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Microbes kept the oil and gas spewing from the Macondo well from becoming even more of a disaster, preventing the Deepwater Horizon blowout from deeply befouling the Gulf coast . But these hydrocarbon-chompers got an assist from the Gulf of Mexico the prevailing tides and currents helped keep hydrocarbon-eating microbes on the job, according to the results of a new model published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on January 9. Simply put, the study sought to answer the question: how did five families of bacteria keep 4.1 million barrels of oil (and billions of cubic feet of natural gas) from becoming a bigger disaster

Dubai plans to significantly expand its cruise ship port in an effort to attract more seafaring tourists to the Gulf city.

By Terhi Kinnunen PYHAJOKI, Finland (Reuters) - Matti Pahkala braces from the chilly winds blowing from the Gulf of Bothnia as he surveys a map of the Hanhikivi peninsula in northern Finland, an area he first visited as a child.

By Ayesha Rascoe WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. offshore drilling regulator on Wednesday formally issued sanctions against BP and the major contractors involved in the 2010 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig that killed 11 workers and spewed more than 4 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

A lingering mystery of the Gulf oil spill is where the oil actually went. It seems now that the microbes in the water made a meal of it, but that doesn't mean we can rely on them for the next spill

Despite common parlance, oil is not a singular substance but rather a toxic stew of many different hydrocarbons that comes out of the ground mixed with natural gas. The oil that spewed from BP's Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico last year was no different--and now a precise measurement of its chemical composition has been published July 18 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences .

Editor's Note: William Gilly , a professor of biology at Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Station, embarked on new expedition this month to study jumbo squid in the Gulf of California on the National Science Foundation–funded research vessel New Horizon . This is his seventh blog post about the trip. [More]

By Melissa Gaskill of nature magazine More than a year after the Deepwater Horizon disaster gushed oil into the Gulf of Mexico, scientists say that they have been struggling to gain access to the region's rigs and drill ships, hampering their research.

Editor's Note: William Gilly , a professor of biology at Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Station, embarked on new expedition this month to study jumbo squid in the Gulf of California on the National Science Foundation–funded research vessel New Horizon . This is his sixth blog post about the trip. [More]

Editor's Note: William Gilly , a professor of biology at Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Station, embarked on new expedition this month to study jumbo squid in the Gulf of California on the National Science Foundation–funded research vessel New Horizon . This is his fifth blog post about the trip. [More]

Editor's Note: William Gilly , a professor of biology at Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Station, embarked on new expedition this month to study jumbo squid in the Gulf of California on the National Science Foundation–funded research vessel New Horizon. This is his fourth blog post about the trip. [More]

Editor's Note: William Gilly , a professor of biology at Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Station, embarked on new expedition this month to study jumbo squid in the Gulf of California on the National Science Foundation–funded research vessel New Horizon . This is his third blog post about the trip

Editor's Note: Marine biologist William Gilly embarked on new expedition this month to study jumbo squid in the Gulf of California on the National Science Foundation-funded research vessel New Horizon . This is his second blog post about the trip. [More]

That grouper on your plate may not be grouper at all--unless it has an electronic tag saying otherwise.

If oil rig operators could see real-time data about how each part of their operation was performing, they might have a better chance of stopping explosions. Nobody wants to see a repeat of last year's Deepwater Horizon oil spill, which saw approximately 4.9 million barrels of oil dumped into the Gulf