All posts tagged: underwater

Guess What This Creepy Underwater Thing Is That Was Photographed by US Navy Divers for NASA

Guess What This Creepy Underwater Thing Is That Was Photographed by US Navy Divers for NASA

Published by José Betancourt

Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech It may look like the underwater remains of a church that’s been submerged for hundreds of years following a dam break, or a tunnel boring machine that just broke through a mound of rubble. But if those were your guesses, you’d be sorely mistaken. An intriguing photo taken by US Navy divers and shared by NASA on Monday shows the charred heat shield of the space agency’s Artemis 2 Orion capsule, right after it took a plunge in the Pacific Ocean upon landing on April 10. While the subsequent post flight analysis may drag on for quite some time, it’s an intriguing first glimpse at one of the more controversial aspects of NASA’s triumphant crewed return to the Moon. The tiled heat shield is designed to keep astronauts safe as their spacecraft slams into the Earth’s atmosphere at over 23,000 mph, a maneuver that causes it to heat up to thousands of degrees Fahrenheit. During NASA’s inaugural 2022 …

Man Creates Tiny Submarine for His Parakeet to Experience Life Underwater

Man Creates Tiny Submarine for His Parakeet to Experience Life Underwater

Published by José Betancourt

Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech Parakeets, which comprise about 115 species of seed-eating parrots, are frequently bred and sold commercially as pets. They’re intelligent, social, and can live up to 12 years in captivity. They can even apparently take a plunge inside a custom-made submarine, as Steven Lawyer, owner of a six-year-old parakeet named Bebe, established during a fascinating experiment in the Bahamas. A video, which has swiftly gone viral, shows the bird chilling inside a DIY sub made of a paintball air cylinder, oxygen meter, and lead weights. “We like to snorkel and he likes doing whatever we are doing with us,” Lawyer told CBS affiliate WBNS. “So I thought ‘lets figure out a way to let him snorkel with us.’” His mini submarine, dubbed the “Bebosphere,” allowed the green parakeet to dive to around three feet below the surface, giving it an unprecedented glance at the colorful reefs — something his species has likely never seen firsthand before. Bebe appeared to …

A ‘third eye’ helps fish navigate deep underwater

A ‘third eye’ helps fish navigate deep underwater

Published by Jenni Sidey

Light behaves differently underwater. It shifts with depth, bends through murky currents, and separates into distinct wavelengths that change from surface to seafloor. For fish, those subtle differences are not just background noise. They are cues. A new study from Osaka Metropolitan University points to a specific region deep in the zebrafish brain that helps decode those cues. The work identifies the tegmentum, part of the midbrain, as a place where two streams of light information meet, one from the eyes and another from a lesser-known light sensor often called the “third eye.” Together, those signals appear to guide a simple but essential behavior: whether a fish swims up or down. The finding adds detail to a long-standing question about how animals translate light into movement, especially in environments where light is constantly changing. Light irradiation protocol generating PP1-specific responses in wild-type larvae. (CREDIT: PNAS) Where Two Light Systems Converge Fish do not rely on a single visual pathway. Alongside their eyes, many species possess a pineal organ, a small structure sensitive to light that …

Experts warn of rapid loss of water in the Baltic Sea: ‘A vibrant reef is turning into an underwater wasteland’

Experts warn of rapid loss of water in the Baltic Sea: ‘A vibrant reef is turning into an underwater wasteland’

Published by Sam Flores

While global water and ocean levels are rising, the Baltic Sea lost 275 billion tonnes of water at the beginning of February. It is now 67 cm lower than the average recorded in 1886. The situation, although it has not happened for 140 years, is caused by atmospheric factors. On the surface, these should not be a cause for concern, but, as Dr Tomasz Kijewski of the Institute of Oceanology of the Polish Academy of Sciences told Euronews, such a deviation is a glaring example of the impact of climate change on the environment. The Arctic plays the first fiddle here. ‘The open refrigerator effect’ If water levels are rising, why has so much water disappeared in the Baltic Sea basin? Experts explain that it is the result of strong winds, a high pressure zone and the absence of significant atmospheric fronts. “The long-lasting strong easterly winds persisting since the beginning of January have pushed water masses through the Danish Straits towards the North Sea, resulting in a drop in levels throughout the basin,” reads …

Bumble Bee Queens can survive underwater for a week – here’s why

Bumble Bee Queens can survive underwater for a week – here’s why

Published by Jenni Sidey

Spring flooding was supposed to be a death sentence for them. Buried underground, dormant, with no way to surface, bumble bee queens caught in rising water seemed like straightforward casualties of a seasonal hazard. The assumption made sense. They are large, terrestrial insects with no obvious business being submerged for days at a time. That assumption was wrong. New research from the University of Ottawa shows that bumble bee queens can survive being completely underwater for more than a week. Afterward, they emerge and recover as though nothing particularly unusual had happened. The findings, led by Professor Charles-Antoine Darveau of the Department of Biology, reveal a layered physiological strategy that no one had previously documented in this species. It is one that may matter more as climate patterns continue to shift. Bumble bee (Bombus impatiens) queen foraging to build energy reserves in preparation for overwintering diapause. (CREDIT: Lucas Borg-Darveau) Underground, and Then Underwater Every autumn, mated bumble bee queens burrow into shallow soil to wait out winter. This state, called diapause, is something like hibernation. …

Bees Can Live Underwater, And ‘Gills’ May Be Involved

Bees Can Live Underwater, And ‘Gills’ May Be Involved

Published by Sam Flores

If you want to attract bees to your garden, a special, shallow “bath”, which isn’t deep enough for our flying friends to fall into, is a great place to start. But for queen bumblebees, apparently, a mini plunge pool would pose no threat. That’s because new research published in the Royal Society’s Proceedings B has found that bumblebee queens can “avoid drowning” through “underwater respiration,” allowing them to live underwater for days. How can bees live underwater? A 2024 paper showed that bumblebee queens can live underwater for anywhere from eight hours to seven days. This newer research sought to figure out how. Some bee species, including bumblebees, enter a period of deep rest called “diapause” in the winter. In that time, their metabolism and development slow way down. But sometimes, the world around them doesn’t stay as rested. Flooding, for instance, can affect a hive (many of which stay underground in the colder months). Scientists figured the response to submersion noted in the 2024 research was a survival tactic from the bumblebee queen. So, …

Winners of the 2026 Underwater Photographer of the Year Contest

Winners of the 2026 Underwater Photographer of the Year Contest

Published by Daniella Wilson

© Seong-Cheol Cho / UPY2026 Calm at the Heart of Turmoil. Winner, Macro. Cho: “While diving in Tulamben with my guide, Jaye, I encountered a commensal shrimp living within a naturally spiraling whip coral. Something I had long hoped to see, the coral’s deep, rich green formed a striking nest for the brightly colored shrimp resting inside. By introducing red and blue light against the green coral, I wanted to create a sense of intense beauty combined with visual turbulence, while expressing the shrimp’s stillness at the center.” © Sam Blount / UPY2026 Lunging Leopard. Winner, Up & Coming, and Up & Coming Underwater Photographer of the Year. Blount: “For years, the leopard seal topped my Antarctic wish list, a predator I dreamed of encountering face to face. I have to say, this dive was everything I could have hoped for: clear water, good lighting, and a playful seal. Leopard seals wield an astonishing array of dominance displays, and this one put them all to use, darting around me with effortless power.” © David Alpert …

Trump ‘now underwater on all top ten issues except border security’, analyst says – A propos

Trump ‘now underwater on all top ten issues except border security’, analyst says – A propos

Published by Sam Flores

To display this content from YouTube, you must enable advertisement tracking and audience measurement. Accept Manage my choices One of your browser extensions seems to be blocking the video player from loading. To watch this content, you may need to disable it on this site. Try again SABATO © agences Issued on: 24/02/2026 – 23:06 12:05 min From the show Reading time 1 min Speaking with FRANCE 24’s Sharon Gaffney, Larry Sabato, Founder and Director of the University of Virginia Centre for Politics, explains that US President Donald Trump will be focused on maintaining his MAGA base ahead of the State of the Union address, stressing that Trump “has lost a great deal” of popularity since the inauguration and “on the ten top issues he is now underwater in every single one except border security”. By: Video by: Source link