Category: Science

Neighborhood Digs

9/20/2024 - By Brian Payton. On the Pacific Northwest coast—and around the world—community archaeology is helping people reconcile with each other and their history. Tiny fountains rise, sparkle, and splash back down on the intertidal zone of Xwe’etay, or Lasqueti Island, British Columbia. It’s as if the clams squirt in response to… SEE MORE

In Graphic Detail: By-caught Birds

9/19/2024 - By Rebecca Heisman. New research estimates that some 200,000 birds are accidentally caught in fishing gear in Europe each year. When commercial fishers haul up their nets, they often find dolphins, sharks, sea turtles, and other creatures entangled amid their catches. These accidentally caught, nontarget species are known as by-catch,… SEE MORE

Do Marine Animals Need Wildlife Bridges, Too?

9/18/2024 - By Jack McGovan. Human infrastructure can hinder the mobility of marine animals. The ocean feels infinite. If you were to start swimming from shore, it’s easy to believe—fitness and oxygen aside—you could continue forever. That’s a far different experience to overland travel, where mountains, rivers, and six-lane highways buzzing with… SEE MORE

The Big Baltic Bomb Cleanup

9/16/2024 - By Paul Hockenos. The ocean became a dumping ground for weapons after Allied forces defeated the Nazis. Now a team of robots and divers are making the Baltic Sea safer. Aboard the Alkor, a 55-meter oceanographic vessel anchored in the Baltic Sea several kilometers from the German port city of Kiel,… SEE MORE

July 25, 2024: Emergency responders on the scene at the California Park Fire. Right: August 8, 2024: National Weather Service Incident Meteorologist Ryan Walbrun briefs the CalFire Incident Management Team on smoke trajectory and impacts while deployed on the Park Fire. (Image credit: Left: California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CalFire); Right: NOAA.)

It’s not Just Hot Air: Improved Air Quality Model Aids Forecasters in The Field

9/13/2024 - By noaa.gov. Imagine you’re a NOAA weather forecaster in the field during a raging, rapidly-spreading wildfire. Your title is incident meteorologist (or IMET), and your job is to support agencies and emergency responders who fight these devastating blazes by providing accurate weather forecasts. Your forecasts help determine a variety of factors about… SEE MORE

Tracking the Effects of an Eelgrass Epidemic

8/21/2024 - By Grace Hunter. Even when it’s less than lethal, seagrass wasting disease leaves eelgrass reeling. In shallow intertidal waters of the northeast Pacific, eelgrass meadows grow across the ocean floor like submerged lawns. These meadows are the foundation for underwater neighborhoods that shelter and feed animals such as crabs, salmon,… SEE MORE

Artificial Intelligence Could Soon Turn Anyone into an Expert Tracker

8/18/2024 - By Ryan Truscott. Scientists are working on a machine learning tool that could, one day, identify individual animals from photographs of their footprints. Some wild animals are relatively easy to study. Certain penguin populations, for instance, are so unaccustomed to large predators that they barely fear humans and will often wander right… SEE MORE

he first Your Shores cohort learning to scuba dive. Credit: Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science

NOAA-Funded Program Helps Miami Teens from Under-Resourced Schools Enter Marine Science Field

8/11/2024 - By fisheries.noaa.gov. The Your Shores program at the Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science provides high school students from diverse backgrounds with dive certifications, habitat restoration and research experience, and marine science training. To address the inequity of opportunities for students of all backgrounds in the marine science field and… SEE MORE

The Mysterious Discovery of ‘Dark Oxygen’ on the Ocean Floor

8/9/2024 - By Mara Magistroni. Researchers believe they have discovered oxygen being produced 4,000 meters below the sea surface, and think polymetallic nodules—the sought-after bounty of deep-sea miners—could be the source. For more than 10 years, Andrew Sweetman and his colleagues have been studying the ocean floor and its ecosystems, particularly in… SEE MORE

High tide flooding April 12, 2024, blocks businesses in Annapolis, Maryland. (NOAA photo)

High Tide Flooding may Lessen across the U.S., NOAA Scientists Predict

8/7/2024 - By noaa.gov. After record-breaking coastal flooding, La Niña could slightly reduce number of flood days NOAA’s 2024-25 Annual High Tide Flooding Outlook predicts fewer high-tide flood days than last year. The outlook documents high-tide flooding events from May 2023 to April 2024 at 97 NOAA tide gauges along the U.S. coast. It… SEE MORE