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Commercial ships could be sailing across an ice-free North Pole as soon as 2035, according to US Navy estimates, slashing the time and cost of ocean transportation between Europe and Asia.

The prediction, by the head of the US Navy

Despite the record number of manatees killed by the cold in 2010, wildlife officials are encouraged by the most recent manatee count, in which spotters tallied nearly 5,000 sea cows along Florida’s coasts.

That’s up more than 1,000 from the 2009 count, records show, but 236 fewer than the January 2010 survey, before the devastating cold took its toll.

The aerial surveys typically are held in late January, just after cold snaps, when most manatees are keeping cozy in the warm waters of power plant discharge canals or coastal springs. The counting is easier than in summer months when the manatees are scattered in the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission conducted two counts last month, Jan. 20 and 24, and spotters counted 4,840 manatees...

Corals are not usually the first things to come to people

shark fining close to a turtle sanctuary

Cindy Lee Van Dover is one of the few people on Earth to have seen the denizens of the deep up close.

She’s been on dozens of submersible dives to explore colonies of strange animals, worms and microbes that thrive on hot water percolating out of the sea floor, which researchers believe may have been the cradle of life.

“There are creatures of extraordinary beauty down there, exquisitely adapted to their environment,” she said.

There are also such rich deposits of gold, silver, zinc and copper that companies want to start “open-cut” mining around deep sea vents, with a Canadian company leading the way in waters in the southwest Pacific Ocean. Van Dover, a leading U.S...

A wonderful pair of dives! We were even lucky enough to see a Hawksbill Turtle.

Conservationists led by scientists from the Zoological Society of London have launched a new drive to save some of the world’s most endangered corals.

The new EDGE Coral Reefs programme lists the most endangered corals and has enlisted scientists around the world to educate local communities on their importance.

The most dire predictions suggest that tropical coral reefs will be all but extinct within the next half a century, with rising sea temperatures posing the greatest threat.

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American fisheries are more than just an important source of food and staple of our culture -; they also contribute billions of dollars to the U.S. economy.

Ensuring the oceans

Coral reefs present a treacherous wall of mouths to flea-sized planktonic crustaceans, but the clamour generated by animals on the reef may act like a foghorn to warn them away from danger.

In the first study to examine the response to noise of a diverse range of crustaceans, an international team led by the University of Bristol found that many families of crustaceans previously assumed to be deaf could detect, and avoid, reef noise.

Working at Lizard Island on the Great Barrier Reef, the team collected nearly 700,000 crustaceans, many of which underpin entire marine food webs. On each of 34 nights, one light trap was attached to an underwater sound system broadcasting a recording of a coral reef, while another identical trap had no playback...

Trapiche – in front of Submarine Dive