Frontiers | Science News

Science News post list

120 news posts in Frontiers in Marine Science

Environment

20 Apr 2022

Most read articles of March 2022: Secrets of ancient leftovers revealed and endangered shark discovered in pet food

By Colm Gorey, Science Communications Manager, Frontiers Image: Shutterstock.com Each month, Frontiers shines a spotlight on some of the leading research across a wide range of topics. Here are just some of the highlights that resonated strongly with readers on our news site in the month of March. Leftovers in prehistoric pots let scientists peek into the kitchen of an ancient civilization How do you reconstruct the cookery of people who lived thousands of years ago? Bones and plant remains can tell us what kind of ingredients were available. But to reconstruct how ingredients were combined and cooked, scientists need to study ancient cooking vessels. “Fatty molecules and microscopic remains from plants such as starch grains and phytoliths – silica structures deposited in many plant tissues – get embedded into vessels and can survive over long periods,” said Dr Akshyeta Suryanarayan, a researcher at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, Spain, and co-author on a recent study in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution. In their study, Suryanarayan and co-authors analyzed such ‘leftovers’ in Copper and Bronze Age vessels – including pots, vases, goblets, jars, and platters – from today’s Gujarat, India. “Our study is the first to combine starch grain […]

Featured news

14 Mar 2022

Possible treatment for tinnitus? 4 fascinating Frontiers articles you may have missed

By Colm Gorey, Science Communications Manager Image: Shutterstock.com At Frontiers, we bring some of the world’s best research to a global audience. But with tens of thousands of articles published each year, many often fly under the radar. Now, as part of new series each month, Frontiers will highlight just some of those amazing papers you may have missed. 1: New treatment for tinnitus shows promise for further study More than 10% of the world’s population is estimated to live with a condition called tinnitus, where a range of sounds ranging from ringing to buzzing are heard in the ears that never goes away. While ranging in severity, between 0.5% and 3% of people diagnosed with it say their quality of life is impacted, with no known cure. However, researchers in South Korea have published a paper in Frontiers in Neuroscience putting forward hopeful findings that suggest a new treatment method could be possible for subacute and chronic tinnitus. The small study saw 55 patients undergo repeated nerve blocks after stimulation of the trigeminal and facial nerves to modulate the auditory and non-auditory nervous systems via the vestibulocochlear cranial nerve pathways. In more than 87.5% of patients, tinnitus disappeared or […]

Psychology

28 Feb 2022

Origins of life and plastic invasions: The most viewed Frontiers news articles of January 2022

By Colm Gorey, Science Communications Manager Image: DisobeyArt/Shutterstock.com Each month, Frontiers shines a spotlight on some of the leading research across a wide range of topics. Here are just some of the highlights that resonated strongly with readers on our news site in the month of January. Likely energy source behind first life on Earth found ‘hiding in plain sight’ Life on Earth arose roughly 4bn years ago. How it arose, and from what energy source is of interest to everyone because we humans like to know where we come from. The team of Prof William Martin at the University Düsseldorf’s Institute of Molecular Evolution investigates early evolution. In a recent paper in Frontiers in Microbiology, they argue that the source of energy required at life’s origin has been hiding in plain sight: under the environmental conditions at deep sea hydrothermal vents, hypothesized to have been the sites where life on Earth originated, the central biosynthetic reactions of life do not require an external energy source. Article link: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2021.793664/full 2. How do we define a well-lived life? First scientific evidence helps us get closer to an answer A transition, such as the beginning of a new year or entering the second half of life, […]

Climate action

17 Dec 2021

No more ‘We’re going to Ibiza’? Between 56 and 65% of beach area in the Balearic Islands will be permanently lost due to the climate crisis

By Mischa Dijkstra, Frontiers science writer Image credit: Anna Ok / Shutterstock.com Scientists use complex mathematical modeling of sea states, sea level rise, and local geography to predict the permanent loss of between 56 and 65% of the current area of sandy beaches in the Balearic Islands by the end of the 21st century, depending on the global warming scenario. During extreme weather conditions such as the strongest storm surges with the highest waves, between 84 and 86% of the beach area will be flooded. The impact of the climate crisis on coastal areas has been well documented, but new research has shown the impact it may have on the beaches found on the Balearic Islands in the north-western Mediterranean. Findings published in Frontiers in Marine Science showed that the archipelago – heavily reliant on tourism – could lose most of its beaches. “Much of the income of touristic regions in the Mediterranean comes from beach and sun tourism: more than 25% in the case of the Balearic Islands. This means that it is essential to predict the fate of these beaches under climate change,” said first author Miguel Agulles, a PhD student at the Oceanographic Center of the Balearic […]

Featured news

16 Dec 2021

More than 100 underwater animal species found living on 2,200-year-old Mediterranean shipwreck

By Mischa Dijkstra, Frontiers science writer The ship’s ram as it was found on the seabed off Sicily at a depth of nearly 90m. Image credit: K. Egorov / Società per la Documentazione dei Siti Sommersi – Global Underwater Explorers (SDSS-GUE) Italian researchers found amazing community of 114 species of invertebrates on priceless archeological artifact, including ecological ‘constructors’, ‘binders’, and ‘dwellers’ On March 10, 241 BCE, a sea battle took place near the Aegadian Islands off northwestern Sicily. A fleet equipped by the Roman Republic destroyed a fleet from Carthage, ending the First Punic War in Rome’s favor. But scientists have now shown that this destruction and carnage utimately made a a rich flowering of marine life possible. In a recent study in Frontiers in Marine Science, they reported finding no fewer than 114 species of animals, coexisting in a complex community, on a ship’s ram from a Carthaginian ship sunk in the battle. This is the first study of marine life on a very ancient wreck. The ram is not only a priceless archeological find, but also a unique window into the processes by which marine animals colonize empty sites and gradually form mature, stable, diverse communities. “Shipwrecks are […]

Environment

26 Oct 2021

Waters off French coast in winter may be a deadly trap for small, foraging turtles

By Tania Fitzgeorge-Balfour, Science writer A tracked loggerhead turtle on the beach with satellite tracker attached to its shell. Image: Oceane Cottier Aquarium La Rochelle SAS Turtle habitat boundaries should be updated to include European waters, suggests a new study tracking stranded turtles rescued from the French coast. Their movements after release back into the Bay of Biscay appear related to their size, with larger individuals swimming westwards towards their birth home in the US or Africa, and smaller individuals potentially trapped in the region for winter. These findings will inform strategies to ensure stranded turtles survive after their release. The documented habitat boundaries of the loggerhead, Kemp’s ridley and green turtles are questioned by a new study suggesting that stranded turtles rescued from European French Atlantic and Channel waters could be visiting the area to forage for food. Published in Frontiers in Marine Science, satellite tracking data reveals that while some turtles may be able to return home, after their rehabilitation and release to Florida in the US, or Cape Verde off the African coast, younger individuals are at risk of being trapped in the region. “Stranded turtles that were tracked swimming westwards presumably towards their birth homes, after […]

Featured news

17 Aug 2021

Microplastics hinder the growth of microscopic marine animals

By Tania Fitzgeorge-Balfour, science writer Example of marine dinoflagellates (Dinophysis sp., not the species studied in the paper). Image credit: Rattiya Thongdumhyu/Shutterstock.com Plastic pollution is not just a problem for larger marine animals. Dinoflagellates, which are single-celled marine predators, can also ingest microplastic which in turn limits their growth and consequently their overall abundance. This has implications for the larger animals that feed on these microscopic predators, in terms of available food and the transfer of energy up the food chain. Microscopic marine predators can ingest microplastic, which in turn lowers their growth and overall abundance, finds a recent study published in Frontiers in Marine Science. This has implications for the larger marine animals that feed on these tiny predators, both in terms of available food and the transfer of energy up the food chain. “The plastic pollution of our oceans isn’t just affecting whales and sea turtles, it also impacts the small, microscopic animals towards the bottom of the food chain,” says Susanne Menden-Deuer, coauthor of this research and a professor at the Graduate School of Oceanography, University of Rhode Island, US. “Our study shows that some single-celled marine predators called dinoflagellates ingest microplastic particles, and when they do, […]