Depths

This image shows SWOT satellite data for water surface height in part of Mendocino County, Northern California, on January 15, before several atmospheric rivers arrived, and on Feb. 4, after the first storms. Light blue and green indicate the highest water levels relative to mean sea level. (Inland water heights include the underlying ground elevation.) Credit: NASA/JPL-CaltechThe Surface Water and Ocean Topography satellite provides a new view of water on land, at the coast, and in the ocean.A series of atmospheric…

The deep ocean is a whole world of alien mystery.Once you start diving deep, below the range through which sunlight can penetrate, whole ecosystems unfold, glimmering, glittering, and feasting in the darkness.Case in point: In a deep environment where methane seeps from below the seafloor into the surrounding water, a shimmering new worm has been discovered.It's been named Pectinereis strickrotti, and it marks the 48th new species discovered thriving around methane seeps off the coast of Costa Rica – an environment once…

Scavenging amphipods from Kongsfjorden, Svalbard. Credit: Alfred Wegener Institute / Charlotte HavermansFirst observation of marine invertebrates eating live and dead jellyfish during Arctic winter.In the dark and cold of the months-long polar night, food resources are limited. Some groups of marine organisms in the polar regions overcome this challenge by going into a metabolic resting state in winter, surviving on reserves accumulated during the short growth season. But others, such as several species of marine…

New research shows that life can thrive in much saltier conditions than known before, expanding the potential habitats for life in our solar system and providing crucial insights into the effects of salinity on Earth’s aquatic life. Credit: SciTechDaily.comNew Research on Microbes Expands the Known Limits for LifeA new study on microbes in extremely salty water suggests life may survive conditions previously thought to be uninhabitable. The research widens the possibilities for where life may be found throughout our solar…

Researchers have developed an advanced optical technique to uncover hidden properties of the quantum material Ta2NiSe5 (TNS) using light. By employing terahertz time-domain spectroscopy, the team observed anomalous terahertz light amplification, indicating the presence of an exciton condensate. This discovery opens up new possibilities for using quantum materials in entangled light sources and other applications in quantum physics. Credit: SciTechDaily.comScientists used a laser-based technique to reveal hidden quantum…

The fillet of flounder sitting on your plate comes with a severe environmental cost. To catch it, a ship running on fossil fuels spewed greenhouse gases as it dragged a trawl net across the seafloor, devastating the ecosystems in its path. Obvious enough. But new research shows that the consequences extend even further: Trawl nets are hauling up both food and a huge amount of carbon that’s supposed to be sequestered in the murky depths.In a paper publishing in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science, researchers have…

A recent discovery by a team led by Stéphen Rostain is reshaping how researchers think about the pre-Columbian Amazon.The scientists from the French National Center for Scientific Research were able to use a type of laser-sensor technology called Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) to map a number of earthen mounds they had found in the Upano River Valley in Ecuador in 2015. This allowed them to create a 3D model of the structures that would otherwise be invisible to the naked eye due to the jungle’s thick vegetation,…

How low can it go for UCLA?It’s hard to say. There’s still more than two months left in the season.The only certainty is the Bruins sank to new depths Saturday night, falling to an opponent that had won only one game over the previous five weeks and had not defeated a team from a major conference all season.UCLA changed all that, giving California a speck of life while darkening its already bleak outlook.A new point guard rotation, different lineups, more minutes for seldom-used players … nothing worked for the Bruins…

The name Moog is basically synonymous with bass. The company has pumped out countless synths over the years from the iconic Minimoog Model D, to foot-operated Taurus, to the modern-classic Sub Phatty that deliver incredible low-end. Now its plumbing those depths even further, but in plug-in form, with the Mariana, which obviously gets its name from the Mariana Trench, the deepest place on Earth.The architecture of Mariana is different from almost any other Moog out there, in physical or virtual form. It's a dual-layer…

The Deep!: Wild Life at the Ocean’s Darkest Depths Did you know June is National Ocean Month? Consider celebrating with The Deep!: Wild Life at the Ocean’s Darkest Depths by Lindsey Leigh. This clever and informative nonfiction survey uses comics and comedy to impart fascinating facts about the denizens of the most enigmatic areas of the ocean. Through The Deep!, readers of all ages will be introduced to creatures like the blob sculpin and the pigbutt worm, to fascinating concepts like marine snow and chemosynthesis, and…