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"content": "\u003cp>Most populations of humpback whales no longer need endangered species protections, according to \u003ca href=\"http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/mediacenter/2016/09_September/06_09.html\">a decision\u003c/a> by the National Marine Fisheries Service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The U.S. government listed all humpback whales as endangered back in 1970, after commercial whaling had drastically reduced their numbers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”DGLWaiP9KRCpoyqn13mk7DWCIK8ZCEIn”]But now, officials say they have divided humpback whales into 14 distinct populations. And after a scientific review, they say that nine of those populations have recovered enough that they no longer need to be considered endangered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We believe that we have conducted a very thorough scientific assessment,” says \u003ca href=\"https://www.eli.org/sites/default/files/docs/seminars/sommabio10_07_14.pdf\">Angela Somma\u003c/a>, chief of the endangered species division at the agency, also known as NOAA Fisheries. “Most of the humpback populations have increased and increased substantially from where they were.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whales that are still considered endangered include populations in Central America, off northwest Africa, in the Arabian Sea and in the western north Pacific. And a population near Mexico is listed as threatened. Whales from the Central America and Mexico populations travel through U.S. waters at certain times of year as they feed in areas off the West Coast and Alaska.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a practical matter, little will change for the whales — they’ll still be covered under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, she notes. And the \u003ca href=\"https://iwc.int/home\">International Whaling Commission’s\u003c/a> moratorium on hunting these huge ocean creatures, which was imposed in 1982, remains in effect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Many of the day-to-day protections and activities will continue to occur,” Somma says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, officials have filed regulations to ensure that vessels around Hawaii and Alaska continue to maintain a safe distance from the whales.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Collisions with ships is a danger to the whales, and they face other threats, such as getting tangled up in fishing gear. The Center for Biological Diversity, a conservation group, said \u003ca href=\"http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2016/humpback-whales-09-06-2016.html\">nearly 40 reports\u003c/a> of whales becoming entangled were recorded off the West Coast in the first half of this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Most+Humpback+Whales+Taken+Off+Endangered+Species+List&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Most populations of humpback whales no longer need endangered species protections, according to \u003ca href=\"http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/mediacenter/2016/09_September/06_09.html\">a decision\u003c/a> by the National Marine Fisheries Service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The U.S. government listed all humpback whales as endangered back in 1970, after commercial whaling had drastically reduced their numbers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>But now, officials say they have divided humpback whales into 14 distinct populations. And after a scientific review, they say that nine of those populations have recovered enough that they no longer need to be considered endangered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We believe that we have conducted a very thorough scientific assessment,” says \u003ca href=\"https://www.eli.org/sites/default/files/docs/seminars/sommabio10_07_14.pdf\">Angela Somma\u003c/a>, chief of the endangered species division at the agency, also known as NOAA Fisheries. “Most of the humpback populations have increased and increased substantially from where they were.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whales that are still considered endangered include populations in Central America, off northwest Africa, in the Arabian Sea and in the western north Pacific. And a population near Mexico is listed as threatened. Whales from the Central America and Mexico populations travel through U.S. waters at certain times of year as they feed in areas off the West Coast and Alaska.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a practical matter, little will change for the whales — they’ll still be covered under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, she notes. And the \u003ca href=\"https://iwc.int/home\">International Whaling Commission’s\u003c/a> moratorium on hunting these huge ocean creatures, which was imposed in 1982, remains in effect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Many of the day-to-day protections and activities will continue to occur,” Somma says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, officials have filed regulations to ensure that vessels around Hawaii and Alaska continue to maintain a safe distance from the whales.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Collisions with ships is a danger to the whales, and they face other threats, such as getting tangled up in fishing gear. The Center for Biological Diversity, a conservation group, said \u003ca href=\"http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2016/humpback-whales-09-06-2016.html\">nearly 40 reports\u003c/a> of whales becoming entangled were recorded off the West Coast in the first half of this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Most+Humpback+Whales+Taken+Off+Endangered+Species+List&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Minion-Like 'Larva Bots' Roam the Seas, Uncovering Secrets",
"headTitle": "Minion-Like ‘Larva Bots’ Roam the Seas, Uncovering Secrets | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Grant Susner leans over the edge of a boat in Bodega Bay, stretches his arm toward the waves and releases “Bipinnaria” into the wild.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bipinnaria — bright yellow against the deep blue surface — begins floating away from the boat, bobbing from side to side in the choppy water. Susner is principle marine electronics technician at the \u003ca href=\"http://bml.ucdavis.edu/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory \u003c/a>and his natural habitat is the marine lab’s main research vessel, the \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/RV-Mussel-Point-UC-Davis-Bodega-Marine-Laboratory-123771934355725/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Mussel Point\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Soon Bipinnaria is joined by its comrades: Hippolyte, Velella, Veliger and Zoea. They drift away swaying in synchrony, like soldiers who’ve decided to waddle instead of march.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These small robots are serving the cause of marine ecology. Their names give clue to their mission — that is, if you majored in marine biology. Each moniker is the name of the free-swimming larval stage of a marine animal. After hatching from eggs, certain sea stars spend their early days as bipinnaria. Some shrimp have a Hippolyte phase (named for an Amazonian queen). Velella are jellyfish. Veliger, clams and sea snails. Zoea are crab.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The job of these robots is to behave as much as possible like marine larvae themselves, albeit ones that can transmit their location, send email and take cues from curious researchers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Splashing Conventional Wisdom\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Steven Morgan, a marine ecologist at UC Davis, uses these robots to learn about how marine larvae move, where they are likely to go, how they return to the shore, and how larvae might fare in the face of intensifying ocean acidification and rising temperatures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You see a tiny larvae, and it’s out [in the ocean] developing for weeks and months — how is it able to make its way back on shore?” asks Morgan. “People around the world have been trying to answer this question for decades.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whether you’re into fishing for salmon or spotting sea anemones while exploring tidepools, the fate of marine larvae matters to you. (They also happen to be \u003ca href=\"https://www.pinterest.com/pin/338544096960155420/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">beautiful\u003c/a>, like microscopic architectural gems.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_964781\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-964781\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3751.jpg\" alt='Steven Morgan, looking like a proud father with some of his larva bot \"family,\" soon to expand to 50 bots.' width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3751.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3751-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3751-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3751-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3751-1440x960.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3751-1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3751-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3751-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Steven Morgan, looking like a proud father with some of his larva bot “family,” soon to expand to 50 bots. \u003ccite>(Maggie Carson Jurow)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Understanding how larvae disperse is important for managing fisheries, designing and running marine reserves, and controlling invasive species. But modeling their dispersal has been difficult before now. Prior to the development of these “ABLE” drifters, (Autonomous Behaving Lagrangian Explorers), it was essentially impossible to predict where larvae would travel. But evidence has been mounting that larvae aren’t just aimless drifters; they control their movements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.ucdavis.edu/news/robot-larvae-deployed-sea/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">early surprising results\u003c/a> has been how close to shore most marine larvae linger. Rather than dispersing into the open ocean, most species stay within a mile of shore. They move up and down in the water column to return to shore on currents they use like an underwater subway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Morgan believes larvae are pre-programmed to return to shore, using environmental cues and subsurface currents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There are a lot of skeptics out there that microscopic larvae have any control over where they’re going in this wild and woolly ocean of ours,” he says. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Experiments with his larva bot flotilla will, he hopes, provide the needed evidence to change minds.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Results like this could reinforce the importance of keeping coastal waters \u003ca href=\"http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2016-205\">free of pollution\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“California has made a big investment in a network of marine protected areas,” says Tom Maloney. As executive director of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.oceansciencetrust.org/\">Ocean Science Trust\u003c/a>, Maloney has a keen interest in Morgan’s work. His organization, a non-profit created by the state of California to provide science-based management advice, is trying to understand how changes in the climate will change conditions in the oceans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We want to understand the full life cycle for this important suite of invertebrates [and fish],” he says. “It’ll help us understand if our protected areas are achieving the results we want.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Come Get Me\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When it is time for Bipinnaria to return to the boat, it surfaces, communicates its coordinates via a satellite relay and sends Susner an email. The message: Here I am. Come get me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After a little scouting, boat maneuvering and some skillful scooping with a fish net, all five bots are safely back in the boat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lab currently has a small navy of 25 “larva bots.” Soon they’ll double that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The strength of the larva bots — although they are far larger than the creatures they mimic — is that they move with the currents, as larvae do, and they can be programmed to mimic certain behaviors. They can move up or down in the water column at the same speed as larvae, maintain buoyancy, and respond to light, temperature, salinity or pressure in the same way larvae might.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_964780\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-964780\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3730.jpg\" alt=\"The larva bot housings are made from recycled fire extinguishers. Fully loaded with electronics, they cost about $1,200 each.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3730.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3730-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3730-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3730-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3730-1440x960.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3730-1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3730-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3730-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The larva bot housings are made from recycled fire extinguishers. Fully loaded with electronics, they cost about $1,200 each. \u003ccite>(Maggie Carson Jurow)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The bots are built to be “simple and cheap.” Even so, fully loaded with LEDs, trackers, GPS and satellite communicators, and sensors to log salinity, temperature, light, depth and swimming speed, the price tag for each is about $1,200. The housings are made from expired fire extinguisher canisters, donated by fire departments. The ‘petals’ forming a skirt around their waste, which spin to record vertical velocity, were cut by hand. For scientific equipment, they’re surprisingly cute. Susner and Morgan show off their capabilities in the lab with obvious affection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“T\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">hese things are wonderfully built,” Susner says.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After some trial and error in the design data, collection began in earnest last year. (Several years ago, before the retrieval mechanisms were perfected, three bots were lost to the waves). With the arrival of 25 more bots in the coming weeks, data collection is about to go into overdrive.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Grant Susner leans over the edge of a boat in Bodega Bay, stretches his arm toward the waves and releases “Bipinnaria” into the wild.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bipinnaria — bright yellow against the deep blue surface — begins floating away from the boat, bobbing from side to side in the choppy water. Susner is principle marine electronics technician at the \u003ca href=\"http://bml.ucdavis.edu/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory \u003c/a>and his natural habitat is the marine lab’s main research vessel, the \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/RV-Mussel-Point-UC-Davis-Bodega-Marine-Laboratory-123771934355725/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Mussel Point\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Soon Bipinnaria is joined by its comrades: Hippolyte, Velella, Veliger and Zoea. They drift away swaying in synchrony, like soldiers who’ve decided to waddle instead of march.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These small robots are serving the cause of marine ecology. Their names give clue to their mission — that is, if you majored in marine biology. Each moniker is the name of the free-swimming larval stage of a marine animal. After hatching from eggs, certain sea stars spend their early days as bipinnaria. Some shrimp have a Hippolyte phase (named for an Amazonian queen). Velella are jellyfish. Veliger, clams and sea snails. Zoea are crab.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The job of these robots is to behave as much as possible like marine larvae themselves, albeit ones that can transmit their location, send email and take cues from curious researchers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Splashing Conventional Wisdom\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Steven Morgan, a marine ecologist at UC Davis, uses these robots to learn about how marine larvae move, where they are likely to go, how they return to the shore, and how larvae might fare in the face of intensifying ocean acidification and rising temperatures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You see a tiny larvae, and it’s out [in the ocean] developing for weeks and months — how is it able to make its way back on shore?” asks Morgan. “People around the world have been trying to answer this question for decades.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whether you’re into fishing for salmon or spotting sea anemones while exploring tidepools, the fate of marine larvae matters to you. (They also happen to be \u003ca href=\"https://www.pinterest.com/pin/338544096960155420/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">beautiful\u003c/a>, like microscopic architectural gems.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_964781\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-964781\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3751.jpg\" alt='Steven Morgan, looking like a proud father with some of his larva bot \"family,\" soon to expand to 50 bots.' width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3751.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3751-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3751-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3751-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3751-1440x960.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3751-1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3751-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3751-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Steven Morgan, looking like a proud father with some of his larva bot “family,” soon to expand to 50 bots. \u003ccite>(Maggie Carson Jurow)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Understanding how larvae disperse is important for managing fisheries, designing and running marine reserves, and controlling invasive species. But modeling their dispersal has been difficult before now. Prior to the development of these “ABLE” drifters, (Autonomous Behaving Lagrangian Explorers), it was essentially impossible to predict where larvae would travel. But evidence has been mounting that larvae aren’t just aimless drifters; they control their movements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.ucdavis.edu/news/robot-larvae-deployed-sea/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">early surprising results\u003c/a> has been how close to shore most marine larvae linger. Rather than dispersing into the open ocean, most species stay within a mile of shore. They move up and down in the water column to return to shore on currents they use like an underwater subway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Morgan believes larvae are pre-programmed to return to shore, using environmental cues and subsurface currents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There are a lot of skeptics out there that microscopic larvae have any control over where they’re going in this wild and woolly ocean of ours,” he says. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Experiments with his larva bot flotilla will, he hopes, provide the needed evidence to change minds.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Results like this could reinforce the importance of keeping coastal waters \u003ca href=\"http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2016-205\">free of pollution\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“California has made a big investment in a network of marine protected areas,” says Tom Maloney. As executive director of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.oceansciencetrust.org/\">Ocean Science Trust\u003c/a>, Maloney has a keen interest in Morgan’s work. His organization, a non-profit created by the state of California to provide science-based management advice, is trying to understand how changes in the climate will change conditions in the oceans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We want to understand the full life cycle for this important suite of invertebrates [and fish],” he says. “It’ll help us understand if our protected areas are achieving the results we want.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Come Get Me\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When it is time for Bipinnaria to return to the boat, it surfaces, communicates its coordinates via a satellite relay and sends Susner an email. The message: Here I am. Come get me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After a little scouting, boat maneuvering and some skillful scooping with a fish net, all five bots are safely back in the boat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lab currently has a small navy of 25 “larva bots.” Soon they’ll double that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The strength of the larva bots — although they are far larger than the creatures they mimic — is that they move with the currents, as larvae do, and they can be programmed to mimic certain behaviors. They can move up or down in the water column at the same speed as larvae, maintain buoyancy, and respond to light, temperature, salinity or pressure in the same way larvae might.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_964780\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-964780\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3730.jpg\" alt=\"The larva bot housings are made from recycled fire extinguishers. Fully loaded with electronics, they cost about $1,200 each.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3730.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3730-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3730-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3730-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3730-1440x960.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3730-1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3730-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3730-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The larva bot housings are made from recycled fire extinguishers. Fully loaded with electronics, they cost about $1,200 each. \u003ccite>(Maggie Carson Jurow)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The bots are built to be “simple and cheap.” Even so, fully loaded with LEDs, trackers, GPS and satellite communicators, and sensors to log salinity, temperature, light, depth and swimming speed, the price tag for each is about $1,200. The housings are made from expired fire extinguisher canisters, donated by fire departments. The ‘petals’ forming a skirt around their waste, which spin to record vertical velocity, were cut by hand. For scientific equipment, they’re surprisingly cute. Susner and Morgan show off their capabilities in the lab with obvious affection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“T\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">hese things are wonderfully built,” Susner says.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After some trial and error in the design data, collection began in earnest last year. (Several years ago, before the retrieval mechanisms were perfected, three bots were lost to the waves). With the arrival of 25 more bots in the coming weeks, data collection is about to go into overdrive.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Scientists Investigate a Mysterious Cancer Plaguing California Sea Lions",
"headTitle": "Scientists Investigate a Mysterious Cancer Plaguing California Sea Lions | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>“This one might be a little stinky,” says Tenaya Norris, a scientist at \u003ca href=\"http://www.marinemammalcenter.org/?referrer=https://www.google.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Marine Mammal Center\u003c/a> in Sausalito. Research assistant Barbie Halaska carries a limp, sodden carcass into the room and drapes it across a gleaming steel table.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">Each [sea lion] death is a loss — and an opportunity.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Even before the researchers slice into the tiny, brown California sea lion pup and remove its internal organs, the animal is mostly skin and bones. The young male was less than a year old when he arrived. He hung on for ten days, but was already suffering the effects of severe malnourishment when he arrived — he was about one-quarter the size of a healthy pup—and the staff were unable to save him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Norris stretches out the subject’s flippers. Picking up a scalpel, she gets ready to open the animal from chin to tail. The pup occupies just one narrow corner of a table large enough for an animal many times this size. And the center has seen its fair share of those. The facility takes in several hundred distressed animals each year, from sea lions to elephant seals to the occasional dolphin or sea turtle. Scientists and volunteers do their best to rehabilitate the sick animals and return them to the ocean. But about half will end up on the metal table instead. Each death is a loss — and an opportunity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Every animal that dies here is studied exhaustively. Researchers carve the bodies into samples for dozens of ongoing studies. They’re especially interested in the carcasses of California sea lions, which are helping them study a mysterious and aggressive cancer that’s plaguing the species.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_953857\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2048px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-953857\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-25-.jpg\" alt=\"Research assistant Barbie Halaska prepares a California sea lion pup carcass for a necropsy at The Marine Mammal Center. Necropsies, like autopsies, help researchers evaluate cause of death—a necessary part of the science and rehabilitation of marine wildlife.\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1365\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-25-.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-25--400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-25--800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-25--768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-25--1440x960.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-25--1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-25--1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-25--960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Research assistant Barbie Halaska prepares a California sea lion pup carcass for a necropsy at The Marine Mammal Center. Necropsies, like autopsies, help researchers evaluate cause of death—a necessary part of the science and rehabilitation of marine wildlife. \u003ccite>(Josh Valcarcel)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_953858\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2048px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-953858\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-26-.jpg\" alt=\"A variety of surgical instruments lie ready for use in the necropsy procedure. The Marine Mammal Center shares tissue samples with researchers from around the world.\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1365\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-26-.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-26--400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-26--800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-26--768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-26--1440x960.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-26--1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-26--1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-26--960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A variety of surgical instruments lie ready for use in the necropsy procedure. The Marine Mammal Center shares tissue samples with researchers from around the world. \u003ccite>(Josh Valcarcel)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The disease starts in the reproductive organs of adult males and females. By the time they die, tumors have sometimes infiltrated their backbones and turned vertebrae to “mush,” Norris says. She describes examining one dead animal whose spine she could simply slice through.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than a quarter of the adult California sea lions that die at the Marine Mammal Center suffer from cancer, says director of veterinary science Shawn Johnson. That’s one of the highest cancer rates seen in any wild animal, which is why the center’s scientists have made the disease a research priority. This emphasis has led to some promising discoveries, including the identification of a virus that is likely transmitted sexually and that seems to trigger the cancer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If researchers can piece together the full story of the California sea lions’ disease, it may help explain how some cancers develop in other animals—including humans. After all, cancer-causing viruses strike people too. At the same time, our understanding of disease susceptibility in humans — in particular, how environmental stressors can turn relatively minor infections into life-threatening disease — is helping scientists understand the role the environment might play in sea lion cancer. In other words, we may not be able to fully understand the set of threats to either species’ health without understanding the other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_953859\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2048px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-953859\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-10-.jpg\" alt=\"A pickup truck used by Marine Mammal Center staff to rescue injured wildlife sports a custom vanity plate. The full word—pinniped—means fin- or flipper-footed, and refers to seals, sea lions, and walruses.\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1365\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-10-.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-10--400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-10--800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-10--768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-10--1440x960.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-10--1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-10--1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-10--960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A pickup truck used by Marine Mammal Center staff to rescue injured wildlife sports a custom vanity plate. The full word — pinniped — means fin- or flipper-footed, and refers to seals, sea lions, and walruses. \u003ccite>(Josh Valcarcel)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Under Pressure\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When a sick or injured marine mammal washes up anywhere along 600 miles of the Pacific coastline, volunteers send word to The Marine Mammal Center. If the center decides a rescue is necessary and feasible, it sends a truck. The vehicles carry vanity plates like PINNIPD (for pinniped, a shorthand name for a seal, sea lion, or walrus) or BG ELIE (for elephant seal, a species that’s also represented by a life-sized sculpture at the center). Volunteers use nets and wooden boards to maneuver each sickly or injured creature into an animal crate and onto the truck for its journey to the Marin Headlands — a hilly peninsula separated from San Francisco by the Golden Gate Bridge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The center sits high above the ocean, perched on a dry brown hillside dotted with scrubby manzanita. Its remote location is a reminder of the site’s former life as a missile silo during the Cold War. On a beach visible from the center, rolling Pacific waves crest and break against tall humps of rock. In normal years, 600 to 800 different animals come through the center’s doors. But these aren’t normal years. There’s been a surge of sick animals, especially California sea lions (\u003cem>Zalophus californianus\u003c/em>), which live up and down the west coast of North America. The center took in 1,800 animals last year, 1,300 of which were California sea lions. Both numbers were records in the center’s four decades of operation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A variety of environmental conditions has led to the surge. A patch of freakishly warm water nicknamed “\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/11/23/how-warmer-waters-have-led-to-emaciated-seals-on-california-beaches/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the blob\u003c/a>” sat in the northeastern Pacific from 2013 to 2015. The year 2015 also brought a massive bloom of the algae Pseudonitzschia. These microscopic plants produce domoic acid, a toxin that travels up the food chain and concentrates in top predators like sea lions, in some cases causing seizures and brain damage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Off the California coast, the ecosystem is really under stress,” says Johnson. That stress is hitting California sea lions particularly hard. Amid these challenging environmental conditions, “The females are having a really, really hard time even finding enough food to produce milk for their pups,” he says. With their mothers struggling to feed them, pups may strike out on their own too soon. They’re landing on shore starving and emaciated — like the one on Norris’s autopsy table. Over the past three years, Johnson says, 80 to 90 percent of all California sea lion pups have died. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has dubbed it an “unusual mortality event.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_953867\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2048px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-953867\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-21-.jpg\" alt=\"As part of ongoing patient care, veterinarians use portable technology to examine an X-ray of a sea lion pup's flipper on-site at The Marine Mammal Center.\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1365\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-21-.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-21--400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-21--800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-21--768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-21--1440x960.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-21--1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-21--1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-21--960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">As part of ongoing patient care, veterinarians use portable technology to examine an X-ray of a sea lion pup’s flipper on-site at The Marine Mammal Center. \u003ccite>(Josh Valcarcel)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_953866\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2048px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-953866\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-22-.jpg\" alt=\"The X-ray image of an injured sea lion’s flipper reveals the hardware used to set the break.\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1365\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-22-.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-22--400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-22--800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-22--768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-22--1440x960.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-22--1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-22--1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-22--960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The X-ray image of an injured sea lion’s flipper reveals the hardware used to set the break. \u003ccite>(Josh Valcarcel)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_953868\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2048px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-953868\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-23-.jpg\" alt=\"Still recovering from sedation, a disoriented sea lion pup ambles back to its enclosure. Taking the X-ray required multiple staff members to ensure the animal’s safety throughout the procedure.\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1365\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-23-.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-23--400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-23--800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-23--768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-23--1440x960.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-23--1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-23--1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-23--960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Still recovering from sedation, a disoriented sea lion pup ambles back to its enclosure. Taking the X-ray required multiple staff members to ensure the animal’s safety throughout the procedure. \u003ccite>(Josh Valcarcel)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Then there’s the cancer. Scientists first noticed it in California in the 1970s, and they now know it affects Z. californianus along the entire western U.S. coastline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Between the 1980s and mid-90s, researchers at the Marine Mammal Center saw cancer in 18 percent of adult California sea lions they examined after death. From 1998 through 2012, that number increased to 26 percent. This may mean the rate of cancer is increasing in the wild, or simply that researchers are paying better attention. Now that they know what to look for, they can spot early-stage cancer in animals without obvious tumors. The toxic algal bloom is also sending young adult animals to the center that might not otherwise have required rehabilitation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Right now, the California sea lion population is large enough that it can absorb the losses from cancer, Johnson says. But if starving pups and other challenges cause the population to plunge, cancer’s relative influence could increase dramatically. And whether or not the disease is becoming more common or simply holding steady, Johnson says he knows one thing for certain: “It’s not declining.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The disease rates researchers are seeing among sea lions are far from normal, and they want to know why. “Wild populations shouldn’t have cancers like this,” Johnson says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Viral Discovery\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the center’s outdoor pens, patients swim in pools or loll like dogs on sunny patches of concrete. Elephant seal pups with identifying yellow “hat” tags stuck on the tops of their heads watch the goings-on with bulging, Disney-esque eyes. Workers and visitors don rubber boots and step into disinfecting footbaths to avoid cross-contamination among species.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some animals in the pens are starving sea lion pups that volunteers are fattening up with a diet of thick, pink “fish milkshakes.” Others have infections, wounds from boat strikes, or brain damage from domoic acid poisoning. If the animals recover, the staff happily sends them splashing back into the surf. While about half of all patients here make it, sea lions don’t fare as well. Last year, only about 35 percent survived to be released.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The first cancerous California sea lion — a male that staff members nicknamed “Bobby” — showed up among the center’s patients in 1978. During the 1980s and early 1990s, dozens more died during rehabilitation, and researchers found the same types of tumors in the reproductive tracts of all of them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tumors first form in the cervix or penis, then spread, often metastasizing to the lymph nodes and spine. Sick animals typically have swollen genitals and hind flippers. If the cancer has infiltrated the spine, causing partial paralysis, they may have to drag their hind flippers behind them. Inside a stricken animal, “there’s just masses of yellow, cancerous tissue,” says Frances Gulland, senior scientist at the Marine Mammal Center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Sea lions themselves are affectionate animals. They’re nice to each other. They’re very endearing,” Gulland says. “When you see a sea lion coming in with cancer and they’re in pain… it’s not only distressing but it also compels you to understand why it’s happening.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the past two decades, the center has intensified its work on cancer research. Scientists have largely focused on causes of the disease and why and how it spreads, Gulland says. When she started working at the center in the mid-1990s, scientists were beginning to suspect that the culprit might be a virus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It wasn’t a crazy idea. Creatures throughout the animal kingdom suffer from cancers that begin as viral infections. In humans, viruses have been linked to as many as 15 to 20 percent of cancers, including cervical cancer, Hodgkin’s disease, lymphomas, and liver cancer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gulland and others scoured the DNA of cancerous tissues taken from dead sea lions and discovered a previously unknown herpesvirus. The virus appears in the tumors and reproductive tracts of all cancerous sea lions, but is scarce in other parts of the body, and is rarely found in healthy sea lions. While the scientists haven’t proven definitively that the virus causes cancer, evidence is piling up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although that evidence hasn’t yet gotten them closer to curing the cancer-stricken animals, understanding the disease could lead to earlier diagnoses and the development of measures to help prevent its spread. Right now, California sea lions that arrive at the center with suspicious symptoms receive an ultrasound and other tests for cancer. If an animal tests positive, it is euthanized, Gulland says regretfully; there’s nothing else to be done. “We know [the disease] progresses, it’s painful, and it’s not curable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in death, Gulland says, the animals provide a goldmine of information. “Because we have them in hand, we can obtain a lot of very fresh samples.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Causes of Death\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Norris, it turns out, is right about the smell. The sea lion pup she’s now dissecting on the metal table has been frozen and thawed, making its odor reminiscent of roadkill. She says fresh carcasses have more of a musty, sometimes fishy aroma. An open door lets in air, along with barks and chirps that drift in from the outdoor pens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Norris and Halaska begin to remove and sort through the sea lion’s organs. They pull out fistfuls of intestines in long, pink loops. Halaska dons goggles and turns on a buzzing electric saw to cut through the skull and get at the animal’s brain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers at the Marine Mammal Center must determine a cause of death for every animal that reaches this metal table. And each one—fur seal, harbor seal, pregnant female, unborn fetus—surrenders its own set of scientific samples. It may be swabbed for flu viruses; its urine or milk or bile or body lice may be carefully saved. These samples will go to labs all over the country, and some will travel the world. Researchers at the center are participating in 40 different collaborative research projects at the moment, Johnson says. And he estimates that a third of those have to do with the cancer that’s afflicting the California sea lion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The tiny sea lion whose blood is now pooling at the edge of the rimmed table was not a cancer victim, and his autopsy is comparatively short. Cancerous sea lions, in contrast, as well as a select few adult “controls” that died of other causes, undergo a much more involved “cancer protocol.” For these, researchers must take extensive samples. Skin. Blood. Brain. Tumor. Norris holds a kidney sample in her gloved palm that looks like a slice of beet—she will send tissue slices like this one to a pathologist, who will scrutinize them under a microscope for cancerous cells. Some of the “control” samples have, when observed more closely, revealed very early signs of cancer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So far, scientists have learned a few things for certain about the disease. They know animals with cancer carry the herpesvirus. The cancerous animals all have a specific genotype that may help the disease spread. They are also more inbred than other sea lions. Finally, animals with cancer have more pollutants—specifically PCBs and DDT—stored in their blubber than individuals that die of other causes. Research on other marine mammals has linked these ocean contaminants to suppressed immunity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How these pieces of knowledge all fit together, however, isn’t yet clear. The scientists’ best guess, Gulland says, is that exposure to pollutants makes a sea lion more susceptible to a herpesvirus infection. When the virus takes hold, it triggers cancer—somehow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To learn more, researchers are studying the DNA of cancerous tissues in the lab, focusing on changes at the level of the chromosome. They’re measuring the concentrations of contaminants like DDT and PCBs in sea lions’ blubber to find out whether these might make the animals more susceptible to a virus. Alissa Deming, a veterinarian and University of Florida PhD student, is looking at the genetics of the sea lion herpesvirus. She wants to prove that the virus indeed causes sea lion cells to turn cancerous. The next question will be how.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Herpesviruses are one of the oldest classes of viruses,” says University of Florida geneticist Rolf Renne, who studies the human herpesvirus that causes Kaposi’s sarcoma. “They’re pretty much in all mammals, and even in sea urchins.” Humans alone can be infected by eight different herpesviruses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These viruses have spent a long time evolving alongside their animal hosts, and they’re usually well-adapted to do little harm, because a dead host is not much good to a virus. Infections can be quite common, and typically lead to cancer or other serious illness only when something suppresses the host’s immune response. “If your immune system craps out on you, then a herpesvirus can take control,” Deming says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The human Epstein-Barr virus, for example, is a herpesvirus that infects about 90 percent of adults. It commonly causes mononucleosis, but if its host has an impaired immune system, the virus can lead to lymphomas or other cancers. Another human herpesvirus causes Kaposi’s sarcoma, a disease best known in the U.S. for affecting immune-suppressed AIDS patients. According to Renne, in sub-Saharan Africa, where malaria and other infections compromise people’s immune systems, Kaposi’s sarcoma is much more common—the most common cancer among men, in fact. Ocean contaminants like PCBs and DDT might compromise the immune systems of California sea lions in similar way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The finding that cancer-stricken sea lions have more pollutants in their blubber has caught researchers’ attention. “That’s really important for the human health perspective as well,” Gulland says. “These are contaminants the sea lions are acquiring from their prey. And the fish they eat are the same fish that we eat.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Their environment is our environment, in other words. And what scientists can learn about cancer in each species might help the other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Messy World\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Flies circle as Norris and Halaska scoop up and discard what’s left of the young sea lion. Its stripped-down carcass goes into a barrel, which will be picked up and taken to a rendering plant. The carefully collected slices and scraps of its body—anything the researchers aren’t immediately shipping on ice to other scientists—go into vials and plastic baggies, and then into freezers for storage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of those freezers are in the basement, where Cold War missiles were once stored. The freezers stand at attention in a long white row, drawers stuffed with thousands of samples for future research. Frost crackles as Halaska opens the door to one of them. She points out a baggie holding a whale eyeball as big as an apple.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists who study cancer particularly value samples like these, which come from animals that lived not in the sterile confines of a lab but in the complicated, messy, germy natural world. These marine mammals’ diseases almost certainly arose from a collision of many factors: genes, environment, other animals and parasites with which they crossed paths. Complex as their stories are, in many ways these specimens are far better than specially bred, genetically identical lab rats for helping scientists understand how cancer develops in humans and other animals living in the real world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“How can we look at diseases in our marine mammals and translate what we are learning from that to human medicine, and vice versa?” Johnson asks. To him, this cross-species exploration is the most exciting research underway at the center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The idea that human and veterinary medicine can inform each other is part of a philosophy known as “One Health,” which says that we need to consider the health of people, animals, and the environment simultaneously if want to truly understand each of them. Human diseases don’t exist in isolation and, Deming says, “people are animals too.” This philosophy isn’t yet widespread in the medical world, where doctors tend to be highly specialized. But the National Institutes of Health is starting to embrace the idea. It held a workshop in 2015 on incorporating One Health into its own research; its program for “comparative biomedical scientists” trains new researchers in both human and animal health at once.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Using such an approach, the research on sea lion cancer can help answer big-picture questions about cancer in other species—humans included—and the viruses that may cause it. One place it’s already revealing connections to human cancer-causing viruses is in Renne’s work on Kaposi’s sarcoma.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Studying the herpesvirus that causes Kaposi’s sarcoma in the lab is difficult. “There’s not an animal model that’s very close,” Renne says. That’s why his interest was piqued when Deming approached him about working together on her PhD research: The sea lions and their resident herpesvirus are turning out to be a great model for humans and our own viruses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Deming’s investigation into the genome of the sea lion herpesvirus has already shown it to have striking similarities to both the Epstein-Barr and Kaposi’s sarcoma viruses. The three belong to the same subfamily, and the sea lion virus has genes that seem equivalent to two cancer-triggering genes in the human herpesviruses. These genes help push a host cell into an immortal, constantly dividing state—a strong hint that the sea lion virus not only causes cancer in its hosts, but does so using similar mechanisms to human viruses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, Renne and Deming are looking into whether the virus targets sea lion genes using microRNAs, tiny bits of genetic material that regulate gene activity. Renne has found this to be the case with the Kaposi’s sarcoma virus. If this is also true of the sea lion virus, Renne says, then the researchers will have solid evidence that there are general mechanisms by which this type of herpesvirus causes cancer across very different mammalian species.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before she began her PhD research, Deming worked as a clinical veterinarian at SeaWorld in San Diego. She used to get discouraged when she saw cancerous sea lions and could do nothing but euthanize them. But now, her work at the Marine Mammal Center is turning the deaths of these animals into research opportunities. “[It] gives us something productive to do,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a way, the center itself is also turning death into opportunity. Today the deadly missiles are gone, and the walls that once protected them now hold countless samples of animals that lost their lives on this coast. Armed with those bits of blood and bone, scientists hope to protect the health of this ecosystem and the animals—all the animals—that share it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story comes from \u003ca href=\"http://biographic.com/\">Biographic\u003c/a>, an online magazine published by San Francisco’s \u003ca href=\"http://www.calacademy.org/\">California Academy of Sciences\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>“This one might be a little stinky,” says Tenaya Norris, a scientist at \u003ca href=\"http://www.marinemammalcenter.org/?referrer=https://www.google.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Marine Mammal Center\u003c/a> in Sausalito. Research assistant Barbie Halaska carries a limp, sodden carcass into the room and drapes it across a gleaming steel table.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">Each [sea lion] death is a loss — and an opportunity.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Even before the researchers slice into the tiny, brown California sea lion pup and remove its internal organs, the animal is mostly skin and bones. The young male was less than a year old when he arrived. He hung on for ten days, but was already suffering the effects of severe malnourishment when he arrived — he was about one-quarter the size of a healthy pup—and the staff were unable to save him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Norris stretches out the subject’s flippers. Picking up a scalpel, she gets ready to open the animal from chin to tail. The pup occupies just one narrow corner of a table large enough for an animal many times this size. And the center has seen its fair share of those. The facility takes in several hundred distressed animals each year, from sea lions to elephant seals to the occasional dolphin or sea turtle. Scientists and volunteers do their best to rehabilitate the sick animals and return them to the ocean. But about half will end up on the metal table instead. Each death is a loss — and an opportunity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Every animal that dies here is studied exhaustively. Researchers carve the bodies into samples for dozens of ongoing studies. They’re especially interested in the carcasses of California sea lions, which are helping them study a mysterious and aggressive cancer that’s plaguing the species.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_953857\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2048px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-953857\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-25-.jpg\" alt=\"Research assistant Barbie Halaska prepares a California sea lion pup carcass for a necropsy at The Marine Mammal Center. Necropsies, like autopsies, help researchers evaluate cause of death—a necessary part of the science and rehabilitation of marine wildlife.\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1365\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-25-.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-25--400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-25--800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-25--768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-25--1440x960.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-25--1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-25--1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-25--960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Research assistant Barbie Halaska prepares a California sea lion pup carcass for a necropsy at The Marine Mammal Center. Necropsies, like autopsies, help researchers evaluate cause of death—a necessary part of the science and rehabilitation of marine wildlife. \u003ccite>(Josh Valcarcel)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_953858\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2048px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-953858\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-26-.jpg\" alt=\"A variety of surgical instruments lie ready for use in the necropsy procedure. The Marine Mammal Center shares tissue samples with researchers from around the world.\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1365\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-26-.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-26--400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-26--800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-26--768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-26--1440x960.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-26--1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-26--1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-26--960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A variety of surgical instruments lie ready for use in the necropsy procedure. The Marine Mammal Center shares tissue samples with researchers from around the world. \u003ccite>(Josh Valcarcel)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The disease starts in the reproductive organs of adult males and females. By the time they die, tumors have sometimes infiltrated their backbones and turned vertebrae to “mush,” Norris says. She describes examining one dead animal whose spine she could simply slice through.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than a quarter of the adult California sea lions that die at the Marine Mammal Center suffer from cancer, says director of veterinary science Shawn Johnson. That’s one of the highest cancer rates seen in any wild animal, which is why the center’s scientists have made the disease a research priority. This emphasis has led to some promising discoveries, including the identification of a virus that is likely transmitted sexually and that seems to trigger the cancer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If researchers can piece together the full story of the California sea lions’ disease, it may help explain how some cancers develop in other animals—including humans. After all, cancer-causing viruses strike people too. At the same time, our understanding of disease susceptibility in humans — in particular, how environmental stressors can turn relatively minor infections into life-threatening disease — is helping scientists understand the role the environment might play in sea lion cancer. In other words, we may not be able to fully understand the set of threats to either species’ health without understanding the other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_953859\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2048px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-953859\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-10-.jpg\" alt=\"A pickup truck used by Marine Mammal Center staff to rescue injured wildlife sports a custom vanity plate. The full word—pinniped—means fin- or flipper-footed, and refers to seals, sea lions, and walruses.\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1365\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-10-.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-10--400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-10--800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-10--768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-10--1440x960.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-10--1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-10--1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-10--960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A pickup truck used by Marine Mammal Center staff to rescue injured wildlife sports a custom vanity plate. The full word — pinniped — means fin- or flipper-footed, and refers to seals, sea lions, and walruses. \u003ccite>(Josh Valcarcel)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Under Pressure\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When a sick or injured marine mammal washes up anywhere along 600 miles of the Pacific coastline, volunteers send word to The Marine Mammal Center. If the center decides a rescue is necessary and feasible, it sends a truck. The vehicles carry vanity plates like PINNIPD (for pinniped, a shorthand name for a seal, sea lion, or walrus) or BG ELIE (for elephant seal, a species that’s also represented by a life-sized sculpture at the center). Volunteers use nets and wooden boards to maneuver each sickly or injured creature into an animal crate and onto the truck for its journey to the Marin Headlands — a hilly peninsula separated from San Francisco by the Golden Gate Bridge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The center sits high above the ocean, perched on a dry brown hillside dotted with scrubby manzanita. Its remote location is a reminder of the site’s former life as a missile silo during the Cold War. On a beach visible from the center, rolling Pacific waves crest and break against tall humps of rock. In normal years, 600 to 800 different animals come through the center’s doors. But these aren’t normal years. There’s been a surge of sick animals, especially California sea lions (\u003cem>Zalophus californianus\u003c/em>), which live up and down the west coast of North America. The center took in 1,800 animals last year, 1,300 of which were California sea lions. Both numbers were records in the center’s four decades of operation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A variety of environmental conditions has led to the surge. A patch of freakishly warm water nicknamed “\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/11/23/how-warmer-waters-have-led-to-emaciated-seals-on-california-beaches/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the blob\u003c/a>” sat in the northeastern Pacific from 2013 to 2015. The year 2015 also brought a massive bloom of the algae Pseudonitzschia. These microscopic plants produce domoic acid, a toxin that travels up the food chain and concentrates in top predators like sea lions, in some cases causing seizures and brain damage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Off the California coast, the ecosystem is really under stress,” says Johnson. That stress is hitting California sea lions particularly hard. Amid these challenging environmental conditions, “The females are having a really, really hard time even finding enough food to produce milk for their pups,” he says. With their mothers struggling to feed them, pups may strike out on their own too soon. They’re landing on shore starving and emaciated — like the one on Norris’s autopsy table. Over the past three years, Johnson says, 80 to 90 percent of all California sea lion pups have died. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has dubbed it an “unusual mortality event.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_953867\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2048px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-953867\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-21-.jpg\" alt=\"As part of ongoing patient care, veterinarians use portable technology to examine an X-ray of a sea lion pup's flipper on-site at The Marine Mammal Center.\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1365\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-21-.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-21--400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-21--800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-21--768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-21--1440x960.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-21--1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-21--1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-21--960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">As part of ongoing patient care, veterinarians use portable technology to examine an X-ray of a sea lion pup’s flipper on-site at The Marine Mammal Center. \u003ccite>(Josh Valcarcel)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_953866\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2048px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-953866\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-22-.jpg\" alt=\"The X-ray image of an injured sea lion’s flipper reveals the hardware used to set the break.\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1365\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-22-.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-22--400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-22--800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-22--768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-22--1440x960.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-22--1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-22--1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-22--960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The X-ray image of an injured sea lion’s flipper reveals the hardware used to set the break. \u003ccite>(Josh Valcarcel)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_953868\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2048px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-953868\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-23-.jpg\" alt=\"Still recovering from sedation, a disoriented sea lion pup ambles back to its enclosure. Taking the X-ray required multiple staff members to ensure the animal’s safety throughout the procedure.\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1365\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-23-.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-23--400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-23--800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-23--768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-23--1440x960.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-23--1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-23--1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-23--960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Still recovering from sedation, a disoriented sea lion pup ambles back to its enclosure. Taking the X-ray required multiple staff members to ensure the animal’s safety throughout the procedure. \u003ccite>(Josh Valcarcel)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Then there’s the cancer. Scientists first noticed it in California in the 1970s, and they now know it affects Z. californianus along the entire western U.S. coastline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Between the 1980s and mid-90s, researchers at the Marine Mammal Center saw cancer in 18 percent of adult California sea lions they examined after death. From 1998 through 2012, that number increased to 26 percent. This may mean the rate of cancer is increasing in the wild, or simply that researchers are paying better attention. Now that they know what to look for, they can spot early-stage cancer in animals without obvious tumors. The toxic algal bloom is also sending young adult animals to the center that might not otherwise have required rehabilitation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Right now, the California sea lion population is large enough that it can absorb the losses from cancer, Johnson says. But if starving pups and other challenges cause the population to plunge, cancer’s relative influence could increase dramatically. And whether or not the disease is becoming more common or simply holding steady, Johnson says he knows one thing for certain: “It’s not declining.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The disease rates researchers are seeing among sea lions are far from normal, and they want to know why. “Wild populations shouldn’t have cancers like this,” Johnson says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Viral Discovery\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the center’s outdoor pens, patients swim in pools or loll like dogs on sunny patches of concrete. Elephant seal pups with identifying yellow “hat” tags stuck on the tops of their heads watch the goings-on with bulging, Disney-esque eyes. Workers and visitors don rubber boots and step into disinfecting footbaths to avoid cross-contamination among species.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some animals in the pens are starving sea lion pups that volunteers are fattening up with a diet of thick, pink “fish milkshakes.” Others have infections, wounds from boat strikes, or brain damage from domoic acid poisoning. If the animals recover, the staff happily sends them splashing back into the surf. While about half of all patients here make it, sea lions don’t fare as well. Last year, only about 35 percent survived to be released.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The first cancerous California sea lion — a male that staff members nicknamed “Bobby” — showed up among the center’s patients in 1978. During the 1980s and early 1990s, dozens more died during rehabilitation, and researchers found the same types of tumors in the reproductive tracts of all of them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tumors first form in the cervix or penis, then spread, often metastasizing to the lymph nodes and spine. Sick animals typically have swollen genitals and hind flippers. If the cancer has infiltrated the spine, causing partial paralysis, they may have to drag their hind flippers behind them. Inside a stricken animal, “there’s just masses of yellow, cancerous tissue,” says Frances Gulland, senior scientist at the Marine Mammal Center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Sea lions themselves are affectionate animals. They’re nice to each other. They’re very endearing,” Gulland says. “When you see a sea lion coming in with cancer and they’re in pain… it’s not only distressing but it also compels you to understand why it’s happening.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the past two decades, the center has intensified its work on cancer research. Scientists have largely focused on causes of the disease and why and how it spreads, Gulland says. When she started working at the center in the mid-1990s, scientists were beginning to suspect that the culprit might be a virus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It wasn’t a crazy idea. Creatures throughout the animal kingdom suffer from cancers that begin as viral infections. In humans, viruses have been linked to as many as 15 to 20 percent of cancers, including cervical cancer, Hodgkin’s disease, lymphomas, and liver cancer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gulland and others scoured the DNA of cancerous tissues taken from dead sea lions and discovered a previously unknown herpesvirus. The virus appears in the tumors and reproductive tracts of all cancerous sea lions, but is scarce in other parts of the body, and is rarely found in healthy sea lions. While the scientists haven’t proven definitively that the virus causes cancer, evidence is piling up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although that evidence hasn’t yet gotten them closer to curing the cancer-stricken animals, understanding the disease could lead to earlier diagnoses and the development of measures to help prevent its spread. Right now, California sea lions that arrive at the center with suspicious symptoms receive an ultrasound and other tests for cancer. If an animal tests positive, it is euthanized, Gulland says regretfully; there’s nothing else to be done. “We know [the disease] progresses, it’s painful, and it’s not curable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in death, Gulland says, the animals provide a goldmine of information. “Because we have them in hand, we can obtain a lot of very fresh samples.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Causes of Death\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Norris, it turns out, is right about the smell. The sea lion pup she’s now dissecting on the metal table has been frozen and thawed, making its odor reminiscent of roadkill. She says fresh carcasses have more of a musty, sometimes fishy aroma. An open door lets in air, along with barks and chirps that drift in from the outdoor pens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Norris and Halaska begin to remove and sort through the sea lion’s organs. They pull out fistfuls of intestines in long, pink loops. Halaska dons goggles and turns on a buzzing electric saw to cut through the skull and get at the animal’s brain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers at the Marine Mammal Center must determine a cause of death for every animal that reaches this metal table. And each one—fur seal, harbor seal, pregnant female, unborn fetus—surrenders its own set of scientific samples. It may be swabbed for flu viruses; its urine or milk or bile or body lice may be carefully saved. These samples will go to labs all over the country, and some will travel the world. Researchers at the center are participating in 40 different collaborative research projects at the moment, Johnson says. And he estimates that a third of those have to do with the cancer that’s afflicting the California sea lion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The tiny sea lion whose blood is now pooling at the edge of the rimmed table was not a cancer victim, and his autopsy is comparatively short. Cancerous sea lions, in contrast, as well as a select few adult “controls” that died of other causes, undergo a much more involved “cancer protocol.” For these, researchers must take extensive samples. Skin. Blood. Brain. Tumor. Norris holds a kidney sample in her gloved palm that looks like a slice of beet—she will send tissue slices like this one to a pathologist, who will scrutinize them under a microscope for cancerous cells. Some of the “control” samples have, when observed more closely, revealed very early signs of cancer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So far, scientists have learned a few things for certain about the disease. They know animals with cancer carry the herpesvirus. The cancerous animals all have a specific genotype that may help the disease spread. They are also more inbred than other sea lions. Finally, animals with cancer have more pollutants—specifically PCBs and DDT—stored in their blubber than individuals that die of other causes. Research on other marine mammals has linked these ocean contaminants to suppressed immunity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How these pieces of knowledge all fit together, however, isn’t yet clear. The scientists’ best guess, Gulland says, is that exposure to pollutants makes a sea lion more susceptible to a herpesvirus infection. When the virus takes hold, it triggers cancer—somehow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To learn more, researchers are studying the DNA of cancerous tissues in the lab, focusing on changes at the level of the chromosome. They’re measuring the concentrations of contaminants like DDT and PCBs in sea lions’ blubber to find out whether these might make the animals more susceptible to a virus. Alissa Deming, a veterinarian and University of Florida PhD student, is looking at the genetics of the sea lion herpesvirus. She wants to prove that the virus indeed causes sea lion cells to turn cancerous. The next question will be how.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Herpesviruses are one of the oldest classes of viruses,” says University of Florida geneticist Rolf Renne, who studies the human herpesvirus that causes Kaposi’s sarcoma. “They’re pretty much in all mammals, and even in sea urchins.” Humans alone can be infected by eight different herpesviruses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These viruses have spent a long time evolving alongside their animal hosts, and they’re usually well-adapted to do little harm, because a dead host is not much good to a virus. Infections can be quite common, and typically lead to cancer or other serious illness only when something suppresses the host’s immune response. “If your immune system craps out on you, then a herpesvirus can take control,” Deming says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The human Epstein-Barr virus, for example, is a herpesvirus that infects about 90 percent of adults. It commonly causes mononucleosis, but if its host has an impaired immune system, the virus can lead to lymphomas or other cancers. Another human herpesvirus causes Kaposi’s sarcoma, a disease best known in the U.S. for affecting immune-suppressed AIDS patients. According to Renne, in sub-Saharan Africa, where malaria and other infections compromise people’s immune systems, Kaposi’s sarcoma is much more common—the most common cancer among men, in fact. Ocean contaminants like PCBs and DDT might compromise the immune systems of California sea lions in similar way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The finding that cancer-stricken sea lions have more pollutants in their blubber has caught researchers’ attention. “That’s really important for the human health perspective as well,” Gulland says. “These are contaminants the sea lions are acquiring from their prey. And the fish they eat are the same fish that we eat.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Their environment is our environment, in other words. And what scientists can learn about cancer in each species might help the other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Messy World\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Flies circle as Norris and Halaska scoop up and discard what’s left of the young sea lion. Its stripped-down carcass goes into a barrel, which will be picked up and taken to a rendering plant. The carefully collected slices and scraps of its body—anything the researchers aren’t immediately shipping on ice to other scientists—go into vials and plastic baggies, and then into freezers for storage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of those freezers are in the basement, where Cold War missiles were once stored. The freezers stand at attention in a long white row, drawers stuffed with thousands of samples for future research. Frost crackles as Halaska opens the door to one of them. She points out a baggie holding a whale eyeball as big as an apple.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists who study cancer particularly value samples like these, which come from animals that lived not in the sterile confines of a lab but in the complicated, messy, germy natural world. These marine mammals’ diseases almost certainly arose from a collision of many factors: genes, environment, other animals and parasites with which they crossed paths. Complex as their stories are, in many ways these specimens are far better than specially bred, genetically identical lab rats for helping scientists understand how cancer develops in humans and other animals living in the real world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“How can we look at diseases in our marine mammals and translate what we are learning from that to human medicine, and vice versa?” Johnson asks. To him, this cross-species exploration is the most exciting research underway at the center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The idea that human and veterinary medicine can inform each other is part of a philosophy known as “One Health,” which says that we need to consider the health of people, animals, and the environment simultaneously if want to truly understand each of them. Human diseases don’t exist in isolation and, Deming says, “people are animals too.” This philosophy isn’t yet widespread in the medical world, where doctors tend to be highly specialized. But the National Institutes of Health is starting to embrace the idea. It held a workshop in 2015 on incorporating One Health into its own research; its program for “comparative biomedical scientists” trains new researchers in both human and animal health at once.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Using such an approach, the research on sea lion cancer can help answer big-picture questions about cancer in other species—humans included—and the viruses that may cause it. One place it’s already revealing connections to human cancer-causing viruses is in Renne’s work on Kaposi’s sarcoma.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Studying the herpesvirus that causes Kaposi’s sarcoma in the lab is difficult. “There’s not an animal model that’s very close,” Renne says. That’s why his interest was piqued when Deming approached him about working together on her PhD research: The sea lions and their resident herpesvirus are turning out to be a great model for humans and our own viruses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Deming’s investigation into the genome of the sea lion herpesvirus has already shown it to have striking similarities to both the Epstein-Barr and Kaposi’s sarcoma viruses. The three belong to the same subfamily, and the sea lion virus has genes that seem equivalent to two cancer-triggering genes in the human herpesviruses. These genes help push a host cell into an immortal, constantly dividing state—a strong hint that the sea lion virus not only causes cancer in its hosts, but does so using similar mechanisms to human viruses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, Renne and Deming are looking into whether the virus targets sea lion genes using microRNAs, tiny bits of genetic material that regulate gene activity. Renne has found this to be the case with the Kaposi’s sarcoma virus. If this is also true of the sea lion virus, Renne says, then the researchers will have solid evidence that there are general mechanisms by which this type of herpesvirus causes cancer across very different mammalian species.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before she began her PhD research, Deming worked as a clinical veterinarian at SeaWorld in San Diego. She used to get discouraged when she saw cancerous sea lions and could do nothing but euthanize them. But now, her work at the Marine Mammal Center is turning the deaths of these animals into research opportunities. “[It] gives us something productive to do,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a way, the center itself is also turning death into opportunity. Today the deadly missiles are gone, and the walls that once protected them now hold countless samples of animals that lost their lives on this coast. Armed with those bits of blood and bone, scientists hope to protect the health of this ecosystem and the animals—all the animals—that share it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story comes from \u003ca href=\"http://biographic.com/\">Biographic\u003c/a>, an online magazine published by San Francisco’s \u003ca href=\"http://www.calacademy.org/\">California Academy of Sciences\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Obama Plans to Create World's Largest Marine Protected Area",
"headTitle": "Obama Plans to Create World’s Largest Marine Protected Area | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>The White House says that President Barack Obama will expand a national monument off the coast of Hawaii, creating the world’s largest marine protected area.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">With the announcement, Obama will have created or expanded 26 national monuments.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Obama’s proclamation will quadruple in size a monument originally created by President George W. Bush in 2006. The \u003ca href=\"http://www.papahanaumokuakea.gov/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument\u003c/a> will contain some 582,578 square miles, more than twice the size of Texas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Obama will travel to the monument next week to mark the designation and cite the need to protect public lands and waters from climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The designation bans commercial fishing and any new mining, as is the case within the existing monument. Recreational fishing will be allowed through a permit, as will be scientific research and the removal of fish and other resources for Native Hawaiian cultural practices. Some fishing groups have voiced concerns about what an expansion of the marine national monument would mean for their industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sean Martin, the president of the Hawaii Longline Association, said he was “disappointed” by Hawaii Gov. David Ige’s decision to support expanding the monument. He said the monument’s expansion would be based on political and not scientific reasons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hawaii’s longline fishing fleet supplies a large portion of the fresh tuna and other fish consumed in Hawaii. Martin has previously estimated the fleet catches about 2 million pounds of fish annually from the proposed expansion area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The White House is describing the expansion as helping to protect more than 7,000 species and improving the resiliency of an ecosystem dealing with ocean acidification and warming. A fact sheet previewing the announcement states that the expanded area is considered a sacred place for Native Hawaiians.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shipwrecks and downed aircraft from the Battle of Midway in World War II dot the expansion area. The battle marked a major shift in the war. Obama will travel to the Midway Atoll to discuss the expansion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With the announcement, Obama will have created or expanded 26 national monuments. The administration said Obama has protected more acreage through national monument designations than any other president.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The White House said the expansion is a response to a proposal from Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz and prominent Native Hawaiian leaders. The federal government will also give Hawaii’s Department of Natural Resources and Office of Hawaiian Affairs a greater role in managing the monument, an arrangement requested by Schatz and Gov. David Ige.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The White House says that President Barack Obama will expand a national monument off the coast of Hawaii, creating the world’s largest marine protected area.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">With the announcement, Obama will have created or expanded 26 national monuments.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Obama’s proclamation will quadruple in size a monument originally created by President George W. Bush in 2006. The \u003ca href=\"http://www.papahanaumokuakea.gov/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument\u003c/a> will contain some 582,578 square miles, more than twice the size of Texas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Obama will travel to the monument next week to mark the designation and cite the need to protect public lands and waters from climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The designation bans commercial fishing and any new mining, as is the case within the existing monument. Recreational fishing will be allowed through a permit, as will be scientific research and the removal of fish and other resources for Native Hawaiian cultural practices. Some fishing groups have voiced concerns about what an expansion of the marine national monument would mean for their industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sean Martin, the president of the Hawaii Longline Association, said he was “disappointed” by Hawaii Gov. David Ige’s decision to support expanding the monument. He said the monument’s expansion would be based on political and not scientific reasons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hawaii’s longline fishing fleet supplies a large portion of the fresh tuna and other fish consumed in Hawaii. Martin has previously estimated the fleet catches about 2 million pounds of fish annually from the proposed expansion area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The White House is describing the expansion as helping to protect more than 7,000 species and improving the resiliency of an ecosystem dealing with ocean acidification and warming. A fact sheet previewing the announcement states that the expanded area is considered a sacred place for Native Hawaiians.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shipwrecks and downed aircraft from the Battle of Midway in World War II dot the expansion area. The battle marked a major shift in the war. Obama will travel to the Midway Atoll to discuss the expansion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With the announcement, Obama will have created or expanded 26 national monuments. The administration said Obama has protected more acreage through national monument designations than any other president.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The White House said the expansion is a response to a proposal from Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz and prominent Native Hawaiian leaders. The federal government will also give Hawaii’s Department of Natural Resources and Office of Hawaiian Affairs a greater role in managing the monument, an arrangement requested by Schatz and Gov. David Ige.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Sea Urchins Pull Themselves Inside Out to be Reborn",
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"content": "\u003cp>[dl_subscribe]Every summer, millions of people head to the coast to soak up the sun and play in the waves. But they aren’t alone. Just beyond the crashing surf, hundreds of millions of tiny sea urchin larvae are also floating around, preparing for one of the most dramatic transformations in the animal kingdom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists along the Pacific coast are investigating how these microscopic ocean drifters, which look like tiny spaceships, find their way back home to the shoreline, where they attach themselves, grow into spiny creatures and live out a slow-moving life that often exceeds 100 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_922991\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 720px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-922991\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316_seaurchins_floatingpluteus_720.gif\" alt=\"The urchin pluteus drifts in the ocean currents for around a month before it lands on the rocky ocean floor.\" width=\"720\" height=\"405\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The urchin pluteus drifts in the ocean currents for around a month before it lands on the rocky ocean floor. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“These sorts of studies are absolutely crucial if we want to not only maintain healthy fisheries but indeed a healthy ocean,” says\u003ca href=\"http://staff.washington.edu/hodin/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> Jason Hodin\u003c/a>, a research scientist at the University of Washington’s\u003ca href=\"http://depts.washington.edu/fhl/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> Friday Harbor Laboratories\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sea urchins reproduce by sending clouds of eggs and sperm into the water. Millions of larvae are formed, but only a handful make it back to the shoreline to grow into adults.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_922901\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-922901\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-10-egg-release-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"A female purple urchin releases eggs into the water, in a reproductive strategy known as broadcast spawning. Males release sperm around the same time, and the eggs are fertilized in the open ocean.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-10-egg-release-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-10-egg-release-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-10-egg-release-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-10-egg-release-1440x810.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-10-egg-release-1920x1080.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-10-egg-release-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-10-egg-release-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A female purple urchin releases eggs into the water, in a reproductive strategy known as broadcast spawning. Males release sperm around the same time, and the eggs are fertilized in the open ocean. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It may sound like a risky life strategy. But in the ocean, it works. Nearly every animal that lives along the shore — from mussels to sea stars to some species of fish — sends its young on an open ocean journey before they return home to grow into adults along the shoreline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One of the big challenges in understanding marine life cycles is understanding how larvae do this,” says Hodin, who is working with a research team that is trying to learn how purple sea urchins find their way home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“How do they go from this vast open ocean and make their way back to very specific shoreline habitat?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_922902\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-922902 size-medium\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-12-embryos-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Millions of urchin embryos are formed in the water, where they develop as they drift in the plankton for around one month. Millions of urchin embryos are formed when clouds of sperm and eggs are mixed in the ocean. They will develop for around one month as they drift among the plankton.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-12-embryos-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-12-embryos-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-12-embryos-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-12-embryos-1440x810.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-12-embryos-1920x1080.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-12-embryos-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-12-embryos-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Millions of urchin embryos are formed when clouds of sperm and eggs are mixed in the ocean. They will develop for around one month as they drift among the plankton. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Hodin said it is similar to a housing search. When you are looking for a place to live, the first step is to decide on a neighborhood. Hodin, along with\u003ca href=\"http://bml.ucdavis.edu/research/faculty/brian-gaylord/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> Brian Gaylord\u003c/a> of the UC Davis\u003ca href=\"http://bml.ucdavis.edu\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> Bodega Marine Laboratory\u003c/a> in Bodega Bay and\u003ca href=\"http://rtc.sfsu.edu/research/in_ferner.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> Matthew Ferner\u003c/a> of the San Francisco State University\u003ca href=\"http://rtc.sfsu.edu/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> Romberg Tiburon Center for Environmental Studies\u003c/a> in Tiburon, recently found that that waves — specifically the strong, thrashing turbulence found in the urchin’s intertidal habitat — play a role in the larval urchin’s journey home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We think that turbulence is basically an indicator that they’re in a good neighborhood,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_922990\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 720px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-922990\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316_seaurchins_tidepoolwave_720.gif\" alt=\"The waves in the intertidal zone are among the most extreme forces found in the ocean. But to a larval urchin, the waves represent home.\" width=\"720\" height=\"405\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The waves in the intertidal zone are among the most extreme forces found in the ocean. But to a larval urchin, the waves represent home. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In fact, the team discovered that the crashing waves actually make the larval urchin — called a pluteus — \u003ca href=\"http://www.pnas.org/content/110/17/6901.full\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">develop faster\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>“\u003c/b>The turbulence acts as a primer,” Gaylord says. “It sort of pushes them into this settlement process earlier than we knew they would do this.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once the pluteus has found a neighborhood to settle in, it finds a home by using more local cues, like the presence of other adults or certain types of algae. It will then undergo a complete transformation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you take a look at these marine larvae, they look literally nothing like the adults,” says Hodin. “In a sea urchin or a sea star, they even have a totally different body symmetry.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_922989\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-922989\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-05-pluteus4-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Sea urchins completely abandon their body type when they transform from larva to adult. This pluteus has two equal halves just like humans, but as an adult urchin it will have fivefold radial symmetry — five equal slices.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-05-pluteus4-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-05-pluteus4-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-05-pluteus4-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-05-pluteus4-1440x810.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-05-pluteus4-1920x1080.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-05-pluteus4-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-05-pluteus4-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sea urchins completely abandon their body type when they transform from larva to adult. This pluteus has two equal halves just like humans, but as an adult urchin it will have fivefold radial symmetry — five equal slices. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The larval urchin drifts in the ocean currents as a member of the \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/03/03/from-drifter-to-dynamo-the-story-of-plankton/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">plankton\u003c/a> for a month or longer. How does it change from a tiny drifter the size of a grain of sand to a bottom-dwelling ball of spines?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Halfway through its voyage out to sea, “something very interesting happens,” Hodin says. “They do a little trick to try to make that transformation from being a larva to being a juvenile happen faster.” They begin to grow the juvenile urchin form — a miniature adult — inside of the larva’s body.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When it reaches the rocky shore, the juvenile urchin bursts out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It sticks its little tube feet out of the side of the little pluteus larva swimming around, and it grabs hold of the rocks or the bottom of the seafloor,” says\u003ca href=\"http://lowe.stanford.edu/nat-clarke-graduate-student/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> Nat Clarke\u003c/a>, a graduate student in Chris Lowe’s \u003ca href=\"http://lowe.stanford.edu\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Laboratory\u003c/a> at Stanford’s\u003ca href=\"http://hopkinsmarinestation.stanford.edu/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> Hopkins Marine Station\u003c/a> in Pacific Grove.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_922903\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-922903\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-07-tube-feet-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Tube feet enable adult urchins to grab food and hold on to the rocky seafloor. Juvenile urchins begin their lives on the bottom with just five tube feet.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-07-tube-feet-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-07-tube-feet-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-07-tube-feet-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-07-tube-feet-1440x810.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-07-tube-feet-1920x1080.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-07-tube-feet-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-07-tube-feet-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tube feet enable adult urchins to grab food and hold on to the rocky seafloor. Juvenile urchins begin their lives on the bottom with just five tube feet. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Within hours, it begins to resemble the purple, spiky sea urchin that beachgoers regularly see in tidepools and along the ocean bottom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Urchins commonly live for decades. Some can live for more than a century. Scientists know this because nuclear testing in the 1950s left trace amounts of radioactive material in red sea urchins’ shells, enabling researchers to\u003ca href=\"http://fishbull.noaa.gov/1014/19ebertf.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> calculate the sea urchins’ age\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_923262\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-923262\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-16-AdultsInRocks-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"These purple urchins can live for 50 years or more. \" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-16-AdultsInRocks-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-16-AdultsInRocks-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-16-AdultsInRocks-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-16-AdultsInRocks-1440x810.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-16-AdultsInRocks-1920x1080.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-16-AdultsInRocks-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-16-AdultsInRocks-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">These purple urchins can live for 50 years or more. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Adult urchins spawn throughout their lives, sending their young out to sea just as their own parents did. Somewhat like salmon, urchins may come back to the place they were born, although scientists aren’t sure yet how or why.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Research lately has been very, very strongly suggesting that most larvae come back to somewhere near the same shoreline that their parents came from,” Hodin says. “It’s something that people didn’t realize 15 to 20 years ago. There’s a lot more connectivity between the shoreline and the waters offshore where the babies are.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Every summer, millions of people head to the coast to soak up the sun and play in the waves. But they aren’t alone. Just beyond the crashing surf, hundreds of millions of tiny sea urchin larvae are also floating around, preparing for one of the most dramatic transformations in the animal kingdom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists along the Pacific coast are investigating how these microscopic ocean drifters, which look like tiny spaceships, find their way back home to the shoreline, where they attach themselves, grow into spiny creatures and live out a slow-moving life that often exceeds 100 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_922991\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 720px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-922991\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316_seaurchins_floatingpluteus_720.gif\" alt=\"The urchin pluteus drifts in the ocean currents for around a month before it lands on the rocky ocean floor.\" width=\"720\" height=\"405\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The urchin pluteus drifts in the ocean currents for around a month before it lands on the rocky ocean floor. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“These sorts of studies are absolutely crucial if we want to not only maintain healthy fisheries but indeed a healthy ocean,” says\u003ca href=\"http://staff.washington.edu/hodin/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> Jason Hodin\u003c/a>, a research scientist at the University of Washington’s\u003ca href=\"http://depts.washington.edu/fhl/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> Friday Harbor Laboratories\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sea urchins reproduce by sending clouds of eggs and sperm into the water. Millions of larvae are formed, but only a handful make it back to the shoreline to grow into adults.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_922901\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-922901\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-10-egg-release-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"A female purple urchin releases eggs into the water, in a reproductive strategy known as broadcast spawning. Males release sperm around the same time, and the eggs are fertilized in the open ocean.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-10-egg-release-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-10-egg-release-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-10-egg-release-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-10-egg-release-1440x810.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-10-egg-release-1920x1080.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-10-egg-release-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-10-egg-release-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A female purple urchin releases eggs into the water, in a reproductive strategy known as broadcast spawning. Males release sperm around the same time, and the eggs are fertilized in the open ocean. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It may sound like a risky life strategy. But in the ocean, it works. Nearly every animal that lives along the shore — from mussels to sea stars to some species of fish — sends its young on an open ocean journey before they return home to grow into adults along the shoreline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One of the big challenges in understanding marine life cycles is understanding how larvae do this,” says Hodin, who is working with a research team that is trying to learn how purple sea urchins find their way home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“How do they go from this vast open ocean and make their way back to very specific shoreline habitat?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_922902\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-922902 size-medium\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-12-embryos-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Millions of urchin embryos are formed in the water, where they develop as they drift in the plankton for around one month. Millions of urchin embryos are formed when clouds of sperm and eggs are mixed in the ocean. They will develop for around one month as they drift among the plankton.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-12-embryos-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-12-embryos-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-12-embryos-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-12-embryos-1440x810.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-12-embryos-1920x1080.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-12-embryos-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-12-embryos-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Millions of urchin embryos are formed when clouds of sperm and eggs are mixed in the ocean. They will develop for around one month as they drift among the plankton. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Hodin said it is similar to a housing search. When you are looking for a place to live, the first step is to decide on a neighborhood. Hodin, along with\u003ca href=\"http://bml.ucdavis.edu/research/faculty/brian-gaylord/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> Brian Gaylord\u003c/a> of the UC Davis\u003ca href=\"http://bml.ucdavis.edu\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> Bodega Marine Laboratory\u003c/a> in Bodega Bay and\u003ca href=\"http://rtc.sfsu.edu/research/in_ferner.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> Matthew Ferner\u003c/a> of the San Francisco State University\u003ca href=\"http://rtc.sfsu.edu/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> Romberg Tiburon Center for Environmental Studies\u003c/a> in Tiburon, recently found that that waves — specifically the strong, thrashing turbulence found in the urchin’s intertidal habitat — play a role in the larval urchin’s journey home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We think that turbulence is basically an indicator that they’re in a good neighborhood,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_922990\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 720px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-922990\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316_seaurchins_tidepoolwave_720.gif\" alt=\"The waves in the intertidal zone are among the most extreme forces found in the ocean. But to a larval urchin, the waves represent home.\" width=\"720\" height=\"405\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The waves in the intertidal zone are among the most extreme forces found in the ocean. But to a larval urchin, the waves represent home. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In fact, the team discovered that the crashing waves actually make the larval urchin — called a pluteus — \u003ca href=\"http://www.pnas.org/content/110/17/6901.full\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">develop faster\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>“\u003c/b>The turbulence acts as a primer,” Gaylord says. “It sort of pushes them into this settlement process earlier than we knew they would do this.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once the pluteus has found a neighborhood to settle in, it finds a home by using more local cues, like the presence of other adults or certain types of algae. It will then undergo a complete transformation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you take a look at these marine larvae, they look literally nothing like the adults,” says Hodin. “In a sea urchin or a sea star, they even have a totally different body symmetry.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_922989\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-922989\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-05-pluteus4-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Sea urchins completely abandon their body type when they transform from larva to adult. This pluteus has two equal halves just like humans, but as an adult urchin it will have fivefold radial symmetry — five equal slices.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-05-pluteus4-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-05-pluteus4-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-05-pluteus4-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-05-pluteus4-1440x810.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-05-pluteus4-1920x1080.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-05-pluteus4-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-05-pluteus4-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sea urchins completely abandon their body type when they transform from larva to adult. This pluteus has two equal halves just like humans, but as an adult urchin it will have fivefold radial symmetry — five equal slices. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The larval urchin drifts in the ocean currents as a member of the \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/03/03/from-drifter-to-dynamo-the-story-of-plankton/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">plankton\u003c/a> for a month or longer. How does it change from a tiny drifter the size of a grain of sand to a bottom-dwelling ball of spines?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Halfway through its voyage out to sea, “something very interesting happens,” Hodin says. “They do a little trick to try to make that transformation from being a larva to being a juvenile happen faster.” They begin to grow the juvenile urchin form — a miniature adult — inside of the larva’s body.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When it reaches the rocky shore, the juvenile urchin bursts out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It sticks its little tube feet out of the side of the little pluteus larva swimming around, and it grabs hold of the rocks or the bottom of the seafloor,” says\u003ca href=\"http://lowe.stanford.edu/nat-clarke-graduate-student/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> Nat Clarke\u003c/a>, a graduate student in Chris Lowe’s \u003ca href=\"http://lowe.stanford.edu\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Laboratory\u003c/a> at Stanford’s\u003ca href=\"http://hopkinsmarinestation.stanford.edu/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> Hopkins Marine Station\u003c/a> in Pacific Grove.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_922903\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-922903\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-07-tube-feet-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Tube feet enable adult urchins to grab food and hold on to the rocky seafloor. Juvenile urchins begin their lives on the bottom with just five tube feet.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-07-tube-feet-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-07-tube-feet-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-07-tube-feet-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-07-tube-feet-1440x810.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-07-tube-feet-1920x1080.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-07-tube-feet-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-07-tube-feet-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tube feet enable adult urchins to grab food and hold on to the rocky seafloor. Juvenile urchins begin their lives on the bottom with just five tube feet. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Within hours, it begins to resemble the purple, spiky sea urchin that beachgoers regularly see in tidepools and along the ocean bottom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Urchins commonly live for decades. Some can live for more than a century. Scientists know this because nuclear testing in the 1950s left trace amounts of radioactive material in red sea urchins’ shells, enabling researchers to\u003ca href=\"http://fishbull.noaa.gov/1014/19ebertf.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> calculate the sea urchins’ age\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_923262\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-923262\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-16-AdultsInRocks-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"These purple urchins can live for 50 years or more. \" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-16-AdultsInRocks-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-16-AdultsInRocks-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-16-AdultsInRocks-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-16-AdultsInRocks-1440x810.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-16-AdultsInRocks-1920x1080.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-16-AdultsInRocks-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/DL316-16-AdultsInRocks-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">These purple urchins can live for 50 years or more. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Adult urchins spawn throughout their lives, sending their young out to sea just as their own parents did. Somewhat like salmon, urchins may come back to the place they were born, although scientists aren’t sure yet how or why.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Research lately has been very, very strongly suggesting that most larvae come back to somewhere near the same shoreline that their parents came from,” Hodin says. “It’s something that people didn’t realize 15 to 20 years ago. There’s a lot more connectivity between the shoreline and the waters offshore where the babies are.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Watch Live As Underwater Cameras Uncover Ship's Post-Atomic Secrets",
"headTitle": "Watch Live As Underwater Cameras Uncover Ship’s Post-Atomic Secrets | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Update: Tuesday August 23, 2016 11 a.m.\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.nautiluslive.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Live footage\u003c/a> of the sunken \u003cem>USS Independence\u003c/em> near the Farallon Islands is still rolling! Scientists were up all night surveying the WWII-era aircraft carrier and will continue exploring until 2 p.m. PST today. So far, they’ve found a hellcat fighter aircraft, the wing of a second aircraft and sponges the size of doorways.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The crew erupted into cheers when it found a “Christmas tree” gauge around 10:48 a.m. The device measures pressure and protects pressure instruments against surges and pulsations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_939751\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 635px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-939751 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/Nautilus_underwater.png\" alt=\"Nautilus_underwater\" width=\"635\" height=\"354\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/Nautilus_underwater.png 635w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/Nautilus_underwater-400x223.png 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 635px) 100vw, 635px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Underwater image of a “Christmas tree” gauge around aboard the USS Independence. The device measures pressure and protects pressure instruments against surges and pulsations.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Finding recognizable items underwater has been a cause for celebration among the crew. To see what else they’ve discovered, check out these recent \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/EVNautilus\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@EVNautilus\u003c/a> tweets:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/EVNautilus/status/768036372968079360\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/EVNautilus/status/768017583614332928\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/EVNautilus/status/767948253145001984\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>Original post: \u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Marine researchers are plumbing the ocean depths of a long-buried aircraft carrier this week near San Francisco Bay, uncovering its atomic secrets and studying its second act as a haven for corals and other marine life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"http://www.nautiluslive.org/blog/2016/08/22/uss-independence-atomic-history-californias-blue-backyard\">\u003cem>USS Independence\u003c/em> has rested unseen under 2,600 feet of water off the Farallon Islands\u003c/a> for 65 years—until now. Researchers aboard the Exploration Vessel\u003cem> Nautilus\u003c/em> left Half Moon Bay Monday en route to the World War II aircraft carrier, and will explore its hidden chambers until August 26.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You can \u003ca href=\"http://www.nautiluslive.org/\">watch it live\u003c/a> on a webcam that follows both the action above-decks and in the watery locker below.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_931916\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-931916\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/08/urchins-470-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"A crew member on the E/V Nautilus talks to passersby while the ship was docked at the Exploratorium.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/08/urchins-470-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/08/urchins-470-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/08/urchins-470-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/08/urchins-470-1440x810.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/08/urchins-470-1920x1080.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/08/urchins-470-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/08/urchins-470-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A crew member on the E/V Nautilus talked to passersby while the ship was docked at the Exploratorium. \u003ccite>(Carrie Boyle/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The crew aboard the\u003cem> E/V Nautilus\u003c/em> recently brought us face-to-face with the diminutive purple \u003ca href=\"http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-googly-eyes-20160816-snap-story.html\">googly-eyed squid\u003c/a> off the Southern California Coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The dive to explore the remains of the \u003cem>USS Independence\u003c/em> will be the first visual survey of the ship since it was scuttled after being used in post-World War II nuclear bomb tests and as a weapon of war against Japan.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">‘You don’t know what you’re going to encounter. We run the ship somewhat like the emergency room of a hospital, not knowing what the ambulance is going to deliver.’\u003ccite>Robert Ballard, Ocean Exploration Trust\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Researchers will emerge with “a detailed, full-on visual map of the Independence,” enthuses \u003ca href=\"http://www.jamesdelgado.com/\">James Delgado\u003c/a>, chief scientist for the USS Independence mission on the \u003cem>Nautilus \u003c/em>and the director of the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries’ Maritime Heritage Program. “That has not been done with any big shipwreck other than the \u003cem>Titanic\u003c/em>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003cem>USS Independence\u003c/em> joined the Pacific Fleet in 1943, helping marines and pilots lay waste to Japan and the Philippines until the war ended in the fall of 1945. It was strafed by Japanese aircraft, bombed and torpedoed, according to \u003ca href=\"http://www.navyhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Herman-Brown.pdf\">this rather thrilling account by a sailor aboard the vessel at the time\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was one of dozens of ships anchored off the Bikini Atoll in 1946 for a new duty: to act as a nuclear test subject. The ship survived two blasts before returning to Hunter’s Point in San Francisco to be used in decontamination studies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The battered, leaking ship was towed out to sea in 1951, exiting the Golden Gate to be scuttled, or intentionally sunk, about 30 miles offshore, near the Farallon Islands. There it joined a watery graveyard of more than 400 shipwrecks off the Farallon Islands, part of the \u003ca href=\"http://farallones.noaa.gov/\">Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rovers go where no one ever has\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The research mission is not without its dangers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The team will be bringing up samples of marine life growing on the wreck—but with extra caution, given the \u003cem>Independence’s \u003c/em>nuclear past. Although they do not expect high levels of radiation, scientists from UC Berkeley are on board to test the radioactivity of any samples and instruments brought up from the wreck.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I love working shipwrecks,” says \u003ca href=\"http://nautiluslive.org/people/robert-ballard\">Robert Ballard\u003c/a>, president of the Ocean Exploration Trust, which operates the \u003cem>Nautilus\u003c/em> expeditions. “But they’re dangerous. We have to be careful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ballard, who discovered the remains of the R.M.S. \u003cem>Titanic\u003c/em>, does not hold back his excitement about exploring the \u003cem>Independence \u003c/em>— which is roughly as long as the San Francisco Ferry Building. “We brought our A-team. Because they know when I get near a wreck, I get \u003cem>near\u003c/em> it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re going to get these guys very close,” he adds. “And you’ll see it live.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_931914\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-931914\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/08/urchins-453-800x450.jpg\" alt='Chris Roman describes the instruments on the ROV Hercules. \"The number one rule of ocean engineering is to keep the water out,\" says Roman, an Associate Professor of University of Rhode Island who has been onboard for many Nautilus expeditions' width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/08/urchins-453-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/08/urchins-453-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/08/urchins-453-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/08/urchins-453-1440x810.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/08/urchins-453-1920x1080.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/08/urchins-453-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/08/urchins-453-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chris Roman describes the instruments on the ROV Hercules, which is used to capture real-time footage of the deep sea, feeding it back to the Nautilus via fiber-optic cables. \u003ccite>(Carrie Boyle/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The “guys” Ballard is referring to are the ship’s two remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), \u003ca href=\"http://www.nautiluslive.org/tech/rov-argus\">Argus\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"http://www.nautiluslive.org/tech/rov-hercules\">Hercules\u003c/a>, which shoot deep ocean footage and send it back to the ship’s control room and to millions of viewers on land. The two ROVs work in tandem as they hover above the seafloor, tied together with a bright yellow flexible tether. Argus is connected to the \u003cem>Nautilus \u003c/em>with a long cable made of steel, copper, and fiber-optic wires; its job is to provide stability, light, and an extra set of eyes for Hercules.[contextly_sidebar id=”EcbjB5FqDu81qJ4BxFb2va40eeK8qh55″]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>ROV technology like this gives us unprecedented views of the ocean. “And the best part is that you share it with everyone,” says Delgado. “That, for me, is the magic.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That magic is made possible by the ship’s satellite, a giant golf ball-shaped dome which enables communication so that online viewers can write in with questions, students can watch from their classrooms, and scientists can call in with advice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You don’t know what you’re going to encounter,” says Ballard. “We run the ship somewhat like the emergency room of a hospital, not knowing what the ambulance is going to deliver.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Corals, sponges and the unknown\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of those surprise encounters will be with marine life that have colonized the \u003cem>USS Independence\u003c/em> in the years since its human inhabitants abandoned ship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The coral and sponge communities that exist in our deep, dark backyard provide important habitat in an otherwise flat, sandy underwater world. The corals in particular are impressively long-lived. Local species can live for over 100 years — and they have growth rings that can be analyzed just like tree rings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_931917\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 750px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-931917\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/08/corals.jpg\" alt=\"Deep sea coral communities are home to a diverse group of organisms, and are largely unexplored.\" width=\"750\" height=\"464\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/08/corals.jpg 750w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/08/corals-400x247.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Deep sea coral communities are home to a diverse group of organisms, and are largely unexplored. \u003ccite>(NOAA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As the ROVs explore the wreck, the researchers on board the \u003cem>Nautilus\u003c/em> will rely upon a network of experts around the world, or what they call “doctors on shore,” who will be watching the live stream and calling in with information and advice. “We can have people leading parts of the dive, or entire dives, or sometimes entire expeditions from shore,” says \u003ca href=\"http://www.nautiluslive.org/people/mike-brennan\">Mike Brennan\u003c/a>, the expedition leader of the \u003cem>Nautilus\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They will have a coral expert from NOAA, \u003ca href=\"http://www.nautiluslive.org/people/peter-etnoyer\">Peter Etnoyer\u003c/a>, telling crew members what to sample and identifying species from a remote location.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over time, scientists can monitor the health of corals and keep track of any changes, such as what might occur as the ocean becomes more acidic due to rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The team may discover new species and even entire reefs on the ship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Seventy-five percent of the planet is 95% unknown,” says Delgado. “We know more about the moon, Mars, and soon Saturn, than we do what’s right off the coast here in a National Marine Sanctuary.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And ultimately, to really understand it, we have to go out there.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Ocean explorers bring viewers along via livestream for their first look at the sunken USS Independence near the Farallon Islands. ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Update: Tuesday August 23, 2016 11 a.m.\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.nautiluslive.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Live footage\u003c/a> of the sunken \u003cem>USS Independence\u003c/em> near the Farallon Islands is still rolling! Scientists were up all night surveying the WWII-era aircraft carrier and will continue exploring until 2 p.m. PST today. So far, they’ve found a hellcat fighter aircraft, the wing of a second aircraft and sponges the size of doorways.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The crew erupted into cheers when it found a “Christmas tree” gauge around 10:48 a.m. The device measures pressure and protects pressure instruments against surges and pulsations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_939751\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 635px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-939751 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/Nautilus_underwater.png\" alt=\"Nautilus_underwater\" width=\"635\" height=\"354\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/Nautilus_underwater.png 635w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/Nautilus_underwater-400x223.png 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 635px) 100vw, 635px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Underwater image of a “Christmas tree” gauge around aboard the USS Independence. The device measures pressure and protects pressure instruments against surges and pulsations.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Finding recognizable items underwater has been a cause for celebration among the crew. To see what else they’ve discovered, check out these recent \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/EVNautilus\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@EVNautilus\u003c/a> tweets:\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>Original post: \u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Marine researchers are plumbing the ocean depths of a long-buried aircraft carrier this week near San Francisco Bay, uncovering its atomic secrets and studying its second act as a haven for corals and other marine life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"http://www.nautiluslive.org/blog/2016/08/22/uss-independence-atomic-history-californias-blue-backyard\">\u003cem>USS Independence\u003c/em> has rested unseen under 2,600 feet of water off the Farallon Islands\u003c/a> for 65 years—until now. Researchers aboard the Exploration Vessel\u003cem> Nautilus\u003c/em> left Half Moon Bay Monday en route to the World War II aircraft carrier, and will explore its hidden chambers until August 26.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You can \u003ca href=\"http://www.nautiluslive.org/\">watch it live\u003c/a> on a webcam that follows both the action above-decks and in the watery locker below.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_931916\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-931916\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/08/urchins-470-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"A crew member on the E/V Nautilus talks to passersby while the ship was docked at the Exploratorium.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/08/urchins-470-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/08/urchins-470-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/08/urchins-470-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/08/urchins-470-1440x810.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/08/urchins-470-1920x1080.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/08/urchins-470-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/08/urchins-470-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A crew member on the E/V Nautilus talked to passersby while the ship was docked at the Exploratorium. \u003ccite>(Carrie Boyle/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The crew aboard the\u003cem> E/V Nautilus\u003c/em> recently brought us face-to-face with the diminutive purple \u003ca href=\"http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-googly-eyes-20160816-snap-story.html\">googly-eyed squid\u003c/a> off the Southern California Coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The dive to explore the remains of the \u003cem>USS Independence\u003c/em> will be the first visual survey of the ship since it was scuttled after being used in post-World War II nuclear bomb tests and as a weapon of war against Japan.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">‘You don’t know what you’re going to encounter. We run the ship somewhat like the emergency room of a hospital, not knowing what the ambulance is going to deliver.’\u003ccite>Robert Ballard, Ocean Exploration Trust\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Researchers will emerge with “a detailed, full-on visual map of the Independence,” enthuses \u003ca href=\"http://www.jamesdelgado.com/\">James Delgado\u003c/a>, chief scientist for the USS Independence mission on the \u003cem>Nautilus \u003c/em>and the director of the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries’ Maritime Heritage Program. “That has not been done with any big shipwreck other than the \u003cem>Titanic\u003c/em>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003cem>USS Independence\u003c/em> joined the Pacific Fleet in 1943, helping marines and pilots lay waste to Japan and the Philippines until the war ended in the fall of 1945. It was strafed by Japanese aircraft, bombed and torpedoed, according to \u003ca href=\"http://www.navyhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Herman-Brown.pdf\">this rather thrilling account by a sailor aboard the vessel at the time\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was one of dozens of ships anchored off the Bikini Atoll in 1946 for a new duty: to act as a nuclear test subject. The ship survived two blasts before returning to Hunter’s Point in San Francisco to be used in decontamination studies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The battered, leaking ship was towed out to sea in 1951, exiting the Golden Gate to be scuttled, or intentionally sunk, about 30 miles offshore, near the Farallon Islands. There it joined a watery graveyard of more than 400 shipwrecks off the Farallon Islands, part of the \u003ca href=\"http://farallones.noaa.gov/\">Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rovers go where no one ever has\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The research mission is not without its dangers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The team will be bringing up samples of marine life growing on the wreck—but with extra caution, given the \u003cem>Independence’s \u003c/em>nuclear past. Although they do not expect high levels of radiation, scientists from UC Berkeley are on board to test the radioactivity of any samples and instruments brought up from the wreck.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I love working shipwrecks,” says \u003ca href=\"http://nautiluslive.org/people/robert-ballard\">Robert Ballard\u003c/a>, president of the Ocean Exploration Trust, which operates the \u003cem>Nautilus\u003c/em> expeditions. “But they’re dangerous. We have to be careful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ballard, who discovered the remains of the R.M.S. \u003cem>Titanic\u003c/em>, does not hold back his excitement about exploring the \u003cem>Independence \u003c/em>— which is roughly as long as the San Francisco Ferry Building. “We brought our A-team. Because they know when I get near a wreck, I get \u003cem>near\u003c/em> it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re going to get these guys very close,” he adds. “And you’ll see it live.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_931914\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-931914\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/08/urchins-453-800x450.jpg\" alt='Chris Roman describes the instruments on the ROV Hercules. \"The number one rule of ocean engineering is to keep the water out,\" says Roman, an Associate Professor of University of Rhode Island who has been onboard for many Nautilus expeditions' width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/08/urchins-453-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/08/urchins-453-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/08/urchins-453-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/08/urchins-453-1440x810.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/08/urchins-453-1920x1080.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/08/urchins-453-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/08/urchins-453-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chris Roman describes the instruments on the ROV Hercules, which is used to capture real-time footage of the deep sea, feeding it back to the Nautilus via fiber-optic cables. \u003ccite>(Carrie Boyle/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The “guys” Ballard is referring to are the ship’s two remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), \u003ca href=\"http://www.nautiluslive.org/tech/rov-argus\">Argus\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"http://www.nautiluslive.org/tech/rov-hercules\">Hercules\u003c/a>, which shoot deep ocean footage and send it back to the ship’s control room and to millions of viewers on land. The two ROVs work in tandem as they hover above the seafloor, tied together with a bright yellow flexible tether. Argus is connected to the \u003cem>Nautilus \u003c/em>with a long cable made of steel, copper, and fiber-optic wires; its job is to provide stability, light, and an extra set of eyes for Hercules.\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>ROV technology like this gives us unprecedented views of the ocean. “And the best part is that you share it with everyone,” says Delgado. “That, for me, is the magic.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That magic is made possible by the ship’s satellite, a giant golf ball-shaped dome which enables communication so that online viewers can write in with questions, students can watch from their classrooms, and scientists can call in with advice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You don’t know what you’re going to encounter,” says Ballard. “We run the ship somewhat like the emergency room of a hospital, not knowing what the ambulance is going to deliver.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Corals, sponges and the unknown\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of those surprise encounters will be with marine life that have colonized the \u003cem>USS Independence\u003c/em> in the years since its human inhabitants abandoned ship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The coral and sponge communities that exist in our deep, dark backyard provide important habitat in an otherwise flat, sandy underwater world. The corals in particular are impressively long-lived. Local species can live for over 100 years — and they have growth rings that can be analyzed just like tree rings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_931917\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 750px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-931917\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/08/corals.jpg\" alt=\"Deep sea coral communities are home to a diverse group of organisms, and are largely unexplored.\" width=\"750\" height=\"464\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/08/corals.jpg 750w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/08/corals-400x247.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Deep sea coral communities are home to a diverse group of organisms, and are largely unexplored. \u003ccite>(NOAA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As the ROVs explore the wreck, the researchers on board the \u003cem>Nautilus\u003c/em> will rely upon a network of experts around the world, or what they call “doctors on shore,” who will be watching the live stream and calling in with information and advice. “We can have people leading parts of the dive, or entire dives, or sometimes entire expeditions from shore,” says \u003ca href=\"http://www.nautiluslive.org/people/mike-brennan\">Mike Brennan\u003c/a>, the expedition leader of the \u003cem>Nautilus\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They will have a coral expert from NOAA, \u003ca href=\"http://www.nautiluslive.org/people/peter-etnoyer\">Peter Etnoyer\u003c/a>, telling crew members what to sample and identifying species from a remote location.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over time, scientists can monitor the health of corals and keep track of any changes, such as what might occur as the ocean becomes more acidic due to rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The team may discover new species and even entire reefs on the ship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Seventy-five percent of the planet is 95% unknown,” says Delgado. “We know more about the moon, Mars, and soon Saturn, than we do what’s right off the coast here in a National Marine Sanctuary.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Twenty six nautical miles outside the Golden Gate, the spindly peaks of the Farallon Islands bobbing in view, the \u003ca href=\"http://www.sanctuarysimon.org/regional_sections/fulmar/\">R/V Fulmar\u003c/a> research vessel has made space for me to observe how researchers carry out their commitment to keep our oceans healthy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still working on developing my sea legs, I clamber up a ladder to the top deck, and as gingerly as possible, stumble to the bow of the boat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This vessel is run by a marine conservation partnership called \u003ca href=\"http://www.accessoceans.org/\">ACCESS\u003c/a>, or the Applied California Current Ecosystem Studies. The crew, comprised of marine researchers from the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (\u003ca href=\"http://www.noaa.gov/\">NOAA)\u003c/a> and the non-profit agency \u003ca href=\"http://www.pointblue.org/\">Point Blue\u003c/a>, is scanning the horizon for signs of life, which they are finding in abundance. [contextly_sidebar id=”bwAQS8zN4wV2Q3mMQXirOa6vGPpNfj18″]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On this brilliant July afternoon, the scientists on board are deploying nets and hauling in microscopic forms of life from the ocean. They pull in tiny krill and their even tinier food source, plankton, the marine plants that form the foundation of the ocean’s food chain and shed light on the health of the vital marine habitat off the coast of Northern California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One researcher records the number of wildlife that surround the boat, while the others gaze through binoculars and call out species names as they see them — like puffins, white-sided dolphins and \u003ca href=\"http://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/red-necked-phalarope\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">red-necked phalaropes\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_897891\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-897891 size-medium\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/ACCESS-Research-Cruise-Pix-157-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Taylor Nairn, of the Greater Farallones Association, records wildlife sightings along an observational transect as a member of the AV Fulmar's marine research crew.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/ACCESS-Research-Cruise-Pix-157-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/ACCESS-Research-Cruise-Pix-157-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/ACCESS-Research-Cruise-Pix-157-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/ACCESS-Research-Cruise-Pix-157-1440x810.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/ACCESS-Research-Cruise-Pix-157-1920x1080.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/ACCESS-Research-Cruise-Pix-157-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/ACCESS-Research-Cruise-Pix-157-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Taylor Nairn, of the Greater Farallones Association, records wildlife sightings along an observational transect as a member of the R/V Fulmar’s marine research crew. \u003ccite>(Aurora MacRae-Crerar/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>First mate Marshall Stein offers me his front-row swivel seat and moments later, there’s a wave of excitement as one, two, three, four blue whales come into focus. Mouth agape, I stare at the largest animals the planet has ever seen as they spout water from their blowholes, the silhouettes of their majestic blue backs against the backdrop of the Farallon Islands. I am speechless. So are the marine biologists. This is extraordinary, not only for a novice like me, but also for seasoned researchers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_880927\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-880927\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/iStock_33627068_XXLARGE-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"Blue whales have been on Earth for over 53 million years. The largest animal ever to have graced our planet, they are massive, majestic and endangered, but making a comeback on the California coast. They can grow to be over 100 feet long and can weigh over 200 tons. They have a lifespan of up to 90 years. \" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/iStock_33627068_XXLARGE-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/iStock_33627068_XXLARGE-400x300.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/iStock_33627068_XXLARGE-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/iStock_33627068_XXLARGE-1440x1080.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/iStock_33627068_XXLARGE-1920x1440.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/iStock_33627068_XXLARGE-1180x885.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/iStock_33627068_XXLARGE-960x720.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Blue whales have been on Earth for over 53 million years. The largest animal to have ever graced our planet, they are massive, majestic and endangered, but making a comeback on the California coast. They can grow to be over 100 feet long and can weigh over 200 tons. They have a lifespan of up to 90 years. \u003ccite>(iStock)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Since April, there have been a \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2016/06/03/humpback-whales-exploring-the-bay-in-unprecedented-numbers/\">record number\u003c/a> of whale sightings in San Francisco Bay—including \u003ca href=\"http://kron4.com/2016/07/11/stunning-video-close-encounter-with-whales-near-treasure-island/\">this\u003c/a> breathtaking encounter filmed by a local kayaker.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Yesterday was gangbusters,” exclaims Jan Roletto, the research coordinator for the \u003ca href=\"http://farallones.noaa.gov/\">Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary\u003c/a>, which falls under the NOAA umbrella. On their first day out, the crew saw 85 blue and humpback whales. On the second day, I was there as the crew made 48 more whale observations. Such sightings suggest that the whales are making a strong comeback.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">‘It’s a real story of recovery.’\u003ccite> Jaime Jahncke, Point Blue \u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>This July alone, the crew of the R/V Fulmar has seen more whales (around 237) than scientists recorded during the entire summer last year — about \u003ca href=\"http://accessoceans.org/uploads/Ocean_Climate_Indicators_Report_2015.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">180\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"http://farallones.noaa.gov/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Greater Farallones Marine Sanctuary\u003c/a> is lush with nutrients, making it the place where whales meet and eat.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>“It’s a real story of recovery,” says Jaime Jahncke, a lead scientist at Point Blue. But what are they recovering from?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lower whale abundance in 2015 was a consequence of two natural phenomena: a sprawling mass of anomalously warm water known as \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/08/09/possible-spoiler-for-el-nino-a-battle-of-the-blobs/\">the Blob, and El Niño\u003c/a>, a periodic shift in both ocean and atmospheric conditions. Together, they raised ocean temperatures and had mostly negative effects on marine life, \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/11/23/how-warmer-waters-have-led-to-emaciated-seals-on-california-beaches/\">such as California seals\u003c/a> and sea lions. Thousands of sea lion pups were stranded or killed in February and March 2015.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_894517\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-894517\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/sea-lion-pup-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Unusually warm waters brought in by a combination of El Ñino and the Blob in late 2015 to early 2016 were not good for sea lion pups. These anomalously high temperatures disrupted the marine food chain, leaving the pups malnourished. This has lead to the recent high rates of sea lion pup mortality.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/sea-lion-pup-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/sea-lion-pup-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/sea-lion-pup-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/sea-lion-pup-1440x960.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/sea-lion-pup-1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/sea-lion-pup-1180x787.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/sea-lion-pup-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Unusually warm ocean conditions in late 2015 led to high rates of sea lion pup mortality. \u003ccite>(iStock)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Now the oceans have cooled and the wind is gusting, a trend scientists are happy to see.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The winds are strong enough to cause upwelling. They are pushing that water to the south and offshore, and it allows the cold, nutrient-rich water to come to the surface,” explains \u003ca href=\"http://cordellbank.noaa.gov/contact/staff.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Danielle Lipski\u003c/a>, research coordinator for \u003ca href=\"http://cordellbank.noaa.gov/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary\u003c/a>, another branch of NOAA. The nutrients act like fertilizer and increase the abundance of \u003ca href=\"http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/phyto.html\">phytoplankton.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_881027\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-881027\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Krill-iStock_86347053_LARGE-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Tiny, but mighty, invertebrate krill are smaller than a fingertip and are also the primary food source for blue and humpback whales.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Krill-iStock_86347053_LARGE-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Krill-iStock_86347053_LARGE-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Krill-iStock_86347053_LARGE-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Krill-iStock_86347053_LARGE-1440x960.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Krill-iStock_86347053_LARGE-1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Krill-iStock_86347053_LARGE-1180x787.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Krill-iStock_86347053_LARGE-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tiny but mighty, invertebrate krill are smaller than a fingertip and are also the primary food source for blue and humpback whales. \u003ccite>( Andrea Izzotti/iStock)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nwfsc.noaa.gov/sem/zooplankton.cfm\">Zooplankton\u003c/a> feed on the phytoplankton, which are then eaten by tiny shrimplike animals called \u003ca href=\"http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/lewis_clark01/background/midwater_realm/media/krill.html\">krill\u003c/a>. The whales gobble up the krill in a beautiful relationship where one of the smallest of lifeforms sustains the largest.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Twenty six nautical miles outside the Golden Gate, the spindly peaks of the Farallon Islands bobbing in view, the \u003ca href=\"http://www.sanctuarysimon.org/regional_sections/fulmar/\">R/V Fulmar\u003c/a> research vessel has made space for me to observe how researchers carry out their commitment to keep our oceans healthy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still working on developing my sea legs, I clamber up a ladder to the top deck, and as gingerly as possible, stumble to the bow of the boat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This vessel is run by a marine conservation partnership called \u003ca href=\"http://www.accessoceans.org/\">ACCESS\u003c/a>, or the Applied California Current Ecosystem Studies. The crew, comprised of marine researchers from the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (\u003ca href=\"http://www.noaa.gov/\">NOAA)\u003c/a> and the non-profit agency \u003ca href=\"http://www.pointblue.org/\">Point Blue\u003c/a>, is scanning the horizon for signs of life, which they are finding in abundance. \u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On this brilliant July afternoon, the scientists on board are deploying nets and hauling in microscopic forms of life from the ocean. They pull in tiny krill and their even tinier food source, plankton, the marine plants that form the foundation of the ocean’s food chain and shed light on the health of the vital marine habitat off the coast of Northern California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One researcher records the number of wildlife that surround the boat, while the others gaze through binoculars and call out species names as they see them — like puffins, white-sided dolphins and \u003ca href=\"http://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/red-necked-phalarope\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">red-necked phalaropes\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_897891\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-897891 size-medium\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/ACCESS-Research-Cruise-Pix-157-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Taylor Nairn, of the Greater Farallones Association, records wildlife sightings along an observational transect as a member of the AV Fulmar's marine research crew.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/ACCESS-Research-Cruise-Pix-157-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/ACCESS-Research-Cruise-Pix-157-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/ACCESS-Research-Cruise-Pix-157-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/ACCESS-Research-Cruise-Pix-157-1440x810.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/ACCESS-Research-Cruise-Pix-157-1920x1080.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/ACCESS-Research-Cruise-Pix-157-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/ACCESS-Research-Cruise-Pix-157-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Taylor Nairn, of the Greater Farallones Association, records wildlife sightings along an observational transect as a member of the R/V Fulmar’s marine research crew. \u003ccite>(Aurora MacRae-Crerar/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>First mate Marshall Stein offers me his front-row swivel seat and moments later, there’s a wave of excitement as one, two, three, four blue whales come into focus. Mouth agape, I stare at the largest animals the planet has ever seen as they spout water from their blowholes, the silhouettes of their majestic blue backs against the backdrop of the Farallon Islands. I am speechless. So are the marine biologists. This is extraordinary, not only for a novice like me, but also for seasoned researchers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_880927\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-880927\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/iStock_33627068_XXLARGE-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"Blue whales have been on Earth for over 53 million years. The largest animal ever to have graced our planet, they are massive, majestic and endangered, but making a comeback on the California coast. They can grow to be over 100 feet long and can weigh over 200 tons. They have a lifespan of up to 90 years. \" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/iStock_33627068_XXLARGE-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/iStock_33627068_XXLARGE-400x300.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/iStock_33627068_XXLARGE-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/iStock_33627068_XXLARGE-1440x1080.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/iStock_33627068_XXLARGE-1920x1440.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/iStock_33627068_XXLARGE-1180x885.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/iStock_33627068_XXLARGE-960x720.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Blue whales have been on Earth for over 53 million years. The largest animal to have ever graced our planet, they are massive, majestic and endangered, but making a comeback on the California coast. They can grow to be over 100 feet long and can weigh over 200 tons. They have a lifespan of up to 90 years. \u003ccite>(iStock)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Since April, there have been a \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2016/06/03/humpback-whales-exploring-the-bay-in-unprecedented-numbers/\">record number\u003c/a> of whale sightings in San Francisco Bay—including \u003ca href=\"http://kron4.com/2016/07/11/stunning-video-close-encounter-with-whales-near-treasure-island/\">this\u003c/a> breathtaking encounter filmed by a local kayaker.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Yesterday was gangbusters,” exclaims Jan Roletto, the research coordinator for the \u003ca href=\"http://farallones.noaa.gov/\">Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary\u003c/a>, which falls under the NOAA umbrella. On their first day out, the crew saw 85 blue and humpback whales. On the second day, I was there as the crew made 48 more whale observations. Such sightings suggest that the whales are making a strong comeback.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">‘It’s a real story of recovery.’\u003ccite> Jaime Jahncke, Point Blue \u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>This July alone, the crew of the R/V Fulmar has seen more whales (around 237) than scientists recorded during the entire summer last year — about \u003ca href=\"http://accessoceans.org/uploads/Ocean_Climate_Indicators_Report_2015.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">180\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"http://farallones.noaa.gov/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Greater Farallones Marine Sanctuary\u003c/a> is lush with nutrients, making it the place where whales meet and eat.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>“It’s a real story of recovery,” says Jaime Jahncke, a lead scientist at Point Blue. But what are they recovering from?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lower whale abundance in 2015 was a consequence of two natural phenomena: a sprawling mass of anomalously warm water known as \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/08/09/possible-spoiler-for-el-nino-a-battle-of-the-blobs/\">the Blob, and El Niño\u003c/a>, a periodic shift in both ocean and atmospheric conditions. Together, they raised ocean temperatures and had mostly negative effects on marine life, \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/11/23/how-warmer-waters-have-led-to-emaciated-seals-on-california-beaches/\">such as California seals\u003c/a> and sea lions. Thousands of sea lion pups were stranded or killed in February and March 2015.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_894517\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-894517\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/sea-lion-pup-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Unusually warm waters brought in by a combination of El Ñino and the Blob in late 2015 to early 2016 were not good for sea lion pups. These anomalously high temperatures disrupted the marine food chain, leaving the pups malnourished. This has lead to the recent high rates of sea lion pup mortality.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/sea-lion-pup-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/sea-lion-pup-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/sea-lion-pup-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/sea-lion-pup-1440x960.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/sea-lion-pup-1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/sea-lion-pup-1180x787.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/sea-lion-pup-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Unusually warm ocean conditions in late 2015 led to high rates of sea lion pup mortality. \u003ccite>(iStock)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Now the oceans have cooled and the wind is gusting, a trend scientists are happy to see.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The winds are strong enough to cause upwelling. They are pushing that water to the south and offshore, and it allows the cold, nutrient-rich water to come to the surface,” explains \u003ca href=\"http://cordellbank.noaa.gov/contact/staff.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Danielle Lipski\u003c/a>, research coordinator for \u003ca href=\"http://cordellbank.noaa.gov/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary\u003c/a>, another branch of NOAA. The nutrients act like fertilizer and increase the abundance of \u003ca href=\"http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/phyto.html\">phytoplankton.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_881027\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-881027\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Krill-iStock_86347053_LARGE-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Tiny, but mighty, invertebrate krill are smaller than a fingertip and are also the primary food source for blue and humpback whales.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Krill-iStock_86347053_LARGE-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Krill-iStock_86347053_LARGE-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Krill-iStock_86347053_LARGE-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Krill-iStock_86347053_LARGE-1440x960.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Krill-iStock_86347053_LARGE-1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Krill-iStock_86347053_LARGE-1180x787.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Krill-iStock_86347053_LARGE-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tiny but mighty, invertebrate krill are smaller than a fingertip and are also the primary food source for blue and humpback whales. \u003ccite>( Andrea Izzotti/iStock)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nwfsc.noaa.gov/sem/zooplankton.cfm\">Zooplankton\u003c/a> feed on the phytoplankton, which are then eaten by tiny shrimplike animals called \u003ca href=\"http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/lewis_clark01/background/midwater_realm/media/krill.html\">krill\u003c/a>. The whales gobble up the krill in a beautiful relationship where one of the smallest of lifeforms sustains the largest.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Photographer Captures Sea Lion Plunging Into Earth’s Largest Bony Fish",
"headTitle": "Photographer Captures Sea Lion Plunging Into Earth’s Largest Bony Fish | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Nine miles off the San Diego coast in the open blue waters of Nine Mile Bank, a California sea lion (\u003ci>Zalophus californianus\u003c/i>) plunges head first into the tough flesh of Earth’s largest bony fish: an ocean sunfish (\u003ci>Mola mola\u003c/i>).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The mola, a graceful behemoth that can grow up to 3.1 meters (10 feet) in length and 4.2 meters (14 feet) from fin tip to fin tip, spends much of its time basking at the ocean’s surface, one eye pointed skyward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Drawing warmth from the sun helps molas recover from cold, deep dives — often to depths of nearly 800 meters (2600 feet) — where they forage for invertebrate prey such as jellyfish. With its lethargic movements through the water and no obvious defense mechanisms, the mola would almost surely be more vulnerable to predators if not for its thick, sandpaper-like skin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Typically, only orcas dare to attack and consume adult molas. But climate conditions off the California coast have been anything but typical in recent years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This trend coupled with the effects of El Niño has caused unusually warm waters to persist throughout vast swaths of the eastern Pacific.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fish like sardines and anchovies that sea lions typically favor as prey have migrated farther north in search of cooler waters. When photographer Ralph Pace first encountered this underwater scene, he immediately noted the peculiarity of the sea lion’s food choice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Initially, Pace struggled to capture a shot amidst the chaotic battle for survival, but for one moment, the scene calmed and the mola, still alive, seemed to look its predator in the eye as if pleading for its life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This photograph was selected as a finalist in the California Academy of Sciences’ \u003cspan id=\"widget_1469578972531863b23ee\" class=\"n2-text-block\">\u003ca href=\"http://bigpicturecompetition.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2016 BigPicture photography competition\u003c/a>\u003c/span>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story comes from \u003ca href=\"http://biographic.com/\">Biographic\u003c/a>, an online magazine published by San Francisco’s \u003ca href=\"http://www.calacademy.org/\">California Academy of Sciences\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Nine miles off the San Diego coast in the open blue waters of Nine Mile Bank, a California sea lion (\u003ci>Zalophus californianus\u003c/i>) plunges head first into the tough flesh of Earth’s largest bony fish: an ocean sunfish (\u003ci>Mola mola\u003c/i>).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The mola, a graceful behemoth that can grow up to 3.1 meters (10 feet) in length and 4.2 meters (14 feet) from fin tip to fin tip, spends much of its time basking at the ocean’s surface, one eye pointed skyward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Drawing warmth from the sun helps molas recover from cold, deep dives — often to depths of nearly 800 meters (2600 feet) — where they forage for invertebrate prey such as jellyfish. With its lethargic movements through the water and no obvious defense mechanisms, the mola would almost surely be more vulnerable to predators if not for its thick, sandpaper-like skin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Typically, only orcas dare to attack and consume adult molas. But climate conditions off the California coast have been anything but typical in recent years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This trend coupled with the effects of El Niño has caused unusually warm waters to persist throughout vast swaths of the eastern Pacific.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fish like sardines and anchovies that sea lions typically favor as prey have migrated farther north in search of cooler waters. When photographer Ralph Pace first encountered this underwater scene, he immediately noted the peculiarity of the sea lion’s food choice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Initially, Pace struggled to capture a shot amidst the chaotic battle for survival, but for one moment, the scene calmed and the mola, still alive, seemed to look its predator in the eye as if pleading for its life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This photograph was selected as a finalist in the California Academy of Sciences’ \u003cspan id=\"widget_1469578972531863b23ee\" class=\"n2-text-block\">\u003ca href=\"http://bigpicturecompetition.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2016 BigPicture photography competition\u003c/a>\u003c/span>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story comes from \u003ca href=\"http://biographic.com/\">Biographic\u003c/a>, an online magazine published by San Francisco’s \u003ca href=\"http://www.calacademy.org/\">California Academy of Sciences\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Microfibers: How the Tiny Threads in Our Clothes Are Polluting the Bay",
"headTitle": "Microfibers: How the Tiny Threads in Our Clothes Are Polluting the Bay | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>One of the major sources of microplastic pollution in the San Francisco Bay comes from something you might not expect: our laundry. Turns out, our clothes shed thousands of fibers every time they’re washed. And in our synthetic clothes, those fibers are made of plastic. They slough off of the fleece jackets, athletic clothes, and even jeggings that make life in this land of microclimates a little more comfortable.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">‘These fibers are a bit longer, and they’re loopy, and they can get caught in the digestive tract or in the stomach. They can cause an animal to starve or stop eating.’\u003ccite>Chelsea Rochman, UC Davis\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Microplastics—which are plastic fragments, pellets, and films smaller than 0.2 inches—raise concerns because they become a magnet for the chemicals that linger in our water: pesticides, flame retardants, even the DDT that was banned decades ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Perhaps the best-known culprit, the plastic microbead found in personal care products, has been banned—first in \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/10/08/governor-signs-23-enviro-bills-including-microbead-ban/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">California\u003c/a> and New York, and then federally in an \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/23/science/ban-on-microbeads-proves-easy-to-pass-through-pipeline.html?_r=0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">impressively swift time period\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But microfibers present a unique threat, and the solution is far less clear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Tiny, Contaminated Ropes\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Regional Monitoring Program for Water Quality in San Francisco Bay tested the effluent of eight wastewater treatment plants last year and \u003ca href=\"http://www.sfei.org/microplasticfacts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">found\u003c/a> that 80 percent of the microplastics and other microscopic particles were fibers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is unclear what proportion of these fibers were synthetic or natural—synthetic fibers like polyester or acrylic are categorized as “microplastics” and, like other microplastics, do not break down in the water. But, plastic or not, the microfibers are a cause for concern. Once they enter the water, they can absorb chemicals and might work their way up the food chain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”ba2ASsZ8eqj98efYVzXMGyqbwXXXxZdW”]Most of the animals in the water are tiny. They also evolved in a world where they haven’t had to distinguish between a nutritious piece of plankton and a contaminant-laden plastic pellet. These animals mistake small manmade particles for food, potentially allowing contaminants to accumulate as they make their way from the base of the food web to the apex predator: humans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And the fibers are, indeed, working their way into our marine food chain. When UC Davis researchers looked into the guts of fish from a market in Half Moon Bay, \u003ca href=\"http://www.nature.com/articles/srep14340\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">they found\u003c/a> that 25 percent of the fish were carrying\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>manmade debris; fibers made up 80 percent of this debris. Fibers were also found in one-third of the oysters the researchers studied.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Microfibers are unique among marine debris for two reasons. The first is their shape; most microplastics exist as small spheres or fragments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These fibers are a bit longer, and they’re loopy, and they can get caught in the digestive tract or in the stomach,” says Chelsea Rochman, the lead scientist behind the UC Davis study. “They can cause an animal to starve or stop eating, or can actually loop around the organ.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Think about the large sources of plastic pollution you hear about—the buoys, nets, or fishing lines that entangle sea turtles or whales. Microfibers are essentially the shrunken-down version of this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So you could say a whale with a big rope isn’t that different from plankton with a small fiber,” Rochman says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_884447\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-884447 size-medium\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/07/iStock_12769961_LARGE-800x535.jpg\" alt=\"Plastic fibers are released from synthetic clothes every time they are washed, and likely make their way into the marine food web.\" width=\"800\" height=\"535\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/07/iStock_12769961_LARGE-800x535.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/07/iStock_12769961_LARGE-400x268.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/07/iStock_12769961_LARGE-768x514.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/07/iStock_12769961_LARGE-1440x964.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/07/iStock_12769961_LARGE-1920x1285.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/07/iStock_12769961_LARGE-1180x790.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/07/iStock_12769961_LARGE-960x643.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Plastic fibers are released from synthetic clothes every time they are washed, and likely make their way into the marine food web. \u003ccite>(iStock)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The second unique trait of fibers is their history. Clothes are often treated with chemicals throughout the manufacturing process. When their fibers enter our waterways, they attract the water’s long-lingering chemicals on top of the chemicals they arrived with. This might sound like a lot for one little thread to handle, but its surface-area-to-mass ratio makes it really good at absorbing things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Where Are These Fibers Coming From?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We are tied to synthetic clothing, says Stiv Wilson of the \u003ca href=\"http://storyofstuff.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Story of Stuff\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you go to Marin and look at 90 percent of people dressed there, they’re wearing active clothing meant for sports or that sort of thing,” Wilson says. “These are all polluting textiles, essentially, and it’s really hard for manufacturers to find a replacement because of the performance attributes of the fabric itself.”\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">‘Are the toxins leaching out in the gut and getting into the flesh of the fish? And are they getting in in high enough concentrations that they’re a human health risk?\u003ccite>Susan Williams, UC Davis\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Every time a fleece jacket is washed, it releases hundreds, if not thousands, of fibers. The amount of plastic released by the laundering of 100,000 fleece jackets is equivalent to up to 11,900 plastic grocery bags, according to a \u003ca href=\"http://brenmicroplastics.weebly.com/project-findings.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">study\u003c/a> from the UC Santa Barbara Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, commissioned by Patagonia itself earlier this summer. And standard washing machines don’t have filters to catch these fibers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once they escape from our laundry, the tiny, mobile threads work their way to our wastewater treatment plants. Here is where the journey becomes unclear, and where wastewater treatment agencies are working to learn more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of the fibers might be captured by current methods. But this might create a problem in itself, says Wilson, in cases when the solid material that is separated out during treatment gets applied to the land as fertilizers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So we’re also looking at corrupting soil,” he says, “and eventually creating fiber runoff into watersheds.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Threading Together a Solution\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Patagonia was the first company to take a look at its own manufacturing practices in response to microfiber pollution. After commissioning the UC Santa Barbara study, the company informed its customers about the issue in a \u003ca href=\"http://www.patagonia.com/blog/2016/06/what-do-we-know-about-tiny-plastic-fibers-in-the-ocean/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">blog post\u003c/a> last month. One of the results presents an interesting conundrum to the company; Patagonia has encouraged customers to use their items for as long as possible, but older jackets were shown to shed more fibers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_883907\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-883907 size-medium\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/07/iStock_57061838_XXLARGE-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Fleece jackets release thousands of plastic fibers that, unlike plastic bags or bottles, are small enough for most animals to eat.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/07/iStock_57061838_XXLARGE-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/07/iStock_57061838_XXLARGE-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/07/iStock_57061838_XXLARGE-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/07/iStock_57061838_XXLARGE-1440x960.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/07/iStock_57061838_XXLARGE-1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/07/iStock_57061838_XXLARGE-1180x787.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/07/iStock_57061838_XXLARGE-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Fleece jackets release thousands of plastic fibers that, unlike plastic bags or bottles, are small enough for most animals to eat. \u003ccite>(iStock)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The company did find one straightforward solution: front-loading washing machines shed less fibers than top-loading. Chelsea Rochman echoed this, recommending that concerned consumers use front-loading machines, wash synthetic clothes less often, and encourage appliance manufacturers to put a filter on washing machines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Area wastewater treatment plants are now focused on understanding the extent of the microfiber loads. “This is a stepwise type of effort to figure out—very importantly—what are the loads, where are the loads coming from, how detrimental are the loads?” says David Williams of the Bay Area Clean Water Agencies (BACWA).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We also don’t know whether there’s an actual risk to humans. The UC Davis study found fibers in oysters, which we eat whole. But the only part of the fish they examined was the digestive system—not a part that Californians generally eat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Are the toxins leaching out in the gut and getting into the flesh of the fish?” asks Susan Williams, another UC Davis researcher. “And are they getting in in high enough concentrations that they’re a human health risk?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One first step, says David Williams, is to understand just how many of the fibers found in the Bay are, in fact, synthetic. BACWA’s lab team has “been working for several months now on developing more robust protocols” in order to make the distinction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At the end of the day,” he says, “everyone is on the same page about keeping our Bay clean.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even if it means taking a long, hard look at our layers.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "The ban on microbeads targeted one type of plastic pollution, but microfibers can't be cleaned up by a simple ban.",
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"title": "Microfibers: How the Tiny Threads in Our Clothes Are Polluting the Bay | KQED",
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"headline": "Microfibers: How the Tiny Threads in Our Clothes Are Polluting the Bay",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>One of the major sources of microplastic pollution in the San Francisco Bay comes from something you might not expect: our laundry. Turns out, our clothes shed thousands of fibers every time they’re washed. And in our synthetic clothes, those fibers are made of plastic. They slough off of the fleece jackets, athletic clothes, and even jeggings that make life in this land of microclimates a little more comfortable.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">‘These fibers are a bit longer, and they’re loopy, and they can get caught in the digestive tract or in the stomach. They can cause an animal to starve or stop eating.’\u003ccite>Chelsea Rochman, UC Davis\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Microplastics—which are plastic fragments, pellets, and films smaller than 0.2 inches—raise concerns because they become a magnet for the chemicals that linger in our water: pesticides, flame retardants, even the DDT that was banned decades ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Perhaps the best-known culprit, the plastic microbead found in personal care products, has been banned—first in \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/10/08/governor-signs-23-enviro-bills-including-microbead-ban/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">California\u003c/a> and New York, and then federally in an \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/23/science/ban-on-microbeads-proves-easy-to-pass-through-pipeline.html?_r=0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">impressively swift time period\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But microfibers present a unique threat, and the solution is far less clear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Tiny, Contaminated Ropes\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Regional Monitoring Program for Water Quality in San Francisco Bay tested the effluent of eight wastewater treatment plants last year and \u003ca href=\"http://www.sfei.org/microplasticfacts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">found\u003c/a> that 80 percent of the microplastics and other microscopic particles were fibers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is unclear what proportion of these fibers were synthetic or natural—synthetic fibers like polyester or acrylic are categorized as “microplastics” and, like other microplastics, do not break down in the water. But, plastic or not, the microfibers are a cause for concern. Once they enter the water, they can absorb chemicals and might work their way up the food chain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>Most of the animals in the water are tiny. They also evolved in a world where they haven’t had to distinguish between a nutritious piece of plankton and a contaminant-laden plastic pellet. These animals mistake small manmade particles for food, potentially allowing contaminants to accumulate as they make their way from the base of the food web to the apex predator: humans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And the fibers are, indeed, working their way into our marine food chain. When UC Davis researchers looked into the guts of fish from a market in Half Moon Bay, \u003ca href=\"http://www.nature.com/articles/srep14340\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">they found\u003c/a> that 25 percent of the fish were carrying\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>manmade debris; fibers made up 80 percent of this debris. Fibers were also found in one-third of the oysters the researchers studied.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Microfibers are unique among marine debris for two reasons. The first is their shape; most microplastics exist as small spheres or fragments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These fibers are a bit longer, and they’re loopy, and they can get caught in the digestive tract or in the stomach,” says Chelsea Rochman, the lead scientist behind the UC Davis study. “They can cause an animal to starve or stop eating, or can actually loop around the organ.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Think about the large sources of plastic pollution you hear about—the buoys, nets, or fishing lines that entangle sea turtles or whales. Microfibers are essentially the shrunken-down version of this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So you could say a whale with a big rope isn’t that different from plankton with a small fiber,” Rochman says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_884447\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-884447 size-medium\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/07/iStock_12769961_LARGE-800x535.jpg\" alt=\"Plastic fibers are released from synthetic clothes every time they are washed, and likely make their way into the marine food web.\" width=\"800\" height=\"535\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/07/iStock_12769961_LARGE-800x535.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/07/iStock_12769961_LARGE-400x268.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/07/iStock_12769961_LARGE-768x514.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/07/iStock_12769961_LARGE-1440x964.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/07/iStock_12769961_LARGE-1920x1285.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/07/iStock_12769961_LARGE-1180x790.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/07/iStock_12769961_LARGE-960x643.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Plastic fibers are released from synthetic clothes every time they are washed, and likely make their way into the marine food web. \u003ccite>(iStock)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The second unique trait of fibers is their history. Clothes are often treated with chemicals throughout the manufacturing process. When their fibers enter our waterways, they attract the water’s long-lingering chemicals on top of the chemicals they arrived with. This might sound like a lot for one little thread to handle, but its surface-area-to-mass ratio makes it really good at absorbing things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Where Are These Fibers Coming From?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We are tied to synthetic clothing, says Stiv Wilson of the \u003ca href=\"http://storyofstuff.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Story of Stuff\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you go to Marin and look at 90 percent of people dressed there, they’re wearing active clothing meant for sports or that sort of thing,” Wilson says. “These are all polluting textiles, essentially, and it’s really hard for manufacturers to find a replacement because of the performance attributes of the fabric itself.”\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">‘Are the toxins leaching out in the gut and getting into the flesh of the fish? And are they getting in in high enough concentrations that they’re a human health risk?\u003ccite>Susan Williams, UC Davis\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Every time a fleece jacket is washed, it releases hundreds, if not thousands, of fibers. The amount of plastic released by the laundering of 100,000 fleece jackets is equivalent to up to 11,900 plastic grocery bags, according to a \u003ca href=\"http://brenmicroplastics.weebly.com/project-findings.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">study\u003c/a> from the UC Santa Barbara Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, commissioned by Patagonia itself earlier this summer. And standard washing machines don’t have filters to catch these fibers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once they escape from our laundry, the tiny, mobile threads work their way to our wastewater treatment plants. Here is where the journey becomes unclear, and where wastewater treatment agencies are working to learn more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of the fibers might be captured by current methods. But this might create a problem in itself, says Wilson, in cases when the solid material that is separated out during treatment gets applied to the land as fertilizers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So we’re also looking at corrupting soil,” he says, “and eventually creating fiber runoff into watersheds.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Threading Together a Solution\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Patagonia was the first company to take a look at its own manufacturing practices in response to microfiber pollution. After commissioning the UC Santa Barbara study, the company informed its customers about the issue in a \u003ca href=\"http://www.patagonia.com/blog/2016/06/what-do-we-know-about-tiny-plastic-fibers-in-the-ocean/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">blog post\u003c/a> last month. One of the results presents an interesting conundrum to the company; Patagonia has encouraged customers to use their items for as long as possible, but older jackets were shown to shed more fibers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_883907\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-883907 size-medium\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/07/iStock_57061838_XXLARGE-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Fleece jackets release thousands of plastic fibers that, unlike plastic bags or bottles, are small enough for most animals to eat.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/07/iStock_57061838_XXLARGE-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/07/iStock_57061838_XXLARGE-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/07/iStock_57061838_XXLARGE-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/07/iStock_57061838_XXLARGE-1440x960.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/07/iStock_57061838_XXLARGE-1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/07/iStock_57061838_XXLARGE-1180x787.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/07/iStock_57061838_XXLARGE-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Fleece jackets release thousands of plastic fibers that, unlike plastic bags or bottles, are small enough for most animals to eat. \u003ccite>(iStock)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The company did find one straightforward solution: front-loading washing machines shed less fibers than top-loading. Chelsea Rochman echoed this, recommending that concerned consumers use front-loading machines, wash synthetic clothes less often, and encourage appliance manufacturers to put a filter on washing machines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Area wastewater treatment plants are now focused on understanding the extent of the microfiber loads. “This is a stepwise type of effort to figure out—very importantly—what are the loads, where are the loads coming from, how detrimental are the loads?” says David Williams of the Bay Area Clean Water Agencies (BACWA).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We also don’t know whether there’s an actual risk to humans. The UC Davis study found fibers in oysters, which we eat whole. But the only part of the fish they examined was the digestive system—not a part that Californians generally eat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Are the toxins leaching out in the gut and getting into the flesh of the fish?” asks Susan Williams, another UC Davis researcher. “And are they getting in in high enough concentrations that they’re a human health risk?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One first step, says David Williams, is to understand just how many of the fibers found in the Bay are, in fact, synthetic. BACWA’s lab team has “been working for several months now on developing more robust protocols” in order to make the distinction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At the end of the day,” he says, “everyone is on the same page about keeping our Bay clean.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Oyster Archaeology: Ancient Trash Holds Clues to Sustainable Harvesting",
"headTitle": "Oyster Archaeology: Ancient Trash Holds Clues to Sustainable Harvesting | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Times are tough for Chesapeake oysters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For one thing, they used to be bigger. “If you look at what people were saying back in the 1600s and 1700s about oysters, people had to cut them in half before they could even eat them,” says \u003ca href=\"http://www.serc.si.edu/labs/estuarine_ecology/\">Denise Breitburg\u003c/a>, an ecologist with the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What’s more, these oyster behemoths were so plentiful that they formed tall towers stretching up to the water’s surface. But today, after decades of overfishing, oyster populations in Maryland’s waters have dropped to 1 percent of what they were around 1900.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To see how much the population has changed over the years, Breitburg and other biologists and archaeologists undertook the largest survey to date of any shellfishery, chronicling the Chesapeake Bay’s oyster population from almost 800,000 years ago to the present day. The researchers were surprised to find thousands of years during which oyster populations stayed stable – the era of Native Americans. The stability suggests Native Americans figured out how to farm oysters sustainably, and their techniques could help support our oyster habit today, according to a \u003ca href=\"http://www.pnas.org/content/113/23/6568\">study\u003c/a> published earlier this summer in the \u003cem>Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The archaeologists began by studying Native American trash pits, which speckle the Chesapeake Bay coast and are full of oyster shells.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_882107\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-882107\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/oyster2_enl-f5b5fffb0cac7dd109c2dd8b1cdb2b41ef1d1144.jpg\" alt=\"Members of the research team, Sean McCanty and Courtney Hofman, excavate an ancient oyster shell midden at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Edgewater, Md.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1613\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/oyster2_enl-f5b5fffb0cac7dd109c2dd8b1cdb2b41ef1d1144.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/oyster2_enl-f5b5fffb0cac7dd109c2dd8b1cdb2b41ef1d1144-400x323.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/oyster2_enl-f5b5fffb0cac7dd109c2dd8b1cdb2b41ef1d1144-800x645.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/oyster2_enl-f5b5fffb0cac7dd109c2dd8b1cdb2b41ef1d1144-768x619.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/oyster2_enl-f5b5fffb0cac7dd109c2dd8b1cdb2b41ef1d1144-1440x1161.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/oyster2_enl-f5b5fffb0cac7dd109c2dd8b1cdb2b41ef1d1144-1920x1548.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/oyster2_enl-f5b5fffb0cac7dd109c2dd8b1cdb2b41ef1d1144-1180x952.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/oyster2_enl-f5b5fffb0cac7dd109c2dd8b1cdb2b41ef1d1144-960x774.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Members of the research team, Sean McCanty and Courtney Hofman, excavate an ancient oyster shell midden at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Edgewater, Md. \u003ccite>(Torben Rick/Smithsonian Institution)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>By using radio carbon dating, researchers found the oldest trash pit surveyed to be 3,200 years old, and the most recent to date no later than 1900. Next they measured the height of each oyster as a proxy for past human pressure on oysters. (Humans tend to harvest bigger oysters first, so if the average oyster size is smaller, it likely means that oysters were being harvested too fast for many of them to reach a large size and produce a lot of baby oysters.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The scientists rounded the survey out by examining oyster size from fossils hundreds of thousands of years old and by analyzing harvest numbers from the 20th and 21st centuries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The scale of the data set is massive. To my knowledge, it’s unparalleled,” says environmental archaeologist \u003ca href=\"http://anthropology.uga.edu/directory/victor-thompson\">Victor Thompson\u003c/a> of the University of Georgia, who was not involved in the study.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The team found oysters were bigger hundreds of thousands of years ago than during the time of humans, but no decrease in oyster size happened during the time of prehistoric Native Americans, from roughly 3,200 to 400 years ago. This suggests the oyster population wasn’t under increasing pressure as Native Americans harvested them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_882108\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-882108\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/oyster3_enl-bf3013f8befd28859bf8e977dd9e44d0c63202cf.jpg\" alt=\"Torben Rick, an anthropologist at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History and lead author of the research, examines a 1,500-year-old oyster shell in the museum's collection.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1589\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/oyster3_enl-bf3013f8befd28859bf8e977dd9e44d0c63202cf.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/oyster3_enl-bf3013f8befd28859bf8e977dd9e44d0c63202cf-400x318.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/oyster3_enl-bf3013f8befd28859bf8e977dd9e44d0c63202cf-800x636.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/oyster3_enl-bf3013f8befd28859bf8e977dd9e44d0c63202cf-768x610.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/oyster3_enl-bf3013f8befd28859bf8e977dd9e44d0c63202cf-1440x1144.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/oyster3_enl-bf3013f8befd28859bf8e977dd9e44d0c63202cf-1920x1525.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/oyster3_enl-bf3013f8befd28859bf8e977dd9e44d0c63202cf-1180x938.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/oyster3_enl-bf3013f8befd28859bf8e977dd9e44d0c63202cf-960x763.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Torben Rick, an anthropologist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and lead author of the research, examines a 1,500-year-old oyster shell in the museum’s collection. \u003ccite>(John Gibbons/Smithsonian Institution)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A relatively low number of humans partially explains the limited pressure on oysters during this period, says lead author \u003ca href=\"http://anthropology.si.edu/archaeobio/rick.html\">Torben Rick\u003c/a> of the Smithsonian Institution. But he said Native Americans also seem to have relied on sustainable fishing techniques. Thanks to technological limitations, Native Americans generally fished close to shore, giving oysters in deep water a safe space to grow and reproduce. Native Americans also may have harvested oysters from different areas seasonally, and the rotation gave sites time to recover.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So what happened since the time of Native American harvesting?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Oyster specialist Stephanie Westby of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Chesapeake office blames pollution, overfishing and dredging – a fishing practice that rips up the water’s bottom and leaves mud, where oysters can’t attach easily to make homes. Without oysters to filter tiny organisms in the water, the water quality suffers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Native American practices, according to Rick, underscore the importance of sanctuaries today. Establishing refuges can be controversial, since fishers rely on oysters for their livelihood, but Rick says well-placed refuges could boost oyster populations for everyone, including fishers. “Ultimately, it’s about rethinking our oyster strategy so we can have our cake and eat it too,” says Rick. “We don’t want to alienate anyone. This doesn’t need to pit biologists against fishermen.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some areas are already establishing refuges. In 2014, \u003ca href=\"http://www.chesapeakebay.net/documents/FINAL_Ches_Bay_Watershed_Agreement.withsignatures-HIres.pdf\">the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement\u003c/a> set the goal to restore oyster populations in 10 tributaries by 2025. Now there are \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129037024\">sanctuaries\u003c/a> in Virginia and Maryland especially for oysters, Westby says, and hatcheries are producing \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/07/16/202718742/can-oysters-with-no-sex-life-repopulate-the-chesapeake-bay\">young oysters to be transplanted\u003c/a> to wild oyster reefs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s also a new source of oysters that Native Americans didn’t have – farming. Michael Hild owns Anderson’s Neck Oyster Company, which is currently farming 6 million oysters. “Not only are you taking pressure off of the wild stock that remain in the Chesapeake Bay,” says Hild, “but the farmed oysters that you place in the water are making water cleaner.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rick says he hopes archaeology can help uncover more about the history of other fisheries, like blue crab. “The past isn’t something we can recreate or return to,” Rick admits, “but it just gives us much more information to work with.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Oyster+Archaeology%3A+Ancient+Trash+Holds+Clues+To+Sustainable+Harvesting&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Modern-day oyster populations in the Chesapeake are dwindling, but a multi-millennia archaeological survey shows that wasn't always the case. Native Americans harvested the shellfish sustainably.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Times are tough for Chesapeake oysters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For one thing, they used to be bigger. “If you look at what people were saying back in the 1600s and 1700s about oysters, people had to cut them in half before they could even eat them,” says \u003ca href=\"http://www.serc.si.edu/labs/estuarine_ecology/\">Denise Breitburg\u003c/a>, an ecologist with the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What’s more, these oyster behemoths were so plentiful that they formed tall towers stretching up to the water’s surface. But today, after decades of overfishing, oyster populations in Maryland’s waters have dropped to 1 percent of what they were around 1900.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To see how much the population has changed over the years, Breitburg and other biologists and archaeologists undertook the largest survey to date of any shellfishery, chronicling the Chesapeake Bay’s oyster population from almost 800,000 years ago to the present day. The researchers were surprised to find thousands of years during which oyster populations stayed stable – the era of Native Americans. The stability suggests Native Americans figured out how to farm oysters sustainably, and their techniques could help support our oyster habit today, according to a \u003ca href=\"http://www.pnas.org/content/113/23/6568\">study\u003c/a> published earlier this summer in the \u003cem>Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The archaeologists began by studying Native American trash pits, which speckle the Chesapeake Bay coast and are full of oyster shells.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_882107\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-882107\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/oyster2_enl-f5b5fffb0cac7dd109c2dd8b1cdb2b41ef1d1144.jpg\" alt=\"Members of the research team, Sean McCanty and Courtney Hofman, excavate an ancient oyster shell midden at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Edgewater, Md.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1613\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/oyster2_enl-f5b5fffb0cac7dd109c2dd8b1cdb2b41ef1d1144.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/oyster2_enl-f5b5fffb0cac7dd109c2dd8b1cdb2b41ef1d1144-400x323.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/oyster2_enl-f5b5fffb0cac7dd109c2dd8b1cdb2b41ef1d1144-800x645.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/oyster2_enl-f5b5fffb0cac7dd109c2dd8b1cdb2b41ef1d1144-768x619.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/oyster2_enl-f5b5fffb0cac7dd109c2dd8b1cdb2b41ef1d1144-1440x1161.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/oyster2_enl-f5b5fffb0cac7dd109c2dd8b1cdb2b41ef1d1144-1920x1548.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/oyster2_enl-f5b5fffb0cac7dd109c2dd8b1cdb2b41ef1d1144-1180x952.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/oyster2_enl-f5b5fffb0cac7dd109c2dd8b1cdb2b41ef1d1144-960x774.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Members of the research team, Sean McCanty and Courtney Hofman, excavate an ancient oyster shell midden at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Edgewater, Md. \u003ccite>(Torben Rick/Smithsonian Institution)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>By using radio carbon dating, researchers found the oldest trash pit surveyed to be 3,200 years old, and the most recent to date no later than 1900. Next they measured the height of each oyster as a proxy for past human pressure on oysters. (Humans tend to harvest bigger oysters first, so if the average oyster size is smaller, it likely means that oysters were being harvested too fast for many of them to reach a large size and produce a lot of baby oysters.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The scientists rounded the survey out by examining oyster size from fossils hundreds of thousands of years old and by analyzing harvest numbers from the 20th and 21st centuries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The scale of the data set is massive. To my knowledge, it’s unparalleled,” says environmental archaeologist \u003ca href=\"http://anthropology.uga.edu/directory/victor-thompson\">Victor Thompson\u003c/a> of the University of Georgia, who was not involved in the study.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The team found oysters were bigger hundreds of thousands of years ago than during the time of humans, but no decrease in oyster size happened during the time of prehistoric Native Americans, from roughly 3,200 to 400 years ago. This suggests the oyster population wasn’t under increasing pressure as Native Americans harvested them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_882108\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-882108\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/oyster3_enl-bf3013f8befd28859bf8e977dd9e44d0c63202cf.jpg\" alt=\"Torben Rick, an anthropologist at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History and lead author of the research, examines a 1,500-year-old oyster shell in the museum's collection.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1589\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/oyster3_enl-bf3013f8befd28859bf8e977dd9e44d0c63202cf.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/oyster3_enl-bf3013f8befd28859bf8e977dd9e44d0c63202cf-400x318.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/oyster3_enl-bf3013f8befd28859bf8e977dd9e44d0c63202cf-800x636.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/oyster3_enl-bf3013f8befd28859bf8e977dd9e44d0c63202cf-768x610.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/oyster3_enl-bf3013f8befd28859bf8e977dd9e44d0c63202cf-1440x1144.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/oyster3_enl-bf3013f8befd28859bf8e977dd9e44d0c63202cf-1920x1525.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/oyster3_enl-bf3013f8befd28859bf8e977dd9e44d0c63202cf-1180x938.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/oyster3_enl-bf3013f8befd28859bf8e977dd9e44d0c63202cf-960x763.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Torben Rick, an anthropologist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and lead author of the research, examines a 1,500-year-old oyster shell in the museum’s collection. \u003ccite>(John Gibbons/Smithsonian Institution)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A relatively low number of humans partially explains the limited pressure on oysters during this period, says lead author \u003ca href=\"http://anthropology.si.edu/archaeobio/rick.html\">Torben Rick\u003c/a> of the Smithsonian Institution. But he said Native Americans also seem to have relied on sustainable fishing techniques. Thanks to technological limitations, Native Americans generally fished close to shore, giving oysters in deep water a safe space to grow and reproduce. Native Americans also may have harvested oysters from different areas seasonally, and the rotation gave sites time to recover.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So what happened since the time of Native American harvesting?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Oyster specialist Stephanie Westby of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Chesapeake office blames pollution, overfishing and dredging – a fishing practice that rips up the water’s bottom and leaves mud, where oysters can’t attach easily to make homes. Without oysters to filter tiny organisms in the water, the water quality suffers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Native American practices, according to Rick, underscore the importance of sanctuaries today. Establishing refuges can be controversial, since fishers rely on oysters for their livelihood, but Rick says well-placed refuges could boost oyster populations for everyone, including fishers. “Ultimately, it’s about rethinking our oyster strategy so we can have our cake and eat it too,” says Rick. “We don’t want to alienate anyone. This doesn’t need to pit biologists against fishermen.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some areas are already establishing refuges. In 2014, \u003ca href=\"http://www.chesapeakebay.net/documents/FINAL_Ches_Bay_Watershed_Agreement.withsignatures-HIres.pdf\">the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement\u003c/a> set the goal to restore oyster populations in 10 tributaries by 2025. Now there are \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129037024\">sanctuaries\u003c/a> in Virginia and Maryland especially for oysters, Westby says, and hatcheries are producing \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/07/16/202718742/can-oysters-with-no-sex-life-repopulate-the-chesapeake-bay\">young oysters to be transplanted\u003c/a> to wild oyster reefs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s also a new source of oysters that Native Americans didn’t have – farming. Michael Hild owns Anderson’s Neck Oyster Company, which is currently farming 6 million oysters. “Not only are you taking pressure off of the wild stock that remain in the Chesapeake Bay,” says Hild, “but the farmed oysters that you place in the water are making water cleaner.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rick says he hopes archaeology can help uncover more about the history of other fisheries, like blue crab. “The past isn’t something we can recreate or return to,” Rick admits, “but it just gives us much more information to work with.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Oyster+Archaeology%3A+Ancient+Trash+Holds+Clues+To+Sustainable+Harvesting&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Oceans Eating Away at Yet Another Part of Antarctica",
"headTitle": "Oceans Eating Away at Yet Another Part of Antarctica | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>The Antarctic Peninsula is one of the fastest warming spots on the planet, and it was thought that the rising air temperature was driving the melt of the glaciers along its fringes. But it is actually warm ocean waters that are \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/look-out-below-antarctic-melting-from-underneath-16128\">eating away at the ice\u003c/a> along part of its western side, a group of scientists reported Thursday in the \u003ca href=\"http://science.sciencemag.org/cgi/doi/10.1126/science.aae0017\">journal Science\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">‘Ice losses from around Antarctica owe as much to warmer ocean temperatures … as to rises in air temperature.’\u003ccite>Robert Bingham, University of Edinburgh\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>The study adds to a spate of research in the last few years that have pointed the finger at warm ocean currents as the key culprit in undercutting the glaciers that serve as doorstops to Antarctica’s massive ice sheets. As those glaciers wilt away, the land-bound ice behind them can \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/antarctic-ice-shelves-shrinking-19015\">flow faster to the sea\u003c/a>, with the potential to significantly raise global sea levels. Coastal areas around the world will be swamped, putting millions of people and billions of dollars of infrastructure in peril.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Now we know that ocean warming is not only affecting the large ice streams and ice shelves of West Antarctica, but also the small glaciers of the separate Antarctic Peninsula ice sheet,” study co-author \u003ca href=\"https://www.dur.ac.uk/geography/staff/geogstaffhidden/?id=14129\">Alison Cook\u003c/a> said in an email. “Understanding this link will improve predictions of sea level rise.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>‘Striking Similarity’\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the rest of the continent’s coastline features vast rivers of ice that flow to the sea, the west side of the Antarctic Peninsula is made up of “over 600 small glaciers of varying shapes and sizes,” Cook, a glaciologist at Durham University in England, said, few of which had been studied in any detail.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The peninsula — an arm of land that stretches up from the rest of Antarctica toward the southern tip of South America — has warmed\u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/soaring-temperatures-in-west-antarctica-could-destabilize-ice-15409\"> about 5°F (2.8°C) in the past 50 years\u003c/a>. Unsurprisingly, the region has seen considerable ice melt, and that melt was blamed on the \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/antarctica-record-high-temp-bodes-ill-for-ice-18840\">surging air temperatures\u003c/a> driven by \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/antarctica-record-high-temp-bodes-ill-for-ice-18840\">the broader warming\u003c/a> of the planet’s atmosphere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was clear that there was a distinct pattern of melt from north to south, though. In the northwest, the region of the largest air temperature increase, the glaciers paradoxically seemed fairly stable, while in the cooler southwest there had been considerable retreat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cook and her colleagues looked at ocean temperatures along the west coast of the peninsula and found a pattern of temperatures at mid-ocean depths that mirrored what was happening to the glaciers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The more we studied this, the more it became apparent that this followed a striking similarity to the glacier retreat rates,” Cook said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the southern end of the western side of the peninsula, warm Circumpolar Deep Water that has welled up meets the glaciers and wears away at their fronts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the northern end of the peninsula, the glaciers terminate in colder waters that come from a different source, keeping the fronts of those glaciers much more stable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is a great study with convincing evidence that the northern and southern west coast of AP (Antarctic Peninsula) have very different oceanic regimes and the correspondence with the pattern of glacier retreat is undeniably strong,” Eric Rignot, a NASA glaciologist said in an email.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>More Measurements Needed\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The same Circumpolar Deep Water implicated in the new study is thought to be eroding glaciers elsewhere along the West Antarctic coast, including an adjacent area of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/overlooked-area-antarctica-major-ice-loss-20408\">Bellingshausen Sea coast\u003c/a> where a recent study suggested melt had been happening for much longer than previously thought.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This study underscores what many of us in the scientific community have been suggesting for some time, namely that ice losses from around Antarctica owe as much to warmer ocean temperatures reaching parts of Antarctica’s coastline as to rises in air temperature,” \u003ca href=\"http://www.geos.ed.ac.uk/homes/rbingha2/\">Robert Bingham\u003c/a>, a glaciologist at the University of Edinburgh, said in an email. Bingham, who led the Bellingshausen Sea study, was not part of the new research.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the glaciers along the Antarctic Peninsula are much smaller than those in the Bellingshausen Area, or the Amundsen Sea Embayment, where some of the fastest-slowing and retreating glaciers are found, their potential to contribute to sea level rise cannot be discounted. While they make up only 4 percent of Antarctica’s total ice sheet area, they have accounted for about 25 percent of its mass loss.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The AP ice sheet is one of the largest current contributors to sea level rise and as the glaciers here are highly sensitive to changes in the environment they are key indicators of how the ice will respond to future changes,” Cook said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The study’s findings lay bare the need for better understanding and monitoring of both Antarctica’s glaciers and the oceans lapping at them, Bingham and Rignot said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our ultimate aim must be to predict how ocean-driven ice losses from Antarctica will impact upon global sea level rise,” Bingham said. “To provide such predictions, it’s clear that we need a far better understanding of ice-ocean interactions all around the fringes of Antarctica, and in particular to monitor changes occurring in the ice at the same time as changes in the ocean.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Climate Central\u003c/span>\u003c/a> \u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">is an independent organization that researches and reports on climate change.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The Antarctic Peninsula is one of the fastest warming spots on the planet, and it was thought that the rising air temperature was driving the melt of the glaciers along its fringes. But it is actually warm ocean waters that are \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/look-out-below-antarctic-melting-from-underneath-16128\">eating away at the ice\u003c/a> along part of its western side, a group of scientists reported Thursday in the \u003ca href=\"http://science.sciencemag.org/cgi/doi/10.1126/science.aae0017\">journal Science\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">‘Ice losses from around Antarctica owe as much to warmer ocean temperatures … as to rises in air temperature.’\u003ccite>Robert Bingham, University of Edinburgh\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>The study adds to a spate of research in the last few years that have pointed the finger at warm ocean currents as the key culprit in undercutting the glaciers that serve as doorstops to Antarctica’s massive ice sheets. As those glaciers wilt away, the land-bound ice behind them can \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/antarctic-ice-shelves-shrinking-19015\">flow faster to the sea\u003c/a>, with the potential to significantly raise global sea levels. Coastal areas around the world will be swamped, putting millions of people and billions of dollars of infrastructure in peril.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Now we know that ocean warming is not only affecting the large ice streams and ice shelves of West Antarctica, but also the small glaciers of the separate Antarctic Peninsula ice sheet,” study co-author \u003ca href=\"https://www.dur.ac.uk/geography/staff/geogstaffhidden/?id=14129\">Alison Cook\u003c/a> said in an email. “Understanding this link will improve predictions of sea level rise.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>‘Striking Similarity’\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the rest of the continent’s coastline features vast rivers of ice that flow to the sea, the west side of the Antarctic Peninsula is made up of “over 600 small glaciers of varying shapes and sizes,” Cook, a glaciologist at Durham University in England, said, few of which had been studied in any detail.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The peninsula — an arm of land that stretches up from the rest of Antarctica toward the southern tip of South America — has warmed\u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/soaring-temperatures-in-west-antarctica-could-destabilize-ice-15409\"> about 5°F (2.8°C) in the past 50 years\u003c/a>. Unsurprisingly, the region has seen considerable ice melt, and that melt was blamed on the \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/antarctica-record-high-temp-bodes-ill-for-ice-18840\">surging air temperatures\u003c/a> driven by \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/antarctica-record-high-temp-bodes-ill-for-ice-18840\">the broader warming\u003c/a> of the planet’s atmosphere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was clear that there was a distinct pattern of melt from north to south, though. In the northwest, the region of the largest air temperature increase, the glaciers paradoxically seemed fairly stable, while in the cooler southwest there had been considerable retreat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cook and her colleagues looked at ocean temperatures along the west coast of the peninsula and found a pattern of temperatures at mid-ocean depths that mirrored what was happening to the glaciers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The more we studied this, the more it became apparent that this followed a striking similarity to the glacier retreat rates,” Cook said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the southern end of the western side of the peninsula, warm Circumpolar Deep Water that has welled up meets the glaciers and wears away at their fronts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the northern end of the peninsula, the glaciers terminate in colder waters that come from a different source, keeping the fronts of those glaciers much more stable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is a great study with convincing evidence that the northern and southern west coast of AP (Antarctic Peninsula) have very different oceanic regimes and the correspondence with the pattern of glacier retreat is undeniably strong,” Eric Rignot, a NASA glaciologist said in an email.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>More Measurements Needed\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The same Circumpolar Deep Water implicated in the new study is thought to be eroding glaciers elsewhere along the West Antarctic coast, including an adjacent area of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/overlooked-area-antarctica-major-ice-loss-20408\">Bellingshausen Sea coast\u003c/a> where a recent study suggested melt had been happening for much longer than previously thought.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This study underscores what many of us in the scientific community have been suggesting for some time, namely that ice losses from around Antarctica owe as much to warmer ocean temperatures reaching parts of Antarctica’s coastline as to rises in air temperature,” \u003ca href=\"http://www.geos.ed.ac.uk/homes/rbingha2/\">Robert Bingham\u003c/a>, a glaciologist at the University of Edinburgh, said in an email. Bingham, who led the Bellingshausen Sea study, was not part of the new research.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the glaciers along the Antarctic Peninsula are much smaller than those in the Bellingshausen Area, or the Amundsen Sea Embayment, where some of the fastest-slowing and retreating glaciers are found, their potential to contribute to sea level rise cannot be discounted. While they make up only 4 percent of Antarctica’s total ice sheet area, they have accounted for about 25 percent of its mass loss.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The AP ice sheet is one of the largest current contributors to sea level rise and as the glaciers here are highly sensitive to changes in the environment they are key indicators of how the ice will respond to future changes,” Cook said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The study’s findings lay bare the need for better understanding and monitoring of both Antarctica’s glaciers and the oceans lapping at them, Bingham and Rignot said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our ultimate aim must be to predict how ocean-driven ice losses from Antarctica will impact upon global sea level rise,” Bingham said. “To provide such predictions, it’s clear that we need a far better understanding of ice-ocean interactions all around the fringes of Antarctica, and in particular to monitor changes occurring in the ice at the same time as changes in the ocean.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Climate Central\u003c/span>\u003c/a> \u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">is an independent organization that researches and reports on climate change.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "A Marine Ecologist on Swimming With Sharks and What 'Jaws' Got Wrong",
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"content": "\u003cp>The first time he encountered a tiger shark in the water, marine ecologist Neil Hammerschlag was in the Bahamas conducting research. His team was on a boat and they hadn’t seen many sharks, so when someone yelled, “Tiger shark!” he grabbed his snorkel gear and camera and jumped into the water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One [tiger shark] moved right in toward me and came close,” Hammerschlag tells \u003cem>Fresh Air\u003c/em>‘s Dave Davies. “It opened its mouth, and I was looking through its mouth down its gut and seeing its gills from the inside.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The tiger shark passed by several times before swimming off. Hammerschlag says that tiger sharks, which can grow to more than 15 feet in length, have an inquisitive nature that sometimes leads to exploratory biting, and for most sharks, their interest ends there. “Humans are not on the shark’s menu,” the ecologist explains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Contrary to what popular movies like \u003cem>Jaws\u003c/em> would have audiences believe, Hammerschlag says that sharks pose only a very small risk to humans. In fact, we’re much more of a threat to sharks than they are to us. Hammerschlag estimates that \u003ca href=\"http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2013/03/01/100-million-sharks-killed-every-year-study-shows-on-eve-of-international-conference-on-shark-protection/\">100 million sharks are killed every year\u003c/a>, which, he says, is “not good for the functioning of marine ecosystems.”\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Interview Highlights\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On tiger sharks and exploratory biting\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These sharks are not afraid of anything, and they will come right in close. These individuals are built like tanks. They’re 10-plus feet. Some of them were easily over 14, 15 feet. They’ve got this impressive weaponry in terms of teeth, and they just don’t have this kind of self-awareness of being afraid. They’re very curious and inquisitive, and they’ll come right in. Sometimes they’ll bite you as exploration. They have a variety of senses including touch, and they don’t have fingertips like we do to feel things around — often they use their teeth to feel things. If they’re coming in to give you even an exploratory bite, that’s game over in the case of a tiger shark, so you have to be … totally aware and making sure that doesn’t happen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On what to do if you encounter a shark in the water\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sharks are ambush predators, so if you happen to see a shark, there’s a good chance that they’ve already seen you for a little while. And so, [in] most cases, they are going to not come very close. … In most instances, in order to get sharks close up, you have to bait them or kind of attract them in with minced fish. If that’s the case, they’re interested in finding that fish and eating that fish. So you just don’t want to get in the way of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I don’t think most people are going find a situation where they have to push away a shark, but if you do find yourself in a situation where you don’t feel comfortable with the shark, the best thing to do is \u003cem>not\u003c/em> to run away or swim away. That’s what their food does; their food runs away from them. The best thing to do is actually just approach them, maintain eye contact, and I wouldn’t try to touch them or push them unless they came within so close that that’s what they’re going to do to you. If they came to open their mouth, that might be a situation where it would probably be good to push them away. But probably the most important thing is just to maintain very strong eye contact with them and kind of follow them around. Usually they’re going to find that uncomfortable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On the chances of being attacked by a shark \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Where the [shark] movies get it wrong is that sharks don’t have any interest in humans as a food source. … There would be nothing easier for a shark than to kind of patrol the beaches during the summers and eat people if we were on the menu, because it would be a pretty easy thing to do. But the fact that [a] shark bite is so rare, and there are so many people in the water, just shows that we’re not on the menu.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On shark personalities\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the really neat things is, even within a species, to see how much individual differences there are in personality. There are sharks that are really shy, and there are others that are really bold, and it has nothing to do with their length. …\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are sharks that, for example — in Tiger Beach [in the Bahamas] — that I first dove with in 2003. And [I] have almost on an annual basis seen this shark over the years and have been diving with her up until today, and seen her put on 1,000 pounds in the process. You can see these really strong personalities where they come in really calm but very curious, and have an absolute, pretty strong personality. You can almost identify the individual just based on the way they’re moving in the water and the way they approach you. …\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s pretty cool to be able to jump in the water and say, “Hey look, there’s Emma the tiger shark!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On threats to the shark population, including shark-fin soup\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sharks are faced [with] a number of threats. They’re being faced [with] targeted fishing, in which sharks are being directly targeted and captured, mostly for their fins to actually make shark-fin soup, which is an Asian delicacy, particularly consumed in China and in the diaspora.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[Shark-fin soup] is mainly consumed as a cultural sign of wealth. It’s a long-held tradition. It has no color, no taste, no smell, in itself. In fact, to the soup itself has to be added chicken broth, beef or pork broth just to give it a taste. So it’s not consumed because of any nutritional value or any taste or anything like that; it’s consumed as a cultural sign of wealth. It’s tradition, and many people who consume shark-fin soup have no idea that it actually comes from sharks, or that sharks are in any trouble or are declining as a result.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On how he feels about the movie \u003cem>Jaws \u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s really unfortunate that that movie was made, because it demonized sharks. You know, people didn’t really care about sharks, it wasn’t on people’s consciousness, and now after that movie came out, there are a lot of people who kind of wanted to rid the ocean of sharks and thought that any good shark was a dead shark. And that couldn’t be further from the truth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2016 Fresh Air. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/\">Fresh Air\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=A+Marine+Ecologist+On+Swimming+With+Sharks+And+What+%27Jaws%27+Got+Wrong&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The first time he encountered a tiger shark in the water, marine ecologist Neil Hammerschlag was in the Bahamas conducting research. His team was on a boat and they hadn’t seen many sharks, so when someone yelled, “Tiger shark!” he grabbed his snorkel gear and camera and jumped into the water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One [tiger shark] moved right in toward me and came close,” Hammerschlag tells \u003cem>Fresh Air\u003c/em>‘s Dave Davies. “It opened its mouth, and I was looking through its mouth down its gut and seeing its gills from the inside.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The tiger shark passed by several times before swimming off. Hammerschlag says that tiger sharks, which can grow to more than 15 feet in length, have an inquisitive nature that sometimes leads to exploratory biting, and for most sharks, their interest ends there. “Humans are not on the shark’s menu,” the ecologist explains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Contrary to what popular movies like \u003cem>Jaws\u003c/em> would have audiences believe, Hammerschlag says that sharks pose only a very small risk to humans. In fact, we’re much more of a threat to sharks than they are to us. Hammerschlag estimates that \u003ca href=\"http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2013/03/01/100-million-sharks-killed-every-year-study-shows-on-eve-of-international-conference-on-shark-protection/\">100 million sharks are killed every year\u003c/a>, which, he says, is “not good for the functioning of marine ecosystems.”\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Interview Highlights\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On tiger sharks and exploratory biting\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These sharks are not afraid of anything, and they will come right in close. These individuals are built like tanks. They’re 10-plus feet. Some of them were easily over 14, 15 feet. They’ve got this impressive weaponry in terms of teeth, and they just don’t have this kind of self-awareness of being afraid. They’re very curious and inquisitive, and they’ll come right in. Sometimes they’ll bite you as exploration. They have a variety of senses including touch, and they don’t have fingertips like we do to feel things around — often they use their teeth to feel things. If they’re coming in to give you even an exploratory bite, that’s game over in the case of a tiger shark, so you have to be … totally aware and making sure that doesn’t happen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On what to do if you encounter a shark in the water\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sharks are ambush predators, so if you happen to see a shark, there’s a good chance that they’ve already seen you for a little while. And so, [in] most cases, they are going to not come very close. … In most instances, in order to get sharks close up, you have to bait them or kind of attract them in with minced fish. If that’s the case, they’re interested in finding that fish and eating that fish. So you just don’t want to get in the way of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I don’t think most people are going find a situation where they have to push away a shark, but if you do find yourself in a situation where you don’t feel comfortable with the shark, the best thing to do is \u003cem>not\u003c/em> to run away or swim away. That’s what their food does; their food runs away from them. The best thing to do is actually just approach them, maintain eye contact, and I wouldn’t try to touch them or push them unless they came within so close that that’s what they’re going to do to you. If they came to open their mouth, that might be a situation where it would probably be good to push them away. But probably the most important thing is just to maintain very strong eye contact with them and kind of follow them around. Usually they’re going to find that uncomfortable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On the chances of being attacked by a shark \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Where the [shark] movies get it wrong is that sharks don’t have any interest in humans as a food source. … There would be nothing easier for a shark than to kind of patrol the beaches during the summers and eat people if we were on the menu, because it would be a pretty easy thing to do. But the fact that [a] shark bite is so rare, and there are so many people in the water, just shows that we’re not on the menu.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On shark personalities\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the really neat things is, even within a species, to see how much individual differences there are in personality. There are sharks that are really shy, and there are others that are really bold, and it has nothing to do with their length. …\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are sharks that, for example — in Tiger Beach [in the Bahamas] — that I first dove with in 2003. And [I] have almost on an annual basis seen this shark over the years and have been diving with her up until today, and seen her put on 1,000 pounds in the process. You can see these really strong personalities where they come in really calm but very curious, and have an absolute, pretty strong personality. You can almost identify the individual just based on the way they’re moving in the water and the way they approach you. …\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s pretty cool to be able to jump in the water and say, “Hey look, there’s Emma the tiger shark!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On threats to the shark population, including shark-fin soup\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sharks are faced [with] a number of threats. They’re being faced [with] targeted fishing, in which sharks are being directly targeted and captured, mostly for their fins to actually make shark-fin soup, which is an Asian delicacy, particularly consumed in China and in the diaspora.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[Shark-fin soup] is mainly consumed as a cultural sign of wealth. It’s a long-held tradition. It has no color, no taste, no smell, in itself. In fact, to the soup itself has to be added chicken broth, beef or pork broth just to give it a taste. So it’s not consumed because of any nutritional value or any taste or anything like that; it’s consumed as a cultural sign of wealth. It’s tradition, and many people who consume shark-fin soup have no idea that it actually comes from sharks, or that sharks are in any trouble or are declining as a result.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On how he feels about the movie \u003cem>Jaws \u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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}
},
"baycurious": {
"id": "baycurious",
"title": "Bay Curious",
"tagline": "Exploring the Bay Area, one question at a time",
"info": "KQED’s new podcast, Bay Curious, gets to the bottom of the mysteries — both profound and peculiar — that give the Bay Area its unique identity. And we’ll do it with your help! You ask the questions. You decide what Bay Curious investigates. And you join us on the journey to find the answers.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Bay-Curious-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/news/series/baycurious",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 3
},
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"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/500557090/bay-curious",
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}
},
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"id": "bbc-world-service",
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"info": "The day's top stories from BBC News compiled twice daily in the week, once at weekends.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 9pm-10pm, TUE-FRI 1am-2am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/BBC-World-Service-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live:bbc_world_service",
"meta": {
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"source": "BBC World Service"
},
"link": "/radio/program/bbc-world-service",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/global-news-podcast/id135067274?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/BBC-World-Service-p455581/",
"rss": "https://podcasts.files.bbci.co.uk/p02nq0gn.rss"
}
},
"californiareport": {
"id": "californiareport",
"title": "The California Report",
"tagline": "California, day by day",
"info": "KQED’s statewide radio news program providing daily coverage of issues, trends and public policy decisions.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-California-Report-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/californiareport",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 8
},
"link": "/californiareport",
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"amazon": "https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/26099305-72af-4542-9dde-ac1807fe36d5/kqed-s-the-california-report",
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}
},
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"title": "The California Report Magazine",
"tagline": "Your state, your stories",
"info": "Every week, The California Report Magazine takes you on a road trip for the ears: to visit the places and meet the people who make California unique. The in-depth storytelling podcast from the California Report.",
"airtime": "FRI 4:30pm-5pm, 6:30pm-7pm, 11pm-11:30pm",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/californiareportmagazine",
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"order": 10
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM3NjkwNjk1OTAz",
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},
"city-arts": {
"id": "city-arts",
"title": "City Arts & Lectures",
"info": "A one-hour radio program to hear celebrated writers, artists and thinkers address contemporary ideas and values, often discussing the creative process. Please note: tapes or transcripts are not available",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/05/cityartsandlecture-300x300.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.cityarts.net/",
"airtime": "SUN 1pm-2pm, TUE 10pm, WED 1am",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "City Arts & Lectures"
},
"link": "https://www.cityarts.net",
"subscribe": {
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/City-Arts-and-Lectures-p692/",
"rss": "https://www.cityarts.net/feed/"
}
},
"closealltabs": {
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/closealltabs",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 1
},
"link": "/podcasts/closealltabs",
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"title": "Code Switch / Life Kit",
"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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"meta": {
"site": "radio",
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},
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
"airtime": "THU 10pm, FRI 1am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Commonwealth-Club-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
},
"link": "/radio/program/commonwealth-club",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/commonwealth-club-of-california-podcast/id976334034?mt=2",
"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5jb21tb253ZWFsdGhjbHViLm9yZy9hdWRpby9wb2RjYXN0L3dlZWtseS54bWw",
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}
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"id": "forum",
"title": "Forum",
"tagline": "The conversation starts here",
"info": "KQED’s live call-in program discussing local, state, national and international issues, as well as in-depth interviews.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 9am-11am, 10pm-11pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Forum with Mina Kim and Alexis Madrigal",
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"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 9
},
"link": "/forum",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM5NTU3MzgxNjMz",
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"freakonomics-radio": {
"id": "freakonomics-radio",
"title": "Freakonomics Radio",
"info": "Freakonomics Radio is a one-hour award-winning podcast and public-radio project hosted by Stephen Dubner, with co-author Steve Levitt as a regular guest. It is produced in partnership with WNYC.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/05/freakonomicsRadio.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://freakonomics.com/",
"airtime": "SUN 1am-2am, SAT 3pm-4pm",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WNYC"
},
"link": "/radio/program/freakonomics-radio",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/freakonomics-radio/id354668519",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/WNYC-Podcasts/Freakonomics-Radio-p272293/",
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},
"fresh-air": {
"id": "fresh-air",
"title": "Fresh Air",
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"link": "/radio/program/fresh-air",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=214089682&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/381444908/podcast.xml"
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"info": "A live production of NPR and WBUR Boston, in collaboration with stations across the country, Here & Now reflects the fluid world of news as it's happening in the middle of the day, with timely, in-depth news, interviews and conversation. Hosted by Robin Young, Jeremy Hobson and Tonya Mosley.",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510051/podcast.xml"
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},
"hidden-brain": {
"id": "hidden-brain",
"title": "Hidden Brain",
"info": "Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/series/423302056/hidden-brain",
"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "NPR"
},
"link": "/radio/program/hidden-brain",
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},
"how-i-built-this": {
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"title": "How I Built This with Guy Raz",
"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/05/howIBuiltThis.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510313/how-i-built-this",
"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/how-i-built-this",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-built-this-with-guy-raz/id1150510297?mt=2",
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},
"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
"title": "Hyphenación",
"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Hyphenacion_FinalAssets_PodcastTile.png",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
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"order": 15
},
"link": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
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},
"jerrybrown": {
"id": "jerrybrown",
"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Political-Mind-of-Jerry-Brown-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 18
},
"link": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/id1492194549",
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}
},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
"subscribe": {
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
}
},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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"rss": "https://feeds.publicradio.org/public_feeds/marketplace-pm/rss/rss"
}
},
"masters-of-scale": {
"id": "masters-of-scale",
"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Masters-of-Scale-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://mastersofscale.com/",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WaitWhat"
},
"link": "/radio/program/masters-of-scale",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "http://mastersofscale.app.link/",
"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
}
},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
"subscribe": {
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/464615685/mind-shift-podcast",
"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/stories-teachers-share",
"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/0MxSpNYZKNprFLCl7eEtyx"
}
},
"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
"title": "Morning Edition",
"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
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