The research, published in the journal PLOS ONE on 18 September 2026, describes a hybrid antifouling material that combines two distinct strategies operating at different length scales. The team fabricated coatings of zinc oxide nanorods on three differently patterned polymer surfaces, labeled D1, D2, and D3 in the study. Each polymer substrate carried its own microscale texture, and the zinc oxide nanorods added a second, nanoscale layer of structure on top. This hierarchical architecture, in which micro- and nanostructured features coexist on a single surface, is central to the design philosophy. In nature, many organisms deter fouling not through chemical warfare alone but through precisely sculpted surface topographies, and the Omani team sought to mimic and enhance this principle with a functional semiconductor material known for its antimicrobial properties.

Zinc oxide has attracted considerable attention in materials science because it combines several useful characteristics in a single compound. It is a wide-bandgap semiconductor, it can be grown into elongated nanorod crystals with high surface area under relatively mild laboratory conditions, and it exhibits antibacterial activity through well-documented mechanisms. When zinc oxide nanostructures interact with water, they can release zinc ions, which are toxic to many microorganisms at sufficient concentrations. They can also generate reactive oxygen species, chemically aggressive molecules that damage cell membranes, proteins, and DNA. By growing dense forests of these nanorods directly onto textured polymer surfaces, the researchers created materials in which both the physical topography and the chemical activity of the coating could contribute to fouling resistance simultaneously.

To evaluate how well the hybrid surfaces performed, the team subjected them to laboratory tests under flow conditions, an important detail because real marine equipment rarely sits in stagnant water. Flow alters how microorganisms approach, contact, and adhere to surfaces, so testing under flowing conditions provides a more realistic assessment than simple static immersion. Two representative fouling organisms were chosen: the bacterium Escherichia coli, a widely used model organism in antibacterial testing, and Amphora sp., a marine diatom. Diatoms are single-celled algae with silica shells and are among the earliest and most problematic colonizers of submerged surfaces, forming slimy biofilms that pave the way for larger fouling organisms. The researchers also assessed the acute toxicity of the coated surfaces using larvae of the whiteleg shrimp, Litopenaeus vannamei, a commercially important aquaculture species whose sensitivity makes it a useful indicator of environmental risk.

One of the most striking physical changes induced by the nanorod coating was a dramatic shift in wettability. The uncoated patterned polymer surfaces exhibited water contact angles of roughly 80 to 90 degrees, values typical of moderately wettable materials that water spreads across fairly readily. After the zinc oxide nanorods were applied, the contact angles climbed to approximately 150 to 165 degrees, placing the surfaces in the range considered highly water-repellent or superhydrophobic. At such angles, water droplets bead up and roll off easily, sitting atop the textured surface rather than wetting it. This behavior matters for antifouling because many marine organisms need a hydrated interface to attach successfully, and surfaces that resist wetting can present a formidable first barrier to colonization.

The biological results revealed a nuanced picture in which the underlying micropattern proved just as important as the coating itself. Bacterial attachment was reduced by 60.3 percent on the coated D1 surface, by 48.8 percent on coated D2, and by only 5.8 percent on coated D3. The diatom results followed a different pattern: coverage fell by 9.9 percent on coated D1 but by 72.9 percent on coated D2 and 71.8 percent on coated D3. In other words, the surface that best suppressed bacteria was not the one that best suppressed diatoms, and the surface with the weakest antibacterial effect still performed admirably against algal settlement. This divergence underscores a key insight of the study: antifouling performance is not a simple function of the coating material but emerges from the interplay between the nanorods and the specific geometry of the micropattern beneath them.

The researchers attributed the observed antifouling effects to a combination of mechanisms acting in concert. The release of zinc ions and the generation of reactive oxygen species provide direct chemical pressure against attached microorganisms. Surface wettability alters the initial interaction between organism and substrate, making adhesion energetically less favorable. Finally, the interaction between the microscale polymer patterns and the nanoscale zinc oxide structures shapes how cells encounter and contact the surface at the micrometer scale, influencing whether they can establish stable attachment. Because each mechanism operates differently against different organisms, the balance among them determines the overall antifouling profile of a given surface design, which helps explain why the three patterns produced such distinct results.

Toxicity findings added a further layer of complexity to the design question. The zinc oxide-coated D1 surface showed the best overall balance between antifouling performance and low toxicity toward shrimp larvae, making it the most environmentally promising of the three designs. The coated D3 surface, by contrast, combined lower antibacterial performance with greater larval toxicity, an unfavorable pairing that illustrates why simply applying an antimicrobial nanocoating is not sufficient. The geometry of the underlying pattern can amplify or dampen both the beneficial and the harmful effects of the nanomaterial. For any future application, the study suggests, engineers must treat the surface pattern and the coating as a single integrated design problem rather than optimizing them independently.

Durability is another critical consideration for any material intended for marine service, and here the study offered encouraging preliminary evidence. Microscopic examination conducted after the biological experiments showed that the zinc oxide nanorods remained structurally intact, indicating that the coatings withstood the laboratory testing period without significant physical degradation. Coatings that shed nanoparticles or crumble under flow would pose both a performance problem and an environmental one, releasing engineered material into the water column. The structural stability observed in this work suggests that the nanorods were well anchored to their polymer substrates, although the researchers were careful to note that their experiments were conducted under controlled laboratory conditions rather than in the open ocean.

The path from laboratory promise to practical deployment remains a long one, and the authors were explicit about the limitations of the current work. Long-term field trials and further ecotoxicological assessments will be required before these coatings can be considered for real marine or industrial use. Seawater is a far more chemically complex and biologically diverse environment than any laboratory assay, and months or years of exposure introduce degradation pressures, seasonal variation in fouling communities, and ecological interactions that short-term tests cannot capture. Nevertheless, the findings point toward a promising direction: combining zinc oxide nanorods with deliberately designed micropatterned surfaces could eventually support antifouling applications on ship surfaces, aquaculture nets, water-intake systems, and other equipment exposed to marine environments. If subsequent trials confirm the laboratory results, such materials could offer a route to fouling control that reduces reliance on toxic chemical leaching, aligning with the growing regulatory and environmental pressure to make antifouling technology safer for the oceans it operates in.

Subject of Research: Antifouling performance of zinc oxide nanorod coatings on micropatterned polymer surfaces against marine microorganisms

Article Title: Can nanostructured surfaces help keep marine equipment clean?

Article References: Can nanostructured surfaces help keep marine equipment clean?. (n.d.). Original publication

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: biofouling, zinc oxide nanorods, micropatterned polymers, antifouling coatings, marine science, Escherichia coli, Amphora diatom, superhydrophobic surfaces, reactive oxygen species, Litopenaeus vannamei, ecotoxicology, Sultan Qaboos University

Oarfish are enormous, reaching lengths that can exceed several meters, and they are rarely encountered alive by humans. Their bodies are long and laterally compressed, and running along the top of the body is a continuous dorsal fin supported by hundreds of bone-like fin rays connected by a thin, webbed membrane. When the fish swims in its characteristic mode, these rays move in coordinated, wave-like patterns, rippling the membrane and pushing water in a way that drives the animal forward or backward. Because the propulsion comes from the fin rather than from side-to-side bending of the trunk, the oarfish can travel without the large body undulations that most elongated fishes depend on, a capability with important consequences for how it hunts and avoids detection in the open water column.

Part of the reason the fin rays have remained so poorly understood is the fragility of the animals themselves. When oarfish die, their long bodies tend to break into segments, and intact specimens suitable for detailed anatomical work are exceptionally rare. That scarcity has left scientists with a limited picture of how the fish’s unusual propulsion actually works at the tissue level. The Cornell team overcame this obstacle by combining several lines of evidence: careful dissections, histological sectioning of tissues, x-rays of a specimen held at the Smithsonian Institution, computed tomography scans made at Cornell, and frame-by-frame analyses of movies showing the dorsal fin rays in motion. Together, these methods allowed the researchers to reconstruct the anatomy of a structure that few laboratories have ever been able to examine in depth.

What the dissections and scans revealed is an architecture unlike anything described before in such detail. Each fin ray is attached at its top to the thin fin membrane. Below, at the base of the ray, the anatomy becomes more elaborate: the ray connects to cartilage, to a series of muscles, and to a ball-and-socket joint. It is this joint that grants each ray its remarkable freedom of movement, allowing it to swivel through a complete rotation rather than merely swinging back and forth in a single plane. In effect, every one of the hundreds of rays is a small, individually controlled actuator, and the fin as a whole functions as a dense array of independently steerable oars, which is fitting for a fish named for the implement it so closely resembles in action.

The coordinated motion of these rays is what turns the fin into an engine. By rotating in sequence, the rays create waves that travel along the connecting membrane, and those waves push against the water to generate thrust. The system is not limited to a single direction of travel. A section of the membrane can wave toward the posterior of the animal while another section simultaneously waves toward the anterior, allowing the oarfish to fine-tune its propulsion with a subtlety that conventional body-driven swimming cannot match. This means the fish can generate forward and backward thrust, and modulate each along different parts of the fin, all without moving its trunk laterally.

Willy Bemis, a retired Cornell University ichthyologist and one of the study’s authors, placed the finding in the context of how long-bodied fishes normally move. Most fishes with elongated bodies swim like eels, he explained, propelling themselves through a series of undulations that press water back and forth. Oarfish can do that as well, but they also do something remarkable: they use the dorsal fin to propel themselves without moving their bodies laterally. According to Bemis, the animals are continuously able to change the pattern of the dorsal fin rays and to do so very quickly, and the fin rays are, in his words, incredibly mobile. That combination of speed and flexibility in reconfiguring the wave patterns gives the oarfish a level of locomotor control that sets it apart from nearly every other fish of comparable size.

The biological payoff of this system appears to be stealth. Because the fin-driven mode of swimming does not require vigorous bending of the whole body, the oarfish can move through the water while presenting a much quieter profile than an eel-like swimmer of the same dimensions. The researchers note that this lets the animal silently stalk prey without having to swim hard to propel its entire body. For a large predator living in the open ocean, where there is little cover and where prey may be alert to disturbances, the ability to approach slowly and quietly using only a rippling fin could be a decisive advantage. It may also help explain why oarfish are so seldom seen making sudden, conspicuous movements when encountered by divers or remotely operated vehicles.

The research did not begin as a purely zoological inquiry. Rob Shepherd, a roboticist at Cornell, became interested in the oarfish’s unusual locomotion while working on a project to design a large yet quiet swimming robot, supported by a grant from the Office of Naval Research. The machine he envisioned would serve as an ocean monitoring platform, housing a range of instrumentation, and would need to swim silently forward and backward to monitor ocean health without scaring off fish and other aquatic creatures. The Navy shared an interest in such a platform. Recognizing that the oarfish had already solved, through millions of years of evolution, the problem of large-scale, low-disturbance propulsion, Shepherd consulted Bemis, and the collaboration that followed produced the anatomical study now published.

The intersection of the two disciplines is part of what makes the work notable. Engineers building bioinspired underwater vehicles have long drawn on the swimming of fishes, but most designs have focused on body undulation or on the motion of tail fins and pectoral fins. The oarfish offers a different template: a long, continuous fin along the back, driven by hundreds of independently rotating rays, capable of producing waves in either direction along its length. Translating that arrangement into a robotic actuator array could yield vehicles that maneuver precisely at low speed, hold position, and travel in reverse, all while generating minimal hydrodynamic noise. For an ocean monitoring platform meant to observe marine life rather than disturb it, those are exactly the properties a designer would want.

For now, the study stands as the first full anatomical description of the system that makes the oarfish’s swimming possible, documenting the chain from fin membrane to cartilage, muscle, and ball-and-socket joint that gives each ray its joystick-like rotation. It also underscores how much remains to be learned about large deep-sea animals simply because intact specimens are so hard to obtain. The oarfish, an animal that has haunted maritime folklore for centuries, turns out to carry in its dorsal fin a propulsion mechanism of remarkable sophistication, one that a team of anatomists and roboticists has only now begun to describe, and one that may soon ripple outward from ichthyology into the design of the next generation of quiet underwater machines.

Subject of Research: The anatomy and mechanics of oarfish dorsal fin ray rotation and its role in fin-driven swimming and bioinspired underwater robotics

Article Title: Researchers uncover the mechanics behind the oarfish's unusual swimming style

Article References: Researchers uncover the mechanics behind the oarfish's unusual swimming style. (n.d.). Original publication

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: oarfish, fin rays, dorsal fin, swimming mechanics, Cornell University, Ichthyology and Herpetology, ball-and-socket joint, bioinspired robotics, underwater robot, deep-sea fish, locomotion, marine science

The event grew from Argentina’s long-running Oceanography Week, established in the late 1970s, and became the National Marine Sciences Conferences in 1989 as researchers sought a broader forum spanning physical oceanography, marine biology and related disciplines. Since 2003, the triennial meeting has rotated among Argentine coastal cities; in 2025, it returned to Puerto Madryn after nearly two decades. The organizing effort involved researchers from several CONICET institutes and three higher-education institutions, creating a national network that linked oceanographers with biologists, technologists, social scientists, managers and representatives of economic sectors. For the first time, the scientific community was invited to propose thematic sessions, allowing emerging priorities to help shape the program rather than relying solely on a fixed institutional structure.

The resulting program included 37 thematic scientific sessions, 12 keynote lectures, 10 workshops, eight roundtables, a discussion panel and six training courses. In total, participants delivered 592 presentations: 294 ten-minute oral talks on site and 298 three-minute virtual speed talks. Replacing conventional printed posters with online presentations was intended to reduce material waste and the meeting’s carbon footprint while broadening participation. About 88 percent of attendees participated in person despite difficult economic conditions, and students made up more than half of the audience. Researchers came from across Argentina and from Uruguay, Chile, the United States, Mexico, Spain, the United Kingdom, Poland and Australia, giving the meeting a regional base with international reach.

Many of the scientific themes converged on the idea that ocean ecosystems cannot be understood through isolated disciplines. Sessions on physical, chemical and biological oceanography combined satellite observations, numerical models and measurements collected in the sea to investigate ocean structure, metabolism and variability. Marine microbiology and plankton research focused on organisms that drive food webs and regulate the movement of carbon and nutrients. One keynote examined the “viral engine” concept, in which viruses infecting marine phytoplankton influence microbial mortality and the recycling of matter. Another described the nitroplast, a nitrogen-fixing organelle associated with the marine microorganism UCYN-A and the alga Braarudosphaera bigelowii, highlighting an evolutionary development with implications for understanding nitrogen cycling in the ocean.

Climate change emerged as a force operating across scales, from the physiology of individual organisms to the circulation of the continental shelf. Presentations considered how phytoplankton, invertebrates and vertebrates respond biochemically and physiologically to environmental stress, and how those responses may affect ecosystem health, fisheries and aquaculture. Research on biodiversity addressed intertidal habitats, deep-sea ecosystems, ecological networks, trophic relationships, functional traits and biological invasions. A keynote drawing on the BioTIME database discussed rapid compositional turnover in marine communities linked to climate change, even where overall species richness appears comparatively stable. That distinction matters: an ecosystem can retain a similar number of species while the identities and ecological roles of those species change, potentially altering resilience and ecosystem functioning.

Regional circulation was another central concern. A keynote on the Southwest Atlantic shelf used observations and high-resolution climate modelling to examine how changes associated with the Southern Annular Mode and future emissions scenarios could modify circulation and exchanges between the deep ocean and the Patagonian continental shelf. Storm waves and surges on the Argentine shelf and in the Río de la Plata were studied through numerical simulations combined with observations, improving understanding of how extreme events are generated, propagated and connected across oceanic and coastal environments. Such physical processes affect the transport of heat, sediments, nutrients and pollutants, and they help determine where organisms can live and how human activities are exposed to marine hazards.

Human pressures formed a second major thread. Marine pollution sessions examined biological indicators, anthropogenic particles, persistent organic pollutants and the ecological consequences of contamination. Roundtables on microplastics considered evidence from multiple coastal and marine environmental matrices, as well as possible ecological, economic, health and cultural effects. A workshop explored phycoremediation, using algae or other photosynthetic organisms as a nature-based approach for treating nutrient- and organic-rich wastewater from urban, industrial and fisheries activities. Other discussions addressed marine biological invasions, with emphasis on shipping as a vector, early detection and coordinated prevention between Argentina and Chile. These topics point toward management strategies that combine monitoring, ecological research and action before damage becomes difficult to reverse.

Fisheries, aquaculture and the blue economy were discussed as socio-ecological systems rather than merely sources of production. Contributions examined sustainability and governance in industrial fisheries, as well as the social and regulatory challenges facing artisanal and recreational fisheries in coastal communities. Sessions on San Jorge Gulf and Península Valdés considered pathways toward formalization, while a roundtable on the South Atlantic’s adjacent area linked fisheries and conservation with geopolitics and international relations. Marine spatial planning, ecosystem-based management and coastal governance were also examined through case studies including “Blue Holes,” water-filled vertical openings in carbonate rock with distinctive morphologies, ecologies and water chemistry. These discussions emphasized that scientific evidence must be connected with institutions, local knowledge and decision-making if ocean policies are to work in practice.

Technology and capacity building rounded out the meeting’s forward-looking agenda. Researchers presented work involving marine genomics, biotechnology, hydroacoustics, scientific diving, remote sensing, spatial analysis and numerical modelling. Workshops addressed sustained marine observation in the Argentine Sea and Antarctica, identifying scientific, technological and institutional gaps that limit knowledge of ocean change. Training courses covered aquatic sampling, ultrasound techniques in octopus and flounder, QGIS and R for spatial data analysis, scientific illustration and academic English. A new code of conduct, developed by a working group on inclusion, diversity, equity, accessibility and language, established standards for a safer and more collaborative environment. The next National Marine Sciences Conference and Oceanography Colloquium is scheduled for December 2027 in Mar del Plata, where organizers plan to continue building the regional networks needed to study and protect a changing ocean.

The meeting report is valuable as a map of research capacity as well as a record of presentations. Its breadth shows that Southwest Atlantic marine science is increasingly organized around linked systems: circulation influences the delivery and retention of nutrients; nutrient availability shapes plankton communities; plankton supports food webs; and biological activity feeds back into carbon and nutrient transformations. Connecting these processes requires observations collected at different temporal and spatial scales, together with models and laboratory measurements that can be compared rather than developed in isolation.

This integration is particularly important on continental shelves, where land, atmosphere, open ocean and seabed interact over relatively short distances. Estuaries and coastal waters receive material from rivers and human activities, while tides, storms and shelf circulation redistribute it. The same transport pathways can move nutrients that sustain productivity, sediments that alter habitats, and contaminants or introduced organisms that create ecological risks. Treating these as separate issues can obscure their common physical drivers. The conference’s combination of coastal science, oceanography, pollution research and management therefore provides a framework for asking how one intervention or environmental change may produce several consequences at once.

Biological measurements add another layer of interpretation. Species counts alone may not reveal whether ecosystem functions are being maintained, because organisms with different traits can replace one another while total richness changes little. Studies of physiology, trophic relationships, ecological networks and genomics can help identify which changes affect energy transfer, reproductive success, stress tolerance or vulnerability to disturbance. These approaches also make it possible to connect individual responses with consequences for fisheries, aquaculture and conservation. In this context, biodiversity monitoring is not simply an inventory exercise; it can serve as an early indication of altered ecosystem processes.

The emphasis on observation infrastructure has practical significance because many marine questions cannot be answered by occasional expeditions. Sustained measurements allow researchers to distinguish long-term trends from seasonal cycles, unusual storms or short-lived biological events. Combining ship-based sampling with remote sensing, hydroacoustics, autonomous or fixed observations, and numerical analysis can extend coverage across places that are difficult or expensive to visit regularly. The report’s attention to scientific, technological and institutional gaps suggests that continuity, data comparability and coordination are as important as acquiring individual instruments. Without those foundations, evidence about change may remain fragmented even when many studies are being conducted.

Knowledge production was also presented as a social process. The inclusion of local and traditional knowledge, participatory research and co-production can help identify questions that matter to coastal communities and reveal changes that are not captured by standardized surveys. It can also improve the feasibility and legitimacy of management measures, especially where conservation objectives intersect with fishing, tourism, shipping or other uses. The code of conduct and training activities complement this scientific agenda by supporting the conditions needed for collaboration across career stages, institutions and national boundaries. Taken together, the meeting portrays regional ocean science as both an analytical enterprise and a long-term public infrastructure for responding to environmental change.

Subject of Research: Marine science research and collaboration in the Southwest Atlantic Ocean

Article Title: Recent advances in Southwest Atlantic Ocean Marine Sciences: outcomes from the XII National Marine Sciences Conferences and XX Oceanography Colloquium

Article References: Barbieri, E. S., Argüelles, M. B., Torres, A. I., & Giarratano, E. (2026). Recent advances in Southwest Atlantic Ocean Marine Sciences: outcomes from the XII National Marine Sciences Conferences and XX Oceanography Colloquium. Ocean Microbiology, 2(1), Article 4. https://doi.org/10.1186/s44375-026-00010-8

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s44375-026-00010-8

Keywords: Southwest Atlantic, marine science, oceanography, climate change, marine biodiversity, fisheries, marine pollution, ocean governance, Recent, advances, Southwest, Atlantic