London stingrays give birth with no males

From SwellUK.com: London stingrays give birth with no males

Two stingrays in Sea Life London Aquarium have given birth although they have not encountered males for two years.

Sea Life London Aquarium staff were shocked to discover two female stingrays were pregnant, despite that they have had no male contact for two years.

Workers at the facility noticed the creatures appeared to be bloated and when they were examined as part of a health check-up, it was revealed they were expecting.

Their offspring are currently 15cm long and have been moved to a new fish tank in the SOS area of the building.

It is not unknown for rays to store sperm and wait until "they decide the timing is right" before they give birth, head curator at the central London attraction Paul Hale said.

He added: "It's not something I've seen before in my eight years at the aquarium."

Employees expect the babies to be particularly popular among visitors over the summer.

Stingrays have a venomous barb at the end of their tail, which they use as a defensive weapon.

Atlantic cod survive without 'vital' immune genes, say scientists

From the Guardian.co.uk: Atlantic cod survive without 'vital' immune genes, say scientists

Atlantic cod have evolved to survive without a set of genes that scientists thought were essential to the immune system, according to an analysis of the fish's genome.

Researchers hope the finding will lead to better vaccines for farmed cod – protecting declining fish stocks – and may even open new avenues of medical research for human disease.

"Pathogens are a major challenge to fish farming, particularly under the dense stocking conditions that are typical of aquaculture, and vaccination is a major approach to protect from diseases," said Prof Christopher Secombe, head of the Scottish Fish Immunology Research Centre. The new research will help them to target vaccine research more effectively.

Cod is one of the five fish species most commonly eaten in the UK. British consumers spent more than £313.3m on cod last year.

The research team discovered that Atlantic cod do not have a set of immunity-related genes called MHC Class II that are found in almost all backboned animals. In other species, these genes contribute to the immune system's ability to recognise invading bacteria and parasites. "We could not find MHC Class II and also two other genes that are essential for protection against pathogenic bacteria and other parasites coming from the outside," said Professor Kjetill Jakobsen from the University of Oslo in Norway, who led the study.

The MHC molecules coded by the genes latch onto pieces of pathogens and present them on the surface of the infected cell, so that the cells can be recognised and destroyed by the immune system. There are two kinds of MHC molecules: MHC Class I molecules specialise in finding viruses within cells and MHC II molecules police the outside of the cell looking for bacteria and parasites. It was thought that both types of MHC molecule were crucial for survival.

But it appears that over evolutionary time, as the MHC Class II genes have been lost in cod, other genes have stepped in to compensate for the loss. "It is one of the most striking examples to date of the amazing plasticity of the immune system over evolutionary time," said Professor Jim Kaufman, an immunologist from the University of Cambridge.

"From a traditional point of view MHC Class I cannot fight bacterial infections but maybe it can in cod because they have 10 times more gene copies of the MHC Class I than other fishes and humans do," he said.

Their results, published on Wednesday in the journal Nature, could present new possibilities for the treatment of human disease. "This has some implications for medical research. I can tell you that I had a talk at the main hospital here in Oslo and there were hundreds of doctors sitting there listening to me talking about cod," said Jakobsen. "Maybe we can regulate the human immune system differently and maybe that could be treatment against certain diseases, multiple sclerosis for example."

Scientists hope that the finding will also lead to improved vaccines for farmed Atlantic Cod. Prof Secombe said the discovery that Atlantic cod don't have MHC II would prevent vaccine developers wasting time trying "to trigger something that is actually missing".

5 Billion Barrels of Undiscovered Oil

From gCaptain.com: 5 Billion Barrels of Undiscovered Oil: US delegates head to Cuba to discuss deepwater ambitions
WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- Oil spill commission co-chief Bill Reilly is heading to Cuba next week to help evaluate that country’s plans for developing its oil resources, Dow Jones Newswires has learned.

The trip represents an important development in a thorny situation that has U.S. lawmakers raising concerns about potential oil spills and oil experts pressing the Obama administration to grant exemptions under the decades-long embargo.

The trip, which will involve a delegation of U.S. oil-drilling experts and environmentalists, coincides with Cuba’s effort to develop its offshore oil resources as a way to wean itself off imports from Venezuela. U.S. officials believe Cuba’s waters could contain more than 5 billion barrels of undiscovered oil.

Cuba’s efforts to tap its offshore oil will get off the ground later this year, when a consortium led by Spanish company Repsol YPF S.A. (REPYY, REP.MC) is expected to begin drilling a well in more than 5,500 feet of water off the country’s northern coast. If Repsol finds oil, it could touch off a quick-moving race to set up production in Cuban waters.

The delegation to Cuba, involving the International Association of Drilling Contractors and the Environmental Defense Fund, is on a fact-finding mission to determine the country’s long-term plans for pursuing its oil resources and identify steps to ensure safety and environmental protection. They’re scheduled to depart Monday.

The process of oil drilling in thousands of feet of water is “inherently risky,” said Daniel Whittle, Cuba program director at the Environmental Defense Fund and a member of the delegation. “We believe it’s imperative that if and when Cuba drills, they get it right.”

Reilly, as co-head of President Barack Obama’s oil-spill commission, helped to draft a report earlier this year that recommended U.S. officials work with Cuba and Mexico to develop shared standards for drilling in the Gulf. The oil-spill commission ceased operations in March after completing its work.

Cuba’s effort to promote drilling in its waters is presenting a thorny situation for U.S. lawmakers, regulators and companies.

Among the loudest critics of Cuba’s plans are Gulf Coast lawmakers who are raising questions about the country’s ability to respond to oil spills and the risks of crude oil washing on U.S. shores. Rep. Vern Buchanan, a Florida Republican whose district faces the Gulf of Mexico, introduced a bill earlier this year to allow the Interior Secretary to deny U.S. oil exploration and development leases to companies that do business with Cuba.

“The United States is not going to see a drop of that oil,” said Max Goodman, a spokesman for Buchanan. “And we have learned from Deepwater Horizon that an oil spill can devastate a regional economy and pose long-term damage to our natural resources.”

Repsol will be drilling in waters that are deeper than those in which the Deepwater Horizon rig operated at the time it exploded last year. Repsol will be using a Chinese-built drilling rig that only recently left Singapore for Cuban waters. The rig is expected to arrive in November or December.

The rig, known as Scarabeo 9, was built to conform with the U.S. embargo and Repsol has said it will be following U.S. safety standards, Repsol representative Kristian Rix said.

“We are confident that we have the right personnel and materials to drill safely and successfully in the area,” Rix said.

If oil is discovered, Cuba has a greater chance of becoming less dependent on Venezuela for its energy needs. In 2009, the country produced roughly 50,000 barrels of oil a day from onshore and coastal wells, relying on imports to supply an additional 130,000 barrels to meet consumption levels, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Given the risks of an oil spill, oil and natural gas experts are urging the Obama administration to grant exemptions under the embargo to allow U.S. companies and experts to respond to a disaster. U.S. companies, such as Helix Energy Solutions, have been particularly aggressive in developing oil spill containment systems in the wake of the BP Plc (BP, BP.LN) spill.

Allowing U.S. companies and experts to respond to a Cuban spill would be in the U.S.’s best interest, given the proximity of the drilling to U.S. shores, said Jorge Pinon, former president of Amoco Oil Latin America and visiting research fellow at Florida International University.

“There is an experienced company doing the work [in Cuba]” Pinon said. “What we’re lacking is, in the case of an emergency, Repsol and the other operators will not be able to access the resources” in the U.S.

U.S. Navy Researching Cellular-Level Effects Of Underwater Pressure On Divers

From Underwater Times: U.S. Navy Researching Cellular-Level Effects Of Underwater Pressure On Divers
ARLINGTON, Virginia -- Reaching a new threshold in underwater medical studies, the Office of Naval Research (ONR), today announced a novel capability for examining how cells work at pressures far below the sea surface.

Researchers at the Navy Experimental Diving Unit (NEDU) have designed, built and validated a novel hyperbaric environment to study cellular behavior at greater depths. The joint ONR-NEDU effort is designed to explore advances to protect Navy divers working at depths of up to 1,000 feet.

"This is a huge leap forward in our ability to understand cellular function at pressurized depths," said Cmdr. Matthew Swiergosz, program officer for ONR's Undersea Medicine Program. "This capability will bridge a gap in our understanding of identifying potential applications for diving operations."

Using a laboratory technique called patch clamping, in which electrodes are attached to a cell membrane and clamped, scientists can now monitor, stimulate and record the cell's electrical activity in a pressurized environment.

Few studies have been performed to address the underlying molecular mechanisms of diving disorders such as decompression sickness.

In addition to providing future payoff for the Navy, the patch clamping method could also bring benefit to those in the commercial diving community, who are vulnerable to the same hazardous conditions associated with difficult underwater work.

In 2008, ONR began sponsoring the work of principal investigator Lt. Denis Colomb Jr., NEDU, and partners including the University of South Florida, Université Laval, Arehart Model Makers LLC and other NEDU personnel.

The ONR Undersea Medicine Program is a National Naval Responsibility, a science and technology research area the Department of the Navy has deemed critically important to maintaining naval superiority.

Eskimo village inundated by microscopic eggs

From CBS News (August 9, 2011): Eskimo village inundated by microscopic eggs
(AP) WASHINGTON D.C. - Scientists have identified an orange-colored gunk that appeared along the shore of a remote Alaska village as millions of microscopic eggs filled with fatty droplets.


But the mystery is not quite solved. Officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrationdon't know for sure what species the eggs are, although they believe they are some kind of crustacean eggs or embryos. They also don't know if the eggs are toxic, and that worries many of the 374 residents of Kivalina, an Inupiat Eskimo community located at the tip of an 8-mile barrier reef on Alaska's northwest coast.

There's been at least one report of dead minnows found in the lagoon of the village the night the eggs appeared last week. Residents also are worried about the community's dwindling reserves in village water tanks even though the orange mass has dissipated from the lagoon and Wulik River, said city administrator Janet Mitchell.

"It seems to be all gone," she said. "But if they're microscopic eggs, who's to say they're not still in the river?"

Riddles remain

Scientists also don't know why the unidentified eggs suddenly emerged on the shores of Kivalina last week. Villagers say they've never seen such a phenomenon before.

"We'll probably find some clues, but we'll likely never have a definitive answer on that," NOAA spokeswoman Julie Speegle said.

Samples are being sent to a NOAA laboratory in Charleston, S.C., for further analysis. The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation also sent samples Monday to the Institute for Marine Science at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Kivalina residents live largely off the land, and many are worried about the effect on some wildlife and plants from the goo, which turned powdery once it dried - and probably went airborne. Mitchell said some people went berry picking over the weekend, but couldn't tell if the goo was on the fruit, called salmonberries, which are the same color of the eggs. The caribou are in the region now, but she doesn't believe the migrating animals pose much risk as a food source.

The eggs were found on at least one roof and in buckets set all over the village to collect rain water. City Councilwoman Frances Douglas said the gooey, slimy substance was widely spread in streaks along the Wulik River and the lagoon, which is a half mile wide and six miles long. Orangey water was reported from as far away as the village of Buckland, 150 miles southeast of Kivalina.

Douglas estimated the volume of eggs she could see "in excess of a thousand gallons, easily."

The weather last Wednesday, when the bright substance emerged, only intensified the effect, according to Douglas.

"We had an overcast sky, so it really, really stood out," she said. "You couldn't miss it for nothing."

Even village elders don't recall anything like it, said Douglas, who has lived all her 44 years in Kivalina. She remembers temperatures were colder in her childhood, gradually rising over the years. She wonders if that has anything to do with the invasion of the eggs.

"With climate change, anything can happen, I guess," she said.

Speegle called the climate change theory "purely speculative."

Elusive megamouth shark snared in Mexico

From Cosmos Magazine: Elusive megamouth shark snared in Mexico

ENSENADA: One of the rarest known species of fish, the megamouth shark, has been caught by fishermen in Mexico for the second time in five years.

Only 51 specimens of the elusive deep-water shark have ever been caught or sighted since the discovery of the species in Hawaii in 1976. So far, megamouths have appeared in the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans, mostly near Japan and Taiwan, but also in places as diverse as Australia, Ecuador and South Africa. Yet only one has been ever captured alive, in 1990.

The newly caught shark, a three-metre male deceased juvenile, was captured near the western Baja peninsula coast, in a region called Bahía de Vizcaíno, which is about a seven-hour drive south of San Diego, California.

It was caught by the same fishing vessel that in 2006 captured another megamouth specimen in Vizcaino bay, which has led Mexican scientists to believe that the megamouth could be a seasonal visitor to the Baja Peninsula.

"Although there is few scientific data collected, local fishermen assured us that they've caught other, even bigger megamouth sharks before, so we believe this might mean this species can be part of the shark population that roams the western coasts of Baja," said Omar Santana, a researcher for Ensenada-based CICESE science institute.

One of a kind

Scientists consider the megamouth a one-of-a-kind shark: despite the fact that adults can reach a length of over six metres, making it the largest deepwater fish in the world, it is a slow swimmer and, unlike its most famous Great White relative, feeds by filtering water.

With a brownish-black colour and a large head, and a mouth with protruding jaws unlike any other shark species known, it has been classified into its own family, Megachasmidae, under the scientific name Megachasma pelagios.

The new specimen was taken to Ensenada, Mexico, where it was photographed and sliced in order for Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Mexican researchers to study the structure of its muscles and gills.

"Sharks have two muscles, white and red. Some have the red muscle in the outer part of the body. This is a very rare opportunity to study the megamouth's speed, how it moves and where it lives," said Santana.

Important area for megamouths

Little is known about the shark's reproduction and feeding, other that it usually dives up to 500 m in search of plankton and krill, a microscopic shrimp species.

Despite its huge head, its teeth are tiny, which researchers suggest is a means of absorbing and filtering large amounts of water.

Even though the megamouth is very rare, the capture of this shark in the Baja Peninsula is an indicator of how ecologically important the region is. Santana hopes this will encourage the Mexican authorities to improve marine species management and better regulate commercial fishing in the area.

Quiz #1, attempt 2

This is a Poll application rather than a Quiz application, but let's see if it works: