Marine Biology

In the South China Sea, the aqua-colored waters of an expansive shallow reef platform suddenly gives way to a near vertical shaft of vast darkness – an ocean sinkhole almost entirely devoid of oxygen and, in turn, marine life as we know it.

This year's Underwater Photographer of the Year contest delivers the competition’s most spectacular batch of winners to date, including an extraordinary face to face with a Great White Shark and a surreal glimpse at a shipwreck off the coast of Norway.

A massive marine park entering its final phase of construction in the United Arab Emirates will invite visitors to enjoy an aquarium housing an astounding 68,000 marine animals once completed sometime next year.

It’s hard to get medical adhesives to stick when blood is making everything wet. Now, MIT researchers have developed a new surgical glue that can halt bleeding within 30 seconds, inspired by the super-strong underwater adhesive used by barnacles.

Fabien Cousteau, grandson of famed underwater filmmaker and scuba co-inventor Jacques Cousteau, is planning to build an underwater living habitat and research station three times the size of any ever built, named after the grandson of Poseidon.

Wyss Institute's forays into soft robots have borne more ripe fruit in the shape of a soft robotic arm fit for use on submarines to handle delicate marine life like coral and jellyfish. This isn't the Harvard institute's first, but its latest iteration moves with "unprecedented dexterity."

​When scientists are using submersibles to study deep-sea organisms, it's understandable that they'd want to harmlessly capture fragile-bodied animals in order to get a closer look at them. Well, Harvard University's Rotary Actuated Dodecahedron (RAD) sampler is designed for just such a purpose.

​​We know that plankton are too small to swim on their own, so how do these little drifters get to where they need to go? Seeking answers to this question along with other insights about our oceans, scientists have built underwater robots that mimic plankton behavior.