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Categories: Computer Science: Artificial Intelligence (AI), Ecology: Sea Life

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Mineral particles played a key role in raising oxygen levels in the Earth's atmosphere billions of years ago, with major implications for the way intelligent life later evolved, according to new research.

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Toothed whales, such as dolphins, killer whales and sperm whales communicate and catch food exclusively with sound. Now researchers have for the first time found they evolved a new sound source in their nose that is functionally the same as the human larynx.

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A big fish story? Maybe so: The greatest sea monster of the Devonian Period (Dunkleosteus terrelli) may be getting downsized. A new article contents that the famous sea monster of the Age of Fishes may not have neared 30-feet in length, as long believed, but topped off at maybe 13 feet. The new assertion brings attention to a famously fierce looking armored fish from 360 million years ago -- and maybe a new debate.

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Researchers have developed a prototype for coral-reef-friendly sunscreens by using polymerization to create large molecules that still block UV radiation but are too big to penetrate our skin, coral, and algae. The polymeric UV filter was more effective at preventing sunburn in mice than existing sunscreens.

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Researchers test cognitive abilities of the language model GPT-3.

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Centuries-old whaling records show how southern right whales are altering their feeding habits.

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A new study of New Zealand blue whales' vocalizations indicates the whales are present year-round in the South Taranaki Bight and their behavior is influenced by environmental conditions in the region.

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In 2011, scientists recorded a previously unknown feeding strategy in whales around the world. Now, researchers in Australia think they may have found evidence of this behaviour being described in ancient accounts of sea creatures, recorded more than 2,000 years ago. They believe that misunderstandings of these descriptions contributed to myths about medieval sea monsters. Whales are known lunge at their prey when feeding, but recently whales have been spotted at the surface of the water with their jaws open at right angles, waiting for shoals of fish to swim into their mouths. A clip of this strategy was captured in 2021 and went viral on Instagram. This strategy seems to work for the whales because the fish think they have found a place to shelter from predators, not realising they are swimming into danger. It's not known why this strategy has only recently been identified, but scientists speculate that it's a result of changing environmental conditions -- or that whales are being more closely monitored than ever before by drones and other modern technologies.

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Cartilaginous fish have changed much more in the course of their evolutionary history than previously believed. Evidence for this thesis has been provided by new fossils of a ray-like shark, Protospinax annectans, which demonstrate that sharks were already highly evolved in the Late Jurassic.

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A 'biocomputer' powered by human brain cells could be developed within our lifetime, according to researchers who expect such technology to exponentially expand the capabilities of modern computing and create novel fields of study.

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The sustained loss of a once abundant species of sea urchin in the Caribbean could also result in the functional extinction of diverse coral species from the region's reefs, according to new research.

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What is the origin of the ancestors of present-day fish? What species evolved from them? A 50-year-old scientific controversy revolved around the question of which group, the 'bony-tongues' or the 'eels', was the oldest. A study has just put an end to the debate by showing through genomic analysis that these fishes are in fact one and the same group, given the rather peculiar name of 'Eloposteoglossocephala'. These results shed new light on the evolutionary history of fish.

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A tiny robot that could one day help doctors perform surgery was inspired by the incredible gripping ability of geckos and the efficient locomotion of inchworms.

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Scientists reveal that a warming world is increasing human-wildlife conflicts globally. They show that climate shifts can drive conflicts by altering animal habitats, the timing of events, wildlife behaviors and resource availability. It also showed that people are changing their behaviors and locations in response to climate change in ways that increase conflicts.

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While apprehensions about employment and schools dominate headlines, the truth is that the effects of large-scale language models such as ChatGPT will touch virtually every corner of our lives. These new tools raise society-wide concerns about artificial intelligence's role in reinforcing social biases, committing fraud and identity theft, generating fake news, spreading misinformation and more. A team of researchers is seeking to empower tech users to mitigate these risks. The authors demonstrate that people can learn to spot the difference between machine-generated and human-written text.

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By returning to spawn in the Sacramento River at different ages, Chinook salmon lessen the potential impact of a bad year and increase the stability of their population in the face of climate variability, according to a new study. Unfortunately, spawning Chinook salmon are increasingly younger and concentrated within fewer age groups, with the oldest age classes of spawners rarely seen in recent years. The new findings suggest changes in hatchery practices and fishery management could help restore the age structure of the salmon population and make it more resilient to climate change.

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By exploring the stability and collapse of marine ecosystems during the Permian-Triassic mass extinction, researchers gain insights into modern biodiversity crisis.

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Researchers believe rising sea temperatures are to blame for the plummeting number of invertebrates such as molluscs and sea urchins at Rottnest Island off Western Australia, with some species having declined by up to 90 per cent between 2007 and 2021.

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'Antisocial' damselfish are scaring off cleaner fish customers -- and this could contribute to coral reef breakdown. Damselfish have been discovered to disrupt 'cleaning services' vital to the health of reefs. And climate change may mean this is only likely to get worse.

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The endangered Saimaa ringed seal is an Ice Age relict living in the highly labyrinthine Lake Saimaa, Finland. The newly published work shows that although individual seals have greatly reduced genetic variation, the loss of variation has been complementary, preserving the adaptive potential of the whole population.