Underwater explorers have videoed a strange and record-breaking organism in a deep ocean canyon off Australia.
The string-like creature, which was introduced to the internet by the Schmidt Ocean Institute (SOI) on Twitter April 6, is estimated to have an outer ring 154 feet long — the size of an 11-story building — and a possible total length of more than 390 feet, Newsweek reported.”We think it’s the longest animal recorded to date,” SOI director of marine communications Carlie Wiener told USA TODAY.
Check out this beautiful *giant* siphonophore Apolemia recorded on #NingalooCanyons expedition. It seems likely that this specimen is the largest ever recorded, and in strange UFO-like feeding posture. Thanks @Caseywdunn for info @wamuseum @GeoscienceAus @CurtinUni @Scripps_Oceanpic.twitter.com/QirkIWDu6S
But the creature isn’t, strictly speaking, one animal. Instead, it’s a genus of siphonophore called Apolemia, as Live Science explained:Every individual siphonophore is made up of many little “zooids,” which each live lives that are more similar to animals we’re used to talking about, albeit always connected to the larger colony. Zooids are born axsexually, and each one performs a function for the siphonophore’s larger body, according to a research article published in the journal Developmental Dynamics in 2005. Linked together in long chains, the colonies were already known to reach lengths of up to 130 feet (40 m) according to the Monterey Bay Aquarium — though each siphonophore is only about as thick as a broomstick.
This siphonophore was videoed as part of a month-long expedition of deep sea canyons off Western Australia’s Nigaloo coast undertaken by Western Australian Museum researchers on board SOI’s research vessel Falkor, SOI said in a press release. In addition to the siphonophore, the researchers also discovered as many as 30 new species of marine life.”There is so much we don’t know about the deep sea, and there are countless species never before seen,” SOI co-founder Wendy Schmidt said in the press release. “Our planet is deeply interconnected – what happens in the deep sea impacts life on land–and vice versa. This research is vital to advance our understanding of that connection – and the importance of protecting these fragile ecosystems. The Ningaloo Canyons are just one of many vast underwater wonders we are about to discover that can help us better understand our planet.”Rebecca Helm, an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina Asheville who was not involved with the expedition, explained on Twitter why the siphonophore was so remarkable.She said she had seen siphonophores of around 20 centimeters to a meter (approximately eight to 39 inches), but never anything this large, and that it was hunting in a remarkable way, by making itself into a spiral to catch prey.
…once a clone captures its prey (a fish or crustacean) it will reel it to the colony & other clones that work as mouths will surround it. Often many swallowing it at once. Here is a video I took of another siphonophore, a man-o-war, eating prey. Once they prey is digested…pic.twitter.com/IIdS2w9263
“I’ve gone on numerous expeditions and have never, EVER, seen anything like this,” she wrote.
Children receive free food as part of the government initiative in Caracas, Venezuela on March 23, 2020. Carlos Becerra / Getty Images
Take the closure of schools. In the global North, this is an inconvenience for parents. E-learning platforms aside, it is also an educational setback for students, especially if it entails postponing exams. Yet dispiriting as this all is, it is not a vital threat.By contrast, for many children in the global South – 85 million in Latin America and the Caribbean alone – school closures mean no more school meals. Which in turn (in some African households in particular) means an end to the only hot meal anyone among family members would get in a day.Already before the coronavirus crisis, more than 820 million people went to bed hungry. This is an enormous number to grapple with, not just morally but from a policy perspective. The world has, after all, committed to ending all forms of hunger and malnutrition by 2030.Across the globe, the public policy response to the pandemic has been guided by the imperative to preserve life and health, and rightly so. But an unwanted repercussion could be to deepen hunger even further – possibly very soon.Unlike in the crisis of 2007/2008, and despite anecdotal reports of empty supermarket shelves, the risk today is not one of immediate shortages. The global supply of food remains strong. The big question mark hangs over supply chains.There is evidence that quarantine regulations and partial port closures are causing slowdowns and logistical hurdles in the shipping industry. Amid border restrictions, trucking faces similar threats.
The concern is not all about ready consumables: transport constraints can drastically affect the supply of fertilizers, veterinary drugs and other agricultural inputs. The shuttered restaurants and less frequent shopping trips are meanwhile curbing demand and will ultimately depress output. In the West, reduced labor mobility threatens to leave some seasonal crops rotting in the fields and deprive producers of their livelihoods. In Africa, during the Ebola crisis, food production plummeted by 12%.Much like in the public health sphere, where the virus’s impact explodes into view weeks after the initial contagion, the cumulative effects of such market disruption, while not dramatic yet, will likely become apparent as early as this month. Yes, well-nourished citizens in wealthy countries may weather a couple of months without some fresh or imported produce. But in the developing world, a child malnourished at a young age will be stunted for life.
This is why there is no time to waste. Governments, even as they prioritize public health goals, must do everything in their power to keep trade routes open and supply chains alive. Policymakers should without delay convene food industry and farmer representatives to identify bottlenecks and work out ways to smooth them out. They must decide which categories of agricultural laborers should be designated as critical staff and – while in no way undermining due protective measures – allow them to continue moving and working as needed. Systems must be aligned to ensure that global information on food prices, consumption and stocks flows widely and in real-time.Blanket closures, tighter commercial controls and inward-looking policies are a default setting in times of crisis. Such measures tend to be short-sighted. Now more than ever, we need international co-operation and supple arrangements to preserve the fluidity of global food markets. Coronavirus is threatening to shut down the world as we know it. We should not make its job any easier.
Reposted with permission from World Economic Forum.
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An olive tree infected with Xylella fastidiosa is removed from the garden of the Palais Carnoles after being cut on Sept. 10, 2019 in Menton, southern France. YANN COATSALIOU / AFP via Getty Images
A deadly pathogen is spreading across olive trees in Europe and may cause over $20 billion in losses and increase the price of olive oil, according to the BBC.
The bacteria, Xylella fastidiosa, is spread by sap-sucking insects known as spittlebugs. It is considered to be one of the most dangerous plant pathogens in the world, and it has already created huge problems in Italy and Spain where it has decimated entire groves of ancient olive trees, as The Independent reported.According to experts, the bacterium is capable of destroying not only olive trees, but it also preys upon more than 300 species including lavender, rosemary, almond, plum and cherry trees. There is no cure for a Xylella infection, according to the BBC.
A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that the infection could cost Italy over $5 billion over the next half century. Already, the bacterium has wiped out more than 1 million trees in Italy. Spain could suffer over $17 billion in losses and Greece will face another $2 billion in losses. That is assuming the infection continues unabated and replanting is impossible, as The Guardian reported. Together, Spain, Italy and Greece account for 95 percent of Europe’s olive oil production.
“The damage to the olives also causes a depreciation of the value of the land, and to the touristic attractiveness of this region,” said Dr. Maria Saponari, from the CNR Institute for Sustainable Plant Protection in Italy, as the BBC reported.”It’s had a severe impact on the local economy and jobs connected with agriculture.”Olive trees, which are sensitive to temperature fluctuations, are already at risk to extreme weather caused by the climate crisis, including heatwaves, drought and flooding. In 2019, Italy saw a 57 percent decrease in its olive harvest, which scientists attributed to the climate crisis, as The Guardian reported at the time.
The Xyllela infection restricts the tree’s ability to move water and nutrients and over time it withers and dies, according to the BBC.The research team, led by Dr. Kevin Schneider from Wageningen University in the Netherlands, said that drastic action is required to stop the spread of the disease. That may include downing healthy trees to prevent the bacterium from jumping from one tree to another, according to The Independent.”Even under slow disease spread and the ability to replant with resistant cultivars, projections of future economic impact in affected countries run in the billions of euros,” the authors write. “Our findings highlight the importance of minimizing disease spread and implementing adaptation measures in affected areas.”
The researchers found most current olive production in Italy, Spain and Greece falls within the range of climates in which the bacterium can be expected to flourish. In fact, somewhere between 85 and 99 percent of all producing areas are susceptible, as The Guardian reported. The disease is spreading at a rate of 5 kilometers (approximately 3.1 miles) per year, but can be slowed to 1 kilometer per year if appropriate measures are taken.Unfortunately, some of those measures have been emotionally difficult. The researchers noted that when felling healthy trees was tried before, it “resulted in great societal unrest in the affected region,” according to The Guardian.”You really hear devastating stories of infected orchards that were inherited over generations,” said Schneider to the BBC. “It’s the same orchard that their grandparents were once working on. So how do you put an economic number on the loss of something like this? The cultural heritage value would be far larger than we could compute.”Schneider told The Guardian that farmers and governments in the affected regions should heed scientific advice. “Farmers need to stay vigilant and adhere to the imposed mitigation measures. Government interventions are warranted with regard to economic considerations, and government support for adaptation strategies, such as [developing and propagating] resistant varieties, is important.”
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Crew members sail in the Gulf of California, Mexico, on March 8, 2018, as part of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s operation to save the critically endangered vaquita porpoise. GUILLERMO ARIAS / AFP / Getty Images
“We haven’t had much choice because we’re dependent upon getting fuel from the Mexican government to do the patrols, and we weren’t able to get the fuel,” Captain Paul Watson, founder of Sea Shepherd, told Mongabay. “We have to send the vessels back to Mazatlán, and once we get there, of course, then we’re not allowed to leave because of the [COVID-19] quarantine.”
Two of the Sea Shepherd ship that patrol the vaquita refuge. Jack Hutton / Sea ShepherdVaquitas (Phocoena sinus), which are endemic to the Sea of Cortez in the Upper Gulf of California, are on the brink of extinction, although there are different estimates of how many are left. A recent study calculated there to be fewer than 19 vaquitas left as of the summer of 2018. Another report, conducted by the International Committee for the Recovery of the Vaquita (CIRVA), suggested only about 10 individuals remain, although it also stated that there’s a 95 percent chance that 6 to 22 individuals continue to exist.The biggest threat to the vaquitas is the illegal fishing of totoaba (Totoaba macdonaldi), which, like the vaquita, is classified as a critically endangered species by the IUCN. The totoaba’s swim bladder is believed to have special medicinal qualities in traditional Asian medicine, despite there being no scientific evidence to support this. The bladders, which are used to make a “curative” soup, can fetch prices up to $14,000 USD, according to the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), and they’re regularly trafficked in the global wildlife trade.
A vaquita surfacing in the Sea of Cortez. Sandra Alba / Sea ShepherdSince totoabas are about the same size as vaquitas, vaquitas easily get caught in the gillnets meant to capture totoabas. Gillnets are also used to catch shrimp in the Sea of Cortez, which wreaked further havoc on the vaquita population.In 2015, the Mexican government placed a two-year ban on gillnet fishing in the Sea of Cortez, and in 2016, it announced a total ban on gillnet fishing. Despite these legislative efforts, fishing has continued in the area. During a patrol in October 2019, Sea Shepherd reported seeing more than 70 fishing boats in the vaquita’s critical habitat.
A dead vaquita floating in the ocean. Robbie Newby / Sea ShepherdLast month, the US National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) announced that it would ban all imports of Mexican shrimp and other seafood caught in the vaquita’s refuge, an action taken under the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA). Conservationists hope this latest step will provide enough protection to help the vaquita survive.”This is exactly how the law protecting marine mammals is supposed to work: if Mexico’s fisheries kill vaquita at a rate that violates US standards, the US must ban imports,” Zak Smith, senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), said in a statement. “Mexico has no choice but to eliminate the destructive fishing taking place in the northern Gulf of California that is driving the vaquita to extinction. It’s the only hope the vaquita has for survival, and it is required if Mexico wants to resume exporting these products to the United States.”
Sea Shepherd crew members removing illegal gillnets from the Upper Gulf of California. Robbie Newby / Sea ShepherdSea Shepherd has spent the last six years patrolling the vaquita refuge, often with scientists and photographers on board to collect data on the vaquitas and to conduct acoustical monitoring. The group has also retrieved 1,200 pieces of illegal fishing gear from the vaquita habitat, according to a statement on its website.While Sea Shepherd isn’t able to be in the Sea of Cortez right now, the Mexican navy will be monitoring the waters, Watson said. Fshing activities may decrease during the COVID-19 pandemic, but it’s also possible that poaching will continue — or even increase. “Poachers take advantage of opportunities,” Watson said.Sea Shepherd crew will return to the vaquita refuge as soon as it can.
Illegal fishing activity taking place in the Sea of Cortez. Sea ShepherdThe vaquita may be fighting for survival, but Kate O’Connell, marine wildlife consultant at AWI, believes there’s still hope.The vaquita sightings demonstrate that vaquita remain, and those that have been spotted appear healthy,” O’Connell said. “New research … shows that vaquita may reproduce annually, which would increase the species’ potential to recover from its current low numbers. While the situation is daunting, other marine mammal species have come back from extremely low numbers, including the northern elephant seal, which was nearly exterminated in the 19th century, and has rebounded from less than 100 individuals to well over 100,000.”
Editor’s note: Captain Watson has clarified his comment to say that Sea Shepherd is not actually dependent on the Mexican government for fuel, and that the organization has been unable to obtain fuel because of ports being closed and resources not being guaranteed during the COVID-19 crisis.Reposted with permission from Mongabay.
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A pack of Hydroxychloroquine Sulfate medication is held up on March 26, 2020 in London, United Kingdom. John Phillips / Getty Images
Scientists around the world are questioning the efficacy of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine as potential treatments for COVID-19 after a recent research has shown that the drugs increase the risk of fatal heart complications, as The New York Times reported.
A small study in Brazil published online by medRxiv had to be cut short after patients taking high-doses of chloroquine to treat their COVID-19 symptoms started to develop heart arrhythmias. “Within three days of starting the drugs, researchers started noticing heart arrhythmias in patients taking the higher dose. By the sixth day of treatment, 11 patients had died, leading to an immediate end to the high-dose segment of the trial,” The New York Times reported.
Hospitals in Sweden have been cautioned against using the drugs for COVID-19 and a consortium of American cardiology groups published guidelines for treating COVID-19 patients that urged doctors to be aware that the “antimalarial medication hydroxychloroquine and the antibiotic azithromycin are currently gaining attention as potential treatments for COVID-19, and each have potential serious implications for people with existing cardiovascular disease,” according to a statement from The American Heart Association.The evidence that the combination of the two drugs may increase risk of heart failure continues to mount after an analysis of international health records.
“Worryingly, significant risks are identified for combination users of HCQ+AZM even in the short-term as proposed for COVID19 management, with a 15-20 percent increased risk of angina/chest pain and heart failure, and a two-fold risk of cardiovascular mortality in the first month of treatment,” said the report, according to Science Translational Medicine.In France, where the initial buzz started about treating COVID-19 with a combination of antimalarial drugs and azithromycin, data released by the country’s drug safety agency showed 43 cases of heart incidents linked to hydroxychloroquine, highlighting the risk of providing unproven treatments to COVID-19 patients, as The Hill reported.
“This initial assessment shows that the risks, in particular cardiovascular, associated with these treatments are very present and potentially increased in COVID-19 patients. Almost all of the declarations come from health establishments,” the agency said. “These drugs should only be used in hospitals, under close medical supervision.”The myriad warnings fly in the face of President Trump’s praise for the treatment. At a White House briefing on the global pandemic, Trump cited no evidence of its efficacy but called hydroxychloroquine a great and powerful drug and also praised azithromycin since it “will kill certain things that you don’t want living within your body.” He then urged people infected with the virus to try the treatment. “What do you have to lose? What do you have to lose?” He said, as CNN reported.However, experts urged caution, including Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert who often appears at press conferences alongside Trump.
“We’ve got to be careful that we don’t make that majestic leap to assume that this is a knockout drug,” he said, as The Hill reported. “We still need to do the kinds of studies that definitely prove whether any intervention is truly safe and effective. We don’t operate on how you feel, we operate on what evidence and data is.”Dr. Eric Stecker, an associate professor of cardiovascular medicine at Oregon Health & Science University, the lead author on a paper from the American College of Cardiology that issued guidance for using hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin, noted that many people don’t know that they have the underlying heart issue that predisposes them to dangerous heart rhythms, according to The Intercept.”In a better world, if we weren’t so panicked about this virus, we would wait and see if this drug had some value other than the President declaring that it has some value,” said Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center and an attending physician in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, as CNN reported. “If someone’s sick you can still hurt them.”
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A koala affected by bushfires is released back on Kangaroo Island in Australia on February 21, 2020. Lisa Maree Williams / Getty Images
First Koalas Released Back Into the Wild After Bushfire HorrorBefore this current global health crisis, Australia endured an unprecedented bushfire season that devastated communities and iconic flora and fauna across the country. In the midst of the horror, 12 koalas were rescued from the Kanangra Boyd National Park in the southern Blue Mountains World Heritage area. On March 23rd and 25th, they were reintroduced back into the eucalyptus forests of their Kanangra home.
On March 23rd and 25th the Koalas Returned Home Science for Wildlife, a not-for-profit wildlife conservation organization based out of Sydney, Australia, recently announced that all of their koalas, saved from the recent bushfires, have been returned to their home in the Blue Mountains of Australia.They rescued the marsupials, who are representatives of the most genetically diverse population of koalas in Australia, from the devastating mega-fire that moved through the area in December 2019. They were sheltered in safety and cared for by staff at Taronga Zoo, with a team effort between Taronga and Science for Wildlife in keeping them fed.On March 23rd and 25th, they were reintroduced back into the eucalyptus forests by the team, with the support of San Diego Zoo Global.”While they have coped well in care, we are delighted to finally send our koalas home. We have been busy assessing the burnt area that we rescued them from, to establish when the conditions have improved enough that the trees can support them again,” said Dr Kellie Leigh, Executive Director of Science for Wildlife.”The recent rains have helped and there is now plenty of new growth for them to eat, so the time is right. We will be radio-tracking them and keeping a close eye on them to make sure that they settle in ok.”Dr. Leigh continued, “During the massive fires, as 80% of the World Heritage Area burnt, we were at risk of losing the entire koala population at this site and so that’s what drove us to try something so radical and pull these koalas out before the fire hit.”
The Animals are Part of a Genetically Diverse Koala PopulationThe Greater Blue Mountains area is a mountainous region located in New South Wales in Australia, which supports koalas that seem to break all the rules. The region was listed as a World Heritage Area by UNESCO in 2000 largely due to an outstanding diversity of eucalypt species (over 100 species), giving koalas more choice of habitats and food trees than anywhere else in Australia.Science for Wildlife has been running the Blue Mountains Koala Project in this region for 5 years and through collaborative research they discovered that the Blue Mountains World Heritage Region is home to the most genetically diverse population of koalas in the world. The population in Kanangra-Boyd is also free of chlamydia, which is sadly a rare thing. Science for Wildlife, along with San Diego Zoo Global*, is committing resources to help ensure that the population is recovered.*Bringing species back from the brink of extinction is the goal of San Diego Zoo Global. A leader in global conservation, San Diego Zoo Global has been a core partner for Science for Wildlife’s Blue Mountains Koala Project since it started and have been raising funds to support the rescue and other emergency wildlife work that Dr. Kellie Leigh and her team have been undertaking during the bushfires.Some of the core funding provided by San Diego Zoo Global over the years has been used for ecological studies and to find, capture and radio-track koalas at the different study sites – those tracking devices are what enabled the team to go in and find the koalas and move them out before the approaching fire. The same devices, along with more support from San Diego Zoo, will now allow them to monitor the animals and ensure they settle in ok.
What’s Next for These Koalas?The reintroduction of these koalas back to their natural habitat is just the next stage in what conservationists know will be a long-term effort to recover koala populations in the area.”There is still a lot of work to be done to assess what is left of koalas in this region and plan for population recovery. We are dedicated to continuing to support this critical work to conserve a significant koala population,” said Paul Baribault, President and CEO of San Diego Zoo Global.The radio-tracking devices fitted to the koalas will ensure that the Science for Wildlife team can monitor their welfare, and also learn more about how koalas use the landscape after fire. This should tell them where else they might find pockets of surviving koalas. Finally, the technology will help the Science for Wildlife team plan a future for koalas under climate change, where more frequent and intense fires are expected.To learn more about the Blue Mountains Koala Project, visit their project page here.For projects updates and to learn more about Science for Wildlife community, visit their projects page here, or follow them on Facebook.
Koalas are Being Released in Other Parts of New South WalesKoalas are also being released in other parts of New South Wales, the state where Sydney is located, reported The Independent last week.Staff and volunteers at Port Macquarie Koala Hospital, based four hours’ drive north of Sydney, released their first koala on April 2.The four-year-old named Anwen was rescued in October last year, and will be the first of 26 koalas to be released into the wild by the animal hospital over the coming days.The remaining koalas will be split into three groups and will be released back to their original habitats in Crowdy Bay (South of Port Macquarie), and two areas in the Lake Innes Nature Reserve.Sue Ashton, president of Port Macquarie Koala Hospital, said, “This is a heart-warming day for us – to be able to release so many of our koalas back to their original habitats, even to their original tree in some cases – makes us very happy.”Anwen was our first ever female koala to be admitted during the bushfires and her recovery has been extraordinary. It marks a proud moment for Australia; to see our Koala population and habitat starting to recover from what was such a devastating time.”Port Macquarie Koala Hospital has also cared for koalas from Taree, the Blue Mountains and Hawkesbury. The hospital said these will be returned to their “home” areas to be released.
Reposted with permission from BrightVibes.
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