Plastic pollution is a gigantic problem. Our beaches and waters are littered with plastic, marine life ingests it or gets ensnared and particles are entering our food web and organisms. Microplastics are everywhere now.

This finding, published in Scientific Reports, reveals a previously unknown mathematical capability in these aquatic animals. Led by Prof. Dr. Vera Schluessel from the Institute of Zoology, the study sheds light on the cognitive abilities of fish, challenging assumptions about their intelligence.

This publication may be thought of as a dive publication by many of our readers but our scope is actually a bit wider. It is really about water and the realm under the surface, and the lifeforms we may encounter there.

So of course we are intrigued and chuffed to learn that subsurface oceans of water may exist even on Pluto. At least, that is what a closer study of photos taken by NASA's New Horizons mission seems to conclude.

These findings will cause us to re-evaluate the possibilities for the maintenance of liquid water on small, icy worlds that are far from the Sun.

Lynnae Quick, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center