The ocean might seem like a quiet place, but listen carefully and you might just hear the sounds of the fish choir.

Most of this underwater music comes from soloist fish, repeating the same calls over and over. But when the calls of different fish overlap, they form a chorus.

Robert McCauley and colleagues听at Curtin University in Perth, Australia, recorded vocal fish in the coastal waters off Port Hedland in Western Australia over an 18-month period, and identified seven distinct fish choruses, happening at dawn and at dusk. You can listen to three of them here:

The low 鈥渇oghorn鈥� call is made by the blackspotted croaker (Protonibea diacanthus) while the grunting call that researcher Miles Parsons compares to the 鈥渂uzzer in the Operation board game鈥� comes from a species of Terapontid. The third chorus is a quieter batfish that makes a 鈥渂a-ba-ba鈥� call.

鈥淚鈥檝e been listening to fish squawks, burble and pops for nearly 30 years now, and they still amaze me with their variety,鈥� says McCauley, who led the research.

Sound plays an important role in various fish behaviours such as reproduction, feeding and territorial disputes. Nocturnal predatory fish use calls to stay together to hunt, while fish that are active during the day use sound to defend their territory. 鈥淵ou get the dusk and dawn choruses like you would with the birds in the forest,鈥� says Steve Simpson, a marine biologist at the University of Exeter, UK.

The recordings were captured by two sea-noise loggers: the first positioned near the Port Hedland shore and the second 21.5 kilometres away in offshore waters.

鈥淭his is a method that allows us to understand what鈥檚 happening at Port Hedland 24/7 for a year and a half,鈥� says Simpson. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 know any scuba diver that can stay down there that long!鈥�

Listening to choruses over a long period of time allows scientists to monitor fish and their ecosystems, particularly in low visibility waters, such as those off Port Hedland.

鈥淲e are only just beginning to appreciate the complexity involved and still have only a crude idea of what is going on in the undersea acoustic environment,鈥� says McCauley.

Journal reference: Bioacoustics, DOI:

Read more: Ocean commotion: Protecting sea life from our noise

听

Coral reefs are noisy environments. So if you鈥檙e struggling to be heard, you might need to try something new.

Damselfish are renowned marine chatterboxes, and several species can make sounds. Until recently, we only knew about two types of call: single pulse sounds or 鈥減ops鈥� made when damselfish snap their teeth together, and 鈥渃hirps鈥� formed of multiple pulses joined up.

Now it appears damselfish have developed a new call to help them shout above the racket 鈥� you can hear it below:

听

Named after its likeness to a windscreen wiper on dry glass, the wiping sound of the Ambon damselfish, Pomacentrus amboinensis, was recorded by scientists at a reef in Taiwan.

As a high-pitched tonal call, the wiping sound is completely different to the pops and chirps damselfish usually make because it is not pulsed.

鈥淚t鈥檚 almost like it鈥檚 learned a new trick,鈥� says Steve Simpson, a marine biologist at the University of Exeter, UK.

He has been studying P. amboinensis on the Great Barrier Reef for 15 years but has only just started hearing the wiping sound. Simpson suggests that if the fish can learn how to make this new call, then it might spread socially quite quickly.

This new call, used during courtship and chase behaviours, is thought to help damselfish identify fish of its own species 听within the reef environment.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a very good way to distinguish between other fish in the sea,鈥� says Eric Parmentier at the University of Liege in Belgium, who conducted the research.

In loud coral reef environments where there are lots of overlapping sounds, the development of a new and different sound is the best way to avoid misidentification, he says.

快猫短视频s aren鈥檛 yet sure how P. amboinensis makes the wiping sound, but given its high frequency (645 herz), they have ruled out muscle contractions.

Listen to the pops and chirps below:

听

Read more: Ocean commotion: Protecting sea life from our noise; Zoologger: The only fish that cries like a baby

快猫短视频s have discovered a gene that, when inactivated, can give flies super sticky powers. The gene, found in vinegar flies and named spidey, after Spider-Man, is responsible for producing their protective waxy coating 鈥� switching it off makes flies extra sticky.

The lipids that make up this waxy layer normally act as a raincoat and protect flies against various exterior elements, including microbes and environmental stress. They also carry information about the age, sex and social status of the carrier.

A team of international scientists led by Yin Ning Chiang of the National University of Singapore found that removing the spidey gene caused the flies to lose their protective lipids, resulting in a dramatically shortened lifespan.

鈥淟oss of the lipids allows substances like food to accumulate on the surfaces of their legs,鈥� says Chiang. 鈥淭he flies eventually get completely stuck to surfaces.鈥�

Without the lipid shield, gunk builds up on the flies. The insects then get caught up in this sticky mess as it aggregates and creates a force that sucks them down onto surfaces.

Attractive coat

Many insects rely on their lipid coating not only for survival but also to choose mates of the right species.

鈥淭he discovery of this gene could be a very useful tool,鈥� says Tristram Wyatt of the University of Oxford. 鈥淚t could help scientists to study the pheromones of fruitflies and further our knowledge of how these chemicals have shaped speciation and evolution.鈥�

The information also could be used for pest control by disrupting insect mating. Because spidey is found in many insect species, researchers think that this finding may prove useful for controlling various disease-bearing insects and agricultural pests through chemical manipulation of the gene to disrupt the animals鈥� development, lifespan, mating and wall-clinging abilities.

In addition, understanding how the insects鈥� special lipid raincoat protects them from the outside world could one day help to produce anti-rust, antimicrobial or superhydrophobic surface coatings.

Journal reference: PLOS Genetics, DOI:

Read more: Why insects are the real rulers of the world

Urolithin A (UA) is a chemical by-product that is made by our bodies when we consume pomegranate juice, strawberries or walnuts. Johan Auwerx at the 脡cole Polytechnique F茅d茅rale de Lausanne in Switzerland and his team wanted to investigate whether these foods are as beneficial to health as some have suggested, so they decided to test the effects of UA in rodents and worms.

When they gave UA to Caenorhabiditis elegans worms, the animals lived an average of 45 per cent longer. And when the team gave the chemical to elderly mice, they could run 42 per cent further. This improvement occurred in the mice without them building any more muscles, which suggests that UA improves muscle-cell quality, rather than quantity.

Anti-ageing

When Auwerx鈥檚 team looked closer, they found that UA seems to improve muscle cells by triggering them to eliminate damaged mitochondria 鈥� the powerhouses of the cell. When these are purged, the remaining healthy mitochondria divide and multiply. This means that they can produce more energy and work more efficiently.

鈥淭he goal is to see if this could be a potential therapy for frail elderly people,鈥� says Auwerx.

As we get older, our muscle function declines, leading to frailty and loss of mobility. Loss of muscle mass 鈥� called sarcopenia 鈥� is increasingly being seen as an important factor in ageing, prompting several researchers to look for treatments that can protect or repair muscles.

Auwerx thinks that UA is the only chemical discovered so far that is capable of building better muscles: other experimental treatments focus instead on building more muscle. His team is now conducting a clinical trial of the compound in people to see whether it can reduce frailty as they age.

If UA affects mitochondria in both worms and rodents, the odds are that this might work for other mammals too, says Nate Szewczyk at the University of Nottingham in the UK. 鈥淭he promise for this having an effect in humans is very real.鈥�

So should you start guzzling pomegranates? Auwerx suggests that drinking pomegranate juice and eating more berries and nuts may be advantageous for health. However, team member Chris Rinsch estimates that a person would have to drink up to four large glasses of pomegranate juice every day to receive an equivalent dose of UA to that they gave to rats in their study.

Journal reference: Nature Medicine, DOI:

Meteorologists are calling it a 鈥減erfect storm鈥�. Super-typhoon Nepartak hit Taiwan鈥檚 east coast at 5:50 am local time this morning, leaving at least . With wind speeds of 234 kilometres per hour spanning a width of 200 kilometres, Napartak is Taiwan鈥檚 .

A recorded a pressure low of 897 millibars in the eye of Nepartak late on Thursday night, local time. Pressure lower than 900 millibars is rare, says tropical meteorologist at the University of Melbourne, .

鈥淚f the central pressure of the typhoon is a lot lower than the pressure of the surrounding atmosphere, all the air rushes towards the centre and the rotational movement of the earth spins it in a vortex,鈥� he says. The lower the pressure of the eye of the typhoon, the more intense it is.

More than 15,000 people have been evacuated from their homes, with many flights cancelled and schools and offices shut. Soldiers have been deployed across the island to help with the disaster relief.

The storm is expected to linger over Taiwan for up to eight hours, before making landfall in China鈥檚 Fujian province on Saturday morning.

Although wind speeds are expected to fall to around 17 kilometres per hour by the time the typhoon reaches mainland China, torrential rain is set to exacerbate local flooding that has left 140 people dead or missing. It is being described as .

As Taiwan recovers from its first major tropical storm of the season, and China prepares for a further deluge, scientists warn that climate change could increase the intensity of typhoons in the years to come.

鈥淎 cyclone is a bit like a steam engine,鈥� says Walsh. 鈥淪team engines have a heat source and a cold surrounding bit. The heat source for cyclones is the ocean, and the cold part is the top of the storm. Climate change projections show that the difference in temperature between these two things is likely to increase, making the steam engine more efficient.鈥�