The fastest sperm may not be best

For sea squirts the key to a long and happy life is to be fertilized not by a fast sperm, but by one that stands the test of time, Dr Angela Crean, from the Evolution and Ecology Research Centre at the University of NSW, ...

Arctic sea-ice loss has widespread effects on wildlife

With sea ice at its lowest point in 1,500 years, how might ecological communities in the Arctic be affected by its continued and even accelerated melting over the next decades? In a review article in the journal Science, ...

New underwater robot swims and senses like a fish

In recent years, robotic underwater vehicles have become more common in a variety of industrial and civil sectors. They are used extensively by the scientific community to study the ocean. For example, underwater robots have ...

Size matters for creatures of cold polar waters

Scientists at the Universities of Liverpool, Plymouth, and Radboud, Netherlands, have challenged the view that giant animals are found in polar seas because of a superabundance of oxygen in cold water.

Oil-eating microbe communities a mile deep in the Gulf

The Deepwater Horizon explosion on April 20, 2010, caused the largest marine oil spill in history, with several million barrels of crude oil released into the Gulf of Mexico over the course of three months. Soon after the ...

Giant Australian animals were not wiped out by climate change

(Phys.org) —Researchers have ruled out climate change as the cause of extinction of most of Australia's giant animals, including giant kangaroos, three metre-tall flightless birds and the Tasmanian tiger, around 50,000 ...

A new bizarrely shaped spoon worm, Arhynchite hayaoi, from Japan

A new species of the peculiarly shaped spoon worms has been recently discovered in Japan, and described in the open access journal Zookeys. These animals derive their name from their elongated and spoon-like projection (the ...

Tropical vagrants bigger, stronger survivors

(Phys.org) —Sydney marine researchers are one step further in solving the mystery of how tropical fishes, in response to rising sea temperatures and the impact of climate change, are shifting, and potentially surviving ...

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