One ambassador's speech, and 200 miles of ocean for every coast
A 1967 UN speech about seabed minerals began the process behind the 1982 Law of the Sea treaty, which gave coastal states a 200-mile economic zone.
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Clownfish keep their anemones breathing at night
The anemone shields the fish with stinging cells. In return the fish cleans, feeds and, a 2013 study found, fans oxygen through its host after dark.
Ecuador widened the Galápagos reserve to guard a shark highway
Ecuador added 60,000 sq km to the Galápagos Marine Reserve to protect a migration route to Costa Rica's Cocos Island, and to push back fishing at the edge.
A Hawaiian blowhole shows how waves can drive an air turbine
An oscillating water column uses rising and falling waves to pump air through a turbine. A University of Hawaii design copies a blowhole on Oahu.
Russia's late yes made the Ross Sea the world's largest reserve
The Ross Sea off Antarctica became the world's largest marine protected area in 2016, after years in which China and then Russia held out against a deal.
Humpbacks tune their bubble nets, and may learn them from others
Humpbacks blow a rising curtain of bubbles to pen krill and fish, tune it as it tightens, and seem to learn the trick by watching other whales.
Desalination boils or filters the salt out of seawater
A desalination plant strips salt from seawater by boiling it or forcing it through a membrane, leaving drinkable water and a salty waste called brine.
New robot submersibles aim to explore the ocean's hadal zone
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and NASA built Orpheus, a small robot submarine meant to survey the ocean trenches below 6,000 metres.
Coral polyps build reefs from the skeletons they leave behind
A coral reef is limestone laid down by tiny animals. Each polyp builds a skeleton from calcium carbonate, and the skeleton stays in the reef after it dies.
Much ocean plastic sinks or washes ashore within a month
Most sea plastic sinks or beaches within a month. What escapes drifts in a gyre, or breaks into fragments small enough to reach a fish.
The first US commercial deep-sea mining permit is under review
NOAA is weighing a bid from The Metals Company USA to mine seabed nodules beyond US waters. No company has ever held such a US recovery permit.
A tidal lagoon wall makes power as the tide rises and falls
A tidal lagoon walls off part of the sea, then lets the height difference between the tide and the lagoon push water through turbines twice a tide.
How Darwin said atolls form, and what drilling found
Darwin said a reef round a sinking volcano becomes a barrier reef, then an atoll. Drilling confirmed the sinking, but two geologists now credit sea level.