Shark brains could hold key to attacks: study

Channel News Asia, 30 October 2012                     

SYDNEY: Shark brains have been found to share several features with those of humans, a discovery which Australian researchers believe could be crucial to developing "repellents" for the killer great white species.

File photo of a Great White shark
hunting. (AFP/File - Carl de Souza)

Great white sharks, otherwise known as white pointers and made famous by the horror movie "Jaws", have killed an unprecedented number of surfers and swimmers off Australia's west coast in the past year.

The government last month announced a new catch-and-kill policy for sharks that stray too close to beaches after five fatalities in 10 months. But it is also funding research into other measures, including technology to repel them.

University of Western Australia shark researcher Kara Yopak, who has dissected the brains of more than 150 species, said new studies of the great white shark's brain had revealed important similarities to human brains.

"Great white sharks have quite large parts of the brain associated with their visual input, with implications for them being much more receptive to repellents targeting visual markers," Yopak told AFP of the research, published in a special edition of the journal Brain, Behaviour and Evolution.

Most repellents now on the market target the electro-sensitive pores on a shark's head which are used to detect the weak currents emitted by prey, by sending a strong electrical signal to drive them away.

Yopak said studies found this technology could be effective but failed to repel great whites in all cases. Understanding how their brains work could be vital to developing new deterrents, which could be something as simple as marking patterns on surfboards and wetsuits.

"A shark may recognise a poisonous sea-snake's markings and swim away, for example, and we can use this information to cue a response," she said.

"It's about understanding how their neurobiology affects their (behaviour)."

Yopak is part of a multi-disciplinary team at the university's Oceans Institute working towards new commercial repellents.

Most sharks had been found to have brains of the same relative size as mammals or birds, she added, debunking any idea they are "tiny-brained eating machines".

Sharks are common in Australian waters but deadly attacks have previously been rare, with only one of the average 15 incidents a year typically proving fatal.

Experts say the average number of attacks in the country has increased in line with population growth and the popularity of water sports.

- AFP/al

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Cross-species friendships are springing up all over. Of them, Matthew said in 2010:

“The innocence of animals, who act from instinct, never from malice, automatically qualifies all except a few species to ascend with Earth. Along the way those who now are wild will become tame, predators will become vegetarians, and all will live peaceably with each other and humankind. Already there is evidence of cross-species friendship, even mothers of one species nurturing infants of another, and instances of bonding between wild animals and humans.”  (Matthew message - Channelled by Suzanne Ward, Aug 13, 2010)

The Animals are Not Waiting for Us

Molly The Dog Plays Mom To A
Bundle Of Kittens

.

Experts cautious as oil giant BP cracks the Arctic

Deutsche Welle, 26 October 2012

Arctic experts are calling for more research as British energy giant BP and Russian oil company Rosneft eye new offshore drilling opportunities in the fragile north.

Drilling for oil offshore is risky anywhere, but conditions in the Arctic make this kind of work particularly complicated. John Farrell is a marine geologist and the director of the US Arctic Research Commission. In an interview with DW, he explained that drilling or spill cleanup in the Arctic is complicated by extreme cold, strong winds, breakaway ice blocks and, in the winter, limited daylight.

Clean-up crews train in places like the Baltic sea and are unprepared
for Arctic challenges

Farrell also pointed out that the sea ice is melting rapidly, making it extremely difficult to build a comprehensive understanding of the physical, chemical, and biological environment. This means it is almost impossible to track damage to the environment as Arctic oil drilling initiatives expand. "With the diminishment of the Arctic sea ice extent, and the warming up there, there is no baseline ecosystem anymore," Farrell said.

Opening the Arctic

Scientists and environmentalists have turned their focus northwards following an announcement on October 22 that British oil giant BP was selling its Russian holdings to Rosneft, the Russian state oil company. Under the terms of the deal, Rosneft will become the biggest publically traded oil company in the world, with BP controlling 20 percent. For environmentalists, the key component here is that the new deal will give the British firm access to Arctic reserves through Rosneft.

With Russia's oil reserves depleting, the Arctic presents the promise of
billions of barrels within Russia's northern boundaries

According to the US Geological Survey, as much as 13 percent of the world's undiscovered oil reserves lie beneath the rapidly melting northern ice cover. Rosneft already has drill sites in the Arctic but they are now exploring how to do it offshore. It's a marriage of convenience: BP will bring its expertise to the table and Rosneft has licenses.

In Russia, oil explorers are eyeing the Kara Sea. This water is so remote that the Soviets used it as a dumping site for nuclear waste for more than 25 years. There are 17,000 containers of radioactive waste and a sunken nuclear submarine on the ocean floor. The nuclear waste and the potential for a polar oil spill has prompted environmental action group Greenpeace to seek a ban on arctic drilling.

The environmentalists aren't alone in their concern. Last month, French multinational oil and gas company Total warned against drilling in the Arctic. The company said the risks were too high and an accident would be detrimental to the company's image.

Learning from experience

Russian environmental auditor Alexei Bambulyak works in the field of Arctic exploration in Norway and Russia. He told DW that research still needs to be done before drilling can start. He explained that there is a lack of knowledge about the Kara Sea, compared to what drilling experts know about bodies of water in more southern regions.

This Brown Pelican was rescued after the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico

"We know some general patterns, but we cannot confirm we know enough to really do proper assessments of environmental risks and environmental impact," he said. "As we move further to the north and to the east in the Arctic, from the Barents Sea eastward, then knowledge is decreasing."

But he added that having BP at the table, may actually improve the safety standards in Arctic oil exploration. BP's image was seriously damaged after the 2010 Deepwater Horizons oil spill off the Gulf of Mexico, the worst offshore oil spill in American history. That episode is far from over: there are still more than 200 million gallons of oil in the water. But Bambulyak said this will make the company far more cautious in its work in the future.

"They're knowledge has extreme value. We can expect that when they go to the Arctic, they will have a precautionary approach," Bambulyak said. "And we can hope for more investment in environmental research. I look positively to what happened, but we should wait and see."

Fukushima fish radiation may indicate leak: study

Yahoo – AFP, 26 October 2012

File photo shows local women sorting through freshly caught fish at the

 Hirakata fish market in Kitaibaraki, Ibaraki prefecture, south of the stricken

 Fukushima nuclear power plant, in 2011. Higher-than-normal radiation levels

 found in fish caught off Japan's east coast more than a year after the Fukushima

 nuclear disaster could indicate the plant is still leaking, new research says

Higher-than-normal radiation levels found in fish caught off Japan's east coast more than a year after the Fukushima nuclear disaster could indicate the plant is still leaking, new research says.

Marine chemist Ken Buesseler of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution reviewed official Japanese data on caesium levels in fish, shellfish and seaweed collected near the crippled nuclear plant.

Buesseler concluded the lingering contamination may be due to low-level leaks from the facility or contaminated sediment on the ocean floor, according to his research, published Thursday in the US journal Science.

He said that while the vast majority of the catch off Japan's northeast coast is well within safety limits, some fish caught near Fukushima are considered unfit for consumption under Japanese regulations.

"To predict how the patterns of contamination will change over time will take more than just studies of fish," said Buesseler, who led an international research cruise in 2011 to study the spread of radionuclides from Fukushima.

"What we really need is a better understanding of the sources and sinks of caesium and other radionuclides that continue to drive what we're seeing in the ocean off Fukushima."

A huge tsunami, sparked by a massive 9.0-magnitude undersea earthquake, swamped the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in March 2011.

Reactors went into meltdown, spewing radiation over a large swathe of Japan's agriculture-heavy northeast, in the planet's worst atomic disaster for a generation. Around 19,000 people were killed or remain missing.

Scientists estimate that the vast bulk of that radiation found its way into the ocean, either by direct releases of contaminated cooling water in the early weeks of the disaster, or through the water cycle.

The study called it the "largest accidental release of radiation to the ocean in history".

Contamination levels vary across fish species and are not declining, the study showed, though Buesseler found that demersal, or bottom-dwelling fish, consistently showed the highest caesium counts from the damaged nuclear plant.

Demersal include cod, conger, flounder, halibut, pollock, rockfish, skate and sole.

The scientist stressed that the levels of radiation found in most fish caught off Japan's northeastern coast mean they remain safe for consumption, even after the government tightened the rules in April this year.

An abstract from Buesseler's paper on the website of the journal says: "Although offshore waters are safe with respect to international standards for radionuclides in the ocean, the nuclear power plants continue to leak radioactive contaminants into the ocean."

Fears about food safety, which was once a given in Japan, have only slightly abated in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, with many consumers still eschewing products from the affected area despite government reassurances.

Japan's powerful farming and fishing industries have suffered both at home and abroad, with exports of farm products taking a major hit in 2011, falling 7.4 percent compared to the previous year.

Buesseler and Mitsuo Uematsu of the University of Tokyo are organising a scientific symposium in Tokyo on November 12 and 13 to present the latest findings on how the nuclear disaster has affected the ocean and marine life.

Fishing deal: EU ministers criticised

BBC News, Roger Harrabin, Environment analyst, 24 October 2012

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French cod catch: Many of Europe's
fish stocks are seriously depleted

EU ministers have reached a provisional deal to reshape the Common Fisheries Policy, long blamed for overfishing.

The deal has been hailed by the UK environment ministry Defra but criticised by the EU fisheries commissioner and environmentalists.

A Commission source told BBC News the new funding arrangements would continue to promote overfishing.

He said measures to support selective nets that avoided discards would be outweighed by funds for bigger engines.

The deal took away with one hand but gave with the other, the source said.

Under current arrangements EU funding has increased the capacity of fleets and led to widespread over-exploitation of fish stocks.

The new plan is to help fleets switch to more sustainable fishing. It is part of the 10-year reform of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP).

The reform aims to eradicate "discards" - the practice of dumping tonnes of perfectly good fish back into the sea - dead - in order to meet quota targets.

But EU Fisheries Commissioner Maria Damanaki says the ministers' deal is weaker than the Commission wanted.

Greenpeace environmentalists say ministers have sold out to the economic interests of the industrial fishing sector by also agreeing to continue subsidies for the modernisation of vessels and their engines, which will increase capacity rather than reducing it.

Greenpeace believe the majority of the funds will still be taken by large fishing companies to increase capacity through new boats and engines.

The group's EU fisheries policy director Saskia Richartz said "there is already not enough fish for all the boats out there, so it makes no sense at all for governments to continue throwing subsidies at the EU's oversized fleet.

"Wasting taxpayers' money on what causes the problem in the first place is ridiculous - it is like paying someone to rob you."

UK government upbeat

The size of the European Maritime Fisheries Fund (EMFF) is yet to be decided in EU budget talks for the next financial period, 2014-2020.

The UK Fisheries Minister Richard Benyon said: "I am delighted that the Council has agreed to allocate the vast majority of the new EU funding stream towards implementing CFP reform.

"The priority for me has always been to make the changes - that will be so vital for a reformed Common Fisheries [Policy] - a reality, and this outcome signifies a major step towards that vision. We are moving ever closer to the UK goal of being able to create healthy fish stocks, a prosperous fishing industry and a healthy marine environment."

The original Commission proposal will be reviewed next by the European Parliament and may be further amended before becoming law.

Roberto Ferrigno from the green group WWF said EU governments "are keeping to business-as-usual by using taxpayers' money to subsidise a spate of destructive, unrealistic and unjustified fishing and aquaculture activities.

"EMFF funds should instead support measures aimed at improving data collection and scientific knowledge of fish stocks, promoting the dissemination and adoption of selective fishing gears; and ultimately improving the state of fish stocks, the well-being of coastal communities and the fishing industry."

Follow Roger on Twitter @rogerharrabin

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Conference Seeks To Curb Exploitation Of High Seas

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Beluga whale 'makes human-like sounds'

BBC News, 22 October 2012

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Beluga whales are known as "canaries of
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high-pitched calls

Researchers in the US have been shocked to discover a beluga whale whose vocalisations were remarkably close to human speech.

While dolphins have been taught to mimic the pattern and durations of sounds in human speech, no animal has spontaneously tried such mimicry.

But researchers heard a nine-year-old whale named NOC make sounds octaves below normal, in clipped bursts.

The researchers outline in Current Biology just how NOC did it.

But the first mystery was figuring out where the sound was coming from. The whales are known as "canaries of the sea" for their high-pitched chirps, and while a number of anecdotal reports of whales making human-like speech, none had ever been recorded.

When a diver at the National Marine Mammal Foundation in California surfaced saying, "Who told me to get out?" the researchers there knew they had another example on their hands.

Once they identified NOC as the culprit, they made the first-ever recordings of the behaviour.

They found that vocal bursts averaged about three per second, with pauses reminiscent of human speech. Analysis of the recordings showed that the frequencies within them were spread out into "harmonics" in a way very unlike whales' normal vocalisations and more like those of humans.

They then rewarded NOC for the speech-like sounds to teach him to make them on command and fitted him with a pressure transducer within his nasal cavity, where sounds are produced, to monitor just what was going on.

They found that he was able to rapidly change the pressure within his nasal cavity to produce the sounds.

To amplify the comparatively low-frequency parts of the vocalisations, he over-inflated what is known at the vestibular sac in his blowhole - which normally acts to stop water entering the lungs.

In short, the mimicry was no easy task for NOC.

"Our observations suggest that the whale had to modify its vocal mechanics in order to make the speech-like sounds," said Sam Ridgway, president of the National Marine Mammal Foundation and lead author on the paper.

"The sounds we heard were clearly an example of vocal learning by the white whale."

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Aussie sailor tells of monster wave that rolled yacht

Jakarta Globe, October 18, 2012

A yacht carrying Australian yachtsman Glenn Ey drifting in a remote
area of the ocean off Australia's eastern coast

An Australian yachtsman was reunited with his family Thursday following a dramatic rescue after a massive wave picked up his boat and rolled it over, hundreds of kilometres off the coast.

Glenn Ey, 44, spent days adrift before being spotted by an Air Canada passenger plane, which swooped down low to search for him after being diverted by Australian authorities en route to Sydney from Vancouver.

"A monstrous wave just came up... rolled the boat over (and) I went smashing into the roof," Ey, who was sailing solo from Sydney to New Zealand, told the Seven Network of last Friday's incident.

"It's extraordinary. The noise is like an explosion.

"You are upside down, smashing around inside the boat, it is filling up with water. I don't think there is anyone who wouldn't be concerned.

"You do think your number is up -- there's no question about that."

With a snapped mast and no fuel, Ey began drifting in a remote area of the ocean, prompting him to activate his emergency beacon.

"My first priority was to sort out the mast, because in rough seas the mast can puncture the boat very easily. It will just spear the boat and you're going to go down so quick it's not funny," he told ABC television.

"I got rid of the mast and all the rigging, that took about 36 hours, then I spent a day bailing the boat out."

The pilot of the Air Canada Boeing 777, Captain Andrew Robertson, said he descended as low as 1,524 metres (5,000 feet) so the crew could scour the ocean with binoculars.

"I had already made a PA announcement telling passengers what we were doing," he told reporters.

"And as we got into the area, I said 'We're coming into the search area, please everybody look out of the window and if you see anything, let us know.'"

As the plane banked right, the first officer spotted the yacht some 270 nautical miles off the Sydney coast and alerted authorities.

It took the rescue boat 43 hours to make the return trip to Sydney, battling five metre waves and high winds to reach Ey and get him back to shore, where he was met by his tearful mother.

Ey's yacht is still drifting at sea and he said he was in no hurry to get back on the ocean.

"I would be quite happy to sit under a tree for a while," he said.

AFP

Conference Seeks To Curb Exploitation Of High Seas

Jakarta Globe, October 17, 2012

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Long spared because of their remoteness, the high seas have become an important hunting ground for fish trawlers and oil prospectors, putting at risk many marine species that call these waters home.

Covering 64 percent of the oceans and half the Earth’s surface, international waters have become the next frontier as fish stocks nearer to the coast run out and oil exploration ships are spurred on by high fuel prices.

The high seas, where no national laws apply and international rules are often vague, have become a “lawless zone” where prospectors operate “on a first-come-first-served” basis, oceanographic and marine law experts lamented at a conference in Monaco last week.

Policy makers from 184 countries meeting in Hyderabad, India until Friday in a bid to turn around the rate of biodiversity loss, will also examine ways to prevent the international waters becoming a deep-sea Wild West.

“International waters and seabeds are a vital part of the global ocean and planetary life support system, producing much of the oxygen and storing both CO2 and heat, [making] life on Earth habitable for us humans,” Kristina Gjerde, of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, told AFP.

“They are also of vast importance for supporting a wide range of marine life, from tiny phytoplankton to blue whales, the largest creatures on our planet.”

The threats are diverse.

With little supervision, trawlers are indiscriminately scooping up unsustainable numbers of fish, permanently harming species populations and damaging the ocean floor.

Alongside oil prospecting ships, they also cause chemical and sound pollution, disrupting species such as whales and dolphins that rely on sonar communication for socializing, hunting and mating.

In anticipation of global rules being adopted to better manage the exploitation of deep-sea resources, an issue discussed at length but without resolution at the Rio+20 environment summit in June, hopes are that the UN Convention on Biodiversity meeting in India will adopt some safeguards.

Officials, joined from Wednesday also by environmental ministers from more than 70 countries, were set to examine the findings of scientific reports that have identified more than 120 marine biodiversity “hot spots.”

The reports were compiled by regional study groups examining all the world’s oceans and measuring different indicators of species vulnerability.

“It is above all a scientific exercise aimed at cataloguing the zones to be protected,” said Elisabeth Druel, marine law expert at the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations.

Adoption of the scientific reports would mark “a small procedural step, but a big one politically”, added Jean-Patrick Le Duc, a member of the French delegation negotiating in Hyderabad.

“It will send a strong signal” in favour of the creation of protected marine areas on the high seas, which now enjoy little protection.

The global objective, adopted at the last CBD conference in Japan two years ago, is to have 10 percent of marine and coastal areas under conservation by 2020 — up from two percent today.

At Hyderabad, certain countries, notably those with big fishing fleets such as Japan, Norway, Iceland and Greece, are not keen to see constraints imposed, observers have noted.

Daniela Diz, responsible for marine policy at green group WWF, said endorsement of the scientific reports was a necessary first step to the UN General Assembly finally approving the creation of deep-see protected areas.

“The point is that if the reports are not endorsed they won’t be included in the repository or sent to relevant organizations, which means that all that fantastic scientific information produced in the workshops would be lost.”

Agence France-Presse

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Pacific iron fertilisation is 'blatant violation' of international regulations

Pacific iron fertilisation is 'blatant violation' of international regulations

Controversial US businessman's geoengineering scheme off west coast of Canada contravenes two UN conventions

guardian.co.uk, Martin Lukacs, Monday 15 October 2012

Yellow and brown colours show relatively high concentrations of chlorophyll
 in August 2012, after iron sulphate was dumped into the Pacific Ocean as
 part of a controversial geoengineering scheme. Photograph: Giovanni/Goddard
Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center/NASA

A controversial American businessman dumped around 100 tonnes of iron sulphate into the Pacific Ocean as part of a geoengineering scheme off the west coast of Canada in July, a Guardian investigation can reveal.

Lawyers, environmentalists and civil society groups are calling it a "blatant violation" of two international moratoria and the news is likely to spark outrage at a United Nations environmental summit taking place in India this week.

Satellite images appear to confirm the claim by Californian Russ George that the iron has spawned an artificial plankton bloom as large as 10,000 square kilometres. The intention is for the plankton to absorb carbon dioxide and then sink to the ocean bed – a geoengineering technique known as ocean fertilisation that he hopes will net lucrative carbon credits.

George is the former chief executive of Planktos Inc, whose previous failed efforts to conduct large-scale commercial dumps near the Galapagos and Canary Islands led to his vessels being barred from ports by the Spanish and Ecuadorean governments. The US Environmental Protection Agency warned him that flying a US flag for his Galapagos project would violate US laws, and his activities are credited in part to the passing of international moratoria at the United Nations limiting ocean fertilisation experiments

Scientists are debating whether iron fertilisation can lock carbon into the deep ocean over the long term, and have raised concerns that it can irreparably harm ocean ecosystems, produce toxic tides and lifeless waters, and worsen ocean acidification and global warming.

"It is difficult if not impossible to detect and describe important effects that we know might occur months or years later," said John Cullen , an oceanographer at Dalhousie University. "Some possible effects, such as deep-water oxygen depletion and alteration of distant food webs, should rule out ocean manipulation. History is full of examples of ecological manipulations that backfired."

George says his team of unidentified scientists has been monitoring the results of what may be the biggest ever geoengineering experiment with equipment loaned from US agencies like Nasa and the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration. He told the Guardian that it is the "most substantial ocean restoration project in history," and has collected a "greater density and depth of scientific data than ever before".

"We've gathered data targeting all the possible fears that have been raised [about ocean fertilisation]," George said. "And the news is good news, all around, for the planet."

The dump took place from a fishing boat in an eddy 200 nautical miles west of the islands of Haida Gwaii, one of the world's most celebrated, diverse ecosystems, where George convinced the local council of an indigenous village to establish the Haida Salmon Restoration Corporation to channel more than $1m of its own funds into the project.

The president of the Haida nation, Guujaaw, said the village was told the dump would environmentally benefit the ocean, which is crucial to their livelihood and culture.

"The village people voted to support what they were told was a 'salmon enhancement project' and would not have agreed if they had been told of any potential negative effects or that it was in breach of an international convention," Guujaaw said.

International legal experts say George's project has contravened the UN's convention on biological diversity (CBD) and London convention on the dumping of wastes at sea, which both prohibit for-profit ocean fertilisation activities.

"It appears to be a blatant violation of two international resolutions," said Kristina M Gjerde, a senior high seas adviser for the International Union for Conservation of Nature. "Even the placement of iron particles into the ocean, whether for carbon sequestration or fish replenishment, should not take place, unless it is assessed and found to be legitimate scientific research without commercial motivation. This does not appear to even have had the guise of legitimate scientific research."

George told the Guardian that the two moratoria are a "mythology" and do not apply to his project.

The parties to the UN CBD are currently meeting in Hyderabad, India, where the governments of Bolivia, the Philippines and African nations as well as indigenous peoples are calling for the current moratorium to be upgraded to a comprehensive test ban of geoengineering that includes enforcement mechanisms.

"If rogue geoengineer Russ George really has misled this indigenous community, and dumped iron into their waters, we hope to see swift legal response to his behavior and strong action taken to the heights of the Canadian and US governments," said Silvia Ribeiro of the international technology watchdog ETC Group, which first discovered the existence of the scheme. "It is now more urgent than ever that governments unequivocally ban such open-air geoengineering experiments. They are a dangerous distraction providing governments and industry with an excuse to avoid reducing fossil fuel emissions."

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“2011 and Beyond” - What you are seeing, and why - Jan 16, 2010 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Text version)

"....Let us just talk about the ocean for a moment. We won't even get to what's happening in the air and what mammals might experience. Let's just speak of the ocean. Have you heard about the salmon? What has your science warned you against? You're overfishing! The sea is dying. The coral is dying. The reefs are going away. You're not seeing the food chain that used to be there. You've overfished everything. Fishing quotas have been set up to help this. Oh, all those little people in the red room - they don't know about the purple. Red people only know about the red paradigm.

Did you hear about the salmon recently? There's too many of them! In the very place where quotas are in place so you won't overfish, they're jumping in the boats! Against all odds and any projections from environmentalists or biologists, they're overrunning the oceans in Alaska - way too many fish.

What does that tell you? Is it possible that Gaia takes care of itself? That's what it tells you! Perhaps this alignment is going to keep humanity fed. Did anybody think of this? What if Gaia is in alliance with you? What if the increase in consciousness that raised your DNA vibration has alerted Gaia to change the weather cycle and get ready to feed humanity? Are you looking at the ocean where the oil spill occurred? It's recovering in a way that was not predicted. What's happening?

The life cycle itself is being altered by the temperature change of the ocean and much of what you have believed is the paradigm of life in the sea is slowly changing. A new system of life is appearing, as it has before, and is upon you in your lifetime. It will compliment what you know and expose you to a new concept: Gaia regularly refreshes the life cycle on Earth. ...."