Russ Kikel at AmericanReef.com bring you a two-part video tour of Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium’s 1,500 gallon Indo-Pacific Reef tank. View the full article

New research shows that health-related loss in modern salmon farming may be systematically monitored and quantified, both in biological and economical terms. View the full article