For the second time in two months, a rare deadly yellow bellied sea snake has washed ashore at one of southern California's most popular beaches.

Pelamis platurus, related to the cobra family (Elapidae)

Yellowbelly Sea Snake      Carpenter0     Wikipedia.org

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El Nino washes a SECOND posionous sea snake onto popular California beach which has not seen any for THIRTY YEARS

By Regina F. Graham For Dailymail.com and Evan Bleier For Dailymail.com

Published: 22:18 EST, 19 December 2015 | Updated: 03:17 EST, 20 December 2015 

For the second time in two months, a rare deadly sea snake has washed ashore at one of southern California's most popular beaches.

A dead 27-inch-long male yellow bellied sea snake was discovered last week during a coastal cleanup campaign by volunteers for the Surfrider Foundation in Huntington Beach, the Los Angeles Times reported.

In October, a two-foot-long yellow bellied sea snake was discovered slithering onto Silver Strand State Beach in Ventura County, but it died shortly after being taken to a US Fish and Wildlife Service office nearby.

The venomous sea serpent, known to scientists as Pelamis platura, was first spotted in 1972 during an El Niño in San Clemente.

Deadly: A dead 27-inch-long male yellow bellied sea snake (above) was discovered last week during a coastal cleanup campaign by the Surfrider Foundation

The latest yellow bellied sea snake discovered was found at the popular Huntington Beach in California (file photo above)

A descendant of Australian tiger snakes, experts believe the arrival of the sea snake is a harbinger of El Niño because the last time it appeared in California was during the weather system in the '80s.

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Fukui Gov Issei Nishikawa will soon give his consent for the restart of two nuclear reactors at Kansai Electric Power Co’s Takahama plant

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JAPAN TODAY

Fukui governor to give consent for nuclear plant restart

National Dec. 21, 2015 - 07:00AM JST ( 7 )

 

FUKUI —

Fukui Gov Issei Nishikawa will soon give his consent for the restart of two nuclear reactors in the prefecture on the Sea of Japan coast, sources close to the matter said Sunday, as the central government seeks to bring more reactors back online after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear crisis.

The governor will visit the site of the Nos. 3 and 4 reactors at Kansai Electric Power Co’s Takahama plant on Monday to check safety measures before expressing his consent, they said. The governor’s consent is necessary to restart the reactors.

Earlier in the day, industry minister Motoo Hayashi, in charge of the country’s energy policy, met with Nishikawa at the Fukui prefectural office and sought the Fukui governor’s consent for the restart of the two nuclear reactors.

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A toxin produced by marine algae is inflicting brain damage on sea lions along California's coast. It may negatively impact foraging and navigation in sea lions, driving strandings and mortality,

NBC NEWS

 

News

Dec 14 2015, 4:51 pm ET

Algae Causing Sea Lion Brain Damage in California, Study Shows

by Reuters

 

In this September 11, 2013 file photo, a sea lion scratches himself on Pier 39 at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco, California. DON EMMERT / AFP - Getty Images

 

 

WASHINGTON — A toxin produced by marine algae is inflicting brain damage on sea lions along California's coast, causing neurological and behavioral changes that can impair their ability to navigate in the sea and survive in the wild, scientists said on Monday.

Brain scans on 30 California sea lions detected damage in the hippocampus, a brain structure associated with memory and spatial navigation, in animals naturally exposed to the toxin known as domoic acid, the researchers said.

Domoic acid mimics glutamate, a chemical that transmits nerve impulses in the brain, and leads to over-activation of hippocampus nerve cells and chronic epilepsy, according to Emory University cognitive psychologist Peter Cook, who worked on the study while at the University of California-Santa Cruz.

"The behavioral deficits accompanying brain damage with domoic acid are severe, and may negatively impact foraging and navigation in sea lions, driving strandings and mortality," Cook said.
Hundreds of sea lions annually are found stranded on California beaches with signs of domoic acid poisoning such as disorientation and seizures. Thousands are thought to be exposed to the toxin.

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Over 15,000 baby sea lions estimated dead as Pacific sea life dies off

NaturalNews

Monday, December 14, 2015 by: L.J. Devon, Staff Writer






(NaturalNews) The Marine Mammal Center rescued over a hundred sea lions in a 10-day period off the West Coast of California in the winter of 2015. The influx of stranded sea lions is a sign that the health of the ocean is deteriorating. From January 1 to February 12, 2015, National Geographic counted nearly 500 rescued sea lions, an amount that is alarming scientists. Something has gone awry in the West Coast waters.

The sea lions are not finding food, they are losing strength, and many are starting to wash ashore. The startling trend didn't start in 2015. The number of stranded sea lions began rising in the winter of 2013, when scientists started noticing waves of sea lion pups washing ashore. Scientists believe the ocean's temperatures have shifted. Warmer currents may be affecting food sources that the sea lions depend on. Others see problems in ocean water acidity. The animals are being forced to go on longer quests to find food. Many of the pups are being left behind, stranded, while their parents search for food.

One-third of sea lions born last summer wiped out

 

The death of this sentinel species is an indication of changes in ocean climate and ecosystem. Sea lion prey, which include sardines and crayfish, are reportedly disappearing in numbers as well, forcing the starving sea lions to go on longer quests in search of food. Scientists are concerned about ocean pH and rising acidity of the waters. According to San Jose Mercury News, marine biologists warn that, if the trend continues, an entire generation of California sea lions could be wiped out.
When speaking to NBC News, Sea World San Diego senior veterinarian Hendrick Nollens reported, "We had rescued 19 California sea lions in January [2013]. This year we already rescued 87 pups in that same month. So this event seems to be much larger."

According to the Daily Breeze, the "unusual mortality event" wiped out two-thirds of the sea lion pup population off the West Coast in 2013.

Rehabilitation centers are taking several hundred pups in this year to save the species from total extinction.

NOAA wildlife biologist Sharon Melin confirmed that most pups captured in the wild in 2013 were only half their weight. After they are released back into the wild, they are expected to maintain their weight. When Melin went on a research trip in September 2013, she reported that the weight of the pups was still low. She brought back the bad news: "We've told the centers to prepare for the worst."
The U-T San Diego concurred, reporting that pups in the Channel Island rookeries continued to struggle despite rehabilitation efforts. On average, pups were 19% below their average weight, even after rehabilitation.

Jim Milbury of NOAA Fisheries says that West Coast sea lions have a birth rate of about 50,000 a year, and San Diego 6 reported on Jan. 28, 2015, that nearly 1 of 3 pups born the previous summer have already died.

If 33% of pups born in 2014 have already died, then based on the average birth rate, over 15,000 have passed away in that short time frame. 

Ocean water acidity on the rise, subjecting aquatic life to disease

 

According to Jennifer Palma of Global News, ocean health is deteriorating, indicated by a die off of scallops and oysters. "Getting pacific oysters and scallops is next to impossible; the industry is in crisis. ... So what's killing the Pacific oysters and scallops? A possible combination of factors including warmer oceans, decreasing acidity levels and potentially disease," she said in a report.
University of British Columbia marine microbiology professor Curtis Suttle is concerned about changes in the pH of ocean waters. "The hypothesis -- there's a working hypothesis --w is that these changes, these excursions in pH, are making the shellfish vulnerable to infection by diseases that they would normally be resistant to."


Sources for this article include:


http://enenews.com
http://enenews.com
http://enenews.com
http://www.dailybreeze.com

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Radiation from the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan has been detected at an increased number of sites off U.S. shores, including the highest level in the area detected to date, scientists announced Thursday.

Published on

Friday, December 04, 2015

 

by

Common Dreams

'Fukushima Fingerprint': Highest-Yet Radiation Levels Found Off US Coast

'The changing values underscore the need to more closely monitor contamination levels across the Pacific.'

by

Nadia Prupis, staff writer

 

 

 

Scientists test seawater samples off the coast of Japan near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station. (Photo: IAEA Imagebank/flickr/cc)

Radiation from the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan has been detected at an increased number of sites off U.S. shores, including the highest level in the area detected to date, scientists announced Thursday.

While the levels are still too low to be considered a threat to human or marine life by the government's standards, tests of hundreds of samples of Pacific Ocean water reveal that the Fukushima Daiichi plant has continued to leak radioactive isotopes more than four years after the meltdown—and must not be dismissed, according to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) marine radiochemist Ken Buesseler.

"Despite the fact that the levels of contamination off our shores remain well below government-established safety limits for human health or to marine life, the changing values underscore the need to more closely monitor contamination levels across the Pacific," Buesseler said Thursday. "[F]inding values that are still elevated off Fukushima confirms that there is continued release from the plant."
Scientists from the WHOI and Buesseler's citizen-science project Our Radioactive Ocean discovered trace amounts of cesium-134, the "fingerprint" of Fukushima, in 110 new Pacific samples off U.S. shores in 2015 alone.

The isotope is unique to Fukushima and has a relatively short two-year half life, which means "the only source of this cesium-134 in the Pacific today is from Fukushima," Buesseler said.


Map shows the location of seawater samples taken by scientists and citizen scientists that were analyzed at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution for radioactive cesium as part of Our Radioactive Ocean. Cesium-137 is found throughout the Pacific Ocean and was detectable in all samples collected, while cesium-134 (yellow/orange dots), an indicator of contamination from Fukushima, has been observed offshore and in select coastal areas. (Figure by Jessica Drysdale, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

One sample collected roughly 1,600 miles west of San Francisco revealed the highest radiation level detected to date off the West Coast, the researchers said in a post on the project's website. "[In] one cubic meter of seawater (about 264 gallons), 11 radioactive decay events per second can be attributed to cesium atoms of both isotopes. That is 50 percent higher than we've seen before."

"[T]hese long-lived radioisotopes will serve as markers for years to come for scientists studying ocean currents and mixing in coastal and offshore waters," Buesseler continued.

The 2011 accident, prompted by an earthquake and tsunami off Japan's east coast, was the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986 and resulted in the near-total meltdown of three nuclear reactors at the Fukushima plant and a mass evacuation of the prefecture. Despite ongoing warnings about long-term health and environmental impacts and widespread opposition to nuclear power in the wake of the meltdown, Japan in August restarted a reactor at the Sendai power plant, about 620 miles southwest of Tokyo.

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'Taningia Danae' or 'whiplash squid' rarely seen alive caught on video footage.

 

Hawaii marine biologists celebrate extremely rare footage of the giant Whiplash squid as it glides through the darkest depths of the Pacific

• The majestic squid is called 'Taningia Danae' or 'whiplash squid' 
• Experts say that the whiplash squid has rarely been seen alive 
• The squid can travel between two and two-and-a-half miles per hour 
• It attached itself onto a remotely operated underwater vehicle
• Scientists will study the footage to learn more about the squid

By Belinda Robinson For Dailymail.com

Published: 17:11 EST, 6 December 2015 | Updated: 21:10 EST, 6 December 2015

 

This is the magical moment that National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists captured footage of a rare deep sea squid.

The majestic sea creature, which is around one to two meters long, is called 'Taningia Danae' or 'whiplash squid.'

As it descended to the sea floor of the Pacific Ocean in Hawaii on September 19, 2015 a remotely operated underwater vehicle caught it on camera.

 

 

This is the magical moment that NOAA scientists captured footage of a rare deep sea squid

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Plastics in the world's oceans, whether floating or resting at the bottom, is a problem that's on the rise, and is said to have "reached crisis proportion."

Published on

Friday, November 20, 2015

by

Common Dreams

Biodegradable is Bunk: World's 'Ocean Waste Baskets' Still Filled With Plastic Trash

Such products 'will not bring about a significant decrease either in the quantity of plastic entering the ocean or the risk of physical and chemical impacts on the marine environment,' UN report states.

by

Andrea Germanos, staff writer

 

 

 

Pieces of plastic litter a black rock beach on the island of Hawaii in 2008.  (Photo: LCDR Eric Johnson, NOAA Corps./via flickr/cc)

Plastics in the world's oceans, whether floating or resting at the bottom, is a problem that's on the rise, and is said to have "reached crisis proportion."

And while they may be assumed to be more eco-friendly, plastics labeled "biodegradable" still pose a threat to marine environments, a new United Nations study has found.

The report from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), Biodegradable Plastics and Marine Litter. Misconceptions, Concerns and Impacts on Marine Environments (pdf), explains how these products still fail to tackle the growing problem.

The agency's executive director, Achim Steiner, underscored the magnitude of the problem. "Recent estimates from UNEP have shown as much as 20 million tonnes of plastic end up in the world's oceans each year. Once in the ocean, plastic does not go away, but breaks down into microplastic particles."

The report notes that just what proportion of this plastic is biodegradable versus non-biodegradable has yet to be analyzed.

One of the problems, the report states, is that in order for some of the plastic debris to be completely broken down, conditions found in industrial compositing units that can achieve prolonged temperatures of above 50°C are needed. Yet those conditions "are rarely if ever met in the marine environment."

And while some have the inclusion of a pro-oxidant, which would induce degradation, "[t]he fate of these fragments (microplastics) is unclear, but it should be assumed that oxo-degradable polymers will add to the quantity of microplastics in the oceans, until overwhelming independent evidence suggests otherwise."

Contributing to the problem, the report says, is evidence suggesting the biodegradable label could make the public more likely to litter.

The report concludes that "the adoption of plastic products labelled as 'biodegradable' will not bring about a significant decrease either in the quantity of plastic entering the ocean or the risk of physical and chemical impacts on the marine environment, on the balance of current scientific evidence."
Peter Kershaw, one of the authors of the study, put the problem in blunt terms.

"Essentially the ocean is being used as a waste basket and the waste basket is getting fuller and fuller, and so the impacts of that plastic litter are just going to keep on increasing," he toldCBC News.

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Study : Most of Earth’s mass extinctions caused by… mineral deficiencies

New Scientist

Daily news

4 November 2015

 

Image credit: Sheila Terry/SPL

 

Are you getting enough minerals? A new theory suggests most of Earth’s mass extinction events could have been caused by a lack of essential trace elements in the world’s oceans, causing fatal deficiencies in marine animals, from plankton to reptiles.

Earth has been hit with five mass extinction events. The two most dramatic ones had pretty clear causes. The dinosaurs were probably wiped out 66 million years ago thanks to a massive meteor falling on modern-day Mexico, while the end-Permian extinction, which wiped out 90 per cent of species 252 million years ago, was probably the result of massive volcanoes in Siberia.
But that leaves three other mass extinctions, with no agreed cause.

“It’s a complex scenario,” says John Long from Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia. He says there are probably a lot of causes conspiring to drive these mass extinctions. But his latest work suggests fluctuations in essential minerals in the ocean could be an important, and so-far completely unexplored, cause.

Essential selenium

 

Earlier this year, researchers discovered that periods when the ocean had high levels of trace elements – like zinc, copper, manganese and selenium – seemed to overlap with periods of high productivity, including the Cambrian explosion, when most groups of living animals first appeared.

 

Read More Here

Plastic for dinner: A quarter of fish sold at markets contain human-made debris

September 24, 2015

 

UC Davis researchers found plastic and fibrous debris in 25 percent of the fish sold in Indonesian and California markets. (Dale Trockel/photo)

 

Roughly a quarter of the fish sampled from fish markets in California and Indonesia contained human-made debris — plastic or fibrous material — in their guts, according to a study from the University of California, Davis, and Hasanuddin University in Indonesia.
The study, published today in the journal Scientific Reports, is one of the first to directly link plastic and human-made debris to the fish on consumers’ dinner plates.

“It’s interesting that there isn’t a big difference in the amount of debris in the fish from each location, but in the type — plastic or fiber,” said lead author Chelsea Rochman, a David H. Smith postdoctoral fellow in the Aquatic Health Program at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. “We think the type of debris in the fish is driven by differences in local waste management.”

‘Waiter, there’s some plastic in my fish’

The researchers sampled 76 fish from markets in Makassar, Indonesia, and 64 from Half Moon Bay and Princeton in California. All of the fragments recovered from fish in Indonesia were plastic. In contrast, 80 percent of the debris found in California fish was fibers, whereas not a single strand of fiber was found in Indonesian fish.

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Monterey Bay : Researchers say a massive decline of the fish is throwing off the ecosystem

Monterey Bay anchovy numbers in decline, groups say

By Samantha Clark

Santa Cruz Sentinel

Posted:   10/30/2015 12:32:04 PM PDT4 Comments | Updated:   19 days ago

 

 

 

 

Anchovies fill a hatch aboard the El Dorado as workers unload the fishing boat at the Moss Landing Harbor on October 16, 2015. The boat is owned by Frank Aliotti Senior. (David Royal - Monterey Herald) ( David Royal )

 

 

Frank Aliotti Jr. moves a vacuum hose while unloadin anchovies from the El... ( David Royal )

 

SANTA CRUZ -- For at least the past three years, humpback whales have been putting on a show in the Monterey Bay. Feasting and frisking, the 40-foot-long, 40-ton leviathans create in dizzying displays.

Locals have never seen anything like it. But things have changed.

"Since late September, the whale numbers have decreased, their behavior has changed and their food, anchovies, are less abundant," said Nancy Black, marine biologist and owner of Monterey Bay Whale Watch. "We were seeing carpets just thick of anchovies for almost a mile. Now all we're seeing is spots."

Whale watching tour companies and conservationists claim the anchovy population has "collapsed" due to environmental reasons so fishing limits remain too high.

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Plenty of anchovies in Monterey Bay, but maybe not elsewhere

Monterey Fish Company worker Geronimo Hernandez feeds anchovies from a chute into iced bins while unloading the El Dorado fishing boat at the Moss Landing Harbor on October 16, 2015. The boat is owned by Frank Aliotti Senior. (David Royal - Monterey Herald)

 

By Brendan Bane, newsroom@montereyherald.com,, @Brendan_Bane on Twitter

Posted: 10/19/15, 6:47 PM PDT

A fisherman moves anchovies toward a vacuum tube inside the hatch aboard the El Dorado as workers unload the fishing boat at the Moss Landing Harbor on Friday. The boat is owned by Frank Aliotti Sr. David Royal — Monterey Herald

 

 

Monterey >> Things are shifting for fishermen in Monterey Bay.

Market squid are disappearing, and in their place, fishing boats are reeling in piles of anchovies.
But while they appear abundant, conservation groups warn that the forage fish may be at their lowest levels since the 1950s.

“It’s an anomalous year,” said Diane Pleschner-Steele, executive director of the California Wetfish Producers Association. “Typically these are not the kind of oceanographic conditions that anchovy like. But they are here and they’re really close to shore, which is why we’re having a spectacular year for whale watching.”

Anchovies aren’t just bringing whales into the bay — they’re also attracting fishing fleets.
“There are thousands of tons,” said Sal Tringali, president of Monterey Fish Company, whose fishermen in Moss Landing are landing about 120 tons of anchovies each night and expect to do so for about another month. “There are all the anchovies you want out here.”

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California's last anchovies crowd in the Monterey Bay

 

Erika Mahoney, Digital Director/Reporter, erika.mahoney@kionrightnow.com
Matt Sizemore, Anchor, matthew.sizemore@kionrightnow.com

 

POSTED: 11:24 AM PDT Oct 21, 2015  UPDATED: 01:13 PM PDT Oct 21, 2015 

 

Anchovy shortage in Monterey bay

MOSS LANDING, Calif. - Several conservation groups and whale watching operators are very concerned about the anchovies in the Monterey Bay.

 

They're worried they're being over-fished, and want something to be done about it. Recently, fishermen have been hauling out 120 tons of anchovies every night, but those anchovies are some of the last along California's coast.

Still, the groups want to make it clear they’re not against fishermen doing their job, they’re just concerned about a lack of data on the anchovy population and health.

Oceana’s Geoff Shester said there hasn’t been an analysis on anchovies in more than 20 years.
"The anchovy abundance out here, and off the entire state, has gotten to some of the lowest we've seen since the 1950s," Shester said. "Scientists are calling it an actual collapse."

Marine Biologist and Whale Watching Operator Nancy Black said marine animals and fishermen are both taking from the same source, driving down the anchovy population.

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Study finds Dispersants did not help oil degrade in BP spill. So where did the 172 million gallon (650 million liter) spill

Phys.org

 

Study: Dispersants did not help oil degrade in BP spill

November 9, 2015 by By Seth Borenstein

 

Samantha Joye, a professor of marine sciences in the University of Georgia Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, studies the oil plumes generated by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon blowout. Credit: Todd Dickey/University of Georgia 

 

The chemical sprayed on the 2010 BP oil spill may not have helped crucial petroleum-munching microbes get rid of the slick, a new study suggests.

And that leads to more questions about where much of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill went. If the new results are true, up to half the oil can't be accounted for, said the author of a new study on the spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

After the 172 million gallon (650 million liter) spill, the chemical dispersant Corexit 9500 was applied by airplane on the slick to help it go away and help natural microbes in the water eat the oil faster. The oil appeared to dissipate, but scientists and government officials didn't really monitor the microbes and chemicals, said University of Georgia marine scientist Samantha Joye.

So Joye and colleagues recreated the application in a lab, with the dispersant, BP oil and water from the gulf, and found that it didn't help the microbes at all and even hurt one key oil-munching bug, according to a study published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"The dispersants did a great job in that they got the oil off the surface," Joye said. "What you see is the dispersants didn't ramp up biodegradation."
In fact, she found the oil with no dispersant "degraded a heckuva lot faster than the oil with dispersants," Joye said.

Read More Here

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Activist Post

Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Program

Dispersants Did Not Help In BP Spill, Half Of Oil Not Accounted For: Study

 

November 12, 2015

By Joe Wright

The fallout continues from the Deepwater Horizon explosion that directly killed 11 workers and ravaged the food chain and the environment more than 5 years ago.

Since then we have seen little accountability, despite a nominal fine against BP for its role in unleashing 4 million barrels of oil (approx. 200 million gallons). In fact, the EPA lifted a ban which subsequently resulted in BP being awarded $40 Billion in new contracts, essentially erasing all that was “lost” by BP from their criminality.

Running in tandem with BP’s negligence was the use of Corexit 9500 oil dispersant (owned by Nalco, a Goldman Sachs subsidiary) as a supposed means to drastically minimize the impact. Contrary to that assertion, evidence continues to mount that it did the exact opposite.

Early on, reports began to surface of health anomalies that many believed were attributable to the spraying of the chemical dispersant. Corexit was not only sprayed over the water, but over houses as well. One family documented how all of them became sickened, and afterward tested very high for chemical poisoning. A crew of activists called Project Gulf Impact were on the scene to expose what was taking place, and similarly reported sickness to their own crew, as well as suppression of their media coverage.

Read More Here

Strongest evidence yet that it's possible for brains to fossilize and, in fact, a set of 520-million-year-old arthropod brains have done just that

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Your source for the latest research news

 

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Ancient brains turn paleontology on its head

Date:

November 9, 2015

Source:

University of Arizona

Summary:

When scientists presented evidence of an ancient, fossilized brain a few years ago, it challenged the long-held notion that brains don't fossilize. Now, seven new specimens have been unearthed, each showing traces of neural tissue from what was undoubtedly a brain.

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A: Under a light microscope, the above fossil shows traces of preserved neural tissues in black. B: An elemental scan of this fossil uncovered that carbon (in pink) and iron (in green) do not overlap in the preserved neural tissue.

 

Credit: Strausfeld et al. and Current Biology

 

 

Science has long dictated that brains don't fossilize, so when Nicholas Strausfeld co-authored the first ever report of a fossilized brain in a 2012 edition of Nature, it was met with "a lot of flack."

"It was questioned by many paleontologists, who thought -- and in fact some claimed in print -- that maybe it was just an artifact or a one-off, implausible fossilization event," said Strausfeld, a Regents' professor in UA's Department of Neuroscience.

His latest paper in Current Biology addresses these doubts head-on, with definitive evidence that, indeed, brains do fossilize.

In the paper, Strausfeld and his collaborators, including Xiaoya Ma of Yunnan Key Laboratory for Palaeobiology at China's Yunnan University and Gregory Edgecombe of the Natural History Museum in London, analyze seven newly discovered fossils of the same species to find, in each, traces of what was undoubtedly a brain.

The species, Fuxianhuia protensa, is an extinct arthropod that roamed the seafloor about 520 million years ago. It would have looked something like a very simple shrimp. And each of the fossils -- from the Chengjiang Shales, fossil-rich sites in Southwest China -- revealed F. protensa's ancient brain looked a lot like a modern crustacean's, too.

Using scanning electron microscopy, the researchers found that the brains were preserved as flattened carbon films, which, in some fossils, were partially overlaid by tiny iron pyrite crystals. This led the research team to a convincing explanation as to how and why neural tissue fossilizes.

In another recent paper in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, Strausfeld's experiments uncovered what it likely was about ancient environmental conditions that allowed a brain to fossilize in the first place.

The only way to become fossilized is, first, to get rapidly buried. Hungry scavengers can't eat a carcass if it's buried, and as long as the water is anoxic enough -- that is, lacking in oxygen -- a buried creature's tissues evade consumption by bacteria as well. Strausfeld and his collaborators suspect F. protensa was buried by rapid, underwater mudslides, a scenario they experimentally recreated by burying sandworms and cockroaches in mud.

This is only step one. Step two, explained Strausfeld, is where most brains would fail: Withstanding the pressure from being rapidly buried under thick, heavy mud.

To have been able to do this, the F. protensa nervous system must have been remarkably dense. In fact, tissues of nervous systems, including brains, are densest in living arthropods. As a small, tightly packed cellular network of fats and proteins, the brain and central nervous system could pass step two, just as did the sandworm and cockroach brains in Strausfeld's lab.

"Dewatering is different from dehydration, and it happens more gradually," said Strausfeld, referring to the process by which pressure from the overlying mud squeezes water out of tissues. "During this process, the brain maintains its overall integrity leading to its gradual flattening and preservation. F. protensa's tissue density appears to have made all the difference."

Now that he and his collaborators have produced unassailable evidence that fossilized arthropod brains are more than just a one-off phenomenon, Strausfeld is working to elucidate the origin and evolution of brains over half a billion years in the past.

"People, especially scientists, make assumptions. The fun thing about science, actually, is to demolish them," said Strausfeld.

 

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Story Source:
The above post is reprinted from materials provided by University of Arizona. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

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Journal Reference:

1. Xiaoya Ma, Gregory D. Edgecombe, Xianguang Hou, Tomasz Goral, Nicholas J. Strausfeld. Preservational Pathways of Corresponding Brains of a Cambrian Euarthropod. Current Biology, 2015; DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2015.09.063

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University of Arizona. "Ancient brains turn paleontology on its head: Strongest evidence yet that it's possible for brains to fossilize and, in fact, a set of 520-million-year-old arthropod brains have done just that." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 9 November 2015. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/11/151109083905.htm>.

Australia Approves Massive Coal Mine—Again

Yahoo News

By Taylor Hill | Takepart.com 2 hours ago TakePart.com

 

.

View photo

Australia Approves Massive Coal Mine—Again

 

 

Just two months after an Australian federal court threw out the government’s approval of one of the world’s largest coal mines because of its expected impact on an endangered snake and lizard, the country’s environment minister has green-lighted the project again.

That means the Indian-owned Carmichael mine in the state of Queensland is back on track to produce an amount of coal that, when burned, would exceed the annual greenhouse gas emissions of 52 countries. Over its 60-year lifetime, it could emit 128 million tons of heat-trapping greenhouse gases, according to a Greenpeace report. Environmentalists also fear the project will damage the iconic Great Barrier Reef.

“Minister [Greg] Hunt’s reapproval risks threatened species, precious groundwater, the global climate, and taxpayers’ money,” said Peter McCallum, spokesperson for the Mackay Conservation Group, which brought the challenge of the mine to the federal court.

RELATED:  Why the World Needs to Shut Down Coal-Fired Power Plants Faster Than Ever

In August, a federal court ruled that then Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s conservative government had illegally ignored evidence showing the mine would damage prime habitat of two endangered critters: the yakka skink—a type of lizard—and the ornamental snake.

Read More Here

Environment Pollution - North Sea, [Statfjord oil field] : Oil Spill Update

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October 08 2015 02:28 PM

Environment Pollution

Other

North Sea, [Statfjord oil field]

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Updated:	Friday, 09 October, 2015 at 11:59 UTC
Description
About 250 barrels of oil spilled from a platform in the North Sea during the transfer of products to an oil tanker, Norwegian energy company Statoil said. Statoil said the oil spill was discovered during the loaded of oil from the Statfjord A platform in the North Sea to oil tanker Hilda Knutsen. The company said in its latest update on the spill that about 250 barrels in total were released into the North Sea. "Further assessment and investigations will uncover the scope and causes [of the spill] in more detail," the company said in a statement. Loading to Hilda Knutsen was halted, though operations at the Statfjord A platform were proceeding as normal. Statoil said the relevant authorities were notified, though there were no statements from the Norwegian Petroleum Safety Authority. In January last year, the company shut down operations at the Statfjord C platform after emergency systems detected an oil leak. More than 250 crewmembers were evacuated to lifeboats but returned to their living quarters later in the day. No injuries were reported. Statoil said the weather in the area at the time of the Stratfjord C incident was "harsh." Statoil said the region is producing an average 80,000 barrels of oil per day.

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UPI

Statoil: 250 barrels of oil spilled in North Sea

Company reported similar incidents in the region in early 2014.

 

By Daniel J. Graeber   |   Oct. 9, 2015 at 6:25 AM

 

 

 

 

 

 

Norwegian energy company Statoil said about 250 barrels of oil spilled during incident at North Sea platform. Photo courtesy of Statoil

 

 

STAVANGER, Norway, Oct. 9 (UPI) -- About 250 barrels of oil spilled from a platform in the North Sea during the transfer of products to an oil tanker, Norwegian energy company Statoil said.
Statoil said the oil spill was discovered during the loaded of oil from the Statfjord A platform in the North Sea to oil tanker Hilda Knutsen. The company said in its latest update on the spill that about 250 barrels in total were released into the North Sea.
"Further assessment and investigations will uncover the scope and causes [of the spill] in more detail," the company said in a statement.
Loading to Hilda Knutsen was halted, though operations at the Statfjord A platform were proceeding as normal.

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Environment Pollution : North Sea, [Statfjord oil field] - Oil Spill

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UPI

Statoil: Oil spilled in North Sea

Spill associated with loading of oil onto a tanker.

 

By Daniel J. Graeber   |   Oct. 8, 2015 at 8:48 AM

 

 Statoil reports oil spill in North Sea, though it's too early to issue an estimate on volume. Photo courtesy of Statoil.

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Environment Pollution

Other

North Sea, [Statfjord oil field]

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RSOE EDIS Event Report

Environment Pollution in Other on Thursday, 08 October, 2015 at 14:28 (02:28 PM) UTC.

Description Norwegian energy company Statoil reported on oil leak Thursday near the Statfjord oil field in the North Sea, though it's too early to guess on volumes. The company said sheen was observed during the loading of oil from the Stratfjord onto the Hilda Knutsen tanker. Loading was halted, though operations at the field are proceeding as normal. "It is also too early to say how much oil has leaked," the company said in a statement. Statoil said equipment was on hand to address the spill and relevant authorities had been notified. There was no word on the spill from the nation's Petroleum Safety Authority. Statoil shut down its Statfjord C rig in January 2014 after emergency systems detected an oil leak. The 270 members of the Statfjord C crew were evacuated to lifeboats but returned to their living quarters later in the day. No injuries were reported. Statoil said the weather in the area at the time of the Stratfjord C incident was "harsh." Statoil said the region is producing an average 80,000 barrels of oil per day.

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