The deep-sea Venus flower basket sponge can filter feed using only the faint ambient currents of the ocean depths, no pumping required, new research reveals. This discovery of natural 'zero energy' ...

When thinking about the ancient animals of Earth, you likely picture fish, birds, and dinosaurs. But a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that the ...

Despite marine sponges being widespread on our planet, their biodiversity and distribution is still poorly known. Even though the Mediterranean Sea is the most explored sea on Earth, a study reveals ...

A team of scientists digging up some of the Earth’s oldest rocks has uncovered new chemical evidence that Earth’s first animals were likely ancestors of the modern sea sponge. The discovery relies on ...

If temperature-tracking sea sponges are to be trusted, climate change has progressed much further than scientists have estimated. A new study that uses ocean organisms called sclerosponges to measure ...

Inspired by the humble deep-sea sponge, RMIT University engineers have developed a new material with remarkable compressive strength and stiffness that could improve architectural and product designs.

Kongjian Yu, the son of a rice farmer who tended terraced water-filled rice fields in China, is now a world-renowned leading voice on what he calls 'sponge planet:' Sponge cities, sponge waterfronts, ...

A team of MIT geochemists has unearthed new evidence in very old rocks suggesting that some of the first animals on Earth were likely ancestors of the modern sea sponge. In a study appearing today in ...