Milky seas clarified

For centuries, mariners have returned home with surreal tales of “milky seas”: expanses of seawater filled with bioluminescent bacteria that glow an eerie white. Little is known about these elusive sea conditions, says Steven D. Miller of the Naval Research Laboratory in Monterey, Calif.

To learn more, he and his team scoured ship records for modern sightings. They found only one well-documented occurrence, off the Somali coast on Jan.