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What A Week It Was: Apocadocuments from
View By Scenario:
Species Collapse:(4)
Plague/Virus:()
Climate Chaos:(9)
Resource Depletion: (6)
Biology Breach:(10)
Recovery:(8)
This Week's Top Ten Very Scary Tags:
alternative energy  ~ weather extremes  ~ faster than expected  ~ ecosystem interrelationships  ~ stupid humans  ~ climate impacts  ~ anthropogenic change  ~ short-term thinking  ~ unintended consequences  ~ oil issues  ~ ocean warming  



ApocaDocuments (10) for the "Biology Breach" scenario from this week
[see full week] ~ [see full Biology Breach scenario and stories]
Fri, Aug 20, 2010
from PhysOrg:
Scientists map and confirm BP origin of large, underwater hydrocarbon plume in Gulf
Scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have detected a plume of hydrocarbons that is at least 22 miles long and more than 3,000 feet below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, a residue of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill. In the study, which appears in the Aug. 19 issue of the journal Science, the researchers measured distinguishing petroleum hydrocarbons in the plume and, using them as an investigative tool, determined that the source of the plume could not have been natural oil seeps but had to have come from the blown out well. Moreover, they reported that deep-sea microbes were degrading the plume relatively slowly, and that it was possible that the 1.2-mile-wide, 650-foot-high plume had and will persist for some time.... The levels and distributions of the petroleum hydrocarbons show that "the plume is not caused by natural [oil] seeps" in the Gulf of Mexico, Camilli added.... The plume has shown that the oil already "is persisting for longer periods than we would have expected," Camilli said. "Many people speculated that subsurface oil droplets were being easily biodegraded. "Well, we didn't find that. We found it was still there."... Reddy said the WHOI team members know the chemical makeup of some of the plume, but not all of it. Gas chromatographic analysis of plume samples confirm the existence of benzene, toluene, ethybenzene, and total xylenes—together, called BTEX at concentrations in excess of 50 micrograms per liter. “The plume is not pure oil,” Camilli said. “But there are oil compounds in there.” ...


A "plume" is too pretty. How about we call it a "massive man-made storm of ocean toxicity"?

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Fri, Aug 20, 2010
from The Independent:
Now Atlantic is found to have huge 'garbage patch'
A huge expanse of floating plastic debris has been documented for the first time in the North Atlantic Ocean. The size of the affected area rivals the "great Pacific garbage patch" in the world's other great ocean basin, which generated an outcry over the effects of plastic waste on marine wildlife. The new plastic waste, which was discovered in an area of the Atlantic to the east of Bermuda, consists mostly of fragments no bigger than a few millimetres wide. But their concentrations and the area of the sea that is covered have caused consternation among marine biologists studying the phenomenon.... Kara Lavender Law from the Sea Education Association in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, said the size of the Atlantic "garbage patch" was roughly equal to the one in the Pacific, where circulating currents of the North Pacific Gyre have trapped it over a wide area to the north of the equator. "The Pacific has received more attention in terms of plastic accumulation but we know less about the Pacific so it's very difficult to compare the Atlantic patch in terms of size. We had a cruise this summer to try to find the eastern extent and in fact we failed to find it," Dr Lavender Law said.... Small fragments of plastic could pose an even greater menace to marine life than the larger fragments that become entangled with animals such as albatrosses and turtles, she said. "We know that smaller pieces of plastic are eaten and it's unclear what happens to that plastic then. But clearly biological organisms were not designed to eat plastic," she said. ...


Perhaps there simply isn't an eastern limit.

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Thu, Aug 19, 2010
from Scientific American:
Silver Beware: Antimicrobial Nanoparticles in Soil May Harm Plant Life
A new study finds that the popular microbicidal silver nanomaterial negatively impacts the growth of plants as well as kills the soil microbes that sustain them.... When it is nanosize--between one and 100 nanometers, which is smaller than many viruses (a nanometer is one billionth of a meter)--silver is even more effective at killing microbes. This antimicrobial potency has prompted manufacturers to include silver nanoparticles in a wide variety of consumer products, such as odor-resistant clothing, hand sanitizers, water treatment systems and even microbe-proof teddy bears.... In order to examine silver nanoparticles' ecosystemic impact the researchers prepared series of outdoor "mesocosms"--intermediate-sized "fields" of plants growing in rubber tubs. They applied 0.2 kilograms of biosolid to each tub, amending the fertilizer with 11 milligrams of silver nanoparticles per tub. This concentration is within the range that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reported finding in a recent survey of biosolids from water treatment plants.... The nanoparticles reduced the growth of one of the tested plant species by 22 percent as compared with silver-free biosolid treatment. Similarly, microbial biomass was reduced by 20 percent. Colman presented the findings August 4 at the 95th annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America. ...


Given the uncertainty, I suggest an uncontrolled experiment on the real environment.

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Thu, Aug 19, 2010
from AolNews:
EPA May Give 1st Approval of Nanosilver for Fabrics
A Swiss chemical producer may soon be the first company to receive approval by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to use nanosilver to make clothing smell better, stay cleaner and destroy germs. However, health scientists say the nanoparticles will wash out with the rinse water and could cause unknown environmental and health problems downstream. The EPA said that it may issue "conditional approval" to HeiQ Materials AG, a producer of nanosized additives, for the use of a nanosilver pesticide as a new active ingredient in fabrics. ...


Me, I like to look good while I'm dying from environmental contamination.

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Wed, Aug 18, 2010
from Grist:
Risk to kids from toxic pesticides may be underestimated, study finds
But evidence is building that the way we think about pesticide risk, especially in children, is all wrong. A few years ago, scientists at Emory and the University of Washington showed that when children switched to organic fruits and vegetables, pesticide residue in their bodies (as measured in their urine) dropped significantly within days. But what wasn't clear at the time was the pesticide load in a typical kid's diet, since the scientists in the organic study had themselves established the diet given to the kids.... The researchers analyzed the fruit-and-veg consumption of two groups of kids, one from Washington state and one from Georgia. They found, as expected, a witch's brew of organophosphate and pyrethroid pesticides -- both of which are endocrine disruptors and have suspected neurological effects -- on the fresh fruit and vegetables the study participants ate. Organophosphates, by the way, are the direct descendants of VX and Sarin nerve gases and were recently linked to the development of ADHD in kids.... What this study is telling us is that we're seriously underestimating how much of these dangerous pesticides -- chemicals that can affect kids' growing brains and bodies -- our kids are getting at any one time. For policy makers, the challenge is to create incentives for farmers to move away from poisons as a pest-control strategy. ...


An apple a day keeps the ADHD at play.

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Wed, Aug 18, 2010
from Rice, via EnvironmentalResearchWeb:
Carbon surprise on Texas river
A new study by geochemists at Rice University finds that damming and other human activity has completely obscured the natural carbon dioxide cycle in Texas' longest river, the Brazos. "The natural factors that influence carbon dioxide cycling in the Brazos are fairly obvious, and we expected the radiocarbon signature of the river to reflect those influences," said study co-author Caroline Masiello, assistant professor of Earth science at Rice. "But it looks like whatever the natural process was in the Brazos, in terms of sources and sinks of carbon dioxide, it has been completely overprinted by human activities." ... Plants take up carbon dioxide from the air via photosynthesis and store it in their leaves and stems. Some of that stored carbon gets buried in the soil and locked away for hundreds or thousands of years. But much is also washed into rivers, where rapid decomposition can quickly return it to the atmosphere. Understanding when and where that plant carbon dioxide is returned to the atmosphere is essential if policymakers are to plan effective carbon-sequestration strategies.... Scientists currently believe Earth's rivers take up about 1 gigaton of carbon each year and give off about the same amount. But the exact dynamics of the process are largely unknown. For example, the residence time of carbon dioxide - how long it stays in the river - has been studied in fewer than a half a dozen rivers worldwide. If a significant number of those rivers are like the Brazos, scientists may need to adjust the way they think about rivers inhaling and exhaling carbon dioxide. ...


Is that a "known unknown" or an "unknown unknown"?

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Wed, Aug 18, 2010
from New York Times:
Cape Cod Waterways Face Pollution Crisis
Rising nitrogen levels are suffocating the vegetation and marine life in saltwater ponds and estuaries on Cape Cod, creating an environmental and infrastructure problem that, if left unchecked, will threaten the shellfishing industry, the tourist economy and the beaches that lure so many summer visitors. More than 60 ponds and estuaries on the cape and a few elsewhere in the region have been choked by algae and seaweed. The culprit is nitrogen, much of it leaching out of septic system wastewater that runs through sandy soil into the estuaries. Faced with a federal mandate to fix their polluted waterways, Cape Cod towns have spent years creating plans to clean up the wastewater, largely through sewers and clustered septic systems.... The root of the problem lies in the popularity and unchecked growth of Cape Cod over the last 30 years. Towns chose not to install sewers when the government helped subsidize them in the 1960s and '70s, fearing that it would lead to an influx of people. Newcomers arrived anyway and sprawled out, using individual septic systems to get rid of waste. "We've reached capacity for the watershed," said Lindsey B. Counsell, executive director of Three Bays Preservation, a preservation group in Barnstable. "We're a victim of our own geology." ...


Cape Cod? As a metaphoric microcosm??

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Tue, Aug 17, 2010
from CNN:
Scientists: Toxic organisms, oil found on Gulf floor
John Paul says, at first, he couldn't believe his own scientific data showing toxic microscopic marine organisms in the Gulf of Mexico. He repeated the field test. A colleague did his own test. All the results came back the same: toxic. It was the first time Paul and other University of South Florida scientists had made such a finding since they started investigating the environmental damage from the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The preliminary results, the scientists believe, show that oil that has settled on the floor is contaminating small sea organisms.... The researchers found micro-droplets of oil scattered across the ocean floor and they also found those droplets moving up through a part of the Gulf called the DeSoto Canyon, a channel which funnels water and nutrients into the popular commercial and recreational waters along the Florida Gulf Coast. The scientists say even though it's getting harder to see the oil the Gulf is still not safe. "This whole concept of submerged oil and the application of dispersants in the subsurface and what are the impacts that it could have, have changed the paradigm of what an oil spill is from a 2-dimensional surface disaster to a 3-dimensional catastrophe," said David Hollander, a chemical oceanographer and one of the lead scientists on the recent USF mission. ...


How can you be making conceptual poetry at a time like this?

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Tue, Aug 17, 2010
from American for Psychological Science, via EurekAlert:
People who cannot escape a system are likely to defend the status quo
...[P]eople who are told that their right to emigrate will be restricted have what could be considered a strange reaction: they respond by defending their country's system.... The researchers interpret that to mean that people who feel trapped in their country are more likely to try to justify the country's system and rationalize away its dissatisfactory elements. "We focused on policies, but there are a lot of other reasons that make it hard for people to leave. One of these is poverty," says Laurin. "It's a depressing thought that the poor, the very people who are put in the worst position by a particular system, might be the ones that are the most motivated to defend that system." ...


Thank goodness we live in the best of all possible worlds.

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Mon, Aug 16, 2010
from Toronto Globe and Mail:
Statscan survey finds BPA present in 91 per cent of Canadians
The vast majority of Canadians - more than nine out of 10 - have detectable levels of bisphenol A in their urine, according to the first large-scale survey to track the amount of the estrogen-mimicking chemical in the population. The results, contained in the Canadian Health Measures Survey conducted by Statistics Canada and released Monday, found that the highest concentration of the chemical, used to make polycarbonate plastic, were in teens aged 12 to 19. Young children aged 6 to 11 also had higher levels than adults aged 40 to 79. The average level found in the population was 1.16 parts per billion, an exceedingly small amount, but still about a thousand times higher than natural levels of estrogen found in the human body. The survey was conducted nationally from 2007 to 2009. ...


The other 9 percent better get with the program!

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