The study identified the parasite that devastated 95 percent of long-spined sea urchins in affected areas in the Caribbean Sea two years ago. It burrows into the tissue of the sea urchins and triggers abnormal behaviour. The urchins droop and lose their ability to control their tube feet, which are crucial for movement. They lose their spines, then tissue necrosis sets in, leading to the death of the sea urchins.

Guinness World Records have independently certified an astrolabe excavated from the wreck site of a Portuguese Armada Ship that was part of Vasco da Gama's second voyage to India in 1502-1503 as the oldest in the world, and have separately certified a ship's bell (dated 1498) recovered from the same wreck site also as the oldest in the world.

Vasco da Gama was the first European to reach India by sea, linking Europe and Asia for the first time by ocean route, as well as linking the Atlantic and the Indian oceans entirely and definitively, and in this way, the West and the Orient. This was accomplished on his first voyage to India (1497–1499)

The ship, which sank in a storm in May 1503 off the coast of Al Hallaniyah island in Oman's Dhofar region, is the earliest ship from Europe's Age of Discovery ever to be found and scientfically investigated by a team of archaeologists and other experts.

U-533 was a Nazi German U-Boat (Type IXC/40) that operated during World War II between April 15, 1943 and October 16, 1943. It was first launched on September 11, 1942 with a crew of 53, under the command of Helmut Hennig.

It was sunk by a Royal Air Force Blenheim bomber while it was operating in the Gulf of Oman. Of the crew of 53, only one survived by staying afloat without a life jacket for 28 hours until he was rescued by the HMS Hiravati near Khor Fakkan.