All posts tagged: oceans

Deep-space water reservoir contains trillions of times more water than all Earth’s oceans combined

Deep-space water reservoir contains trillions of times more water than all Earth’s oceans combined

Published by Jenni Sidey

A cloud of water larger than anything ever seen in space has turned up around one of the brightest objects in the early universe. The reservoir surrounds the quasar APM 08279+5255, a blazing source powered by a supermassive black hole more than 12 billion light-years from Earth. The scale is hard to grasp. Astronomers estimated that the water there equals about 140 trillion times the volume of Earth’s oceans. It is also the most distant water reservoir ever detected, placing it in a period when the universe was far younger than it is today. That alone made the finding unusual. What made it more revealing was the setting. The water is not sitting quietly in a cold cloud. It exists in a harsh, energized region around a black hole with a mass about 20 billion times that of the sun. The quasar’s total energy output matches roughly a thousand trillion suns, flooding nearby gas with radiation. “The environment around this quasar is very unique in that it’s producing this huge mass of water,” said Matt …

Ancient oceans started to suffocate 8 million years before the Triassic mass extinction

Ancient oceans started to suffocate 8 million years before the Triassic mass extinction

Published by Jenni Sidey

The end-Triassic extinction is often overshadowed by the disaster that killed the dinosaurs, but on its own it ranks among the worst biological crises in Earth’s history. Around 201 million years ago, roughly 60 percent of marine invertebrate genera disappeared, along with many other forms of life on land and in the sea. Now, a new study suggests the oceans had been sliding toward trouble long before the main collapse arrived. By tracing chemical signals preserved in ancient rocks from Alaska, geologists found that oxygen loss in marine waters began nearly 8 million years before the end-Triassic mass extinction itself. The finding shifts the timeline of environmental decline backward and raises a harder question: what started the damage so early? The work, led by researchers at Virginia Tech and published in Nature Communications Earth & Environment, points to a drawn-out ocean crisis rather than a single sudden blow. In their reading of the rock record, marine ecosystems in part of the vast Panthalassic Ocean were already under stress well before the better-known volcanic catastrophe at …

Microplastics may be weakening the ocean’s ability to fight climate change

Microplastics may be weakening the ocean’s ability to fight climate change

Published by Jenni Sidey

The ocean works quietly every day to protect life on Earth. It absorbs heat from the atmosphere, stores massive amounts of carbon dioxide and produces much of the oxygen humans breathe. Much of that work depends on organisms so small they cannot be seen with the naked eye. These microscopic marine algae, called phytoplankton, drift near the ocean’s sunlit surface. Despite their tiny size, they carry out nearly half of all photosynthesis on Earth. They absorb carbon dioxide, use sunlight for energy and help move carbon deep into the ocean through a process known as carbon sequestration. Tiny plastic fragments have spread across nearly every marine environment, from crowded coastlines to remote Arctic waters. Scientists already knew these particles could harm marine life. The new research suggests they may also weaken the ocean’s ability to absorb carbon from the atmosphere. The researchers found that the impact of plastic on CO2 uptake was greatest in dry and tropical climate regions. These regions are particularly vulnerable to microplastic pollution. (CREDIT: Francesca Verones, NTNU) “The ocean plays a …

A New Species of Tiny Octopus Was Discovered in the Galápagos Islands

A New Species of Tiny Octopus Was Discovered in the Galápagos Islands

Published by skeptic

A tiny blue octopus that lives in the deep sea off the coast of the Galápagos Islands is so small that it can fit in the palm of a hand. And as a team of researchers coordinated by Chicago’s Field Museum announced in a new study just published in the journal Zootaxa, it now has an official name—Microeledone galapagensis. The octopus was first spotted in 2015 during a deep-sea expedition aboard the research vessel E/V Nautilus. From there, marine biologists used a remotely operated underwater vehicle (RoV) to explore the ocean floor near Darwin Island, at the northern end of the Galápagos archipelago. As the RoV’s camera moved across the seafloor near an underwater slope at a depth of 1,773 meters (5,817 feet), they noticed the tiny octopus with its vibrant blue coloring. By performing a close inspection, the researchers were able to recover the blue octopus and film two other specimens, and then, at the end of the mission, conduct a thorough analysis. It left them puzzled, however, as they were not certain which …

A ‘Golden Orb’ on the Ocean Floor Came From a Mysterious Animal

A ‘Golden Orb’ on the Ocean Floor Came From a Mysterious Animal

Published by skeptic

This species can reach 30 centimeters in diameter and live between 1,600 and 4,000 meters deep. Its biology baffles specialists because it does not quite fit the rules that define anemones and corals. Since its discovery, scientists have struggled to classify it, and its evolutionary origin remains uncertain. Relicanthus daphneae moves across the ocean floor. ‘National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) | Office of Exploration and Research (OER)’ Before the study, there was nothing linking the golden orb to the giant anemone. The report details that an initial examination found spirocytes—ultra-specialized cells that only cnidarians (the group of animals made up of anemones, corals, and jellyfish) have. This finding ruled out the possibility that it was an egg or a biofilm, as initially thought. The team then sequenced the DNA of the material to search for matches in databases. The complete mitochondrial genomes showed a 99.9 percent match to Relicanthus daphneae. The evidence pointed to the orb being part of a rare and poorly documented anemone. However, the remains did not match any known structures …

Can floating data centres meet AI’s huge energy demand?

Can floating data centres meet AI’s huge energy demand?

Published by skeptic

A prototype of Panthalassa’s floating data centre Panthalassa The data centres powering the AI boom already use more electricity than some small countries, and the International Energy Agency projects that their demand could reach 945 terawatt-hours a year – more than Japan’s entire electricity consumption – by 2030. AI is so power-hungry that companies are exploring the idea of putting data centres in space, where they could draw on constant solar energy. But one start-up thinks the solution is here on Earth – just not on land. Panthalassa is building autonomous floating data centres that will put computing power out in the middle of the ocean. The Oregon-based company, which announced $140 million in funding last week, says its platforms could bypass overwhelmed electrical grids and deliver carbon-free computing in international waters. But beyond the technical and engineering challenges involved, it is unclear whether moving computing power offshore would actually ease data centres’ biggest bottlenecks – doing so may just replace familiar problems with far more expensive ones. “Wave power is an old technology and it …

A vast dam across the Bering Strait could stop the AMOC collapsing

A vast dam across the Bering Strait could stop the AMOC collapsing

Published by skeptic

The Bering Strait separates Alaska and Russia Ocean Color/OB.DAAC/OBPG/NASA It would be an engineering project on a truly epic scale, but we may one day need to consider building a dam between Alaska and eastern Russia. The audacious proposal would be designed to stave off the worst consequences of the collapse of a vital ocean current, and researchers have been mulling it over this week at a major conference. The idea comes from Jelle Soons and his colleague Henk Dijkstra at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands, who study the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation or AMOC. This current system, which includes the Gulf Stream, is a major reason why northern Europe has a relatively mild climate for its latitude. However, we know the current is weakening. There is huge uncertainty about what would happen if it collapses, but some models suggest it could see temperatures in northern Europe drastically plunge. Soons thought a dam could be a possible intervention after hearing about how during the Pliocene era, from roughly 5.3 to 2.6 million years …

New Scientist staff pick the greatest David Attenborough documentaries you really need to watch

New Scientist staff pick the greatest David Attenborough documentaries you really need to watch

Published by skeptic

David Attenborough with mountain gorillas, on location in Rwanda during filming for Life on Earth John Sparks HOW could we talk about David Attenborough’s best documentaries without featuring the photo perhaps most associated with the broadcaster, whose 100th birthday is on 8 May? Life on Earth, the groundbreaking 1979 series containing that iconic gorilla sequence, pictured above, introduced a wider audience to the calm narration and stunning nature shots for which Attenborough is known today. His many documentaries would go on to move from the ocean depths to the lives of plants, and from the distant past to the fight against climate change. Read on to discover which made the biggest impact on our staff, and which they deem worth watching today. David Attenborough by the Grand Canyon, on location for Life on Earth John Sparks/naturepl.com Life on Earth is special to me for so many reasons. There is that famous encounter with gorillas. It was also the first ambitious nature series of its kind – without its success, we might never have had the …

Were enormous octopuses apex predators in ancient oceans?

Were enormous octopuses apex predators in ancient oceans?

Published by skeptic

At the time of the dinosaurs, the oceans were teeming with life. Below the waves, giant marine reptiles, such as the fearsome 4m (13ft) long mosasaurs, were the undisputed apex predators. In artistic reconstructions of these ancient oceans, cephalopods – the animal group that includes squid, cuttlefish, octopuses, and their ancestors – are almost always portrayed as prey, often seen desperately swimming away from the jaws of a marine reptile to avoid becoming lunch. However, a remarkable new fossil suggests our view of the ancient oceans is incomplete, and that giant octopuses, perhaps reaching as long as 19m (62ft), may have been the ones doing the hunting. The fossil in question is a giant octopus jaw, belonging to a new species called Nanaimoteuthis haggarti. It is found in Late Cretaceous rocks of Japan, making it between 100 million and 72 million years old. Like other cephalopods, octopuses have a hard beak that looks like a parrot’s bill, used to bite and tear prey, and this fossil example is enormous – larger than that of the …

Giant octopuses were the ocean’s apex predators 100 million years ago

Giant octopuses were the ocean’s apex predators 100 million years ago

Published by Jenni Sidey

A jaw tip worn down by nearly a tenth does not sound like much until you picture what it means. Chipping, cracking, scratches and polish do not appear on their own. Something was hitting back. That is the clue driving a striking new view of early octopus history. Fossil jaws from the Late Cretaceous suggest that some of the earliest known octopuses were not modest, lurking hunters. They were enormous predators, active enough and strong enough to sit near the top of the marine food web, sharing that space with the great vertebrate hunters of their time. The work, led by researchers at Hokkaido University, centers on an awkward problem in octopus evolution. Octopuses are soft-bodied, which means their bodies rarely survive in the fossil record. Bones and shells tell long, readable stories. Octopuses mostly do not. So the team turned to the part most likely to last: the jaws. Convergent evolution among marine top predators in the Paleozoic–Mesozoic. (CREDIT: Science) A fossil record hidden inside stone Using high-resolution grinding tomography and an artificial intelligence …