Highlights From The Week's News: Using Mayonnaise To Heal Sea Turtles, And More

H2O Radio

March 8, 2021

Jackson, Mississippi, Still Facing Water Crisis After Cold Spell

Nearly two weeks after a frigid, cold spell struck much of the U.S., tens of thousands of residents of Jackson, Mississippi, still don’t have running water. The Daily Beast reports that the unseasonable weather caused the city’s outdated water equipment—which can’t handle wintery conditions—to freeze and water lines to burst.

According to a local paper, as of Friday, February 26, there was still a city-wide boil alert, and less than half of almost 80 water main breaks were repaired. The city set up water distribution sites where hundreds waited in line for hours with empty buckets. Some residents have noted the crisis has left the white part of Jackson relatively unscathed, while the Black areas, which make up 80 percent of the state’s capitol, were hardest hit.

Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves announced on Tuesday, February 23, that he would “restore clean water” and send in the National Guard and tanker trucks with non-potable water in effort to relieve the problem; however, conditions still hadn’t improved by Saturday, February 27.

The Atlantic Ocean Usually Runs “AMOC”—But It’s Slowing, Which Isn’t Good

There’s a massive system in the Atlantic Ocean called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), also known as the Gulf Stream System, that circulates warm, salty water from the Equator to the poles and back again. Known as the “conveyor belt” it moves nearly 20 million cubic meters of water per second—almost one hundred times faster than the Amazon River. But according to new research, it’s currently the weakest it’s been in over 1,000 years, which could have severe consequences for the planet.

The cause, the scientists say, is that increasing greenhouse gases are heating Greenland’s ice sheets, which is adding more fresh water to the salty current and disrupting its flow. As the current slows down, water can pile up along the U.S. East Coast, raising sea levels, disrupting fisheries, and causing more severe hurricanes. According to the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Europe could see more intense winters, damaging heat waves, and severe droughts.

Without addressing global warming, the authors say the vast ocean system could weaken by about 34% to 45% by the end of the century—and could bring us closer to a “tipping point,” where it would become irrevocably unstable.

The study was published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

A Sandwich Spread Comes to the Rescue After Oil Spill Covers Turtles

One hundred and twenty miles of coastline and beaches in Israel were coated in thick, black tar after a massive oil spill caused one of the most severe ecological disasters in the country’s history. The source of the spill was unknown, but the Israeli government is investigating. The clean-up of beaches has so far involved thousands of volunteers and hundreds of soldiers and police officers, and could last at least several months, according to the New York Times.

Endangered green sea turtles washed ashore covered in tar. So how to treat them for the oil they had swallowed and that got in their eyes and nasal passages? Employees at Israel's National Sea Turtle Rescue turned to mayonnaise, which they feed to the reptiles and also put on swabs to clean their eyes and noses. Live Science reports that the mayonnaise interacts with the tar making it thinner. Lecithin from egg yolks creates a barrier between the tar and the turtle's digestive tract, causing it to be less sticky, so it passes through the animals.

The Associated Press reports that the turtle’s recovery is expected to take two weeks, and then they will be released back into the sea.

A Plague of Locusts Turned into Sustainable Solution

The east African nation of Kenya is undergoing its worst locust plague in 70 years, but a company is empowering local communities to generate sustainable solutions.
Reuters reports that unusual weather patterns made worse by climate change have created ideal conditions for surging locust numbers. Scientists say warmer seas are creating more rain, waking dormant eggs. Cyclones that disperse the swarms are getting stronger and more frequent.

A company called The Bug Picture is helping communities come up with a way of harvesting the insects and turning them into protein-rich animal feed and organic fertilizer for farms. Reuters reports that people in affected communities collect locusts at night by flashlight when the bugs are resting on shrubs and trees. The insects are crushed and dried, then milled and processed into powder.

Locusts threaten the economic livelihood of one-tenth of the planet’s population. A swarm the size of Paris can eat the same amount of food in one day as half the population of France.

Ship Coatings May Be Much Larger Source of Ocean Plastics Than Packaging

Much of the plastics polluting our oceans comes from the breakdown of consumer products, but a new study suggests that coatings painted on ship hulls could be to blame for much of the problem. The paints are used to protect hulls from barnacles and other organisms and are constantly rubbed off by wind and waves.

American Racer being pushed into drydock at Pier 70 | Credit: Dave R/Creative Commons

Scientists from the University of Oldenburg say several thousand tons of paint end up in the marine environment every year. Ship coatings and paints contain heavy metals and other additives that are toxic to many organisms.

Plastics used in packaging like polyethylene and polypropylene accounted for only about one-third of the particles they collected and were more commonly found near shorelines. The researchers believe that the other two-thirds of the microplastics come from ships and that the problem is similar to tire wear particles being shed on land.

The study was published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.

Barnacles Can Be the Next Investigative Tool for Maritime Accidents

For those interested in forensics, this story is for you.

Imagine a fisherman went out on a boat, goes missing, but no one knows where or when he disappeared. Two weeks later, debris from the boat washes ashore.

Scientists at the University of New South Wales have developed a method to determine when the boat went down and even where, by studying goose barnacles (Lepas anserifera) which attach only to floating objects, such as boats. The researchers count the number of barnacles that have attached to the debris, and then estimate the minimum amount of time it has spent drifting, using an equation based on the average daily growth rate for the hitchhiker.

The scientists also developed a formula using the barnacle’s shell and sea surface temperatures to plot possible drift paths of the missing boat. If the barnacles have grown too big in the length of time the craft has been missing, then they know that piece can’t be from the missing vessel.

The study was published in Marine Biology.

European Space Agency Wants Astronauts to Boldly Go...Fishing

Scientists want to establish bases on the moon and that will take a lot of planning—including what food they’ll eat. Freeze-dried grub is not only dull but also loses important vitamins and minerals. So, the European Space Agency wants astronauts to boldly go...by going fishing. They want to develop fish farms on the moon. But how to get them there? A full-grown flounder can’t make the journey—but perhaps its eggs can.

According to Hakai magazine, French researchers conducted experiments to see which fish eggs “had the right stuff” to journey into space. The winner would be one with modest oxygen requirements, low carbon dioxide output, a short hatching period, and a firm ability to handle radiation they’d be exposed to along the way.

They placed eggs in beakers and jostled them vigorously to simulate a rocket launch and ascent from Earth’s gravitational field. The European seabass was a clear winner, and it will help with the development of the Lunar Hatch, a program to determine if astronauts could successfully rear fish on a future moon base. Besides the benefit of having more nutritious food, the crew could also gain a psychological boost of having a pet so far from home.

This project is led by the French Institute of Research and Exploration of the Sea (IFREMER) and Montpellier University Space Centre (CSUM).

H2O Radio’s goal is to help their audience become invested and knowledgeable caretakers of our environment and water supply by cutting through noise, opinion, and ideological narrative to present facts and truth with a clear, strong signal. Noting the urgent situation of climate change there is little time to waste.