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spacetimewithstuartgary · 3 years

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An Upended Ecosystem in the Arabian Sea How can snow cover on the Himalayas influence the species that thrive in the Arabian Sea? How could changes in wind speed and humidity lead to food and national security concerns a thousand kilometers away? Joaquim Goes, Helga do Rosario Gomes, and colleagues on two continents have spent the past two decades trying to decode these riddles. The story begins in the early 2000s, around the time that NASA’s Aqua satellite was launched. Goes, a specialist in remote sensing of the ocean, was examining data from SeaWiFS and Aqua. He was focused on chlorophyll-a, a pigment used by ocean phytoplankton (and plants worldwide) to harness sunlight and turn it into food energy. He was focusing on observations of phytoplankton populations in the Arabian Sea during the summer monsoon, but by chance he looked at winter data. There was far more chlorophyll-a than anyone should reasonably expect. At first Goes thought it was an error. But over the next decade, reports of increasing algae and decreasing fish catches came in from colleagues in southern Asia. Goes and Gomes made several sea-going expeditions and saw it for themselves: The Arabian Sea was teeming with Noctiluca scintillans, an organism that was scarcely reported in the region during previous winters. The top image above shows a bloom of Noctiluca scintillans in 2019, as observed by the NOAA-NASA Suomi NPP satellite. The floating, microscopic organisms are dinoflagellates living in a symbiotic relationship with green algal cells. Like ocean phytoplankton, Noctiluca scintillans can multiply rapidly under the right conditions. (Noctiluca often thrive in low-oxygen “hypoxic” waters.) Drifting with currents, they aggregate into vast masses near the surface. In the process, they can deplete oxygen in the sea, compete with other phytoplankton for nutrients or consume them for food, and suffocate small zooplankton predators in hypoxic “dead zones.” “The changes we have seen in the Arabian Sea ecosystem are among the fastest of any oceanic water body on our planet,” said Goes, a scientist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. “The habitat of the sea is changing, and that is short-circuiting the food chain.” How and why Noctiluca has blossomed in the Arabian Sea is a complicated story of interconnections between Earth systems and the unexpected ripples that propagate from global warming. Across human history, the Arabian Sea has been strongly influenced by monsoon winds that reverse direction seasonally and change the direction of ocean currents. In winters past, air temperatures over the Himalayan-Tibetan Plateau and southern Asia would drop significantly and cause dry, northeasterly winds to blow out over the Arabian Sea. In turn, the cooling of the surface waters and changes in density would propagate through the water column, moving the pycnocline—where water density changes due to salinity and/or temperature—up and down. The depth of this ocean layer affects how nutrients well up from the depths and fuel the growth of phytoplankton. These winter shifts in currents and nutrient availability once fueled blooms of diatoms, another type of phytoplankton. The diatoms were a key link in an ocean food chain that fed copepods and finfish through the winter and, ultimately, humans who caught those fish. But with global warming in recent decades, less snow cover has been falling and accumulating on the Himalayan-Tibetan Plateau and more snow and ice has been melting. Temperatures over the highlands and lowlands have been rising, as has the humidity. In the past two decades, the winter winds blowing over the Arabian Sea have become warmer, calmer, and more humid. As a result, the seas churn less and there are fewer nutrients for diatoms and most other phytoplankton. “With calmer and warmer winds and waters, there is less ventilation and mixing,” said Helga do Rosario Gomes, a biological oceanographer, also at Lamont-Doherty. “This leads to more stratification and less nitrate enrichment from below. In some cases, it is causing hypoxia.” Those changes have been pretty much perfect for Noctiluca scintillans. Unlike diatoms, Noctiluca can thrive when there are fewer dissolved nutrients in the water. The plots above show the coincident changes from 1980 to 2018 in the extent of snow cover over the Himalayan-Tibetan Plateau, the depth of the mixed layer in the Arabian Sea in winter, and the concentration of chlorophyll-a (an indicator of phytoplankton). The “anomaly” plots show how much each year was above or below the long-term mean for each variable. Snow extent and the depth of the mixed layer have been steadily declining, while wintertime blooms have been increasing. “The changes observed in the Arabian Sea are an example of potential ecosystem changes that are induced by climate change,” said Laura Lorenzoni, ocean biology and biogeochemistry program scientist for NASA. “As Earth warms, we can expect greater stratification in the ocean and the migration of species poleward. There will also be greater chances of harmful algal blooms and of some more resilient species outcompeting others and shifting the entire ecosystem structure.” Scientists have modeled and speculated for years that global warming could change the snow and ice cover on the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau and that the effects might ripple across the sea. The belief was that the Arabian Sea would become less productive from December to March. Instead, it has become more productive, but for an entirely different set of creatures. “There are far less diatoms now, and so there is a clear loss of biodiversity,” said Gomes. “There used to be more copepods, sardines, kingfish, mackerel, and pelagic fish.” The plankton and diatoms have been replaced by mats of Noctiluca scintillans and an over-abundance of jellyfish and salps. The finfish have been replaced by turtles, squid, and animals that can survive in lower oxygen environments. In a 2020 research paper, Goes and Gomes used ocean color data from NASA and snow and ice cover data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center to piece the puzzle together. They found that winter chlorophyll-a in the Arabian Sea has been increasing steadily since the 1990s—as much as four times higher in some winters. Chlorophyll-a is a key pigment in ocean phytoplankton, including Noctiluca scintillans. The map above shows the trend—mostly increasing—in the Arabian Sea from 1996 to 2018. The result is trouble for fisheries, particularly in a region with a lot of artisinal and subsistence fishing. “We are passing a tipping point,” said Goes. “The food chain has been turned upside down.” The changes are trouble for the people of the Middle East, eastern Africa, and southern Asia. An estimated 150 million people around the region rely on fishing for food and economic development. Yet the surplus of jellyfish and salps and the decrease in diatoms has depleted the food supply for edible fish.” “There will be cascading effects that will probably affect food availability for several countries in the region,” Goes said. “Noctiluca blooms, jellyfish, and salps are also posing huge challenges to desalination plants along the coast that supply freshwater to coastal Oman.” Masses of jellyfish have been known to clog seawater intake pipes. And the change to Noctiluca-dominated waters has an unusual ripple effect on national security. Noctiluca scintillans are bioluminescent: they glow when stimulated and this is especially visible at night. This trait can be used to track the movements of ships that churn up the plankton as they cruise. Sailors and pilots have been following such sparkling tracks for decades. “There are many examples of phytoplankton running amok around the planet,” said Norman Kuring, a scientist in NASA’s Ocean Biology Group. “The Baltic Sea has a new summertime normal of toxic cyanobacteria blooms. Green algae routinely clog the waters around China’s Shandong Peninsula. Sargassum is becoming a real headache in the Caribbean. Lakes in the United States and globally are becoming increasingly eutrophic. There are troubling suggestions by respected scientists that our oceans may be headed towards a hypoxic, bacteria-dominated future.” NASA Earth Observatory map and chart by Joshua Stevens, using data courtesy of Goes, J., et al. (2020). NASA image by Norman Kuring/NASA's Ocean Color Web, using VIIRS data from the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership. Photograph courtesy of Joaquim Goes. Story by Michael Carlowicz.

#space #science #earth observatory #news #nasa #arabian sea

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hypnoticwinter · 4 years

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Down the Rabbit Hole part 10

The door opens and the bell rings and Peter and I both look up; the lady I’d ran into earlier on my first day in Gumption walks in and nods to Peter. Through the course of the story we’d finished breakfast and then I’d walked with Peter down to the 7-11 and he’d clocked in and started his shift while I sat on a stack of beer cases and listened, turning the voice recorder to its highest sensitivity to capture everything he was saying. I could always go back and take a transcript later if I had to, if the audio was too loud or too distorted.

Her eyes stray over me but whatever she thinks she doesn’t betray anything with her expression. I’ve reached out automatically and covered the voice recorder with my hand as soon as I heard the door open; it was an automatic action, quick as a whip, no conscious thought required, and I slide my thumb down its ridged side, click it off.

“Hey, Michelle,” Peter says.

“Hey, Peter,” she says.

He glances at his watch and whistles. “I didn’t realize it was four already.”

“Time flies when you’re having fun,” she says, a slight layer of sarcasm flavoring her words. I can feel my hackles rising but I ease myself down. Peter’s eyes flick over to me.

“Well,” he says, and I feel my mouth drop open.

“No way. You can’t be serious.”

“What?”

“You aren’t going to finish the story?”

Peter grins at me. “I have to go get ready,” he says in a soft voice. “I’ll finish telling you later.”

“Oh my god.”

“What?” he repeats.

“What the hell happens to Makado?”

“She…” he starts, and then stops. I can see a flicker of pain cross his face like the dappled back of a fish beneath a sunstruck river. My heart falls within my chest and I realize that I’m becoming far too invested to be objective, I need to take a step back. “She made it out fine,” he tells me. I don’t believe him.

Despite all of my efforts to cajole him he won’t tell me any more. He assures me that we’ll have enough time tonight, that it’s going to be a lot of sitting around and waiting while I film far-off dots moving around under the cover of darkness and that he’ll tell me then. It smells like a cop-out to me, like he just doesn’t want to get into what happened to Makado.

It’s unbelievable enough already, though, isn’t it? Amalgams and copepods and all of that stuff. I hear it and I think, oh, this is the plot to a movie. This isn’t real, it can’t be. Even though I’m only a few miles from it, even though I’m going to be going there tonight, it doesn’t feel like the Pit is a place that actually exists. It feels like somebody is pulling my leg.

Or it would, if it weren’t for the look on Peter’s face when he talks about Makado. That at least is real. Whether everything else around it is fake, I guess there’s a little kernel of doubt still sprouting in my head somewhere, the tiny eternal skeptic inside of me that isn’t willing to believe anything it can’t touch or feel or see itself.

We walk out of the 7-11 together and look at each other. Peter nods. “Same place as where you followed before. You know how to get there?”

I nod as well. “Line up the two rocks and the cactus with the setting sun and walk straight until I hit the three boulders in the dip of the hill.”

“Good memory. If you mess up you’ll be able to see us probably anyway, I’ll have my flashlight.”

“How many people are coming?”

“Besides you there’s three others, one guy from the cult for his initiation and two others who…well, you know.”

“Yeah. Was that what Erica was talking to you about the other day?”

“When she pulled up at midnight or whenever? Yeah, she was just telling me who to look out for. Because those guys want to be able to get back out again I have to give them different instructions, that kind of thing.”

I shudder in spite of myself. “Well, see you tonight.”

“See you,” he says. He turns and walks quickly away and then past the corner of the building and I am alone. I stand there for a moment and then lean up against the side of the building. The sun is hot but not terribly so and here in the shade it’s really quite a nice afternoon.

A car pulls up and turns into one of the pumps. It’s the second customer I’ve seen all day. The guy looks over at me but it isn’t anyone I know or have seen before, and after a moment he puts his card in and fills up the tank, then drives off.

I look round and, after a moment, let myself slide down the faux-brick façade of the 7-11 and stretch my legs out in front of me. My knee cracks like a gunshot as I do and I wince. I take my phone out of my pocket and dial a number and listen as the harsh buzzing tone drills one, two, three, four, five times into my ear, and then there’s a click and the answering machine picks up.

“Hi, you’ve reached Mark Dzilenski. I’m not able to take your call right now but if you leave me your name and number, I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Thanks, bye.”

“Hi, dad,” I say, and I feel a wave of emotion pressing at me that I refuse to confront. I swallow. “I’m sorry our call got disconnected the other night, I think there’s something wrong with my phone. It was good hearing your voice, I’m glad you and mom are doing okay.”

I lick my lips. Alright, Roan, you’ve been very glib so far. Spit it out.

“I, uh,” I start. Come on. “I got some news the other day that I wanted to tell you, I…”

“If you are satisfied with your call, you can hang up, or press 1 for delivery options. To re-record –“

I hang up the call, and then I stand up. I rummage in my bag for a cigarette and light it, and then walk slowly back to the hotel, taking my time. I’m meeting Peter at one in the morning but my nerves are already balling around themselves in a panic. I feel like I’m going to be sick.

“So what?” I ask out loud. I look over and see my distorted reflection looking back at me in the thick glass window of a closed barbershop. I look tired. “So what?” I mutter again. I look at the me in the window a little longer but I don’t like the way she looks at me so I toss my cigarette on the ground and crush it out and hurry a little more. It feels like there is a cloud looming behind me but it’s just in the sky, promising rain.

When I get back to the hotel room I unfold my laptop, dump the audio files from the voice recorder back onto it, and then I connect to the extremely rickety wi-fi network the motel offers and I look up what exactly the penalty is for trespassing on federal property. It’s not that bad, actually; a misdemeanor in all cases, at least under federal law. I don’t know if the site around the Pit is solely administered federally or if state law would also apply, though. Or would it count as trespassing on a military base? Apparently that can be a felony, if it’s important enough or if you’re being malicious about it. I do more googling around but the information I turn up is cryptic and limited. I wonder, not for the first time, if I’m putting myself on some kind of list doing this sort of research, then shake my head. Whatever.

The evening passes slowly and my nervousness doesn’t fade no matter how many cigarettes I smoke, leaned over on the wiry metal bannister, staring off into the flat, unexciting horizon. I watch television just to pass time, let Baggage and The Price is Right and Family Feud wash over me like an ocean, like waves, like I’m drowning. Am I drowning? If I were sane I think I’d feel like I were drowning.

When the time comes I put some pants on, long ones this time, shrug into my jacket, make sure I have my voice recorder and my camcorder and my slim little folding knife, more of a letter opener than anything else. I laugh at myself when I tuck it into my pocket but I still do it.

“Alright Roan,” I say to myself, staring in the mirror, sounding braver than I really feel, tucking my hair back in a ponytail. “Let’s go commit a felony.”

* * *

Peter raises his hand in greeting as I crest the hill and I wave back at him, click the light on my phone off and move down, join the little circle. He’d said there would be three others; two are here so far. One is a small Asian girl, so skinny it looks like she’d burst into flame if she crossed her legs too fast, and the other is a tall, heavy guy, looking like he’s in his late forties, balding hard. He has bags under his eyes and he keeps reflexively running his hands together. “Hi Lily,” Peter says to me and I blink and almost look behind myself to see if there’s someone back there, but he winks at me and I realize I’m supposed to be Lily. I wonder if there’s anything else important he’s left out.

“Hey,” I say. The Asian girl glances at me and then looks away again. Her eyes are very dark and it looks as though she’s chewing lightly on the inside of her cheek, sucking it inwards and holding it between her teeth and then letting it go again.

“This is Bao and Rey,” he tells me, indicating each of them. I nod at them.

“Hey,” I say again. “You guys, uh…excited?”

Peter shakes his head minutely and I feel faintly embarrassed, like I’ve said something I clearly shouldn’t have without realizing the taboo.

To their credit, they definitely do not look excited; nervous is more accurate. Perhaps haunted would be appropriate as well. Rey keeps glancing out into the darkness as though he can see something moving around out there; I can see his eyes focus on something and track it for a while before slipping off like a thrown egg slipping slowly down a window. I look out into the darkness as well but even though my eyes aren’t as adapted now thanks to Peter’s big utility flashlight throwing enough light to make me squint, it is very clear that there is nothing out there, nothing large enough that he’d be able to see it and track it like that.

I want to talk to him, I want to take out my recorder, I want to pry my way into his head, but I restrain myself. This is clearly not the time. The camcorder is still in my jacket pocket, the bulky night-vision attachment screwed onto its snouty muzzle already, fully charged and ready to go, but clearly I am supposed to be pretending to be one of these people. While we lapse into another uneasy silence and Peter checks his watch, I consider my new existence as Lily.

These two people are clearly so far gone that they barely recognize me as a person, let alone the deeper distinction between Roan and Lily. The way Rey keeps seeing ghosts and watching them like he’s ready to bolt or to fight, the way Bao keeps jumping at sounds none of the rest of us can hear, clearly they’re the two who are – what even is the right word? Afflicted? Who are, at least in Peter’s estimation, beyond retrieval?

I look at Bao. She’s young, maybe about my age, maybe a little younger. Twenty-two or twenty-three? Very possibly. Bao…the name sounds more Chinese than Japanese or Korean but I don’t know enough about Eastern culture to positively identify her, plus obviously there are more Asian countries than just China, Japan, and Korea. And if I’m supposed to be one of these people then should I care? Should I be getting into character?

I look again at Peter and feel a faint spark of anger at the fact that he didn’t let me know, didn’t warn me, but then I realize he didn’t really have a way to – he doesn’t have my number, and maybe this was something that resolved itself later in the afternoon after we’d parted, this need for secrecy.

I’ll draw the line at aping those nervous tics. Just watching these two is making me sad, giving me a feeling like someone’s taking hold of my heart and squeezing. It feels cruel, knowing I can do nothing.

Clearly the reason I’m Lily is because the third person, the guy from the cult, will know I’m coming, or at least will recognize my name. I think back and wonder if anybody had had a chance to take a photo of me while I was out walking around the town, but I’d have given people so many opportunities to take one without me noticing that it’s pointless to dwell on.

Surely if there was some sort of danger, if the cult knew for sure I would be here and they were perhaps willing to prevent me from coming somehow, Peter would have contacted me. He knows the motel I’m at, he might not know the room but if Erica Walken could get the phone number to it, surely Peter could have as well…right?

I toss my head, work my jaw sideways. It feels like it wants to crack but it doesn’t; I can feel the tension in the bulgy little knot of muscles down the side of my cheek. It doesn’t matter. I’m here, and I’m going in with them, cult or no cult.

There’s a crunching of feet on the dry hard earth behind us and Rey and I both turn to watch the third guy, tall and dark, making his way down the hill to us. He’s young, with a trimmed beard, and close-cropped hair. His eyes are very small; they linger on me for a moment and then flick to Rey and Bao.

“Alright,” Peter says, “everybody’s here. We’re going to be going under the fence through a hidden tunnel. It’s going to be tight so you guys are going to have to drop to your stomachs and crawl. It was going to be a waste-drainage pipe but they didn’t give the contractors they hired to do it the right plans and so it turned out that they were digging right on top of one of the power lines for the electric fence. They just left the pipe in there and put a fake rock over the entrance.”

I almost laugh when I hear that. It’s too easy. There must be a catch, mustn’t there?

“The pipe is going to let you out on the side of the patrol road inside the fence,” Peter says, looking between us. He weights his words carefully. “There should not be a patrol moving at the time that we go through,” he says, “but on the off chance that there is, whoever is in front needs to just freeze and wait, you understand?”

He looks around at us until we each nod. It takes Bao the longest but she does acknowledge, at least, that he’s speaking. “You,” he says, pointing to the guy from the cult, “your name is Marcus, right?”

“That’s right,” he says. He has a slow, deep, purposeful voice.

“You’re going to be in front. I don’t normally come in but I will be this time, I have some business to take care of inside. Me and Lily here,” he says, pointing to me, “will be in the rear. You two will be in the middle,” he says, and Rey and Bao nod, a little quicker this time.

“Once we’re inside, you’re going to be going in through a disused emergency exit that they haven’t sealed up because the Pit uses it to breathe. I’m not going to lie to you, it won’t be pleasant. It’s going to be tight, hot, smell horrendous, and it’ll be pitch-black, but it’s a one-way trip without any side branches, so just push through it and you will get through and out into the old Bronchial section. It’s been a long time since I’ve been there but all of my information says that any damage is fairly minimal and you should still be able to get through. Once you’re in, you’re on your own. If you want to come back out, take the same drainage pipe that we go in through and be careful not to cross the road right in front of a patrol. This area that we’re in, there aren’t any cameras, there’s no other detection, so as long as you look out for patrols, you’re fine. If you get caught, I don’t know you and you don’t know me. If you don’t tell them anything, the worst they can do is felony trespassing and a $500 fine. It isn’t great but it also isn’t the worst thing in the world. Understood so far?”

We all nod. My heart is beating quickly; I can hear it in my ears, a little thump reminding me that I’m really doing this, I’m really going to do it.

“Great,” Peter says. “Once you’re inside, the deeper you go the less likely it is that someone will catch you. Flip side is, the deeper you go, the more likely it is something will catch you. Anything with a sign that says ‘LVC’ or ‘Main Gullet,’ don’t go that way, you will get caught. I don’t know what you want to do down there or how long you want to do it for, doesn’t matter to me, but try not to get caught. And one more thing,” he says, looking very seriously at all of us. “Do not, under any circumstances, try to go in or out any other way than the one we’re going to take. That means do not go down to the main orifice. That is the most watched area in the entire facility and it is completely open. I know that this way isn’t great but it’s safe, easy, and it is unobserved. Everybody good?”

Once again we all nod, but I wonder whether or not Rey and Bao have really absorbed the information. Rey keeps watching things moving around in the shadows and Bao’s eyes are unfocused and glassy, and her head rocks lightly to the beat of something none of the rest of us can hear.

Peter gives instructions on how to get to the entrance, which I can now identify as being the same way as he and Makado got out during the disaster, the same breathing orifice that they’d pushed their way through four years ago.

Something about the…the enormity of it, of the thing beneath us and ahead of us and surrounding us, is getting to me. I can feel my skin prickling and a flash of heat passes over me suddenly and I nearly gasp but I contain myself. It wouldn’t do to have a panic attack right now, I tell myself, and I slowly, gradually, get myself back under control. I can feel my hands shaking at my sides and I shove them deep into my pockets. I want a cigarette.

There is finally, it seems, nothing left to talk about, no more instructions or warnings Peter can give us. He nods to himself, going over some kind of mental checklist, and then shrugs. “Alright,” he says. “Let’s go.”

* * *

Fifteen minutes later I’m already laughing at myself for getting so worked up over something so banal. Yeah, the other day when I followed Peter it had seemed like very serious business but here, actually making the trip myself, I can’t help but feel like it’s very small potatoes. It’s just a fence, I say to myself as we walk up to it, and then that turns into it’s just a waste drainage pipe, one that I have to shimmy through on my belly, grimacing as dust and grime gets on my nice coat, but it can’t be helped.

Peter’s behind me and Bao is ahead of me; Peter is staring at my ass, I’m sure, but then I realize that it’s pitch black in here so maybe I can give my ego a break and not assume it’s all about me. I keep having to prop myself up on my hands and knees to readjust the camcorder and make sure I’m not smashing it to bits on the hard floor of the pipe, but eventually we make it through and then we’re standing on an identical bit of hard, scrubby earth, except now we’re on the other side of the fence. As I watch, Bao, Rey, and Marcus all take off along the path, crossing it quickly and dropping down into the ditch below, and then they are just dark silhouettes making their way beneath the sharp half-moon. I get out my camcorder and flip it on and start filming them; the night-vision is really not that effective but it’s way better than just filming in the dark.

Peter clambers to his feet next to me and dusts himself off. “Well,” he says after a moment, “there they go.”

“They really don’t get caught?”

“Not usually. The ones who’re there to, you know, die to it, they go as deep as they can as quick as they can, far as I understand it, and the people with the cult tend to stay in the upper areas. There’s not very many personnel in the Pit right now so the odds of running into somebody is slim.”

I point ahead of us. “Can we go sit on that ridge? I want to get some shots of the Pit itself.”

“Sure. If a patrol comes we’ll have to duck down but it should be alright.”

We make our way across the road and down onto the ridge. I find a little flat section for us to sit on and then I pick out the three dark blobs making their way carefully up the hill. I whistle softly. “That’s the easiest way up there?”

“It is,” he says. “It doesn’t look like it but there’s a clear path, you just have to be careful of your footing.”

The figure in front stops for a moment. I can’t tell from this distance but I think it might be Bao. She stops and turns and looks across the great downward sloping crater of the Pit, and I pan the camcorder around and take a shot of it as well. I frown at the image. “That isn’t flesh down there, is it?”

“No,” Peter says. “They filled it all in with concrete. Do you see that little dark spot over there?”

I look where he’s pointing. “Yes.”

“That’s the orifice. They don’t keep it dilated as wide as they did during the park days, and the elevator is way smaller, too. There’s a little command center down in the gullet but it’s like, maybe a quarter of the size of the LVC. They’re all about minimizing impact now.”

Bao seems to be rocking unsteadily back and forth there on the trail and I turn the camera to record her. “So what happened to Makado?” I ask.

“I told you, she got out fine.”

“You know I don’t believe that.”

“It doesn’t matter if you believe it, it’s the truth.”

“Alright, can you introduce me to her, then? I’d like to meet her, or at least have a phone call.”

Peter laughs. “I really don’t think you’d want that.”

“Why not?”

He makes a little grunting noise. “I think you’d find that she –“

“Holy shit!” I blurt. Peter jumps next to me, looks around wildly.

“What is it?”

I’ve already gotten to my feet. “Bao just fucking ran back down the trail and someone else lost their balance and fell off,” I tell him, pointing at the dark object bouncing down the cliff face towards the white concrete below. Whoever it is they’re flopping like a rag doll, and I wince with each impact. “Jesus Christ,” I say, pointlessly. Next to me, Peter curses.

“Stay here,” he tells me before hustling off into the darkness. It looks as though he’s heading for Bao; I can barely see her but it looks as though she’s collapsed against a large boulder maybe a hundred yards away at the base of the hill, her shoulders shaking.

Well, Bao’s fine. I guess. She must have lost her nerve. I turn around, peer through the screen of the camcorder. Whoever she pushed, either Marcus or Rey, he’s reached the bottom by now and slumped into a huddled pile at the bottom of the crater. I can see one limb extended out limply like an exclamation point. I look back at Bao; Peter’s reached her and is hunched down next to her, trying to get her to move. She’s hugging her legs to her chest and I can see her shaking her head frantically. Did she do it on purpose? I didn’t see the whole thing but it looked like she just panicked.

When I turn back to Rey I can see him moving, trying to get up. “Oh fuck,” I say. He pushes himself up on his hands and then his arm gives out and he falls and lays there. I can just barely see, through the camcorder, his chest rising and falling. “Goddam it,” I say to myself, and then I fold up the camcorder and stuff it back into my jacket pocket, and then I get up and start to carefully pick my way down the heavy rocky incline of the crater lip.

* * *

I’m scared. I’m not ashamed to admit it, I’m terrified. I’m scared that someone is going to see me, is going to see whoever it is at the bottom, Rey or Marcus, and roll up with the black helicopters and take me wherever the Men in Black take you. It’s an insane, worthless fear but I still feel it. About half of me wants to bolt and run, scurry my way back into that drainage pipe and out and never look back, but I look at the lump ahead of me, hardly even seeming to be a person, no matter how beat up, and I see him again trying to rise and again falling and then I’m down there with him, my ankle aching from where I stepped wrong and very slightly rolled it, and I get down on my knees next to him. “Hey,” I say, “I’m here, it’s okay.”

He’s muttering in anguished Spanish to himself and I have to repeat myself a few times before he cracks his eyes open, his face dirty, blood from a cut above his eyebrow seeping down and stinging at his eye. He says something to me in Spanish and I trot out the little I know. “No entiendo,” I say, “Uh. Habla ingles?”

“Yeah,” he coughs. “You’re – Lily?”

“My name is Roan actually. Are you okay? Can you stand?”

“Rowan?”

“Roan. Like the horse. My parents were hippies.”

He looks at me like I’m speaking Greek and I might as well be. I put my hand out. “Can you stand?” I ask again, and he takes it. I help him pull himself up but his leg buckles beneath him and he lets out a cry of pain that echoes in the deserted Pit, bouncing off the soft white concrete expanse.

“I think I broke it,” he says. “Oh god.”

He’s staring around again, wilder than before. I look around in spite of myself but as I knew there would be there’s nothing there. I reach into my pocket and click the voice recorder on.

“What do you see?” I ask him.

“You don’t see them?”

“No, I can’t,” I shake my head. “What are they?”

That gets his attention and he tears his eyes from whatever vision he can see cavorting around us. He looks at me closely. “You don’t…you don’t see them?”

“No.”

“Oh,” he says, sounding disappointed. He tries to rise again but I put my hand on his shoulder.

“Wait,” I tell him. “Your leg must be broken, we can’t –“

“I’m so close,” he says. His eyes are wild now, and fixed on me. Before I can take a step back he’s thrown his weight towards me awkwardly and grabbed my arm. His hands are sweaty. “You have to help me.”

“Put your arm around me,” I tell him, crouching down. He’s heavy enough that I don’t know whether I’ll really be able to help much, but if I get on the same side as his hurt leg I can at least make sure he doesn’t have to put weight on it. The hard part will be getting up again –

Rey cries out again and I wince. “I’m sorry,” I tell him. “This is going to be rough but we have to get you up.”

“No,” he says, leaning on me. His face is pale now, his mouth tight and drawn with the effort.

“No?” I ask. “Come on, we need to leave like right now –“

“No,” he repeats, one shaking finger extended out ahead of us. He’s pointing to the tall gantry of the elevator down into the Pit. “We have to go there,” he says. “I have to –“

“Absolutely not,” I tell him. “We have to go –“

But he is starting forward towards the gantry and I curse and walk with him, because if I don’t he’ll fall, he’ll cry out again, he’ll fucking crawl on his hands and knees over to the goddam gantry, I can see it in his eyes, I know he will without even wondering how I know, and even though the lurching pace we set is clearly causing him pain, he urges me forward without any regard for his leg, hanging uselessly at his side, the foot jostling along the concrete every now and then and making him groan, a low deep animal noise that makes me feel as though I’m going to be sick.

We make it about halfway before a deep, rumbling alarm starts somewhere and ratchets up to a screech and all the lights click on and turn the night to day. All the strength seems to leave my body; I almost collapse. “Oh fuck,” I say.

“Come on,” he says. I glare at him; I’m sweating, the tight grip he has around my shoulders is starting to hurt, and he isn’t exactly slim. It’s taking all of my effort to keep him upright and walking and I am so close to just dropping him. I give him a dirty look and try to summon up my willpower, every single ounce of meanness and cruelty in my body and just twist out of his grasp and let him fall, but I can’t do it.

“Goddam it, Rey,” I tell him. “It’s a fucking elevator, they won’t let you on, there aren’t going to be stairs you can go down.”

“Come on,” he says again. The closer we get to the orifice the deader his voice gets. He keeps looking over his shoulder but there isn’t anything there, at least not yet; a pair of headlights are cresting the ridge and I can see people piling out of what looks like a Humvee but they aren’t anywhere close to us yet.

I reflect, briefly, on how useless this venture is; we probably could have gotten away if Rey hadn’t insisted on coming down here to peer down an empty elevator shaft. And if I hadn’t had such a damn big heart I could have gotten away, at least. Felony trespassing; well, I have the money for the fine, at least, but that’s got to be at least a year in federal prison, nothing to sneeze at. Maybe they have special accommodations for sick people? At the very least once I tell all of the prison lesbians what’s wrong with me they’ll –

“YOU TWO DOWN ON THE EXCLUSION PLATE!” a tremendous voice yells down at us through a megaphone. I nearly jump out of my skin but somehow manage to keep ahold of Rey. “STOP WHERE YOU ARE OR WE WILL SHOOT!”

I stop but Rey keeps going. “Rey, stop,” I tell him, but he doesn’t pay any attention to me. We’ve gotten far enough now that the end is in sight, the gantry is maybe twenty or thirty feet ahead of us and the yawning hole in the concrete is visible, but I can’t see inside it, not from this angle. “Rey!” I yell, but he pushes me back and I stumble to my knees. Rey breaks into a shambling run, or tries to anyway, but his leg simply is too hurt for him to put any weight on it. He nearly falls but he catches himself and bounces back up.

The first gunshot is unbelievably loud, even though it seems to come from a mile away. I hear it crack and I scream and fall down to my knees, my shoulders cringing together without any conscious effort on my part. I can see a spray of concrete splinters rising at Rey’s feet like shrapnel, and I realize the shot missed. He’s nearly there. I don’t know what he wants to achieve. I throw my jacket off and wrestle with the pocket, pull out the camcorder as quickly as I can force my shaking hands to operate, and snap it open so quickly I nearly break it. I start filming just in time to see the third, fourth, and fifth bullets bury themselves in him, two in his shoulder and one in his thigh. I cry out again but Rey is utterly silent. He’s down on his hands and knees but he tries to rise, and then another bullet catches him, this time in the back of the head, and he is down for good, and I realize that I’m crying, even while I’m trying very hard to keep the camcorder steady to get the shot of Rey’s supine body, one hand extending forward, reaching for the edge of the orifice, just ten feet away from him, a shocking red spray of arterial blood staining the concrete ahead of him like a punctuation.

Then two pairs of hands catch me under the shoulders and haul me to my feet and someone takes away my camcorder and they shove my head into a hood and then I can’t see. They force my hands together behind my back and handcuff me and I want to say something witty, quip something vaguely salacious like ‘easy boys, get to know me first before you get out the handcuffs’ but I can’t make my voice work the way it ought to and I’m still crying and shaking and I realize as they half carry half drag me to some kind of vehicle and fold me into it that I’ve wet myself, and any sort of bravery I might have been able to muster disintegrates into a painful, sharp-edged mass of shame and fear and embarrassment and a feeling not unlike I’m falling, like what I thought was just a rabbit hole has turned into a bottomless pit.

Continue with Part 11

Back to Table of Contents

#writing #mystery flesh pit #mystery #michael crichton #disaster #thriller #spilled ink #original writing #series

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helenarlett-rex · 4 years

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Greenland Sharks! What can you tell your loyal followers about them?

This is a Greenland shark. Many people think they look pretty dopey but they are one of the largest living species of shark. Growing up to 21 feet (6.4 meters) long and and weighing up to 2,200 pounds (1,000 kg). Greenland sharks also have the longest known lifespan of all vertebrate species. Their lifespan is estimated to be between 300 and 500 years. The Greenland shark is a thickset species of shark. And you know I like me some thick sharks... With a short, rounded snout, small eyes, and very small dorsal and pectoral fins. This shark is clod blooded but still lives in a just-above-freezing environment, giving it the lowest swim speed and tail-beat frequency for its size across all fish species. Most of these sharks are actually blind due to a parasite called a copepod that attaches itself to and feeds on the Greenland sharks' cornea. And here’s a fun fact. This shark is also poisonous. It has a high concentration of trimethylamine N-oxide in its tissues, which causes the meat to be toxic. Although Greenland shark flesh treated to reduce toxin levels is eaten in Iceland as a delicacy known as kæstur hákarl. So fuck Iceland.

The Greenland shark is an apex predator and while it has never been observed hunting, the contents of killed Greenland sharks stomaches have been known to include smaller sharks, skates, eels, herring, capelin, Arctic char, cod, rosefish, sculpins, lumpfish, wolffish, flounder, seals, polar bears, moose, and reindeer. That’s right. This is a shark that eats polar bears, moose, and reindeer.

The current conservation status of the Greenland shark is Near Threatened, meaning that it may be considered threatened with extinction in the near future, but does not currently qualify for the threatened status. Although if Iceland keeps eating poisonous sharks that don’t even reach sexual maturity until they are 150 years old, that could change very quickly...

And yes, this shark doesn’t hit sexual maturity until it reaches 150 years old. And the females don’t lay eggs. They retain the developing embryos within their bodies so they are born alive after an undetermined gestation period. About ten pups per litter is normal.

And on a personal note, there will be a Greenland shark in the upcoming next book in the Miss Nolly series.

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sciencenewsforstudents · 4 years

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Peggy’s data were a bit of a shock.

Peggy is a floating buoy attached to sensors that monitor the temperature, saltiness and other properties of the Arctic’s Bering Sea. These sensors reach down more than 70 meters (about 230 feet) below the water and are anchored to the seafloor west of Alaska.

Here, the coming and going of floating sea ice follows a seasonal pattern. Peggy’s data normally show that pattern. But in the winter of 2017–2018, they didn’t. The sea ice never appeared!

At their closest point, Alaska and Russia are separated by the Bering Strait. This stretch of water is 82 kilometers (51 miles) wide. To the north lies the Chukchi Sea, which is on the edge of the Arctic Ocean. Below the strait is the Bering Sea, which extends south to Alaska’s Aleutian Islands.

In summer, the Bering Sea is largely ice-free. In winter, ice forms in its northern reaches. Ice also migrates southward through the strait from the Chukchi. Scientists consider the waters frozen over when at least 20 percent of their surface is ice-covered.

Most years, sea ice shows up in the Bering Sea by November. As that ice forms, it causes a large mass of cold, salty water to pool near the seafloor. In the spring, algae bloom under the ice and around it. By early summer, the sea ice begins to melt away. But the cold pool near the seafloor, with an average temperature of just below freezing, lingers through the summer.

The deep cold pool is central to the Bering Sea’s ecosystem. It is where Arctic cod take refuge. These fish hide from predators such as Pacific cod and pollock (which don’t like the cold as much.) The Arctic cod also get fat on large, shrimplike copepods (KOH-peh-podz), then spawn. In turn, these fish keep polar bears and seals well-fed.

Peggy’s data, along with that of other packages of sensors, revealed that the cold, near-seafloor pool was missing. That and the absent sea ice alarmed ocean scientists. Researchers gathered in Washington, D.C., at the American Geophysical Union’s annual meeting in December 2018. Many shared new data, traded stories and pondered what the changes may mean.

The Bering Strait is a narrow region of water between Russia and Alaska that separates the Chukchi Sea from the Bering Sea. The black dot on the map shows where Peggy is stationed to collect data on water temperature and saltiness.

CREDIT: T. TIBBITS

Were these findings a fluke? “We don’t yet have enough data,” says Jacqueline Grebmeier. She works at the University of Maryland’s Center for Environmental Science in Solomons. But Grebmeier, who has studied seafloor life in the Arctic for more than 30 years, has a gut feeling that the ice-free winter is not a one-off event: “I think it’s the beginning of change,” she says.

If last year’s events signal a new normal for the Bering Sea (and the very low sea ice cover as of March this year signals they might), then a cascade of changes are in store for its complex ecosystem — from the algae at the bottom of the food web to humans at the top.

#climate change chronicles #science #scied #sciblr #earth #climate #Arctic #sea ice #longread #long reads

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interestingfactsquotes · 4 years

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Interesting Facts About Mandarinfish

Mandarinfish Facts Synchiropus splendidus - mandarinfish This small but brightly colored member of the dragonet family is simply stunning and magnificent in appearance. It is native to the Pacific Ocean and ranges from the Ryukyu Islands and south to Australia. Like the tibetan mastiff and red panda and moon bear, the mere appearance of this creature can cause onlookers to stare in wonder and excitement. Synchiropus picturatus, the Spotted Mandarinfish, is known under Many different names in English, including Picture dragonet Picturesque dragonet, Green Spot Mandarin Dragonet, Green Spot Mandarin Goby and Spotted Mandarin. Just like its relative the Green Mandarinfish, it is sometimes known Psychedelic Dragonet or as fish. You might come across the names Pterosynchiropus and Callionymus picturatus if you look in sources. The Spotted Mandarinfish hasn't been assessed for the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Distributions, habitat and habit - The Spotted Mandarinfish lives from the Indo West Pacific. To the Ryukyu Islands of Japan, it is found up On the north. To the south, it's found down to Australia. This species only lives in tropics waters and doesn't migrate. The Spotted Mandarinfish occupies lagoons that are protected and shallow reefs. The fish is famous for its body that's decorated with a profusion of blue black and orange spots. Mind and fins are as eloquent as the body's remainder. Spotted Mandarinfish maintenance - The Spotted Mandarinfish is considered hard to care for as it's difficult to let it to eat in the aquarium. Keep at least 100 pounds \/ 45 kg of live rock for each fish. You may read more about the Spotted Mandarinfish's needs further down. It is not advisable to keep the Spotted Mandarinfish in an aquarium smaller than 30 gallons \/ 115 liters and the aquarium must naturally be large enough to house a large amount of live rock. This fish is a peaceful and reef safe species which will leave fish and most invertebrates alone from the aquarium, with the exception of course of suitable prey. Keeping one or more Spotted Mandarinfish from the aquarium can be tricky, unless it's a compatible pair or you've a very large and cleverly adorned aquarium. Bear from mind that the aquarium must have sufficient prey animals to sustain your mandarins, adding too many might lead to starvation. The aquarium where you keep the spotted Mandarinfish must contain a whole lot of suitable hiding spots. The recommended water temperature is 23-29 C \/ 74-83 F and the salinity should be maintained in the 1.021-1.025 range. The amount of salt is very critical. Keep the pH value between 8.2 and 8.4 and the alkaline from 8dKH to 12dKH. Feeding Spotted Mandarinfish - The carnivore Spotted Mandarinfish is a specialized feeder and copepods dominate its diet. Your mandarin might start eating small amounts of other food types from the aquarium, but a prosperous copepod population is needed you want your Spotted Mandarinfish to endure and remain healthful in the long run. https://youtu.be/DN0-hIEcCHg https://youtu.be/KivINH0ka_A Ryukyu Islands Miles .Okinawa Island with a population of over a million and an area of 485 sq miles is the biggest of the islands. The islands have for ages been occupied, possibly since the Neolithic Age. The people seem to be descendants of Japanese and South-East Asians who migrated during prehistory into the Ryukyus. There has to have been some connections with Japan and China, as well as the Ryukyuans socioeconomics systems reflect both Chinese and Japanese influences. In the past the islands formed an independent kingdom. By the fourteenth century sovereignty which imitated an interval of trading contact was, approved by a faction of the Ryukyuan direction, located in Okinawa. This led to an assimilation of civilization. In time, Japan was comprised by trade connections with the mainland from Korea to Vietnam on the south, which influenced culture systems on the north and Indonesia. Influence was growing from the century over central and northern Ryukyu Islands, and in the nineteenth century. Across all of the Ryukyu Islands, control was assumed by Japan Since the connections in the exerted pressures in these times. From the year 1879 the Ryukyus became an essential part of Japan. Towards also the end of World War II, also the US took control of also the islands, and also the military authorities was replaced at 1951 by a civil government based in Naha, the capital and biggest city of the islands, controlled largely by Japan. Following Japanese unrest over also the return of also the islands, Japan took more than the Ryukyu Islands, from the US, but the U. Continued to preserve military installations and troops on Okinawa Island. Less than 50% of the islands are permanently inhabited, a lot of the smaller islands are only coral reefs. The bigger ones are volcanic in nature, and a few are large enough to provide some agricultural land. The population is mainly rural, along with agriculture is also the dominant occupation of also the people today. Yams and rice are the staple crops and there is also some wheat. The traditional economics was badly upset throughout the World War 11. An artificial economics significantly impacted by also the American military presence has since developed. There's some pineapple production now along with tuna fishing became important. Three fourths of also the Oki nawan population is made up of smallholding sugarcane growers. Sugar refining along with pineapple canning are the main manufacturing activities, with also the products going to Japan. Tea and tobacco are destined for home consumption. The Ryukus stay, however, a food shortage area for the local population, majority of also the food products are consumed by also the American military installations. Okinawa has suffered a surge at urbanization since World War II.Nahas population estimated into be close into half that a million has doubled since 1970. The very first thing you must understand is that the fish you are likely to catch in the surf know what they're doing. Saltwater fish have a tendency to be more expensive and harder to take care of than freshwater fish. When you select saltwater aquarium fish, you've got to take into account that they're a little more costly than the freshwater varieties. If you're going to introduce fish to a tank with Coral and invertebrates it is necessary to spot which are inclined to be a threat to them. Depending on what sort of aquarium you're keeping there are many fish you wish to keep away from since they aren't compatible in some specific scenarios. There are a large number of marine aquarium fish in the business to satisfy just about anyone. There are several kinds of fish. A very simple thing you need to bear in mind is that fish don't wish to die. If you buy a fish that only nips a specific kind of coral you may think about avoiding that piece later on. It's also vital that you avoid aggressive fish. It is vital not to introduce new fish unless that your aquarium is operating perfectly for the previous month. In essence with only a tiny common sense, responsibility and research you'll be well on your way to getting a flourishing fish or reef aquarium. Read the full article

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rjzimmerman · 5 years

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A North Atlantic right whale breaching in waters off New Brunswick, Canada.CreditCreditFrancois Gohier/Science Source

Excerpt from this New York Times story:

Something happened to the population of North Atlantic right whales in the last decade, as their numbers shrank and fewer calves were born.

Scientists had long speculated that a change had occurred in the whales’ sources of food. By 2017, only 411 animals were counted, down from 482 in 2010. A paper published this month in the journal Oceanography, links warming in the Gulf of Maine with the life cycle of the copepod Calanus finmarchicus, a tiny shrimplike creature that forms the foundation of the right whale diet.

Although it is hard to prove cause and effect, the paper’s lead author, Nicholas Record, said the study connected “the big ocean-scale climate changes” in the North Atlantic with the water coming into the Gulf of Maine and the whale’s food resources.

An influx of warm water near the ocean floor in 2010 significantly reduced the abundance of the shrimplike creature in the Gulf of Maine that summer and fall. Warmer water would have brought in fewer Calanus and also meant that more died and were eaten earlier in the season, Dr. Record said, leaving less food, “right when right whales need their last big meal before winter.”

The whales followed the Calanus populations elsewhere, including to Cape Cod Bay and to the Gulf of St. Lawrence in northern Canada. Their shift in location may have created even bigger problems for the overall population, when they might have been hungry and moved to places with heavy shipping traffic.

Shipping lanes and fishing locales are designed around traditional feeding grounds for the whales. But as those shifted, the whales came into more contact with boats and nets. And perhaps because the whales were undernourished, only five new calves appeared in 2017 and none in 2018, according to NOAA data. This year, seven calves have been sighted, which scientists hope signals that the whales have found new feeding waters and are sufficiently healthy to begin rebounding.

#right whales #climate change #warming oceans

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atlanticcanada · 5 years

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As death toll rises, scientists struggle to track massive, elusive right whales

HALIFAX -- They are among the world's largest creatures, but the planet's 400 remaining North Atlantic right whales are remarkably elusive.

Though adult members of this critically endangered species can be as long as a city bus, their movements remain difficult to track, despite the best efforts of scientists struggling to deal with a rapidly rising death toll off Canada's east coast.

"It is kind of mind-boggling that we can lose track of these large animals," says Boris Worm, a biology professor and well-known whale expert at Dalhousie University in Halifax.

"But the ocean is a very large place, and they only spend part of their time at the surface -- and they move around quickly, if they want to."

Though these whales typically travel north to feed in Canadian waters in June, some have been known to stick around most of the year -- a recently discovered trait -- and one male was spotted off the coast of France a few weeks ago.

The same whale swam to Iceland last year.

More importantly, a significant number of right whales have changed their migration patterns since 2014-15.

Instead of heading to their traditional summer foraging grounds in the Bay of Fundy and the Roseway Basin off southwestern Nova Scotia, the population has shifted to a more northerly destination -- right into the busy shipping lanes of the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Since early June, eight right whales have died in Canadian waters, the worst death toll since 2017 when there were 12 confirmed deaths in Canadian waters and five in the United States.

Tests have revealed that at least three of the whales that died this year were probably killed by collisions with ships.

"It's so critical to know where they are to keep them safe," Worm said in an interview Tuesday. "We're trying all the approaches in the scientific toolbox. Any traces they leave, we're trying to pick them up."

Some of Worm's colleagues are developing a predictive model that could help fisheries officials determine where the whales are most likely to go as they search for their favourite food: copepods.

Hansen Johnson, a PhD candidate at the university's Oceanography Department, said his lab's research is focused on finding the locations where these flea-sized creatures congregate.

"If we can predict where and when there's going to be good feeding sources -- and these copepods show up in large numbers -- we can more accurately predict when and where right whales will show up and address the risks," Johnson said in an interview.

For almost three weeks, a team of six scientists has been conducting research aboard a chartered crab fishing boat in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence, using nets and electronic gear to find copepods, which look like tiny, translucent shrimp.

"It's unclear at this stage how precise our model could be, but we know that this approach of following the food works," Johnson said.

When Dalhousie researchers looked at the currents and the structure of the ocean floor in the places where right whales were known to forage for zooplankton, including the Roseway Basin, they determined a pattern that also appears in portions of the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

When surveillance aircraft were dispatched to search those areas in 2016, they hit the jackpot.

"On the first flight, they found 40 right whales and this habitat was discovered," Johnson said, though he stressed that some right whales may have been frequenting these basins for a long time.

"They're like cereal bowls where these food resources collect," he said, noting that the latest research in the gulf is based on work by renowned Canadian oceanographer Kimberley Davies.

"The currents are right. The ocean bottom structure is there."

On another scientific front, Worm is working with a student to develop an automated satellite tracking system that will eventually spot the whales from space and report their positions.

Though the satellite imagery is incredibly detailed, the existing computer algorithms are unable to distinguish between species, and spotting the whales becomes difficult when the ocean is rough.

When the water is turbulent, it's often difficult to distinguish between a surfacing whale and a partially submerged rock -- or even a small boat.

"We haven't cracked that nut yet," Worm said.

from CTV News - Atlantic https://ift.tt/2JM3F2t

#new brunswick #prince edward island #nova scotia #news #politics #canada #CTVAtlantic

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aquariumsupplyguide-blog · 5 years

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The Best Way to Build a Complete Aquarium Eco System

Owning an aquarium and working towards the care of its inhabitants has always been a pleasure for so many around the world, as aquariums are little worlds which are always full of life and color. It is not a surprise, then, to find many people looking for the best tanks, sea creatures, and other items that make up a thriving and healthy little aquarium world. The exciting part is that owning an aquarium is better today than it was in the past: today, one can buy algae and plankton from a good company, and add them to the aquarium to create a real living ecosystem! If one is able to find a company like this, then, he or she will definitely be able to gain a lot of benefits, all of which are so exciting.

Finding a company like this is great in a lot of ways, one of which is the fact that people can build an aquarium like a pro. At this company at https://www.algaebarn.com/shop/macroalgae, starter packs will be sold to aquarium lovers, and buying one, one will be enabled to start from scratch, building a sustainable ecosystem in his or her own tank from day one! One who buys starter pack like this needs only to follow the directions that come with it, and he or she can get the tank cycled and seeded in no time!

One will also appreciate algae farm company like this very much, as he or she will find out that it will be possible to select from between a lot of different products for sale. For example, one who wants natural flora in his or her tank can buy sea lettuce from this company. If you want to make your ecosystem even better in your aquarium, you can buy brine shrimp and copepods, adding them for the natural food of your fish and creating a healthy, interesting life within your tank.

Finding a company like this is also a treasure, as when you do so, you can be sure that you will be really satisfied with everything that you buy from it, plus all the services you can enjoy from it. A company like this will assure its clients with the guarantee that whatever they order will come to them alive, and also that orders will arrive on time - these things are certainly worthwhile, and they will make one want to buy more and more products from this company. Read more claims about aquarium, visit https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/27/cool-aquariums-fish-tanks_n_2198888.html.

If one wants to have an ecosystem within his tank that is thriving and natural, then, what he or she should do is to find a company that sells live algae, brine shrimp, plankton, and so on.

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franzanth · 6 years

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Are u familiar with Stephen J Gould's concept of Decimation? I'd love to see what u think abt it!! seeing u recreate so many dead stuff brought this phenomenon to mind

I’ve heard of it but not overly familiar. But if I get this right, he basically hypothesized that extinction happens and puts evolution through filters. That means, lots of the weird critters in the past must have represented body plans from lineages that are long gone and don’t fit anywhere in our current tree of life, correct?

I believe he originally referred to Burgess Shale’s fauna, which at that time, was full of unidentified weird critters like upside-down spiky worms and giant murdershrimps (which turned out not to be a shrimp). But since then, many weirdos, whether from Burgess Shale or not, have been successfully identified.

For example! Some pre-Cambrian stuffs are downright WTF, but some researchers I’ve talked to said that Haootia might be an early cnidarian. Like, almost jellyfish, but not quite jellyfish. Yeah this is what happens when I try to make jellies in a party hat instead of a store-bought mold.

Then there are lots of weird, still puzzling critters like Tullimonstrum, which was in 2016 claimed to be a fish then 2017 said lolnope.

“Don’t even get me started on tullimonstrum,” said Thomas Clements, the guy who wrote the 2016 paper when I casually mentioned it in our chat.

He then followed up with this emoji:

Yeah, it’s quite a trigger for some. Pls tag your Tullimonstrum posts accordingly.

There’s also Nectocaris, which might be a shrimp or a squid, depending on who you’re talking to (it might start a war, maybe better not talk about Nectocaris).

A squid? src

or a shrimp? src

Even today, there are lots of outlier critters that make me go FULL CAPSLOCK WHAT THE HELL. Even well-studied groups can still produce hellspawns that look like a bastard child from their secret affair with critters from James Cameron’s AVATAR.

Like, you know what sea cucumbers normally look like, right?

Behold, Pelagothuria, also a sea cucumber.

Excuse me that’s not what my cucumbers look like.

And you know what crustaceans normally are like, yeah? Crabs and shrimps and stuffs. They all look the same, yeah?

Last night @cyan-biologist sent me this unholy abomination that is a parasitic crustacean (Sphyrion lumpi, a copepod to be precise).

Like how in the hell is that a shrimp’s cousin. Where is the head. Where did the feetsies go. How can I eat that. Let me speak to the manager.

Ok I’ve gone off-tangent here but in short, I think evolution tends to produce wacky things that throw our primate brains off-guard and screw up our obsession with putting things in neat boxes.

But luckily we’re getting more data and getting better at identifying things so… maybe in the future we’ll get to know our long lost weird cousins better.

This has been an emotional roller coaster ride for me I like weird critters ok.

#edumacation #aphid-kirby #biology #paleontology #science

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csnews · 6 years

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Fishing Gear Deaths, Low Birth Rate Tell Grave Tale for Right Whales

Sara Brown - Jan. 25, 2018

About 25 North Atlantic right whales gathered south of the Vineyard this week, marking an early-season sighting of a species that scientists warn could go extinct in the next 20 years.

The sighting belies the plight of the species, Dr. Mark Baumgartner told a crowd of about 50 people gathered in the Gazette newsroom Tuesday for a talk. There are an estimated 450 whales left.

Mr. Baumgartner, a scientist with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and president of the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium, said he and other scientists have documented an alarming decline in right whale calving rates alongside a rise in deaths from fishing gear entanglement.

“We have years, not decades to fix this problem. The longer we wait, the harder the problem gets to fix.” Mr. Baumgartner said. “We don’t need more science to be done on this species. We need to act.”

While the situation is grave, he said, solutions including weaker fishing rope and an emerging ropeless fishing technology that could reduce the number of entanglements that kill or injure the whales.

North Atlantic right whales are about the size of a city bus, and individuals can be identified by unique patterns of callosities on their heads. The whales eat copepods, tiny crustaceans, to the tune of one or two tons a day, Mr. Baumgartner said, the caloric equivalent of about 3,000 Big Macs.

Right whales got their name because they were the “right” whales to pursue during the whaling era. The whales are slow-moving, live near shore, and float after they are killed, making them easier to drag ashore.

The population was decimated beginning around the time of the Revolutionary War. “They’ve been down for along time, but not out,” Mr. Baumgartner said.

More recently, scientists have closely monitored the population from the southern Atlantic calving grounds they visit in the winter to feeding grounds off New England and Canada. Two recent trends paint a dire picture, Mr. Baumgartner said. Last winter, five right whale calves were born, the smallest number scientists have documented in 17 years. So far, he said, no calves have been seen this year. “This year I fear may be worse,” he said.

Scientists have also documented increasing amounts of time between when females give birth to calves, and a decline in first-time mothers. Meanwhile, 17 right whales were found dead last year, 12 in Canada and five in the United States. Three of the whales found in the U.S. were on or near Martha’s Vineyard.

The two main causes of unnatural whale deaths are fishing gear entanglements and ship strikes. Deaths from ship strikes have declined significantly in recent years, Mr. Baumgartner said, after rules were enacted requiring ships within 20 miles of East Coast ports to reduce their speed at critical times. After the right whales were seen south of the Vineyard and Nantucket this week, the government issued a voluntarily vessel speed restriction, asking ships to reduce speed in those areas until Feb. 5.

At the same time, fishing gear entanglements have been on the rise. Rope attached to lobster pots is the culprit in entanglements, Mr. Baumgartner said. In recent decades fishermen have been using stronger rope, making it harder for whales to break free.

“It’s important to understand that entanglements are gruesome events for those animals,” Mr. Baumgartner said. One whale that was entangled in a snow crab pot in Canada dragged the gear all the way to Florida, he said. It is clear many whales suffer for some time before they die, he also said.

“I think if this was happening to a land mammal, in full view of the public . . . it wouldn’t be happening,” Mr. Baumgartner said. “Most people don’t know this is how right whales die.”

Entanglements that aren’t fatal hurt the population in other ways. Whales expend more calories and lose weight, which in turn affects reproductive rates.

The situation is clear, the WHOI scientist said. “I don’t want to research this thing to death,” he said. “We need to be doing something.”

Potential solutions range from taking steps to address fishing gear entanglement to the complete closure of the lobster fishery. The latter is not a desirable outcome, Mr. Baumgartner said. “I don’t think any sane person would really want to propose that,” he said. “Lobster fishing is as iconic in New England as right whales are.”

Ground lines are already required to be sunk in Massachusetts, Mr. Baumgartner said. “Massachusetts fishermen have done more for whale conservation than any other state,” he said, also pointing to fishing closures in Cape Cod Bay during the right whale season. These actions could be introduced in other states, like Maine, he suggested.

Mandating weaker rope, along the lines of 1,700-pound breaking strength, would be one of the quickest remedies, he said. It would not prevent entanglements, but would make it easier for the whales to break free.

The most comprehensive measure includes using ropeless technology for fishing gear, which would see fishermen using acoustic devices to raise gear from the ocean floor. Scientists have the technology ready to go, Mr. Baumgartner said. Introducing the gear would require cooperation with the fishing industry and an experimental fishery to test the equipment.

Ropeless technology would also affect other animals at risk of entanglement, including other whales, sharks and leatherback turtles.

“It’s a completely solvable problem,” Mr. Baumgartner said.

Last week three environmental and animal rights organizations filed a complaint against the federal government, claiming that the Department of Commerce and National Marine Fisheries Service failed to protect right whales by continuing to authorize the American lobster fishery despite the impact on whales.

The Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife and the Humane Society of the United States asks the court to require the government to put in place mitigation measures to protect whales.

Mr. Baumgartner said the lawsuit is part of a natural process of holding the government accountable. He said agencies have been slow to respond to concerns about whether whale protection regulations are being followed or are working. “So the nongovernmental organizations come in to sue the government, to come in and say speed it up,” he said.

As scientists continue to monitor the species and others press the government for action, Mr. Baumgartner disagreed with the suggestion that people stop eating lobster as a meaningful action. “Lobster farming and whales can be completely compatible,” he said, instead encouraging people to ask fish markets where their lobsters came from and how they had been caught.

Talking to suppliers can change an entire industry he said, pointing to the movements in support of cage-free eggs and free-range chickens.

“Keep asking the government what we are doing about this,” he said. “This past year has changed the conversation completely about right whales.”

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