Researchers have discovered the cause of a mysterious marine epidemic that has turned billions of sea stars into goo along the West Coast — and it's not what they expected.
Sea star wasting disease has been killing sea stars since 2013, causing catastrophic damage to ecosystems and driving the largest sea star species to the brink of extinction. Researchers thought a virus might be responsible for the disease, but after a four-year-long investigation, they've found that a strain of bacteria is to blame.
