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What A Week It Was: Apocadocuments from

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Species Collapse:	(14)
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This Week's Top Ten Very Scary Tags:
marine mammals ~ ecosystem interrelationships ~ toxic buildup ~ oil issues ~ massive die-off ~ unintended consequences ~ toxic water ~ hunting to extinction ~ short-term thinking ~ death spiral ~ lived experience

ApocaDocuments (42) gathered this week:
Sun, Jun 27, 2010 from WJHG, Florida: Oil Leak Creating Massive Social Impacts On Small Towns The small coastal town of Apalachicola is bustling with people. The water is still clear and the seafood is still delicious. But the people living here know all that could change just as quickly as the currents. And the thought of toxic goo destroying their slice of paradise and way of life is almost too much to bear. "These are lives and people's kids that have been raised doing this. And there's nothing else that they know to do. So it's heart wrenching. It makes you want to cry." Walter Ward, a shrimper, says business was just starting to really pick up, but now with oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico the seafood industry is at stake.... "Here we don't know when the end is. And that creates a high level and I think that fear rolls into the possibilities of drug addiction, alcoholism, depression, and it can even go so far as suicide." But right now folks like Ward are trying to stay positive and are thankful they haven't seen the black sludge yet. "We've been really fortunate that we haven't seen lots of oil, but I'm sure we're bound to see it." ...	Don't get depressed. Get active! ApocaDoc permalink
Sun, Jun 27, 2010 from Xinhua: Illegal fishing endangers Red Sea marine life Looking at the dead fish on the Ras Mohammed nature reserve shores of the Red Sea, Mohammed Salem said those who murdered the fish were criminals and should be put behind bars. "During the last few days, we found a large amount of dead fish, killed by the explosions by fishermen," Salem, general director of the national parks in South Sinai province, told Xinhua. Fishing by means of explosions at the Ras Mohammed National Park, some 25 km southwest of the Egyptian resort of Sharm El- Sheikh, has led to the death of rare fish and dolphins. Last week, local police arrested 16 fishermen who used dynamite to fish in the nature reserve. They had already been fined 1 million Egyptian pounds (about 177,000 U.S. dollars) for the damage they caused to the coral reefs. They might also be sentenced to at least three-year jail terms according to Egyptian law. The Red Sea boasts a rich and diverse ecosystem. More than 1, 200 species of fish have been recorded in the area. And 10 percent of them are native, including 42 species of deepwater fish. ...	If they just used miles-long hooked nets, they wouldn't be so loud. ApocaDoc permalink
Sun, Jun 27, 2010 from National Geographic: Alaska Town Eyes Shipping Water Abroad Can Alaska, with its deep, wide lakes, and sparse population, quench the world's thirst? An opportunistic American company thinks it can, despite many logistical hurdles and questions about transporting freshwater in bulk across the seas. The town of Sitka in Southeastern Alaska features a distinctive cobalt jewel: the Blue Lake reservoir, a lake fed by abundant rain, snow and glacial runoff, connected by pipeline to the local deepwater port. For nearly a decade, the town has tried to turn this ample, pure freshwater resource into a commodity for thirsty buyers in the lower 48 states--and even overseas. It has offered contracts to sell up to 9.5 billion gallons a year, or about 8 percent of the reservoir's volume, to interested buyers at a rate of one cent per gallon. Several companies have tried and failed to make the venture profitable. But Terry Trapp, a Colorado businessman who is partnering with San Antonio-based S2C Global Systems, believes he may have a willing market in the Middle East. "There are water shortages and people who need water all over the world," said Trapp. "But the people in the most dire straits are in the Middle East."... "There are more sustainable solutions like rainwater harvesting," Karunananthan said. "This [Sitka] project will not serve the environment in any way."... "If that water sits in the hold of a tanker for weeks traveling across the ocean, when it arrives it's not spring water anymore; you're going to have to clean it up," said James McNiven, a professor of public administration at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia who has studied the potential of Canada's bulk water industry. "As a business proposition this gets to be very expensive and chances are the economics don't work." ...	Even bilgewater is better than no water. ApocaDoc permalink
Sun, Jun 27, 2010 from PhysOrg: What is killing Argentina's right whales? Fatal strandings of southern right whales around Argentina's Valdes Peninsula have soared in recent years, and worried scientists are not sure why, the International Whaling Commission heard Friday. From 1971, when systematic monitoring began, only a relative handful of whale deaths were reported over the next three decades. Starting in 2003, however, the mortality rate began to soar: from 31 that year, to 47 in 2005, 83 in 2007, 95 in 2008 and 79 last year, the IWC's scientific committee reported. "Over 90 percent of the deaths have been of first-year calves," the scientists said.... Three causes, possibly in combination, have been fingered as possible culprits. One is reduced availability of food for adult females, notably small crustaceans called copepods and krill. Poor feeding conditions lengthen the normally three-to-five year reproduction cycles, studies have shown. High concentrations of biotoxins and the spread of an infectious disease are also suspects.... Weakening might also explain "an extremely strange phenomenon": kelp gulls that alight on the backs of young whales at the water's surface and feed on their backs, creating lesions vulnerable to toxins or viruses. ...	I think the right whales just don't want to be the only things left. ApocaDoc permalink
Sat, Jun 26, 2010 from Texas Tribune: How Bad Is the Ogallala Aquifer's Decline in Texas? Stretching across eight states, the amount of water is so vast that, according to one writer, it could fill Lake Erie nine times over. Within Texas, the Ogallala accounts for about 40 percent of all water use. But the aquifer's levels are declining sharply here. In a dry growing season last year, the High Plains Water District, which includes all or part of 15 Panhandle counties, recorded an average drop of 1.5 feet, the most since 1997. The rains have returned, but the 2007 state water plan projects that the Ogallala's volume will fall a staggering 52 percent between 2010 and 2060, as corn and cotton growers continue to draw from its depths.... In general, he says, Texans are probably pumping the Ogallala at about six times the rate of recharge.... Edwards Aquifer Authority v. Day has the potential to gut the state's ability to regulate groundwater through local districts, by making them more vulnerable to court challenge. If it goes the other way -- and the court decides landowners do not have an ownership right in groundwater -- then Johnson says that districts would have few limits on their ability to restrict groundwater use. ...	That's the Texas Six-sip. ApocaDoc permalink
Sat, Jun 26, 2010 from Vietnamnet: Scorching heat, pollution kills fish, vegetables in central Vietnam Hundreds of fish breeders along the edges of Tam Giang Lagoon have been watching their fish die off en masse due to heat and pollution in the central province of Thua Thien-Hue over the last few weeks.... The hot and muggy weather has also coupled with diseases to kill a slew of shrimp bred in the province. As of now, shrimps bred on nearly 2,000 hectares of farms have died to ineffectual breeding methods. In addition, several vegetable crop fields have yellowed and withered in the heat, putting over 1,200 Quang Dien District households in financial straits. The district provides the market an average of 2,000 tons of fresh vegetables annually. ...	Gooood endless noon, Vietnam! ApocaDoc permalink
Sat, Jun 26, 2010 from Guardian: China: the next superconsumer Liu is a member of the fastest-growing consumer class: single women - or xiaobailing (white-collar princesses). They have high levels of disposable income and a craving for designer labels. For marketing moguls, they are the future face of consumer power. State planners forecast that half the population will be middle class by 2020. Until recently, China was living within the planet's means. If everyone in the world consumed what the average Mr or Mrs Wang did in 2007, we'd just about stay within the sustainable resources of our planet. Humanity would have a balanced ecological budget. But, understandably, Mr and Mrs Wang wanted to keep up with Mr and Mrs Jones on the other side of the Pacific. That was human nature. It was also bad news for the environment, because if we all ate, shopped and travelled like those average Americans, we'd need 4.5 Earths.... At her first sale, she blew a third of her salary on Fendi sunglasses. "It is like a fever," she says. "The price is so low, you cannot refuse." ...	Earthdebt is just a mortgage -- and since the value of our Earth will only rise, let's keep borrowing! ApocaDoc permalink
Sat, Jun 26, 2010 from Smithsonian, via EurekAlert: Biodiversity's holy grail is in the soil The experiments show that underground organisms are key to the maintenance of species diversity and patterns of tree-species relative abundance. The detrimental effects of soil organisms from adult trees not only explain seedling growth and survival patterns, but moreover that these effects are much more severe for seedlings of rare species than for seedlings of common species.... "Two completely different approaches--analysis of long-term forest dynamics observations and direct experiments on Panama's Barro Colorado Island--are telling us to look for the answer under the ground. Scott's experiments provide a direct comparison across species of how much their seedlings suffer from a sort of 'self inhibition' mediated by these soil organisms." Biologists refer to soil as a "black box" because it is notoriously difficult to study a tangle of roots, bacteria, fungi, tiny insects and other creatures without isolating or changing them. Very similar results in the greenhouse and in the field reveal that plant interactions with soil biota alone--not nutrients, insects, mammals or above-ground diseases--are sufficiently powerful and specific to explain why multiple species co-exist and importantly the strength of those interactions can be measured and plant species that are most abundant are least influenced by the soil biota around their parents. "We have dealt yet another blow to the ailing Neutral Theory of Biodiversity, which is premised on the idea that all species are the same," said Herre. "These two publications provide strong evidence that there are stabilizing mechanisms that maintain diversity, and thus that neutral dynamics do not explain plant species diversity and abundance." ...	Y'mean a rose isn't a rhododendron isn't a ribwort? ApocaDoc permalink
Sat, Jun 26, 2010 from New York Times: Turtle Deaths Called Result of Shrimping, Not Oil Spill A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientist says he believes most of the dead turtles that have been examined since the Gulf of Mexico oil spill died not from the oil or the chemical dispersants put into the water after the disaster, but from being caught in shrimping nets, though further testing may show otherwise. Dr. Brian Stacy, a veterinary pathologist who specializes in reptiles, said that more than half the turtles dissected so far, most of which were found shortly after the spill, had sediment in their lungs or airways, which indicated they might have been caught in nets and drowned. "The only plausible scenario where you would have high numbers of animals forcibly submerged would be fishery interaction," he said. "That is the primary consideration for this event." ...	Well, that's a relief! ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, Jun 25, 2010 from NASA: Global Temperature Anomalies for May 2010 released In May 2010, temperature records assembled by the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) showed wide expanses of slightly above- and slightly below-normal temperatures over most of the globe, but also dramatic warmth near the North Pole.... Especially warm temperatures--close to five degrees Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit) above average--occur over most of the Arctic, including the northernmost reaches of North America, northwestern Greenland, and most of the northern coast of Eurasia. Unusually warm conditions also extend southward into Eastern Europe and Siberia.... "Ongoing temperature anomalies like these are strong evidence of the Arctic amplification of global climate change," says Ted Scambos, lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center. The Arctic environment is very vulnerable to warming because of feedbacks that amplify the initial change. Sea ice retreat and snow melt reduce Earth's albedo, which can lead to increased warmth and further melting. Scambos explains that, although the Northern Hemisphere experienced significant snowfall in early 2010, spring melt was rapid, exposing land surfaces to sunlight sooner than usual. ...	"De Nial" is a river in the Arctic. ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, Jun 25, 2010 from Discovery: Scientists Find Hints at Coming Antarctic Garbage Patch You've heard about the Pacific garbage patch and the Atlantic garbage patch, each a sobering sign of how when we throw things away, they don't go "away" -- they often go into the sea, where they remain for a long, long time. Much of the global ocean remains uncharted in terms of pollution, but unfortunately the more we look, the more we find. And now even the most remote, pristine waters on the planet -- the coastal seas of Antarctica -- are being invaded by plastic debris. In a series of surveys conducted during the austral summer of 2007-2008, researchers at the British Antarctic Survey and Greenpeace trawled the region, skimming surface waters and digging into the seabed. Even in the exceedingly remote Davis and Durmont D'Urville seas they found errant fishing buoys and a plastic cup. Plastic packaging was found floating in the Amundsen Sea. It doesn't sound like much, but finding trash in the far corners of the planet is a worrying sign. The research team, led by David Barnes of the British Antarctic Survey, believe the debris they found represents the leading edge of a tide of man-made refuse that is just now starting to make its way into the most secluded parts of our oceans.... "The seabeds immediately surrounding continental Antarctica are probably the last environments on the planet yet to be reached by plastics, but with pieces floating into the surface of the Amundsen Sea this seems likely to change soon. Our knowledge now touches every sea but so does our legacy of lost and discarded plastic." ...	It's just our little attempt to keep the planet fresh -- with SaranWrap! ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, Jun 25, 2010 from IRIN: Millions of Bangladeshis poisoned by arsenic-laced water A fifth of all deaths in Bangladesh are linked to drinking water contaminated by arsenic, while up to 77 million people - half the population - have been chronically exposed to the poisonous metalloid, according to a new study published in the Lancet medical journal. Researchers tracked 12,000 people over a period of 10 years, taking urine samples every two years and analysing water from 6,000 wells to detect arsenic, confirming what the World Health Organization warned of a decade ago when it predicted "a major increase in the number of cases of diseases caused by arsenic if the population continues to drink arsenic-contaminated water". A decades-old programme of digging tube wells to reach what was thought to be clean drinking water is being cited as the cause of the mass poisoning, says the report ...	The water of life turns out to have unintended consequences. ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, Jun 25, 2010 from BBC: Africa 'witnessing birth of a new ocean' Africa is witnessing the birth of a new ocean, according to scientists at the Royal Society. Geologists working in the remote Afar region of Ethiopia say the ocean will eventually split the African continent in two, though it will take about 10 million years.... In 2005, a 60km long stretch of the earth opened up to a width of eight metres over a period of just ten days. Hot, molten rock from deep within the Earth is trickling to the surface and creating the split.... "It will pull apart, sink down deeper and deeper and eventually... parts of southern Ethiopia, Somalia will drift off, create a new island, and we'll have a smaller Africa and a very big island that floats out into the Indian Ocean." Lead researcher Tim Wright who is presenting the research at the Royal Society's Summer Exhibition, described the events as "truly incredible". Used to understanding changes in the planet on timescales of millions of years, the international team of scientists including Dr Wright have seen amazing changes in Afar in the past five years, where the continent is cracking open, quite literally underneath their feet. ...	Ok, this doesn't belong in the ApocaDocs. But if a continent splits and there's no one left to name it, does it have a name? ApocaDoc permalink
Want more context? Try reading our book FREE online: Humoring the Horror of the Converging Emergencies! More fun than a barrel of jellyfish!
Fri, Jun 25, 2010 from Washington University in St. Louis, via PhysOrg: Pond communities bear lasting imprint of random events in their past A seven-year experiment shows that pond communities bear the imprint of random events in their past, such as the order in which species were introduced into the ponds. This finding locates one of the wellsprings of biodiversity but also suggests that it may not be possible to restore ecosystems whose history we cannot recreate.... He set out 45 Rubbermaid cattle tanks in an old field, added a bit of dirt to each and filled them with well water. The 300-gallon tanks are not as big as regular ponds, he says, but they're "decent sized. "I've even had herons come and try to hang out in them, although they're a bit small for that." He dosed the ponds with nutrients in the form of nitrogen- or phosphorus-containing chemicals. Each pond received either low, medium or high levels of nutrients throughout the experiment. And then he began inoculating the ponds with species. The species pool for inoculation consisted of zooplankton from each of 15 ponds, 30 insects and small invertebrates such as snails, 9 vascular aquatic plants and 12 kinds of filamentous green algae.... So each pond received species in a different order but in the end, every pond got exactly the same species. "Then we let nature take over," Chase says.... "The low productivity ponds were very predictable, very deterministic," he says. "The high productivity ponds were more stochastic. History mattered more."... Far from being carbon copies, ecosystems are historical artifacts, their final form a sensitive record of their past. ...	So we can't recreate ecosystems we've already changed. I'm sure we can do it better! ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, Jun 25, 2010 from PNAS, via EurekAlert: Aggressive action to reduce soot emissions needed to meet climate change goals Without aggressive action to reduce soot emissions, the time table for carbon dioxide emission reductions may need to be significantly accelerated in order to achieve international climate policy goals such as those set forth in last December's Copenhagen Accord... The Princeton University researchers assessed the climatic contribution of "carbonaceous aerosols," fine particulates emitted into the atmosphere and commonly known as soot. Soot is produced by the incomplete combustion of organic matter and comes from a variety of sources, ranging from diesel engines and coal combustion to biomass cook stoves, crop burning and wildfires. Soot has complex effects on the global climate when airborne or deposited on snow. It has two main components: black carbon and organic carbon. Black carbon is dark and absorbs radiation, thus warming the atmosphere; organic carbon is light colored and reflective, so tends to have a cooling effect.... Their best estimate indicates that eliminating soot pollution from "contained combustion" sources such as diesel engines and poorly-controlled coal sources would provide the world with an additional eight years (with an uncertainty range of about one to 15 years) to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Conversely, if these sources of carbonaceous aerosols continued at levels seen in the 1990s, more aggressive reductions in carbon dioxide emissions than previously recognized would need to occur for the world to meet the goal of avoiding "dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system". ...	Santa Claus demands it! ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, Jun 25, 2010 from Science: Hydrogen Isotopes Preclude Marine Hydrate CH4 Emissions at the Onset of Dansgaard-Oeschger Events The causes of past changes in the global methane cycle and especially the role of marine methane hydrate (clathrate) destabilization events are a matter of debate. Here we present evidence from the North Greenland Ice Core Project ice core based on the hydrogen isotopic composition of methane [{delta}D(CH4)] that clathrates did not cause atmospheric methane concentration to rise at the onset of Dansgaard-Oeschger (DO) events 7 and 8. Box modeling supports boreal wetland emissions as the most likely explanation for the interstadial increase. Moreover, our data show that {delta}D(CH4) dropped 500 years before the onset of DO 8, with CH4 concentration rising only slightly. This can be explained by an early climate response of boreal wetlands, which carry the strongly depleted isotopic signature of high-latitude precipitation at that time. *[Translation provided in Science's TOC: "Catastrophic destabilization of marine methane clathrates did not trigger rapid warming episodes 39,000 and 35,000 years ago."]* ...	If these guys are so smart, why can't they write? ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, Jun 25, 2010 from Scientific American: Unintended whale kills deadlier than intentional whaling More whales are being killed by chemical and noise pollution, entanglement in nets, climate change or collisions with ships than by whaling itself, delegates to the world's main whaling body said this week. Harpooning whales for their meat and oil pushed many species close to extinction in the last century. Stocks have begun to recover under a moratorium on whaling agreed in 1986, although Japan, Norway and Iceland still hunt the giant mammals. But climate change now means it is harder for whales to find food, ship collisions are growing, pollution is disrupting their reproduction, and fishing nets can kill or wound them, according to delegates at the International Whaling Commission's (IWC) annual meeting in the Moroccan Atlantic city of Agadir.... Marine wildlife experts say growing numbers of whales succumb to "by-catch" -- getting entangled in nets or hooked to fishing lines stretching up to 10 kilometers (6 miles) and known by green campaigners as "curtains of death." Many of the whales which escape succumb to their injuries months or years later. ...	Pretty soon that worldwide pool will be spanking clean! ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Jun 24, 2010 from PhysOrg: Seismic probe threat to endangered whales: experts International Whaling Commission scientists have warned that a seismic survey in Russia's Far East could push a critically endangered population of whales closer to extinction. "The committee is extremely concerned about the potential impact on western gray whales and strongly recommends that Rosneft postpone their survey until at least June 2011," the scientists said in a report released this week, referring to the Russian company carrying out the testing. There are probably fewer than 130 Western North Pacific Gray Whales remaining, and only a couple of dozen females of calf-bearing age, according to the IWC.... "The Rosneft survey (is set to) occur while the highest number of feeding gray whales, including cow and calves, are present," the 120-strong committee cautioned.... "It's not as if the committee is asking them not to do the survey," said Wendy Elliott, species manager at WWF International. "All they have to do is wait a year and conduct it earlier, before the whales arrive in the area." ...	Wait a whole year for just a buncha whales? Nyet! ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Jun 24, 2010 from PhysOrg: Giant China algae slick getting bigger: report A floating expanse of green algae floating off China's eastern seaboard is growing and spreading further along the coast, state-run media has reported. The algae bloom has expanded by about 50 percent since it was first reported by state media earlier in the week to 320 square kilometres (120 square miles), or about four times the size of Hong Kong island, Xinhua news agency said.... Algae blooms are typically caused by pollution in China and suck up huge amounts of oxygen needed by marine wildlife to survive and leave a foul stench when they wash up on beaches.... According to a 2008 State Oceanic Administration report, raw sewage and pollution from agricultural run-off has polluted 83 percent of China's coastal waters, leading to algae and other problems. ...	I thought canaries in coal mines were birds. ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Jun 24, 2010 from New York Times: Asian Carp gets to threshold of Great Lakes After months of worrying over hints and signs and DNA traces suggesting that Asian carp, a voracious, nonnative fish, might be moving perilously close to the Great Lakes, the authorities here have uncovered the proof they did not want. They caught a fish. One bighead carp -- a 19.6-pound, 34.6-inch male -- became entangled Tuesday in a fishing net about six miles from Lake Michigan, in part of a waterway that connects the Mississippi River system to the Great Lakes. The authorities have searched for nearly a half-year with nets, chemicals and electrofishing equipment, but the fish was the first actual Asian carp to be found beyond an elaborate electric fence system officials spent years devising to avoid this very outcome.... Around the Great Lakes, where scientists fear that the arrival of Asian carp could upend the ecosystem, the discovery reopened a simmering fight. ...	But I had heard that carp-pooling was a good thing. ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Jun 24, 2010 from EnvironmentalResearchWeb: In elevated carbon dioxide, soybeans stumble but cheatgrass keeps on truckin' The wildfires, he read, are more frequent - they now occur every few years instead of every few decades - and they are burning larger areas. The more intense fire cycle is fueled by cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum), an invasive plant that is rapidly displacing native sagebrush plant communities. Schaefer, the Charles Allen Thomas Professor of Chemistry in Arts & Sciences, was intrigued. At home in St. Louis he was studying the response of soybeans to stressful growing conditions. Soybeans, frankly, were having trouble coping. What about cheatgrass, he wondered? The way it was mopping up the West suggested it might be running its metabolism differently from other plants. His hunch proved to be right. His results, published in the April 15 issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society, show that cheatgrass biochemistry is better suited to elevated carbon dioxide concentrations than soybean biochemistry. The research adds to a growing body of evidence challenging the idea that all plants will benefit from rising carbon dioxide levels. Some plants will be helped, but others will be harmed. ...	Hey, cheaters aren't supposed to win. ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Jun 24, 2010 from Telegraph.co.uk: Iron to be dumped at sea to reduce global warming Thousands of tonnes of iron will be dumped at sea in an attempt to cut global warming by sucking carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, it has been reported. The iron will lay vast amounts of phytoplankton, which absorbs CO2 as the grow, The Times reported. When the phytoplankton die it sinks to the bottom of the ocean, storing away the carbon for more than 50 years, the paper added.... Aircraft would spray iron sulphate liquid over almost 4,000 miles of the Southern Ocean, The Times claimed. It is thought that if successful the project could remove almost a billion tonnes of carbon a year from the atmosphere - 12 per cent of total CO2 emissions produced by humans.... Scientists, however, have admitted that fertilising the ocean with hundreds of tonnes of iron could have a negative impact on marine life because the dying phytoplankton would cause a reduction in oxygen. ...	Pffft. That's only a little of the ocean suffocating. ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Jun 24, 2010 from Penn State, via EurekAlert: Discovery of how coral reefs adapt to global warming could aid reef restoration Discovering how corals respond to ocean warming is complicated because corals serve as hosts to algae. The algae live in the coral and feed on its nitrogen wastes. Through photosynthesis, the algae then produce the carbohydrates that feed the coral. When this complex and delicate symbiosis is upset by a rise in ocean temperature, the coral may expel the algae in a phenomenon known as coral bleaching, which may cause the death of both algae and coral. The challenge is to figure out why some corals cope with the heat stress better than others.... "Our study shows that the response of larvae to changing conditions depends upon where the parent colonies lived," says Baums. "Clearly the coral larvae from Mexico and Florida respond differently to heat stress, even though they belong to the same species, showing adaptations to local conditions. The two populations have different adaptive potential."... "Variation among populations in gene expression offers the species as a whole a better chance of survival under changing conditions," Baums said. "We might be able to screen adult populations for their ability to produce heat-resistant larvae and focus our conservation efforts on those reefs." ...	If only ecosystems worked that way. ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Jun 24, 2010 from Reuters, via DesdemonaDespair: Methane in Gulf of Mexico 'astonishingly high' - Nearly a million times above background levels Texas A&M University oceanography professor John Kessler, just back from a 10-day research expedition near the BP Plc oil spill in the gulf, says methane gas levels in some areas are "astonishingly high." Kessler's crew took measurements of both surface and deep water within a 5-mile (8 kilometer) radius of BP's broken wellhead. "There is an incredible amount of methane in there," Kessler told reporters in a telephone briefing. In some areas, the crew of 12 scientists found concentrations that were 100,000 times higher than normal. "We saw them approach a million times above background concentrations" in some areas, Kessler said. The scientists were looking for signs that the methane gas had depleted levels of oxygen dissolved in the water needed to sustain marine life. "At some locations, we saw depletions of up to 30 percent of oxygen based on its natural concentration in the waters. At other places, we saw no depletion of oxygen in the waters. We need to determine why that is," he told the briefing. ...	If only our astonishment derived from how effectively a corporate entity could react to an unexpected crisis. ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Jun 23, 2010 from Huffington Post: Oil Spill Forces Animals To Flee To Shallow Water Off Coast, Scientists Warn Of 'Mass Die-Off' Dolphins and sharks are showing up in surprisingly shallow water just off the Florida coast. Mullets, crabs, rays and small fish congregate by the thousands off an Alabama pier. Birds covered in oil are crawling deep into marshes, never to be seen again. Marine scientists studying the effects of the BP disaster are seeing some strange phenomena. Fish and other wildlife seem to be fleeing the oil out in the Gulf and clustering in cleaner waters along the coast in a trend that some researchers see as a potentially troubling sign. The animals' presence close to shore means their usual habitat is badly polluted, and the crowding could result in mass die-offs as fish run out of oxygen. Also, the animals could easily be devoured by predators.... Researchers say there are several reasons for the relatively small death toll: The vast nature of the spill means scientists are able to locate only a small fraction of the dead animals.... "Their ability to avoid it may be limited in the long term, especially if in near-shore refuges they're crowding in close to shore, and oil continues to come in. At some point they'll get trapped," said Crowder, expert in marine ecology and fisheries. "It could lead to die-offs." ...	It's as if they think there's some sort of Ark waiting to take them out of the deluge. ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Jun 23, 2010 from IRIN: IRAQ: Killing for water In the early hours of 18 June, gunmen broke into Faisal Hassan's west Baghdad home killing him, his wife and their two young children. The motive was not sectarian, political or even economic - but water-related. Forty-year-old Hasan was an employee of a local irrigation department.... The department he worked for supervised government water distribution to farmland in and around Abu Ghraib. His death brings the number of irrigation department employees killed in this city to three in the past three months, Mohammed Khudhair, a police investigator, said. "All these employees had nothing to do with politics or anti-militant activities, but instead were victims of the nature of their work, which has become a risky one," he said.... "Government officials can't control the regulation of irrigation and stop those who violate their regulations either because of corruption or because they fear for their lives. So we have to solve this issue ourselves." ...	This could be a TV crime-drama: "Assignment: Irrigation Department!" ApocaDoc permalink
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Wed, Jun 23, 2010 from AP, via PhysOrg: Nations fail to limit whaling, Japan still hunts An international effort to truly limit whale hunting collapsed Wednesday, leaving Japan, Norway and Iceland free to keep killing hundreds of mammals a year, even raiding a marine sanctuary in Antarctic waters unchecked. The breakdown put diplomatic efforts on ice for at least a year, raised the possibility that South Korea might join the whaling nations and raised questions about the global drive to prevent the extinction of the most endangered whale species. It also revived doubts about the effectiveness and future of the International Whaling Commission. The agency was created after World War II to oversee the hunting of tens of thousands of whales a year but gradually evolved into a body at least partly dedicated to keeping whales from vanishing from the Earth's oceans. "I think ultimately if we don't make some changes to this organization in the next few years it may be very serious, possibly fatal for the organization - and the whales will be worse off," said former New Zealand Prime Minister Geoffrey Palmer. ...	This "international effort" was almost as effective as Copenhagen! ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Jun 23, 2010 from PhysOrg: Humans will be extinct in 100 years says eminent scientist Eminent Australian scientist Professor Frank Fenner, who helped to wipe out smallpox, predicts humans will probably be extinct within 100 years, because of overpopulation, environmental destruction and climate change.... [He] said homo sapiens will not be able to survive the population explosion and "unbridled consumption," and will become extinct, perhaps within a century, along with many other species.... Fenner told The Australian he tries not to express his pessimism because people are trying to do something, but keep putting it off. He said he believes the situation is irreversible, and it is too late because the effects we have had on Earth since industrialization (a period now known to scientists unofficially as the Anthropocene) rivals any effects of ice ages or comet impacts. ...	It's always darkest before the doom. ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Jun 23, 2010 from National Research Council, Ocean Studies Board: Ocean Acidification: A National Strategy to Meet the Challenges of a Changing Ocean Some of the strongest evidence of the potential impacts of ocean acidification on marine ecosystems comes from experiments on calcifying organisms; acidifying seawater to various extents has been shown to affect the formation and dissolution of calcium carbonate shells and skeletons in a range of marine organisms including reef-building corals, commercially-important mollusks such as oysters and mussels, and many phytoplankton and zooplankton species that form the base of marine food webs. It is important to note that the concentration of atmospheric CO2 is rising too rapidly for natural, CaCO3-cycle processes to maintain the pH of the ocean.... Ocean acidification may affect wild marine fisheries directly by altering the growth or survival of target species, and indirectly through changes in species' ecosystems, such as predator and prey abundance or critical habitat.... Beyond the value of commercial or recreational shellfish harvests, shellfish resources such as oyster reefs and mussel beds provide valuable ecosystem services. ...	I wonder how you "meet the challenges" of a dead ocean? ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Jun 23, 2010 from 3News New Zealand, from DesdemonaDespair: Squid-fishing industry starving whales of food Mr O'Shea has been studying beached whales for seven years and their food source, squid, for 20 - and he doesn't like what he's seeing. Around 10,000 whales have died on New Zealand beaches in the last 30 years. Research by marine biologist Steve O'Shea shows many of these whales now beaching are in such a poor state of health he believes they may be starving. "We're exploring the possibility that these animals are hungry, are both hungry and thirsty in fact, because they get all of their food and their water from squid and if you take the squid out of the food chain there's obviously going to be cascading effects," he says. Mr O'Shea's team will take samples from the dead whales' stomachs; almost 100 percent of the whales they've studied so far have had ulcers.... The young pilot whales at Raglan have worn teeth, a sure sign they're eating the wrong food - in their case that's anything other than squid. ...	Whattaya expect? They're stealing our squid! ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Jun 22, 2010 from EnvironmentalResearchWeb: Bee decline could be down to chemical cocktail interfering with brains A cocktail of chemicals from pesticides could be damaging the brains of British bees, according to scientists about to embark on a study into why the populations of the insects have dropped so rapidly in recent decades. By affecting the way bees' brains work, the pesticides might be affecting the ability of bees to find food or communicate with others in their colonies.... Chris Connolly of Dundee University's Centre for Neuroscience has been awarded �1.5 m to lead the work on whether pesticides are having an affect on the brains of bees. Pesticides could be blocking the electrical and chemical signals between neurons, he said, and only subtle changes may be required to produce serious brain disorders. These problems might stop bees identifying the best sources of nectar, or it might affect their ability to navigate to nearby food source and back home again. Brain disorders in bees might also interfere with their ability to communicate with nest-mates using the "waggle dance", where bees come back to their hive and spread information about the food sources they have found. The IPI will bring together ecologists, molecular biologists, mathematicians and computer experts to study the decline of honeybees and other insect pollinators from a range of different angles. ...	Why would pesticides affect bugs that aren't pests? ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Jun 22, 2010 from UC Boulder, via EurekAlert: After upgrade, wastewater more slowly changing the gender of fish Male fish that used to be feminized after chemicals, such as the pharmaceutical ethinylestradiol, made it through the Boulder, Colo., Wastewater Treatment Plant and into Boulder Creek, are taking longer to become feminized after a plant upgrade to an activated sludge process, according to a new study.... They mimic estrogen and may disrupt the endocrine (hormone) system of both animals and humans, said the study's principal investigator, David Norris, PhD, an integrative physiology professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Norris' team reported in 2006 that native male fish in Boulder Creek decreased in numbers with respect to females and numerous intersex fish were found downstream of the wastewater treatment plant. After a technology upgrade to the wastewater treatment plant in 2008, the reproductive disruption in the fish was far less pronounced. However, Norris said the study results should still concern people. "The fish are a wake-up call," Norris said. "Our bodies and those of the much more sensitive human fetus are being exposed everyday to a variety of chemicals that are capable of altering not only our development and physiology but that of future generations as well."... After the technology upgrade to the wastewater treatment plant in 2008, the effluent was considerably less estrogenic to the fish. After the treatment plant's upgrade, the minnows exhibited less intense loss of male sex characteristics, an initial analysis found. ...	Heck, the water tasted just fine. ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Jun 22, 2010 from AP: Roundup resistant weeds pose environmental threat But 34 years later, a few sturdy species of weed resistant to Roundup have evolved, forcing farmers to return to some of the less environmentally safe practices they abandoned decades ago. The situation is the worst in the South, where some farmers now walk fields with hoes, killing weeds in a way their great-grandfathers were happy to leave behind. And the problem is spreading quickly across the Corn Belt and beyond, with Roundup now proving unreliable in killing at least 10 weed species in at least 22 states. Some species, like Palmer amaranth in Arkansas and water hemp and marestail in Illinois, grow fast and big, producing tens of thousands of seeds.... Monsanto's introduction of seeds designed to survive Roundup made things even better for farmers because they could spray it on emerging crops to wipe out the weeds growing alongside them. Seeds containing Monsanto's Roundup Ready traits are now used to grow about 90 percent of the nation's soybeans and 70 percent of its corn and cotton.... St. Louis-based Monsanto maintains the resistance is often overstated, noting that most weeds show no sign of immunity.... Dicamba and 2,4-D both easily drift beyond the areas where they're sprayed, making them a threat to neighboring crops and wild plants, Mortensen said. That, in turn, could also threaten wildlife. ...	Who could have predicted that natural selection would occur in weeds? ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Jun 22, 2010 from CBC: Scientist apologizes to oilsands researchers A scientist who works for the Alberta government has apologized to two scientists for calling their research "a lie." Dr. Preston McEachern, an environmental effects biologist who works for the government of Alberta, issued a letter of apology and retraction to Kevin Timoney, a researcher with Treeline Ecological Research, and Peter Lee, executive director with Global Forest Watch Canada. Timoney's and Lee's lawyer had contacted him after he said in a presentation at the University of Alberta in March that the two "chose to remove data" from a study about the environmental impact of the oilsands, and called their findings a "lie." "You did not lie," McEachern wrote. "You did not choose to remove data from your study. You did not actually remove data from 1985, 2003 and 2004. The statements in my presentation that you did these things were false and I regret very much that I made these statements. I unequivocally retract them."... Timoney and Lee published the study "Does the Alberta Tar Sands Industry Pollute? The Scientific Evidence," which suggested the physical and ecological changes that result from oilsands industrial activities are detectable. One of the conclusions in the study is that the ecological and health effects of these activities deserve immediate and systematic study.... "The government of Alberta seems more concerned about the reputation of the tarsands industry than it is about learning about the destructive and dangerous impacts this industry has." ...	With such a controversial conclusion -- "more study is needed" -- it's no surprise that the tar sands industry freaked. ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Jun 22, 2010 from via DesdemonaDespair: As world prices peak, Vietnam runs out of shrimp to sell Shrimp prices have spiked since the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, but Mekong Delta production is at a cyclical low. CEO Le Van Quang of Minh Phu Seafood Company says there's been a surge in demand by US shrimp importers since the oil spill disaster cratered Gulf of Mexico production. Prices offered for black tiger shrimp have reached $13 per kilo, an increase of 30 percent over 2009 levels and the highest price seen in ten years. Hot weather and decreased production in competing countries are also pushing prices up. An epidemic has killed 80 percent of Indonesia's farmed shrimp, and 20 percent in Thailand and Malaysia. Production is down in India and Bangladesh too. Seafood companies say that they are missing fat profits because demand has outstripped supply.... Khuan says his company is scouring Ca Mau and Bac Lieu province for more shrimp. It has only been able to buy 40 tonnes per day, though the factory can process and pack 120 tonnes per day. ...	I bet the "scouring" will increase next season's harvest! ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Jun 22, 2010 from AP, via PhysOrg: Officials scramble to save endangered Javan rhinos The discovery of three dead Javan rhinos has intensified efforts to save one of the world's most endangered mammals from extinction, with an electric fence being built Monday around a new sanctuary and breeding ground. With only about 50 of the species left in the wild - all but a handful living in one national park in western Indonesia - conservationists are even talking about taking the rare step of relocating some of the 5-ton animals to spread out the population and give the Javan rhino a better chance to survive. Drought and proximity to an active volcano in the densely forested Ujung Kulon park have raised fears that a natural disaster could destroy almost the entire population at once. In Vietnam, the only other place the rhinos can be found, there are just four. ...	I think we need to have a new designation beyond "critically endangered" -- maybe "Last Gasp?" ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Jun 22, 2010 from University of Alberta, via EurekAlert: Life of plastic solar cell jumps from hours to 8 months The research groups' development of an inexpensive, readily available plastic solar cell technology hit a wall because of a chemical leeching problem within the body of the prototype. A chemical coating on an electrode was unstable and migrated through the circuitry of the cell. The team led by U of A and NINT chemistry researcher David Rider, developed a longer lasting, polymer coating for the electrode. Electrodes are key to the goal of a solar energy technology, extracting electricity from the cell. Prior to the polymer coating breakthrough the research team's plastic solar cell could only operate at high capacity for about ten hours. When Rider and his research co authors presented their paper to the journal, Advanced Functional Materials, their plastic solar cell had performed at high capacity for 500 hours. But it kept on working for another seven months. The team says the unit eventually stopped working when it was damaged during transit between laboratories. ...	Now this is plastic I can get behind! ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Jun 21, 2010 from GISD: The Global Invasive Species Database: 100 worst invasive species Invasive species have been recognised globally as a major threat to biodiversity (the collected wealth of the world�s species of plants, animals and other organisms) as well as to agriculture and other human interests. It is very difficult to identify 100 invasive species from around the world that really are "worse" than any others. Species and their interactions with ecosystems are very complex. Some species may have invaded only a restricted region, but have a high probability of expanding and causing further great damage (e.g. see Boiga irregularis: the brown tree snake). Other species may already be globally widespread, and causing cumulative but less visible damage. Many biological families or genera contain large numbers of invasive species, often with similar impacts. Species were selected for the list according to two criteria: their serious impact on biological diversity and/or human activities, and their illustration of important issues surrounding biological invasion. To ensure the inclusion of a wide variety of examples, only one species from each genus was selected. Absence from the list does not imply that a species poses a lesser threat. ...	Invasive species are just friends we would never have otherwise met. ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Jun 21, 2010 from Guardian: Overconsumption is costing us the earth and human happiness ... Leonard worries we have not grasped the fundamental problem with our materials economy. "It is a linear system and we live on a finite planet. You cannot run a linear system on a finite planet indefinitely. Too often the environment is seen as one small piece of the economy. But it's not just one little thing, it's what every single thing in our life depends upon."... Consumption can be good, she says. "I don't want to be callous to the people who really do need more stuff". But consumerism is always bad, adding little to our wellbeing as well as being disastrous for the planet. "[It's] a particular strand of overconsumption, where we purchase things, not to fulfil our basic needs, but to fill some voids about our lives and make social statements about ourselves," she explains. "It turns out our stuff isn't making us any happier," she argues. Our obsessive relationship with material things is actually jeopardising our relationships, "Which are proven over and over to be the biggest determining factor in our happiness [once our basic needs are met]." ...	If I can't define myself via the crap I own, how do I know I exist? ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Jun 21, 2010 from BBC: Secrecy of talks on whaling compromise condemned The opening session was swiftly adjourned so that delegates could begin a day and a half of private talks. Some observers condemned the secrecy, one commenting that recent UN talks on North Korea's nuclear programme were held in public - so why not on whaling? Conservation groups are split on the merits of pursuing a deal. Some argue for maintaining a hard line against all whaling, while others believe agreement could improve the current picture, where Iceland, Japan and Norway set their own quotas and run their hunts without international oversight. ...	Secret agreements have worked out pretty well for the world so far! ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Jun 21, 2010 from Telegraph.co.uk: Nightingale population down 91 per cent The number of nightingales in Britain has declined by 91 per cent in 40 years, prompting fears over the survival of the species. The population of the songbird was known to have dropped but researchers were shocked to learn of the rate at which nightingales are dying out. A study by the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) revealed that numbers reduced by more than nine in ten between 1967 and 2007 - the largest recorded fall of any bird still breeding in Britain except the tree sparrow (93 per cent).... Experts believe the dwindling population could be down to an increasing number of deer, who are blamed for destroying the undergrowth which is the bird's natural habitat. There could also be factors relating to its winter home in west Africa, which it shares with other declining species including the willow warbler, garden warbler and cuckoo. ...	Was it a vision, or a waking dream?/ Fled is that music:--Do I wake or sleep? ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Jun 21, 2010 from via DesdemonaDespair: You should totally apologize to BP I'm sorry that slavery was abolished. You could definitely use the free labor right now... I'm sorry, BP, that I don't have a car, because if I did, I could buy your gas, increase your profits and do my part in helping you pay for this most unfortunate natural disaster that has struck... Dadgummit! I'm just so sorry BP. We should be thanking you since you've made getting oil so much more convenient. ...	We're sorry, BP, that we aren't able to crowdsource away that pesky oil plume. ApocaDoc permalink