The Gulf of Mexico is seeing one of the biggest low-oxygen areas—or "dead zones"—on record this year. A dead zone forms in the Gulf around this time every year, but the 2010 incarnation is 7,722 square miles, just a few hundred short of the record size of 8,000, the AP reports. Marine scientists aren't sure if the development has anything to do with the Gulf oil spill.
(More Gulf oil spill stories.)