Originally believed to be a minke whale, a postmortem revealed it to be a fin whale. It was the fifth fin whale to be stranded in the county for the last 25 years.

Scars on its 10.7m (36ft) body brought forward the possibility that the whale might have been struck by a ship's propeller, but this has not yet been confirmed. A spokesman from the Coastguard said that the propeller wounds were probably caused by a collision with a ship after it died.

Instead, he offered another possibility: "It probably died of contamination after eating a plastic bag or something similar."

Image at the top:  Great Barrier Reef, Australia. An intertidal 'micro-atoll'. Photo: Isobel Bennett.

Coral colonies of P. cylindrica have a unique internal solution to the problem of forming their skeletons and building reef structures in the face of rising ocean acidification.

Haemoglobin (Hb) is one of the most well-studied proteins to date and is key to blood oxygen (O₂) transport in nearly all vertebrates and some invertebrates, as it increases the total O₂ that can be transported in the blood and optimizes tissue O₂ delivery.

Rising temperature of the ocean west of the Antarctic Peninsula - one of the most rapidly warming places on the planet - should make it possible for king crab populations to move to the shallow continental shelf from their current deep-sea habitat within the next several decades, researchers from Florida Institute of Technology find