Major New Study Provides Route Map to Recovery in Just 30 Years
April 13th, 2020, By Nikki Harper,Staff Writer for Wake Up World

Of all the damage mankind has inflicted upon our earth, the depletion of marine life around the world has been some of the most heartbreaking – but a major new international study has set out a route map to recovery. If urgent action is taken, biodiversity in our oceans could be restored to healthy levels within just one generation, by 2050, researchers believe.

Using evidence from successful marine conservation projects around the world, researchers from four continents, ten countries and sixteen universities have been able to identify and narrow down the most crucial steps governments around the world must take if this narrow window of opportunity is to be taken. Although threats from climate change and over-fishing are becoming ever more acute, the marine life losses we saw in the 20th century have to some extent slowed in the 21st century so far – and in some cases, remarkable success has been achieved. Take the global population of humpback whales, for example – a species which was on the brink of extinction in 1968, but which now numbers more than 40,000. Northern elephant seals are another example of what the report terms “impressive resilience” – numbering just 20 breeding animals in 1880, today there are more than 200,000.

Such good news stories are important for individual species, but they’re also important for global marine management, provided that the lessons learned from them can be scaled up and applied quickly.

The new study states that marine life recovery can be accelerated by large scale interventions – to such an extent, if done well, that we may see substantial ocean life recovery within the next two to three decades. Researchers have identified broad themes necessary to support this recovery, such as the protection of species, wise harvesting, protected spaces, habitat restoration, pollution reduction and climate change mitigation. Each of these themes contains specific actions which should be brought to bear on nine integral elements of marine life, namely deep sea, megafauna, fisheries, oyster reefs, kelp, coral reefs, seagrass, mangroves and saltmarshes.

The entire article can be read here: https://wakeup-world.com/2020/04/13/hope-for-the-worlds-oceans-major-new-study-provides-route-map-to-recovery-in-just-30-years/

Ian Sample; The Guardian; 23 Mar 2019

A "mindblowing" haul of fossils that captures the riot of evolution that kickstarted the diversity of life on Earth more than half a billion years ago has been discovered by researchers in China.

Paleontologists found thousands of fossils in rocks on the bank of the Danshui river in Hubei province in southern China, where primitive forms of jellyfish, sponges, algae, anemones, worms and arthropods with thin whip-like feelers were entombed in an ancient underwater mudslide.

The creatures are so well preserved in the fossils that the soft tissues of their bodies, including the muscles, guts, eyes, gills, mouths and other openings are all still visible. The 4,351 separate fossils excavated so far represent 101 species, 53 of them new.

The fossilised organisms date back to 518m years ago when life on Earth experienced a massive burst in diversity known as the Cambrian explosion. The event, at the dawn of animal life, marked the arrival of all manner of unusual creatures. Many went extinct as evolutionary dead-ends, but others went on to form the first sturdy branches of the tree of life.

The rest of this article can be read here: https://www.sott.net/article/409722-Mindblowing-haul-of-fossils-over-500-million-years-old-unearthed-in-China

RT; 17 April 2018

Two years after scientists reported the presence of plastic-munching bacteria at a recycling plant in Japan, accidental mutations to an enzyme has boosted its pollution-digesting powers.  More than 300 million tons of plastic is produced globally, with environmentalists warning that oceans are becoming choked by materials such as polyethylene terephthalate (PET) - the key component of plastic bottles and packaging.

Researchers from the University of Portsmouth and the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) say they have inadvertently improved PETase, an enzyme used by the bacteria Ideonella sakaiensis, to make it better at degrading plastic.

According to the US federal lab, scientists have made a "modest improvement" to the plastic-eating enzyme while studying its original evolution. As such, the breakthrough could be a useful weapon in the fight against the man-made pollutant, something which plagues fish species and natural habitats such as Henderson Island - a coral reef where 37 million pieces of plastic has been dumped by sea currents. "We hoped to determine its structure to aid in protein engineering, but we ended up going a step further and accidentally engineered an enzyme with improved performance at breaking down these plastics," said Gregg Beckham, of the NREL research department.

With the findings of the group's test set to be published this week, Gregg added that there is scope to make the bacteria's ability to degrade waste - that normally takes centuries to decompose - even better.  Currently, PETase is still some way off being able to digest plastic on an industrial scale, meaning it is unlikely to be a silver bullet for today's environmental concerns.

Nic Rorrer, a scientist at NREL, said that during testing the improved enzyme began destroying plastic soda bottles within 96 hours. He said it raises hopes for future waste disposal.  "This test is using real examples of what is found in the oceans and landfills," he said. "Understanding how PET binds in the PETase catalytic site using computational tools helped illuminate the reasons for this improved performance. Given these results, it's clear that significant potential remains for improving its activity further."

Mallory Pickett : Forbes : 12 Sep 2016

In the summer of 2014, Mardi McNeil was an undergraduate student at the Queensland University of Technology. She was spending the summer helping a team of scientists with a big research project: mapping the ocean floor around the Great Barrier Reef.

McNeil's job was to map the extent and structure of bioherms, mounds of ancient calcified algae, scattered outside the Great Barrier Reef 60 to 100 feet below the surface. Scientists in the 80s had documented the bioherms using acoustic sound waves, but no one had re-visited them with modern technology. So McNeil used lidar data (a mapping technique that measures distance with lasers) collected by the Australian navy to create high-resolution 3D renderings of the ocean floor. But as soon as she started looking through the images she made, McNeil knew she'd found something big.

Scientists had previously thought the bioherms covered an area of about 800 square miles. McNeil's map showed a bioherm network covering over 2,300 square miles, triple the original area estimate. And it wasn't just the extent of the bioherms that was a surprise: it was their shapes. There were huge doughnut-shaped bioherms, 30 feet tall and 600 feet across, honeycombed sheets of bioherms with sharp ridges and crests, and undulating waves of bioherms spread across the ocean floor for miles and miles.

McNeil was on Skype with the other scientists on her team at the moment of discovery. "We were sharing a screen and just scrolling down the coastline, looking at it unfold, looking at these weird circular shapes, and we were all amazed," she says. "It just went on and on."

The new understanding of the bioherm reef has huge scientific significance. In the report they just published on their findings in the journal Coral Reefs, McNeil and her coauthors suggested the bioherms' "vast size and volume perhaps elevate their importance to rival that of the northern Great Barrier Reef coral reefs".

The bioherm reef is believed to be about 8,000 years old, the same age as the coral of the Great Barrier Reef. Their mounds of ancient algae are a kind of geochemical archive, containing records of ocean temperature and acidity from the last Ice Age until now. The records can be used to understand how past ocean changes affected corals and other organisms, in order to predict how today's warming and acidifying oceans could affect future ecosystems.

The bioherm reef could be an important part of that future: because it's deeper than the Great Barrier Reef, the water around them is cooler and has a different chemical environment. McNeil says this kind of deep reef, called a mesophotic reef, has potential to provide refuge for sensitive species as the ocean warms.

But at the moment of her big discovery, McNeil wasn't thinking about the future. She was thinking about her scientific predecessors who mapped the bioherms in the 80s.  "They did a really good job of mapping and interpreting the shape based on the technology they had at the time," she says, but they couldn't come close to what today's technology revealed. "If they could see this they would just be completely blown away."

Bryan Nelson : Mother Nature Network ; 30 Jul 2016

Humans might not be the only creatures that care about the welfare of other animals. Scientists are beginning to recognize a pattern in humpback whale behavior around the world, a seemingly intentional effort to rescue animals that are being hunted by killer whales.

Marine ecologist Robert Pitman observed a particularly dramatic example of this behavior back in 2009, while observing a pod of killer whales hunting a Weddell seal trapped on an ice floe off Antarctica. The orcas were able to successfully knock the seal off the ice, and just as they were closing in for the kill, a magnificent humpback whale suddenly rose up out of the water beneath the seal.

This was no mere accident. In order to better protect the seal, the whale placed it safely on its upturned belly to keep it out of the water. As the seal slipped down the whale's side, the humpback appeared to use its flippers to carefully help the seal back aboard. Finally, when the coast was clear, the seal was able to safely swim off to another, more secure ice floe.

Another event, involving a pair of humpback whales attempting to save a gray whale calf from a hunting pod of orcas after it had become separated from its mother, was captured by BBC filmmakers. You can watch the dramatic footage here:

You can read the rest of this article here.

Sumitra : Oddity Central : 28 Nov 2015

Meet Aisa Mijeno, a Filipino architect and scientist who invented a revolutionary lamp that runs on a glass of saltwater instead of batteries. Her vision in creating the SALt (Sustainable Alternative Lighting) lamp was to "light up the rest of the Philippines sustainably," by finding an environment-friendly alternative light source suitable for people in coastal areas. She came up with the idea after spending time with the locals of the Butbut tribe in the Kalinga Province of Philippines, who had no access to electricity.

The lamp can apparently run for eight hours on just two tablespoons of salt and a glass of water. "It is made of tediously experimented and improved chemical compounds, catalysts, and metal alloys that when submerged in electrolytes will generate electricity," Mijeno explained. The idea behind it is the chemical conversion of energy, but while it works on the scientific principle of the galvanic cell, it makes use of a harmless, non-toxic saline solution instead of hazardous electrolytes.

This saltwater lamp not only makes lighting available to remote areas, it's also a lot cheaper than conventional kerosene or electric lamps, considerably safer since it does not have components and compounds that may spark fire, and, most importantly, it's environment-friendly since it does not emit toxic gases and leaves a minimal carbon footprint."This isn't just a product," Mijeno said. "It's a social movement."

Although the SALt lamp isn't being mass produced yet, it has received global recognition. Mijeno has won several awards and competitions in Philippines, Japan, Singapore, and South Korea for the work that she put into the device. And The New York Times reported that she recently attended a discussion of climate change hosted by President Obama, where she spoke about the SALt lamp in detail. He called her venture a "splendid thought", while referring to her as "the perfect example of young entrepreneurs coming up with leapfrog technology."

For now, Mijeno's immediate challenge lies in finding a way to manufacture the lamp so that it remains durable, economical, and easy to maintain. If it manages to work as promised, it can produce about 90 lumens of light at just $20, plus $3 to replace the anode every six months. That's perfect for areas with no electricity grid, and safer than kerosene lamps. SALt also features a USB port that can be used to charge mobile phones or other electrical devices. If everything goes according to plan, Mijeno believes the product should be available on the market in 2016.

"The danger in (kerosene) lamps is it could cause fire accidents," she said. "We want to provide a lighting option that is more cost-effective, more safe, more sustainable and environmentally friendly by way of a lantern that uses saline solution or ocean water as a catalyst to generate electricity. Just imagine, if we're able to power a whole island using ocean water. That's what we're trying to aim for."

In 2005, a Croatian architect designed a 230-foot-long organ that turns the rhythm of the waves into actual music.  Nope, not nonsensical bellows or chaotic tones. Real, actual, music.  Most of us have never seen, or heard, anything like it.

Imagine walking along the picturesque Adriatic Sea, treading lightly on a set of white stone steps as a cool breeze rolls past.  Carved into the steps are narrow channels that connect to 35 organ pipes, each tuned to different meticulously arranged musical chords.  As the waves lap against the steps, they push air through the pipes and out whistle-holes in the surface above, making a harmonious and completely random musical arrangement.  But you don't see what's happening below the surface. You close your eyes and all you hear is a song like you've never heard before, one completely unique to the movement of the sea at that exact moment.

Take a listen: Here's what it sounded like at one particular moment, on one particular day. On any other day, it might sound completely different.

Zadar, a 3,000-year-old city on the coast of Croatia, was almost completely destroyed in World War II - - so many of its ancient landmarks lost forever. Years after a rebuilding that featured lots of plain, concrete structures, award-winning architect Nikola Bašić was brought in to bring some delight back to the coastline.

That's when he came up with the idea.  No doubt he was inspired by the hydraulis — a nifty little instrument built by the ancient Greeks that used water to push air through tuned pipes — or even the Wave Organ in San Francisco — a set of curved tubes built in the 1980s that amplify the gurgles and howls of the Pacific Ocean.  But the intricate design of the Sea Organ is what sets it apart and makes it truly something to marvel at.

Freya Noble : Daily Mail, UK : 17 Sep 2015

Ms Malcolm said this was not the only interesting interaction she had with whales recently. Last Saturday we were 'mugged' by the biggest group of humpbacks I have ever seen, who were happy to play with us for a while.'

What expert Geoff Ross told Daily Mail Australia to see a seal riding on a whale was extremely unusual, and only knew of one other case. 'It's very very rare, I've only heard of one of other occurrence and that was a seal that had climbed up on a whale to escape a killer whale,' he said.

RT : Tue, 19 Aug 2014

Russian scientists say they made a "unique" discovery while analyzing samples from the exterior of the International Space Station - traces of tiny sea creatures on the station's windows and walls. It remains unclear how marine plankton ended up in space. The results of the recent experiments prove that that some organisms are capable of living on the outer surface of the International Space Station (ISS), Vladimir Solovyev, head of the Russian segment of the ISS, has revealed. Some studies suggest that these organisms may even develop in the hostile conditions of spaceflight, which include vacuum, low temperatures, radiation and others, he added.

Solovyev was quoted as saying by Itar-Tass: "The results of the so-called 'Test' experiment are unique. On the surface of the [ISS] windows we found traces of marine plankton - the microparticles - that will become the subject of further studies."  While the experiments on the matter were finalized last year, it is still unclear how the microparticles could get all the way to the ISS, Solovyev said.

"[Plankton in] such phases of development is found on the surface of the ocean. It isn't characteristic to Baikonur," he explained, referring to Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan from where crew and cargo deliveries to ISS are launched. 
"It turns out that there are some rising air currents, which settle on the surface of the station" Solovyev added. The former cosmonaut, who spent nearly a year in orbit back in the 1980s, said that outer surface of ISS is "heavily contaminated" by the waste products from engines of the arriving spacecraft, atmospheric discharges from the station during spacewalks by the crew and other factors.  We are currently conducting special operations to be able to somehow to polish and clean up the windows [at the ISS]. This is especially important during long space flights," Solovyev concluded.
http://www.sott.net/article/284145-Traces-of-marine-plankton-discovered-attached-to-ISS-outer-hull