April 23, 2010 -  New research suggests that whales fertilize surface waters with iron-rich excrement, enabling the whole eco-system to send more carbon down into deep waters. "The plants love it and it actually becomes a way of taking carbon out of the atmosphere," Antarctic scientist Steve Nicol told Reuters, adding the droppings appear as a plume of solids and liquids. A larger population of baleen whales and krill would boost the productivity of the whole Southern Ocean ecosystem and could improve the absorption of carbon dioxide, considered a key contributor to global warming. Iron is a limited micronutrient in the Southern Ocean, but recent experiments have found that adding soluble iron to surface waters helps promote much-needed phytoplankton algal blooms. Here's more from Pauline Askin Reuters. 

Seeding the ocean with iron via ships has been proposed as a way to geo-engineer C02 absorption.  Could boosting whale populations work better?  Not if the International Whaling Commission (IWC) has any say.   The IWC has just proposed allowing the resumption of legal commercial whaling. The proposal, released late Thursday, would allow Japan, Norway and Iceland — which hunt whales under a variety of exceptions to a 1986 moratorium — to legally kill whales for 10 years, but under strict limits set by the IWC that would reduce the overall catch.

April 13, 2010 - Dr. Russell Stewart works with sandcastle worms (Phragmatopoma californica)  to develop glues that work in wet environments. There are many possible applications but the biggest goal is to make glues for use in the human body.  Here's the story from Henry Fountain NYTimes.

March 26, 2009 - Japan, China and their allies defeated all seven proposals to protect marine life at the now ended UN Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in Doha, Qatar. At the final session protection which was previously in place for the porbeagle shark was withdrawn. It is estimated that as many as 73 million sharks are killed each year for shark fin soup.

Mark W. Roberts of the Environmental Investigation Agency said Japan's tactics at the CITES meeting were similar to the way it operates at the International Whaling Commission, where heavy lobbying and allegations of vote-buying are common. He said, ''The science on the bluefin tuna -- if there was no economic factor -- would have been a slam dunk. But given that there is millions, if not billions of dollars at stake, it became a political decision.''

Creatures left unprotected at the end of the meeting are:

March 21, 2010 - At a meeting on endangered species in Qatar last Thursday the UN rejected a ban on trading in Atlantic Bluefin Tuna (the fish most commonly served as sushi). The United States had lobbied hard for the ban saying it was necessary to preserve the species. Prior to the meeting Japan was on record saying it would defy the ban if it were enacted. The population of Atlantic Bluefin Tuna has crashed by 80% since 1970. This figure is accepted by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT). Japan says that ICCAT should set catch limits for tuna.  However, currently, the catch limits set by ICCAT are above the level considered sustainable by ICCAT's own scientists. At the same meeting in Qatar the UN rejected endangered species protection for polar bears. The UN delegates are now considering protection for sharks with strong opposition from Asian nations. Here's more from David Jolly and John M. Broder NYTimes.