Ever wondered how engineers check if their designs—from ships to wind turbines—will fair against an aggressive ocean? With something like this new facility at the University of Maine, which uses 32 fans and 16 paddles to simulate the most fierce of marine conditions.

A new lighthouse would probably be a fitting memorial to the 2012 sinking of the Costa Concordia off the coast of Italy. Open-idea competition platform matterbetter has been running a contest to design a new lighthouse concept to live at the spot where the ship capsized, and while the entries aren’t realistic, they’re…

Minecraft players build ridiculous and elaborate structures all the time. But it’s rare to come across a Minecraft creation that feels lush, convincing, alive.

What clothes, gadgets, and backpack does a photographer and writer for an adventure travel site rely on when he’s going to Asia and traveling light? This is my pared down adventure-storytelling kit, and how it performed.

You’ve heard that we know more about space than we do the deep ocean. But did you know it’s so unexplored that scientists discover new species just 200-500 feet down, sometimes at a rate of 14 an hour? A (sort of) manmade enemy threatens those efforts though, and they can’t kill, study, and eat it fast enough.

National Geographic's Your Shots features this spectacular picture of a scuba diver swimming under a massive shoal of fish at Cabo Pulmo, in Baja California peninsula, Mexico. The picture, shot by Californian photographer Jeff Hester, shows a colorful ocean full of life but that wasn't always the case:

Sarah Lee is one of the best photographers I've ever found. It's not because of her perfect technique and aesthetics. It's that she has the ability to evoke nostalgia with every shot—even if I have never experienced her scenes in real life, I've lived them in my dreams of eternal summer. She told me this via email:

Amazing video of a large cargo ship passing through a small storm and the effect it has on its steel megastructure, which bends and moves as if it were made with Play-Doh. I love the sea but looking at what it is capable of and how small we are compared to it, I get terrified. Watch and see what I mean.

NASA's Greg Shirah made this great grid graphic using images of the north pole sea ice extent from the National Snow and Ice Data Center. From left to right you go from 1979 to 2014. From top to bottom you can see the months. You can see how the spots are smaller every year. Zoom in and scroll.

Meet Walter, a happy labrador that enjoys a good run before diving in the refreshing waters of Siracusa—in gorgeous Sicily. His owner obviously knows that and he strapped a Go Pro on his back so we all can share Walter's joy for life.

Today's Earth Picture of the Day is extraordinarily beautiful and rare: Fine art and landscape photographer Fefo Boouvier captured a large population of bioluminescent noctiluca glowing against the Milky Way in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of the little town of Barra de Valizas, Uruguay.

The infamous Costa Concordia is sailing again after running aground on the island of Giglio, Italy. Francesco Marinari has filmed this drone video as it's being transported for scrap to Genoa. It's so eerie and weird. The structure that keeps it afloat makes it look like some kind of Mad Max/Waterworld prop.

A mysterious new geographical feature has appeared on Saturn's moon Titan. These two Cassini's radar images show a "mysterious geologic object" surfacing in the Ligeia Mare, Titan's second largest sea. Cornell University's astronomers call it "Magic Island" because they are puzzled by its origin and nature.

There's something completely fascinating in something so incredibly simple. Sponges—animals that can't walk or swim—are incredibly efficient at what they do and have a super fun history to them too. Watch Jonathan Bird explain how sponges work and where they come from in this Blue World clip.