Peering deep into the sea, scientists are finding creatures more mysterious than many could have imagined.
At one site, nearly 3.2km deep in the Atlantic, shrimp were living around a vent that was releasing water heated to 407 degrees Celsius. Water surrounding the site was a chilly 2 degrees Celsius.
An underwater peak in the Coral Sea was home to a type of shrimp thought to have gone extinct 50 million years ago.
PHOTO: AP
More than 4.8km beneath the Sargasso Sea, in the Atlantic, researchers collected a dozen new species eating each other or living on organic material that drifts down from above.
"Animals seem to have found a way to make a living just about everywhere,'' said Jesse Ausubel of the Sloan Foundation, discussing the findings of year six of the census of marine life.
"We can't find anyplace where we can't find anything new," Ron O'Dor, a senior scientist with the census, added.
This year's update, released on Sunday, is part of a study of life in the oceans that is scheduled for final publication in 2010.
The census is an international effort supported by governments, divisions of the UN and private conservation organizations. Approximately 2,000 researchers from 80 countries are participating.
Ausubel said there are nearly 16,000 known species of marine fish and 70,000 kinds of marine mammals. A couple of thousand have been discovered during the census.
The researchers conducted 19 ocean expeditions this year; a 20th continues in the Antarctic. In addition, they operated 128 nearshore sampling sites and, using satellites, followed more than 20 tagged species including sharks, squid, sea lions and albatross.
Highlights of this year's research included:
* Shrimp, clams and mussels living near the super-hot thermal vent in the Atlantic, where they face pulses of water that is near-boiling despite shooting into the frigid sea.
* In the sea surrounding the Antarctic, a community of marine life shrouded in darkness beneath more than 1,600 feet of ice. Sampling of this remote ocean yielded more new species than familiar ones.
* Off the coast of New Jersey, 20 million fish swarming in a school the size of Manhattan.
* Finding alive and well, in the Coral Sea, a species of shrimp called Neoglyphea neocaledonica, thought to have disappeared millions of years ago. Researchers nicknamed it the Jurassic shrimp.
* Satellite tracking of tagged sooty shearwaters, small birds, that mapped the birds' 70,000km search for food in a giant figure eight over the Pacific Ocean, from New Zealand via Polynesia to foraging grounds in Japan, Alaska and California and then back. The birds averaged a surprising 350km daily. In some cases, a breeding pair made the entire journey together.
* A new find, a 2kg rock lobster discovered off Madagascar.
* A single-cell creature big enough to see, in the Nazare Canyon off Portugal. The fragile new species was found 4,270m deep. It is enclosed within a plate-like shell, four-tenths of an inch in diameter, composed of mineral grains.
* A new type of crab with a furry appearance, near Easter Island. It was so unusual it warranted a whole new family designation, Kiwaidae, named for Kiwa, the Polynesian goddess of shellfish.
Its furry appearance justified its species name, hirsuta, which means "hairy."
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
CONFIDENT ON DEAL: ‘Ukraine wants a seat at the table, but wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have a say? It’s been a long time since an election, the US president said US President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and added that he was more confident of a deal to end the war after US-Russia talks. Trump increased pressure on Zelenskiy to hold elections and chided him for complaining about being frozen out of talks in Saudi Arabia. The US president also suggested that he could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the month as Washington overhauls its stance toward Russia. “I’m very disappointed, I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when asked about the Ukrainian
RSS