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Feb 7 2011 - 8:04pm
What can students do to help the ocean? It turns out, a lot! These students from New Jersey are among dozens from the U.S. and Mexico who are developing action plans on ocean and climate-related issues in their local communities. They’re getting advice from their teachers and experts at aquariums...
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Mar 27 2011 - 10:51pm
The 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill brought the world's attention to the Gulf of Mexico and raised awareness of the region's chronic loss of wetlands as well as the massive dead zone caused by excess nutrients from the Mississippi River. Today the challenge is to develop and implement large-scale...
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Dec 22 2010 - 4:21pm
Since the dawn of seafaring, humankind has had to deal with the pesky creatures that settle on ships—seaweeds, barnacles, and others that take advantage of the empty real estate provided by a clean hull. Fouled hulls make for slower speeds and for powerboats, higher fuel costs (drag is a drag).
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Jan 26 2010 - 11:45am
From the water, red mangroves appear to form an impenetrable tangle of roots, trunks, and leaves—a protective barrier against storms and tsunamis. More about mangroves can be found in our Mangroves featured story.
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Aug 31 2012 - 4:40pm
Giant kelp (Macrocystis pyrifera) is large, brown algae that grows in dense forests along coasts around the world. Their long stalks anchor each plant to the seafloor, and they grow meters high like giant trees towards the surface. Kelp forest ecosystems are home to a variety of animals, including...
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Apr 8 2013 - 9:11am
When most people think of catfish, they think of a freshwater fish. But the striped eel catfish (Plotosus lineatus) is found in marine systems including coral reefs, estuaries, tide pools and other coastal areas of the Indo-Western Pacific. The juveniles of the fish school in groups of up to 100,...
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Jan 26 2010 - 11:45am
Here’s a view of mangrove roots above the water. The roots extend far below the water’s surface, anchoring the forest to the sea and providing a tangled habitat for a variety of marine organisms. These mangroves are in Salinas, Puerto Rico. More about mangroves can be found in the the Ocean...
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Nov 22 2010 - 11:11pm
A small horseshoe crab (Limulus polyphemus) rests on seaweed in Stage Harbor, Massachusetts. Atlantic horseshoe crabs can be found along the coast of North America from the Yucatán Peninsula to Maine. Read more about how the copper-based blue blood of horseshoe crabs has helped the medical industry...
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Mar 28 2011 - 2:47pm
Recorded Feb. 15, 2011, this video from the Third Student Summit on the Ocean and Coasts includes a tribal song written and sung by Suquamish Tribal member Bearon Old Coyote; a welcome to the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History by Director Dr. Cristian Samper; a lecture about the "...
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Sep 21 2011 - 2:04pm
Sandy beaches are home to a Diversity of Life
In the Shores and Shallows Gallery of the Smithsonian's Sant Ocean Hall, a beach display features magnified grains of sand and the tiny beach critters that live between them.
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May 30 2012 - 12:38pm
The open ocean is surprisingly barren to the naked eye. Every now and again you will encounter a school of fish and their attendant predators, but most of the life that you find is gathered around some sort of sheltering structure like a coral reef.
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Feb 27 2013 - 9:38pm
Around 100 million years ago, grass from land adapted to live and reproduce while submerged in seawater—the modern-day seagrasses. This sea invasion by land plants happened four separate times, resulting in four unrelated families of 50-60 total seagrass species, which can be found on the coast of...
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May 23 2011 - 3:50pm
Adaptation is the key word if you are looking to survive in a tide pool, a space that some scientists describe as the most competitive real estate in the ocean.
Tide pools are exposed to the water's ebb and flow, and plants and animals must adapt to survive wave turbulence, desiccation stress,...
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Feb 8 2011 - 6:11pm
What can students do to help the ocean? It turns out, a lot! These students from Alabama are among dozens from the U.S. and Mexico who are developing action plans on ocean and climate-related issues in their local communities. They’re getting advice from their teachers and experts at aquariums...
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Dec 23 2010 - 4:16pm
“The largest land migration of any animal on Earth, as many as 120 million crabs carpet the island in red as they move from the rain forest to the coast.” -- Nature's Best photographer, Stephen Belcher.
See more beautiful ocean photos in our slideshow of winners from the 2010 Nature's Best Ocean...
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Jul 22 2010 - 6:28pm
The sun sets over marshland near Ocean City, N.J.
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Sep 6 2012 - 5:03pm
During the decade of the Census of Marine Life, more than 6,000 potential new ocean species were discovered by 2,700 participating scientists from more than 80 countries. Census scientists searched the global ocean to learn more about species as large as the blue whale and as small as a zooplankter...
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Jun 24 2010 - 9:57am
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Apr 20 2012 - 2:44pm
Two years ago last week, on April 20, 2010, an explosion on the oil-drilling rig Deepwater Horizon caused the largest marine oil spill in history, gushing nearly 5 million barrels of crude oil over the course of three months.
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Jan 26 2010 - 11:45am
The long silver tool shown here is a piece of traditional Australian fishing gear called a “yabbie pump.” Researchers use the device to collect burrowing shrimp and other fast-moving animals from the shallow waters near the island of Moorea. Learn more in our Scientists Catalog Life on the...
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Jan 26 2010 - 11:45am
Arching mangrove roots like these help keep trunks upright in the soft sediments at water’s edge. More about mangroves can be found in our Mangroves featured story.
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Mar 14 2013 - 9:46am
The over 1,000 species of ribbon worms (Nemertea) are mostly found in marine environments (like the Hubrechtia found in a mud flat, in the photo). These worms have both a mouth and an anus (unlike flatworms, which use the same opening for both ingesting and removing their food).
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Jul 2 2010 - 6:01pm
Happy (early) Independence Day! For many of us in the United States, the 4th of July is a time to celebrate and reflect on our national heritage. In many ways, the U.S. grew up on the water and remains a maritime nation to this day.
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Aug 12 2011 - 2:04pm
In this brief video clip from NOAA, catch a glimpse of the startling beauty and diversity of life found among deep-sea corals near the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. Explore more in the multimedia feature "Coral Gardens of the Deep Sea."
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