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The international dive community was shocked and grief-stricken when the news broke of the devastating fire that consumed the award-winning California-based liveaboard Conception and the 34 people who perished, including divers and crew members. The accident struck close to home, as many of us have taken dive trips on liveaboards at some point. Some among us had even been on that particular vessel.

Scientists from Queensland Museum (QM), University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia completed a 21-day trip from the Capricorn Bunkers off Gladstone to Thursday Island in the Torres Strait late last year. Scientists discovered dozens of new coral species on a recent voyage along the length of the Great Barrier Reef.

“On almost every dive we were finding species that aren’t in the books"

Professor Andrew Baird, James Cook University

After studying 186 live strandings of healthy gray whales from 1985 to 2018, researchers at Duke University concluded that whales' navigational sense is affected by solar storms taking place as far away as our sun.

The researchers based their findings on the fact that the strandings are more likely to occur on days when there are more sunspots. Linked to solar storms, sunspots represent sudden releases of high-energy particles from the sun. These may disrupt magnetic orientation behaviour when they interact with the Earth’s magnetosphere.

In some tropical waters like the Florida Keys mangrove forests, for snorkellers to stay safe, it’s not enough to not touch anything. It may not be a good idea to enter the water in the first place.

That’s because sometimes it seems that the water itself can sting, causing rashes on a snorkeller's skin.

The real culprit is not some mutant strain of water molecules. Rather, it is a species of upside-down jellyfish that lives on the ocean floor. Called Cassiopea xamachana, this jellyfish can also be found in places like the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico.

In some tropical waters like the Florida Keys mangrove forests, for snorkellers to stay safe, it’s not enough to not touch anything. It may not be a good idea to enter the water in the first place.

That’s because sometimes it seems that the water itself can sting, causing rashes on a snorkeller's skin.

The real culprit is not some mutant strain of water molecules. Rather, it is a species of upside-down jellyfish that lives on the ocean floor. Called Cassiopea xamachana, this jellyfish can also be found in places like the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico.

In some tropical waters like the Florida Keys mangrove forests, for snorkellers to stay safe, it’s not enough to not touch anything. It may not be a good idea to enter the water in the first place.

That’s because sometimes it seems that the water itself can sting, causing rashes on a snorkeller's skin.

The real culprit is not some mutant strain of water molecules. Rather, it is a species of upside-down jellyfish that lives on the ocean floor. Called Cassiopea xamachana, this jellyfish can also be found in places like the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico.

Mediterranean species such as red coral, with a hard and striking red skeleton, is key for formations of encrusting corals and algae, as it gives it physical structure, increases its complexity and serves as protection for several species, which feed on the coralligenous habitat.