A CURATED COLLECTION OF SCIENCE FACTS AND DELICIOUS FICTIONS !
Showing posts with label science fact. Show all posts
Showing posts with label science fact. Show all posts

2/11/25

DOLPHINS FOUND TO HAVE FENTANYL IN THEIR BODIES and OTHER DRUGS

SCIENCE ALERT : DOLPHINS WITH FENTANYL IN THEIR BODIES

Excerpts: The researchers found fentanyl — a painkiller 100 times more powerful than morphine – in 24 of the samples, including all post-mortem specimens taken from the six dolphins that had died. The sedative meprobamate and the skeletal muscle relaxant carisoprodol were also found in the marine mammals' blubber.

More than a quarter of Earth's rivers have also been found to contain pharmaceuticals at levels higher than what's considered safe for aquatic organisms, with their waters contributing to concentrations of pollutants in marine environments.

Siren here! I feel sick!

7/28/23

SEA TURTLES CAN TALK! GABRIEL JORGEWICH-COHEN'S RESEARCH PROVES IT and THE ORIGIN OF VOCALIZATION IN ANIMALS

SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN : CHATTY TURTLES and THE EVOLUTION OF ANIMAL VOCALIZATION 

Listen to the clicks and grunts at this link.

Excerpt:  Gabriel Jorgewich-Cohen:  I did fieldwork in the Brazilian Amazon with a researcher that published one of these first papers showing that turtles can communicate acoustically, and that inspired me.  So I went back home, and I got a piece of equipment, and I started recording my own pets.  And I discovered that they were producing sounds as well, and the species I had were not known to produce sounds......


11/12/22

THE GENERATOR THAT TURNS PLASTIC TRASH INTO EDIBLE PROTEIN : THE FUTURE INSIGHT PRIZE

NEWSWEEK - GENERATOR - PLATIC - PROTEIN By Georgina Jadikovskaall from a bit more than a year ago,

Excerot: Two U.S. scientists have won a 1 million euro ($1.18 million) prize for creating a generator conet that turns plastics into protein.

The 2021 Future Insight Prize went to Ting Lu, a professor of bioengineering at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and Stephen Techtmann, associate pofessor of biological Sciences at Michigan Technological University, for their project.  It used microbes to degrade plastic. 



MORE INFORMATION ON THE FUTURE INSIGHT PRIZE:

MERCK - FUTURE INSIGHT PRIZE

2/12/15

SIX FOOT LONG EEL LIKE FRILL SHARK CALLED "A LIVING FOSSIL"

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC - SHARK THAT INSPIRED SEA MONSTER MYTHS

EXCERPT:
With its gaping, tooth-filled mouth and its slender, eel-like body, it’s not hard to see why scientists think the frilled shark may have inspired ancient tales of sea monsters. Looking like something out of a nightmare, the deep-sea creature is rarely seen. But fishers in Australia pulled one up this week.

The frilled shark is often called a “living fossil” because it is thought to have changed little in about 80 million years. The fish also bears a resemblance to ancestor species that lived during the time of the dinosaurs...

 
Siren here!  There's more to read at the National Geographic Link

2/11/15

FRILL SHARK LIVING FOSSIL TURNS UP IN AUSTRALIAN FISHERMENS NET

HUFFINGTON POST - LIVING FOSSIL SHARK CAUGHT OFF AUSTRALIA

This link has photos and videos!

EXCERPT:

Fishermen in Australia were stunned last month when they hauled up a shark so strange-looking that it's been called a "living fossil"--300 teeth and all (scroll down for photos).

The super-rare frilled shark (Chlamydoselachus anguineus) showed up in the nets of a trawler operating near in waters off Victoria, Australia, The Telegraph reported.

2/4/15

HOW ROSE COLORED SEA SLUGS CAN HELP PREDICT EL NINO RAINS

INDEPENDENT : SEA SLUGS AS EL NINO FORCASTERS

EXCERPT:

Hopkins’ rose nudibranchs , as the sea slugs are known, travel as larvae at the whim of warm ocean currents, floating to the bottom as they grow during their first couple months. There they feed exclusively on a pink-colored bryozoan — a diminutive aquatic organism known as a “moss animal” that clusters in colonies — which grows all the way up to British Columbia and imparts the Okenia rosacea‘s remarkable color. Goddard knew that spotting the nudibranchs in high numbers near Morro Bay in mid-January was significant, since they usually hunt down in Southern California. They reminded him of the flourishing pink populations he’d seen near Santa Cruz during 1977’s weak El NiƱo.

After Morro, Goddard headed up to Monterey to check the tidepools. Along with reports from researchers at UC Santa Cruz, the Bodega Marine Laboratory, and San Francisco’s California Academy of Sciences, his hypothesis was confirmed: The little creatures were everywhere, as far north as Humboldt — sometimes by the dozens per square meter....

11/7/14

COMING UP - SOME ARTICLES THAT INVOLVE THE LATEST AMAZING SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY

These days it's easy to bring up articles of interest on your cell phone or news feed. However, the articles I'm posting to are the ones I found the most interesting our of many.  For the next couple weeks at least I'll be posting articles about sea life and the ocean that involve the latest amazing science technology. 

10/2/14

ONE GREEN PLANET REPORTS ON WHALES AND DOLPHINS IN PRISON

ONE GREEN PLANET - WHY WHALES AND DOLPHINS DO NOT BELONG IN TANKS

EXCERPT: Depression, aggression, poor dental health, self-mutilation, vomiting, suicide attempts, drugs, illnesses – don’t these all seem like signs ultimately leading to death? According to a research study conducted in 1995 by Robert Small and Douglas Demaster, the annual mortality rate for captive dolphins was two and a half times higher than that of wild cetaceans. Sadly, not much has changed since then for the benefit of captive cetaceans. While wild killer whales have been known to live as long as 80 to 90 years, only two female orcas in captivity have passed the age of 40, and no males have lived longer than 35.

9/24/14

GREY WATER ! WHAT IS IT?

GREYWATER.COM  some points:

Greywater contains far less nitrogen than blackwater

Nine-tenths of the nitrogen contained in combined wastewater derives from toilet wastes (i.e., from the blackwater). Nitrogen is one of the most serious and difficult-to-remove pollutants affecting our potential drinking water supply.

Greywater contains far fewer pathogens than blackwaterMedical and public health professionals view feces as the most significant source of human pathogens. Keeping toilet wastes out of the wastewater stream dramatically reduces the danger of spreading such organisms via water.

Greywater decomposes much faster than blackwaterThe implication of the more rapid decomposition of greywater pollutants is the quicker stabilization and therefore enhanced prevention of water pollution.

*****
Can you use bath water or dish sink water to water your plants?  Yes, with provisions!

9/21/14

WHALE ORAGAMI PROJECT II







OK... this is from Dover Publishing, and we are allowed to post this as a Free Use item because this is a noncommercial site... get your whale colored papers out! (Black, gray, white, all shades of blue, maybe some pink?!)

9/18/14

KILLER WHALE POPULATION IN PUGET SOUND WASHINGTON SEVERLY ENDANGERED

NEWS MAINE: ALARMING KILLER WHALE POPULATION DECREASE  by Felix Balthasar

EXCERPT: The population of endangered killer whales in the Puget Sound, off the US state of Washington, is on the decline so much so that their current recorded number is the lowest in the last 29 years. Birth of no new calves since 2012 and the natural death of two adult whales can be blamed for the decline.

9/13/14

DID HUMANS EVOLVE TO BE AWAKE ON FULL MOON NIGHTS TO COLLECT SEAFOOD?

DAILY MAIL HEALTH - FULL MOON -TIDES- SEAFOOD  full interesting article by Pat Hagan

EXCERPT:

In a report on their findings they said: ‘It cannot be excluded that the change in the electromagnetic radiation, or the gravitational 'pull off' of the moon during this phase, may influence the release of neurohormones.
 
‘Several observations suggest the lunar tidal force affects certain biochemical processes.
 
‘The solar radiation reflected by the full moon and the lunar tidal force might modify brain activity.’
 
But Professor Jim Horne, former head of the Sleep Research Centre at Loughborough University, said it may simply be that humans evolved to stay awake on moonlit nights in order to capture seafood exposed on shorelines.
 
‘At least some of our early human ancestors lived by estuaries, where life was very dependent on the tides in terms of seafood.
 
‘A full moon means particularly high ‘spring’ tides and with the extra moonlight as well it would be worthwhile sacrificing some sleep at night for more food.’
 

7/8/14

AQUANAUT FABIEN COUSTEAU BACK ON DRY LAND AFTER 31 DAYS UNDERWATER!

MASHABLE - FABIEN COUSTEAU 31 DAYS UNDER WATER

The 46-year-old ocean explorer and documentary filmmaker finished his stint in an underwater lab 63 feet deep off the coast of Key Largo, Florida, on Wednesday, rising to the surface after a brief layover in a decompression unit. The project, called Mission 31, provided a platform to study oceanic pollution and climate change and their impact on wildlife, as well as to conduct scientific experiments on coral reef.

6/24/14

IS THERE AN UNDERWATER CITY 6 MILES OFF THE COAST OF MALIBU?

HUFF POST: TRUTH MALIBU UNDERWATER ALIEN BASE

An excellent article by Lee Speigel explores a large strange formation like an undersea plateau that was discovered by viewers of Google Earth.  Are Aliens living under there in a city or does science explain best?

An excerpt: "

"I didn't see anything special about it. I think it's because it looks like there's a flat surface and then, below it, it looks like there are these vertical columns, so somebody can say, 'Oh, this is the entryway to something special,'" said earthquake geologist David Schwartz of the U.S. Geological Survey.

"I think it's natural and is a part of the continental shelf," Schwartz told HuffPost. "It's just a complicated part of what's now offshore that has seen some erosion and, maybe, slumping when perhaps this was partially exposed when sea level was lower. This is a really major earthquake area and perhaps some of these features are a result of slope failures, due to shaking..."

6/4/14

SEA LEVELS ARE RISING! WILL YOUR CITY BE 10 FEET UNDER WATER? CHECK THIS SITE MAP!

SEALEVEL - CLIMATECENTRAL- MAP  go to the map and see how deep under your city will be.

"Global warming has raised global sea level about 8 inches since 1880, and the rate of rise is accelerating. Rising seas dramatically increase the odds of damaging floods from storm surges. A Climate Central analysis finds the odds of “century” or worse floods occurring by 2030 are on track to double or more, over widespread areas of the U.S. These increases threaten an enormous amount of damage. Across the country, nearly 5 million people live in 2.6 million homes at less than 4 feet above high tide — a level lower than the century flood line for most locations analyzed. And compounding this risk, scientists expect roughly 2 to 7 more feet of sea level rise this century — a lot depending upon how much more heat-trapping pollution humanity puts into the sky."

5/24/14

HAS COLUMBUS' SHIP THE SANTA MARIA WRECK FOUND OFF HAITI?

WASHINGTON POST : SHIPWRECK OFF HAITI - SANTA MARIA  inc video

Off the northern coast of Haiti and in only 10 to 15 feet of water...1492...a 15th century cannon.

"Explorer Barry Clifford said evidence that the wreck is the Santa Maria, which struck a reef and foundered on Christmas Day in 1492, includes ballast stones that appear to have come from Spain or Portugal and what looks like a 15th century cannon that was at the site during an initial inspection but has since disappeared."   ... "Kevin Crisman, director of the Center for Maritime Archaeology and Conservation at Texas A&M University, said many Spanish ships sunk off Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and it will be difficult to confirm that this is the Santa Maria. The ship sank slowly in 1492 and the crew had time to strip it and remove valuable items that would help document the identity of the vessel."