Latest news with #seabed
Washington Post
2 days ago
- Washington Post
A venomous fish is invading the Mediterranean. The best control may be to eat it.
ELAFONISOS, Greece — A month earlier, the two divers had scoured this exact seabed, spearfishing a single species until the craggy floor was nearly bare. Now, they cut the engine and wriggled into their wetsuits. Two empty coolers waited on deck. They suspected the same fish had returned in force. 'Let's see,' said Matteo Cavessi, and he slipped into the water.
The Herald
6 days ago
- General
- The Herald
Titan sub disaster was preventable, US finds in scathing report
The catastrophic implosion of the Titan submersible that killed five people in 2023 could have been prevented, a US coast guard investigative board found on Tuesday, calling the vessel's safety culture and operational practices 'critically flawed'. The Titan vanished during a descent to the Titanic wreck on a tourist expedition, losing contact with its support ship. After a tense four-day search, its shattered remains were discovered strewn across the seabed 488m from the bow of the legendary ocean liner that sank in 1912, claiming more than 1,500 lives. OceanGate, the US-based company that managed the tourist submersible, suspended all operations after the incident. A company spokesperson said on Tuesday the company again offered its deepest condolences to the families of those who died 'and directed its resources fully towards co-operating with the coast guard's inquiry through to its completion'. The chair of the US coast guard marine board of investigation, Jason Neubauer, said the accident was preventable. 'There is a need for stronger oversight and clear options for operators who are exploring new concepts outside the existing regulatory framework,' he said in a statement with the release of the 300-page report. Chloe Nargeolet, whose father, French oceanographer Paul-Henri Nargeolet, died on the submersible, said she was satisfied with the investigation. 'The OceanGate boss didn't do his job properly and obviously my father didn't know that,' she said. 'It was not random or bad luck, it came from something. It could have been avoided.' The board determined the primary contributing factors were OceanGate's 'inadequate design, certification, maintenance and inspection process for the Titan'. It also cited 'a toxic workplace culture at OceanGate', an inadequate regulatory framework for submersibles and other novel vessels and an ineffective whistle-blower process. The report added: 'For several years preceding the incident, OceanGate leveraged intimidation tactics, allowances for scientific operations and the company's favourable reputation to evade regulatory scrutiny.' The board found OceanGate failed to investigate and address known hull anomalies after its 2022 Titanic expedition. It said data from Titan's real time monitoring system should have been analysed and acted on during the expedition. It also criticised OceanGate for failing to properly store the Titan before the 2023 Titanic expedition. The report faulted the absence of a timely occupational safety and health administration investigation into a 2018 OceanGate whistle-blower's complaint combined with a lack of government co-operation, calling them a missed opportunity and added 'early intervention may have resulted in OceanGate pursuing regulatory compliance or abandoning their plans'. Reuters
Bloomberg
6 days ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
US to Pursue Seabed Mining With Cook Islands After China Pact
The US has entered talks with the Cook Islands to develop seabed mineral resources, just months after the South Pacific nation formalized cooperation pacts with China that included exploration for undersea deposits. The arrangement, unveiled during the Cook Islands' 60th anniversary of self-government, will include joint efforts to map the island nation's Exclusive Economic Zone, which is 'one of the most promising regions for deep-sea mineral deposits,' the US State Department said in a statement Tuesday.
BBC News
26-07-2025
- Science
- BBC News
Record-breaking divers are pushing human limits and reshaping scientists' view of our species
Humans have a long history of diving to forage from the seabed and today elite freedivers are reaching greater depths than ever. Some researchers argue humans belong in the sea. Alessia Zechinni rests on the surface of the ocean, staring at the sky, thinking of nothing. Her mind is silent. "If some thoughts come," she says, "I gently push them down. I focus on my breathing. It brings me calm. The last breath is the biggest one. I put all the air I can into my lungs – so I am able to dive deeper." At first Zechinni kicks her fins hard to propel herself down from the surface, arms outstretched above her head. "After about 25m (80ft), I start to kick more gently," she says. At around 60m (200ft), she stops moving her body entirely. "I free-fall. That part is amazing. It's like flying in the water." Zechinni, a freediver and author, has broken 40 world records and earned more than 30 international medals for freediving, including 17 World Championship golds. In 2023, she reached the record-breaking depth of 123m (404ft) unassisted. She is one of a handful of people known to have dived to these kind of depths with nothing but a lungful of air. Yet, there is growing evidence that humans may actually be better adapted to freediving than previously believed, and that it has played a crucial role in human evolutionary history. Some scientists think humans may even be natural divers, akin to otters. A rare few – like Zechinni – are able to compete with seals. As Zechinni descends on her dive, the sunlight dwindles and cold envelops her. She doesn't look at the guideline that leads her down, but at the bright blue of the ocean as it fades into blackness. In the past, Zechinni would have used a torch to ward off the gloom. But nowadays she goes without, enjoying the "blue that is becoming darker and darker" and using the diminishing light to gauge her depth. "The deeper you go, the stronger the narcosis gets," she says. "It's like you're drunk." Zechinni describes the "rapture of the deep" – or nitrogen narcosis. Nitrogen narcosis is usually only experienced by scuba divers when inhaling compressed gasses from a scuba tank. However, at extreme depths freedivers can also experience this phenomenon, as nitrogen stored in their lungs becomes compressed and enters the bloodstream. Nitrogen under pressure acts as a narcotic and can induce feelings of anxiety, drowsiness and euphoria, and cause impaired judgment and hallucinations. "To be drunk at 100+metres (328+ft) is not the best," says Zechinni. "The key is to stay focused – don't think, just feel – and live the present." At the bottom of the line, Zechinni turns "super gently" and prepares to make her return to the surface. "You are less than halfway," she says, "because the ascent is much harder than the descent." For the first 60m (200ft) of the climb she kicks hard. At around 35m (115ft), Zechinni is relieved to meet the safety divers who are waiting for her. Now, she can kick more gently until she reaches the surface. "It's beautiful," she says. "When you're coming up, the blue is getting lighter and brighter." And when she takes her first few breaths of fresh air, she says she can feels the oxygen surging through her body, filling "every cell". As of 2024, 7,269 people are known to have looked down on the Earth from its highest peak, and more than 700 people have seen our planet from space. Zechinni is part of a rare group of people who have looked up from ocean depths of 100m (328ft) or more, with nothing but a single breath in their lungs to keep them alive. Pushing the limits of human physiology, Branko Petrovic held his breath for 11 minutes 54 seconds in 2014. In 2023, Alexey Molchanov sunk to a record-breaking 133m (435ft) without use of weights or fins. And in 2021, Budimir Šobat set the world record for the longest breath-hold underwater, after inhaling pure oxygen, at a whopping 24 minutes and 37 seconds. When you consider the standard depth of an Olympic swimming pool is recommended to be between 2.5-3m (8-10ft) and the average person can hold their breath for 30 to 90 seconds, these feats of athleticism may seem impossible. But freediving has likely been practised by humans for tens of thousands of years. Around 90,000 years ago, Neanderthals – who spent so much of their time in the water they were prone to swimmer's ear – would dive into the ocean to collect clam shells from the seafloor. Around 350BC, according to Aristotle, skin-diving sponge fishermen used lead weights to reach the seabed. And the Ama freediving fisherwoman of Japan have been harvesting shellfish and seaweed for over 2,000 years. The nomadic Bajau of Southeast Asia rarely set foot on land and have relied on breath-hold diving for thousands of years. Bajau divers can accumulate up to five hours underwater per day over hundreds of dives foraging from the seafloor with the help of a set of weights, a pair of wooden goggles – and an unusually large spleen, which acts as an oxygen reservoir, a kind of "biological scuba tank". The Haenyeo of Jeju Island, Korea, also have a physiological advantage when it comes to freediving. Recent research revealed these "sea women" posses a genetic variant associated with lower than average blood pressure. The Haenyeo have been collecting sea urchins, abalone and other seafood from the ocean floor for thousands of years – often diving throughout pregnancy. Diving into water triggers vasoconstriction in most humans, causing blood pressure to rise, which can be dangerous during pregnancy. Researchers think the Haenyeo's genetic trait may have evolved to keep their unborn children safe. While the abilities of these elite and traditional freedivers might seem superhuman to most of us, some experts think humans could, in fact, be natural shallow-sea foragers akin to otters. "Among all the diving species that we know of in mammals, most are found in the shallow diving category," says Erika Schagatay, professor of animal physiology at Mid Sweden University. "Shallow divers – like the beaver, otter and muskrat – forage underwater. And humans fit right into that shallow diving mammal category." Humans, like other diving mammals, have a dive response which is brought on by entering water and apnoea. Their heart rate slows to conserve oxygen consumption; the blood vessels narrow particularly in the extremities, selectively redistributing blood flow to critical organs, such as the brain and heart. The spleen also contracts, injecting a supply of oxygenated red blood cells into the animal's circulatory system. In her research, Schagatay compares the diving ability of a variety of aquatic, semiaquatic and terrestrial species – looking at the depth and duration of their diving, as well as the proportion of time spent under water during repeated dives. She defines three distinct groups of diving mammals. "Deep divers" such as sperm whales and elephant seals regularly dive to depths of 200m (660ft) for more than 20 minutes at a time. "Moderate divers" like sea lions, bottlenose dolphins, long-finned pilot whales, along with most other pinnipeds and cetaceans, regularly dive for 10-20 minutes, reaching depths of up to 100m (330ft). The third group is made up of species which "are specialised to shallow diving", says Schagatay. This is where humans fit in, she says, alongside otters, beavers and hippos. A dive for a "shallow diver" would last up to two minutes, typically within the upper 50m (165ft) of water. Humans' "maximum diving capacity is well within the typical ability performed by shallow near shore foragers", writes Schagatay in her research paper. Humans can repeatedly dive to 20m (65ft) and spend as much as 60% of the time submerged – much like other species in the shallow diving group. The Bajau aim to be on the seafloor for as much time as possible in one day in order to collect as much as they can, says Schagatay, who has been studying this ethnic group for almost 40 years. "That is how they make a living," she says. To do this, they make many shallow dives, rather than one deep one. "The trick is to rest for as short a time as possible at the surface before the next dive." During one hour of diving Schagatay says "the best Baja divers" spend 50-60% of their time underwater. "If you take the sea otter, [the diving pattern] is almost identical: half time under, half time on the surface. They don't go deeper than 20m [65ft], they stay in the shallows. Most people think 20m diving is quite deep, but as a diving instructor I know that, with some training, most people can learn to dive to 20m. And the dive doesn't have to be very long. It can be less than a minute. So, we [humans] are quite well equipped to repeated shallow diving for foraging." Schagatay also places some species of seal in the group of shallow divers alongside humans. Yet seals possess a number of traits that set them apart from humans, says Chris McKnight, a research fellow St Andrew's University Sea Mammal Research Unit in Scotland. For us, the urge to breathe is triggered when our brains detect slight changes to blood pH caused by rising carbon dioxide (CO2) levels. This elicits a feeling of panic, telling a diver they should immediately return to the surface – before they blackout and drown. But seals are not sensitive to changes in CO2 like us, says McKnight. His research reveals that, as well as being able to store oxygen efficiently, seals have a unique ability to cognitively perceive oxygen levels in their blood. This means they can sense when their oxygen stores are low and return to the surface to breathe. In addition, he says, seals are "incredible" in terms of the regulation of heart rate. "Their heart rate drops remarkably suddenly as soon as they start diving. A grey seal can go from 120 beats per minute to four beats per minute in just a couple of seconds. That heart rate is held throughout the dive until they get to the surface again." Seals can also match their cardiovascular responses to how long they're expecting to dive for, he adds. "[The heart rate might change] from 120 beats a minute to 60 beats a minute, or 40 beats a minute. That change correlates very well with how long that dive is going to be." What this process is driven by though, he says, remains a mystery. And it is something far beyond the abilities of humans. "Marine mammals are not really from our world," argues McKnight. "The majority of their life is spent underwater. So, they're really underwater animals that only occasionally come up to our world to breathe. It's like the inverse of diving." So, are we powerless to the evolutionary state we find ourselves in? Or can humans train to dive like a seal? Today, a growing number of people are taking up recreational freediving, perhaps made all the more popular by Netflix hits The Deepest Breath and My Octopus a child, Zechinni – who appeared in a 2023 documentary about freediving called The Deepest Breath – says, swimming was the best training. At 13, she began to increase her lung capacity. "I started to take huge breaths and stretch [my lungs], little by little. Now, I have two litres more [capacity]." As an adult, she spends hours in the pool and in the gym everyday. "We can improve ourselves," she says. However, Zechinni knows the dangers of freediving only too well, having witnessed the death of her long-time friend and safety diver, Stephen Keenan in 2017. Zechinni had been attempting to pass under a 25m-long (82ft) tunnel, at 55m (180ft) deep in Dahab's notorious Blue Hole, Egypt – a sinkhole nicknamed the "diver's cemetery". When she became disorientated, Keenan was quick to follow Zechinni in order to assist her. On nearing the surface, both freedivers fell unconscious and Keenan did not survive. According to the Divers Alert Network (Dan), there were just 19 freediving-related deaths recorded in 2019, the latest data available. A further 31 deaths were reported in people who had been attempting some sort of breath-holding while snorkeling. Ever since the dawn of competitive freediving, there has been debate about the ultimate limits of human apnoeic performance. However, "divers have thus far surpassed all former predictions by physiologists in depth and time", wrote Schagatay in 2009. More like this:• The man who ran out of air at the bottom of the ocean• How hygienic are public swimming pools really?• The deep ocean photographer who captured a 'living fossil' In 2021, Schagatay and McKnight monitored five elite competitive freedivers. When the divers reached depths of up to 107m (351ft), they were found to have brain oxygen levels lower than seals during their deepest dives – levels that would usually induce unconsciousness in humans. And their heart rates dropped as low as those of diving seals, whales and dolphins. "Our studies have shown this is, at least partially, a result of training," says Schagatay. And research does show some of the traits we see in traditional freedivers may develop in response to environmental pressures – rather than as a result of evolution. Take the "sea-nomad" children of Thailand who developed built-in goggles – eyes that can see clearly underwater like dolphins. Researchers found this extraordinary characteristic was developed through training and was "replicable in a European cohort". "And [the Bajau] do have a large spleen, just like high altitude populations like the Sherpa," says Schagatay. But, she points out that when Sherpa move to live at lower altitudes, their spleen volume shrinks, indicating having a larger spleen to cope with the high altitude is also a matter of exposure, and not purely a genetic trait. The human diving response, too, has been found to be "highly variable", say experts, and can be altered. This can been seen in elite breath-hold divers who have developed adaptions through repeated training, such as greater tolerance to low levels of oxygen and high levels of CO2. Many people feel a deep connection to the ocean and research shows blue spaces make us happy. So, are humans really just land animals – or is there a part of us all that belongs in the sea? "My first dive was when I was seven or eight years old. I dove next to a turtle in the Mediterranean Sea," says Zechinni. This was the moment she knew she would spend a large part of her life underwater. In her book she writes: "I decided that the depth of the sea was immensely more fascinating than the surface of the Earth. I left the safety of the surface to dive deeper and explore a world that was so close and yet so profoundly different." -- For more science, technology, environment and health stories from the BBC, follow us on Facebook and Instagram.
ABC News
15-07-2025
- General
- ABC News
Lab Notes: Can bottom trawling be a sustainable way to fish?
Belinda Smith: If you've seen the recent documentary Ocean with David Attenborough... Ocean trailer: After living for nearly a hundred years on this planet, I now understand the most important place on earth is not on land, but at sea. Belinda Smith: Like me, you may have been blown away by the destruction caused by bottom trawlers. In super high resolution, we see a giant net weighted by heavy chains getting dragged quickly across the bottom of the ocean. Fish, squid, all manner of animals are scooped up and swept into the net, while the gouging chains churn up the seabed, crushing everything in their path. The documentary leaves you wondering how sustainable our appetite for seafood really is, and if anything is being done to reduce the impacts of bottom trawling. Hi, I'm Belinda Smith, and you're listening to Lab Notes, the show that dissects the science behind new discoveries and current events. To tell us about the state of bottom trawling in Australia is Denham Parker, a marine ecologist at the CSIRO. How much of the world's seafood is caught by bottom trawlers? Denham Parker: Approximately 25%, about a quarter of all seafood that is landed is landed from bottom trawling. Belinda Smith: 25%? That's a huge proportion. Denham Parker: So yes, it's a large proportion of the seafood that we have globally is derived from bottom trawling. Belinda Smith: But it hasn't always been this way. Denham Parker: So bottom trawling has been done for hundreds of years. It was really established in Europe, so it's a very old practice or form of fishing. Belinda Smith: But it's really ramped up for commercial fisheries too, hasn't it? Denham Parker: Yes, particularly around the 90s, 80s, 90s, 2000s, there was a significant increase in bottom trawling. Belinda Smith: And what spurred that increase? Denham Parker: So really, with a growing global population, seafood supplies at this point in time about 3 billion people with a form of nutrients and protein. Belinda Smith: Australia is no exception. We eat on average around 14 kilograms of seafood each year. That's about twice as much lamb as the average Australian eats annually. So what species are fished by bottom trawling in Australian waters? Denham Parker: The common ones in Australia is prawns. So we have a variety of prawn trawl fisheries. As you go south, you get trawlers that tend to target more fin fish, species like ling, grenadier, gummy shark, etc. Now Belinda Smith: Attenborough's latest and probably his last documentary was a really damning critique into the practice of bottom trawling. Was any of that criticism warranted, do you think? Denham Parker: So as someone who has a real passion for the ocean and as someone who has studied the ocean for a very long time, particularly fisheries, I was really excited to know that David Attenborough was making a documentary on oceans. It was great, to be honest, very hard hitting. But obviously there's limitations in terms of that sort of documentary making in terms of it needs to be entertaining as well as it needs to be in a relatively short period of time. So there are limitations as to what can be said. I suppose what I felt was there wasn't enough information as to the hard work that's gone into trying to improve bottom trawling in terms of sustainability and in terms of bycatch reduction and in terms of mitigating seabed destruction. So in the early stages of trawling, it was very destructive. A lot of work has gone into ensuring that mitigating that destructive side of trawling as much as possible. Belinda Smith: Yeah, okay. Let's talk about that destruction and how it can be mitigated, starting with bycatch. The Attenborough documentary says up to three quarters of what's dragged out of the ocean by bottom trawlers is bycatch. Denham Parker: What is very clear is that there's a large variation amongst trawlers as to what bycatch and that's largely to do with what they're targeting. So in general, trawlers that target smaller species such as prawn have higher bycatch than trawlers that target larger fish species. And that's simply got to do with the mesh size of the net that they trawl. And if you're targeting smaller species, that mesh size needs to be smaller. And as a result, you generally tend to catch more bycatch. Belinda Smith: Is there anything being done to minimise bycatch? Denham Parker: There are a number of measures that you can employ within the fisheries. And I think this is really where Australia has done a lot of research into ensuring that bycatch is kept to a minimal. One of the things that you do is all Australian trawl fisheries have a bycatch and discard work plan. These things include gear modifications. So in general, we talk about bycatch reduction devices. And essentially, these are different sort of gear modifications to the net, which help or aid any unwanted species to escape. So this can be anything from a portion of the net that is a different shape or larger mesh size to let animals escape. They have fish eyes, which are essentially a little escape slot in the top of the net. And then this reduction devices for larger animals, such as turtle exclusion devices, which is something that's been really successfully implemented in Australia. Belinda Smith: I guess that's one of the sort of more enduring images of documentaries, right? Seeing the poor old turtles, they always get caught up in fishing nets and things like trawlers are no exception. So how would a trawler turtle exclusion device work? Denham Parker: What it is essentially is a grate, a metal bar grate that's put into the net and angled slightly upwards. So as all the animals get kind of flushed into the net, the target species can pass through those bars. But large animals like turtles will hit up against that bar and will be forced upwards to the top of the net. And then at the top of the net, there is essentially a flap. So an escape little hole that the turtle can then pop out of and escape unharmed. So these are implemented in the late 1980s, early 1990s across a lot of the trawl fisheries in Australia. And having a look at the history of these fisheries, we see that in the northern prawn fishery, for example, there were 5,700 turtle interactions in late 1980s. And then in 2020, that was decreased down to less than 70 interactions. Of that, only five mortality. So things like turtle exclusion devices, which have been developed over time with scientists as well as with the industry, they really have quite a lasting impact in terms of bycatch reduction. Belinda Smith: The other big environmental concern, of course, is the trail of destruction a bottom trawling net can leave in its wake. Denham Parker: Yes, obviously the interaction of trawling with the seabed does modify and disturb the habitat. One of the methods in which we try to mitigate that interaction is by ensuring that the gear that is towed is as light as possible so that it really doesn't penetrate deep into the seabed. So the points of contact are as few as possible and if possible, include things like rollers with rubber so that that interaction is minimised as much as possible. Belinda Smith: The seabed is a good carbon store and that carbon accumulates as dead animals and plants and their waste sink to the bottom of the ocean. But when trawlers come through, they disturb that carbon and it can be released into the atmosphere. So how much carbon does get released? Denham Parker: That's a very complex and difficult question to answer. The reason it's so complex is because it really lies at an intersect between understanding the carbon cycle, understanding the seabed, biota and understanding fishery science. There have been attempts to answer it. However, those attempts and the assumptions that they made in their model in terms of trying to quantify the carbon that is released as a result of trawling have been questioned. Like I said, not an easy thing to do. With Belinda Smith: this potential for carbon release as well as habitat destruction, how much of Australia's oceans are bottom trawled? Denham Parker: Australia has done a lot of work in mapping the seabeds and understanding where sensitive habitats lie and understanding where the trawl footprint lies relative to that. You'll be surprised to know that in recent years, the trawl footprint is only about 1.1% of Australia's economic exclusive zone. Belinda Smith: The economic exclusive zone being the area of ocean around 370 kilometres from the coastline where Australia has exclusive rights to do activities like bottom trawling. So how does that 1.1% compare to other regions? Denham Parker: There was a global research paper written that looked into a similar sort of trawl footprints across 24 regions in the world. What that found was that the average trawl footprint within an EZ is about 14% and on the higher sides of it in areas like the Mediterranean and the Adriatic Sea, it exceeded 50%. Belinda Smith: Really? Oh my gosh. Yeah, right. That's huge. Denham Parker: So in that sense, Australia is doing really well in that it is probably one of the world leaders in understanding spatial management and understanding where your sensitive habitats lie through mapping and where your trawling footprint is and ensuring that those two don't overlap. I think another important statistic is that 54.8% of Australia's EZ is actually protected from trawling. Belinda Smith: After an area has been trawled, how long does it take to recover? Denham Parker: That's an interesting question and that largely depends on the ecosystem that was there prior. Belinda Smith: So for say a seagrass meadow versus a coral reef, would one bounce back faster than the other? Denham Parker: Yeah, again, one would bounce back faster than the other, but it's not as simple. It also depends on the environment health outside of simply just the impact of trawling. A lot of those sort of questions can only be answered with experimental design where you really would have a trawled area that otherwise or later becomes a marine protected area and you would be able to monitor the bounce back then. Belinda Smith: Considering that bottom trawling is needed to meet our appetite for seafood, is there a way of doing it sustainably and how can we consumers know? Denham Parker: Yes, there is a way of bottom trawling sustainably and in fact there are a number of bottom trawl fisheries that are considered to be sustainable at this point. So globally I think there's approximately 70 bottom trawl fisheries that are certified by the Marine Stewardship Council, the MSC certification. Belinda Smith: The MSC is an independent body that checks if a fishery is operating sustainably, both in terms of the species they're fishing and their impact on their ecosystems. Denham Parker: As a consumer, if you're looking to make informed choices in terms of sustainability for your seafood that puts on your plate, look for the MSC green tick label on products. In terms of Australia, I think there's approximately 25 MSC certified fisheries, of that around eight are bottom trawl fisheries. Belinda Smith: Right, okay. It seems like a fairly low proportion of the total number of trawl fisheries out there. How do you get more people to think sustainably? Denham Parker: I suppose how you can force fisheries to become more sustainable is through government interventions, right? So like I said, Australia is really a world leader in terms of fisheries management because there is this interaction between researchers, governments and fishermen themselves. Belinda Smith: Ultimately, making fishing practices as sustainable as possible is a win for both the environment and the people fishing, a point also made in the Attenborough documentary. The fishermen are Denham Parker: not against sustainability. In fact, they're absolutely for sustainability. They realise that their investment is in the ocean and it's best that they conserve their investment as much as possible. We test a lot of mitigation devices with industry, so they take them out themselves and test them and collect data for us and we bring that back and see which are efficient and which are not. It's really that interaction that really helps us understand each fishery as an individual and how we need to or what we need to do to improve that fishery sustainability. Belinda Smith: That was Denham Parker, a marine ecologist at the CSIRO. Thanks for listening to Lab Notes on ABC Radio National, where every week we dissect the science behind new discoveries and current events. I'm Belinda Smith. This episode was produced on the lands of the Wurundjeri and Menang Noongar people. Fiona Pepper's the producer and it was mixed by Tim James. We'll catch you next week. 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