Humanity’s Toxic Wreckage Is Teeming With Life, Scientists Discover

· Sep 27, 2025 at 9:00 AM

Though they leach toxic chemicals, submerged explosives from World War II attract algae, mussels, and fish in high numbers.

Humanity’s Toxic Wreckage Is Teeming With Life, Scientists Discover — *Species identified from the footage taken by Käpt’n Blaubär. Image: Andrey Vedenin et al./Communications Earth & Environment*

Welcome back to the Abstract! Here are the studies this week that were lost at sea, lost in time, lost in space, and lost in translation.

If you are househunting at the moment, have you considered living on a submerged pile of Nazi munition, or in a charming community of WWI-era ghost ships, or, if you want privacy, maybe a homestead on the Moon? The first studies up this week are all about weird hubs of life here on Earth and perhaps one day off it.