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Deep in the tissues of sea anemones, corals, and jellyfish are strange yellow cells which are genetically distinct from the marine animals. More than a century after these cells were first assigned a now forgotten genus, a new paper has resurrected the name and described six new species from around the world. First described in 1881, the yellow things were originally classified under the genus Zooxanthella by scientist Karl Brandt. Brandt also coined the term zooxanthellae, which is used colloquially to this day. However, another scientist – a Scotsman called Patrick Geddes - was investigating these yellow cells at the...

Dark Days Doomed Dinosaurs, Say Purdue Scientists WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. ? Though the catastrophe that destroyed the dinosaurs' world may have begun with blazing fire, it probably ended with icy darkness, according to a Purdue University research group. By analyzing fossil records, a team of scientists including Purdue's Matthew Huber has found evidence that the Earth underwent a sudden cooling 65 million years ago that may have taken millennia to abate completely. The fossil rock samples, taken from a well-known archaeological site in Tunisia, show that tiny, cold-loving ocean organisms called dinoflagellates and benthic formanifera appeared suddenly in an ancient...

Mariners have long told of rare nighttime events in which the ocean glows intensely as far as the eye can see in all directions. Fictionally, such a "milky sea" is encountered by the Nautilus in Jules Verne classic "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea." Scientists don't have a good handle what's going on. But satellite sensors have now provided the first pictures of a milky sea and given new hope to learning more about the elusive events. The newly released images show a vast region of the Indian Ocean, about the size of Connecticut, glowing three nights in a row. The...