Underwater Argonauts! The deep-sea scientists logging Med pollution
With an estimated 229,000 tonnes of plastic waste entering the Mediterranean every year – making it one of the world's most polluted seas – the scientists' mission extends beyond documentation. Like modern-day argonauts, they seek to raise awareness, inspire action, and promote solutions
A real microcosm of a city is re-created on L'Atalante: there is a restaurant with waiters, a gym, and even a temporary shop, helping to foster a sense of community
Scientists enjoy the sunshine on the ship's foredeck between watches. They rarely get a day off
This plankton net is equipped with three different meshes, enabling zooplankton to be collected from the water to a depth of 200m. These are analysed using imaging and new genomic methods, such as the analysis of environmental DNA
Molé puts on her survival suit following a safety briefing. This is a compulsory procedure so crews know how to react in an emergency
Muret is responsible for launching the 'rosette'. A large pole called a gaff is used to keep it upright in strong winds. The scientists also provide spare equipment in case of breakage due to storms or other factors
Most of the scientists on board have not had a day off: it's seven days a week, 24 hours a day. 'With The Argonauts,' says Pavy, 'I allowed myself more creative freedom, stepping aside from traditional photojournalism. Experimenting with fiction while remaining rooted in reality opened up new ways to tell stories'
In her second long-term project Under the Arctic Ice, Mercury, Pavy sheds light on the realities of indigenous peoples' prolonged exposure to high mercury levels across the Arctic regions of Greenland and Nunavut. Iqaluit ('the place with many fish' in Inuktitut), has approximately 8,000 inhabitants
This former ranger practices seal hunting at the 'floe edge' (where open water meets the ice floe) for sustenance. He places great importance on passing down this culture. 'We are the eyes and ears of the north', he says. Tikivik also conducts workshops for young Inuit to impart traditional skills: igloo building, hunting techniques, and the Inuktitut language
With mercury levels in the Arctic increasing tenfold since the industrial revolution and the combined impact of global warming, methylmercury is now spreading into the food chain. Locals here are cutting up a caribou. They will sell the meat directly to other residents. Caribou is the most commonly consumed traditional meat by the Inuit in northern Canada and is less exposed to mercury than seal meat
Pavy captures the efforts of doctors, scientists and local communities facing this public health challenge first-hand. Lake trout, the northernmost freshwater species, is an important resource for the people of the north. Sadly, it is also the second-largest source of mercury exposure for the Inuit (8.4%), after seals
The starfish is one of the first links in the food chain. Mercury contamination occurs when it scratches sediments
The hunters spend long hours on the ice floe waiting for slack tide, the period between two tides when there is little current. This is when the seals regularly come out of the water. The Inuit do not eat the oldest seals. 'We leave them for the dogs because they taste bad due to accumulated mercury', one of the hunters says
In Greenland, hunting and fishing account for 10% of jobs and are an important resource for the territory's economy. They also account for 25% of the territory's GDP
The highest per capita mercury levels on the planet are among the Inuit of Canada and Greenland
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Metro
5 days ago
- Metro
The woolly mammoth and a 30ft sea cow could all soon be back from the dead
If all goes to plan, Ben Lamm's next Christmas card to his friends will be of him posing with a woolly mammoth and a dodo. Lamm, 43, is the billionaire entrepreneur who founded Colossal Biosciences, a genetic engineering company, in 2021. What the company hopes to do is certainly colossal – working to resurrect extinct species, a process called de-extinction. The idea, Lamm told Metro, came during a call about human-based biology with George Church, a biologist at Harvard Medical School. 'By the way, I'm working to bring back mammoths and other extinct species to reintroduce them back into the Arctic and regenerate the ecosystem. But I have to go now. Goodbye,' Lamm recalled of the call. 'I had just heard the greatest thing ever, and then the call was over. I stayed up all night reading articles and listening to interviews about all these things.' Scientists have long dreamed of reviving extinct species. But earlier this year, Colossal researchers helped bring the dire wolf, a giant, extinct species made famous by Game of Thrones, back from the dead. Kind of. Scientists salvaged DNA from the fossils of dire wolves and edited 20 of their genes into their closest living relatives, grey wolves. (Think Jurassic Park just without the maniacal computer-network engineer.) After creating embryos and implanting them in surrogates, three pups were born: Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi. The pups, with their dense, pale coats, were the first successful case of de-extinction, Colossal said. SOUND ON. You're hearing the first howl of a dire wolf in over 10,000 years. Meet Romulus and Remus—the world's first de-extinct animals, born on October 1, dire wolf has been extinct for over 10,000 years. These two wolves were brought back from extinction using… — Colossal Biosciences® (@colossal) April 7, 2025 Now, Colossal wants to revive the woolly mammoth by giving elephants dense hair and thick fat, and reintroducing them to the Siberian tundra. Lamm said that his team are also 'exclusively focused' on two other extinct creatures: the Tasmanian tiger and the 12-foot-tall bird called Moa, though they haven't cracked how to insert edited genes into eggs yet. 'I'd personally love to bring back the Steller's sea cow,' Lamm said, referring to the extinct, 30-foot-long relative of the manatee, 'but there is nothing to gestate it in until we have artificial wombs working.' Inventing an undo button for extinction sounds like a sci-fi film, but Lamm's reasons for doing it are very much real. Many of the de-extinction candidates were eradicated by humans: The dodo was, well, as dead as a dodo by 1662 after people colonised Mauritius. The Tasmanian tiger was similarly wiped out after European settlers relentlessly hunted the striped marsupials in the 1800s, while the sea cow was wiped out by humans within 27 years of its discovery. Climate change threatens to make even more species vanish, and wildlife populations have already plummeted by 70%. 'Habitats around the planet are changing at a pace that is faster than evolution by natural selection can keep up,' explained Lamm. 'For many species, there is not enough time.' We're launching the Colossal Species Reintroduction Fund: $250K annually to help return missing and at-risk species to the wild. Rewilding restores ecosystems and helps prevent extinctions. This is one more step toward making extinction a thing of the past. — Colossal Biosciences® (@colossal) August 5, 2025 Is de-exctinction, with the power of pipettes and computers, possible? Experts told Metro they aren't so sure. For one, the dire wolves Colossal brought back can be better described as modified grey wolves, said Benjamin Tapon, a PhD student at Queen Mary's School of Biological and Behavioural Sciences. 'By any practical definition of a species, no animal that Colossal has genetically engineered so far is anywhere near the extinct animal they are trying to emulate,' he said. 'Colossal is doing the equivalent of rebuilding the Library of Alexandria by printing PDFs of a few books and adding them to the shelves of the local public library.' As much as dire wolves and grey wolves share 99.5% of their DNA code, Tapon said, people and bananas share 60% of genes. 'It's a bit like saying that Romeo and Juliet shares 99% of its words with 50 Shades of Grey, or a book in another language,' he added. Alex de Mendoza, a senior lecturer at Queen Mary's Centre for Epigenetics, said Game of Thrones and Colossal got a big thing wrong about the dire wolf – they probably weren't white. The wolves lived in arid conditions, not the tundra, de Mendoza said, so they were probably a red-ish brown, adding: 'The habitat they once roamed on is no longer here. 'Most species extinctions these days occur due to habitat loss. If we couldn't preserve their habitat while they were still alive, why should we bring them back?' Capon wonders whether developing the technology to resurrect long-dead creatures could make people less diligent at preventing extinction. 'If we bring them back, will they be zoo attractions?' he said. As controversial as de-extinction is, both Capon and de Mendoza understand where Lamm is coming from. Capon would love a pet dodo, 'just not enough to try to bring them back.' More Trending De Mendoza said he would de-extinct the Tasmanian tiger: 'It is so frustrating that this wonderful animal disappeared in the 1930s. 'I think there's still habitat for it to survive, as long as people don't kill it… That said, my hopes for seeing a Tasmanian tiger come back from extinction and not just a kangaroo with some stripes are rather low.' Lamm understands where his critics are coming from, too. Which animals Colossal hopes to de-extinct take into account whether they'd have a positive impact on the environment or help conservation efforts. 'If bringing back the species can also inspire the next generation,' he added, 'then that is just another bonus.' Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@ For more stories like this, check our news page. MORE: I went inside the Navy's secret battlespace barely anyone knows about MORE: I discovered the murky world of 'minor attracted people' – it's even more disturbing than you think MORE: Moment huge black bear is chased out of home by tiny Pomeranian dog
Scotsman
07-08-2025
- Scotsman
The Transcendent Tide by Doug Johnstone review: 'a sci-fi story to get swept up in'
Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... The Space Between Us, Doug Johnstone's first novel featuring an alien creature known as Sandy, rolled a sci-fi first contact novel, a crime novel and a chase thriller into one, adding a powerful message about finding one's place in the world. Follow-up The Collapsing Wave saw the Enceladons – telepathic, octopus-like creatures who exist as parts of a larger hive mind – face the worst of humanity. Doug Johnstone | Duncan McGlynn This third novel in the trilogy, which opens 18 months on, begins at a slow burn as our cast of characters are brought together again. Teens Lennox and Vonnie are near Oban, studying marine sciences. Ava and her two-year-old daughter Chloe have settled on the remote shore of Loch Duich, not far from Skye, and Heather is living off the coast of Greenland among the Enceladons. We also meet Niviaq, an Inuit woman in Greenland, who has been having strange dreams of octopus-like creatures. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad They are brought together by Ava's desperate need for a cure for Chloe, who has become seriously ill, and the equally desperate desire of a Norwegian billionaire, Karl Jensen, to meet the Enceladons, aiming to use Lennox and Vonnie to facilitate an introduction. The meeting is a joyous reunion with Sandy for the teenagers, and overwhelming for Jensen. 'This changes everything,' he says after, vowing to put all his money and company might into environmental projects. It does change everything, but not how he anticipated… There's plenty of action, so if you're looking for thrills you'll find them. Both humans and Enceladons have changed since their first interaction on an East Lothian beach, and as each learns about the other and evolves themselves, there are also strong emotions – shock, fear, grief, but also so much love. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Yes, you do have to suspend disbelief to read a novel that features a telepathic octopus from outer space. But forget what you think you know about science fiction, and remember you want to read novels that explore what it means to be a refugee, an outsider, to move between two communities but never truly belong to either, and to discover how far you would go to protect those you love. Most of all, pick up this book if you want to explore what it means to be human, with all the hopes and fears, loves and losses that brings – something Johnstone has done in so many of his novels, but rarely as beautifully as he does in this trilogy. After cruelty that took my breath away and brought a lump to the throat, we are soothed by the fact there is the promise of a new beginning, and there is still hope. That tiny little fluttering creature from the depths of Pandora's Box comes into the world to give us something to cling onto, and boy am I clinging on tight after the events of this novel. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Good science fiction, like good crime fiction, tells us something about the world we live in via a story we can get swept up in. Surf The Transcendent Tide and let an octopus – plus whales, seals and a platoon of polar bears – show you what it is to be human.
The Herald Scotland
05-08-2025
- The Herald Scotland
Microplastics. Not just bottles. Here's what we should fret about
This week, the world is coming together to thrash out an agreement on the UN Global Plastics Treaty. In a world where plastic production is exponential increasing, this is crucial. Plastics and particularly microplastics, into which these useful and adaptable materials break down, are of increasing concern, and contributing to a global plastic pollution crisis. At the heart of the concern are microplastics, small pieces of plastic less than 5 mm in diameter. They vary widely in terms of the chemicals associated with them – making assessing their health impact and risk difficult. Increasingly they are everywhere from the placenta of unborn babies to the Arctic - and it's the plastic waste sources we don't talk about that most worry me. But what is the problem with them? And what do we actually know about their impact on human and planetary health? 1. Research is starting to show microplastic impact on human health It's still early days in research terms. As the European Environment Agency has put it, 'While much data is available on the presence of microplastics in the environment, knowledge on the health impacts of microplastics is currently lacking.' But the evidence is gradually building. A recent US study, for instance, found both microplastics and nanoplastics in higher concentrations in placentas from premature births than in those births that went to full term. Last week The Lancet launched an independent, indicator-based global monitoring system: titled the Lancet Countdown on health and plastics. 'Plastics,' the Lancet report said, 'cause disease and death from infancy to old age and are responsible for health-related economic losses exceeding US$1·5 trillion [£1.1 trillion] annually. These impacts fall disproportionately upon low-income and at-risk populations.' In a series of letters published last week, titled Act Boldly or Fail, scientists called for 'legally binding targets to cap and reduce plastic production and the phase-out of toxic additives and chemicals in plastics'. They reminded negotiators that the costs of inaction are not abstract, but "can be counted in cancers, reproductive harms, and respiratory conditions". Dr Cressida Bowyer, Deputy Director of the Revolution Plastics Institute at the University of Portsmouth, said: 'There is clear and growing evidence that plastic poses serious risks to human health. Yet the approach to health protection in the treaty still hangs in the balance. In order to operationalise the global plastics treaty objective to 'protect human health and the environment from plastic pollution' the treaty must directly address human health impacts in the core obligations of the treaty.' 2. In the UK we use, and produce more plastic per capita than average According to EHA, the global average consumption of short-life plastic per person per year is 20.9 kilograms, but the average plastic consumption per capita in the UK is 31.1 kilograms. Research by The Big Plastic Count has shown that households are throwing away 1.7 billion pieces of plastic a week—amounting to 90 billion pieces a year. 3. Less than 10% of plastic globally is recycled That's the figure calculated by an OECD report published earlier in 2022. And in the UK, that rate is looking like 17%. 4. The problem is still growing exponentially. As the Lancet puts it, production has increased 'from 2 megatonnes (Mt) in 1950, to 475 Mt in 2022 that is projected to be 1200 Mt by 2060.' Alongside that, pollution has risen, with now 8000Mt of plastic waste polluting the planet. 5. Microplastic concentrations are rising in Scotland's seas Marine Scotland data, obtained in a freedom of information request by the Ferret last year, revealed that the highest concentration of microplastics found in Scotland was in a sample taken from the Solway Firth, where surface water was estimated to contain 210,891 microplastics per square kilometre. It was also nearly two and a half times higher than the largest sample taken previously in the firth in 2016. Large concentrations of microplastics in waters were also found south of Tiree (106,453 microplastics per square kilometre), off the East Lothian coast near Dunbar, (81,982 per square kilometre) and in the North Sea oil and gas area of Long Forties (36,304 microplastics in a sample). Winds of Change on microplastics (Image: Derek McArthur) 6. We've banned some single-use plastic products – but still new items keep coming along We can celebrate the successes of banning cotton buds and plastic straws, but these plastic items are just the tip of the plastic-berg, with new single-use products always coming on the market, and eventually, hitting our shorelines and landfills. Just last week an open letter called for the banning of the latest single-use scourge, the disposable dental flosser. 7. Microplastics are entering our soil through sewage sludge One way in which microplastics are entering the environment is via sewage sludge spread on farmland. A study, carried out by the James Hutton Institute and Robert Gordon University, found the prevalence of microplastics in soil was more than 15 times its initial level after four years of sewage sludge application on a farm in North Lanarkshire. The study also found that the number of microplastics in the soil remained relatively unchanged 22 years after application. 8. They are in our food A University of Catania study found them in a wide range of vegetables, including lettuce, broccoli, carrots, potatoes, apples, and pears, with apples and carrots showing the highest levels. They are also in the fish we eat. A US peer-reviewed study detected microplastics in 99%, or 180 out of 182, samples of seafood in Oregon. 9. They are in our brains Research, which looked into postmortem samples from brains spanning a period between 1997 and 2024 found that levels were increasing. 10. Our clothes are a major source We think about plastic bottles, but we don't think enough about the microfibres leaking from our plastic clothes. A University of Leeds report found that UK laundry generates up to 17,847 tonnes of microfibres each year (243g per person), weighing the equivalent of 'around 1,500 double-decker buses'. 11. But so is this rarely talked about microplastic source But, what's not talked about nearly enough – it sometimes feels as if there is an omerta around the subject – is the biggest source of intentionally produced microplastics, the rubber crumb infill found on artificial turf pitches. This crumb in the UK is chiefly produced from end-of-life tyres. Earlier this year, Defra published an evidence project report that stated that artificial sports pitches are the main source of intentionally added microplastic pollution in the UK. According to the Scottish environmental charity, Fidra, 'Each year, thousands of tonnes of microplastics are lost during their use (mainly playing football but also other sports), maintenance, and disposal, ultimately ending up in our drains, soils, rivers, and eventually wildlife. Though the EU had already announced a crumb rubber ban in 3G pitches to come fully into force in 2013, the UK has not yet followed suit. Responding to the DEFRA report, Professor Andrew Watterson of University of Stirling, criticised the delay. 'The Defra report provided all UK governments with a two year delay on taking similar action to the EU if it wished to follow their lead.' 'It now looks as if those governments will send the report out for wider consultation and further delay." Prof Watterson said that report appeared geared 'in many respects to weight economic factors highly and downplays externalised costs to wider 'society', sustainability and the need for an effective circular economy". He believes a phase out of 3G rubber crumb pitches is 'necessary and quite feasible'. 12. Recycling may be exacerbating the microplastic problem Research carried out by Strathclyde University found that the chopping, shredding and washing of plastic in a recycling facility resulted in wastewater. If the results are more widely representative, that would mean that as much as six to 13 percent of incoming waste may be being turned into microplastics.
