A glass of seawater is teeming with life, and a recent expedition revealed more about what ocean water contains. Microscopic creatures in the world’s oceans weigh more than all of the fish in the sea and produce about half of the Earth’s oxygen. Yet the ecology of marine microbes, which are crucial for everything from […]
Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture paleontologists have documented the first dinosaur fossil from Washington state. The fossil was collected by a Burke Museum research team along the shores of Sucia Island State Park in the San Juan Islands. Burke Museum researchers discovered the fossil while collecting ammonite fossils (a creature with a spiral […]
As part of an unusual mortality event investigation, a team of scientists has discovered that dead bottlenose dolphins stranded in the northern Gulf of Mexico since the start of the Deepwater Horizonoil spill have lung and adrenal lesions consistent with petroleum product exposure according to a paper published Wednesday in the peer-reviewed online journal PLOS […]
A chemical signature recorded on the ear bones of Chinook salmon from Alaska’s Bristol Bay region could tell scientists and resource managers where they are born and how they spend their first year of life. This bone, called an otolith, accumulates layers as a fish grows, similar to trees. These “growth rings” are produced throughout […]