Oil Spill: Dead Sea Turtles Washing Up Along Gulf Coast
Dead sea turtles are starting to wash up along the Gulf Coast. Moby Solangi from the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies says they have not found oil directly on the sea turtles. He says they will have to peform necropsies on the turtles to determine cause of death. Moby Solangi says they found six dead sea turtles Saturday and ten more Sunday. Take a look:
It is sad to sea dead turtles washing up on shore. Unfortunately, it could be a sight that repeats itself in the coming days. A significant loss of wildlife is expected with this massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The exact amount of oil that has been released by the underwater oil well is unclear, but it could be worse than the Exxon Valdez. The Oil Drum has an interesting explanation here about how the oil industry tries to remove oil from rock deep in the Gulf of Mexico.
NASA to Search for Signs of Life in Our Solar System
CNN's John Roberts talked to Jim Green, Director, Planetary Science Division, about NASA's new efforts at finding and understanding life outside of Earth. The mission comes as Stephen Hawking warns that alien contact could be dangerous. The missions NASA plans to run aren't likely to result in dangerous alien contact. They are looking for tiny signs of life on the moons of planets in our solar system. Jim Green says Europa may be one of the most promising prospects, because it contains so much water. You can find out more about NASA's plans to search our solar system at solarsystem.nasa.gov. Take a look:
Researchers: 361 to 38,000 Intelligent Civilizations in our Galaxy
The BBC reports that report in the International Journal of Astrobiology estimates the number of intelligent civilizations in our galaxy is somewhere between 361 and 38,000. The researchers think there are at least 361 intelligent civizations but there could be as many as 38,000.
The current research estimates that there are at least 361 intelligent civilisations in our Galaxy and possibly as many as 38,000.
The work is reported in the International Journal of Astrobiology.
Even with the higher of the two estimates, however, it is not very likely that contact could be established with alien worlds.
While researchers often come up with overall estimates of the likelihood of intelligent life in the universe, it is a process fraught with guesswork; recent guesses put the number anywhere between a million and less than one.
"It's a process of quantifying our ignorance," said Duncan Forgan, the University of Edinburgh researcher who carried out the work.
It's quite a wide range. It may not be very easy to identify intelligent life because it could be very different from human life. The head of the research team, Duncan Forgan, said, "Even if alien life forms do exist, we may not necessarily be able to make contact with them, and we have no idea what form they would take."
An ambitious project called the Encyclopedia of Life, located at www.eol.org, aims to provide information about all life on Earth. The BBC reports that all life forms from aardvark to zorilla will be included. The goal of the project is to detail all 1.8 million planet and animal species in a massive database.
The Encyclopedia of Life project aims to detail all 1.8 million known plant and animal species in a net archive.
Individual species pages will include photographs, video, sound and maps, collected and written by experts.
The archive, to be built over 10 years, could help conservation efforts as well as being a useful tool for education.
"The Encyclopedia of Life will provide valuable biodiversity and conservation information to anyone, anywhere, at any time," said Dr James Edwards, executive director of the $100m (£50m) project.
"[It] will ultimately make high-quality, well-organized information available on an unprecedented level."
The vast database will initially concentrate on animals, plants and fungi with microbes to follow. Fossil species may eventually be added.
Here is a video for the Encyclopedia of Life.
The EOL database has been ongoing since 2006. The project was initially hosted at the San Diego Supercomputer Center. The old website can be found here. Another project attempting to record information about species is called the Barcode of Life Data Systems (BOLD).
MSNBC.com reports that a treasure trove of marine life has been discovered off the coast of New Guinea. Researchers are calling it "the most biodiverse marine area on the planet."
"Six of our survey sites, which are areas the size of two football fields, had over 250 species of reef-building coral each - that's more than four times the number of coral species of the entire Caribbean Sea," he added.
The entire area covers 45 million acres off a peninsula in northwest New Guinea. Researchers have counted 1,200 species of fish there and 600 species of reef-building coral - the latter equal to 75 percent of the world's known total.
One of the new species is a variety of "walking shark" or epaulette shark.
During two surveys earlier this year, Conservation International and Indonesian experts found at least 36 new species of fish, coral and mantis shrimp in the waters, which are peppered with 2,500 islands and submerged reefs. The area also includes the largest Pacific leatherback turtle nesting area in the world, and is visited by whales, orcas and several dolphin species.
Two of the new species are members of the epaulette shark family, which distinguishes itself by sometimes using its fins to scamper away. Their name comes from the fact that they have two large round spots near their heads that look like epaulettes, the shoulder ornaments on military uniforms.
As is typical in our overpopulated world even remote areas like this face threats. Commercial fishing and the use of dynamite and cyanide during fishing are a couple of the threats facing the amazing find. More information and photos of the region can be found here on the Conservation International website. Conservation International calls the region the Bird's Head Seascape, located off the coast of Indonesia's Papua Province.
Wiredreports on a documentary project by National Geograpic to create fictitious alien life forms for a planet called Aurelia and lunar orb called Blue Moon. The creatures were created using scientific principles and knowledge of evolutionary patterns.
Sounds like a pair of scenes ripped from your standard off-world fantasy novel, except the science behind these alien planets isn't fiction. Aurelia and Blue Moon are based on computer models created by NASA and SETI Project researchers to help identify which stars among the universe's 70 sextillion are most likely to support life. CGI representations of the worlds first appeared in a National Geographic documentary; the film and related interactive simulations are on display through February at the London Science Museum. A US tour is planned for this fall.
Scientists began with the essential ingredient for life: They assumed both worlds in the exhibit contained water. They then used as blueprints two scenarios formulated by the SETI Project. The first is a planet orbiting a sun close enough to keep water from freezing out, yet far enough away to avoid evaporation. The other is a moon orbiting a gas giant and warmed by twin suns.
To make the worlds as realistic as possible, SETI astrophysicist Laurance Doyle and NASA researcher Manoj Joshi ran detailed climate simulations on a desktop Linux box. The sims allowed the scientists to observe the consequences on habitability of a range of complex atmospheric variables like thermal circulation and precipitation levels. Next, a group of life scientists, led by University of Cambridge paleobiologist Simon Conway Morris, applied the principles of natural selection and adaptation to populate the planets. They determined creature leg lengths and wingspans using biomechanics algorithms, and they established vegetation height and characteristics according to factors like available light and the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
"Implicit in these biospheres is the concept of evolution," says Conway Morris. As a result, the inhabitants of Aurelia and Blue Moon look more like something that might be encountered on the Galapagos Islands than at the cineplex. The life-forms on these pages illustrate realistic adaptations to an environment. Adaptations that almost - but not quite - befit creatures right here at home.
Wikipedia also has an entry on this subject and says the creatures and planets were explained in a two-part series called Alien Worlds. However, the National Geographic website says the show is called Extraterrestrial. You can see photos and previews here.
The BBC reports that an area rich in previously undiscovered species of fish and other sea life has been on atoll near Saba Island in the Carribbean.
The dives took place during the first two weeks of January, and involved a scientific team of 12 from Conservation International, the Netherlands Antilles government and the Smithsonian Institution's Museum of Natural History, as well as local fisherman.
Scientists chose to explore the area because although it was predicted to have high concentrations of marine life, only a small number of species had been reported.
During the dives, the researchers counted a total of 200 species of fish, over 150 more than previously known.
Among their find were two new species of fish, both gobies, which have the distinctive feature of fused pelvic fins on the underside of their body which forms a sucker.
"Many [gobies] live in the canals inside sponges, so we take samples out of sponges, and open the canals up to search for the small fish that can be in there," explained Dr Smith, a scientist on the expedition from Conservation International.
Unfortunately, the hotspot is at risk from anchors the size of offices that drop from supertankers crushing coral and marine life. The BBC article says scientists are working to the get the area designated as a Particularly Sensitive Sea Area (PSSA) by the International Marine Organizaton (IMO). The BBC provides several pictures of the marine life discovery here.
The BBC is reporting that rare discovery of a new animal in the central forests of Borneo. BBC says the discovery was made by a conservation group.
The WWF says there is an urgent need to conserve forests in south-east Asia which are under pressure from logging and the palm oil trade.
The creature, believed to be carnivorous, was spotted in the Kayan Mentarang National Park, which lies in Indonesian territory on Borneo.
The team which discovered it, led by biologist Stephan Wulffraat, is publishing full details in a new book on Borneo and its wildlife.
"You don't find new mammals that often, and to do so must be extraordinary," said Callum Rankine, head of the species programme at WWF-UK.
The new creature was found with a camera trap that took photographs of the animal as it crossed over an infra-red beam. The sad part of the discovery is that it may have been because this part of the forest is threatened by man's expansion. The WWF is concerned that unknown species may go extinct before being discovered. Their concern appears to warranted. Will the new creature be named after biologist's Stephan Wulffraat? That remains to be seen.
Synthetic biologists combine genetic molecules to create an organism. Live Science says scientists have already created a polio virus from scratch and our now moving onto more complex and novel organisms.
In Israel, scientists have created the world's smallest computer by engineering DNA to carry out mathematical functions.
J. Craig Venter, the entrepreneurial scientist who mapped the human genome, announced last month that he intends to string together genes to create from scratch novel organisms that can produce alternative fuels such as hydrogen and ethanol.
With a $42.6 million grant that originated at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Berkeley researchers are creating a new malaria drug by removing genetic material of the E. coli bacterium and replacing it with genes from wormwood and yeast.
While that research sounds promising with any new technology there is always a risk. The risk with synthetic biology is that rogue scientists could use it to create dangerous organisms in the lab.
For example, national security experts and even synthetic biologists themselves fret that rogue scientists or "biohackers'' could create new biological weapons -- like deadly viruses that lack natural foes. They also worry about innocent mistakes -- organisms that could potentially create havoc if allowed to reproduce outside the lab.
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