X-Ray Mag #141

The winners of the international Lens Beyond Ocean (LBO) Photo Competition 2026 have been announced by the organisers of the Malaysia International Dive Expo (MIDE), which hosts the contest. The winning images were displayed at the expo, which took place at the Malaysia International Trade and Exhibition Centre (MITEC) in Kuala Lumpur from 5 to 7 June 2026. 

From PortMiami to Honolulu and the Gulf of Oman, growing evidence suggests some corals are thriving in places long considered unsuitable for reef-building species, challenging assumptions about what healthy coral habitat should look like.

Returning to the Malaysia International Dive Expo (MIDE) after an absence of several years was something of a revelation. X-Ray Magazine has proudly supported the show as a media partner since its inaugural edition in 2006, but having local representatives in Southeast Asia meant I had not attended personally for quite some time. That made this year's 20th anniversary edition all the more eye-opening.

A major victory for shark conservation has been won for the Red Sea. After years of pressure from environmental groups and marine conservationists, Egypt has prohibited shark fishing in the Red Sea, which is one of the most important marine ecosystems on Earth.

Technical divers removing ghost nets from an offshore wreck between Sicily and Tunisia captured what may be the first diver-filmed underwater footage of an adult great white shark in the Mediterranean.

Researchers have confirmed the identity of a World War II submarine wreck in the Kuril Islands, resolving a decades-old mystery surrounding the loss of USS Herring and its crew of 83.

More than 300 amphorae recovered from a 5th to 4th-century BC shipwreck off Calabria may help archaeologists reconstruct ancient wine-trade networks across Magna Graecia and the wider Mediterranean.

Divers around the world are carrying an extraordinary archive of marine biodiversity on their cameras and hard drives—and many may not realise just how important their photographs could be.

Italian prosecutors are seeking dive equipment, cameras and records from the Maldives as investigators attempt to reconstruct the fatal cave dive that claimed six lives in May.

Researchers have identified a previously unknown mechanism that shows how extreme ocean heat can disrupt the microscopic structures corals use to breathe.

In the open ocean, there is nowhere to hide. Far from reefs, caves, or seaweed, countless marine animals drift through clear blue water, exposed from every direction. Above them is sunlight. Below them, darkness. Predators may approach from any angle. For life in this vast transparency, survival depends on a single challenge: how not to be seen. And so evolution has produced some of the strangest forms of camouflage on Earth.

A week of coordinated search and recovery operations in the Maldives has concluded following the deaths of five Italian divers and a Maldivian rescue diver in a flooded cave system in Vaavu Atoll.

In the dim, blue waters of the ocean’s twilight zone, long, transparent ribbons drift through the darkness. Some pulse softly with bioluminescent light. Others trail delicate tentacles, like threads of glass. They are the mysterious siphonophores—creatures that are not just one animal; they are an entire colony, living as a single being.

The ocean appears vast, open, and full of life, but in certain regions, something essential is missing. There is no colour to mark it, nor sound to warn of it, and no boundary to be seen. Yet, within these waters, oxygen has thinned to the edge of survival. These are the oxygen minimum zones.

The wreck of the US Coast Guard Cutter Tampa, lost with all hands during World War I, has been discovered off the coast of Cornwall, bringing closure to one of the service’s deadliest losses.