It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Wednesday, August 05, 2020
FINTEC
Google Pay partners with six banks to offer mobile checking accounts next year
by Dalvin Brown, Usa Today
Credit: CC0 Public Domain
Google is expanding its push into financial services amid a nationwide shift toward online banking.
The search giant has partnered with half a dozen banks and will offer Google Pay users in the U.S. access to checking accounts as early as 2021, according to BBVA U.S., one of its banking partners that announced the news on Monday.
Other banks that have partnerships with Google include Bank Mobile, BMO Harris, Coastal Community Bank, First Independence Bank and SEFCU.
"Collaborations with companies like Google represent the future of banking. Consumers end up the true winners when finance and big tech work together for their benefit," said Javier Rodríguez Soler, president and CEO at BBVA, in a statement.
The move also gives the search giant more data about its users as people flock toward digital banking during the pandemic.
Google Pay is a digital wallet and payment system that lets you send and receive money. It also lets you use banking information stored in your phone to pay for items in apps, online and in-person.
Under the banking collaborations, Google will focus primarily on the front-end experience and offer "financial insights", while the banks offer advanced security, BMO Harris said in a press release. The digital checking account will be built on top of BMO's existing banking infrastructure and the accounts will be FDIC-insured, the Chicago-based bank added.
Google previously announced mobile banking partnerships with Citi and SFCU as the search behemoth joined a list of big tech companies to edge further into personal financial services.
In 2019, Apple partnered with Goldman Sachs to launch Apple Card, a branded, digital card that's managed through the Wallet app on iPhones. It later sparked claims of gender discrimination. And Facebook designed a cryptocurrency, Libra, to allow people to move money around the world with ease. The company later scaled back plans after it faced regulatory scrutiny.Google plans to offer checking accounts
Researchers at Purdue University have developed an image- and video-based application using OpenCV algorithms that detect explosible suspended dust concentration. The app uses a camera or a video recording device to image and determine suspended dust, as well as accurately distinguish it from normal background noise. Credit: Kingsly Ambrose/Purdue University
Dust explosions can be among the most dangerous and costly workplace incidents. Dust builds up in agricultural, powder-handling or manufacturing settings, causing hazards to employees and posing the risk of exploding.
Researchers at Purdue University have developed an image- and video-based application using OpenCV algorithms that detect explosible suspended dust concentration.
The Purdue team's work is published in the Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries.
The app uses a camera or a video recording device to image and determine suspended dust, as well as accurately distinguish it from normal background noise.
"Determining suspended dust concentration allows employers to take appropriate safety measures before any location within the industry forms into an explosive atmosphere," said Kingsly Ambrose, an associate professor of agricultural and biological engineering who leads the research team. "I believe this technology could help prevent dust explosions and will be of great benefit to the industry."
Ambrose said current technology for detecting dust levels is inconvenient because it is expensive, difficult to install in a workspace and separates dust matter into multiple filters that must be weighed and further manipulated for analysis.
Ambrose said that in testing, the algorithm successfully recognized 95% of saw dust and 93% of cornstarch particulates in the air.
"This technology is unique because it is easy to use without extended training, location independent and does not require permanent installations," Ambrose said.
More information: Yumeng Zhao et al, A real-time method for sensing suspended dust concentration from the light extinction coefficient, Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries (2020). DOI: 10.1016/j.jlp.2020.104242
Ambrose and the team have worked with the Purdue Research Foundation Office of Technology Commercialization to patent the technology. They are looking to license it and are seeking collaborators for further development. For more information, contact Abhijit Karve of OTC at aakarve@prf.org and reference track code 2020-AMBR-68881.
A University of Delaware study has identified two prime East Coast locations for marshalling ports in Delaware Bay — sites with the acreage, area and access to support the infrastructure required for deploying offshore wind farms. Credit: University of Delaware
The United States offshore wind energy industry is growing, with planned commitments to build 26 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind projects along the East Coast from now through 2035. This is the clean power equivalent of 26 nuclear power plants, or roughly 10 times the average electric energy used by the entire state of Delaware.
Marshalling ports, large waterside sites with the acreage and weight-carrying capacity necessary to assemble, house and deploy the huge wind turbines ready to ship out into the ocean, will be critical to meeting this current and committed demand for offshore wind.
Yet few viable port sites exist along the East Coast that have clear overhead access from port to sea to transport these large turbines—each larger than the Statue of Liberty—and channels deep enough to accommodate the vessels that carry them. Those that do are small in area and will not be able to fully support the existing demand for turbine deployment. Nor will they be able to efficiently deploy turbines that are ever-increasing in size, as the industry starts to look beyond the 8 megawatt (MW) turbine to 12 and 15 MW.
A team of University of Delaware undergraduate students, advised by UD Professor Willett Kempton and energy policy analyst and doctoral candidate Sara Parkison, recently released a report identifying two ideal locations for a marshalling port in the Delaware Bay. The proposed locations include a Delaware site situated north of Delaware City near the Occidental Chemical Corporation, and a location on land transferred from the Army Corps of Engineers around Salem, New Jersey.
The UD students, most of whom graduated in May 2020, worked together for over a year to evaluate the viability and logistics of developing marshalling ports in the Delaware Bay to service the offshore wind sector, as part of the Office of Economic Innovation and Partnership's Spin In program.
According to the UD report, both sites have the potential to service offshore wind projects as far north as Connecticut and as far south as the Carolinas, shoring up a critical link in the offshore wind production capability. Each location is large enough to build a port capable of deploying over 500 MW of clean energy annually, with ample potential to expand.
The UD report comes on the heels of a recent announcement by New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy about the Garden State's plans to begin developing an offshore wind deployment port in Salem in 2021. The announced New Jersey "Wind Port" is nearly identical to one of the two sites previously identified by Kempton and analyzed by the Spin In team. Credit: University of Delaware
"It's exciting to see New Jersey take this huge step forward in clean energy," said Kempton, associate director and co-founder of the Center for Research in Wind (CReW) and a professor in UD's College of Earth, Ocean and Environment.
However, even with the announced marshalling port in southern Jersey, the UD report shows it is likely not large enough to meet market demand for offshore wind energy by 2025. Based on existing power purchase contracts and projected demand, the Spin In team's analysis indicates that the wind industry will require over 2000 MW of deployment annually for the region beginning in 2022 and 2023. This will outpace the deployment capabilities of current and planned marshaling facilities, even with the New Jersey port.
An additional marshalling port in Delaware could provide a way forward, enabling the Delaware Bay to meet projected demand for wind power along the East Coast over the next 15 years, the researchers said. The Delaware site is already zoned for industrial use and equipped with roads and railways, a plus for access of workers and materials.
How marshalling ports work
As offshore wind turbines have grown in their capacity to provide clean energy, from an average 3 MW to the current 15 MW designs, so has their size. To build a 500 MW wind project in a year with today's 15 MW turbines requires about 50 acres for movement, storage and assembly.
To build and maintain offshore wind power projects also requires skilled people, large components and specialized installation vessels and marshalling ports. According to Kempton, the idea is to lay out all the wind turbine components in the marshalling port as items arrive on-site. Then, when all the parts are present, they can be partially assembled, loaded on special installation ships, transported and installed in an offshore wind farm.
It's a big job, as some turbine components can weigh more than 3,000 tons and each of the turbine's three blades measures 360 feet (110 meters) long. For comparison, the average blue whale (the largest mammal) weighs approximately 115 tons and is around 80-100 feet (24-30 meters) long.
Looking from the Occidental Chemical Corporation site in Delaware City, Delaware, into the Delaware Bay. Credit: University of Delaware
Each turbine installation vessel would have a deck area equipped to carry two to four turbines. On the first trip, the crew would use a crane on the boat to lift the pilings (large pipes) off the port surface and transfer them to the offshore site, then pound them into the seafloor using a pile driver. On a second trip, the crew would transfer and install the remainder of the turbine using a crane on the boat. An animation of this process can be found on the CReW website.
In reviewing New Jersey's proposed plan, Emma House and Emily Tulsky (both environmental engineering majors) called the site design "very good" but said alternative design options could include building the loading platform, or quay, off the more northern area of the location.
"The northern half of this area is the most protected from flooding and the most suitable for heavy loads in its current condition, so the land may take less time and effort to prepare for construction," said House, who is currently pursuing her master's in environmental engineering at UD.
Delaware currently does not have any offshore wind turbines, although the wind turbine installed at UD's Lewes Campus has informed wind turbine technology while providing enough clean energy annually to power the campus and about 100 homes in the community.
Spin In program
Nine students from various majors participated in the Spin In Wind Deployment Port team over the 18-month project, gaining a greater understanding of business demands and experience collaborating in teams. The students credited the interactive nature of the Spin In program and the intensive mentoring provided by Kempton and Parkison with preparing them to work directly and indirectly with various stakeholders, including developers, land owners, public officials, environmental regulators, industry and policy experts, engineers and designers and more.
OEIP Director David Weir said one thing that set this particular Spin In project apart is the impressive scope of work that the students undertook. "New Jersey's action validates and underscores the quality of the students' work," said Weir. "It wasn't just putting together a plan or technical report, it was a very detailed study that included hard core financial and technical work, coupled with interaction with the industry and policy experts, to define the best location to put this capability on the East Coast."
UD energy policy analyst and doctoral candidate Sara Parkison (left) walks with a representative of a wind turbine manufacturer to inspect a site in Delaware City for possible development as an offshore wind port. Credit: University of Delaware
Sarra Sundstrom (English and environmental studies) joined the project after visiting over a dozen offshore and nearshore wind turbines during a study abroad trip to Denmark. Denmark's successful wind power infrastructure supplies about half of the country's electricity needs.
"I see the global transition to renewable energies as both necessary and inevitable," said Sundstrom.
Zach Roy (energy and environmental policy, and political science) agreed, adding that the team's interdisciplinary collaboration and focused mindset contributed to delivering a quality end project.
"Our team was successful because we were on the same page about how much is at stake for the future, and the importance of taking action immediately," Roy said.
It is unclear if a marshalling port in Delaware will come to fruition. So far, support for wind power in Delaware has lagged behind other states in the eastern U.S. However, Kempton and Parkison continue to pursue research and policy efforts that could allow a role for wind power initiatives in Delaware, including the Delaware City location identified as an initiative that would support East Coast states that develop offshore wind projects, with ample space to expand as industry demand increases.
A study presented at Black Hat USA 2020 suggests that botnets made up of high-wattage devices such as ovens and air conditioners could be used to manipulate electric energy markets. Credit: John Toon, Georgia Tech
Evil armies of internet-connected EV chargers, ovens, hot-water heaters, air-conditioners, and other high-wattage appliances could be hijacked to slightly manipulate energy demand, potentially driving price swings and creating financial damage to deregulated energy markets, warns a new report scheduled to be presented Aug. 5 at the Black Hat U.S. 2020 conference.
By turning the compromised equipment on or off to artificially increase or decrease power demand, botnets made up of theseenergy-consuming devices might help an unscrupulous energy supplier or retailer (electric utility) alter prices to create a business advantage, or give a nation-state a way to remotely harm the economy of another country by causing financial damage to its electricity market. If done within the bounds of normal power demand variation, such an attack would be difficult to detect, the researchers said.
"If an attacker can slightly affect electricity market prices in their favor, it would be like knowing today what's going to happen in tomorrow'sstock market," said Tohid Shekari, a graduate research assistant in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "If the manipulation stays within a certain range, it would be stealthy and difficult to differentiate from a typical load forecasting error."
Believed to be the first proposed energy market manipulation cyberattack, the operation would depend on botnets composed of thousands of appliances that could be controlled centrally by attackers who had taken over their Internet of Things (IoT) controllers. Malicious actors have already demonstrated IoT botnet attacks such as Mirai, which used a network of compromised internet-connected cameras and routers to launch attacks on key internet infrastructure.
The attack, dubbed "IoT Skimmer," would be made possible by the deregulation of energy markets, which has created a system to efficiently supply electrical power. To meet the demand for electrical energy, utility companies must predict future demand and purchase power from the day-ahead wholesale energy market at competitive prices. If the predictions turn out to be wrong, the utilities may have to pay more or less for the energy they need to meet the demands of their customers by participating in the real-time market, which has more volatile prices in general. Creating erroneous demand data to manipulate forecasts could be profitable to the suppliers selling energy to meet the unexpected demand, or the retailers or utilities buying cheaper energy from the real-time market.
The researchers aren't able to determine whether such an attack might have already taken place because IoT devices—beyond being insecure—also lack the kind of monitoring that would be necessary to detect such hijacking. But they used real data sets from two of the largest U.S. energy markets—New York and California—to evaluate the feasibility of their proposed attack.
"We did a lot of simulation and mathematical analysis to show that this kind of transfer could occur," said Raheem Beyah, the Motorola Foundation Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering who is also Georgia Tech's vice president for Interdisciplinary Research and co-founder of the company Fortiphyd Logic. "We also did a feasibility analysis of the supporting areas to show that this would be possible from various perspectives."
The researchers assume that such botnets already exist, and that attackers could simply rent their use on the dark web. More than 20 million smart thermostats already exist in the North American market, and they are connected to at least one high-wattage device—a heating and air-conditioning system that could be controlled by attackers on an intermittent basis.
"If you consider all of the smart thermostats and internet-connected electric ovens, water heaters, and electric vehicle chargers that are already in use, there are plenty of devices to be compromised," Shekari said. "Homeowners would likely never notice if the EV charger turns on when electricity demand is highest, or if the air conditioning cools a little more than they expected when they are not home."
To counter the potential attack, researchers suggest both detection and prevention steps. Through integrated monitoring of the normal power use of high-wattage IoT-connected devices, unexpected peaks or valleys in power consumption triggered by an attacker could be detected. And access to data on expected energy demand—which is now made available publicly—could be restricted to those who actually need it.
The primary factor that makes this attack possible is the detailed online data sharing of electricity market information, which is usually updated every five minutes.
"This energy demand information is really a data privacy issue, and we need to think long and hard about the balance between transparency and security," Beyah said. "There's always a tension there, but limiting the amount of detail could make it more difficult for attackers who want to hide their manipulations to know what the normal variations are."
The potential attack highlights the need for considering cybersecurity threats in technology areas where they had perhaps never been possible before.
"This is an interesting intersection between the IoT security world and energy markets," said Beyah. "Right now, it seems that there is a large gap between the two worlds. Our point is that there are implications for combining IoT technology and high-wattage devices that can compromise markets in ways we would never have thought of before."
The presentation, "IoT Skimmer: Energy Market Manipulation Through High-Wattage IoT Botnets," will be presented on Wednesday, Aug. 5, at 2:30 p.m. as part of the Black Hat U.S. 2020 conference.
Thermal mud pots at Controlled Thermal Resources’ project site at the Salton Sea. Credit: CTR
Deep beneath the surface of the Salton Sea, a shallow lake in California's Imperial County, sits an immense reserve of critical metals that, if unlocked, could power the state's green economy for years to come.
These naturally occurring metals are dissolved in geothermal brine, a byproduct of geothermal energy production. Now the race is on to develop technology to efficiently extract one of the most valuable metals from the brine produced by the geothermal plants near the Salton Sea: lithium.
Lithium is a key ingredient of most batteries, and as vehicles, buildings, the grid, and other sectors increasingly go electric, global demand for lithium is expected to skyrocket in coming years, growing tenfold by 2030. Scientists at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) are working with two companies to evaluate and analyze their lithium extraction technologies. Both projects have recently been awarded grants from the California Energy Commission (CEC):
$6 million to Berkshire Hathaway Energy for a demonstration project at an existing geothermal power facility in Calipatria to produce battery-grade lithium carbonate
$1.46 million for Controlled Thermal Resources' (CTR) Hell's Kitchen Geothermal LLC for the design, construction, and operation of a pilot-scale base-metal extraction unit to be operated upstream of a lithium extraction unit.
Additionally, the CEC awarded Berkeley Lab $1.7 million for a project designed to demonstrate how seismic and electromagnetic data can map geothermal reservoirs and create enhanced imaging of their structural features to better locate and place production wells. These projects will occur at The Geysers, the world's largest producing geothermal field located in Sonoma, Lake, and Mendocino counties; and the Salton Sea, the second largest geothermal field in the U.S.
Geothermal energy—a clean, renewable source of energy in which underground reservoirs of hot water are brought to the surface—provides just under 6% of California's total electrical power generation. But the state's geothermal potential is far greater, and the CEC is working to bring that number higher to help meet California's clean energy goals.
"If there's a good process for extracting lithium and other valuable minerals from geothermal fluids, that would improve the economic calculation for geothermal energy production," said Berkeley Lab scientist Will Stringfellow, who is leading the Lab's work on the lithium extraction projects. "At Berkeley Lab we have broad experience in geothermal systems, geochemical modeling, and characterization of the chemical reactions. For these projects we're helping with experimental design, data collection and analysis, process validation, and technoeconomic analysis."
The interest in critical materials extends to the federal level as well. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recently announced $30 million in funding for next-generation technologies for extracting, separating, and processing rare-earth elements and other battery-critical materials used in clean energy technologies.
"The challenge is not simply lithium extraction. It's a complex tangle of chemical, engineering, economics, and supply chain issues," said Peter Fiske, director of Berkeley Lab's Water-Energy Resilience Research Institute. "As a multidisciplinary national lab, we have robust research programs spanning the entire ecosystem of energy storage: from geothermal energy to lithium-ion battery technology to energy systems analysis. Our expertise is well-suited to tackle this challenge and provide national security on a critical mineral needed for energy storage, which is essential for our energy future."
Silicon Valley 2.0: "Lithium Valley"
The Salton Sea Geothermal Field (SSGF) has a potential inferred lithium resource of 15 million metric tons. According to a March 2020 CEC report titled "Selective Recovery of Lithium from Geothermal Brines," the SSGF can produce more than 600,000 tons of lithium carbonate per year; at $12,000 per ton, that's $7.2 billion per year.
Developing additional geothermal energy sources will provide environmental benefits to the region, including reduced greenhouse gas emissions. Revenue from the land leases and mineral recovery is expected to support environmental restoration projects, which some sources estimate may cost between $3 billion and $9 billion, the report said.
No wonder many are dubbing the emerging industry as "Lithium Valley."
While the U.S. has not been a big player in the world's lithium market, that could change if companies can develop technologies to extract what is estimated to be an immense amount of lithium in the western U.S., including Arizona, Nevada, and California.
"California's Lithium Valley has the potential to supply 40% of global lithium demand. The CEC is committed to supporting this emerging industry and battery supply chain," said CEC Chair David Hochschild.
Although separating out the lithium from the brine that is brought to the surface during the geothermal production cycle sounds simple, it is anything but. For one thing, the brine contains a vast number of dissolved metals and minerals, a few of which are valuable—such as manganese and zinc—but most of which are not.
"I thought produced water was complex," said Stringfellow, an environmental engineer who is an expert in industrial and agricultural waste waters, including produced water, which is a byproduct of oil and gas production. "Geothermal brines are a whole other level of complexity. It's 30% solids in some cases."
A number of companies are working on lithium extraction technologies—which often involve a pretreatment process, then the lithium separation using an inorganic absorbent, then further purification—but none have been proven on a commercial scale.
Berkshire Hathaway Energy's CalEnergy operates 10 geothermal plants at the Salton Sea. With the CEC award, it aims to demonstrate its lithium separation technology at pilot scale, cost-effectively processing at least 100 gallons of geothermal brine per minute and then converting the lithium to battery-grade lithium carbonate. The company's goal is for existing geothermal power plants to reduce the cost of power production by as much as 35% by producing and selling lithium compounds.
"Successful lithium production from geothermal brine will bring another source of revenue to these geothermal plants and could become the catalyst to revive Imperial Valley's decades-old geothermal power industry, not just creating new jobs but also making the price of baseload geothermal power much more cost-effective for the benefit of Californian ratepayers," said Jonathan Weisgall, Berkshire Hathaway Energy's vice president for government relations, at the CEC's May 20 business meeting to approve the grant.
Controlled Thermal Resources (CTR), a company based in the Imperial Valley, has developed a pretreatment process to selectively remove base metals from the brine before the lithium is extracted. The lithium extraction will then be conducted using an ion-exchange resin technology from Lilac Solutions. CTR aims to demonstrate that it can produce battery-grade lithium carbonate at a production cost of less than $5,000 per metric ton.
"CTR and our project engineering consultants at Hatch have completed extensive test work and design work to demonstrate that direct lithium extraction from Salton Sea geothermal brine is competitive on a worldwide basis," CTR's Chief Executive Officer Rod Colwell said. "The opportunity to develop lithium extraction and conversion facilities that complement the latest advancements in geothermal power plant engineering will enable our team to design and construct commercial facilities that offer superior operating and economic outcomes. We look forward to working with the Berkeley Lab team as we prepare for this next evolution in renewable energy and critical minerals production in the United States."
Berkeley Lab scientists led by Stringfellow and Hanna Breunig will be involved in both projects to make sure the appropriate data is collected and analyzed to help the CEC evaluate the technologies.
Currently, the vast majority of the world's lithium is mined in Argentina, Chile, China, and Australia. The dominant method is solar evaporation of brines found in underground brine reservoirs below the surface of dried lake beds. While processing costs are low, this technique has a number of disadvantages: The process is slow (taking up to 24 months), weather-dependent, and has an extraction efficiency of only 50%.
Part of Berkeley Lab's work involves doing a technoeconomic analysis, in which it will collaborate with UC Riverside. Although a lithium extraction technology may have been demonstrated in the lab, showing that it can run economically at a large geothermal facility remains to be proven.
"Ultimately the CEC wants to see benefits to ratepayers," said Breunig, who is leading the technoeconomic work. "It can't just be about producing lithium for cars; it has to benefit the electricity grid and ratepayers. Our scope is going to be very focused on demonstrating whether there's a system efficiency that can be achieved that makes us competitive against other forms of lithium production."
Making geothermal energy more cost-effective
For the CEC project taking place at The Geysers, Berkeley Lab scientists David Alumbaugh and Michael Commer will be partnering with colleagues at the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and companies Array Information Technology and Jarpe Data Solutions to develop and test a novel geophysical imaging technology. The imaging technique employs a combination of seismic and electromagnetic signals to generate high-resolution images of the subsurface that delineate steam- versus fluid-filled regions of the reservoir. This will allow Calpine, the company that operates most of the geothermal plants at The Geysers, to improve its reservoir models.
"The more accurate it is, the better they can control the injection of water and the production of steam to optimize their energy production," said Alumbaugh. "That saves money for them and for ratepayers."
If the technique can be demonstrated, it can be applied at any geothermal field that produces steam, Alumbaugh said. It could also help in placing new production wells; one of the obstacles to expanding geothermal energy is the high upfront costs of drilling a new well.
Nearly half of California's known geothermal resources still remain untapped, according to the CEC. With these projects, it hopes to make geothermal energy more economically attractive, thus leading to higher penetration of renewable energy in California and making the grid more stable and reliable.
How tuataras live so long and can withstand cool weather Scientists have finally deciphered the rare reptiles’ genome, or genetic instruction book The tuatara (Sphenodon punctatus), a reptile whose ancestry stretches back to before the dinosaurs, is more closely related to snakes and lizards than to turtles and crocodiles, suggests the first-ever in-depth genetic analysis. SID MOSDELL/FLICKR (CC BY 2.0) By Jake Buehler
Tuataras may look like your average lizard, but they’re not. The reptiles are the last survivors of an ancient group of reptiles that flourished when dinosaurs roamed the world. Native to New Zealand, tuataras possess a range of remarkable abilities, including a century-long life span, relative imperviousness to many infectious diseases and peak physical activity at shockingly low temperatures for a reptile. Now, scientists are figuring out how, thanks to the first-ever deciphering, or sequencing, of the tuatara’s genetic instruction book.
The research reveals insights into not only the creature’s evolutionary relationship with other living reptiles but also tuataras’ longevity and their ability to withstand cool weather, researchers report August 5 in Nature.
Technically, tuataras (Sphenodon punctatus) are rhynchocephalians, an order of reptiles that were once widespread during the Mesozoic Era, 66 million to 252 million years ago. But their diversity waned over millions of years, leaving tuataras as the last of their line (SN: 10/13/03). The reptiles have long been of scientific interest because of their unclear evolutionary relationship with other reptiles, as they share traits with lizards and turtles as well as birds.
Tuataras were once found throughout New Zealand, but now survive in the wild mainly on offshore islands and are considered a vulnerable species. The reptiles have suffered from habitat loss and invasive species such as rats, and are especially imperiled by a warming climate (SN: 7/3/08).
This peril — combined with the tuatara’s cherished status as a taonga, or special treasure, to the Indigenous Maori people — led researchers to prioritize compiling the reptile’s genome, or genetic instruction book.
In 2012, Neil Gemmell, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, and an international team of researchers began to assemble the tuatara genome, in close partnership with the Indigenous Ngātiwai people. The Ngātiwai are considered kaitiaki, or guardians, of the tuatara and were intimately involved in decisions regarding the use of genetic data from the project.
The tuatara’s genome is huge, about 5 gigabases, or some 5 billion DNA base pairs in length, the researchers found. That’s about two-thirds bigger than humans’ and is “unusually large” for a reptile, says Giulia Pasques, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Colorado Boulder who was not involved with the research. Lizard and snake genomes are usually around 2 gigabases, she says. Bird genomes may be half that size.
Based on the genetic analyses, the researchers confirmed that the tuatara is more closely related to snakes and lizards than to crocodilians, birds or turtles. The researchers estimate that tuataras and their ancestors diverged from snakes and lizards about 250 million years ago, meaning the group predates even the oldest dinosaurs.
The team identified genes possibly involved in tuataras’ biological quirks including their long lives, which are the longest of any other reptiles besides tortoises. Tuataras have many genes involved in producing selenoproteins, which help protect against aging and cellular deterioration, and have more of these genes than humans do. Such insights may eventually have useful applications for human biology, says coauthor Matthieu Muffato, a comparative genomicist at the European Bioinformatics Institute in Hinxton, England.
Tuataras also appear to have an unusually high number of TRP genes, which are involved in making proteins tied to temperature sensitivity and regulation of body temperature. Those genes may be behind the reptiles’ tolerance of cool temperatures, the researchers say. Tuataras have the lowest known optimal body temperature of any reptile, from 16° to 21° Celsius.
Although the new research goes a long way to dispelling some of the mystery surrounding tuataras, there is much to learn about these scaly enigmas. “Publishing the tuatara genome is like uncovering an ancient book,” Muffato says. “We have started analyzing it, and started decoding some of the genetic information, but we are still a long way off from understanding the complete genome.”
Some spiders may spin poisonous webs laced with neurotoxins Droplets on the silk strands contain proteins that subdue prey, a study suggests
The impressive webs of banana spiders (Trichonephila clavipes) may help chemically subdue prey, new research suggests. CHARLES J. SHARP/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Orb weaver spiders are known for their big, beautiful webs. Now, researchers suggest that these webs do more than just glue a spider’s meal in place — they may also swiftly paralyze their catch.
Biochemical ecologist Mario Palma has long suspected that the webs of orb weavers — common garden spiders that build wheel-shaped webs — contain neurotoxins. “My colleagues told me, ‘You are nuts,’” says Palma, of São Paulo State University’s Institute of Biosciences in Rio Claro, Brazil. No one had found such toxins, and webs’ stickiness seemed more than sufficient for the purpose of ensnaring prey.
The idea first came to him about 25 years ago, when Palma lived near a rice plantation where orb weavers were common. He says he often saw fresh prey, like bees or flies, in the spiders’ webs, and over time, noticed the hapless animals weren’t just glued — they convulsed and stuck out their tongues, as if they’d been poisoned. If he pulled the insects free, they struggled to walk or hold up their bodies, even if the web’s owner hadn’t injected venom.
Palma had worked with neurotoxins for many years, and these odd behaviors immediately struck him as the effects of such toxins.
Now, thanks in large part to the work of his Ph.D. student Franciele Esteves, Palma thinks he has found those prey-paralyzing toxins. The pair and their colleagues analyzed the active genes and proteins in the silk glands of banana spiders (Trichonephila clavipes) — a kind of orb weaver — and found proteins resembling known neurotoxins. The neurotoxins may make the webs paralytic traps, the team reports online June 15 in the Journal of Proteome Research. The prey-catching webs of other species probably have similar neurotoxins, Palma says.
These neurotoxin proteins also showed up on the silk of webs collected in Rio Claro, packed into fatty bubbles in microscopic droplets on the strands. And when the researchers rinsed substances from webs and injected them into bees, the animals became paralyzed in less than a minute.
The researchers also confirmed, as Palma’s lab had reported in 2006, that fatty acids are present in the droplets. These acids, Palma thinks, are the toxins’ way into prey. The molecules may dissolve the insect’s waxy outer cuticle, the chief barrier to topical toxins.
“Toxic webs would certainly make sense,” says David Wilson, a venom researcher at James Cook University in Cairns, Australia, but he’d like to see evidence that the web toxins work quickly on contact. Alternatively, they might act as antimicrobials (SN: 10/30/19) or help deter ants and other animals that steal from webs or eat the spiders.
Jolanta Beinaroviča, a synthetic spider silk designer at the University of Nottingham in England, says, “This paper was like a breath of fresh air.” She thinks many researchers have long oversimplified spider web silks, though she, too, would like to see further demonstration of the toxins’ topical action.
Paralytic toxins may be just part of the underappreciated complexity of web design. Palma plans to have his students dive deeper into smaller, as of yet unidentified proteins his team found. He thinks they may help keep the prey alive until the spider’s ready for a fresh meal.
Water beetles can live on after being eaten and excreted by a frog One insect crawled through the amphibian’s insides in just six minutes This pond frog (Pelophylax nigromaculatus) makes easy prey of water beetles. But one beetle species (Regimbartia attenuate) can escape predation by traversing the amphibian’s digestive tract and emerge, still kicking, out the other end. SHENJI SUGIURA
CRYOPTOZOOLOGY
THERE WAS AN ANCIENT MAMMAL LIKE THIS, IT WAS LIKE A MONGOOSE IT LIVED BY THE NILE AND COVERED ITSELF WITH MUD TO HARDEN TO A PROTECTIVE SURFACE AS IT BECAME A BALL TO BE EATEN BY THE NILE CROCODILE.
THE MAMMAL ONCE EATEN UNRAVELED ITSELF FROM THE MUD AND BEGAN EATING THE CROCODILE FROM THE INSIDE OUT.
For most insects, the sticky, slingshot ride straight into a frog’s mouth spells the end. But not for one stubborn water beetle.
Instead of succumbing to the frog’s digestive juices, an eaten Regimbartia attenuata traverses the amphibian’s throat, swims through the stomach, slides along the intestines and climbs out the frog’s butt, alive and well.
“This is legitimately the first article in a while that made me say, ‘Huh! How weird!’” says Crystal Maier, an entomologist at Harvard University’s Museum of Comparative Zoology. “There are still a lot of truly bizarre habits of insects that still wait to be discovered,” she says.
Feeding beetles to predators to see what happens is a regular activity for Shinji Sugiura, an ecologist at Kobe University in Japan. In 2018, he discovered that bombardier beetles can force toads to vomit the insects back up by releasing a mix of hot, noxious chemicals from their rear ends (SN: 2/6/18).
On a hunch that R. attenuata might have evolved its own interesting evasive behaviors, Sugiura paired a beetle with a frog that the insect often encounters while swimming through Japanese rice paddies. In his laboratory, he watched.
The frog made easy prey of the unsuspecting beetle. While the amphibians lack teeth that could kill prey with a crunch, a trip through the acidic, oxygen-poor digestive system should be sufficient to neutralize the insect. But as Sugiura monitored the frog, he saw the shiny black beetle slip out from the frog’s behind and scurry away, seemingly unharmed. About two hours before this video begins, this pond frog (Pelophylax nigromaculatus) ate a water beetle (Regimbartia attenuata). After traversing the digestive tract, the beetle emerges from the back end of the amphibian, alive. It’s the first documented example of prey actively escaping a predator through the digestive system.
“I was very surprised,” he says. “I was expecting that the frogs might just spit out the beetles or something.”
After more than 30 additional beetle-frog pairings, Sugiura found that over 90 percent of beetles survived being eaten, greatly outshining other animals known to survive digestion-by-predator. Those creatures typically survive less than 20 percent of the time. On average, it took six hours for the beetles to escape, though one intrepid individual completed the journey in just six minutes.
Sugiura confirmed that the beetles were actively escaping from the frog’s digestive tract by using sticky wax to fix some beetles’ legs together. None of these immobilized beetles survived, and their carcasses took a day or longer to pass through the frogs.
R. attenuata’s aquatic lifestyle likely prepared the beetle to survive digestion, Sugiura says. Its streamlined, but sturdy, exoskeleton may shield the insect from digestive juices. And its ability to breath underwater via air pockets tucked under its hardened wings likely prevents suffocation.
Sugiura plans to test the limits of R. attenuata’s abilities by pairing the insect with larger frogs, toads and even fish. “I’m looking forward to finding unimaginable types of antipredator defense,” he says.
About Jonathan Lambertis the staff writer for biological sciences, covering everything from the origin of species to microbial ecology. He has a master’s degree in evolutionary biology from Cornell University.
Wild bees add about $1.5 billion to yields for just six U.S. crops Threats to native pollinators could shrink profits even at farms stocking honeybees
U.S. cherries, watermelons and some other summertime favorites may depend on wild bees more than previously thought.
Many farms in the United States use managed honeybees to pollinate crops and increase yields, sometimes trucking beehives from farm to farm. Now an analysis of seven crops across North America shows that wild bees can play a role in crop pollination too, even on conventional farms abuzz with managed honeybees. Wild volunteers add at least $1.5 billion in total to yields for six of the crops, a new study estimates.
“To me, the big surprise was that we found so many wild bees even in intense production areas where much of the produce in the USA is grown,” says coauthor Rachael Winfree, a pollination ecologist at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J.
That means threats to wild bees could shave profits even when farms stock honeybees, the researchers report July 29 in Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Both honeybees (Apis mellifera), which aren’t native to the United States, and wild pollinators such as bumblebees (Bombus spp.) face dangers including pesticides and pathogens (SN: 1/22/20).
To see what, if anything, wild native bee species contribute, researchers spot-checked bee visits to flowers at 131 commercial farm fields across the United States and part of Canada. In a novel twist, the researchers also calculated to what extent the number of bee visits limited yields.
These intensive farms with plenty of fertilizer, water and other resources often showed signs of reaching a pollinator limit, meaning fields didn’t have enough honeybees to get the maximum yield, and volunteer wild bees were adding to the total. Then the team estimated what percentage of the yield native bees were adding — versus just doing what honeybees would have done anyway.
Wild bees don’t seem to help California’s almond orchards. But based on orchards in Michigan and Pennsylvania, some $1.06 billion of apples depends on native pollinators, the researchers say. Watermelons, particularly in Florida, get an estimated $146 million benefit, and sweet cherries $145 million. Native bees also boost tart cherries and blueberries and dominate pumpkins.
Penguin poop spotted from space ups the tally of emperor penguin colonies Eight new spots include the first reported offshore breeding sites for the largest penguins Using satellite images of penguin poop, researchers now think there are 61 total emperor penguin colonies in Antarctica.
P. BUCKTROUT/BAS
By Carolyn Gramling Patches of penguin poop spotted in new high-resolution satellite images of Antarctica reveal a handful of small, previously overlooked emperor penguin colonies.
Eight new colonies, plus three newly confirmed, brings the total to 61 — about 20 percent more colonies than thought, researchers report August 5 in Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation. That’s the good news, says Peter Fretwell, a geographer at the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, England.
The bad news, he says, is that the new colonies tend to be in regions highly vulnerable to climate change, including a few out on the sea ice. One newly discovered group lives about 180 kilometers from shore, on sea ice ringing a shoaled iceberg. The study is the first to describe such offshore breeding sites for the penguins.
Great guano
Using satellite images of penguin poop, researchers have now identified 61 emperor penguin colonies on Antarctica. In addition to 50 previously known colonies (green triangles), a new study confirms three that were previously suspected (yellow squares) and adds eight new ones (red circles). To spot the colonies, researchers scanned images captured by the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-2 satellite, looking for telltale reddish-brown stains on the otherwise pristine Antarctic snow. Antarctic emperor penguin colonies P.T. FRETWELL AND P.N. TRATHAN/REMOTE SENSING IN ECOLOGY AND CONSERVATION 2020
Penguin guano shows up as a reddish-brown stain against white snow and ice (SN: 3/2/18). Before 2016, Fretwell and BAS penguin biologist Phil Trathan hunted for the telltale stains in images from NASA’s Landsat satellites, which have a resolution of 30 meters by 30 meters. Emperor penguins turned a ring of sea ice around an iceberg into a breeding site. The previously unknown colony was found near Ninnis Bank, a spot 180 kilometers offshore, thanks to a brown smudge (arrow) left by penguin poop.P.T. FRETWELL AND P.N. TRATHAN/REMOTE SENSING IN ECOLOGY AND CONSERVATION 2020
The launch of the European Space Agency’s Sentinel satellites, with a much finer resolution of 10 meters by 10 meters, “makes us able to see things in much greater detail, and pick out much smaller things,” such as tinier patches of guano representing smaller colonies, Fretwell says. The new colony tally therefore ups the estimated emperor penguin population by only about 10 percent at most, or 55,000 birds.
Unlike other penguins, emperors (Aptenodytes forsteri) live their entire lives at sea, foraging and breeding on the sea ice. That increases their vulnerability to future warming: Even moderate greenhouse gas emissions scenarios are projected to melt much of the fringing ice around Antarctica (SN: 4/30/20). Previous work has suggested this ice loss could decrease emperor penguin populations by about 31 percent over the next 60 years, an assessment that is shifting the birds’ conservation status from near threatened to vulnerable.
