Burning the Midnight Oil – Another Ecological Disaster for the Gulf of Mexico

So my heart is almost stopping from all the news of unconstrained oil flowing into the Gulf of Mexico from the recently downed oil rig. A blast (as far as I know, no cause has been released) downed the rig last week. 11 workers are still missing. 42,000 gallons a day are seeping out of open pipelines and with the difficulty presented by working in such deep ocean depths, it’s not likely to stop anytime soon. There were several “fail-safes” built into the design of the rig, but all failed leading to the current disaster. According to CNN, the approaches BP, the company which owns the well, are taking are as follows:

“To seal the leak, three approaches are being tried.

BP is using remote-controlled submarines to activate the well’s blowout preventer, a steel device the size of a small house that sits atop the well and is intended to choke off the flow of oil in the event of a disaster. It’s not clear why that device didn’t originally act to cap the well, or if it will be of any use in the future.

BP also is bringing in another drilling rig that could seal the well, but that effort would take months, according to a company spokesman.

In the meantime, BP also is trying a novel approach to capture the oil — using a dome right above the well head. The dome resembles an inverted funnel, with a pipe leading up to ships waiting at the surface to capture the oil. That tactic has never been tried in deep water before.

A BP spokesman said the dome should be ready in two to four weeks.”

The slick, which has been photographed by NASA, is slowly drifting towards environmentally sensitive areas of the Louisiana coast. The Coast Guard appear to be unwilling to wait the weeks it may take BP to address the problem and are preemptively planning a burn today of portions of the slick in order to halt some of its progress towards shore.

The Gulf of Mexico has always been a severely impacted area, at least in environmental terms. The Gulf hosts massive hypoxic (low-oxygen) zones where few organisms can live. These fish kill zones are due in large part to the fertilizers and excess nutrients washed into the Gulf by rivers and run-off – the nutrients stimulate overgrowth of algea which are broken down by oxygen-consuming bacteria. This recent oil disaster has the potential to severely impact local ecology. According to the Huffington Post:

“Aaron Viles, director for New Orleans-based Gulf Restoration Network, an environmental group, said he flew over the spill Sunday and saw what was likely a sperm whale in the oil sheen.

“There are going to be significant marine impacts,” he said.

Concern Monday focused on the Chandeleur and Breton barrier islands in Louisiana, where thousands of birds are nesting.

“It’s already a fragile system. It would be devastating to see anything happen to that system,” said Mark Kulp, a University of New Orleans geologist.

The spill also threatened oyster beds in Breton Sound on the eastern side of the Mississippi River. Harvesters could only watch and wait.

“That’s our main oyster-producing area,” said John Tesvich, a fourth-generation oyster farmer with Port Sulphur Fisheries Co. His company has about 4,000 acres of oyster grounds that could be affected if the spill worsens.

“Trying to move crops would be totally speculative,” Tesvich said. “You wouldn’t know where to move a crop. You might be moving a crop to a place that’s even worse.”

He said oil and oysters are not a good mix. If the oyster grounds are affected, thousands of fishermen, packers, processors might have to curtail operations.

Worse, he said, it’s spawning season, and contamination could affect young oysters. But even if the spill is mostly contained, he said oil residue could get sucked in by the oysters.”

From Sky News: China To Sterilise 10,000 To Curb Births

9:12am UK, Friday April 23, 2010

Peter Sharp, China correspondent

Health authorities are planning to sterilise nearly 10,000 people in southern China over the next four days as part of a population control programme.

The rule of one child per family has been in force for decades

Some of the people in Puning City will be forced to have the procedure carried out against their will.

Amnesty International says forced sterilisation “amounts to torture”.

Reports in the Chinese media say that Puning Health authorities in Guangdong Province have launched a special campaign to sterilise people who already have at least one child in order to ensure local birth control quotas are met.

Chinese newspaper reports say that those who refuse to be sterilised have seen their elderly mothers or fathers taken away and detained.

Hundreds of people in Puning are said to have been locked up.

Kate Allen, Director of Amnesty International UK, said: “It is appalling that the authorities are subjecting people to such an invasive procedure against their will.

“Reports that relatives are imprisoned as a means of pressurising couples into submitting to surgery are incredibly concerning.

“The Puning City authorities must condemn this practice immediately and ensure that others are not forcibly sterilised.”

More than 1,300 people in the city have been held in local government buildings where they were given “lectures” on China’s family planning regulations.

Huang Ruifeng is the father of three girls.

“Several days ago, a village official called me and asked me or my wife to return for the surgery,” Huang told the local paper. “Otherwise they would take away my father.”

He refused.

His father was later rounded up and detained by the authorities.

According to Puning rules, farmers are allowed to have a second child if the first child was a girl.

Comedic Gold

So I somehow stumbled upon the improv group BriTaNick – Brian McElhaney and Nick Kocher, two graduates from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, claim they are wasting their degrees following their passion making stupid videos that make themselves laugh. I for one, am glad they feel this way. They make stupid humor smart:

They also were recruited for the short movie suckerpunch, showcasing the talents of additional NYU grads Jeff Chan and Andrew Rhymer. Regrettably, it’s not easily embedded, but I can provide the link to watch it at: http://www.suckerpunchfilm.com/watchnow.html

The short 28ish minute feature packs all the things I like about college party comedies (and leaves out the many, many things I don’t) into a succinct little film. Definitely worth a watch or two.

From Science Daily: How the Sea Snake Got Its Stripes

I was delighted just by the title of this Science Daily story alone – due to its folk tale inspired headline – but was further intrigued about the suggestion that coloration of some sea snakes may cause them to be susceptible to the colonization of algae on their skin which may slow them down their swimming speed among other possible consequences. The excerpt and photo below are from the original Science Daily article which can be accessed here:

ScienceDaily (Apr. 14, 2010) — We all know that looks matter, and for snakes, a colour which works well on land has dramatically different results under water, according to a recent study by biologists from the University of Sydney.

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Professor Rick Shine and Dr Adele Pile from the School of Biological Sciences have discovered a sea snake’s colouration can influence its susceptibility to algal fouling which can reduce swimming speed by up to 20 percent.

Their study, reported this month in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, sheds new light on how the transition from terrestrial to aquatic life has shaped the evolution of sea snakes.

Professor Shine said sea snakes evolved from venomous land snakes — such as the highly toxic tiger snake — who reinvaded the oceans around five million years ago.

“The fact that sea snakes have made the transition from terrestrial to aquatic life, makes them the perfect model to study evolution because we can compare traits between land snakes and sea snakes and hence identify selective forces unique to those habitats,” he said.

“The shift from land to water brought with it a new set of challenges, and sea snakes evolved unique physical traits which enabled them to survive in the aquatic environment — a paddle-shaped tail for swimming, valves to close their nostrils and large lungs to provide oxygen while under water.

“Another consistent attribute of sea snakes involves coloration: most are banded rather than unicoloured, blotched or striped. Fouling by algae has also been reported in several groups of sea snakes, and we wondered if maybe a snake’s colour could influence its susceptibility to this.”

To test this hypothesis, the scientists turned to a population of sea snakes in the tropical Pacific, in which members of the same species ranged from jet black to brightly black-and-white banded, and many patterns in between. Over a four-year period, the researchers examined free ranging individuals and found that black snakes supported significantly more algal cover than black-and-white snakes.

…

“There is clearly a balance of costs and benefits of algal accumulation, which is why we see a variety of colours in the population. For example, a covering of seaweed may slow down the snake and reduce its ability to obtain oxygen from the water directly through its skin, because the algae form a barrier. But on the flip side, the algae might increase the snake’s oxygen availability, because of algal photosynthesis, and hence benefit the snake.”

Photos of Iceland’s Volcanic Eruption

These are a few photos of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano eruption posted to Boston.com’s website, often the source for evocative and beautiful photography. See the entire series here.

From MSN: Volcano Traps Attenborough in Frozen Arctic

Volcano traps Attenborough in frozen Arctic

13:30 AEST Sat Apr 17 2010

1 hour 57 minutes ago

By ninemsn staff

//

Veteran broadcaster David Attenborough has found himself trapped in the freezing Arctic Circle as airspace remains closed following Iceland’s volcano eruption.

The 83-year-old BBC presenter took a private plane to a remote part of Norway to film melting polar icecaps before the ash-spewing Eyjafjallajokull volcano grounded all European flights.

Britain’s national broadcaster reportedly holds fears Attenborough and his small team will run out of food if the crisis continues much longer.

Attenborough is at the Arctic filming more episodes of his popular Frozen Planet series.

TV industry rumours have abounded that this was already going to be Attenborough’s final foray into an extreme environment before retiring from his more gruelling adventures.

Just six weeks ago he was at the South Pole following in the footsteps of one of his boyhood idols, explorer Captain Scott.

A spokesman for the BBC said Attenborough was currently holed up in a hotel.

“They were unharmed and their schedule has not been affected,” he told the Daily Mail newspaper.

“They are expected to be in Norway for some days to come.”

He didn’t even have a chance – Sea lion attacks octopus

In yet another interesting nat geo crittercam reveal, a sea lion was captured eating a large octopus. This and other video footage proves the animals utilize the seabed as a feeding ground rather than focusing on pelagic (open ocean) species of fish. This helps verify that the designation of marine parks which protect seafloor habitat will serve to benefit sea lions.

The Northern Quoll and Those Damn Cane Toads

 

* It was brought to my attention *several* times that the picture I originally had was that of some kind of bullfrog, so I am correcting the egregious error for those who actually stumble upon my blog. You’ll be happy it only took me month to address the issue… That is all… *

Cane toads have been a scourge on Australia since their introduction to the country in the 1930’s. The original intention of bringing the toads in was to control beetles that were ravaging local cane fields. These amphibians, however, had other ideas, and flourished unchecked. They are massive in size and have poison glands that have resulted in the poisoning of members of many local species of wildlife and household pets. They have long been considered a blight on the Australian landscape. I’ve taken the liberty of including  the exceptionally quirky but informative documentary “Cane Toads: An Unnatural History” by Mark Lewis. This expose, cherished by many for its humorous take on its topic, can be found in a series of 5 youtube videos at the end of this post.

Now onto Australia’s Northern Quoll:

This very cute, fuzzy creature is a marsupial native to Australia. The range of this creature has slowly been entrenched upon, and the latest threat to its well-being is the cane toad. The quolls are carnivorous and are often poisoned by toads they make meals of. Researchers have pioneered a sort of aversion-therapy to discourage them from eating the toads. They take smaller toads with toxin loads too minute to kill the quolls, then lace the amphibians with a nausea-inducing chemical known as  thiabendazole. The quolls learn to associate eating the cane toads with feeling ill. Data on the survival of these “conditioned” quolls indicate the approach may be working. Read more here.

And as promised, “Cane Toads: An Unnatural History”

Insects Covered with Dew

Saw these at least a couple times a whiles back and kept meaning to post them because of how absolutely incredible they are. The photos were snapped by physiotherapist Miroslaw Swietek, an amateur photographer who took up the hobby a mere 2 and a half years ago (You can see more of his striking work here). The insects are photographed skillfully at close range so that one can see the minute hairs and extremities on the little beasties and the drops of dew serve only to magnify these details. I love the geodesic quality magnified by the dew drops glistening on the dragonflies eyes. Hope you enjoy the photos, and keep watching for more from this photographer!

Reposted From Wired.com: “Recombinant Rhymer Encodes Poetry in DNA”

The below posted is content copied directly from this recent and fasincating post on wired.com that was too fascinating not to share:

By Bryan Gardiner March 22, 2010  |12:00 pm  |Wired April 2010

Illustration: Nishant Choksi

Canadian poet Christian Bök wants his work to live on after he’s gone. Like, billions of years after. He’s going to encode it directly into the DNA of the hardy bacteria Deinococcus radiodurans. If it works, his poem could outlast the human race. But it’s a tricky procedure, and Bök is doing what he can to make it even trickier. He wants to inject the DNA with a string of nucleotides that form a comprehensible poem, and he also wants the protein that the cell produces in response to form a second comprehensible poem. Here’s a peek at the hellish task this DNA Dante has condemned himself to.

Devise a cipher
Bök will create a code that links letters of the alphabet with genetic nucleotides (adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine, aka ACGT). Each triplet of nucleotides will correspond to a letter so that, say, ACT represents the letter a, AGT represents the letter b, and so on.

Foresee the reply
Bök will have to choose his ciphers carefully, as his poem chemically ordains the sequence of amino acids that the bacteria will create in response. There are 8 trillion possible combinations, but depressingly few of them yield useful two-way vocabularies.

Write the poem
After using hand-coded software to determine which ciphers will give him the maximum two-way potential, Bök will finally start composing. He says his poem will probably need to have a “repetitive, incantatory quality.” We can imagine.

Insert the DNA
Once the poem is complete, lab technicians will string together the nucleotide polymers, creating a DNA fragment to insert into D. radiodurans. It’ll probably take several attempts to get the bacteria to accept the genetic info. Talk about publish or perish.