Searching for solutions to microplastics in the water
As the UN Oceans Conference gets underway in France, scientists around the world are looking at
new ways to tackle the problem of microplastic pollution, Derek Van Dam reports
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New York Times
an hour ago
- New York Times
At U.N. Conference, Countries Inch Toward Ocean Protection Goal
Remote coral atolls in the Caribbean. Habitat for threatened sharks and rays around a Tanzanian island in the Indian Ocean. And 900,000 square kilometers of the Pacific Ocean around French Polynesia. These are some of the millions of acres of water now set aside as part of an international goal to protect 30 percent of the ocean by 2030. More than 20 new marine protected areas were announced at the third United Nations Ocean Conference, which ended on Friday in France. Countries and territories pledging new areas included Chile; Colombia; French Polynesia; Portugal; Samoa; Sao Tome and Principe; the Solomon Islands; Tanzania; and Vanuatu. 'Protecting the ocean is beginning to become fashionable,' said Sylvia Earle, a marine biologist and oceanographer who served as chief scientist of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the 1990s, at an event celebrating a network of protected areas around the Azores. The new designations come at a time when the United States, which sent only two observers to the conference, has moved to reopen the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument to commercial fishing. The country is also seeking to unilaterally authorize mining of the seafloor in international waters. France, which hosted the conference with Costa Rica, pushed for a moratorium on deep sea mining, with four new countries pledging their support this week, bringing the total to 37 countries. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Scientists invent way to make farmed salmon healthier and better for you
Scientists have invented a way to make farmed salmon healthier. Feeding fish with a new type of rapeseed oil, which includes a natural red pigment, makes pink seafood richer in omega-3 oils and filled with more antioxidants, a study has found. The pinkness of a fish, whether shrimp, trout or salmon, comes from consumption of a chemical called astaxanthin, which is produced by some algae in the wild. Wild fish eat this in their diet and become pink as a result, but farmed fish do not and as a result have naturally grey flesh. These fish are therefore fed synthetic versions of this chemical to make the aesthetically pleasing hue consumers desire. But a genetically modified variant of the crop, which is spliced with genes from the scarlet flax flower, creates a plant that naturally produces seeds rich in astaxanthin. DNA, which powers the pigment-making pathway, was injected into the crop's own genome and small batches were grown at trial sites in the US and UK. Published in the Plant Biotechnology journal, data show that in each gram of seed from this new crop, there are 136 micrograms of colourful pigments. More than a third (47 micrograms) is astaxanthin. Giving this to fish in their diet to make them pink, instead of the current synthetic astaxanthin, would make the salmon healthier and better to eat, scientists say. In another experiment by the same scientists at Rothamsted University, oil made from these plants was given to 120 rainbow trout in four tanks. The study was later published in the journal Aquaculture. These animals grew just as big and were richer in health chemicals such as omega-3, the study found. Prof Johnathan Napier, a plant biotechnology pioneer who led the work at Rothamsted, told The Telegraph: 'The plant-based source of the pigment is accumulated and delivers benefits to the fish. 'In particular, it can help reduce the build-up of pro-inflammatory molecules. 'We are also hoping to see if having diets in which the plant-derived astaxanthin is present makes them more resistant to disease (especially lice) and stress – that work is ongoing.' The fish which eat the new oil are healthier, he said, and the humans that eat the fish are also set to benefit from the change. Prof Napier said: 'One would hope that fish being fed this diet would be more healthy [sic],' 'Astaxanthin helps to reduce oxidation, and therefore protects the fish's metabolic state as well as protecting the healthy omega-3s and then we consume and get health benefits for ourselves. 'And there is also an additional potential benefit from having the astaxanthin in your diet, as an antioxidant.' The scientists who invented the new plant used genetic modification techniques to create the astaxanthin-rich rapeseed oil. It is not possible to grow this crop commercially in the UK because the UK still uses the EU legislation prohibiting genetically modified (GM) foods. GM foods are allowed in the US and Prof Napier believes fish and farmers over there will be able to benefit from this new product in less than ten years. Red tape around the use of GM foods in UK agriculture, he believes, is stifling the market and also preventing foods which Prof Napier said: 'Tax revenue is being used to fund millions of pounds' worth of fundamental research in UK universities and institutes. 'But the potential arising from any useful discoveries is not correctly captured or exploited because of regulatory burdens. 'In the specific example of GM crops, we are still lumbered with the EU regulations, so we are double-whammied.' Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
14,000-year-old mummified ‘puppies' weren't dogs at all, new research shows
Sign up for CNN's Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. Two well-preserved ice age 'puppies' found in Northern Siberia may not be dogs at all, according to new research. Still covered in fur and naturally preserved in ice for thousands of years, the 'Tumat Puppies,' as they are known, contain hints of a last meal in their stomachs, including meat from a woolly rhinoceros and feathers from a small bird called a wagtail. Previously thought to be early domesticated dogs or tamed wolves living near humans, the animals' remains were found near woolly mammoth bones that had been burned and cut by humans, suggesting the canids lived near a site where humans butchered mammoths. By analyzing genetic data from the gut contents and chemical signatures in the bones, teeth and soft tissue, researchers now think the animals were 2-month-old wolf pups that show no evidence of interacting with people, according to findings published Thursday in the journal Quaternary Research. Neither of the mummified wolf cubs, believed to be sisters, show signs of having been attacked or injured, indicating that they died suddenly when their underground den collapsed and trapped them inside more than 14,000 years ago. The den collapse may have been triggered by a landslide, according to the study. The wealth of data from the remains is shedding light on the everyday life of ice age animals, including how they ate, which is similar to the habits of modern wolves. 'It was incredible to find two sisters from this era so well preserved, but even more incredible that we can now tell so much of their story, down to the last meal that they ate,' wrote lead study author Anne Kathrine Wiborg Runge, formerly a doctoral student at the University of York and the University of Copenhagen, in a statement. 'Whilst many will be disappointed that these animals are almost certainly wolves and not early domesticated dogs, they have helped us get closer to understanding the environment at the time, how these animals lived, and how remarkably similar wolves from more than 14,000 years ago are to modern day wolves.' The multitude of research on these pups and other specimens also illustrates how difficult it is to prove when dogs, widely regarded as the first domesticated animal, became a part of human society. Trapped in thawing permafrost, the Tumat Puppies were discovered separately at the Syalakh site, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) from the nearest village of Tumat — one in 2011 and the other in 2015. They are approximately 14,046 to 14,965 years old. Hair, skin, claws and entire stomach contents can survive eons under the right conditions, said study coauthor Dr. Nathan Wales, senior lecturer in archaeology at the University of York in England. 'The most surprising thing to me is that the archaeologists managed to discover the second Tumat Puppy several years after the first was found,' Runge told CNN. 'It is very rare to find two specimens that are so well preserved and then they turn out to be siblings/littermates. It's extraordinary.' Like modern wolves, the pups ate both meat and plants. Though a woolly rhinoceros would be rather large prey for wolves to hunt, the piece of woolly rhino skin in one pup's stomach is proof of the canids' diet. The rhino skin, bearing blond fur, was only partially digested, suggesting the pups were resting in their den and died shortly after their last meal, Runge said. The color of the woolly rhino fur is consistent with that of a calf, based on previous research of a juvenile woolly rhino specimen found in the permafrost. Adult woolly rhinos likely had darker fur. The pack of adult wolves hunted the calf and brought it back to the den to feed the pups, according to the study authors. 'The hunting of an animal as large as a wooly rhinoceros, even a baby one, suggests that these wolves are perhaps bigger than the wolves we see today,' Wales wrote in a statement. The researchers also analyzed tiny plant remains fossilizing in the cubs' stomachs, revealing that the wolves lived in a dry, somewhat mild environment that could support diverse vegetation including prairie grasses, willows and shrub leaves. In addition to eating solid food, the pups were likely still nursing milk from their mother, according to the researchers. What scientists didn't find was evidence that mammoths were part of the cubs' diet, meaning it was unlikely that humans at the site were feeding the canids. Is it possible, though, that people shared woolly rhino meat with the cubs? That's something Wales considered, but now he believes the evidence points in the other direction. 'We know that modern wolves will hunt large prey like elk, moose and musk ox, and anyone who watches animal documentaries will know wolves tend to single out juvenile or weaker individuals when they hunt,' Wales wrote in an email. 'I lean toward the interpretation that the Tumat Puppies were fed part of a juvenile wooly rhino (by adult wolves).' The origin of the woolly rhino meat is impossible to pinpoint — the wolf pack could have hunted the calf or scavenged it from a carcass or even a butchering site — but given the age of the cubs and the fact that the den collapsed on them, it seems less likely that humans fed them directly, Runge said. That the cubs were being reared in a den and fed by their pack, similarly to how wolves breed and raise their young today, further suggests that the Tumat Puppies were wolves rather than dogs, Wales said. Painting a broader picture of ice age wolves is difficult because no written sources or cave art depicting them have been found, so it is unclear how wolf packs and ancient humans would have interacted, Runge said. 'We have to try to account for our own biases and preconceived notions based on human-wolf interactions today,' she wrote. 'And then we have to be okay with knowing we'll never be able to answer some of the questions.' Researchers are still trying to understand how domesticated dogs became companions to humans. One hypothesis is that wolves lived near humans and scavenged their food. But the domestication process would take generations and require humans to tolerate this behavior. Another hypothesis is that humans actively captured and hand-raised wolves, causing some of them to become isolated from wild populations, resulting in early dogs. Previous DNA tests on the cubs suggested they could have come from a now extinct population of wolves that eventually died out — and a population that did not act as a genetic bridge to modern dogs. 'When we're talking about the origins of dogs, we're talking about the very first domesticated animal,' Wales said. 'And for that reason, scientists have to have really solid evidence to make claims of early dogs.' All the evidence the authors of the new study found was compatible with the wolves living on their own, Wales said. 'Today, litters are often larger than two, and it is possible that the Tumat Puppies had siblings that escaped (the same) fate,' he said. 'There may also be more cubs hidden in the permafrost or lost to erosion.' Pinpointing where and when dogs were domesticated is still something of a holy grail in archaeology, evolutionary biology and ancient DNA research, said Dr. Linus Girdland-Flink, a lecturer in biomolecular archaeology at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. Though Girdland-Flink's research is on ancient wolves and dogs, he was not involved in the new study. But determining whether ancient remains like the Tumat Puppies are early domestic dogs, wild wolves, scavengers or tamed individuals isn't straightforward because of the fragmented archaeological record, he said. No one piece of evidence can lead to a definitive answer. And it's even harder to do a comparison involving cubs because adult traits help distinguish between wild wolves and domesticated dogs. 'Instead, we have to bring together different lines of proxy evidence — archaeological, morphological, genetic, ecological — and think about how they all fit,' Girdland-Flink wrote in an email. 'So, I really welcome this new multi-disciplinary reanalysis of the Tumat puppies.' Girdland-Flink wasn't surprised the cubs weren't associated with the mammoth butchering site — an absence of evidence that matters. And combined with the lack of strong genetic ties to domestic dogs, he agreed the cubs must have come from a wolf population that did not live with humans.
