Shark bycatch kills millions of sharks each year, even in U.S. longline fisheries, where many are discarded dead. Because sharks grow and reproduce slowly, these losses threaten vulnerable populations and marine ecosystems. FAU researchers have created a patent-pending zinc-and-graphite device that generates a small electric field, repelling sharks from baited hooks without affecting target species like tuna and swordfish. Florida field trials cut shark bycatch by more than 60%, offering an inexpensive, scalable path to sustainable fisheries.

Floating offshore wind turbines (FOWTs) operate under complex ocean conditions, where currents generate vortex shedding that can trigger platform oscillation, affecting turbine safety and energy output. This study uses high-fidelity computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to explore how different flow incidence angles (0°, 90°, 180°) influence the vortex-induced motion (VIM) of a semi-submersible FOWT platform. Results show clear differences in surge, sway, and yaw responses when the current direction changes, with strong lock-in behavior occurring at reduced velocity V_R = 6–10. The work highlights how pontoons and cross braces suppress VIM amplitudes by disturbing the wake patterns. The findings provide valuable insight for improving design safety and optimizing hydrodynamic performance of FOWT platforms.

Shifting ocean conditions mean that animals have to adjust to the loss of some food sources and changes in their habitats. Now, researchers have used almost 30 years of data to document how the trophic niches and diets of fin, minke, and humpback whales have shifted in the context of environmental changes in the North Atlantic Ocean. They found that these whales are eating more fish and less krill than they used to. Whales also divvied up resources more clearly and kept more to their own niches, which could indicate reduced prey availability in recent years.

A new research study found that well-managed fisheries can support the recovery of large marine predators such as seals and porpoises, showing that conservation and sustainable seafood production can go hand in hand.

New University of Hawaiʻi research confirms that “Sharktober” is real, revealing a statistically significant spike in shark bite incidents in Hawaiian waters every October. The study, which analyzed 30 years of data (1995–2024), found that about 20% of all recorded bites occurred in that single month, a frequency far exceeding any other time of the year. Researchers at UH Mānoa’s Hawai‘i Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB) Shark Lab published their findings in Frontiers in Marine Science.

An AI-driven study using a massive global fossil dataset shows the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs caused only a small (~10%) drop in shark and ray species, while they were already diverse long before the impact. Their diversity actually peaked about 50 million years ago, but has since declined by over 40%, leaving today’s oceans far less diverse.

Scientists have solved a 66 million year old mystery about why the earth cooled after the age of the dinosaurs.

A new study from UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography finds that marine microbes had mostly positive interactions with one another during a six-year study. These positive interactions became even more common during times of environmental stress. 

New species of plankton appeared fewer than 2,000 years after the world-altering event, according to research led by scientists at The University of Texas at Austin and published in Geology.