Science & Environment

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Science & Environment

Climate change: Arctic reindeer numbers crash by half

By Victoria Gill

Science correspondent, BBC News, Washington DC

12 December 2018

The population of wild reindeer, or caribou, in the Arctic, has crashed by more than half in the last two decades.

A new report on the impact of climate change in the Arctic revealed that numbers fell from almost 5 million to around 2.1 million animals.

The report was released at the American Geophysical Research Union meeting.

It revealed how weather patterns and vegetation changes are making the Arctic tundra a much less hospitable place for reindeer.

Reindeer and caribou are the same species, but the vast, wild herds in northern Canada and Alaska are referred to as caribou.

It is these herds that are faring the worst, according to scientists monitoring their numbers. Some herds have shrunk by more than 90% - "such drastic declines that recovery isn't in sight",  this Arctic Report Card stated

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-46516033

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Roscosmos, the company INVITRO and 3D Bioprinting Solutions announced the successful completion of the first phase of the experiment "3D-Magnetic Bioprinter", performed on board ISS. For the first time, human cartilage and rodent thyroid tissues were printed in space.

The Russian bioprinter Organ.Avt was delivered to the ISS on December 3, 2018 on a manned spacecraft Soyuz MS-11. Preparation for the project continued for two years. It was important for scientists to analyze how space microgravity affects the efficiency of the process of creating living tissues and organ constructs.

The joint project of INVITRO, 3D Bioprinting Solutions and the Roscosmos State Corporation, with the support of the Skolkovo Foundation, was the first ever orbit experiment initiated by a Russian private company.

In addition to technical and scientific innovations, a whole range of new organizational approaches was applied to the experiment, which will be further translated to other companies working with the public sector in the space technology and innovation segment. According to Andrey Divaev, head of research and development at the Department of Business Systems of Roscosmos State Corporation, partnership with a private company in this format has become a unique experience for the State Corporation, which will help in further projects with commercial companies.

Biological material printed in space, will return to Earth on December 20 at the Union MS-09. In the first half of 2019, 3D Bioprinting Solutions will summarize the results of the space experiment and publish its results. A similar American experiment is scheduled for February 2019.

https://www.roscosmos.ru/25849/

 

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Science & Environment

Pterosaurs: Fur flies over feathery fossils

By Helen Briggs

BBC News

17 December 2018

Two exceptionally well-preserved fossils give a new picture of the pterosaurs, the flying reptiles that lived at the time of the dinosaurs.

Scientists believe the creatures may have had feathers, and looked something like brown bats with fuzzy wings.

The surprise discovery suggests feathers evolved not in birds, nor dinosaurs, but in more distant times.

Pterosaurs were the closest relatives of dinosaurs, sharing a common ancestor about 250 million years ago.

"We would suggest - tentatively - that it would be worth considering that feathers originated much earlier than we thought," Prof Mike Benton, from the University of Bristol, told BBC News.

Hailing from China, the 160-million-year-old fossils are of two different pterosaurs, one of which is newly discovered.

Strange feathery creatures

In depth analysis shows that as well as fur - which has been suggested before - the flying reptiles had feathers like some dinosaurs, including the theropods.

"If I just saw these fluffy bits on their own, I would swear they were from a theropod dinosaur," said Dr Steve Brusatte of the University of Edinburgh, who was not part of the study.

"This means feathers were not a bird innovation, not even a dinosaur innovation, but evolved first in a much more distant ancestor.

"The age of dinosaurs was full of all sorts of strange feathery creatures!

The researchers found that the pterosaurs had four different kinds of covering, including fuzzy, fur over most of their body; and, on parts of the head and wings, three types of fibres similar to modern feathers.

The fluff and feathers are likely to have been important in heat regulation and aerodynamics.

"These structures on the pterosaur make it look a bit like a fruit bat, or something like that, a fuzzy hairy creature," said Prof Benton, who worked on the discovery with colleagues in China.

"They fly with great out-stretched bony wings that carry a substantial membrane, a bit like a bat."

Flight in the Jurassic skies

Questions still remain over whether these are true feathers. If they are, it would suggest that feathers appeared millions of years earlier than previously thought.

Alternatively, feathers could have evolved twice during the course of evolution.

Insects were the first group to achieve the ability to fly: they developed wings at least 320 million years ago.

Pterosaurs were the first vertebrates - animals with a backbone - to evolve powered flight, about 230 million years ago.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-46572782

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China built a tower that acts like 'the world's biggest air purifier,' and it actually works - Improvements in air quality had been observed over an area of 10 square kilometers in the city and the tower has produced more than 10 million cubic meters of clean air a day since its launch.

https://www.businessinsider.com/china-builds-worlds-biggest-air-purifier-2018-12/?r=AU&IR=T

[CaaC (John)+]

7 minutes ago, nudge said:

China built a tower that acts like 'the world's biggest air purifier,' and it actually works - Improvements in air quality had been observed over an area of 10 square kilometers in the city and the tower has produced more than 10 million cubic meters of clean air a day since its launch.

https://www.businessinsider.com/china-builds-worlds-biggest-air-purifier-2018-12/?r=AU&IR=T

They will end up overtaking America as the number 1 superpower the way they are going. 

[nudge]

6 minutes ago, CaaC - John said:

They will end up overtaking America as the number 1 superpower the way they are going. 

The way they are going they will end up taking over the whole world soon haha.

[CaaC (John)+]

Your Christmas tree could help save the planet

By Mark Kinver

Environment reporter, BBC News

5 hours ago

Your unwanted Christmas tree could be processed to produce important chemicals and cut emissions, say researchers.

Pine needles could provide feedstock to create new products, such as sweeteners and paint, as well as cut emissions.

Currently, an estimated seven million trees each year end up in a landfill.

A study from the University of Sheffield suggests the process would also result in zero waste, therefore easing pressure on our waste services.

The growth of recycled trees

"By now we all know about the problem of greenhouse gas emissions, and the need to reduce carbon emissions," explained Cynthia Kartey, a PhD student at the university's Department of Chemical and Biological Engineer

"I see biomass waste as a potential alternative source of feedstock for the chemical industry, for example," she told BBC News.

For example, some of the substances found in pine needles are an active ingredient in perfume.

Despite recent attention on the problems caused by the global proliferation of plastic, the popularity of artificial Christmas trees continue to grow.

However, an estimated eight million "natural" Christmas trees are still bought in the UK each year.

Alas, the vast majority - about seven million of them - end up in a landfill after 12th Night.

Seasonal and circular economy

However, by identifying the value from the trees in the form of the potential feedstock for the chemical industry would make it economically sensible to send them to biorefineries, says Miss Kartey.

This could also lead to a reduction in the UK's carbon footprint as it would cut our dependency on imported plastic trees and a reduction in the amount of tree biomass ending up in a landfill, she explained.

Colleague Dr James McGregor added: "The use of biomass - material derived from plants - to produce fuel and chemicals currently manufactured from fossil resources will play a key role in the future global economy.

"If we can utilise materials that would otherwise go to waste in such process, thereby recycling them, then there are further benefits."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-46647790

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Shrinking Dead Sea could become tiny pool within decades

Alex Rossi, Middle East correspondent         18 hrs ago

The Dead Sea is shrinking at an even faster rate than ever before and could become just a tiny pool by the middle of this century.

The bleak forecast comes from scientists who warn that the level of the sea is now falling by as much as 1.5m (5ft) each year.

The biblical wonder of the world has suffered from years of drought and failed policies to try and avert what has been described as an "environmental disaster in slow motion".

An expanding population across the region means that competition for scarce water resources is greater than ever.

And factories mining minerals by evaporating the water also contribute to this story of destruction.

The once mighty River Jordan - where Jesus was baptised - which feeds the inland sea is but a trickle and the Sea of Galilee is also very low.

The stricken shoreline reveals cracked and parched earth where the water once lapped between Jordan, the West Bank and Israel.

And the signs of nature's anger are everywhere.

Sinkholes where the sea has dried up under the hot Middle Eastern sun make much of the area inaccessible.

Some resorts and spas have had to close.

Others, having been built next to the water a few decades ago, have to take the tourists down to the sea by tractor train. It is depressing to see such beauty in a ruined state.

Dr Ofir Katz, an ecologist at the Dead Sea and Arava Science Center, says what is happening is catastrophic, adding: "It's a lesson to everyone: don't mess with nature because nature will always win and we will always lose.

"If we keep taking fresh water from nature from the Sea of Galilee, or from the Euphrates for example, or the Nile, we will eventually ruin the local environment.

"We need to take care of nature or else we all sink with it."

The area is a major tourist attraction: visitors like to bob in the salty unctuous waters, which are said to have healing properties.

But despite the images of tranquility, the Middle East's deep conflicts are never far away.

Environmentalist Gidon Bromberg from Eco Peace says if the damage is to be reversed there needs to be greater regional cooperation.

He explained: "The demise of the Dead Sea is a reflection of the unsustainability of our water resources region-wide.

"The demise of the Dead Sea reflects competition over scarce water resources between Israel, Jordan and Syria to the north.

"And the industry on the Israeli and Jordanian side seeking to exploit the minerals of the Dead Sea."

It is more important than ever to work together to create things like desalination plants, he added.

"Manufacture more water in the Mediterranean, produce renewable energy in the desert areas and create healthy interdependencies amongst us Israelis, Palestinians and Jordanians first. Or we going to see potentially more conflict rising out of these increasingly scarce water resources."

The Dead Sea is in many ways a gauge of the health of the environment.

Efforts to revive it may help unify the region but equally if they fail it will be a sign that water security will become an even more toxic issue in the future.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/shrinking-dead-sea-could-become-tiny-pool-within-decades/ar-BBRHg49?ocid=chromentp

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Concerns over an increase in toxic brine from desalination plants

By Matt McGrathEnvironment correspondent

Researchers found that plants are now producing 50% more of this chemical laden cocktail than expected.

The brine raises the level of salinity and poses a major risk to ocean life and marine ecosystems.

More than half the brine comes from four middle eastern countries.

These are Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Qatar, with Saudi Arabia alone responsible for 22% of the effluent.

There's been a major expansion of desalination plants around the world over the past few years, with almost 16,000 now operating in 177 countries.

It's estimated that these plants produce 95 million cubic metres of freshwater per day from seas and rivers - equivalent to almost half the average flow over Niagara Falls.

A number of small countries, such as the Maldives, Malta and the Bahamas, meet all their water needs through the desalination process

But the success of the technology is coming at a price. This new study estimates these plants discharge 142 million cubic metres of extremely salty brine every day, a 50% increase on previous estimates.

That's enough in a year to cover the state of Florida under 30.5cm (12 inches) of brine.

The problem with all this hyper salty water is that it often contains other contaminants and can pose a significant threat to marine life.

"The salt level in the sea water is further increased because of this disposal of the concentrate brine," said Dr Manzoor Qadir from the UN University Institute for Water, Environment and Health, one of the study's authors.

"There is an increase in the temperature of this zone of the sea, together they decrease the dissolved oxygen level, which is called hypoxia and that impacts the aquatic life in that zone."

Hypoxia often leads to what are called dead zones in the oceans - Scientists say these zones have quadrupled since 1950, mainly as a result of climate change. Now the salt is adding to these problems.

"High salinity and reduced dissolved oxygen levels can have profound impacts on benthic organisms, which can translate into ecological effects observable throughout the food chain," said lead author Edward Jones, at Wageningen University, in the Netherlands.

Researchers involved in the study say the problem often originates in the age of the desalination plant. The older, reverse osmosis based technology often produced two litres of brine for every litre of drinking water.

Efforts are now being made to minimise the impact of the brine. Scientists believe a large number of metals and salts in the effluent including uranium, strontium as well as sodium and magnesium have the potential to be mined.

"Using saline drainage water offers potential commercial, social and environmental gains," said Dr Qadir.

"Reject brine has been used for aquaculture, with increases in fish biomass of 300% achieved. It has also been successfully used to cultivate the dietary supplement Spirulina, and to irrigate forage shrubs and crops (although this latter use can cause progressive land salinisation)."

Compounding the problem is the ongoing expansion of desalination as more and more countries turn to the technology is the face of climate change which is exacerbating water shortages.

"There is an urgent need to make desalination technologies more affordable and extend them to low-income and lower-middle income countries. At the same time, though, we have to address potentially severe downsides of desalination - the harm of brine and chemical pollution to the marine environment and human health," said Dr Vladimir Smakhtin, a co-author of the paper from the UN University.

"The good news is that efforts have been made in recent years and, with continuing technology refinement and improving economic affordability, we see a positive and promising outlook."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-46863146

 

 

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Antarctica is melting at a more terrifying rate than anyone expected

Kathryn Krawczyk

Things in Antarctica aren't exactly cool. The southern continent is losing its icy covering at an absolutely unprecedented rate, a study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has found.

Antarctica's glaciers may have melted at an astounding 40 billion tons per year in the 1980s, but that total increased more than sixfold from 2009 to 2019, The Washington Postreports via the study.

In the National Academy's most recent measurement, Antarctica's ice sheet lost 250 billion tons of ice every year. Seeing as it takes 360 billion tons of melting ice to produce a millimeter of sea level rise, sea levels have gone up by nearly 7 millimeters due to Antarctica's melt alone. 

"Global sea levels have already risen 7 to 8 inches since 1900," the Post writes, and the world's dismal attempts at curbing carbon emissions could cause another 3-foot rise by 2100.

Letting Antarctica's ever-increasing melt go unchecked could push that total higher, and "would result in the inundation of island communities around the globe," per the Post.

In all, Antarctica's remaining ice is capable of producing 187.66 feet of potential sea-level rise.

Monday's publication yet again displays the dangers of warming ocean waters, an issue that largely stems from human-made climate change.

Beyond the devastation that rising sea levels bring, warming temperatures also produce more extreme storms, droughts, and wildfires.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/antarctica-is-melting-at-a-more-terrifying-rate-than-anyone-expected/ar-BBSfHH7?ocid=chromentp

 

 

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Dead Tardigrade Found Buried 3,200 feet-Deep in Antarctica Lake

Scientists found a carcass of the extremophile, microbial tardigrade a kilometer underground near an Antarctic lake.

On December 26, scientists drilling near an underground lake by the South Pole found the remains of a dead tardigrade, a microbial animal that lives in extreme conditions, more than 3,200 feet underground, according to a report published Friday in Nature. David Harwood, one of the micro-palaeontologists involved with the research, called the findings “fully unexpected.”

It’s extremely rare for scientists to find evidence of life in Antarctic subglacial lakes, never mind finding life buried a whole kilometer underground. The last time scientists found evidence of life in a subglacial Antarctic lake was back in 2013, when scientists found 20 cultures of bacteria in Lake Hodgson, which is 305 feet underground.

Right now, it’s unclear whether the animal lived in Antarctica ocean water that froze over on the surface, or if subglacial rivers moved the tardigrade carcass from Antarctic mountains into the nearby valley. Scientists will know more once they sequence the tardigrade DNA and determine what type of environment they would have thrived in.

But if this tardigrade did indeed live underground, the implications would be huge. In many ways, the Antarctic environment resembles the polar landscapes on planets like Mars, which have ice caps. Finding evidence of life under the ice strengthens a possibility that scientists have long postulated: that Mars may have once been home to life.

This particular research is a part of the Subglacial Antarctic Lakes Scientific Access (SALSA) program, which involves using a hot water drill to bore into an ice sheet in Western Antarctica, the most rapidly melting region of the frozen continent.

According to Nature, the researchers believe that the tardigrade lived in ancient glacial meltwater from interglacial periods, which are warm periods between Ice Ages. This means the tardigrade was most likely alive either the early Holocene (50,000 years ago) or the Eemian (120,000 years ago) period. They won’t have an answer until they use radiocarbon dating on the carcasses and sequence their DNA.

The tardigrade actually resembles species that are native to damp soil and lived among plants and fungi that were also native to land, according to Nature. Scientists won’t know if the tardigrade was terrestrial or aquatic until they sequence the creature’s DNA.

The borehole from the SALSA program that lead to the tardigrade carcass was sealed off on January 5, according to Nature, and the SALSA researchers will now be focusing on analyzing the samples that they’ve collected from the subglacial environment.

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/wjmeb9/dead-tardigrades-found-buried-3200-feet-deep-in-antarctica-lake?utm_source=reddit.com

 

[Azeem]

' Pakisaurus ' named after the country of Pakistan is a genus of Titanosaur dinosaurs group which had very long necks, long tails, small heads (relative to the rest of their body), and four thick, pillar-like legs. They are notable for the enormous sizes attained by some species. 

The Pakisaurus genus includes the largest animals of the group and often the Baluchetherium named after the province of Balochistan, Pakistan is said to be the largest animal to have ever lived on land.

 

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Neanderthals 'could kill at a distance'

By Rebecca Morelle

Science Correspondent, BBC News

Neanderthals may once have been considered to be our inferior, brutish cousins, but a new study is the latest to suggest they were smarter than we thought - especially when it came to hunting.

The research found that the now extinct species were creating weaponry advanced enough to kill at a distance.

Scientists believe they crafted spears that could strike from up to 20m away.

The study is published in the journal Scientific Reports.

Lead researcher Dr Annemieke Milks, from UCL Institute of Archaeology, said: "The original idea was that Neanderthals would have been very limited using hand-delivered spears, where they could only come up at close contact and thrust them into prey.

"But if they could throw them from 15m to 20m, this really opens up a wider range of hunting strategies that Neanderthals would have been able to use."

The researchers looked at wooden spears that were excavated in Schöningen in Germany in the 1990s.

Made from spruce, they are estimated to be around 300,000 years old and were discovered along with thousands of bone fragments.

The team tested the performance of these weapons by creating replicas - and then handed them to javelin athletes who attempted to hit a target from a range of distances.

"Javelin athletes are definitely not a perfect proxy for Neanderthals," admitted Dr Milks.

"But previously we relied on unskilled people to thrust or throw these weapons in experimental work, so our ideas about how they functioned are based on unskilled use."

It had been thought that the spears, weighing 760-800g, were too heavy to travel at significant speed with enough accuracy to be used as long-distance weapons.

But the team found that the athletes could hurl the replicas to accurately reach a target up to 20m away.

"The distances are much more than is currently suggested, but also they impacted with significant energy, enough to kill large prey," said Dr Milks.

"This really opens up the Neanderthal behavioural repertoire of hunting. We're having more and more evidence of just how clever Neanderthals were," she added.

The study is the latest to suggest our original view of Neanderthals as hulking, dim-witted cousins has done them a disservice.

In addition to being able to craft weapons, they could also construct and use tools - and even built objects on a larger scale, such as mysterious stone rings found underground in France.

Other archaeological evidence shows that some Neanderthals looked after their sick and buried their dead, while a recent paper suggested they could also turn their hand to art - with the discovery of cave paintings in three sites in Spain.

They also bred with humans - leaving a legacy of a small amount of their DNA in present-day Europeans, Asians and Oceanians.

Commenting on the research, Clive Finlayson, director, chief scientist and curator of Gibraltar Museum, said: " I'm not surprised that early humans from 300,000 ago had this kind of ability.

"Humans have been intelligent for a lot longer than we have given them credit for and the whole idea of a cognitive revolution that applied exclusively to our own ancestors, and leading to the replacement of all other humans from the planet, is defunct."

But he added: "I'm not certain why the spears are now attributed to Neanderthals.

"They may have been made by them or indeed their ancestors (normally assigned to Homo heidelbergensis) and chronology alone should not be used to assign human taxon.

"It does not negate, all the same, the early abilities of these people."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-46988459

 

 

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150 years of the periodic table: Test your knowledge

By Helen Briggs

You'll find it on the wall of nearly every school chemistry laboratory in the land.

And generations of children have sung the words, "hydrogen and helium, lithium, beryllium..." in an attempt to memorise some of the 118 elements.

This year, the periodic table of chemical elements celebrates its 150th birthday.

As the candles on the cake are lit, it's time to test your knowledge, with our quiz.

Test your knowledge of the periodic table >> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47008289

It took a while to get the periodic table we know and love today. How much can you remember?

The United Nations has designated 2019 as the International Year of the Periodic Table to celebrate "one of the most significant achievements in science".

In March, it will be 150 years since the Russian scientist, Dmitri Mendeleev, took all of the known elements and arranged them into a table.

Most of his ideas have stood the test of time, despite being conceived long before we knew much about the stuff that makes up matter.

On Tuesday, the year will be officially launched in Paris. So, what's so special about this iconic symbol of science?

Alien concept?

Dr Peter Wothers of the University of Cambridge is an expert on the subject.

He thinks if aliens came down to Earth, this flag of science would not have escaped their attention.

"Would an alien have a periodic table?" he says.

"I think they probably would, because it is something that is absolutely fundamental - this is not just some creation of humans, there is something innate and fundamental to this - there's chemical law, physical law behind this."

The laws of chemistry

Mendeleev (1834-1907) created his early periodic table in 1869. He took the 63 known elements and arranged them into a table, mainly by their atomic mass.

Although he wasn't the first to do this, his interpretation involved a leap of ingenuity, in that he put those with similar properties below each other into groups and left gaps for new elements to be slotted in.

"People had been doing that for some time - but finally there was some natural basis - or some law - that meant they needed to be arranged in some way," says Dr Wothers.

One hundred and fifty years on, there have been fundamental shifts in our understanding of matter.

"Obviously Mendeleev at the time knew nothing about the sub atomic structure of the atom, so he was going on only the atomic weights, which weren't necessarily determined to the right accuracy at the time," says Dr Wothers.

After the discovery of protons, scientists realised that the atomic number of an element is the same as the number of protons in its nucleus. Thus, in the modern periodic table, the elements are arranged according to their atomic number - not their relative atomic mass.

"We now know the 'how it works, why it works', and this is to do with quantum mechanics and the arrangements of electrons in atoms and so on," he says.

There are now more than 100 elements, laid out in order of increasing atomic number. There are repeating patterns in the properties of the elements, which give the periodic table its name.

Elements with similar properties are arranged to form columns (groups).

The periodic table is now a thing of both beauty and practical use, says Dr Wothers.

"You can understand certain things just by considering the place of an element in this table, or in this arrangement, that's why it's so useful to chemists."

The joy of symmetry

This year, which has been designated the International Year of The Periodic Table, may also represent its heyday.

Currently, the seventh period of the periodic table has been completed, with the recent addition of four elements in December 2015.

This has made it "quite whole and beautiful", he says.

"At the moment - this very year - I think we are very privileged, because the periodic table is in its most perfect form, " says Dr Wothers.

"And probably the most perfect form it will ever be in."

People are currently working on synthesising heavier elements, and, if they manage the task, the periodic table will change yet again.

"As soon as just one more is discovered, then we'll have to start a row - the eighth period," he says.

"And then it will lose some of its beauty, because the eighth period will never be completed I think it's fair to say."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47008289

 

 

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Climate change: Blue planet will get even bluer as Earth warms

By Matt McGrath

Environment correspondent

Rising temperatures will change the colour of the world's oceans, making them more blue in the coming decades say scientists.

They found that increased heat will change the mixture of phytoplankton or tiny marine organisms in the seas, which absorb and reflect light.

Scientists say there will be less of them in the waters in the decades to come.

This will drive a colour change in more than 50% of the world's seas by 2100.

Phytoplankton play a hugely important role in the oceans.

As well as turning sunlight into chemical energy, and consuming carbon dioxide, they are the bottom rung on the marine food chain.

They also play an important role in how we see the oceans with our eyes.

The more phytoplankton in the water, the less blue the seas will appear, and the more likely they will be to have a greenish colour.

Previous research has shown that with warming, the oceans will see a reduction in phytoplankton in many places.

This new study models the likely impact these changes will have on the colour of the ocean and the planet as the world warms up.

"What we find is that the colour will change, probably not so much that you will see by eye, but certainly sensors will be able to pick up that there's a change," lead author Dr Stephanie Dutkiewicz from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, US, told BBC News.

"And it will likely be one of the earliest warning signals that we have changed the ecology of the ocean."

The researchers point out that the changes are an indirect impact of climate change, as warming is affecting the circulation of the seas, this is changing the amount of food available for phytoplankton.

Another difference from previous studies is that this time, the researchers are looking solely at satellite measurements of reflected light from the phytoplankton.

In the past, scientists have used satellite measurements of chlorophyll, a light harvesting pigment found in phytoplankton, to try and understand the impact of climate change.

However they've had problems working out the difference between natural variability and human induced warming on this green pigment. They believe it will be 30-40 years before they can say for definite that climate change is having an impact on chlorophyll.

"What we've shown is that the colour in the blue green range is going to show that signal of change sooner, in some places in maybe the next decade," said Dr Dutkiewicz.

"More of the ocean is going to show a change in colour over the next few decades than we would see in chlorophyll, the changing colour is going to be more of a warning signal."

The researchers believe that the North Atlantic will be one of the first places to reflect the change - followed by locations in the Southern Ocean.

The team modelled what would happen to the oceans by the end of this century if the world warmed by 3C, which is close to where temperatures are likely to be, if every country sticks to the promises they have made in the Paris climate agreement.

"There will be a noticeable difference in the colour of 50% of the ocean by the end of the 21st century," Dr Dutkiewicz said.

"It could be potentially quite serious. Different types of phytoplankton absorb light differently, and if climate change shifts one community of phytoplankton to another, that will also change the types of food webs they can support. "

The team also believe that the world will see changes in some of the green shades seen in the oceans as well.

This will happen because some species of phytoplankton will respond well to a warmer environment and will create larger blooms of more diverse marine organisms. This is likely to show up with more green regions near the equator and the poles, the researchers say.

The study has been published in the journal Nature Communications.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47092201

 

 

 

[Azeem]

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[CaaC (John)+]

2 hours ago, Azeem said:

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=322967998335961&id=448780738470158

Nice one, I can picture you now as this person in the clip...

 

 

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Were dinosaurs killed off by asteroid or volcanoes? It's complicated

Kazuhiro Nogi

© Provided by AFP Dinosaur skeletons on display at Tokyo's Science Museum

Every school child knows the dinosaurs were killed off by an asteroid smashing into the Earth some 66 million years ago.

But scientists say the story may not be quite that simple, and that massive volcanic eruptions over hundreds of thousands of years may have contributed to the dinosaurs' demise at the end of the Cretaceous period.

Two studies published Thursday in the journal Science contributed to a longstanding scientific debate about what exactly finished off the mighty reptiles.

Before the 1980s, the dominant theory had been that huge and prolonged volcanic eruptions caused a rapid and deadly shift in the planet's climate by sending vast clouds of ash, gas and dust into the atmosphere.

Then scientists discovered the huge Chicxulub crater of an ancient asteroid impact off the Caribbean coast of Mexico, which they posited had sent so much debris into the atmosphere that it hampered photosynthesis in plants and killed off three-quarters of life on Earth.

Ever since, scientists have maintained a lively debate about the relative contribution of each cataclysmic event to the mass die-off.

The authors of the two reports published Thursday were able to date massive lava flows with far greater precision, whittling it down from around a million years to a period of tens of thousands of years.

"We are able to recreate with great precision the order of events at the end of the Cretaceous period," Loyc Vanderkluysen, a professor of geoscience at Drexel University in Philadelphia, told AFP.

He was part of a team that dated the vast lava flows known as the Deccan Traps in India using radiation measurements. The other team used a different dating method.

The expulsion of lava there over a million years left the Deccan flows more 1,200 meters (4,000 feet) thick in places today, a volume large enough to cover an area the size of France to a depth of several hundred meters, he said.

No coincidence

The new dating made by the two teams match up: one found that a "pulse" of volcanic eruptions occurred just before the mass extinction.

The other is less precise but suggests that the majority of lava flows came after the asteroid hit Earth, backing up the idea that the impact triggered an earthquake so massive it would have registered 11 on the moment magnitude scale, something never witnessed by humans.

That in turn set off a wave of volcanic eruptions that lasted some 300,000 years.

"That bolsters the theory that the impact was the main cause," said Vanderkluysen. "It's like shaking a bottle of Orangina, it can accelerate volcanic activity."

The close correlation of the two events -- eruptions and extinction -- is unlikely to be a coincidence, the researchers say.

Other periods of intense volcanic activity have coincided with mass extinction events said Blair Schoene, a professor of geosciences at Princeton and a co-author of the other study.

"The big question is, would the extinction have happened without the impact, given the volcanism, or conversely, would the extinction have happened without the volcanism, given the impact? I don't think we know that answer," he told AFP.

"The main take-home point is that it's not that simple. Nature is complicated," he added. "By studying both phenomenons in as much detail as possible, we can try and figure out what the whole story is."

Mapping the timeline of that long-ago mass extinction is crucial, Schoene said, to understanding the consequences of the current so-called "sixth extinction,' which humans are currently causing.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/offbeat/were-dinosaurs-killed-off-by-asteroid-or-volcanoes-its-complicated/ar-BBTVvCs

 

 

[CaaC (John)+]

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Treasure trove of new insects discovered on an island

By Helen Briggs

BBC News, Science and Environment

More than a hundred insect species that are new to science have been discovered on an Indonesian island.

Found in remote rainforests, the tiny beetles appear to have been overlooked for decades.

All 103 belong to the same group - weevils.

Scientists have named the creatures after Star Wars and Asterix characters, including Yoda, a green shiny beetle, and Obelix, a rather rotund specimen.

Others have been named after scientists, including Charles Darwin, and DNA pioneers, Francis Crick and James Watson.

The beetles are only a few millimetres in length. Only a single member of their insect group has been found before on Sulawesi - as long ago as 1885.

The island, known for its exotic wildlife, including birds and monkeys, is covered by lowland rainforests, although much of this has been cleared.

The researchers say there may be more of the beetles out there.

"Our survey is not yet complete and possibly we have just scratched the surface," said Raden Pramesa Narakusumo, curator of beetles at the Museum Zoologicum Bogoriense (MZB), Indonesian Research Center for Biology.

"Sulawesi is geologically complex and many areas have never been searched for these small beetles."

The scientists say evidence points to thousands of undescribed insect species roaming the rainforests on the island.

However, this does not change the picture of recently reported declines in insects, which is connected to two issues, said entomologist Dr Alexander Riedel, of the Natural History Museum Karlsruhe, Germany, who worked on the study.

"The decline of insects that we currently discuss in Europe is presumably largely caused by intense agriculture and insecticides," he told BBC News.

"Whereas the wealth of insect biodiversity in the tropics is endangered by the destruction of rainforests."

Globally, well over one million species of insect have been described to date. Recent studies have suggested there is an ongoing dramatic decline in insect populations around the world.

Insect life is at the bottom of the food chain and underpins much of life on Earth.

Dr James Hogan of the Oxford Museum of Natural History said the study highlights how much of biodiversity we have yet to discover and catalogue.

"In fact, when talking about biodiversity in reality what this means to a great extent is exactly what is described here - small insects less than 5mm long," he said.

"With biodiversity under increasing threat it is vital to do this kind of work before it's too late."

The beetles were identified by DNA sequencing, which is not always available to scientists in Indonesia.

They belong to the genus Trigonopterus.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47483157

 

 

[nudge]

7 minutes ago, CaaC - John said:

Scientists have named the creatures after Star Wars and Asterix characters, including Yoda, a green shiny beetle, and Obelix, a rather rotund specimen.

Others have been named after scientists, including Charles Darwin, and DNA pioneers, Francis Crick and James Watson.

 Love it.

Plenty of undiscovered species still around, especially when it comes to insects... I'm a part of a nature photography group here and we regularly get updates from a few biologists who work in the area and have made quite a few new genus and species discoveries in recent years. Indochina is like a biologist's dream haha.

[CaaC (John)+]

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Solar storm: Evidence found of huge eruption from Sun

By Paul Rincon

Science editor, BBC News website

Scientists have found evidence of a huge blast of radiation from the Sun that hit Earth more than 2,000 years ago.

The result has important implications for the present, because solar storms can disrupt modern technology.

The team found evidence in Greenland ice cores that the Earth was bombarded with solar proton particles in 660BC.

The event was about 10 times more powerful than any since modern instrumental records began.

The Sun periodically releases huge blasts of charged particles and other radiation that can travel towards Earth.

The particular kind of solar emission recorded in the Greenland ice is known as a solar proton event (SPE). In the modern era, when these high-energy particles collide with Earth, they can knock out electronics in satellites we rely on for communications and services such as GPS.

The radiation may also pose a health risk for astronauts. And passengers and crew on commercial aircraft that fly at high altitudes and close to the poles, such as on transatlantic routes, could receive increased radiation doses - though this depends on many variables.

Other types of solar radiation events can trigger aurorae in the high atmosphere and shut down electrical grids.

"There are high-energy solar energetic particle events, or solar proton events. These are the high energy particles directly hitting Earth and producing the particles we measure," co-author Raimund Muscheler, from Lund University in Sweden, told BBC News.

"Connected to this are also the lower energy particles that come usually within 1-4 days to Earth. These produce the geomagnetic storms."

The two types of particle events may not always coincide, however.

Modern instrumental monitoring data extends back about 60 years. So finding an event in 660BC that's an order of magnitude greater than anything seen in modern times suggests we haven't appreciated how powerful such events can be.

There wouldn't have been any appreciable signs of the event to people alive at the time. But if there were any associated geomagnetic storms, it might have triggered aurorae at lower latitudes than is usual.

660BC was the date, according to legend, when Japan's first emperor - Jimmu - acceded to the throne. It was the time of the Iron Age in Europe and the Middle East - before the rise of the Roman Empire.

The researchers found evidence for the event in the form of radioactive isotopes (particular forms of an element) present in the Greenland ice. These were beryllium-10 and chlorine-36, which are regarded as being of cosmic origin.

Researchers have also identified two other large events from the past, which left evidence in both Greenland ice cores and tree rings. The signature researchers look for in tree rings is the isotope carbon-14.

One of these, which occurred between 774 and 775AD, was comparable in its magnitude to the one in 660BC.

"Our event is about the same size as [the event in 774/775]. There is some uncertainty, but they look very similar," said Dr Muscheler.

However, the event in 660BC does not have such a clear carbon-14 signature in tree ring data.

Scientists are now working to understand how common the extreme events are, something that could help us plan for big solar storms in future.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47536271

 

 

[nudge]

We missed a massive solar superstorm by just a few days in 2012. Imagine the chaos the world would break into if the power grids worldwide suddenly blackout and most of the electronics we use were fried in such an event...

That's why I think massive EMP attacks would be a much more efficient weapon in modern warfare than any other. Non-lethal and avoids civilian casualties initially, but would neutralise most of military targets and render most of the tech unusable and eventually send the whole bombed area/country spiraling down into chaos. 

[CaaC (John)+]

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Stonehenge was 'hub for Britain's earliest mass parties'

Evidence of large-scale prehistoric feasting rituals found at Stonehenge could be the earliest mass celebrations in Britain, say archaeologists.

The study examined 131 pigs' bones at four Late Neolithic sites, Durrington Walls, Marden, Mount Pleasant and West Kennet Palisade Enclosures.

The sites, which served Stonehenge and Avebury, hosted the feasts.

Researchers think guests had to bring meat raised locally to them, resulting in pigs arriving from distant places.

The results of isotope analysis show the pig bones excavated from these sites were from animals raised in Scotland, the North East of England and West Wales, as well as numerous other locations across Britain.

Study lead Dr Richard Madgwick from the University of Cardiff said: "These gatherings could be seen as the first united cultural events of our island, with people from all corners of Britain descending on the areas around Stonehenge to feast on food that had been specially reared and transported from their homes."

Dr Madgwick said finding pigs in the vicinity of the feasting sites would have been "relatively easy" making the fact they brought the animals long distances "arguably the most startling finding" as this would have required "a monumental effort".

"This suggests that prescribed contributions were required and that rules dictated that offered pigs must be raised by the feasting participants, accompanying them on their journey, rather than being acquired locally," he said.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-47554926

 

 

[CaaC (John)+]

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Mass migration transformed Spain's DNA

A migration from Central Europe transformed the genetic make-up of people in Spain during the Bronze Age, a study reveals.

DNA evidence shows the migrants streamed over the Pyrenees, replacing existing male lineages across the region within a space of 400 years.

It remains unclear whether there was a violent invasion or whether a male-centric social structure played an important role.

The result comes from the most extensive study of its kind.

Researchers reconstructed the population history of Iberia (modern Spain and Portugal) over 8,000 years - the biggest slice of time tackled by ancient DNA research.

They extracted and analysed DNA from 403 Iberians who lived between 6,000 BC and AD 1,600.

The Bronze Age migrants traced some of their ancestry to Neolithic (Stone Age) farmers found throughout Europe - including Spain - while the rest of their genetic make-up was like that of people living at the time on the Russian steppe.

This steppe ancestry was introduced to Europe by nomadic herders who migrated west from Asia and the eastern fringes of Europe.

Stone Age crisis

One of the triggers may have been a crisis that caused population numbers to plunge in Europe towards the end of the Neolithic period (which preceded the Bronze Age). Recent studies suggest plague might have played a role.

As the steppe people moved west, they picked up elements of culture from people they mixed with along the way. In Central Europe, one such mixed culture known as the Bell Beaker tradition formed. The Beakers and their descendants may have established highly stratified (unequal) societies in Europe, including Iberia - where they start turning up from 2,500BC.

The researchers looked at the Y chromosome - a package of DNA passed down more or less unchanged from father to son. It can be used to track male-line inheritance. By about 2,000BC, local Y chromosome lineages had been eliminated from the Iberian gene pool, in favour of those carried by the newcomers.

When the team analysed DNA from across the genome - the full complement of genetic material found in the nuclei of cells - they found that later Iberians traced 40% of their ancestry to the new population.

The newcomers - of Bell Beaker origin - brought innovations such as bronze-working (including the manufacture of bronze weapons) and were probably riding horses. These may have given them a military advantage over Stone Age farming societies, but also probably conferred higher social status on males carrying these traditions.

Patterns of inheritance

Co-author Iñigo Olalde, from Harvard Medical School, US, said: "It would be a mistake to jump to the conclusion that Iberian men were killed or forcibly displaced." He added: "The archaeological record gives no clear evidence of a burst of violence in this period."

Instead, the high social status of the newcomers may have been linked to greater reproductive success. "Their male descendants would have inherited the wealth and social status, and themselves also had much higher reproductive success," Dr Olalde told BBC News.

A system that emphasised male power and inheritance could have been key: "A patrilineal and possibly patriarchal social structure would further amplify the observed patterns, as possibly only the first-born son would inherit the clan's properties, whereas the other sons would move out and try to established their own clans, further spreading their Y lineages over new territories," he said.

An even more extreme pattern of replacement occurred at much the same time in Britain, where Beakers replaced 90% of the overall ancestry that was there before they arrived.

Fortified settlements

"At least in the east and the south-east, we see a change in the settlement patterns... which lasts until the arrival of the Romans," said co-author Dr Carles Lalueza-Fox, from the University of Barcelona.

In this region, the Iron Age Iberian culture established fortified settlements on high ground.

"The Iberians lived in hill settlements and were a violent society, structured along tribal lines. Something clearly changes the social structure that existed in the late Neolithic."

Looking at human remains from an earlier period, the study found that Stone Age hunter-gatherers who traced a significant percentage of their ancestry to some of Europe's earliest settlers, survived in southern Spain until the spread of farming 6,000 years ago.

The team also studied genome data from Moorish Spain (AD 711-1492), when parts of the peninsula were under the control of Muslim emirs of North African origin.

North African influence was present in Iberia from at least the Bronze Age. But the researchers found a dramatic shift in the genetic make-up of people from Moorish-controlled regions after the medieval "Reconquista", when Christian armies seized back control of the peninsula. The conquerors expelled many Muslims, although some were allowed to stay if they converted to Christianity.

While many Moorish individuals analysed in the study seem to have been a 50:50 mix of North African and Iberian ancestry, North African ancestry in the peninsula today averages just 5%.

Modern Iberians derive about 50% of their ancestry from Neolithic farmers, 25% from ancient hunter-gatherers, and 20% from the steppe people.

Faces from Iberia's past

Severed heads

People from the Iron Age Iberian civilization of Spain's east coast generally cremated their dead. The cremation process prevented scientists from extracting DNA from these remains. While the culture was responsible for great works of art, such as the Dama de Elche sculpture, the Iberians also had a violent side. They hammered large nails through the severed heads of enemies killed in combat and exhibited them in public spaces as war trophies. Some 40 such heads were found in the Iberian settlement of Ullastret, allowing scientists to analyse DNA from them.

African ancestors

Two burials in the study were revealed to have high levels of black African ancestry. Both of the individuals were from Granada in southwest Spain, where the last Muslim emirate held out until it was conquered by Christians in 1492. One of the people came from a 10th Century cemetery where bodies were buried in the Islamic tradition - oriented in the direction of Mecca. The other individual is from the 16th Century, after the Christian conquest of Granada. They are thought to be from the Morisco community - former Muslims who converted to Christianity (only to be expelled from Spain later on).

Germanic migrants

After the fall of the Roman Empire, wandering tribes from northern and eastern Europe streamed into Iberia. The Visigoths, who spoke a language related to Swedish, German and English, assumed control of the region. They founded the Spanish monarchy that continues today and introduced laws that formed the basis of those used by later Christian kingdoms. Burials from Pla de l'Horta in northeastern Spain include a mother and daughter of Visigothic origin. Their genomes suggest they had recent ancestry from Eastern Europe, while DNA from the cell's batteries, or mitochondria - which is passed more or less unchanged from mother to children - is of a type associated with East Asian populations. It's a sign of the genetic complexity of the Eastern steppe region where their roots lay.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47540792

 

 

[CaaC (John)+]

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Mount Everest: Melting glaciers expose dead bodies

By Navin Singh Khadka

Environment correspondent, BBC World Service

Expedition operators are concerned at the number of climbers' bodies that are becoming exposed on Mount Everest as its glaciers melt.

Nearly 300 mountaineers have died on the peak since the first ascent attempt and two-thirds of bodies are thought still to be buried in the snow and ice.

Bodies are being removed on the Chinese side of the mountain, to the north, as the spring climbing season starts.

More than 4,800 climbers have scaled the highest peak on Earth.

"Because of global warming, the ice sheet and glaciers are fast melting and the dead bodies that remained buried all these years are now becoming exposed," said Ang Tshering Sherpa, former president of Nepal Mountaineering Association.

"We have brought down dead bodies of some mountaineers who died in recent years, but the old ones that remained buried are now coming out."

And a government officer who worked as a liaison officer on Everest added: "I myself have retrieved around 10 dead bodies in recent years from different locations on Everest and clearly more and more of them are emerging now."

Officials with the Expedition Operators Association of Nepal (EOAN) said they were bringing down all ropes from the higher camps of Everest and Lhotse mountains this climbing season, but dealing with dead bodies was not as easy.

They point at Nepal's law that requires government agencies' involvement when dealing with bodies and said that was a challenge.

"This issue needs to be prioritised by both the government and the mountaineering industry," said Dambar Parajuli, president of EOAN.

"If they can do it on the Tibet side of Everest, we can do it here as well."

Exposed dead bodies

In 2017, the hand of a dead mountaineer appeared above the ground at Camp 1.

Expedition operators said they deployed professional climbers of the Sherpa community to move the body.

The same year, another body appeared on the surface of the Khumbu Glacier.

Also known as the Khumbu Icefall, this is where most dead bodies have been surfacing in recent years, mountaineers say.

Another place that has been seeing dead bodies becoming exposed is the Camp 4 area, also called South Col, which is relatively flat.

"Hands and legs of dead bodies have appeared at the base camp as well in the last few years," said an official with a non-government organisation active in the region.

"We have noticed that the ice level at and around the base camp has been going down, and that is why the bodies are becoming exposed."

Thinning glaciers

Several studies show that glaciers in the Everest region, as in most parts of the Himalayas, are fast melting and thinning.

A study in 2015 revealed that ponds on the Khumbu Glacier - that climbers need to cross to scale the mighty peak - were expanding and joining up because of the accelerated melting.

Nepal's army drained the Imja Lake near Mount Everest in 2016 after its water from rapid glacial-melt had reached dangerous levels.

Another team of researchers, including members from Leeds and Aberystwyth universities in the UK, last year drilled the Khumbu Glacier and found the ice to be warmer than expected.

The ice recorded a minimum temperature of only −3.3C, with even the coldest ice being a full 2C warmer than the mean annual air temperature.

Not all dead bodies emerging from under the ice, however, are because of rapid glacial meltdown.

Some of them get exposed also because of the movement of the Khumbu Glacier, mountaineers say.

"Because of the movement of the Khumbu Glacier, we do get to see dead bodies from time to time," said Tshering Pandey Bhote, vice president of Nepal National Mountain Guides Association.

"But most climbers are mentally prepared to come across such a sight."

Dead bodies as 'landmarks'

Some of the dead bodies on the higher altitude sectors of Mount Everest have also served as landmarks for mountaineers.

One such waypoint are the "green boots" near the summit.

They're a reference to a climber who died under an overhanging rock. His green boots, still on his feet, face the climbing route.

Recovering and removing bodies from the higher camps can be both expensive and difficult.

Experts say it costs $40,000 to $80,000 to bring down dead bodies.

"One of the most challenging recoveries was from the height of 8,700m, near the summit," said Ang Tshering Sherpa, the former president of NMA.

"The body was totally frozen and weighed 150kg and it had to be recovered from a difficult place at that altitude."

Experts say any decision over what to do with a dead body on the mountain is also a very personal issue.

"Most climbers like to be left on the mountains if they died," said Alan Arnette, a noted mountaineer who also writes on mountaineering.

"So it would be deemed disrespectful to just remove them unless they need to be moved from the climbing route or their families want them."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47638436