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China has a weak point under the sea. Your new anti-submarine plane points right there

July 23, 2026 by usatoday24

Above the surface, a fleet of ships can be counted, photographed and tracked in almost real time. Under water, however, the rules change: the target disappears from sight, the sound is deformed and each contact can be a valid clue or a false alarm. For this reason, anti-submarine warfare remains one of the most demanding tasks of any Navy. China knows this well and is expanding its response to monitor a space where the size of its forces alone is not enough. A plane enters the scene. The response that China has begun to show from the air is an improved variant of its Y-9 anti-submarine aircraft, now seen for the first time in maneuvers. The aircraft had appeared publicly at the parade on September 3, 2025, but the new official images allow external modifications to be seen in its detection systems. According to military analyst Zhang Junshe, quoted by Global Timesits incorporation into these exercises indicates the beginning of operational training and the acquisition of initial search and attack capabilities. The difficult part is below. An official evaluation by the US Department of Defense allows us to place the progress of the Y-9 within a gap that China would still be trying to close. Its 2024 report stated that the Chinese Navy was improving its anti-submarine means, but still lacked a robust deep-water capability. In March 2026, scholar Andrew Erickson described an unequal situation, although he made it clear that his conclusions were personal. According to the expert, China is developing a layered detection architecture within the first island chain, but its capabilities remain more limited beyond it. There, the smallest number of deployed sensors, limited maritime patrol aviation and logistical restrictions weigh in. That does not make these evaluations neutral diagnoses: they come from the United States, the power that tries to preserve its submarine advantage against China. The next obstacle. Zhang points out that the South China Sea reaches depths of more than 1,000 meters in some areas and has more complex conditions than the East China and Yellow Seas, which makes it difficult to locate submarines. In addition, temperature, salinity, currents and underwater relief modify the propagation of sound. This requires knowing the environment precisely to correctly interpret the information collected by the acoustic systems. A network, not a single plane. Beijing is not entrusting this entire task to Y-9. A Reuters investigation published earlier this year documented an extensive operation supported by oceanographic vessels, hundreds of sensors, buoys and arrays installed underwater. Separately, Erickson describes a Chinese architecture that integrates space, air, coastal, surface and underwater assets, as well as unmanned vehicles. The new plane represents the aerial and mobile component of that broader effort to understand and monitor what happens under the sea. The most visible change appears under the nose. According to Zhang, the images show what appears to be a new active phased array radar, with broader coverage, a longer sweep and a greater detection distance than the version presented in 2025. That does not mean directly finding a submerged submarine from the air, but it does mean expanding maritime surveillance and delimiting areas of interest. The more the search area is reduced, the easier it is to then target systems specifically designed to locate underwater targets. Listen and confirm. Once the area is delimited, the Y-9 can deploy up to a hundred sonobuoys of different types, housed on both sides of the fuselage. These form a listening network capable of covering tens of kilometers and collecting signals from submerged targets. In the tail, what appears to be a new magnetic anomaly detector looks for small alterations associated with a large metallic mass. Its smaller size would reduce the magnetic interference of the structure itself, facilitate maintenance and extend the detection distance. Beyond what it detects. The Y-9 aims to improve compared to the Y-8 in range, combat radius, takeoff weight and autonomy. In the maneuvers, in addition, the crews operated without a script or fixed tactics, with electromagnetic interference, simulated breakdowns and coordination with other units, within training aimed at improving their search and attack capacity day and night. None of this makes the ocean transparent, but it does show where Beijing is concentrating its efforts. Images | PLA In Xataka | In 1989, the Soviet submarine Komsomolets sank with one reactor and two nuclear warheads. To this day it continues to radiate

The Komsomolets nuclear submarine sank in European waters almost 40 years ago. The issue is what still frees the sea

July 22, 2026 by usatoday24

Almost 1,700 meters under the Norwegian Sea lies something more than a sunken submarine. Inside the Komsomolets they continue the nuclear reactor that powered the ship and two torpedoes armed with nuclear warheadslocked in a wreck subjected to salt water, pressure and corrosion for decades. They did not get there because of a secret mission or a failed test, but after an accident that turned one of the great naval feats of the Soviet Union into a problem that we are still trying to understand. The history of the Komsomolets did not end when the hull hit bottom. The reactor releases radionuclides in sporadic episodes, a behavior that current studies have been able to observe and measure with much more precision than in the 1990s. These emissions have not caused a broad impact on the marine ecosystem so far, but the question remains open. Before becoming a flotsamas the remains of a sunken ship are called, the Komsomolets had been one of the most ambitious bets of Soviet naval engineering. It entered service in 1983 with a sturdy titanium helmet and the ability to operate at more than 1,000 meters depth, an exceptional level for a military submarine of its time. According to the BBC’s historical reconstructionNATO hoped that this model would inaugurate a new class of attack submarines, but the Soviet Union never built a second unit. The Soviet submarine that ended up becoming a problem at 1,700 meters deep On April 7, 1989, a fire started in one of her compartments while she was sailing in the Norwegian Sea. The crew managed to bring the ship to the surface, but the fire continued to spread and disabled several systems. About five hours later, the submarine sank. Five sailors tried to escape in a capsule that surfaced, but only one managed to abandon it before it filled with water. In total, 42 of the 69 crew members died. What remained on board may lead us to imagine a nuclear explosion, but current assessments they do not identify a spontaneous detonation as the relevant risk. Such an explosion demands that they work arming and initiation mechanisms with a very specific synchronization. The documented concern is that corrosion will end up allowing radioactive material to escape from the reactor or, in the future, from weapons. The containment intervention chosen years later did not consist of refloating the submarine, but rather isolating its most sensitive areas. In 1994, a Russian expedition used submersibles manned to seal the six torpedo tubes and some holes in the bow section with titanium plates. The objective was to reduce the circulation of water through the compartment where the warheads remained and limit an eventual release of plutonium. It was not a complete closure of the hull, but a containment measure that was still apparently intact when the wreck was inspected in 2019. Decades later, the return to the Komsomolets had a different objective: to observe and measure, not to reseal it. In 2019, a scientific expedition sent to the submarine Ægir 6000a remotely operated vehicle equipped with cameras, manipulator arms and sampling instruments. The robot traveled through different areas of the hull and collected water, sediment and organisms near the reactor and torpedo compartment. Thus it was possible to study the state of the wreck without exposing a human crew to those conditions. The results published this year in PNAS They concluded that the assemblies containing the nuclear fuel are damaged and that seawater has reached the reactor material. The analyzes link this deterioration with intermittent emissions of radionuclides, although researchers are still trying to determine the exact mechanisms that cause them. The highest concentrations appeared next to a ventilation shaft and a nearby grate, but the material dilutes quickly and there is little evidence of accumulation in the surroundings of the wreck. No evidence of military-grade plutonium from the warheads was found in the bow area either. Reaching the Komsomolets is not impossible: the submersibles of the 1990s and subsequent expeditions already demonstrated that work can be done at that depth. The difficulty is determining what action would provide a real improvement and what risks would be involved in intervening on a damaged nuclear structure. As explained by the Norwegian nuclear safety authority to the BBC, there are currently no plans for a new containment operation. The answer is still to go back, measure and monitor how a submarine that has been under the sea for almost four decades changes. Images | Norwegian Marine Research Institute In Xataka | The Norwegian colony that has taken over a town in Alicante and even has its own constitution: L’Alfas del Pi

fill the Aral Sea with water to capture CO2

July 17, 2026 by usatoday24

The disappearance of the Aral Sea, located between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, is widely known as one of the greatest ecological disasters caused by human hands. Starting in the 1960s, the diversion of the rivers that fed it to boost intensive Soviet cotton cultivation transformed the fourth largest lake in the world into an immense saline desert. However, the consequences go far beyond biodiversity loss or local geographic changes. The climate impact. A study with a Spanish firm has put figures on a problem that goes far beyond desiccation, since the reality is that the dry bed of the Aral is a gigantic source of greenhouse gas emissions. And to put it in context, it has been seen that since the beginning of its desiccation has released about 748 million tons of CO₂a figure equivalent to the combined emissions of one year of Spain, France and Belgium. The biological mechanism. Historically, arid areas transformed into crops through irrigation, as occurred in Central Asia, have been counted as carbon sinks. However, when crossing the cycle of these irrigations with the emissions of the lake that they dried to exist, the global balance is completely reversed in favor of the emission of greenhouse gases. Something that we have repeated a lot is that lakes and wetlands act as natural sinks by retaining the atmospheric carbon that vegetation absorbs during photosynthesis, which ends up deposited and immobilized in the bottom sediments dragged by river networks. And now we are remembering this same mechanism. The problem. The water column acts as a physical plug that isolates sediments from atmospheric oxygen, and when the water disappears, that plug disappears. This causes oxygen to quickly penetrate the sediment layers and trigger an immediate biological response: communities of lethargic microorganisms “wake up” and begin to degrade the organic matter that had accumulated for centuries. It is during this aerobic microbial degradation process that the massive release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere that has been accumulating for many years occurs. The Spanish team’s measurements corroborate this process, since, by analyzing sediments in a spatial gradient to the center of the wetland, the researchers verified that the most recently dried beds still retain a large amount of organic carbon compared to those that were exposed in the 1960s. The solution. One of the most emphatic conclusions of the work is that the current mitigation strategies in the area are not working. Efforts to plant vegetation on the old dry bed have practically zero CO₂ absorption capacity in this type of arid ecosystems and are not providing any real solution. For all this, the only way to stop microbial degradation and stop CO₂ emissions is to restore physical insulation, that is, cover the area again with water. The data. Researchers estimate that some 605 million tons of CO₂ still remain to be released if no action is taken, and preventing this massive leak requires a monumental, but technically feasible, intervention. The problem that has been seen right now is that the area’s obsolete irrigation network wastes up to 90% of the water it transports. That is why modernizing the entire infrastructure, which would require 8.5 billion euros, would allow us to recover around 50% of the original surface of the lake from 1960. And the result would benefit the entire planet. The financing. For pay for a water engineering project of this magnitude, the authors of the research propose using the avoided emissions themselves as a bargaining chip. And if it is possible to flood the wetland again and stop the emission of those 605 million tons of CO₂, that amount could be transformed into marketable carbon credits. Calculations estimate that the project would generate some 323 million tons equivalent in credits, whose value in the international market would range between 3,100 and 15,800 million euros. Images | Khusen Rustamov In Xataka | Climate change has a lethal side effect that we are only just discovering: it locks us in the house and prevents us from moving

The sea in Benidorm has warmed three degrees in just five years. The data is scary, but science has an explanation

July 17, 2026 by usatoday24

The waters of the Mediterranean have been undergoing drastic changes in temperature in recent years and the coast of Alicante has become “ground zero” for this phenomenon. Here a recent report indicates that the sea temperature on the coast of Benidorm has experienced a rise of 3 °C in the last five yearsand although it may end up scary, it has an explanation. The temperature difference. The thermal jump detected in Benidorm is real and, if we look at the records of the Valencian coast, at the beginning of July 2024 the sea surface temperature was around 24 °C. But now in July 2026, the thermometers read between 26 and 28 °C. That is, an anomaly of up to 4 degrees in just a couple of years in specific areas. However, in climatology a background trend is not the same as an extreme event, and we are clear that the rise of 3 °C in five years reflects a marine heat wave, an extreme peak of the situation. As expected. If we look at the full movie, the data from the Copernicus Marine Service confirm that the long-term warming rate of the Mediterranean is 0.4 °C per decade. This means that the “base” temperature should have risen by about 0.12 °C in the last five years, and not 3 °C, so what is happening off the coast of Benidorm is a radical anomalous event fueled by the lack of winds, the anticyclone and high sunshine. We continue to increase. The fact that it is a peak that can end up being recovered and not the base trend does not mean that we should breathe easy, since marine heat waves are like fever: a symptom that the patient is going through a difficult time, and the Mediterranean is the reality that is not going through its best moment. The data of SOCIB in its 2025 report They pointed out that the year was the second warmest year since 1982, with an average sea surface temperature of 21.1 ºC, only surpassed by 2024. But the most revealing data comes from the CLIVAR-Spain program of the AEMET and the IEO-CSIC when they point out that The waters surrounding Spain are warming at a rapid rate between 60% and 200% higher than the global average. The Mediterranean bears the brunt, warming up to three times faster than the average world ocean. The transition. This summer of 2026 is being especially hard, since at the end of June, the AEMET recorded that the Mediterranean reached 26.63 °C on average, being 2.6 °C above normal. And if we go outside the average, in the western basin, the Copernicus satellites have managed to capture astonishing peaks of up to +8 °C above the historical averages (1991-2020) in very localized areas. The importance for Benidorm. A sea at 28°C alters ecosystems, endangers Posidonia meadows, attracts invasive species and, from a meteorological point of view, acts like a can of gasoline. Such a hot sea does not cool the night atmosphere on the coast, aggravating the torrid nights, and accumulates an immense amount of energy that, when colliding with the first gusts of cold air in September, can trigger more violent damage and torrential rains. Images | Emilio Sanchez Hernandez In Xataka | Sea temperature continues to rise and experts are clear: “It is partly favored by the start of a new El Niño phenomenon”

Carnival’s next megacruise will be huge. Your biggest change will be in how the sea will look

July 16, 2026 by usatoday24

A mega cruise can offer so many attractions that at times it’s easy to forget you’re sailing. Carnival aims to respond to this contradiction with the Carnival Destinya ship of enormous dimensions whose proposal will not be based solely on volume, capacity or the number of spaces on board. The shipping company wants its distinctive feature to be its relationship with the outside world. To achieve this, it has proposed an open architecture, with more glass surfaces, wide perspectives and areas designed to keep the ocean within the field of vision. Carnival Destiny will be the first member of the new Ace class, a family of three ships with deliveries scheduled for 2029, 2031 and 2033. Its construction formally began with the steel cutting ceremony at the Fincantieri shipyard in Monfalcone, Italy, where a 3D hologram was also shown with the first preview of its design. Delivery is scheduled for summer 2029, after which she will sail to destinations in the Caribbean, Bahamas and Mexico. By size, the Destiny will enter directly into the highest category on the market. Its approximately 230,000 GT of gross tonnage and its capacity to around 8,000 passengers They will place it close to the largest cruise ships built, although it will not lead the classification by volume. Royal Caribbean’s Icon class ships, such as the Icon of the Seas and the most recent Legend of the Seasare around 250,800 GT and can accommodate around 7,600 passengers at full capacity. The new Carnival ship will therefore compete in that same league, but with a different proposal. A giant who does not want to hide the ocean Once its scale is located, the difference that the company wants to highlight appears in the design. Carnival has not yet presented a main attraction or a large thematic space that defines the ship, but rather a different way of organizing it around its relationship with the outside. The company describes it as the most outward-oriented megacruise ship on the market, a promotional claim it will yet have to prove. The intention, in any case, is clear: that the ocean functions as a constant reference and not as a secondary element. To materialize this idea, the project will use more than 18,200 m² of glass surfaces. Among the elements already announced there will be multi-story glass wallsmore open lines of sight and a greater presence of spaces facing the outside. It is not just about adding windows, but rather organizing part of the architecture to reduce visual obstacles and extend views across the ship. Carnival has not yet shown the complete design, so the real scope of that transformation remains to be known. This image shows Royal Caribbean’s Legend of the Seas, not the future Carnival Destiny. Delivered in June 2026 as the third ship of the Icon class, it represents the current reference against which Carnival will place its new giant Another of the pillars will be in the cabins and on the outer decks. The company maintains that the Destiny will have an unprecedented number of accommodations with balconies and sea views, but has not published a figure to verify the scope of that claim. It will also redesign the Lanaian exterior cover designed to create a more continuous connection with the ocean. With this, the shipping company intends that this relationship does not depend solely on the large panoramic spaces. The changes will not end in the architecture, although the rest of the new features are still difficult to measure. According to Carnival, more than 70% of the spaces and attractions will respond to concepts that the brand has not used beforewith proposals planned for restaurants, bars, lounges, entertainment and outdoor areas. The figure is striking, but it is not yet accompanied by names, plans or detailed descriptions. Until these announcements arrive, it can only be stated that it is preparing a broad renewal of its offer, not that each proposal will be unprecedented in the sector. The Destiny proposal is based on a contradiction: the more cruise ships grow and the more activities they concentrate, the easier it is for the sea to be relegated to the background. Carnival will try to correct this with balconies, exterior routes, large glass surfaces and a layout designed to expand the views. The idea has already been defined, but it still remains to be seen how it will work on a ship prepared for around 8,000 passengers. Until 2029 we will not know if this architecture will really change the experience or if its greatest effect will remain in the promotional field. Images | carnival In Xataka | A technology created to avoid collisions at sea blows millionaires’ minds: it allows them to locate their yachts in seconds

Switzerland thought that putting 5,000 solar panels at 2,500 meters above sea level was crazy. He had an unexpected ally: the snow

July 11, 2026 by usatoday24

The logic of the solar sector tells us that the panels should go down, where it is hot and the roads reach without problem. It shouldn’t be a good idea to put them on top of a mountain, but a project in the Swiss Alps it has surprised us with extraordinary performance. The curious thing is that what drives his performance is exactly what many assumed would make him fail. A solar farm in an unexpected place. The installation is called AlpinSolar and is located on the dam of Lake Muttsee, in the Swiss canton of Glarus, one hour from Zurich. This construction is located at 2,500 meters above sea level and is the highest dam in Europe, as well as the longest in Switzerland. Panels everywhere. Some 5,000 bifacial solar panels, manufactured by the Swiss company Megasol, cover more than a kilometer of the dam wall, facing south to capture sun from morning to night. Being an inclined surface, the snow slides alone without the need for manual cleaning. A complex installation. The dam is inaccessible by land, so every panel, every piece and every tool had to be transport by helicopter. For example, the crane that helped install the panels, and whose components were moved there to then be assembled and ready to operate. Megavarious out of nowhere. The plant, operational from 2022, has an installed power of 2.2 MW and generates about 3.3 million kWh per year, enough to supply between 700 and 750 homes according to various sources. damn fog. The Alpine country generates plenty of electricity in summer, but the same does not happen in winter, which is exactly when it needs it most. That deficit could worsen significantly if Switzerland starts to close its nuclear power plants, and alternatives such as wind energy, have had difficulties developing there. Traditional solar doesn’t help much either: a panel in the valley only generates a quarter of its normal output in winter, in part because fog can sit in low-lying areas for weeks. Better up than down. The curious thing is that the idea of installing the solar farm at high altitude turned the situation around. The plant is above the fog line, and the thin, clean air lets in more sunlight. The cold, far from reducing performance, helps: solar panels work more efficiently when they are not overheated. And the snow acts like a giant mirror, reflecting additional light onto the panels from below (albedo effect), which can boost production. Surprise. AlpinSolar generates about half of its entire annual production during the winter, exactly the season in which the country needed it most. In fact, it produces up to three times more than a similar plant in low altitude areas during the months of February and March. That was enough argument for the Denner supermarket chain to sign an agreement 20-year energy purchase agreement with the project in an alliance with Axpo and IWB, builders and developers of the project. To copy the project. The result has also ended up convincing the Swiss government, which approved a fast-track law dubbed “Solar Express” to facilitate the development of new projects that effectively leave AlpinSolar behind. Among them stands out an alpine park near Sedrun in which up to 4,200 solar projects are planned to be built in lowland and mountain areas of the country. Austria, Italy and other countries are following the experiment closely. That and othersby the way. Image | Axpo In Xataka | The wind industry has been dreaming for years of a turbine that can be assembled without concrete or machinery. France has said ‘hold my tank’“

After 40 years in the Galician sea, the radioactive drums are in a critical state of deterioration. The solution may be worse than letting it be

July 9, 2026 by usatoday24

“There is no life down there.” For decades it was almost a legend among activists and oceanographers: a giant landfill, with hundreds of thousands of radioactive drums, abandoned in the abyssal plain of the Atlantic. The problem is that there was life and they were killing it. A little less than 300 nautical miles from Cape Fisterra in Galicia – just over 500 kilometers – the Nodssum Project, which is already on its third expedition, has sounded the alarm. Far from the myth, French scientific missions They located thousands of barrels, went down with manned submarines, photographed leaks and measured radionuclides above what was expected. 220,000 barrels They only found a thousand. The rest, some 100,000 tons of nuclear waste, lay at the bottom and was carried away by the currents, its contents scattered. Now, with just over 3,500 barrels located, it is concluded that they are suffering from an “advanced state of deterioration”, according to researchers from the Center National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS). A cemetery under the Atlantic. Where does all this come from? The drama began in 1946. And until the early 1990s, British, Dutch, Belgian, French and other European ships continuously dumped low- and medium-level radioactive waste at the bottom of the Atlantic. They are concentrated in an area of about 10,000 square kilometers, at a depth of 4,000–5,000 meters. It is, without hot cloths, the third largest landfill of canned nuclear waste known on the planet. Inside there are no fuel rods, but rather civil and military nuclear waste: sludge, gloves, laboratory equipment, medical remains, resins, contaminated scrap metal, encapsulated in cement or tar to withstand the pressure of the deep ocean. When the landfill began to be mapped, they did not even document 1% of the total. To date, just over 3,000 barrels have been located, identified with the autonomous robot UlyX and high-resolution sonar. A longliner and a lot coraxe. The They came between two freighters that were dumping garbage to the Atlantic Trench. The press took notice and that practice bounced around in newspapers around the world. The protests had an effect, because the European body in charge of controlling this waste declared a moratorium on discharges. Moratorium that is still in force today. The first NODSSUM-I campaign focused on making the invisible visible. since a decadethe expedition has been expanding the mapped area to about 140 square kilometers, with densities of about 20 drums per square kilometer and more than 3,350 barrels cataloged. The great novelty came with the manned submarine Nautile, which made it possible to directly observe the state of the barrels at more than 4,000 meters deep. It was then that the real state could be noticed. Barrels in the last. Corroded surfaces, colonization of anemones, open cracks in dents and leaks of encapsulating material – with tar and cement overflowing – in some containers, in addition to the detection of radionuclides above what was expected. The sea salt is slowly eating away some brass lacking the necessary security. The expedition has taken 345 samples of sediment, about 5,000 liters of water and specimens of abyssal fauna (fish, amphipods, small crustaceans) to analyze them in the laboratory with precision one hundred times greater than that of the instruments on board. To date, no “anomalies” have been found in the sediments and, although the radionuclides are below legal limitsthey do exceed all previous estimates. Rescue them… or leave them where they are. The current objective is to contain the threat. Can 200,000 drums be removed from the bottom of the Atlantic? Technically, yes; Politically, economically and in terms of risk, things get complicated. The Nuclear Safety Council insists on a clear message: the Galician and Cantabrian coastal waters do not show significant levels of radioactivity, below the limits set by Spanish and European regulations. And Spain does not even have responsibilities, since it did not dump waste into the Atlantic trench. In fact, the problem goes beyond the astronomical cost: many barrels are so degraded that they could disintegrate in the lifting process. If deterioration continues, will there be greater problems resulting from bioaccumulation? How does it affect the abyssal food chain? This is exactly what you are looking to answer. At the same time, we are trying to study this deep habitat full of organisms adapted to a darkness that now coexists with an 80-year-old nuclear legacy. Images | BNG (by Wolcott Henry), Flickr (owned by Tomas Vazquez) and Campagne NODSSUM, CNRS, Flotte oceanographique française. In Xataka | 800 meters deep in a 175 million year old rock: Germany’s solution to nuclear waste In Xataka | The big problem with nuclear energy has always been its waste. Russia can now recycle them up to five times

Scientists threw a cow into the depths of the China Sea. They discovered eight unexpected guests at the feast

July 8, 2026 by usatoday24

The ocean is full of surprises. Sometimes, as happened several years ago in Canada, enigmas appear floating in a of human feet adrift. However, in others, the majority, you have to go down to the depths to try to solve the mysteries. That was precisely what a group of researchers proposed. It all started by throwing the carcass of a cow. A cow at 1,600 meters. In one of the most unusual marine experiments in recent years, a group of scientists threw a dead cow 1,629 meters deep on a continental slope of the South China Sea, off the Chinese island of Hainan, with the aim of simulating the sinking of a whale and studying the scavenger behavior of deep waters. What they found surprised even the most experienced researchers: eight sleeper sharks of the Pacific (Somniosus pacificus) appeared at the site, marking the first documented observation of this species in the region. The discovery not only unexpectedly expands the distribution map of this elusive shark, but also provides valuable information about its behavioral patterns, feeding hierarchies, physiological adaptations and its possible geographical expansion. An unexpected visitor. Although the Pacific sleeper shark is a species with a wide distribution in the northern Pacific Ocean (from Japan to Alaska and south to Baja California), its detection in waters off southern China was not only unexpected, but raises questions about the actual extent of its habitatits possible displacement due to the effect of climate change or even the existence of a stable and not yet registered population in that region. Food label. The recorded images The underwater cameras not only confirmed its presence, but also revealed unusual behavior for large predators: a kind of shift systemin which the sharks lined up to feed on the corpse, giving way to other individuals that approached from behind. This type of “food label”rarely observed in predatory species, suggests that feeding order could be determined by the competitive intensity of each individual, rather than a chaotic struggle for resources, which would indicate a more complex level of social organization than previously suspected in these animals. New clues. He study also documented variations in behavior depending on body size. The specimens that exceeded 2.7 meters in length were very more aggressive and direct in attacking the carrion, while the smaller sharks opted for cautious movements, circling the carcass before approaching. The pattern suggests that even in an environment where food is scarce and opportunities are random, sleeper sharks could have developed a coexistence strategy with hierarchical ranks that minimize direct conflict. One more thing. Another notable finding was a behavior of eye retraction observed during feeding. Since this species lacks nictitating membrane (the protective “third eyelash” that other vertebrates such as cats or certain reptiles have), researchers believe that this retraction reflects a evolutionary adaptation to protect the eyes during bites or struggles, which provides new information about the defensive physiology of these sharks in their natural environment. The unknown. And more, since the recordings also showed other revealing aspects. To wit: several sharks carried visible parasites in his eyes, identified like copepodsalthough it was not possible to accurately classify the species. This detail reinforces the biological parallel between Pacific sleeper sharks and their better-known relatives, the Greenland sharkswhich also tend to harbor parasites in their visual organs. Aside from sharks, the experiment attracted a surprising variety of deep-sea fauna, such as snail fish and numerous amphipodsall attracted to the source of decaying organic matter. These records confirm that the deep areas of the South China Sea not only host a biodiversity that is still poorly documented, but could be more productive than previously believed, contrary to the idea that the tropical depths are biologically poorer than their polar counterparts. The great unknown. Ultimately, the presence of these sharks raises a crucial question: is this a recent expansion of their range due to global warming, or has it always been part of their habitat and simply never been observed? The species is known to have occasionally appeared in such remote regions like Palau or the Solomon Islandssuggesting that there could be more southern populations than the scientific literature indicates. However, the “frequent occurrence” in the southwest China Sea, according to the team itself researcher led by Han Tian, suggests rather a structural lack of data in an underexplored region rather than a recent change in the distribution pattern. In that sense, the experiment with the cow corpse has not only provided a specific observation, but has also opened a way to review key concepts about the marine biogeography of abyssal species. The new discovery. In February 2026, it was documented, for first time in historya shark (of the sleeper family, possibly a southern sleeper shark, a very close relative of the Pacific sleeper shark) off the South Shetland Islands, in Antarctic waters, 490 meters deep. This is the first time that an elasmobranch has been filmed in the Southern Ocean, and several experts suggest that warming waters could be facilitating the movement of this family of sharks to areas where they were not previously expected, although they also warn that they could have been there for a long time without having been detected. Know the depths. All these findings They highlight the usefulness of simple but carefully designed experiments to obtain data about remote, inaccessible and often poorly understood environments. The idea of simulating a whale sinking with a cow not only proved effective, it proved to be a powerful ecological magnet capable of revealing complex biological interactions. In a context where the climate change and human activity are altering ecosystems even at great depth, this type of research is crucial to understanding the invisible functioning of the deep ocean. The appearance of eight sleeper sharks where no one expected them, behaving with order, measured aggression and sophisticated adaptive mechanisms, is further proof that the deep sea they keep secrets that we are only beginning to understand. A version of this article was published in July … Read more

Venice spent 6 billion on a dam to stop the sea. There are those who already see it as the only future left for the Bay of Cádiz

July 1, 2026 by usatoday24

In the first two months of 2026, Venice had to raise its large mobile dock 30 times. In the last five years, he has had to do it another 108 times in total. Nobody can say that the work of 6 billion that was going to save the lagoon has not been necessary; What can be said is that it closes so often that it threatens to suffocate just what protects. 2,000 kilometers away, in the bay of Cádiz, the sea is eating away at the largest tidal-influenced saline wetland in Spain. And the shadow of the great dam begins to hover over the problem. Is Venice the future of the Silver Cup? Let’s start by x-raying the problem. The sea has been advancing over the bay for decades, that cannot surprise anyone. Perhaps the only thing that has changed in recent years is that salt farmers, aquaculturists, scientists and ecologists have sat at the same table with a common diagnosis. Its ambition is much smaller than that of Venice, but we are light years away from Venice. What they are asking for is something as simple as the competent administrations coordinating. Coordinate for what? To prevent a good part of the saline wetland from dying. This wetland is structured around the so-called “outside turns“: soft dikes that stop spring tides and storms. They are not “natural things”, they are the product of centuries of human work. And when there is someone who maintains them, they endure, they tame the sea, they control the storms. The problem is that there is almost no one to maintain them. Today, around 80% of the salt mines are abandoned; Of the 160 artisanal salt mines that existed in the 70s, four remain. In other words, what is happening in the Bay is a disaster labeled ‘natural’, but with socioeconomic roots. The result is clear. In points like the south of Puerto Real, the sea advances about 3 meters a year, according to calculations from the University of Cádiz. And it is now just over 200 meters from the first houses. A few kilometers from there, 94,000 inhabitants (the people of San Fernando) live below sea level and this protected natural park is their main line of defense. If the estimates of the Blue Bay Alliance They are right and the sea rises between 55 and 70 centimeters, there will be many people who will suffer the consequences. And we will put our hands on our heads and wonder how it was possible. Then, just then, people will start talking seriously about the wall. But it will be a mistake. So far no one has asked for the Venetian MOSE and, in fact, the ‘concrete’ that the Alliance talks about is something very different and much more surgical. His basic proposal is to return to the walls permeable to the tide: to use all our modern technology to try to rescue traditional engineering. That is, keeping an extremely complex ecosystem alive. And that’s the heart of the matter: the Venice Wall could protect the new parts of San Fernando when the time comes, but it couldn’t keep the bay alive. We have to decide if we want to invest Now it’s cheap, but the risk is diffuse. Or invest later, when it is expensive, but clear and real. Image | Alain Rouiller In Xataka | Venice spent 5 billion euros on flood barriers. Five years later they are already “unsustainable”

something is wrong with the relationship between the sea and the atmosphere

June 16, 2026 by usatoday24

We are in the middle of June and it doesn’t seem like it, but the western Mediterranean is burning. And no, it is not an exaggeration: we are talking about a marine heat wave with peaks of surface anomaly greater than 5 degrees in specific areas. It is what experts call in technical jargon, a gigantic problem. Especially, facing autumn. A ticking time bomb. The great temptation when we see this type of data is to plot a direct line between sea temperature in June and DANAs in October. But it would be a mistake. The mechanism exists, of course. However, the matter is a little more complex than we might think. This is because the overheated sea is not a forecast of how much autumn rain we are going to suffer: it is a gauge of the ceiling of intensity that these rains can reach. The effect of an anomalously warm Mediterranean is to charge the atmosphere with water vapor and thus raise the amount of water that a DANA can precipitate. But, and this is crucial, the trigger is atmospheric. It is useless to have a charged atmosphere without a mass of cold air at altitude that is detached from the general circulation. What’s new? What is genuinely new is not that the Mediterranean is hot. It is, in fact, from 2022 on a sustained basis. What is new is that we have had a marine heat wave since May. That is, long before the historical calendar and still very far from the warmest moment (August). Furthermore, whether we want to see it or not, El Niño is just around the corner and, although we hope not to receive its wildest impacts, the heat it will bring to the world makes experts very worried. Why is it relevant? The data is clear. The Mediterranean basin heats up around 20% faster than the global ocean average and is trailing a streak of unprecedented records: 18 of the 20 highest daily values since 1982 were recorded between 2023 and 2024 (with a maximum of 28.15 °C on August 10, 2024). The memory of the DANA of Valencia is still fresh and the certainty that the situation is getting worse It is a slab for the national climate conversation. Are we going to get worse? It’s pure physics: a warmer sea increases evaporation and the water vapor content of the atmosphere (at a rate of 7% more vapor for each degree). The best example is Storm Daniel which, as the researchers showedit would have been much more unlikely without climate change. That is why it is advisable to be precise and not take things out of context. The current scenario is problematic because if a DANA forms on the Mediterranean coast this autumn, it will have more fuel available to discharge more intense rains than with a cold sea. If it is not formed, nothing has to happen. Image | Copernicus In Xataka | We already know exactly how much climate change was to blame for DANA in Valencia (and the figures are devastating)

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