Beloved manatees had their day - but their homes remain in danger
National Manatee Appreciation Day was marked on Wednesday, celebrating the gentle giants that congregate off the Florida coast.
The herbivores glide through coastal and riverine areas, feeding on seagrasses and other aquatic plants.
While the Florida manatee, a subspecies of the West Indian manatee, can be found as far west as Texas and travel as far north as Massachusetts during the summer months, the marine mammals cannot tolerate temperatures below 68 degrees for extended periods of time.
Threats from climate change and other human causes have resulted in deadly consequences for the squishy-looking species.
'They're kind of the first animals to start to respond to any changes in the environment. And because they're so charismatic, people really take note of that,' Florida Power & Light Company's Manatee Lagoon education manager Rachel Shanker previously told The Associated Press.
Earlier in the year, chillier temperatures sent manatees close to warm-water discharges from power plants.
Weighing as much as 3,500 pounds and growing to between nine and 10 feet long, the greyish brown potato-shaped sea creatures can suffer from 'cold stress' and potentially die from the condition. Exposure to lower water temperatures causes manatees to lose body heat and to inadequately digest their food.
'Unfortunately, when temperatures drop rapidly or remain low for significant periods of time,' Michelle Passawicz, the administrator of FWC's manatee management program, told WUSF. She explained that 'some manatees might experience adverse impacts because they're not able to find those sources of warm water.'
While boating collisions are the top man-made threat to manatees, and are responsible for about half of manatee deaths, they are also affected by pollution and the impact of harmful algae blooms that result in a loss of seagrass and can also be potentially fatal. While these blooms are increasingly due to rising temperatures in ocean waters, they are also caused by nutrient pollution from improperly treated sewage and fertilizers.
In 2021, there was a significant die-off of hundreds of manatees after they starved to death due to a lack of seagrass. They can normally live for between 50 and 60 years.
Storms are also an issue for the threatened friends, and nonprofit Save the Manatees notes that as climate change increases the severity of hurricanes and other storms, manatees may be affected by ecosystem changes. More rainfall may also result in more algae blooms.
State waters are home to more than 8,000 manatees. While deaths have dropped, records show a spike in dead calves over the past year.
In recent years, environmental groups have pushed to get manatees back on the endangered species list. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said that they would remain classified as threatened.
'We always look into the future, and there are significant threats to manatees statewide,' FWC manatee veterinarian Martine de Wit told The Associated Press. 'It's looking better now, but you cannot sit back and watch it unfold, because we know it needs management and conservation efforts to protect them.'
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San Francisco Chronicle
20 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Solstices brought Mayan communities together, using monuments shaped by science and religion – and kingly ambitions, too
Eds: This story was supplied by The Conversation for AP customers. The Associated Press does not guarantee the content. Gerardo Aldana, University of California, Santa Barbara (THE CONVERSATION) K'ahk' Uti' Witz' K'awiil knew his history. For 11 generations, the Mayan ruler's dynasty had ruled Copan, a city-state near today's border between Honduras and Guatemala. From the fifth century C.E. into the seventh century, scribes painted his ancestors' genealogies into manuscripts and carved them in stone monuments throughout the city. Around 650, one particular piece of architectural history appears to have caught his eye. Centuries before, village masons built special structures for public ceremonies to view the Sun – ceremonies that were temporally anchored to the solstices, like the one that will occur June 20, 2025. Building these types of architectural complexes, which archaeologists call 'E-Groups,' had largely fallen out of fashion by K'ahk' Uti' Witz' K'awiil's time. But aiming to realize his ambitious plans for his city, he seems to have found inspiration in these astronomical public spaces, as I've written about in my research on ancient Mayan hieroglyphically recorded astronomy. K'ahk' Uti' Witz' K'awiil's innovations are a reminder that science changes through discovery or invention – but also occasionally for personal or political purposes, particularly in the ancient world. E-Groups were first constructed in the Mayan region as early as 1000 B.C.E. The site of Ceibal, on the banks of the Pasión River in central Guatemala, is one such example. There, residents built a long, plastered platform bordering the eastern edge of a large plaza. Three structures were arranged along a north-south axis atop this platform, with roofs tall enough to rise above the rainforest floral canopy. Within the center of the plaza, to the west of the platform, they built a radially symmetric pyramid. From there, observers could follow sunrise behind and between the structures on the platform over the course of the year. At one level, the earliest E-Group complexes served very practical purposes. In Preclassic villages where these complexes have been found, like Ceibal, populations of several hundred to a few thousand lived on 'milpa' or 'slash-and-burn' farming techniques practices still maintained in pueblos throughout Mesoamerica today. Farmers chop down brush vegetation, then burn it to fertilize the soil. This requires careful attention to the rainy season, which was tracked in ancient times by following the position of the rising Sun at the horizon. Most of the sites in the Classic Mayan heartland, however, are located in flat, forested landscapes with few notable features along the horizon. Only a green sea of the floral canopy meets the eye of an observer standing on a tall pyramid. By punctuating the horizon, the eastern structures of E-Group complexes could be used to mark the solar extremes. Sunrise behind the northernmost structure of the eastern platform would be observed on the summer solstice. Sunrise behind the southernmost structure marked the winter solstice. The equinoxes could be marked halfway between, when the Sun rose due east. Scholars are still debating key factors of these complexes, but their religious significance is well attested. Caches of finely worked jade and ritual pottery reflect a cosmology oriented around the four cardinal directions, which may have coordinated with the E-Group's division of the year. Fading knowledge K'ahk' Uti' Witz' K'awiil's citizenry, however, would have been less attuned to direct celestial observations than their ancestors. By the seventh century, Mayan political organization had changed significantly. Copan had grown to as many as 25,000 residents, and agricultural technologies also changed to keep up. Cities of the Classic period practiced multiple forms of intensive agriculture that relied on sophisticated water management strategies, buffering the need to meticulously follow the horizon movement of the Sun. E-Group complexes continued to be built into the Classic period, but they were no longer oriented to sunrise, and they served political or stylistic purposes rather than celestial views. Such a development, I think, resonates today. People pay attention to the changing of the seasons, and they know when the summer solstice occurs thanks to a calendar app on their phones. But they probably don't remember the science: how the tilt of the Earth and its path around the Sun make it appear as though the Sun itself travels north or south along the eastern horizon. United through ritual During the mid-seventh century, K'ahk' Uti' Witz' K'awiil had developed ambitious plans for his city – and astronomy provided one opportunity to help achieve them. He is known today for his extravagant burial chamber, exemplifying the success he eventually achieved. This tomb is located in the heart of a magnificent structure, fronted by the 'Hieroglyphic Stairway ': a record of his dynasty's history that is one of the largest single inscriptions in ancient history. Eying opportunities to transform Copan into a regional power, K'ahk' Uti' Witz' K'awiil looked for alliances beyond his local nobility, and he reached out to nearby villages. Over the past century, several scholars, including me, have investigated the astronomical component to his plan. It appears that K'ahk' Uti' Witz' K'awiil commissioned a set of stone monuments or 'stelae,' positioned within the city and in the foothills of the Copan Valley, which tracked the Sun along the horizon. Like E-Group complexes, these monuments engaged the public in solar observations. Taken together, the stelae created a countdown to an important calendric event, orchestrated by the Sun. Back in the 1920s, archaeologist Sylvanus Morley noted that from Stela 12, to the east of the city, one could witness the Sun set behind Stela 10, on a foothill to the west, twice each year. Half a century later, archaeoastronomer Anthony Aveni recognized that these two sunsets defined 20-day intervals relative to the equinoxes and the zenith passage of the Sun, when shadows of vertical objects disappear. Twenty days is an important interval in the Mayan calendar and corresponds to the length of a 'month' in the solar year. My own research showed that the dates on several stelae also commemorate some of these 20-day interval events. In addition, they all lead up to a once-every-20-year event called a 'katun end.' K'ahk' Uti' Witz' K'awiil celebrated this katun end, setting his plans for regional hegemony in motion at Quirigua, a growing, influential city some 30 miles away. A round altar there carries an image of him, commemorating his arrival. The hieroglyphic text tells us that K'ahk' Uti' Witz' K'awiil 'danced' at Quirigua, cementing an alliance between the two cities. In other words, K'ahk' Uti' Witz' K'awiil's 'solar stelae' did more than track the Sun. The monuments brought communities together to witness astronomical events for shared cultural and religious experiences, reaching across generations. Coming together to appreciate the natural cycles that make life on Earth possible is something that – I hope – will never fade with fashion.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Yahoo
Bird flu can live in raw milk for more than a week, study finds
The bird flu virus can remain infectious in raw milk for over a day at room temperature and more than a week when refrigerated, according to a new, non-peer-reviewed research from a group of UK scientists. The study, published in medRxiv, examined the stability of the H5N1 avian influenza virus in raw cow and sheep milk, with researchers simulating storage conditions common in dairy settings. 'High viral titres were detected in milk from infected cows, raising concerns about onwards human infections,' the authors wrote. Scientists emphasized that pasteurization effectively kills the virus, but unpasteurized milk poses a potential risk of infection, both through occupational exposure in dairies and the consumption of raw milk. To test how long the virus remains infectious, scientists incubated the virus in pasteurized milk at room temperature and at 39.2 F, simulating both ambient dairy conditions and refrigerated storage. They also tested sheep's milk using a lab strain of avian flu. Scientists stressed that these results represent a 'worst-case scenario' and are meant to provide an 'upper-bound' estimate of how long H5N1 might survive in milk. They urged continued precautions to reduce zoonotic transmission risks. Bird flu has devastated poultry and dairy farms, and sent the price of eggs soaring in the U.S. since it was first detected in North America in late 2021. More than 12,000 individual birds have tested positive since the virus began spreading, according to the Agriculture Department. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
6 days ago
- The Hill
Milky Way has 50-50 chance of colliding with neighbor galaxy
The collision of the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies that scientists believed was inevitable has a much lower probability than previously thought. The Associated Press reported Monday that astronomers in Finland have determined that our galaxy has a 50-50 chance of colliding with the neighboring Andromeda within the next 10 billion years. The previous theory suggested that the two galaxies had a high probability of colliding within the next five billion years. 'Based on the best available data, the fate of our galaxy is still completely open,' the team wrote in the study, which appeared in Nature Astronomy. A team led by University of Helsinki researcher Till Sawala simulated all possible scenarios using the latest data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and the European Space Agency's Gaia star-tracking mission. According to the simulation yielded some surprising results. 'A head-on collision is very unlikely, we found a less than 2 percent chance for that,' Sawala said. 'In most of the cases that lead to a merger, the two galaxies will indeed fly past each other at first, which will lead to a loss of orbital energy, and subsequently to a merger. 'How close they come on their first passage is very uncertain, however, and if they don't come very close, meaning if their distance is more than around 500,000 light-years, they might not merge at all,' the researcher added. Sawala said he was not prepared for what his team found. 'In short, the probability went from near-certainty to a coin flip,' Sawala noted. The study relied on newer and more precise information, and the team took into consideration a 'more complete system,' including the potential effects of the Large Magellanic Cloud. The dwarf galaxy is the Milky Way's largest satellite galaxy, reported. Ultimately, the astronomers found that the Milky Way and Andromeda would inevitably collide if the two galaxies' orbits come close enough to affect a gravitational pull on one another. If they stay well separated, the merger won't happen. While the scenarios indicated a less likely merger between the two, they found that the Milky Way is far more likely to cannibalize the Large Magellanic Cloud. The research indicates that this newly theorized merger is likely to happen over the next two billion years.
