The fish robot, designed by a team at TU Darmstadt, is called "Smokey," and it's made out of ten robotic segments wrapped in a "skin." It's 1.5 meters long and its motions can be matched to those of a variety of fish species. This video, which is in German, shows the prototype in action, demonstrating its motion and some of the programming behind it.

In addition to more efficient underwater motion, a fish-modeled marine propulsion method would do a lot less damage to underwater ecosystems and lead to less coastal erosion. Plus, it looks a lot cooler than a Gungan bongo.

Fish robot as an alternative marine propulsion system of the future [via Physorg]

Image from TU Darmstadt

An article published in Science today has the details. According to the New York Times:

Scientists attribute dead zones to a process that begins when nitrogen from agricultural runoff and sewage stimulates the growth of photosynthetic plankton on the surface of coastal waters. As the organisms decay and sink to the bottom, they are decomposed by microbes that consume large amounts of oxygen. As oxygen levels drop, most animals that live at the bottom cannot survive. “The overwhelming response of the organisms in our coastal areas is to migrate or to die,” [lead author Robert J.] Diaz said. “To adapt to low oxygen water, it has to be a part of your evolutionary history. It’s not something you can develop in a 40- or 50-year time period.”

About 400 coastal "dead zones" have been identified, and their combined area is comparable to the U.S. state of Oregon. Many are doubling in size every year.

This is bad news for sea life, but even worse for human life. Most of the areas affected are in regions where people raise fish and lobsters in fisheries. Areas hit include the Gulf of Mexico and the Baltic Sea, where the times reports only "microbes" can live now. More recently, China and Norway's Kattegat Sea have grown dead zones, and some are appearing in the United States off the coast of South Carolina and the Pacific Northwest. At least we're safe from Godzilla, who wouldn't be able to swim to shore through the oxygen-destroyed waters.

Oxygen-Starved Ocean 'Dead Zones' [NY Times via KSJ Tracker]

Making a list of marine species might not seem like a big deal, but taxonomists face some daunting problems. For one thing, some species have dozens of names, nicknames and even "official" Latin names dating back centuries. The Census of Marine Life is sorting through all of them and figuring out which species are which, assigning them scientific names, and noting all of their aliases. To make matters worse, researchers are constantly finding new species, sometimes hundreds at a time. It can take years for a new find to be published because of the taxonomic chaos.

The Census is working with the World Register of Marine Species to clear all this up. They currently have over 120,000 validated names, and expect to top 200,000 by the end of this year. What's truly astonishing is their estimate for the total marine species on Earth, discovered and undiscovered: over 1 million. At the current rate of progress, it would take over 500 years to catalog all of them. As more and more species are threatened by pollution and climate change, it becomes even more important to identify them.

Ultimately, the Census of Marine Life catalog will be used to build the Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS). This information portal will have photographs, distribution info and a ton of other data on each species, all easily accessible and updatable. Census data will also be contributed to the Encyclopedia of Life and the Species2000 project, which will create a similar catalog for every single species on our planet - animal, plant, fungi...everything. Image by: NOAA.

Census Of Marine Life Lists 122,500 Known Species, Over Halfway To Complete Inventory By Oct. 2010. [Science Daily]

Probably pretty difficult, not least of which because we don't go through an embryo stage outside the womb.

According to an article by Clara Moskowitz in Live Science:

Scientists exposed 4-day-old sand dollar larvae to fish mucus, a sign that danger is close. They found that the larvae created clones of themselves within 24 hours.

"It's the first time we've seen anything clone itself in response to cues that predators are near," said researcher Dawn Vaughn, a biology doctoral student at the University of Washington's Friday Harbor Laboratories. After being exposed to fish mucus, the larvae formed embryo-like buds that eventually detached and developed into new, genetically-identical larvae that were much smaller than the originals. The parent larvae were left smaller, too, measuring about half their beginning size . . .

The scientists think cloning may provide a double benefit to larvae facing danger. By doubling themselves, they have a second chance to ensure their genetic information survives even if one larva gets eaten.

Additionally, being smaller may be beneficial to larvae trying to hide from fish.

"Fish are visual predators and often choose their prey based on size," Vaughn told LiveScience. "You're apt to see something bigger. Based on past research, we're hypothesizing that small size protects larvae, but we have to test that."

Creatures Clone Selves in Face of Danger [Live Science]