Great White Shark's 'Gigantic' Ancient Relative Revealed

Published Apr 25, 2024
By Robyn White
Nature Reporter

NEWSWEEK


The fossil of a huge great white shark relative that lived among the dinosaurs has been discovered in Mexico.

The discovery was made in a limestone quarry to the country's northeast by an international team of archeologists and paleontologists. Their find is detailed in a Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences study.

The bones of the creature, which lived during the Cretaceous period, were extremely well preserved, making this a rare find.

Paleontologists believe the creature had the potential to reach up to 30 feet long. In the study, they describe the animal as "gigantic." This makes it far bigger than the modern great white sharks. It belongs to the durophagous lamniforms (mackerel shark) family and is possibly the largest of this type of shark ever to have lived.

The creature was of the genus Ptychodus, an extinct genus of durophagous sharks known for having particularly large teeth that had a vicious bite.

"Fossils of Ptychodus are not so rare in Cretaceous marine deposits around the world. However, these mostly consist of isolated teeth, fragmentary dentition, and isolated vertebrae," lead author Romain Vullo, a researcher at Géosciences Rennes told Newsweek. "Complete specimens of Ptychodus were unknown until the discovery of the Mexican material. Such fossils are rare because their exquisite preservation requires exceptional conditions, such as a quiet muddy environment devoid of scavengers. The platy limestone of Vallecillo is one of the very few deposits of Late Cretaceous age that have yielded complete shark specimens."

An artist's illustration shows the newly discovered shark hunting a turtle. The fossil of a huge great white shark relative that lived among the dinosaurs has been discovered in Mexico. DR ROMAIN VULLO, PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B: BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES 2024.

The nearly intact fossil allowed scientists to get a good picture of the extinct species, and what it may have looked like, as well as what it may have eaten and how it moved. Some bones were so well-preserved that eye sockets, fins, tails and even the impression of organs were visible, a summary of the findings reported.

"Specimens mostly consist of isolated teeth or more or less complete dentitions, whereas cranial and post-cranial skeletal elements are very rare," the authors wrote in the study.

Scientists believe this shark, which would have hunted hard-shelled prey such as sea turtles, went extinct about 76 million years ago. They believe that its choice of prey may have been a big factor in the extinction as other animals had evolved that hunted the same animals, presenting competition.

"Our [...] analyses indicate that ptychodontids were high-speed durophagous lamniforms [mackerel sharks], which occupied a specialized predatory niche previously unknown in fossil," the authors explained in the study.

"The newly discovered fossils provide crucial information regarding the body shape of Ptychodus, its paleoecology, and its position within the cartilaginous fish tree of life," Vullo said. "We now know that Ptychodus was a member of the order Lamniformes (mackerel sharks) and occupied a unique ecological niche in Late Cretaceous seas, being the only pelagic shark with a durophagous diet. This suggests that ptychodontids were one of the main predators of ammonites and sea turtles in open marine paleoecosystems."

Looking at the shape of its streamlined body, scientists determined that the shark must have been able to swim exceptionally fast.

Despite these recent findings, there is still much to learn about this extinct species.

"Isotope analyses of Ptychodus teeth would be interesting in order to confirm that this shark was an apex predator, with a trophic level higher than previously thought, " Vullo said. "More generally, there are several other Cretaceous shark specimens that have yet to be described, and which will complete our knowledge on the diversity and ecology of this animal before the end of the Mesozoic Era."

Great White Sharks Band Together to Prey on Whales

These two marine giants rarely clash head-to-head. But great white sharks’ hunting habits for large prey can help unlock secrets about how they communicate with each other.

By Lily Carey

Apr 26, 2024

 

(Credit: Nautilus Creative/Getty Images)

In March 2024, a group of boaters in Venice Beach, Florida ran into a great white shark feeding on a whale carcass. While white sharks’ diet consists primarily of large marine mammals such as seals and sea lions, scavenging off of whale carcasses is an important way for them to maintain their diet. 

From the southern tip of South Africa to the California coast, we’ve observed white sharks, also known as great white sharks, engaging in fascinating hunting patterns from shorelines around the world. These apex predators are capable of almost anything — even taking down the ocean’s largest creatures. 

And though there’s less documented evidence of white sharks hunting larger prey, a few experts have witnessed them preying on living whales. A team of biologists spotted about eight white sharks attacking an injured humpback whale in Mossel Bay, South Africa in 2017. An earlier study, published 2012 in Marine Mammal Science, documented four other instances of white sharks preying on whales. 

Experts are attempting to explain this rare, fascinating behavior. 

When Do Great White Sharks Hunt Whales?

Whales can perish in the wild for a range of reasons, such as entanglement in fishing gear or collisions with large ships. Most researchers say the hunting of whales by sharks is only seen when the whale is in very poor condition, though even this is poorly documented by scientists. 

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Read More: Baby Shark Spotted: Scientists Film Their First Footage of a White Shark Newborn

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“The majority of foraging you see on whales by sharks is scavenging of a very sick animal,” says Yannis Papastamatiou, a marine biologist at Florida International University. “Large, clearly dying whales — that's an easy target for sharks.”  

Though their demise can be devastating to whale populations, a whale carcass can be an essential part of many marine ecosystems. And although white sharks are formidable hunters, whale carcasses often provide an essential source of low-effort nutrition. 

If a white shark — or any other marine predator — wants to try and take down a living whale, it’s never a solo effort, Papastamatiou says. 

“When you're talking about very large prey, that's another reason why you may need some form of cooperative hunting,” he says. “Orcas, for example, can take out very large whales, and they don't do it by themselves.” 

Social Foraging: Why Great White Sharks Hunt in Packs

But experts say this isn’t just a survival tactic. It’s part of a more complex array of hunting dynamics, referred to as “social foraging.”  

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Read More: Instead of Hunting in Groups, Orcas May be Attacking Great White Sharks Alone

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“It doesn't require complex cooperation for it to still be advantageous to hunt in a group,” says Papastamatiou. 

Sharks aren’t known to be particularly social animals, and are more often seen traveling solo than in a group. Yet in a study published in Biology Letters in 2022, Papastamatiou and a team of researchers reported that sharks often swam with or near each other, especially while hunting prey.  

The study used advanced tracking devices to log the movements of several sharks off the coast of Guadalupe Bay, Mexico over the course of more than four years. These tracking devices allowed Papastamatiou’s team to examine how much time these sharks spent together, and where they traveled.  

The results: sharks were found to spend far more time in each other’s company than expected, sometimes even forming “long-term associations” with each other. Some sharks swam near each other while hunting for periods of up to 70 minutes, a pattern seen more often in deeper waters. So while sharks are often spotted solo to observers on the surface, their relationships might be developed beneath the waves and out of sight.  

The sharks may not have always been “purposefully signaling” to each other in order to coordinate hunting tactics, Papastamatiou notes, and scientists didn’t observe any instances of the sharks in the study pursuing larger prey such as whales. But their social interactions still revealed much about how they approach relationships, both with their prey and with each other. 

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Read More: The Idea That Sharks Fear Dolphins May Just Be an Old Sailor's Myth

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“They're all hunting in this area, Guadalupe Bay, where prey is abundant, and they kind of remain within eavesdropping distance of each other so that if one of them locates prey, let's say a big marine mammal like a seal, then the others can come and get a piece of a pie,” Papastamatiou says.   

“It's still social foraging,” he adds. “It just doesn't necessarily require cooperation.” 

Entangled Humpback Whale Near Unalaska Successfully Cut Free

The response, in a remote community, took several days and involved a broad array of partner agencies, organizations, and local trained volunteers.

Feature Story | Alaska

An entangled humpback whale in Iliuliuk Bay near the Port of Dutch Harbor, Alaska. Credit: City of Unalaska, taken under NOAA Fisheries Permit #24359.


A humpback whale was entangled in fishing gear in Iliuliuk Bay, near the Port of Dutch Harbor, Alaska. Due to the efforts of NOAA, partners, and local trained volunteers, it was successfully cut free.

The entangled whale was first reported to NOAA Fisheries on the afternoon of April 1. The whale appeared to be anchored in place, though it was in good condition and able to breathe regularly. However, it was precariously anchored in a high vessel traffic area on the edge of the main shipping lane in Iliuliuk Bay.
Image

Underwater video taken by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game provided valuable information about the entanglement to the response team. Credit: ADF&G/Asia Beder, taken under NOAA Fisheries permit #24359.

Our Alaska Marine Mammal Entanglement Response Network partners at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game responded. They were able to gather informative underwater imagery on April 2 using a GoPro pole camera. This enabled the team to better understand the configuration and severity of the entanglement and develop an action plan. The underwater video revealed that the entanglement looped through the whale’s mouth and was wrapped just forward of the whale’s flukes. The whale was essentially hog-tied. The entangling line continued from the tail down to a heavy, unknown anchoring source in approximately 100 feet of water, holding the whale in place. The video also confirmed that the whale was a subadult male. He had likely not been entangled for long. It showed strategic cutting of the entangling gear had a good chance of freeing this whale.

Two NOAA large whale entanglement response experts flew out to Unalaska to lead the disentanglement effort. They arrived in Unalaska on the morning of April 4 with additional specialized equipment to aid in the disentanglement effort. The team made an initial attempt to free the whale that afternoon. Unfortunately, some bad weather blew in, and the whale was spending most of its time at depth and out of reach. The team decided to stand down until the next morning at first light when weather forecasts indicated improvement.

The approach team regrouped on Friday morning to return to the whale in better weather conditions. Valuable safety support was provided by the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Alex Haley and associated small boat team, Alaska state wildlife troopers, and NOAA Office of Law Enforcement.

The team used a new piece of equipment: a live-streaming camera attached to a 28-foot long pole behind a fixed knife. The camera enabled the response team to view the cutting action in nearly real-time. Credit: NOAA Fisheries, taken under NOAA Fisheries permit #24359.

New Tools Help Free the Whale

The team needed to gain access to the deep water lines wrapped around the animal's tail and connecting the whale to the anchoring gear. They used a new piece of equipment: a live-streaming camera attached to a 28-foot-long pole behind a knife. The camera enabled the response team to view the cutting action in near-real time. Like a surgeon's endoscope, this allowed the team to make strategic cuts remotely. The team was also making cuts to the rope on the outside of the body (i.e., an exoscope).

Using the exoscope, the team was able to first cut the bridle line on the left side of the body. This freed the whale’s tail somewhat to allow it to pull the line from its mouth.

Share: Humpback Whale Disentanglement Near Dutch Harbor - 1st Cut

On April 5th, 2024, a specially trained team from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game successful disentangled a humpback whale from fishing gear. This shows them back the first cut. Efforts permitted under NMFS MMHSRP Permit #24359.

When the whale did not initially respond, the team made a second approach and cut the right side bridle. This completely freed the tail from the mouth, and allowed the whale to release the wraps around its tail. This was the first documented successful use of the whale disentanglement exoscope to free an entangled whale.

Share: Humpback Whale Disentanglement Near Dutch Harbor - 2nd Cut

On April 5th, 2024, a t specially rained team from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game successful disentangled a humpback whale from fishing gear. This shows them back the second cut. Efforts permitted under NMFS MMHSRP Permit #24359.

“The whale swam off pretty quickly once it was no longer anchored,” said NOAA Fisheries’ Sadie Wright. “There was still a small section of line in his mouth, but we expect that the whale will shed that portion of line on its own.”

A screenshot from underwater video taken via a pole camera shows the male humpback is free of the entanglement. Credit: NOAA Fisheries, taken under NOAA Fisheries permit #24359.

The gear that was anchoring the whale has not been recovered from the seafloor, but underwater imagery provides good documentation of the entangling lines. In the coming weeks, NOAA Fisheries and the Alaska Department of Fish & Game will share the video and photos with gear experts, including commercial fishermen and fisheries managers. This will help further identify the source of the gear. We are also examining the imagery of the whale’s flukes to determine if we can identify the individual.

“This was an emotional event for many people in this community, and their patience and support of the trained response team, I think, made all the difference in this being a successful disentanglement,” said Alaska Department of Fish & Game’s Asia Beder.
Partners Key to Disentanglement Success

The success of this disentanglement is due to help from many groups including:Initial reports from community members and the fishing industry in Dutch Harbor
Local agencies who participated in all of the response efforts
Alaska state troopers who provided safety support and a vessel
City of Unalaska who provided updates

Ounalashka Corporation who monitored the whale’s respiratory rate

The U.S. Coast Guard supported this response in several ways: Conducted regular broadcasts to mariners via VHF
Worked with the Alaska Marine Exchange to inform mariners of the location of the entangled whale near the shipping channel with near real-time updates posted to digital charts
Provided on-site support with a small boat team and a drone team on standby if needed

The male humpback whale swims free following a successful whale disentanglement operation in Iliuliuk Bay near the Port of Dutch Harbor, Alaska. Credit: City of Unalaska, taken under NOAA Fisheries Permit #24359.

How to Assist An Entangled Whale

Entangled whales can be very unpredictable and dangerous, so please maintain a legal and safe distance of at least 100 yards from all humpback whales. Exercise extra caution and distance from an entangled whale. Unauthorized responses, while well intentioned, can result in additional injury and stress to entangled whales and increased safety risks to untrained responders. Please communicate with trained responders if you see an entangled whale.Call the Alaska Marine Mammal Stranding and Entanglement Network 24/7 hotline at (877) 925-7773

Call the U.S. Coast Guard on VHF Channel 16

Information you provide may help trained, experienced, and well-equipped responders attempt to free the animal and at the same time gain information to reduce the threat.

If you’re interested in learning more about becoming a first responder, take the online training developed by NOAA Fisheries in partnership with The Nature Conservancy. It will teach you how to more effectively document and communicate with NOAA to help free entangled whales. These reports are the best way to help the animal.

More InformationAlaska Marine Mammal Stranding Network
How to Disentangle a Whale
Alaska Humpback Whale Approach Regulations

Last updated byAlaska Regional Officeon April 25, 2024

 

What do we lose when our old suburbs disappear?

by Felicity Castagna, The Conversation

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

I live on the edge of Parramatta, Australia's fastest-growing city, on the kind of old-fashioned suburban street that has 1950s fibros constructed in the post-war housing boom, double-story brick homes with Greek columns that aspirational migrants built in the 1970s and half-crumbling, Federation-era mansions once occupied by people whose names still appear in history textbooks.

Parramatta's population is predicted to almost double in the next 20 years. My street, like so many others, has recently been rezoned for high-density living. Many of these houses are being sold to developers.

It's a local story but it's also a national one: suburbs near our cities are disappearing everywhere along with the crucial histories of Australian life they represent.

Australia is still a suburban nation: 70% of us live in the suburbs and this figure is increasing with the rapid growth of "McMansion" areas in the far outskirts of our cities.

Suburbia looms large in our imagining of ourselves, so what happens when we lose those suburban streets whose houses are too young to be heritage-listed but still old enough to tell an important story of our social and economic history? As urban researcher Larry Bourne argued, we have yet to really write the history of suburban life because we haven't paid enough attention to recording the private everyday experiences of people and their homes there.

So that's what I've been doing for the past several months, walking the street with suburban photographer Garry Trinh and talking to my neighbors about their relationships with their homes before they are lost.

'A different attitude to life'

A few houses down from me, Craig lives in a cottage that he believes "shows a different attitude towards life." He spends his weekends restoring parts of his home.

He enjoys the idea that living in a house like this "you grow old together." He shows me the places where the tiles on the floor don't fit perfectly. The "walls and roofs are never even," but that's part of the place's charm—you can see where others have added a living room or tried to fix a leak.

These homes have layers of history that don't exist anywhere else.

To Craig, these houses represent why other generations felt more of the kind of safety and security that allowed them to build a greater sense of community.

'Edible things in people's yards'

Jenny's parents bought the largest block on the end of the street because the previous owners refused to sell to developers. She recently moved back home to care for her mother.

It's a sprawling Federation-era home called "Coo-Wong" and it feels like big history must have happened there, despite its absence from any local history archives. There are clues, though, about the kind of people who might have lived here before: Chinese coins found on the property, a shed full of bric-a-brac.

Mostly, the whole family lives in the kitchen or the light-filled corner at the back of the house where Jenny's mother grows flowers. Her father's family lost everything during the Cultural Revolution and he moved here to find a better life. He's in the building industry and their home is filled with the spare parts from other houses, doors, drawers and other supplies that might go into extending or renovating their home one day.

Jenny remembers when they moved into the neighborhood there was an older generation of people who embraced them. There were fruit trees and "all of these edible things in people's yards." In their backyard, a giant satellite dish, which her parents bought to watch their shows from China, still looms big even if it isn't needed anymore.

It's these small details in Jenny's home that tell the larger story of how various generations of migrants sewed themselves into the fabric of our suburbs.

Different versions of one house

George, his wife, Jennifer, and their two adult children live in the house George's father built in 1973 when the street was filled with vacant blocks. His family was the first to move here from their village in Lebanon, so their house became a kind of community hub—there were always people there.

George's family passed the plans he used to build the house onto other Lebanese families that moved in. It means there are slightly different versions of this house in many other places on the street.

George's dad and his uncles built many houses in this area together. Sometimes they didn't quite get it right though: only one door in their house is hung straight—all the rest are hung backwards. The family has been trying to restore parts of the house for a long time, including the Art Deco railings and Victorian lights.

As an expert in post-war housing, Mirjana Lozanovska says this layering of architectural details found in these post-war suburban homes "expanded the image and aesthetic spectrum of what it is to be Australian."

A long row of houses for sale

Carol lives in a long row of houses at the end of the street that are all for sale. She has, to put it lightly, a lot of stuff. Her odd collection of tents and furniture and well-loved succulents spill from her house to its immense lawns.

The quest for affordable housing has pushed Carol further and further west over time. When the landlord sells the house she'll head further away, looking for some other suburban street where the houses are still intact and maybe there'll still be lemon trees.

Provided by The Conversation 

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Innovative urban living concept tackles housing woes, offers socially connected solutions

 

Does fighting inflation always lead to recession? What 60 years of NZ data can tell us

by Michael Ryan, The Conversation

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

There is an ongoing global debate over whether the high inflation seen in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic can be lowered without a recession.

New Zealand is not immune to this issue. Reserve Bank governor Adrian Orr has said a recession is needed to tame inflation—described as a "hard landing." Others have disagreed, arguing New Zealand could and should aim for a soft landing (a reduction of inflation with no recession).

But are reductions in inflation inextricably linked to recessions?

New Zealand's own economic history, it turns out, can give some guidance on this, and point to the risk factors within the country's economic outlook.

Are we in recession yet?

There is no hard and fast definition of a recession. The term "technical recession" is widely used to refer to a period with two consecutive quarters of negative real growth in gross domestic product. By this measure, New Zealand entered a recession at the end of last year.

But many economists prefer the alternative definition from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) in the United States: a recession is "the period between a peak of economic activity and its subsequent trough, or lowest point."

Technical recessions and recessions meeting the NBER criteria do not always coincide.

In 2014, two researchers used the Bry-Boschan algorithm, which is based on the NBER definition, to identify New Zealand's recessions between 1947 and 2012.

The question is whether we can identify these recessions in real time rather than in hindsight. The so-called Sahm rule stipulates a recession is likely when the unemployment rate starts to increase after recent lows, which can help with timely analysis of the economic conditions.

The dashed line in the graph below shows a recession indicator based on unemployment, dating back to 1986 when quarterly unemployment data was first published. The indicator usually coincides (within one quarter) with the start of a recession based on the Bry-Boschan algorithm.

According to this indicator, we were not in recession in the fourth quarter of 2023. However, if the rise in online job applications and fall in job ads continues, this indicator might flash red soon.

The highs and lows of NZ inflation

Since 1961, New Zealand has experienced eight falls in inflation (disinflations) of four percentage points or more. (Disinflation refers to when inflation drops but remains positive, while "deflation" occurs when the inflation rate falls below zero).

This four percentage point drop is required for New Zealand's inflation to reach the Reserve Bank's target of 1–3%, down from the 7.3% recorded in the third quarter of 2022.

Each letter in the graph above identifies the inflation peak before historical disinflation episodes. The shaded area identifies recessions up to 2012.

The graph shows four drops in inflation—B, E, F and C—seem to be associated with recessions, while drops A, D and G were not. Disinflation G does have a recession quite late in the piece, the Asian Financial Crisis, but approximately half the inflation fall had already occurred before the crisis took hold.

The message is a positive one: a fall in inflation does not necessarily have to be associated with a recession.

But are any of the historical disinflation episodes more instructive than others about what might happen in the current situation?

Disinflations D and G, which were associated with soft landings, followed increases in short-term interest rates (such as New Zealand has recently experienced). Disinflation D was also helped by a halving in oil prices between November 1985 and March 1986.

Disinflation H is a bit of an anomaly. The inflation peak in 2011 was an artificial high as it came on the back of an increase in the goods and services tax in 2010.

A common theme with hard landings

Turning to the hard landings in the sample, early 1974 saw a large increase in oil prices after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. The resulting global recession, coupled with restrictive domestic fiscal policy to quell oil price-induced inflation, contributed to disinflation between the second quarter of 1976 and the fourth quarter of 1978 (marked B on the graph).

Disinflation F, between the second quarter of 1990 and the first quarter of 1992, again occurred against the backdrop of a slowdown in the world economy. This reflected, in part, the increase in oil prices in 1990 due the first Gulf War, and tight domestic monetary and fiscal policies.

Disinflations B and F share similarities with New Zealand's current situation, including restrictive (monetary) policy and unrest in the Middle East. Oil prices are up more than 15% this year, although they are yet to reach their mid-2022 highs.

Disinflations C and E were also associated with recessions reflecting global events. During deflation C, events in Iran led to an oil price increase, which both directly and through policy actions sent the US into recession in the early 1980s.

Disinflation E coincided with the October 1987 sharemarket crash which set off instability in New Zealand's newly-liberalized financial system.

So if New Zealand is not currently in a recession, what are the country's chances of avoiding one while trying to reduce inflation?

History suggests it is possible. But favorable global conditions are needed and, in particular, favorable geopolitics. Recent events in the Middle East, coupled with the ongoing war in Ukraine, are not positive signs.

Provided by TheConversation 

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Inflation inequality: Poorest Americans are hit hardest by soaring prices on necessities

 

Bird flu’s disturbing new turn into cattle — are California herds safe?

California takes steps to help prevent its arrival on ranches — and potential human spread

Cows are seen at a dairy in California 

 (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File)

By LISA M. KRIEGER | lkrieger@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News Group
PUBLISHED: April 26, 2024 

U.S. health officials are closely monitoring the recent leap of avian flu from birds to cattle — and earlier this month, to a Texas dairy farmer.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stresses the current public health risk is low — the virus isn’t known to spread among people or through the food supply, is rarely caught from exposure to infected animals, and where human infections have occurred, is often mild and manageable.

But the leap of the H5N1 influenza strain, widespread among wild fowl and a regular threat to domestic poultry, into cattle was unexpected, and a worrisome development, as the more the virus spreads, the more chances it has to mutate. The COVID-19 pandemic was a stark lesson in the risk of “spillover,” when pathogens spread from animals to humans.

People have frequent contact with cattle, creating opportunities for more exposure. Experts suspect that it may be transmitted among animals in a herd, or by contaminated milking equipment.

California, the nation’s leading milk producer, is working out the details of a testing program for all incoming animals to comply with a new federal requirement, according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture.

Worried dairy farmers are taking biosecurity steps to help protect herds, although testing of the state’s animals remains voluntary.


Some farmers are putting tarps on their water supplies to fend off migratory birds and are requiring sanitary precautions such as disinfecting tools and boots for people who travel from ranch to ranch, like hoof trimmers, according to Anja Raudabaugh, CEO of Western United Dairies in Turlock.

But there is no state or federal requirement to routinely sample cows or milk. Clinical signs of flu occur in only a fraction of cases, so some experts fear that the virus may be hiding in untested animals.


Avian flu used to be just a bird problem. But now it’s been detected in 33 dairy cattle herds in eight states. It doesn’t kill cows, but causes a dramatic reduction in milk production.

While California remains off the list of infected states, “it’s a very dynamic situation that could change from day to day,” said Dr. Terry W. Lehenbauer, director of UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine’s Veterinary Medicine Teaching and Research Center in Tulare.

“Wild birds introduced bird flu to Midwest cattle; it could happen in California too,” according to Dr. Michael Payne, director of the California Dairy Quality Assurance Program.

There are two major clues that the outbreak is bigger and started earlier than experts thought.

One hint was found in the milk supply. This week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration discovered fragments of the inactivated H5N1 bird flu virus in milk purchased from stores around the country. Because milk is pasteurized, it is safe — but this is evidence that infected cows aren’t being counted.

The other was detected in the genome. A new genetic analysis reveals that the virus jumped from birds into dairy cows mid-December — likely as a single incident. This is earlier than previously thought and suggests it has spread more widely, according to University of Arizona evolutionary biologist Michael Worobey.

There is currently no evidence of human-to-human transmission. If the virus does spread to humans, it can be treated with the medicine Tamiflu, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said at a Wednesday briefing. The CDC said that a testing plan is in place, as well as two potential vaccines.

In birds, this is the worst flu outbreak in U.S. history, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data. The virus also has been detected in other mammals, such as elephant seals and sea lions in South America, where it is very deadly.

Pigs, which are routinely tested for flu, are still negative. This is reassuring because pigs have both avian and human cell receptors that act as “mixing vessels” for flu viruses.

The new federal order, which requires testing all lactating cows before moving across states, will aid the disease investigation. Labs and veterinarians that find the virus, or antibodies against it, must report it to USDA.

California ships many dairy cattle in and out of state, said Lehenbauer. Most cows coming into California are heifers that do not yet produce milk. Cattle leaving the state tend to be steers headed to feedlots for beef production.

To help prevent infection of the state’s 1.72 million animals, California requires that cattle originating from a state that has infected herds be inspected and receive a clean bill of health. Cattle can’t enter if they’re from a suspicious herd.

“Our ‘ratcheted up’ approach at our border crossings, and quarantine for cattle coming in from affected areas, has really assisted in preventing further spread of that virus,” said Raudabaugh.

And too-restrictive regulations could disrupt the critical supply chain that provides the nation’s milk, Lehenbauer said.

“Given our current situation, I think that the procedures and policies that we have in place are adequate and appropriate. … We don’t want to put undue restrictions on on our animal production systems,” said Lehenbauer. “I’m very confident that our milk and dairy product supply is very safe and wholesome.”

But this approach is drawing criticism from some experts who think the lack of testing of healthy animals is short-sighted.

“This isn’t good, folks,” said Dr. Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institution in San Diego, on Twitter. “I’m not worried about H5N1 transmission to humans (yet) but … the lack of testing of asymptomatic cattle,” among other issues, “detracts from confidence.”

STUDY FINDS
Concerning number of unqualified health influencers discovered on TikTok

Photo by Solen Feyissa from Unsplash

by Shyla Cadogan, RD

CHICAGO — Today, social media platforms like TikTok are a big part of life for millions of people. Social media not only provides a few laughs, but it also gives users information on just about anything they can think of. Health information is at the top of this list, but is that a good or bad thing?

Hashtags like #celiactok and #diabetestok have garnered millions of views, with each tag taking you to numerous videos about each health issue.

“Every type of ‘Tok’ exists – that’s just how the internet works,” says Rose Dimitroyannis, a third-year medical student at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, in a media release. “Little tiny segments of the population find one another and make waves.”

This has been a really positive thing in some ways. As a dietitian who engages with the media, I can reach a much wider audience and provide helpful information on a global scale, reaching just about anyone instantly.

It’s been a great way for other healthcare professionals like doctors to do the same. People who struggle with certain health conditions can also find community support online. At the same time, this type of accessibility opens people up to easily finding misinformation. People who pretend to be experts and misrepresent their educational background or just speak with authority despite not having any medical background can deceive the public and further fuel the spread of false narratives.

A lot of people who start new health trends or share their latest hack aren’t doing it with ill intent. Carrot salads for “hormone balance” and “sleepy girl mocktails” with magnesium aren’t really the bad guys. It’s just that a few clicks away, you can find someone else telling people to drink borax daily, which comes with more serious health risks.

“There is high-quality and factual information out there on social media platforms such as TikTok, but it may be very difficult to distinguish this from information disseminated by influencers that can actually be harmful,” says Christopher Roxbury, MD, a surgeon and rhinology expert at UChicago Medicine.

People on social media who speak with authority despite not having any medical credentials can deceive the public and further fuel the spread of misinformation.

 (Photo by cottonbro from Pexels)

Dimitroyannis, Roxbury, and other researchers from the University of Chicago systematically analyzed health information on TikTok to see if they could determine how much misinformation is out there and if it comes from certain types of content creators. Their findings show that almost half of the videos analyzed contained non-factual information, with a significant amount of incorrect content coming from nonmedical creators.

To get a deeper understanding, the team narrowed their focus to a specific health condition and performed their search during a single 24-hour period in order to limit the effects of TikTok’s changing algorithm. They searched TikTok using certain hashtags related to sinusitis, including #sinusitis, #sinus, and #sinusinfection, organized the videos based on uploader types, content categories, and content types, and assessed the quality of the videos using various metrics, including understandability, actionability and reliability.

These assessments utilized both the knowledge of the researchers but also validated empirical tools like the Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool for Audiovisual Material.

Nearly 44 percent of the videos contained misinformation. Videos from “nonmedical influencers,” which are categorized as content creators with over 10,000 followers who did not self-identify as medical professionals, accounted for nearly half of all videos.

They were also more likely to spread misinformation and have lower quality scores. More typical videos from the average person were about daily life and comedy rather than trying to provide medical advice. The team found that medical professionals, by and large, produced educational content and received better scores for video quality, factual information, and harm/benefit comparisons.

The findings show that almost half of the health-related videos analyzed contained non-factual information. 

(Photo by Amanda Vick on Unsplash)

This isn’t to say that the medical professionals were always perfect.

“Medical professionals are people; they can still say wrong things,” Dimitroyannis points out. “But overall, health experts are posting more beneficial content.”

In the study data, only 15 percent of videos from medical professionals contained non-factual information, compared to nearly 60 percent of videos from nonmedical influencers.

“I frequently have patients in the clinic asking me questions about things they saw online or on social media, and I have found that many times the information has steered patients in the wrong direction,” says Roxbury, the study’s senior author. “In some cases, I see patients who have already sought out and undergone such treatment without any benefit; in rarer cases, they’ve been harmed.”

“As a clinician, you can’t deny that anyone who comes into your office has probably looked something up — which is well within their rights to try to understand their health,” adds Dimitroyannis, the lead author of the paper. “At the end of the day, patients and physicians alike should understand the power of this tool, recognizing the downsides while acknowledging that there can be good quality information available as well.”

The researchers are using their findings to drive home the point that critical thinking and discernment are key when it comes to receiving health information online. If there’s any confusion about how something could apply to your situation, ask your own professional.

As a registered dietitian, I see first-hand how people are constantly looking for the quick-fix diet or supplements. They are willing to try almost any trend they see online. This can actually set them back from reaching their health goals in a sustainable way. I always encourage people not to take anything online at face value, not even the things that I say, even though I always do my best to post accurate, up-to-date information.

Healthcare professionals can use the Internet for a lot of good. They can use platforms like TikTok and Instagram to enlighten people and make them think twice before hopping on a trend that likely won’t even benefit them or maybe even hurt them.

The findings are published in the journal Otolaryngology.

Middle-of-the-Road Mountains Form the Best Carbon Sinks

Silicate rock weathering has a sweet spot: erosion that isn’t too fast or too slow.

By Martin J. Kernan

26 April 2024

Some mountains in Taiwan have just the right erosion rate to pull significant amounts of carbon out of the atmosphere. 

Credit: Robert Emberson

As humans turn up the heat on Earth, geoscientist Aaron Bufe and other researchers are figuring out how our planet has stayed so cool in the past. Throughout Earth’s history, volcanoes have belched out varying amounts of atmosphere-warming carbon dioxide, but the runaway greenhouse effect that should have boiled our oceans away eons ago never came to fruition, and temperatures have been relatively stable.

“Over 500 million years and probably longer, Earth’s temperature has mostly varied between about 10°C and 30°C. Somehow, Earth has always sort of managed to get back to a temperature that makes life possible,” Bufe said.

Bufe, of Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, and his colleagues found that mountains with moderate uplift rates have been sucking carbon out of the atmosphere, outpacing young, fast-eroding ranges once thought to be carbon drawdown champs. Their recent work, published in Science, weighs in on an ongoing debate over whether mountains act as sinks or sources of atmospheric carbon.

Mountains Rise, Carbon Falls

Since the late 1970s, many scientists have thought that the rapid rise of mountains such as the Himalayas, Rockies, and parts of the Andes removes naturally emitted carbon, thus keeping the greenhouse effect in check.

Warmer climates produce more rain, and carbonic acid in raindrops dissolves silicate minerals brought to the surface within the uplifting mountains. Carbon, calcium, and other molecules then flow into the ocean, where they form compounds used by marine organisms to build shells and skeletons. Earth has sequestered carbon through this silicate weathering process for hundreds of thousands of years.

“Then how do you explain the long-term decline in atmospheric CO2, growth of polar ice sheets, and cooling over millions of years?”

But about a decade ago, scientists discovered that sulfide minerals such as pyrite add carbon dioxide (CO2) to the atmosphere in amounts that could negate silicate weathering storage. That’s because sulfides (and carbonates) break down very fast in places where there’s lots of erosion, such as in the Himalayas.

The finding puzzled researchers. “Then how do you explain the long-term decline in atmospheric CO2, growth of polar ice sheets, and cooling over millions of years?” said Jeremy Rugenstein, a paleoclimatologist at Colorado State University and a coauthor of the new study.

The Link Between Erosion and Weathering

A few years ago, Bufe and Rugenstein and their colleagues set out to solve that mystery and began by asking, “Can we actually measure the sensitivity of CO2 drawdown and release to erosion?”

Erosion (the removal of rocks and minerals from an outcrop) influences weathering (the breakdown of rocks and minerals) because it exposes fresh minerals to the elements. But existing studies disagree about the relationship between these processes. Some say silicate weathering tracks with erosion, whereas others show that the amount of silicate in rivers doesn’t change regardless of erosion rate.

“This optimum emerged that you couldn’t really see from the data alone.”

In 2021, the researchers got a hint that the answer may lie somewhere in the middle, when data Bufe collected in southern Taiwan, where erosion varies wildly, revealed that as erosion rates increased, silicate weathering eventually leveled off. Quickly dissolving sulfides and carbonates, meanwhile, kept up with the flow of sediments from mountain to river, turning the topography from a sink to a source of atmospheric CO2.

In expanding the scope of the study to include mountain ranges in New Zealand and Sichuan, China—places where erosion rates also vary—the researchers saw a pattern. “This optimum emerged that you couldn’t really see from the data alone,” Bufe said.

Maximum CO2 consumption in all three locations occurred where erosion was about 0.07 millimeter per year. Slower than that, there aren’t enough silicate rocks exposed to weather; faster, and silicate doesn’t have time to completely dissolve.

Bufe pointed to medium-sized mountains such as the Juras in Europe and those in the Black Forest in Germany and along the Oregon coast as prime examples in this Goldilocks range, where the erosion rate is just right. There, most carbon-sourcing sulfides and carbonates weathered away long ago.

The fact that all three data sets end up supporting each other is “incredibly powerful.”

“They’ve taken a bit of a risk by looking at these three quite different mountain locations. But the results are really cool and worth it,” said Bob Hilton, a sedimentologist at the University of Oxford who was not involved in the study. The fact that all three data sets end up supporting each other is “incredibly powerful,” he said.

More research is needed to get a complete picture of how landscapes process carbon, Bufe said. In floodplains downriver from where he took samples, silicate rock may continue to weather. And organic carbon isn’t accounted for in these results, nor is the common sedimentary type: basalt.

This “more nuanced way of thinking about the Earth system over long timescales” is what’s needed to puzzle out how minerals, erosion, and rain control climate, said Pennsylvania State University aqueous geochemist Susan Brantley, who wasn’t involved in the research.

—Martin J. Kernan, Science Writer

Citation: Kernan, M. J. (2024), Middle-of-the-road mountains form the best carbon sinks, Eos, 105, https://doi.org/10.1029/2024EO240187. Published on 26 April 2024.

Latin America approves plan for protecting environmental defenders

YANINE QUIROZ

26.04.2024 | 

Latin American and Caribbean countries approved a new action plan to protect environmental defenders this week.

This occurred at the third Conference of the Parties (COP3) to the Escazú Agreement, held in Santiago, Chile, from 22 to 24 April.

The Escazú Agreement, in force since 22 April 2021, is a legally binding regional treaty that aims to protect environmental defenders and promote public participation and access to information on environmental matters.

The conference brought together more than 700 people, from state parties and civil-society organisations to youth activists and Indigenous environmental defenders.

Latin America and the Caribbean is considered by campaign groups to be the “most dangerous place in the world for activists”.

The regional action plan sets out priority areas and strategic measures for countries to enact article 9 of the Escazú Agreement, which urges states to recognise and protect the rights of environmental defenders and prevent and punish attacks against them.

Graciela Martínez, regional campaigner for the Americas at Amnesty International, tells Carbon Brief that the action plan is an “important step towards implementing the Escazú Agreement”.
Action plan

Between 2012 and 2022, Latin America and the Caribbean saw 1,910 killings of environmental and land defenders, according to a 2023 report from campaign group Global Witness. This accounted for 88% of such killings around the world during that decade, the report notes.

The Escazú Agreement came out of the 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development and seeks to guarantee the right to a healthy environment and sustainable development for current and future generations. Part of this is achieved, the agreement says, by recognising the important role that environmental and human-rights defenders play in this regard.

Currently, 16 countries have ratified the Escazú Agreement, including Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Mexico, Ecuador, and several Caribbean countries, such as Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada and Saint Kitts and Nevis. A recent statement by Amnesty International points out that some of the countries that have not yet ratified the agreement are among the most dangerous for environmental defenders, such as Brazil, Colombia and Guatemala.

The action plan agreed upon at COP3 will be implemented from 2024 to 2030 and comprises four priority areas, each accompanied by strategic measures to comply with objectives: Knowledge creation.
Recognition.
Capacity-building and cooperation for national implementation.
Evaluation of the action plan.

Knowledge creation refers to understanding the situation of defenders and identifying mechanisms to prevent and punish violations of defenders’ rights. Recognition measures require publicly acknowledging the work of defenders.

Within national implementation, the action plan mandates parties to create and strengthen institutions to provide free legal assistance to environmental defenders and training for judges and prosecutors.Objective of the priority area on capacity-building and cooperation for national implementation. Source: Action plan to protect environmental defenders.

Jesús Maya, a Mexican human-rights defender and youth representative at COP3, tells Carbon Brief:


“This is more than necessary for us to be able to talk about environmental justice and justice for people.”

Maya adds that the consultancy he manages, Eheco, is working to ensure that the Escazú processes “takes into account alternative justice” such as “collective justice” – as violence can also be directed at entire groups, not just individuals – and policies to preserve the “collective memory” of killed defenders, “so as not to repeat the issue”.

There are other examples of alternative justice, Maya says. One is Colombia’s special jurisdiction for peace – which seeks to deliver transitional justice to victims of the decades-long armed conflict by providing the right to justice, truth and restoration of damages. Another comes in the form of the truth commissions in Argentina, Peru, Chile, Mexico and Colombia, which were created to uncover the truth about human rights violations committed by military dictatorships, authoritarian regimes or internal armed conflicts.
Indigenous demands

Teresita Antazú López, an Indigenous environmental defender of the Yanesha people of the central Peruvian rainforest, tells Carbon Brief that Indigenous peoples had a number of demands at this COP.

According to López, who attended the COP3 as a member of the Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Jungle, the highest priority was to ensure their effective participation in the negotiations going forward. This includes having an Indigenous caucus to represent them and an Indigenous peoples rapporteur to report on violations in their territories.Indigenous and young representatives in the Escazú negotiations at COP3. Credit: ECLAC / Flickr

Alice Piva, a Brazilian climate activist and young ambassador of the Escazú Agreement, tells Carbon Brief that young activists and defenders are asking for the recognition of their leadership and participation in the Escazú processes. She explains that environmental justice includes intergenerational justice, adding:


“It is up to the younger generations to push [the Escazú Agreement] forward to achieve this vision of a Latin America with a strong environmental democracy.”

Piva also criticises accessibility of the COP for Brazilian organisations, noting that negotiations are often held in Spanish and English and less frequently in Portuguese.
Information access

COP3 also addressed transparency and access to environmental information.

During a side event organised by Article 19 Mexico and Central America – an organisation that promotes freedom of expression and access to information, Maribel Ek, guardian of the cenotes – or deep natural wells – of Homún, in the south-eastern Mexican state of Yucatán, told the audience that her community, which is home to 360 cenotes, managed to shut down a 49,000-pig mega-farm on its territory after investigating the farm’s permits and receiving support from lawyers. Ek said:


“To defend nature, we just need information. We need to know the steps to follow, the places to touch and how to do it.”

Article 6 of the Escazú Agreement states that “each party shall ensure the right of public access to environmental information in its possession, control or custody, in accordance with the principle of maximum disclosure”.

However, during the event, speakers said the Latin America and the Caribbean region still has shortcomings when it comes to disclosure. For example, panellists pointed out, Peru lacks training for officials and the budget for disclosures.

Speaking at the side event, Lourdes Medina, a lawyer specialising in environmental and Indigenous rights, said that if the right to access environmental information is not protected and guaranteed, other rights are at risk. Medina said:


“Citizens’ participation in resistance cannot be guaranteed. There is no adequate mechanism for access to justice, and this produces different forms of violence against defenders.”

Current implementation

During COP3, seven countries presented their national plans – either approved or in progress – to implement the Escazú Agreement. According to the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Ecuador, Argentina, Santa Lucía, Belize, Mexico, Uruguay and Chile all presented their plans at the summit. The COP also welcomed Dominica as the 16th party to the agreement.

Maya tells Carbon Brief that Mexico’s plan for implementing the Escazú Agreement is on hold due to the country’s upcoming national elections.

Piva says she is working with civil society organisations to get Brazil to ratify the agreement. She said that given Brazil’s size and its leadership in economic issues and regional networks such as Mercosur, the Escazú Agreement also needs Brazil. She tells Carbon Brief:


“If Brazil does not ratify or takes too long to ratify, the agreement will lose strength because it needs the country as a strong negotiator.”

According to the Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon River Basin (COICA), this COP succeeded regarding the inclusion of public participation, including Indigenous peoples, in implementing national plans.

Defenders and civil society organisations consulted by Carbon Brief highlight the need for the COPs on Escazú to be annual rather than biannual since protecting defenders is an urgent matter. Piva says:


“I don’t think it’s fair that defenders already threatened or at risk [wait] more than two years to have [a tool] to demand that their countries protect them.”