A mysterious disease, possibly a virus, has afflicted ring seals along Alaska's coast, killing scores of them since July, local and federal agencies said on Thursday.

Biologists are trying to determine what's ailing ringed seals that live off Alaska's Arctic coast. Scores of seals stranded on beaches this summer appeared to have skin lesions, and dozens have died.

Last month a mysterious orange film ("goo" in the media vernacular) washed up on the shores of a northwest Alaskan village called Kivalina. An orange powder seems an odd product for the drying of crustacean eggs, but could make perfect sense for fungi -- specifically, the rust fungi.