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U.S. Navy Agrees to Limit Sonar to Protect Marine Life SANTA MONICA, California, October 13, 2003 (ENS) - Conservation groups today announced an agreement with the U.S. Navy to limit the use of a new sonar system many believe endangers marine life. The settlement could bring to a close an eight year legal battle between conservationists and the Navy over the testing and deployment plans for the low frequency sonar system."The U.S. Navy should be commended for joining with us to serve the interests of both security for nations and security for marine life," said Jean Michel Cousteau, president of Ocean Futures Society, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. "Now, we must recognize that proliferation of active sonar is a global environmental problem that must be addressed by the militaries of all nations, particularly in Europe," Cousteau said. The settlement comes in the wake of a new report published in the journal "Nature" last week that linked the deaths of at least 10 beaked whales to sonar testing by the Spanish navy. The U.S. Navy's sonar system, known as Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System Low Frequency Active sonar (LFA), relies on very loud, low frequency sound to detect submarines at great distances. According to the Navy's own studies, LFA generates sounds up to 140 decibels even more than 300 miles away from the sonar source. Many scientists believe that blasting such intense sounds over large expanses of the ocean could harm entire populations of whales, porpoises and fish. During testing off the California coast, noise from a single LFA system was detected across the breadth of the North Pacific Ocean. Under the proposed settlement, the Navy would agree to limit its use of the LFA system to specific locations along the eastern seaboard of Asia. The settlement reflects the recommendations offered by U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Laporte in a ruling issued in August 2003. Laporte, who must approve the settlement, ruled that the Navy's plan to deploy the LFA system violated numerous federal environmental laws and could endanger whales, porpoises and fish. She determined that a permit issued to the Navy by the National Marine Fisheries Service to deploy the sonar system it did not adequately assess or take steps to mitigate the risks posed by the system to marine mammals and fish. Cousteau said the good news of the settlement should not overshadow the international concerns about new sonar systems nor the efforts by Pentagon officials to relax protection for marine mammals. "The Pentagon wants exemptions from the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act to be included in a federal defense bill for peacetime operations," Cousteau said. "This effort to undermine the laws that, for 30 years, have helped save marine mammals is an environmental disaster in the making. We must change that direction."
NRC Seeks More Info on Davis Besse Nuclear Plant WASHINGTON, DC, October 13, 2003 (ENS) - Officials with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) have asked for additional information from FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company to determine the safety significance of a design problem with high pressure emergency cooling system pumps at the Davis Besse Nuclear Power Station.The plant, which is located near Oak Harbor, Ohio, has been plagued with operational problems for several years. NRC is already doing additional inspections and monitoring of the plant's activities in response to damage to the reactor vessel head which was found in March 2002 and the plant has been shutdown since February 2002. This latest request centers on a discovery in October 2002 of a design deficiency that could affect the high pressure injection pumps under certain accident conditions. These pumps would provide cooling water to the reactor during a loss of coolant accident in which the pressure in the reactor remained high. If required to operate for an extended period, the pumps would recirculate water that collected in the bottom of the reactor containment and could contain debris that could affect the pumps because of the design deficiency, resulting in excessive vibration or overheating. The NRC's preliminary evaluation determined that the safety significance of the pump problem was more than very low safety significance. But the analysis varied greatly depending on the assumptions used and this has prompted NRC staff to ask for more information. FirstEnergy is planning to modify the two high pressure injection pumps to correct the design deficiency before any decision on whether or not the plant may resume operations. The NRC staff must approve restart of the plant. The shutdown of Davis Besse is estimated to have cost FirstEnergy some $450 million. Several citizen and environmental groups have called on the NRC not to allow the plan to restart until it has determined if any of the incidents at the plant merit criminal prosecution.
Wildlife Service Alters Double Crested Cormorant Plan WASHINGTON, DC, October 13, 2003 (ENS) - The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has issued a final rule and record of decision that officials say will allow more flexibility in the control of double crested cormorants.There are estimated to be some two million of the colonial water birds in the United States. According to the Fish and Wildlife Service, double crested cormorants can cause localized, but sometimes significant, negative impacts on resources such as commercial aquaculture, recreational fisheries, vegetation, and the habitat of other colonial nesting birds. "Since cormorants cause localized impacts to natural and economic resources, we believe local management is the best approach to reduce conflicts," said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Steve Williams. The expands the aquaculture depredation order, which has been in place in 13 States since 1998, to allow the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Wildlife Services to conduct winter roost control in areas where the birds are causing damage to aquaculture and public resources such as fisheries, vegetation, and other birds. The agency has also establishes a public resource depredation order to allow state wildlife agencies, tribes, and USDA to conduct cormorant control for the protection of public resources in 24 states. The order eliminates the need for these entities to obtain a federal permit to control cormorants. The 24 states are: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. Agencies acting under the depredation order must have landowner permission, may not adversely affect other migratory bird species or threatened and endangered species, and must satisfy annual reporting and evaluation requirements. The Fish and Wildlife Service says it will ensure the long term conservation of cormorant populations through annual assessments of agency reports and regular population monitoring. The rule also modifies the 1998 aquaculture depredation order to allow control of cormorants at winter roosts near fish farms and to allow fish hatcheries to protect their stock from cormorant predation.
EPA Hails Eco Friendly E-Commerce Packaging Solutions WASHINGTON, DC, October 13, 2003 (ENS) - New ecofriendly packaging solutions were touted today by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which announced the two winners of its "Cradle to Cradle Design Challenge for E-Commerce Shipping Packaging and Logistics" at the PackExpo Trade Show in Las Vegas.The contest centered on ecofriendly packaging and design solutions with the aim of reducing environmental impacts associated with shipping books purchased online. Entries to the contest were tasked with the development of packaging that can be reused, recycled or composted, considering all materials as nutrients for technical or biological systems. The winning professional entry represents a collaborative effort between Microsoft, Allen Schluger Company and Shorewood Packaging. The designers created a "Bevelope" with 100 percent post consumer content paperboard. The design of the product allows it to expand or contract and the packaging can accommodate the slimmest paperback book or the thickest manual and collapses quickly after use. It can be stored for reuse or recycled with mixed paper and labels can be printed directly onto the Bevelope. A team from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California produced the winning entry in the student category called "KNF" - Keep it Nature Friendly. The students combined a material made from a plant called kenaf, with the traditional concept of the Japanese Furoshiki, a traditional method of wrapping that dates back to the 8th century. The design placed adjustable, protective corners around any sized book and then the entire product is wrapped. The paper and corners are made from kenaf - a plant that has several environmental advantages over trees as a source of paper. Consumers can compost the kenaf corners and wrapping paper. A bookmark is included in the package that contains kenaf seeds with instructions on how to assemble the corner protectors into a pot for sprouting the seeds. "The Design Challenge has shown us that the door is wide open for exploring, identifying and developing innovative and environmentally sound packaging solutions," said Marianne Horinko, Acting Administrator for the EPA. "We look forward to the packaging industry implementing these tangible solutions." The E-Commerce Design Challenge is one of the EPA's Innovation Pilots. The goal of the Innovation Pilots is to test creative ideas and approaches including recycling, waste minimization and energy recovery. To date, EPA has selected 31 innovation pilots totaling $1.3 million in awards.
Drought, Not Rain, Could Hold Key to Mosquito Booms ST. LOUIS, Missouri, October 13, 2003 (ENS) - Drought could hold the key to high mosquito populations, according to a new study. In research to be published in the November issue of "Ecology Letters," scientists contend previous years' drought is the cause of high mosquito populations coming out of wetlands in the following year."With the data we have we are trying to run correlations between precipitation and mosquito density over 20 year and 30 year spans to see how well our hypothesis predicts mosquito abundance," said Dr. Jon Chase, an ecologist Washington University. "We have found that the current year's precipitation explains almost nothing but the past year's precipitation explains a lot. " Chase is collaborating on the research with his wife Dr. Tiffany Knight, an ecologist at the University of Florida. The team is analyzing data from locales across North America to see if their results found in local wetlands translate to larger spatial scales and considering disease implications. They came to their conclusion by accident - a pond they had been studying in Pennsylvania dried up during a drought and the next year, after the pond was replenished, mosquito larvae thrived. The team then surveyed some 30 ponds. Permanent ponds had few mosquito larvae buts lots of mosquito predators. In ponds that dried up annually, mosquito larvae were scarce because of lots of competitor species, such as zooplankton, snails and tadpoles. Ponds usually full but dried out after a 1999 drought had lots of mosquito larvae and very few predators and competitors. Chase and Knight reason that those species are not adapted to dry spells in these ponds. The team was able to recreate this natural study by filling tanks with soil and water and stocking them with mosquito larvae and other species found in natural ponds.
Scientists Find Clues to Cognitive Thought ATLANTA, Georgia, October 13, 2003 (ENS) - Scientists have identified genes in the cerebral cortex that differ in levels of activity between humans and nonhuman primates, including chimpanzees and rhesus monkeys.The findings may provide essential clues to the unusual cognitive abilities of humans and may help researchers understand why humans have a longer lifespan than other primate species despite vulnerability to age related, neurodegenerative diseases. The research team, which included scientists from the Salk Institute, the Yerkes National Primate Research Center of Emory University and the University of California at Los Angeles, report their results in the online journal of the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences." The DNA sequences of humans are so similar to those of chimpanzees that scientists have long speculated that differences in the activity levels of particular genes the amounts of particular proteins cells produce are what distinguish humans from chimpanzees. The recent sequencing of the human genome has led to the development of "gene chips" that enable researches to examine the expression levels of thousands of genes at a time as well as compare expression levels in different species. Using gene chips to compare samples of the cerebral cortex of humans, chimpanzees and rhesus monkeys, the research team identified 91 genes that are expressed in different amounts in humans compared to the other primate species. Upon further study, the team observed 83 of these genes showed higher levels of activity in humans, and as a result, regulated neural activity. "When we looked at other tissues, such as heart and liver, we found nearly equal numbers of genes showing higher or lower levels of expression in humans as compared to chimpanzees and rhesus," said Dr. Todd Preuss, associate research professor of neuroscience at the Yerkes Research Center. "The changes in gene activity in the cortex suggest increases in the rate of brain activity, providing a basis for the evolution of the enhanced cognitive abilities in humans." In addition to finding changes in activity related genes, the researchers found the human brain shows increased expression of genes that protect against activity related damage. This finding may help explain why humans have the potential to live decades longer than other primates, but also why humans are especially vulnerable to age-related, neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease. "It is probable that the combination of long lifespan and high neural activity makes humans particularly vulnerable to neurodegenerative disease," said Dr. Mario Caceres, a postdoctoral fellow now at Emory University and lead investigator on the study. "Activity related damage accumulates with age and has the potential to cause catastrophic breakdown late in life. By understanding how humans protect their brains from activity related damage, we hope to better understand why those mechanisms fail."
Audubon Nature Institute Clones Endangered African Wildcat NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana, October 13, 2003 (ENS) - The world's first cloned endangered African wildcat - and first cloned wild carnivore - has been born in New Orleans, Louisiana. It is the product of research conducted at Audubon Nature Institute's research center by scientists from Audubon Center for Research of Endangered Species and Louisiana State University Agricultural Center.In a press release sent out today, researchers said the endangered caracal was born to a domestic cat on August 6, 2003. The genetic material used to create the kitten came from an African wildcat produced at the Audubon Center using in vitro fertilization. In addition, researchers at the Audubon research center are announcing the birth of the world's first caracal cat created from a frozen/thawed embryo. The kitten, created from an in vitro fertilization procedure where the frozen/thawed embryo was transferred to a surrogate mother caracal, was born September 6, 2003. The largest of Africa's small cats, the caracal inhabits areas of central and southern Africa, as well as regions of the Middle East and south central Asia into India. The name caracal is derived from the Turkish word karakulak, meaning "black ear," referring to the Caracal's long, pointed black ears tipped with dark tufts of fur. The African population is listed under Appendix II of Convention of International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES) since 1977, whereas the Asian population is further protected under Appendix I, which forbids all trade. They are considered rare or threatened in Asia and North Africa, but survive in greater numbers in South Africa. The species is under pressure from illegal hunting by livestock owners as well as for poachers keen to sell caracal pelts. In a third research breakthrough, Audubon Nature Institute is also announcing the birth of an African serval cat, born October 1 as the result of in vitro fertilization followed by embryo transfer. "Here in Louisiana, scientists are growing ever closer to unlocking the secrets that could make extinction extinct," said Ron Forman, President and CEO of Audubon Nature Institute of New Orleans. "These are significant births representing important steps in our understanding of how technology can be engaged to help save endangered species."
Methyl Halide Promotion Gene Discovered in Plants LA JOLLA, California, October 13, 2003 (ENS) - Scientists have identified a gene that controls the production by terrestrial plants of methyl halides, gaseous compounds that contribute to the destruction of ozone in the stratosphere.The finding provides scientists with a genetic tool with which to probe how and why plants produce methyl halides. The identification of the gene by a team of University of California scientists is reported in the October 14 issue of the journal "Current Biology." The researchers say the discovery could help determine the extent to which plants emit methyl halides into the atmosphere and why certain plants increase their methyl halide emissions in high salt environments. The gene was discovered in a mustard plant known as Arabidopsis and was dubbed HOL for "Harmless to Ozone Layer" because disruption of the gene largely eliminates methyl halide production. The researchers found closely related variants of the HOL gene in the genetic databases of rice, cotton, corn and barley. They discovered that the HOL gene controls the production of an enzyme that catalyzes the production in plants of methyl bromide, methyl chloride and methyl iodide. The UC scientists say the enzyme produced by the HOL gene may function to metabolize plant compounds that are thought to serve as insect repellents, suggesting that plants may have initially evolved the biochemical pathway that produces methyl halide emissions to ward off insects. Although methyl halides are ozone depleting compounds, the researchers say plants are not responsible for depletion of the ozone layer. "Stratospheric ozone depletion is a human created problem," says Robert Rhew, an assistant professor of geography at the University of California at Berkeley. "Methyl halides are tricky compounds to study because they emanate from both natural and human sources, and our study addresses the current pressing question of how and why these methyl halides are produced." The identification of the gene should enable scientists to determine more precisely the impact plants have on the production of methyl halides.
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