mbari

A bizarre seafloor creature covered with luminous orange, spaghetti-like tentacles recently made its internet debut in newly released video footage.The unusual pom-pom-shaped creature is actually a type of segmented marine worm known as a polychaete, and it belongs to an appropriately named group: spaghetti worms.   Researchers from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) captured footage of the pasta-mimicking worm in 2012 using a remotely operated vehicle (ROV), while they were exploring the Gulf of…

The wealth of rap talent bubbling up in Morocco is far from a secret. The North African country has been churning out some of the finest in Arab-speaking rap for quite some time now, but the West is unforgivably slow at catching on.One man patiently working away to correct that is Hassan Hajjaj, the Moroccan-born, London-raised, multidisciplinary artist and local hero who’s been a tireless champion of Morocco’s cultural cache. Earlier this month, Hassan and his Jajjah space (a cafe/venue in Marrakech’s blossoming creative…

Deep beneath the waters of Monterey Bay, researchers in California have filmed an extremely rare deep-sea fish.At first glance, the little fella looks sort of like a bronze shimmery cigar floating on end, but the feverish wiggle of its tail gives the creature's true identity away.   The little bronze beauty is known to scientists as a highfin dragonfish (Bathophilus flemingi), and of all the deep-sea dragonfish in Monterey Bay, this is one of the rarest."In more than three decades of deep-sea research and more than…