The Janitors Of The Sea

 

The Janitors of the Sea

Around eight million tons of plastic end up in the oceans every year even as humans spend millions of dollars cleaning up the mess.

Meanwhile, it turns out that nature has its own janitor – the so-called “Neptune balls,” Smithsonian Magazine reported.

These spherical objects are created when fibers of the Posidonia oceanica – a type of Mediterranean seagrass – get tangled up and form balls that look a bit like brown clumps of steel wool.

Despite their corny name, marine scientists discovered that the puffy spheres – including loose blades of seagrass – can trap small fragments of plastics and then wash ashore during storms.

In their study, a research team assessed the plastic collected in seagrass on four beaches on the Spanish island of Mallorca between 2018 and 2019. Their results showed that half of the loose seagrass leaf samples they collected contained up to 613 plastic items per one kilogram (2.2 pounds) of loose leaves.

However, a kilogram of Neptune balls collected nearly 1,500 pieces of plastic.

Lead author Anna Sanchez-Vidal told New Scientist that the seagrass has the potential to collect nearly 870 million pieces of plastic annually.

Therefore, “Strict measures should be taken to protect these systems,” she said.

A Pleasant Vaccine Surprise

 

Good news about vaccines

For once, we have some good news to talk about: the prospect of another vaccine coming online in the U.S., and a long-awaited indication that at least one vaccine reduces transmission, not just the severity of Covid-19.

Let’s start with the remarkable turnaround of the experimental vaccine from Novavax, a Maryland-based company that has never before brought a vaccine to market.

Last fall, Novavax postponed U.S. clinical trials because of manufacturing delays, jeopardizing the company’s $1.6 billion federal contract and leaving some to wonder whether they should write off the company’s shot entirely. In December, Novavax watched from the sidelines as the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines were approved.

But things have changed. Novavax announced last week that its vaccine produced robust protection in a large British trial and that it worked — although far less well — in a smaller study in South Africa. The company has also been able to quickly recruit volunteers for its U.S. trials because the two authorized vaccines have been difficult to get, and many see the Novavax trial as their best chance to get vaccinated.

So the company now stands a chance of having trial results this spring, with possible government authorization as early as April. If everything goes well, and that is a big if, Novavax could deliver enough additional doses to vaccinate 55 million Americans by the end of June. That would be on top of the 400 million doses that Moderna and Pfizer are contracted to supply the U.S. by the middle of the year — enough for 200 million people.

It gets better: Novavax has been laying the international groundwork for the eventual production of two billion doses per year — and its vaccine, unlike Moderna and Pfizer’s, can be stored and shipped at normal refrigeration temperatures.

As for protection against transmission, AstraZeneca recently released a report that offered an answer to one of the pandemic’s big questions: Will vaccines prevent people from giving the virus to others?

Iran Tests A New Rocket

 

IRAN

Poking the Bear

Iran tested a new rocket this week that could be used in its missile programs, a move aimed at raising the stakes for the new US president, Joe Biden, ahead of potential negotiations over a new nuclear deal, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The new rocket, Zuljanah, features a solid-fuel-propelled motor – the largest yet exhibited by Iran, which is also a major component used in developing intercontinental ballistic missiles.

The Zuljanah was developed under a government-run program to send civilian satellites into orbit 310 miles above ground, with officials stressing that Monday’s rocket launch was developed for civilian use.

Analyst Fabian Hinz, however, said that the motor could be used for military application. He added that Iran is trying to gain leverage and discourage any US attempts to curtail its conventional-missile program until negotiations start.

Iran has been slowly breaching key provisions of the nuclear accord over the past 18 months, as it sought relief from US sanctions: These were reimposed by former President Donald Trump in 2018 after he withdrew the US from the 2015 nuclear deal.

Russia's Sputnik Vaccine Looks Good

 

Vaccine vindication in Russia

A vaccine developed in Russia, known as Sputnik V, has exceeded expectations in a new study that showed it to have a 91.6 percent efficacy rate against the coronavirus without serious side effects.

The peer-reviewed results in The Lancet, based on a clinical trial of 22,000 people, were a huge boost for the government of President Vladimir Putin, which faced international skepticism after approving and distributing the vaccine in August before late-stage trials had even begun.

“The development of the Sputnik V vaccine has been criticized for unseemly haste, corner cutting, and an absence of transparency,” wrote two British virology experts in the prestigious medical journal. “But the outcome reported here is clear and the scientific principle of vaccination is demonstrated.”

Doses of the Sputnik V vaccine are cheap, at about $20 for two shots, and they do not need to be kept at an ultracold temperature, leaving Russia well positioned to deliver a cheap vaccine at home and abroad.

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How We Got Domesticated Dogs

 

The Way to a Wolf’s Heart

How did ancient wild wolves transform into man’s best friend?

Leftovers, says a new study.

Sometime between 29,000 and 14,000 years ago, Eurasian inhabitants had to survive the freezing wastelands by hunting.

The problem was that their prey was lean and would have provided more proteins than humans could have safely consumed. The human body can’t survive on a purely carnivorous diet because of the liver’s ability to generate only part of our energy needs from protein.

In their paper, researchers wrote that ancient humans only acquired 45 percent of their calories from animal protein. They added that since hunter-gatherers couldn’t eat all the lean meat, they would leave some for the wolf pups that were being raised by humans as pets, Science News reported.

The team believes that through time, competition between wolves and humans for prey declined as the canines started becoming more docile.

Eventually, the future generations of well-treated and well-fed pet wolves evolved into today’s dogs.

“…the dogs would have become docile, being utilized in a multitude of ways such as hunting companions, beasts of burden and guards as well as going through many similar evolutionary changes as humans,” the study’s authors wrote.