Andrew David Thaler: I actually work a lot with dead whales, in the deep sea. When a whale dies at sea, it tends to sink, and that’s a huge input of food into deep-sea ecosystem, which tend to be very ...

The grim task of clearing hundreds of washed-up whale carcasses was under way in New Zealand Tuesday, with the beach closed over fears the bodies will fill with gas and explode as they decompose. The ...

When whales die, the same process that bloats any dead animal begins—but on a massive scale. Trapped gases from decomposition build up inside their huge bodies, sealed in by thick blubber and pressure ...