Divers capture a blanket octopus unveiling her billowing membrane

Underwater nighttime photos capture the ocean's diversity

Self-taught photographer Steven Kovacs explores Palm Beach's ocean after sunset, capturing tiny sea creatures in deep waters. Over eight years, he's dived into Florida's eastern coast, drifting from 0 to 100 feet, photographing rarely seen larval fish. Lacking formal marine biology training, Kovacs collaborates globally to identify species like cusk eels and the female blanket octopus, known for its revealing membrane. Check out his photos here.

Watch this octopus win every single Escape Room challenge

Octopuses are famously intelligent, solitary creatures covered in hundreds of chemical-sensing suckers. They're also pretty fascinating pets, and even enjoy playing. The crew at OctoLab put one of its more playful mollusks into four different Escape Room-like cages to see how long it would take for it to escape. Watch this video to see the brilliant, if a bit unsettling, methods the animal uses.

The 10 most amazing deep sea creatures

In this video, researchers from the world-renowned Monterey Bay Aquarium discuss the most fascinating deep sea creatures, and how they developed some of their strangest features.

Watch David Attenborough’s documentary on bioluminescent creatures

Sea creatures can make their bodies glow to camouflage themselves by mimicking the appearance of the night sky as seen from underwater. Species without this ability can form a symbiotic relationship with bioluminescent bacteria or eat other organisms with relevant biochemicals.

Explore the animals that populate the depths of the ocean, from fish and coral in the first few hundred feet, all the way down to the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

Our favorite visualization of the depths of the ocean and the various animals species within it

Meet siphonophores, breathtaking jellyfish-like organisms

Siphonophores are colonial jelly-like creatures made up of specialized segments that work together as one. They're fairly unknown despite being a significant sea predator. Sink into their strange beauty with this video.

Meet Cystisoma, the 7-inch crustacean with eyes for a head

In deep midwater, roughly 1,000 feet below the water's surface, completely transparent Cystisoma hide in plain sight from predators. Their retinas are splayed out thin across their disproportionately large eyes to avoid detection, and their entire bodies are transparent, difficult to see even as they are held in the palm of your hand. Learn more about the creatures here.

Massive blooms of microscopic plankton called dinoflagellates produce the neon blue light seen in glowing tides.

Take a 3D underwater trip near the Great Barrier Reef

The Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest coral reef system, comprising more than 900 islands and almost 3,000 individual reefs. This video lets you tag along with divers as they explore the reef off the southern coast of Lady Elliot Island in full 3D (use the direction buttons in the upper left of the video, or your keypad).

What we know about the mysterious colossal squid

The colossal squid, the world's largest invertebrate, remained hidden from human discovery until nearly a century ago. Explore the world of the enormous and mysterious creature, including its features, habitat, and scientific significance. You can even plan a visit to the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa and marvel at a real-life display.

Images of jumping lemurs and octopus moms promote conservation efforts

Winners and finalists from the California Academy of Sciences' BigPicture Photography Competition showcase the incredible biodiversity of Earth. The striking images are judged by a panel of nature and conservation photography experts.

The Turritopsis dohrnii jellyfish can reverse its life cycle

Discovered in the 1980s, this creature has been dubbed the "immortal jellyfish" for its ability to revert from medusa to polyp form and back, preventing it from dying of old age. However, the jellyfish remains prey to fish and turtles and is defenseless to sea slugs as a polyp.

Scientists discover what looks like an underwater road

Crew aboard the Exploration Vessel Nautilus discvered a “yellow brick road” that looks it leads to Atlantis. Climage change may affect future ocean studies.

Behind the fascinating disguising mechanism of camouflage

Camouflage—nature's master game of hide-and-seek—is more complex than simply how things look. The disguising process required millions of years of evolution that have programmed how our brains take shortcuts. Watch this video to see examples of camouflage and understand how we process it.

Satellite imagery of the massive seaweed blob in the Atlantic

A belt of sargassum seaweed that stretches from the west coast of Africa to the Gulf of Mexico is the largest on record for March.

Watch how deep-sea mining equipment collects and processes polymetallic nodules—metal-rich, potato-shaped rocks—from the ocean floor and creates environmentally damaging plumes of sediments.

Possible globster sighted on the Oregon coast.

A man riding an ATV on the Oregon coast comes across a “sea monster", which is actually likely a decaying carcass of shark or whale.

Foghorn honks helped duckbills set the mood

Examining the unique crest of the Parasaurolophus, which researchers think allowed the creatures to emit loud, unique vocalizations as part of their social interactions.

Coral polyps reproduce via broadcast spawning, where entire reefs simultaneously release reproductive cells for about one hour, once a year.

Coral polyps reproduce via broadcast spawning, where entire reefs simultaneously release reproductive cells for about one hour, once a year.

A pod of orcas takes down a yacht

The pod rammed the boat’s rudder for about 45 minutes. Authorities were able to get crew members to land safely, but their yacht was irreparably damaged. Check out the story and photos here.

When caught in the mouths of cardinal fish, seed shrimp release glowing, bioluminescent chemicals, which alert predators of the cardinal fish, prompting the shrimp's ejection.

Planarian flatworms are small, aquatic worms with exceptional regenerative capabilities. When cut, the worms can regenerate multiple bodies in a matter of weeks.

Planarian flatworms are small, aquatic worms with exceptional regenerative capabilities. When cut, the worms can regenerate multiple bodies in a matter of weeks.

Watch how deep-sea mining equipment collects and processes polymetallic nodules—metal-rich, potato-shaped rocks—from the ocean floor and creates environmentally damaging plumes of sediments.

Dolphins have doulas too?

For the first time in over a decade, a dolphin gave birth at Brookfield Zoo, and she didn’t do it alone. Right beside her was another dolphin, acting as a doula. Why do dolphins support each other this way? The answer reveals something incredible about how animals care for one another.

Explore a gallery of tardigrades

Although sometimes called moss piglets, tardigrades are most often white or clear with some dark pigments. Tardigrades only move by crawling, not swimming, and depictions of organisms with caved-in heads or other coloration result from sample preparation for microscopes.

Angler catches nine-foot-long catfish

An Italian fishermen struggled for 43 minutes to reel in an over nine-foot catfish in the river Po, marking one of the largest such catches in history.

See photos of a 200-pound Burmese python is captured in Florida

Conservationist Mike Elfenbein and his son, along with three other hunters, captured a massive 198-pound Burmese python in Florida's Big Cypress National Preserve in the fall of 2023. See images of the hunters and their prey here.

Webb Telescope zooms in on Orion Nebula and finds planet pairs

The Webb telescope has trained its infrared cameras on the nearest star-forming nebula in our universe, the Orion Nebula. Its images revealed a never-before-seen phenomenon: dozens of pairs of planet-sized objects in binary orbit, seemingly floating...

See these 16 pieces of art evoking phobias of snakes, flying, spiders, and more. 

The syncytiotrophoblast is the outer layer of the placenta and the largest human cell, spanning an area about twice that of a king-sized bedsheet.

The animatronic shark from Steven Spielberg's 'Jaws,' the first modern blockbuster, was a complex underwater apparatus called 'Bruce.'

In 1915, workers recovered a submarine-like vessel from the Chicago River, prompting fears of German espionage

Learn how your body is, scientifically, like a firework with its own slow, controlled burn.

The first image of a black hole was captured by creating an Earth-sized virtual observatory from a network of eight radio telescopes.

Explore the archaeological treasures of Pompeii, the city buried under volcanic ash when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE.

Larger animals like giraffes, elephants, and blue whales have developed a unique defense against cancer, a phenomenon known as Peto's Paradox

See the 25 of the best photos of auroras from around the world.

Read a deep dive on the 'all-purpose healing' peptide BPC-157.

Dorothy's famous entrance into Oz in 'The Wizard of Oz' relied on analog tricks, including a body double and sepia-toned paint, as much as it did on technology

Double world record holder Hunter Ewen helped conquer his fear of balloons, called globophobia, by training to win Guinness World Record titles for balloon inflation.

SpongeBob exemplifies Aristotle's philosophy for living well because he understands that happiness doesn't come from external factors like money, recognition, or power.

For centuries, it was common to sleep in two shifts: a few hours at the beginning of the night, and a longer period beginning around midnight

The 2026 Ebola outbreak in the DRC is spurring new Ebola vaccine development for the Bundibugyo species.

See 33 images that became central to huge scandals, including a young Charles and Camilla, Michael Jackson's baby on a hotel balcony, and Hugh Grant's mugshot.

For centuries, Niagara Falls has been a magnet for daredevils seeking to conquer one of nature's most powerful wonders, with its 200-foot drop and water rushing at 32 feet per second with 280 tons of force.

Hotels in Cannes, the glamorous city on the French Riviera, hire hawks to ward off seagulls during the city's famous film festival.

Learn how to read a prospectus, the juicy document that any company must file with the SEC before going public.