Ben Miner

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Death of the Stars

The Seattle Aquarium sits on Pier 59, above the cold, dark waters of Puget Sound. As children run inside its wood-beamed atrium, Lesanna Lahner peers into the largest display tank. A few salmon swim idly past barren rocks. "This used to be full of sea stars," says Lahner, the aquarium…

2014-05-05
Scientists narrow in on syndrome killing off starfish along Pacific coast

Scientists are making some headway in figuring out what is killing millions of sea stars in the waters off the Pacific coast, from British Columbia to Mexico.
While a definitive answer eludes them, researchers suggest a pathogen -- either bacterial or viral -- is responsible for the death…

2014-05-05
Mystery illness decimating sea star populations

It’s an iconic summertime image in the Northwest: children playing on the shoreline at low tide, shoveling sand into plastic pails while purple and orange sea stars cling to exposed rocks nearby.
On some beaches this summer, that scene likely will be missing the sea stars.

2014-02-19
Starfish 'ripping off their own arms'

Starfish off the United States coastline are ripping off their own appendages and dying in their thousands.

The Blaze reports that the spectacle on the North American Pacific coast is baffling scientists.

The mass die-off is leaving…

2014-02-04
West Coast's disappearing sea stars

Near the ferry docks on Puget Sound, a group of scientists and volunteer divers shimmy into suits and double-check their air tanks.

They move with the urgency of a group on a mission. And they are. They’re trying to solve a marine mystery.

2014-02-03
Mysterious epidemic devastates starfish population off the Pacific Coast

Something strange is happening in Seattle’s waters. Laura James was one of the first to notice. She alerted scientists when starfish began washing up on the shores near her home.

2014-01-31
The starfish are dying, and no one knows why

Something is killing starfish up and down the West Coast and no one knows what.

A mysterious illness that first appeared in June in Washington state has now spread from Sitka, Alaska, to San Diego. Starfish first waste away and then "turn into goo," divers say. Whatever is…

2013-12-30
Falling Stars: Starfish Dying From “Disintegrating” Disease

When marine researchers from the University of California at Santa Cruz traveled to Alaska this summer, they noticed something unsettling in the waters near Sitka: populations of starfish were losing their arms. Then other reports started pouring in to their laboratory: from Southern California…

2013-11-06
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