Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. While they have no backbone, sunflower sea stars (Pycnopodia ...

Pop quiz: How many arms do sea stars have? The answer seems obvious: one, two, three, four, five. Five arms. Anyone who has stumbled across one splayed on the seashore knows this. But if that is your ...

Scientists have solved the mystery behind an epidemic that has killed nearly 6 billion sea stars along North America's Pacific Coast over the past decade. In a study published Monday, researchers ...

In Nature Ecology & Evolution, a group of researchers reveal the cause of sea star wasting disease (SSWD). This discovery comes more than a decade after the start of the marine epidemic that has ...

A healthy sunflower sea star is seen on the seafloor in 2014. (Photo by Ed Gullekson/Washington Department of Fish and WIldlife, provided by NOAA Fisheries) One of the world’s largest sea stars is on ...

FRIDAY HARBOR — Meet the sunflower sea star. Here, in the burbling tanks at the University of Washington’s Friday Harbor Laboratories, these charismatic orange and maroon sea stars are snacking on ...

After years of scientific sleuthing, a team of West Coast researchers reported that they have identified a particular strain of ocean bacteria that has killed more than 6 billion sea stars since 2013.

Across the last decade, a startling event has happened involving sea stars. From Mexico to Alaska, sea stars have been found with signs of disease, including lesions, twisted limbs, and disintegrating ...

Columbo, eat your heart out: A team of scientists has just solved a massive marine murder mystery, nabbing the culprit behind the deaths of billions of sea stars over the past decade. In a new study, ...

A mysterious marine epidemic has erased billions of sea stars from North America’s Pacific coast. After more than a decade of unanswered questions, scientists have traced the disaster to a single ...

Before 2013, divers on North America's west coast rarely saw purple sea urchins. The spiky animals, which are voracious kelp eaters, were a favorite food of the coast's iconic sunflower sea stars. The ...