When Steven Spielberg’s famous mechanical shark, Bruce, first appeared onscreen in the summer of 1975, Chris Lowe thought it looked fake. Dr. Lowe, who now leads the Shark Lab at California State Long Beach, was 11 that year. He had grown up on Martha’s Vineyard, the island in Massachusetts where “Jaws” was filmed. He had…
Humans have visually documented about 1,470 square miles, or a mere 0.001 percent, of the deep seafloor, according to a new study. That’s a little larger than the size of Rhode Island. The report, published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, arrives as nations debate whether to pursue industrial mining of the seabed for critical…
How does an 18-foot-long, 2,000-pound carcass just disappear? That question has puzzled some divers and photographers who regularly plunge into the waters off San Diego. It started earlier this spring when Doug Bonhaus took advantage of some calm weather to scuba dive in Scripps Canyon. As he descended, a hulking mass took shape below him….
President Trump has ordered the U.S. government to take a major step toward mining vast tracts of the ocean floor, a move that nearly every other nation in the world considers off limits to this kind of industrial activity. The executive order, signed Thursday, would circumvent a decades-old international treaty that every major coastal nation…
Imagine this: You’re a rig shark. Not a great white. Not even a hammerhead. You’re barely five feet long, named like a piece of industrial equipment, and your daily goals include not being eaten and possibly finding a decent crustacean snack. Life isn’t exactly “Shark Week” glam.Now imagine, in the middle of your existentially quiet,…
Karen Pryor once taught a hermit crab to ring a bell by pulling a string with its claw. She taught a cat to play the piano (ham was involved) and, most impressive, her mother to stop complaining on the phone. Ms. Pryor, whose experience as a dolphin trainer showed her how positive reinforcement could be…
Julie Packard, the marine biologist who has presided over the Monterey Bay Aquarium since it opened in 1984 and shepherded it through the Covid pandemic, announced her retirement as executive director on Wednesday. Ms. Packard has helped repurpose the thick-glassed fish museums of old into potent forces for ocean conservation action. Built with a $55…
Julie Packard, the marine biologist who has presided over the Monterey Bay Aquarium since it opened in 1984 and shepherded it through the Covid pandemic, announced her retirement as executive director on Wednesday. Ms. Packard has helped repurpose the thick-glassed fish museums of old into potent forces for ocean conservation action. Built with a $55…