Someday, optical communications and high-speed computing might owe their success to a little ocean creature: the sea urchin. Materials scientists have fabricated a photonic crystal using a piece of ...

Hundreds of dead or dying purple sea urchins washed up into the Little Corona Marine Life Refuge tide pools in recent days, a phenomenon some officials blame on warmer-than-usual waters. “On Monday ...

Kelp forests are the marine mirror images to the towering redwoods onshore, the scaffolding that supports the image of the classic northern California coastline. But these oceanic forests are ...

Sea urchins are sphere-shaped or flat creatures that live in the ocean and are completely covered in protective spines. On the tips of these spines are tiny claw-like pincers called pedicellariae.‌ ...

Scientists and tidepool visitors have known for decades that sea urchins like to cover themselves up. They have tube feet in addition to their spines and each one ends in a suction cup. They pick up ...

With their pointy spines, sea urchins are not warm and fuzzy marine animals that people want to snuggle up to. While they are an essential part of the ocean’s ecosystem, they can puncture a person’s ...

NARRAGANSETT — Hold a sea urchin in your hand and it’s impossible to figure out what part of its hard, spiny body you’re supposed to eat. Chicken of the sea, this is not. But there’s a big demand for ...

Last weekend, a lone, gray heart-shaped shell drifted ashore, nestling itself upon a beach in Cornwall, England. It was quickly joined by another—and then another. Before long, hundreds of these ...