Thursday, August 06, 2020


New science behind algae-based flip-flops

Biodegradable shoes meet commercial standards for products needed to help eradicate tons of plastic waste
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - SAN DIEGO


IMAGE
IMAGE: COMMERICAL-QUALITY BIODEGRADABLE FLIP-FLOPS. view more 
CREDIT: PHOTO COURTESY OF STEPHEN MAYFIELD, UC SAN DIEGO.

As the world's most popular shoe, flip-flops account for a troubling percentage of plastic waste that ends up in landfills, on seashores and in our oceans. Scientists at the University of California San Diego have spent years working to resolve this problem, and now they have taken a step farther toward accomplishing this mission.
Sticking with their chemistry, the team of researchers formulated polyurethane foams, made from algae oil, to meet commercial specifications for midsole shoes and the foot-bed of flip-flops. The results of their study are published in Bioresource Technology Reports and describe the team's successful development of these sustainable, consumer-ready and biodegradable materials.
The research was a collaboration between UC San Diego and startup company Algenesis Materials--a materials science and technology company. The project was co-led by graduate student Natasha Gunawan from the labs of professors Michael Burkart (Division of Physical Sciences) and Stephen Mayfield (Division of Biological Sciences), and by Marissa Tessman from Algenesis. It is the latest in a series of recent research publications that collectively, according to Burkart, offer a complete solution to the plastics problem--at least for polyurethanes.
"The paper shows that we have commercial-quality foams that biodegrade in the natural environment," said Mayfield. "After hundreds of formulations, we finally achieved one that met commercial specifications. These foams are 52 percent biocontent--eventually we'll get to 100 percent."
In addition to devising the right formulation for the commercial-quality foams, the researchers worked with Algenesis to not only make the shoes, but to degrade them as well. Mayfield noted that scientists have shown that commercial products like polyesters, bioplastics (PLA) and fossil-fuel plastics (PET) can biodegrade, but only in the context of lab tests or industrial composting.
"We redeveloped polyurethanes with bio-based monomers from scratch to meet the high material specifications for shoes, while keeping the chemistry suitable, in theory, so the shoes would be able to biodegrade," Mayfield explained.
Putting their customized foams to the test by immersing them in traditional compost and soil, the team discovered the materials degraded after just 16 weeks. During the decomposition period, to account for any toxicity, the scientists, led by UC San Diego's Skip Pomeroy, measured every molecule shed from the biodegradable materials. They also identified the organisms that degraded the foams.
"We took the enzymes from the organisms degrading the foams and showed that we could use them to depolymerize these polyurethane products, and then identified the intermediate steps that take place in the process," said Mayfield, adding, "We then showed that we could isolate the depolymerized products and use those to synthesize new polyurethane monomers, completing a 'bioloop.'"
This full recyclability of commercial products is the next step in the scientist's ongoing mission to address the current production and waste management problems we face with plastics --which if not addressed, will result in 96 billion tons of plastic in landfills or the natural environment by 2050. According to Pomeroy, this environmentally unfriendly practice began about 60 years ago with the development of plastics.

Biodegrading Material (IMAGE)


Biodegradation of PU cubes over 12 weeks. Degradation was analyzed through A) Change in appearance, B) Cube mass and C) Maximum force at 50% compression force deflection (CFD). Error bars indicate sample standard deviations of the triplicate measurements. For compost and soil mass loss, p<0 .01="" 2="" able="" and="" cfd="" compost="" for="" in="" p="" paper="" published="" soil="">
"If you could turn back the clock and re-envision how you could make the petroleum polymer industry, would you do it the same today that we did it years ago? There's a bunch of plastic floating in every ocean on this planet that suggests we shouldn't have done it that way," noted Pomeroy.
While commercially on track for production, doing so economically is a matter of scale that the scientists are working out with their manufacturing partners.
"People are coming around on plastic ocean pollution and starting to demand products that can address what has become an environmental disaster," said Tom Cooke, president of Algenesis. "We happen to be at the right place at the right time."
The team's efforts are also manifested in the establishment of the Center for Renewable Materials at UC San Diego. Begun by Burkart, Mayfield, Pomeroy and their co-founders Brian Palenik (Scripps Institution of Oceanography) and Larissa Podust (Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences), the center focuses on three major goals: the development of renewable and sustainable monomers made from algae and other biological sources; their formulation into polymers for diverse applications, the creation of synthetic biology platforms for the production of monomers and crosslinking components; and the development and understanding of biodegradation of renewable polymers.
"The life of material should be proportional to the life of the product," said Mayfield. "We don't need material that sits around for 500 years on a product that you will only use for a year or two."

Foot-bed of flip-flops being pulled from a mold.
###
In addition to Gunawan, Burkart, Pomeroy and Mayfield, coauthors of the Bioresource Technology Reports paper include Tessman, Ariel Schreiman (Division of Biological Sciences), Ryan Simkovsky (Division of Biological Sciences), Anton Samoylov (Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry), Nitin Neelakantan (Algenesis Materials Inc.) and Troy Bemis (Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry).
The research was supported by grants from the Department of Energy Bioenergy Technologies Office (DE-SC0019986) and the National Science Foundation (1926937) to Algenesis Materials.
Burkart, Mayfield and Pomeroy are all co-founders of Algenesis and have equity. In addition, Burkart and Pomeroy are scientific advisors and Mayfield is acting CEO and on the Board of Directors.
Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for

Electric cooker an easy, efficient way to sanitize N95 masks, study finds

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN, NEWS BUREAU
IMAGE
IMAGE: ONE 50-MINUTE, 212 F COOKING CYCLE IN A DRY ELECTRIC MULTICOOKER DECONTAMINATES AN N95 RESPIRATOR WITHOUT CHEMICALS AND WITHOUT COMPROMISING THE FILTRATION OR FIT. view more 
CREDIT: PHOTO BY CHAMTEUT OH
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Owners of electric multicookers may be able to add another use to its list of functions, a new study suggests: sanitization of N95 respirator masks.
The University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign study found that 50 minutes of dry heat in an electric cooker, such as a rice cooker or Instant Pot, decontaminated N95 respirators inside and out while maintaining their filtration and fit. This could enable wearers to safely reuse limited supplies of the respirators, originally intended to be one-time-use items.
Led by civil and environmental engineering professors Thanh "Helen" Nguyen and Vishal Verma, the researchers published their findings in the journal Environmental Science and Technology Letters.
N95 respirator masks are the gold standard of personal protective equipment that protect the wearer against airborne droplets and particles, such as the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
"A cloth mask or surgical mask protects others from droplets the wearer might expel, but a respirator mask protects the wearer by filtering out smaller particles that might carry the virus," Nguyen said.
High demand during the COVID-19 pandemic has created severe shortages for health care providers and other essential workers, prompting a search for creative approaches to sanitization.
"There are many different ways to sterilize something, but most of them will destroy the filtration or the fit of an N95 respirator," Verma said. "Any sanitation method would need to decontaminate all surfaces of the respirator, but equally important is maintaining the filtration efficacy and the fit of the respirator to the face of the wearer. Otherwise, it will not offer the right protection."
The researchers hypothesized that dry heat might be a method to meet all three criteria - decontamination, filtration and fit - without requiring special preparation or leaving any chemical residue. They also wanted to find a method that would be widely accessible for people at home. They decided to test an electric cooker, a type of device many people have in their pantries.
They verified that one cooking cycle, which maintains the contents of the cooker at around 100 degrees Celsius or 212 Fahrenheit for 50 minutes, decontaminated the masks, inside and out, from four different classes of virus, including a coronavirus - and did so more effectively than ultraviolet light. Then, they tested the filtration and fit.
"We built a chamber in my aerosol-testing lab specifically to look at the filtration of the N95 respirators, and measured particles going through it," Verma said. "The respirators maintained their filtration capacity of more than 95% and kept their fit, still properly seated on the wearer's face, even after 20 cycles of decontamination in the electric cooker."
The researchers created a video demonstrating the method. They note that the heat must be dry heat - no water added to the cooker, the temperature should be maintained at 100 degrees Celsius for 50 minutes and a small towel should cover the bottom of the cooker to keep any part of the respirator from coming into direct contact with the heating element. However, multiple masks can be stacked to fit inside the cooker at the same time, Nguyen said.
The researchers see potential for the electric-cooker method to be useful for health care workers and first responders, especially those in smaller clinics or hospitals that do not have access to large-scale heat sanitization equipment. In addition, it may be useful for others who may have an N95 respirator at home - for example, from a pre-pandemic home-improvement project - and wish to reuse it, Nguyen said.
###
The Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Agriculture supported this work.
Editor's notes: To reach Helen Nguyen, email thn@illinois.edu. To reach Vishal Verma, email vverma@illinois.edu.
The paper "Dry heat as a decontamination method for N95 respirator reuse" is available online. DOI: 10.1021/acs.estlett.0c00534

Are we medically intervening in maternity care when we don't need to?

TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN
Are we medically intervening in maternity care when we don't need to?
Researchers from the School of Nursing and Midwifery at Trinity College Dublin have provided an international perspective on differences in key birth interventions as part of a European research network on understanding and contextualising physiological labour and birth (EU COST Action IS1405), which provides insights into maternity care practices and costs in Ireland.
The School's two studies are published in a special maternity care themed edition of the online journal PLOS ONE (Thursday, 6th August 2020).
The first study - Economic implications of reducing caesarean section rates - analysis of two health systems - looks at the cost implications of reducing caesarean sections rates (CS rates) among first-time mothers, along with improving rates of vaginal births after c-sections.
Caesarean section (CS) rates throughout Europe have risen significantly over the last two decades. As well as being an important clinical issue, these changes in mode of birth may have substantial resource implications. Policy initiatives to curb this rise have had to contend with the multiplier effect of women who had a CS for their first birth having a greater likelihood of requiring one during subsequent births, thus making it difficult to decrease CS rates in the short term.
The study examined the long-term resource implications of reducing CS rates among first-time mothers, as well as improving rates of vaginal birth after caesarean section (VBAC), among an annual cohort of women over the course of their most active childbearing years (18 to 44 years) in two public health systems in Europe; Ireland and England/Wales.
Researchers found that the economic benefit of improvements in these two outcomes is considerable, with the net present value of the savings associated with a five-percentage-point change in nulliparous (a woman who has yet to give birth to a child) CS rates and VBAC rates being €1.1million and £9.8million per annual cohort of 18-year-olds in Ireland and England/Wales, respectively.
Reductions in CS rates among first-time mothers are associated with a greater payoff than comparable increases in VBAC rates. The net present value of achieving CS rates comparable to those currently observed in the best performing Scandinavian countries was €3.5M and £23.0M per annual cohort in Ireland and England/Wales, respectively.
Dr Patrick Moran, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Health Economics at the School of Nursing and Midwifery said:
"Our results show that in addition to the reported clinical benefits, there is a significant economic benefit of reducing caesarean section rates among those for whom it is safe to do so in Ireland. This can free up vital maternity care resources to strengthen maternity services in Ireland and improve outcome for women, children and families."
READ: You can read the paper Economic implications of reducing caesarean section rates - analysis of two health systems here: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0228309
The second study from the School of Nursing and Midwifery - How much synthetic oxytocin is infused during labour? A review and analysis of regimens used in 12 countries - highlights the national and institution regimens on the use of oxytoxin, the most common drug used to induce labour, across 11 European countries and South Africa.
This study examined the use of oxytocin to induce labour. Oxytocin is widely used, but even 70 years after it was first introduced in clinical practice, there is still no agreement on the optimal infusion regimen to use during induction (starting) or augmentation (speeding up) in labour.
The study found that across the 16 regimens, there were considerable variations which were noted, with an 11-fold difference between minimum and maximum amounts. As oxytocin is a potentially harmful medication, with serious consequences for mum and baby, it is vital that the appropriate minimum infusion rate is administered.
Ireland is one of only five countries in the study with a national oxytocin infusion regimen; with one Irish hospital using a different regimen. All other countries use differing amounts of oxytocin.
The study found that the total amount of IU (international unit) oxytocin infused, estimated over eight hours, ranged from 2.38 IU to 27.00 IU, a variation of 24.62 IU and an 11-fold difference over the 16 regimens. In Ireland, the total amount infused in one regimen was 4.08 IU, just slightly above the lowest of the 16 regimens, and 13.05 IU in the other hospital regimen, which was the second highest amount but very close to several other regimens.
Dr Deirdre Daly, Assistant Professor in Midwifery at the School of Nursing and Midwifery said:
"In the era of evidence-based health care, the fact that such widespread variation exists in the use of infused oxytocin, and in the total amount infused, reflects potential overuse in many settings. All maternity care professionals are driven by the need to reduce avoidable maternal and neonatal morbidity and mortality, but it is crucial that intrapartum interventions designed to reduce risk for some who have complications are not used routinely for others who are healthy.''
READ: You can read the paper How much synthetic oxytocin is infused during labour? A review and analysis of regimens used in 12 countries, here: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0227941
###
Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible

Arecibo Observatory returns from tropical storm Isaias lockdown to track asteroid for NASA

The National Science Foundation facility, managed by the University of Central Florida, determines that a newly discovered asteroid won't threaten Earth
UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA
IMAGE
IMAGE: RADAR RANGE-DOPPLER IMAGE OF 2020 NK1 REVEALS AN ELONGATED ASTEROID APPROXIMATELY 1 KM (0.6 MI) ALONG THE LONGEST AXIS. THE IMAGE RESOLUTION IN THE VERTICAL DIMENSION IS 100 FT (30... view more 
CREDIT: ARECIBO OBSERVATORY
The Earth has one less asteroid to worry about thanks to the research of an international team of scientists at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico.
Asteroid 2020 NK1 was spotted in early July by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) survey team at the University of Hawaii. Little was known about the asteroid, making it difficult to predict exactly where the asteroid would travel in the future. It was estimated to be 1,600 feet in diameter, about the length of five football fields. Before the Arecibo observations, 2020 NK1 was calculated to be one of the biggest threats out of all known asteroids on NASA's list of potential impactors, with about one chance in 70,000 of impacting the Earth between 2086 and 2101.
Arecibo's Planetary Radar Group made it a priority to observe 2020 NK1 when it came within range - within 5 million miles - of the facility's powerful instruments. In this case, the time period was brief, July 30-31, just about the same time Tropical Storm Isaias was expected to slam into the island.
The observatory shut down to prepare for the storm, and as soon as it passed the team jumped into action to detect and study the asteroid. Even as parts of the island lost power and damage was assessed, the Arecibo team was able to determine the asteroid's shape, orbit and motion.
"Fortunately, the storm passed quickly without damage to the telescope or the radar system, and the maintenance and electronics teams were able to activate the telescope from hurricane lockdown in time for the observations," says Sean Marshall, an observatory scientist who led the team during the radar observations.
The team of scientists and telescope operators was able to observe the asteroid for two and half hours, collecting precise measurements of the asteroid's speed and distance from Earth as well as high-resolution images of the asteroid. "These measurements greatly improve our knowledge of 2020 NK1's orbit and allow for predictions of its future whereabouts for decades to come," says Patrick Taylor, a Texas scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute, part of Universities Space Research Association, who participated in the observation remotely.
The observations showed the asteroid is not expected to get close enough to Earth to pose a danger in the future, with its closest approach coming in 2043 when it will pass about 2.25 million miles from Earth - or more than 9 times farther away than the Moon, the team concluded
The obtained radar images reveal an elongated shape and a diameter along its longest axis of approximately .6 mile.
"This event was a great example of the important role that the Arecibo radar system plays in planetary science and planetary defense. It shows that we have very quick response times and high-precision range, motion, and-size measurement capabilities, in spite of storms, the COVID-19 pandemic and earthquakes with which Puerto Rico has dealt with this year," says Anne Virkki, the head of the Planetary Radar group at the Arecibo Observatory.
2020 NK1 is one of many Potentially Hazardous Objects (PHO) that NASA tracks. Asteroids are considered PHOs if they are bigger than 500 feet in diameter and come within 5 million miles of the Earth's orbit. No known PHOs pose an immediate danger to the Earth, but observations like those conducted at the Arecibo Observatory are used to determine their future trajectories and risk.
Arecibo runs a program supported by a NASA grant to observe and characterize near-Earth objects that pose a potential hazard to Earth or that could be candidates for future space missions.
The observatory is home to the most powerful and most sensitive planetary radar system in the world, which means it is also a unique tool available to analyze NEOs, such as asteroids and comets. The knowledge gained from radar observations helps NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office determine which objects pose significant risks, and when and what to do to mitigate them. NASA officials can also use the information to determine which objects are the most viable for science missions - landing on an asteroid is not equally easy for all of them.
###
Other team members participating in the radar observation of 2020 NK1 were Flaviane Venditti, Israel Cabrera and Juan Marrero at Arecibo. Virkki and Dylan Hickson, also from Arecibo, participated in the data analysis.
UCF manages the NSF facility under a cooperative agreement with Universidad Ana G. Méndez and Yang Enterprises Inc. The Arecibo Planetary Radar Project is fully supported by NASA's Near Earth Object Observations Program in NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office through a grant awarded to UCF. Arecibo has played a role in analyzing NEOs for decades, observing up to 130 objects per year.

NASA's Maven observes martian night sky pulsing in ultraviolet light

NASA/GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER
IMAGE
IMAGE: THIS IS AN IMAGE OF THE ULTRAVIOLET "NIGHTGLOW " IN THE MARTIAN ATMOSPHERE. GREEN AND WHITE FALSE COLORS REPRESENT THE INTENSITY OF ULTRAVIOLET LIGHT, WITH WHITE BEING THE BRIGHTEST. THE NIGHTGLOW... view more 
CREDIT: CREDITS: NASA/MAVEN/GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER/CU/LASP
Vast areas of the Martian night sky pulse in ultraviolet light, according to images from NASA's MAVEN spacecraft. The results are being used to illuminate complex circulation patterns in the Martian atmosphere.
The MAVEN team was surprised to find that the atmosphere pulsed exactly three times per night, and only during Mars' spring and fall. The new data also revealed unexpected waves and spirals over the winter poles, while also confirming the Mars Express spacecraft results that this nightglow was brightest over the winter polar regions.
"MAVEN's images offer our first global insights into atmospheric motions in Mars' middle atmosphere, a critical region where air currents carry gases between the lowest and highest layers," said Nick Schneider of the University of Colorado's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP), Boulder, Colorado. The brightenings occur where vertical winds carry gases down to regions of higher density, speeding up the chemical reactions that create nitric oxide and power the ultraviolet glow. Schneider is instrument lead for the MAVEN Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph (IUVS) instrument that made these observations, and lead author of a paper on this research appearing August 6 in the Journal of Geophysical Research, Space Physics. Ultraviolet light is invisible to the human eye but detectable by specialized instruments.
The diagram explains the cause of Mars' glowing nightside atmosphere. On Mars' dayside, molecules are torn apart by energetic solar photons. Global circulation patterns carry the atomic fragments to the nightside, where downward winds increase the reaction rate for the atoms to reform molecules. The downwards winds occur near the poles at some seasons and in the equatorial regions at others. The new molecules hold extra energy which they emit as ultraviolet light.

"The ultraviolet glow comes mostly from an altitude of about 70 kilometers (approximately 40 miles), with the brightest spot about a thousand kilometers (approximately 600 miles) across, and is as bright in the ultraviolet as Earth's northern lights," said Zac Milby, also of LASP. "Unfortunately, the composition of Mars' atmosphere means that these bright spots emit no light at visible wavelengths that would allow them to be seen by future Mars astronauts. Too bad: the bright patches would intensify overhead every night after sunset, and drift across the sky at 300 kilometers per hour (about 180 miles per hour)."
The pulsations reveal the importance of planet-encircling waves in the Mars atmosphere. The number of waves and their speed indicates that Mars' middle atmosphere is influenced by the daily pattern of solar heating and disturbances from the topography of Mars' huge volcanic mountains. These pulsating spots are the clearest evidence that the middle atmosphere waves match those known to dominate the layers above and below.
"MAVEN's main discoveries of atmosphere loss and climate change show the importance of these vast circulation patterns that transport atmospheric gases around the globe and from the surface to the edge of space." said Sonal Jain, also of LASP.
Next, the team plans to look at nightglow "sideways", instead of down from above, using data taken by IUVS looking just above the edge of the planet. This new perspective will be used to understand the vertical winds and seasonal changes even more accurately.
The Martian nightglow was first observed by the SPICAM instrument on the European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft. However, IUVS is a next-generation instrument better able to repeatedly map out the nightside glow, finding patterns and periodic behaviors. Many planets including Earth have nightglow, but MAVEN is the first mission to collect so many images of another planet's nightglow.
###
The research was funded by the MAVEN mission. MAVEN's principal investigator is based at the University of Colorado's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, Boulder, and NASA Goddard manages the MAVEN project. NASA is exploring our Solar System and beyond, uncovering worlds, stars, and cosmic mysteries near and far with our powerful fleet of space and ground-based missions.

Rock debris protects glaciers from climate change more than previously known

A new study which provides a global estimate of rock cover on the Earth's glaciers has revealed that the expanse of rock debris on glaciers, a factor that has been ignored in models of glacier melt and sea level rise, could be significant.
NORTHUMBRIA UNIVERSITY
IMAGE
IMAGE: ROCK DEBRIS COVER ON GLACIERS IN THE ALASKA RANGE. view more 
CREDIT: SAM HERREID
A new study which provides a global estimate of rock cover on the Earth's glaciers has revealed that the expanse of rock debris on glaciers, a factor that has been ignored in models of glacier melt and sea level rise, could be significant.
The Northumbria University study, which has been published in Nature Geoscience this week, is the first to manually verify the rock debris cover on every one of the Earth's glaciers.
As glaciers shrink, their surrounding mountain slopes become exposed and eroded rock debris slides down and accumulates on glacier surfaces. This debris forms a protective layer that can be many metres thick, reducing the rate at which the ice below melts. Although the effects of this protective cover are known, it has never been carefully mapped until now, and so has not been included in global glacier models.
As well as revealing where rock debris is located on Earth's glaciers, the researchers also found and corrected key errors within the Randolph Glacier Inventory - a global inventory of glacier outlines on which hundreds of studies are based.
Using Landsat imagery, the research team from Northumbria University's Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences and the Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL spent three years painstakingly examining and manually verifying more than 923,000 square kilometres of glacier worldwide.
The exercise allowed them to analyse the debris cover on a global-, regional-, as well as individual glacier-scale and created the world's first baseline dataset of glaciers in their current state.
They found more than 29,000 square kilometres of the world's mountain glacier area is covered in rock debris - an area equivalent to almost 500 Manhattan Islands.
Lead researcher Sam Herreid undertook the study for his PhD at Northumbria University and is now believed to be the only person who has examined every glacier on Earth, manually correcting the Randolph Glacier Inventory and bringing a level of consistency that has never before been present in a global glacier dataset.
A caribou roaming in front of the Gakona Glacier in Alaska
He explained: "The structure of the debris cover of each glacier is unique and sensitive to climate, but until now, global glacier models have omitted debris cover from their forecasts of how glaciers respond to a changing climate.
"We now know that debris cover is present on almost half of Earth's glaciers, with 7.3% of the world's total mountain glacier area being debris covered.
"When we consider that much of this debris cover is located at the terminus, or toe, of a glacier where melt would usually be at its highest, this percentage becomes particularly important with respect to predicting future water resources and sea level rise."
The study also uncovered errors within the Randolph Glacier Inventory, finding an error rate of 3.3%. One of their findings revealed that 10,000 square kilometres of mapped glacier area was not actually glacier, but rather bedrock or vegetated ground that was either incorrectly mapped previously or glacier area that has since melted away.
This, combined with the melt reduction from debris insulating the ice below, means that all past global glacier models based on the Inventory are likely to have overestimated the true volume of glacier melt, run off and subsequent contribution to global sea level rise.
They described the 10.6% of glacier area that requires an updated approach to estimating melt as "an alarmingly high number" and said that their work provides a key dataset for revising, and likely lowering, the glacier contribution to sea level rise.
The team also devised a way to analyse how the world's debris-covered glaciers will evolve over the coming centuries.
By comparing the many states of glaciers present on Earth today, from those considered to be 'young' and icy in Greenland, to 'old' and rock covered in the Himalaya, they were able to piece together a conceptual timeline which they believe outlines how a glacier might evolve in the future.
Their timeline reveals that many glaciers are at the older end of the spectrum and can therefore be considered to be on the decline.
Landsat imagery of 'young' debris cover in SE Greenland (left) and 'old' cover in the Everest region of the Himalaya, with the arrow pointing to one of the debris covered glacier tongues. It is believed that the debris bands in the Everest region would have looked similar to Greenland many hundreds of years ago, but have widened over time, filling the full width of the glacier with rocks.
Co-author Francesca Pellicciotti of the Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL and an Associate Professor at Northumbria University, explained: "The upper levels of the glaciers are constantly accumulating snow and will always be debris free, so we looked only at the lower levels of glaciers which is where rock debris can accumulate.
"Ice melts and flows away as water, but the rocks do not, and accumulate at the surface. Changes in the rate of mountain erosion as well as glacier changes in a warming climate will affect the size and shape of the rock layer at the surface of a glacier at any one time.
"Although we can't say exactly what year a glacier will evolve to a certain state, say, a state where it is almost entirely covered in rocks, we were able to place each glacier on a conceptual timeline and learn roughly how far along this line each glacier is to becoming almost entirely covered in rocks.
She added: "We found that the bulk of glaciers that have a debris cover today are beyond a peak debris cover formation state and are trending closer to the "old" Himalayan glaciers that might not be around for much longer.
"From a climate change perspective this is one more indication of the toll a warming climate is having on Earth's glaciers. However, we now have a benchmark measurement of debris cover for all of Earth's glaciers and new tools to monitor and predict the rate of changes couple to a warming climate."
###
Northumbria University is renowned for being one of the leading centres in Europe for research into cold and palaeo environments. In recent years the University has been granted major research funding to investigate and model changes to Antarctica's major glaciers. It is the only UK university to be involved in two investigations in the £20 million UK-US International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration.
The study The state of rock debris covering Earth's glaciers is now available in Nature Geoscience.
Why are butchered dolphins washing ashore in France's Brittany?

On Aug. 2, a walker happened across the butchered body of a dolphin on a beach in La Torche, France. (Photo: Sea Shepherd/Facebook)


FRANCE / ANIMAL CRUELTY - 08/06/2020

A photo posted online shows the butchered remains of a dolphin washed up on the beach in western France. This isn’t the first time that a dolphin, skinned or carved, has startled beachgoers in Brittany.

In early August, a beachgoer walking in La Torche, in the French department of Finistère, found the body of a dolphin whose upper dorsal section was completely carved out.


“These are protected species. These barbaric ‘customs’ must end,” this poster writes above a picture of a slaughtered dolphin discovered on a French beach and posted on Facebook Aug. 2.

This picture shows one of several dead dolphins found over the weekend on beaches around La Torche. While it was the only one that was butchered, others had their tails cut off, a common practice used by fishermen to release dolphins trapped in nets.

découverts hier après midi sur la plage LA TORCHE près du Guilvenec, en Bretagne.
...See More

Image may contain: outdoor
Image may contain: dog, shoes, outdoor, water and nature
No photo description available.
Image may contain: outdoor and water

3 dauphins échoués ce matin sur la plage de Plovan (Bretagne), dont 2 avec la queue coupée et un aileron attaché avec un câble métallique... Servirait-il d’appât aux pêcheurs Mme la ministre ⁦@AnnickGirardin⁩ ? pic.twitter.com/xY2lkanL75 Cyrille (@cyrillegagliano) August 2, 2020

A beachgoer found the remains of three dead dolphins on Plovan beach in Brittany and posted these photos on Twitter Aug. 2.

Locals in the region had found similarly mutilated bodies of dolphins back in January.


Three mutilated dolphins were found on Jan. 12, 2020 on La Torche beach in Brittany.

Un dauphin dépecé retrouvé sur une plage du Pays bigouden. Il a été trouvé mercredi. https://t.co/mrkYHTfgbk pic.twitter.com/i4IET99jKG Ouest-France 29 (@OuestFrance29) January 30, 2020
On Jan 29, 2020, a carved up dolphin was found on the beach in the Bigouden region in the French department of Finistère.



“Death by the agony of the deep”

The common dolphin, present in the waters on the coast of northern and western France, is a protected species. In France, it is illegal to capture, transport, kill or mutilate these creatures.

Dolphins and other aquatic mammals are commonly caught as unintentional “bycatch” in the nets of fisherman trawling for fish. Trawl nets are towed behind boats to catch schools of moving fish such as anchovies, bass or tuna. Dolphins can be pulled into the net accidentally or swim into the nets to feed, where they become trapped and drown. Legally, fishermen must release and report all dolphins accidentally caught in their nets, but nonprofit conservation organisation Sea Shepherd reports that fewer than 1% of dolphins caught in fishing nets are reported.

The Paris Administrative Court condemned French authorities on July 2 for failing to take measures to prevent dolphin bycatch, based in part on the nation’s inadequate reporting and monitoring systems.

Bycatch is blamed for the death of numerous dolphins every year off France’s Atlantic coast. From Jan. 1 to Mar. 18, 2020, nearly 1,000 dolphins were found dead on the coast of the Bay of Biscay, according to the Pelagis Observatory. More than 70% of them showed signs and injuries from bycatch.

Since dolphins and fishermen are searching for the same prey, dolphins commonly end up near fishing vessels. In the Bay of Biscay, a popular area to catch sea bass, dolphins are plentiful.


This map shows the number of aquatic mammals that washed up on beaches around the Bay of Biscay between Jan. 1 and Mar. 18, 2020. (Source: Pelagis Observatory)
The number of dolphins found washed ashore represent only a fraction of the number killed in fishermen’s nets at sea each year. According to Lamya Essemlali, president of Sea Shepherd France, only 18% of dead dolphins actually wash up on shore.

It’s only the tip of the iceberg. For years, fishermen have denied responsibility, saying dolphins die just from being sick or drowning in storms. But when scientists do autopsies on these dolphins, most are healthy with no sign of sickness. Then when you open them up you can see their lungs exploded in their bodies because they couldn’t breathe. They call that death by the agony of the deep, it’s a very painful death.

Last year, 26 European NGOs asked the European Commission to prosecute 15 EU countries, including France, for failing to protect dolphins. In July 2020, the European Commission gave France three months to implement measurements preventing dolphin deaths on its coasts.

Several measures have been implemented in France to reduce bycatch, such as placing neutral inspectors on fishing vessels to observe their catches. All trawler boats over 12 metres are required to use “pingers” which emit a high sound deterring dolphins from approaching. However, Sea Shepherd argues that these devices may actually cause more harm to the species by pushing dolphins away from their feeding grounds, making it harder for them to survive.


But why are some dolphins ending up butchered on beaches?

Essemlali explained:

The way the dolphin is butchered is typical of what fishermen do when they eat dolphins. We have been receiving more and more testimonies from fishermen reporting this behaviour. There are certain people who consider dolphins to be like fish, that they can be eaten. But as a protected species, it’s illegal to eat them even if they are captured as bycatch.

On Jan. 21, 2020, Sea Shepherd published a video showing unidentified fishermen butchering a dolphin for its meat.


In this video published by Sea Shepherd Jan. 21, 2020, fishermen are seen butchering a dolphin while saying, “It’s red meat” and “A good steak” in French.

French officials condemned the actions shown in this video and called them “isolated behaviors", but Essemlali does not believe this video is unique.

We used to believe this only happened occasionally, but we are getting more and more testimonies from fishermen who tell us it is a common practice. It’s very hard to estimate how many dolphins are being butchered like this but we have many different fishermen, who don’t know each other, telling us the same thing about different vessels. We have even heard of people who intentionally hunt dolphins with harpoons. They tell us it’s so easy because dolphins are so curious and friendly they come so close to fishing vessels. For them, it’s just free fish. There is also a black market for dolphin meat in France.

Sea Shepherd continues to advocate for dolphins and recommends that consumers reduce their fish intake and that the fishing industry be drastically reduced. They continue to organise nightly patrols in the Bay of Biscay to document and observe fishing methods.

Article by Pariesa Young

Study finds high levels of toxic pollutants in stranded dolphins and whales

Researchers examine 83 stranded dolphins and whales in North Carolina and Florida
FLORIDA ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY
IMAGE
IMAGE: GERVAIS' BEAKED WHALE THAT STRANDED IN ST. LUCIE COUNTY IN FLORIDA IN 2019. (THE FAU HARBOR BRANCH RESCUE TEAM OPERATES AS A MARINE MAMMAL STRANDING RESPONDER UNDER A LETTER OF... view more 
CREDIT: ANNIE PAGE-KARJIAN
A study led by researchers at Florida Atlantic University's Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute examined toxins in tissue concentrations and pathology data from 83 stranded dolphins and whales along the southeastern coast of the United States from 2012 to 2018. Researchers examined 11 different animal species to test for 17 different substances in animals found on the shores in North Carolina and Florida.
This is the first study to date to publish a report examining concentrations in blubber tissues of stranded cetaceans of atrazine, an herbicide, DEP, (a phthalate ester found in plastics), NPE or nonylphenol ethoxylate commonly used in food packing, and triclosan, an antibacterial and antifungal agent present in some consumer products, including toothpaste, soaps, detergents and toys.
The study also is the first to report concentrations of toxicants in a white-beaked dolphin and in Gervais' beaked whales, species for which the scientific literature remains sparse. Documenting toxicants in cetaceans is a critical step in tracing chemical contaminants within the marine food web and understanding their effects on biological systems.
For the study, just published in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science, lead author Annie Page-Karjian, D.V.M., Ph.D., an assistant research professor and clinical veterinarian at FAU's Harbor Branch, and collaborators, analyzed blubber samples for five organic toxicants including atrazine, DEP, NPE, bisphenol-A, diethyl phthalates and triclosan. They also analyzed liver samples for five non-essential elements (arsenic, cadmium, lead, mercury, thallium), six essential elements (cobalt, copper, manganese, iron, selenium, zinc) and one toxicant mixture class (Aroclor, a highly toxic industrial compound).
Results of the study showed that toxin and element concentrations varied based on animal demographic factors including species, sex, age and location. Liver samples from bottlenose dolphins had significantly higher average concentrations of lead, manganese, mercury, selenium, thallium, and zinc, and lower average concentrations of NPE, arsenic, cadmium, cobalt, and iron than samples from pygmy sperm whales. In adult female bottlenose dolphins, average arsenic concentrations were significantly higher and iron concentrations were significantly lower than in adult males. Adult bottlenose dolphins had significantly higher average concentrations of lead, mercury, and selenium, and significantly lower average manganese concentrations compared to juveniles.
Melon-headed whale that stranded in Sebastian in Florida in 2015. [The FAU Harbor Branch rescue team operates as a marine mammal stranding responder under a letter of authorization issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS)]
Geography also had an impact. Dolphins that stranded in Florida had significantly higher average concentrations of lead, mercury, and selenium, and lower concentrations of iron than dolphins that stranded in North Carolina.
Toxicants in the marine environment result from polluted runoff and chemicals in waterways from fossil fuels as well as single-use plastics commonly used by humans. These plastic objects include packaging film, detergents and some children's toys and contain dangerous phthalates.
"We must do our part to reduce the amount of toxicants that enter into our marine environment, which have important health and environmental implications not just for marine life but for humans," said Page-Karjian. "These chemicals work their way up through the food chain and get more concentrated the higher up they go. When dolphins and whales eat fish with concentrations of the chemicals, the toxic elements enter their bodies. Dolphins eat a variety of fish and shrimp in these marine environments and so do humans."
The same Gervais' beaked whale being moved up the beach in St. Lucie County in Florida in 2019. [The FAU Harbor Branch rescue team operates as a marine mammal stranding responder under a letter of authorization issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS)].

###
Collaborators of the study are the University of Georgia; North Carolina State University; Marine Mammal Pathology Services; Colorado State University; Michigan State University; Marine Mammal Stranding Network of the Central North Carolina Coast; North Carolina Aquariums; and Loggerhead Marinelife Center.
Funding for this work was provided by the Florida State License Program 'Protect Wild Dolphins' and 'Protect Florida Whales' grants (administered by the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute Foundation), and the John H. Prescott Grant #'s NA14NMF4390181, NA11NMF4390065, NA17NMF4390103, NA12NMF4390165 and NA16NMF4390141.
About Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute: Founded in 1971, Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute at Florida Atlantic University is a research community of marine scientists, engineers, educators and other professionals focused on Ocean Science for a Better World. The institute drives innovation in ocean engineering, at-sea operations, drug discovery and biotechnology from the oceans, coastal ecology and conservation, marine mammal research and conservation, aquaculture, ocean observing systems and marine education. For more information, visit http://www.fau.edu/hboi.
About Florida Atlantic University: Florida Atlantic University, established in 1961, officially opened its doors in 1964 as the fifth public university in Florida. Today, the University, with an annual economic impact of $6.3 billion, serves more than 30,000 undergraduate and graduate students at sites throughout its six-county service region in southeast Florida. FAU's world-class teaching and research faculty serves students through 10 colleges: the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, the College of Business, the College for Design and Social Inquiry, the College of Education, the College of Engineering and Computer Science, the Graduate College, the Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College, the Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine, the Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing and the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science. FAU is ranked as a High Research Activity institution by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. The University is placing special focus on the rapid development of critical areas that form the basis of its strategic plan: Healthy aging, biotech, coastal and marine issues, neuroscience, regenerative medicine, informatics, lifespan and the environment. These areas provide opportunities for faculty and students to build upon FAU's existing strengths in research and scholarship. For more information, visit fau.edu.