Intersex Fish and Water Pollution
Sep 15 at 5:05pm by Aileen
Back in February of 2008 the U.S. Geological Survey [USGS] conducted research on smallmouth bass in the Potomac River basin, finding that 80-100% of the fish collected from the Shenandoah were intersex. Meaning that males of the species had testicular oocytes [TO], or immature female egg cells in the testes.
The USGS researchers also documented that the highest prevalence of TO came attached to areas with the highest human populations and most intensive farming activity. This type of birth defect is connected to environmental exposures to endocrine disrupters (hormone precursors that affect the endocrine system), which are found in most agricultural pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers, and in many human/animal drugs. The prevalence of intersex had been at that time documented in other wild fish populations, including spot-tail shiners in the St. Lawrence, white suckers in Colorado, shovelnose sturgeon in the Mississippi, white perch in the Great Lakes, and in several species in the UK, Europe, Africa and Japan.
Intersex associated with endocrine disrupters in wastewater and farm runoff is nothing new, as reproductive anomalies in amphibians has been on the rise especially in farming regions for decades. Now the USGS has published new results of research on intersex in bass in the journal Aquatic Toxicology. They found that a third of all male smallmouth bass and a fifth of all male largemouth bass tested were intersex. The fish came from many different rivers and basins, including the Apalachicola, Colorado, Columbia, Rio Grande, Savannah, Pee Dee and Yukon. The Yukon is the only river basin where researchers found no intersex fish.
The Pee Dee river basin appears to have the biggest problem, though intersex bass are prevalent throughout the agricultural southeast. Relatively high incidence of intersex was also found in the lower Rio Grande basin, the Colorado and Gila in Arizona, and the Colorado basin. Lead author and USGS biologist Jo Ellen Hink suggested that “the widespread occurrence of intersex in fish would be a critical environmental concern.”
Well, duh. Any prognostications on when (or if) EPA and the USDA might get around to being critically concerned about it? Will “Intersex” become the new macho?
Forest Management vs. Carbon Sequestration
Jul 13 at 3:03pm by Aileen
If you or someone you know has chosen to live in or surrounded by forest – or just maintains a vacation cabin in such a setting – you are probably aware of the threat that wildfires present to property in those settings. And as the population has spread in many states out into more forested regions, many states and the federal government have undertaken forest fire prevention efforts to lessen the impact of such fires.
In the Pacific Northwest and elsewhere plans for fire prevention have included the idea of fuel reduction. This means thinning the forests and eliminating much of the understory growth. A recent study from Oregon State University sought to quantify the carbon sequestration and CO2 impacts of such a plan, and how these things affect global climate change.
Forest Fire Prevention Efforts Could Lessen Carbon Sequestration, Add to Global Warming details the issues and the report. The report’s authors came to a somewhat surprising conclusion:
“If fuel reduction treatments are effective in reducing fire severities in the western hamlock, Douglas-fir forests of the west Cascades and the western hemlock, Sitka spruce forests of the Coast Range, it will come at the cost of long-term carbon storage, even if harvested material are used as biofuels.”
The idea of using the plants and trees removed from the forest to lessen fire severity as raw material for biofuels was previously thought to offset the carbon sequestration costs of taking those trees. But it turns out that the production of biofuels isn’t very fossil fuel efficient and that the amount of energy returned doesn’t add up to the amount of energy used.
The kind of material at issue that would be harvested from the forests doesn’t produce good biodiesel fuel, which is better produced from oil-crops and such. Woody trees and shrubs are best used to make ethanol, but that process isn’t yet efficient enough to offset itself.
Another recent OSU study concluded that if the old forests of the Pacific Northwest were left alone or managed exclusively to promote carbon sequestration, they could double the amount of sequestration in many areas, even triple it in some other areas.
Bottom line then appears to be that if you build your house or vacation cabin in the old growth forests of the PNW, you shouldn’t expect to have the state or feds manage that forest so your property isn’t at risk from forest fires. Still, to many people the time spent in such abundant natural surroundings is worth the risk.
White Roofs to Mitigate Global Warming?
Jun 15 at 9:09pm by Aileen
The Washington Post reported on a recent talk by Energy Secretary Steven Chu that white rooftops may help slow global warming by reflecting sunlight instead of absorbing it. Perhaps even better, white roofs cut energy consumption for cooling by an almost equal percentage.
Climate scientists say the reflective properties of white are so much greater than gray, black, green or any other color, that simply by putting white roofs on enough buildings and houses we could buy the time we need to make other necessary changes to combat global warming. In fact, the energy savings alone on air conditioning caused the state of California to begin requiring that most new flat-roofed buildings have reflective roofs, and retail giant Walmart has installed them on 75% of its stores in the United States. Even Washington, D.C. has gone so far as to require than new flat roofs be covered either in vegetation or have reflective roofs for the energy savings alone.
The Environmental Protection Agency offers good information and cost analysis for reflective roofing products on its Energy Star website with multiple links to manufacturers, resources and data.
Secretary Chu emphasized in his speech that the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory conducted research demonstrating that if just 63% of the roofs in 100 large cities and tropical/temperate areas worldwide were white, the effect would provide the same climate benefits as taking all the cars in the world off the road for a full decade. That’s considerable, and definitely worth the effort.
Biofuels: Something Even Better Than Corn or Switchgrass
Aug 4 at 10:10pm by Aileen
University of Illinois crop sciences researchers released results of the largest-ever field trial of its kind in the US for growing a giant perennial grass Miscanthus x giganteus, reporting that this crop could significantly reduce the acreage necessary to meet government biofuels production goals.
Rather than re-dedicating a full 25% of US cropland to biofuels – something that would put a serious dent in food production and increase the price of everything grown – Miscanthus would require re-dedication of just 9.3% of current agricultural acreage. The findings were reported in the August issue of the journal Global Change Biology.
Researchers were judging raw amount of biomass generated each year from this perennial (meaning it regrows itself every season from roots without reseeding), and you can see from the accompanying photo that this grass takes up some vertical room. Even better, Miscanthus requires fewer chemical and mechanical inputs than corn, which is a consideration for water quality and soil fertility. Moreover, in many parts of the country farmers could reap two or more ‘crops’ a year (by mowing, as with hay). Highest productivity, in fact, came from the south in the poorest of agricultural soils. Thus Miscanthus may be a very good crop for marginal land and land not even used for crop production at present, which would lower its demand on food producing cropland further.
Miscanthus also serves as a ‘carbon sink’, accumulating and binding carbon in the soil at greater efficiency than any annual crops, such as the great biomass annual industrial hemp. Which is also a good biomass crop for fuels, fiber, oil and land conservation.
Perhaps some combination of alternatives may yet allow independence from fossil fuels, and that comes with improvements in global warming, general civilizational peace and prosperity, etc. If we were to plan ways to power our homes, churches, community buildings and businesses while at the same time developing biofuels for transportation and shipping, we might find the world economy and standards of living rising quickly instead of falling fast.
It would seem that we do still have some useful scientific creativity and inventiveness to offer the world in these trying times. All we need to do now is see to it that Big Oil doesn’t shove it all under the rug, and that we get the necessary government investments in these technologies.
Links:
Giant Grass Miscanthus Can Meet US Biofuels Goal Using Less Land
Hemp: Our Original Industrial Crop
MIT Scientist Offers Solar RevolutionThe ‘08 Farm Bill and Improving America’s Diet
Jun 2 at 4:04pm by Aileen
The 2007 Farm Bill – now the 2008 Farm Bill, was passed by both chambers of Congress, vetoed by President Bush, then the veto was overridden by both houses and is now the ‘Law of the Land’. Politically, the bill isn’t perfect, there is still too much pork and payments to rich agribusiness concerns for their poor farming practices, and not enough clarifying guidelines for biofuels production and organic farming.
But it’s a lot better than no bill at all, which would have kept the last support bill in place for the foreseeable future. The new bill has incentives to clean up residue discharges in important watersheds, and supports for best practices in crop rotations, cover crops and low-chemical input farming. It’s still strong on commodity production (corn, wheat, rice), but does put some real support into farmer’s market promotions and expansion of organic markets. It does somewhat limit subsidies to near-millionaire commodity farmers, requires more fresh fruit and vegetables to be available in schools, increases food stamp benefits as tied to the price of food, allots priority funding to research into the bee die-off situation, and supports rural enterprise and microenterprise investments.
Research into the “typical American diet” and its relationship to serious health issues and obesity informs us that Americans eat way too much junk and not nearly enough healthy food. Which, in a country that rations health care by income level and allows insurance companies to exclude people who actually need health care, would seem to be an important issue to address with education and real food availability in public institutions such as schools.
Read the rest of this entry »Holy Hitchcock, Batman!
May 14 at 6:06pm by Aileen
More ‘Weird Science News’ today. Seems that the burgeoning raven population in the UK – where ravens were once very rare and are still a protected species – has recently taken to forming large gangs and killing farm livestock in Scotland, Wales and some parts of England.
Now, ravens are the smartest of birds. According to scientific researchers, they’re right up there with dogs and primates on the intelligence scale, and like some parrots can even learn to speak human languages. Just ask Edgar Allen Poe! And while ravens are carrion-eaters mostly, they are known to be birds of prey that will attack rabbits and other small critters. Their beaks are sharp and sickle-shaped, their talons are muscular. They get to be about two feet long, and are extraordinary aerial acrobats. They are also the primary bad guys in Daphne du Mourier’s classic horror novel The Birds, as made into the film classic of the same name by Alfred Hitchcock. There have been some B-movie reprises too, though they shall remain nameless (so as not to reveal my personal addiction to B-grade horror movies).
We get raven gangs here in the southern Appalachians. During one memorable grandchild birthday party they descended to steal as many of a scattered bag of lemon drops as they possibly could, then became furious when those hard candies stuck their beaks together with a mass of yellow goo. We laughed and laughed, they didn’t think it was the least bit funny. Probably a good thing they didn’t decide to attack, now that I know they’re killers!
Check out the story from Britain’s Daily Mail about these killer raven gangs. Seems farmers are losing their newborn lambs as fast as they’re born, and now the ravens have started going after calves and even full-grown sheep!
While I suspect recent UK policies to immediately cremate dead livestock (imposed due to fears of Mad Cow and such) has led to some hungry ravens doing whatever they have to do to survive without ready carrion, I hope they don’t decide to decimate raven populations again. These really are spectacular birds.
Where Have All the Salmon Gone?
May 5 at 4:04pm by Aileen
A declaration of commercial fishery failure by Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez has paved the way for Congress to allot funds for alleviating financial hardship among the West Coast’s commercial Chinook salmon fishing industry off California and Oregon. The crisis has been building steadily every year since 2000, culminating in this latest action – the commercial salmon fishing industry has essentially been shut down.
National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration [NOAA] researchers suggest that changes in ocean conditions – possibly due to global warming – are to blame, along with loss of freshwater habitat for salmon spawning, a chronic problem.
There will be some coho salmon fishing allowed off the coast of Washington and northern Oregon, but there will be financial hardship in that industry as well due to strict limits. This crisis has been building for years, attempts along the way to mitigate it have proven to exacerbate the situation, such as the introduction of farmed salmon. Fish stock collapses in traditionally abundant fisheries off both coasts and elsewhere in the world bode ill for the seafood component of the human food supply, just as the worldwide food crisis heats up around the world for staple crops like corn and wheat and rice.
We could be beyond a tipping point right now, and things could get a bit more than just ‘interesting’ over the next months. Will science be able to come to the rescue, or will it remain helpless to mitigate the collapse of world food supplies? Stay tuned…
Links:
“Fishery Failure” Declared for West Coast Salmon Fishery
Hatchery Controversy Takes on New Significance as Wild Chinook Populations Crash
Escaped Farmed Salmon Infiltrate Fitter Wild Populations
Dramatic Declines in Wild Salmon Populations Linked to Farmed SalmonBiotech Propaganda Meets Scientific Reality
Apr 29 at 6:06pm by Aileen
In its mad bid to privatize and control the world’s agriculture and food supply with its patented biotech seeds and cushy revolving door within governmental regulatory agencies, Monsanto cannot be very happy with a recent Soil Association report that shows GM crops decrease yields, whether it’s cotton or soybeans or corn.
As reported in The Washington Post, the biotech industry immediately released yet another bought-and-paid-for report claiming totally opposite conclusions (some things don’t change just because the science is against you). The Soil Association report took a serious look at reality, something quite refreshing in this field. The material included among other citations:
• a 2007 study from Kansas State University that showed Roundup Ready soy has suffered “yield drag” since it was introduced, producing an average of 9-25% less per acre than conventional soy.
• a rigorous independent US study under controlled conditions demonstrating that Bt corn yields up to 12% less than conventional corn.
• an article in Nature Biotechnology reporting that Bt cotton doesn’t even express the engineered pesticide in 25% of some varieties sold under exclusive license.
The crop failures and their tragic effects on farmers in poorer nations may be a product of the technology itself according to some analysts.
Read the rest of this entry »50 Weird Science Tidbits – 3
Feb 13 at 6:06pm by Aileen
Part 3: Items 21-30
Getting us past the halfway point in this series of things odd and quite possibly unknown, I’m going to go with some odd and interesting plant and animal facts, including an in-development “designer” breed of cat that just might steal my heart away from Maine Coons…
21. Did Tom Sawyer know these were under the raft?
These 7-foot, 220-pound Mississippi paddlefish are among the world’s biggest freshwater animals. Kin to sturgeon, they’re popular sources of meat and roe for caviar.
22. Designer Way to Help Endangered TigersMeet the Toyger! Breeding programs began in the 1980s to develop a breed of house cat that strongly resembles the mightiest of big cats. In 1993 Toygers were first registered with the International Cat Association [TICA], and now boasts grand champions. Must. Have. One…
Read the rest of this entry »Worried About Global Warming? Don’t Get Divorced!
Dec 6 at 8:08pm by Aileen
Researchers Jianguo “Jack” Liu and Eunice Yu at Michigan State University have published data in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science demonstrating that getting divorced isn’t a ‘Green’ thing to do.
Soaring global divorce rates – even in places with strict religious policies against it – are driving urban sprawl and increasing consumption of resources like water and fuel for electricity.
Liu and Yu started with the obvious – when a couple divorces they require two housing units instead of one, even if the children share time at each. These require resources to construct and they take up space. They require fuel to heat and cool. The story in Science Daily, A Really Inconvenient Truth, notes that a refrigerator uses roughly the same amount of energy whether it belongs to one person or to a family. Among the findings when they started digging deeper:
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