Current Event 19: “Steep Decline in Giant Sea Turtles Seen off US West Coast”

 Olivia Cevasco

Mr. Ippolito

AP Biology - C Even

16 April 2021

Current Event 19: “Steep Decline in Giant Sea Turtles Seen off US West Coast”

Press, Associated. “Steep Decline in Giant Sea Turtles Seen off US West Coast.” U.S. News & World Report, U.S. News & World Report, 8 Apr. 2021, www.usnews.com/news/news/articles/2021-04-08/steep-decline-in-giant-sea-turtles-seen-off-us-west-coast. 

The article “Steep Decline in Giant Sea Turtles Seen off the US West Coast” addresses the devastating decrease in the leatherback sea turtle population on the West Coast. As early as 40 years ago, scientists began documenting the number of stranded sea turtles along the West Coast and found that leatherback sea turtles—whose species has existed since dinosaur times—were frequently stranded and often migrate from other parts of the world—as far as 7,000 miles away—to colder West Coast beaches where there are an abundance of jellyfish. However incredible this species and its long migration pattern is, leatherback turtles are going extinct—and fast.

(Source: Wikipedia)

According to a recent study, there has been an 80% decrease in the number of leatherback foragers on the California coastline in the past 30 years, 5.6% annual decline. The quantity of adult female leatherbacks nesting and laying eggs on West Coast beaches has decreased from tens of thousands to around 1,400. To make matters worse, the decline in the leatherback population isn’t just documented in California, but on the beaches of Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and other places. “If you find the decline in one place, that might have a number of causes, but if you find the same estimate of decline in two places that indicates something much more serious,” said Daniel Pauly, who was not involved in the study but is a fisheries professor at the University of British Columbia and an advocate for limiting commercial fishing to help marine ecosystems. The study notes that the sharp decline in the leatherback population is primarily due to the reduction of available nesting beaches due to human activity. We occupy beaches and no longer share them with the turtles. Commercial fishing, especially for swordfish, causes entanglement of the leatherback turtles in nets and other fishing equipment that can suffocate and kill them. Additionally, leatherback eggs are considered a delicacy (in some cultures), and people poach the eggs from the beach to eat and sell. Scott Benson, who co-authored the study, said that “There is an opportunity right now to stop the decline, but we must seize that opportunity immediately and that will require an international effort by all the nations this animals interacts with. If nothing is done to reverse this course, this population will become, essentially, extinct in the Pacific Ocean.” Fortunately, American lawmakers, like California’s Senator Diane Feinstein, are proposing legislation to phase out fishing with large nets that cause leatherback entrapment, since these phasing out methods have proved successful in California and Hawaii. But reducing the number of fishing nets isn’t the solution to this massive problem. 

The declining leatherback population is just one of many species that are threatened by human activity and heading towards extinction. And while effective legislation can certainly help prevent more leatherback deaths due to entrapment, if we want to save this population—and the countless other species facing extinction—we must first preserve the ecosystems in which these creatures live. And this is an international effort. We must reverse our tendency to destroy habitats in order to reap profit, and we must increase conservation efforts. In 2015, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration launched an initiative to reduce the number of leatherback eggs pillaged on CA beaches. But if we are to protect this population to the fullest of our ability, we need initiatives to provide leatherbacks beaches for nesting, waters sans commercial boats, and we must work to eliminate the human actions that threaten the species. 

I decided to review this article because, as a coastal CA native, I’m interested in both aquatic life and scientific studies from CA. This article’s strengths lie in its informal tone and diction which helps the reader understand many of the key concepts. There were also a variety of aspects covered, such as the problem, the cause, legislative efforts, and other initiatives that helped me understand the full scope of the issue. There was also plentiful data used from the original study. However, I would have liked to see more solutions presented on this issue. What is the real solution to this international issue? How do we elevate it from a West Coast concern to a global concern? I had to try to piece this together since the article discussed a few separate initiatives that obviously won’t solve the whole issue. Overall, this article is timely, well-written, engaging, and strikes a nerve in those of us who should care more about the environment.   

How many T. rexes were there? Billions

 Holden D’Avico

Mr. Ippolito

AP Bio

4/16/21

“How Many T. Rexes Were There? Billions.” ScienceDaily, ScienceDaily, 15 Apr. 2021, www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/04/210415142623.htm.  

It is very difficult to estimate the size of extinct populations because it is a miracle to even find any fossils. Despite this, paleontologist Charles Marshall teamed up with his students at UC Berkeley in order to estimate how many T. rexes were roaming around North America during the Cretaceous period. His findings are summarized in “How many T. rexes were there? Billions”. The article begins by presenting Marshall and his colleagues’ findings: “about 20,000 adult T. rexes probably lived at any one time, give or take a factor of 10” (UC Berkeley 1). This means that “some 2.5 billion lived and died over the approximately 2 1/2 million years the dinosaur walked the earth” (UC Berkeley 1). Before this study was conducted, no one had been able to estimate the population size of long-extinct animals. The article goes on to reveal what sparked Marshall’s curiosity and motivation in order to calculate the population size of T. rexes. Marshall was astonished by the fact that he was holding a fossil in his hand and thought that it was very improbable; he wanted to calculate exactly how improbable it was depending on the number of dinosaurs that have lived and died. Marshall was able to conduct a very difficult study, however, he admits that the 95% confidence interval of the calculated population size is very wide. 20,000 isn’t exact and could be off by a factor of 10. Marshall and his colleagues dealt with a lot of uncertainty in the data which resulted in uncertainty in the results. In order to estimate a population size, information about the species such as population density, ecological niche, and body mass need to be known. However, these facts are also just estimates based on fossil records. Finally, the article goes on to describe the biological characteristics such as mass and age of sexual maturity that the research team was able to determine from the fossils. Using this information, they determined the ecological niche of the T. rex, the energy consumption, etc. This helped them make an estimate on how many T. rexes could roam the continent at once. 

I chose this article because the title hooked me in. I was surprised by the fact that there were billions of T. rexes. I always thought that T. rexes were very rare and it was weird to think that at one time they were very common and just roamed the earth. This article is important because the technique that Marshall and his team used in order to estimate a long-extinct species's population size has never been done before. This new technique can be used for other species in order to create a more accurate record of what the world looked like many years ago. 

The article was very interesting and I was able to learn a lot. The article was written in a way that allowed me to understand it fully without any confusion. However, one thing I was dissatisfied with was the order that the information was presented. The article begins by presenting the findings of the research and then outlining how the research was conducted. This may be the norm for scientific articles, however, it would’ve been more interesting if the findings were presented last.

Global Warming is Harming Polar Bears more than we think

 

The Truth: Polar Bears are Really Starving Because of Global Warming

Angelinna Faisca

AP Bio E/F Even

Current Event  #18

Leahy, Stephen. “Polar Bears Really Are Starving Because of Global Warming, Study Shows.” Polar Bears Are Starving Because of Global Warming, Melting Sea Ice, Study Shows, 1 Feb. 2018, www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2018/02/polar-bears-starve-melting-sea-ice-global-warming-study-beaufort-sea-environment/. 

    In the article by Stephen Leahy, "Polar Bears Really Are Starving Because of Global Warming, Study Shows", there is a significant amount of importance that is placed upon the problem of the polar ice caps melting. The reason that this problem is so important, is because now Polar bears have to swim farther in order to capture seals, which make up about 95% of their diet, meaning that without seals, they will not have proper nutrition. Along with this percentage, Polar bears now have to spend at least 60% of their energy, meaning that if they do not get a meal, it is all for nothing. As we learned in bio, ,without the proper resources, such as food and space, animal populations can do nothing but go down. In the article, the population is talked about, as there is about 770,000 miles less of ice than there was in the 1980's. This number is alarming, as Polar bears are faced with longer trips and fights amongst each other. In one study, made by Anthony Pagano, it involved capturing nine female Polar bears and releasing them, re-capturing them eight to 11 days later. One bear had gone about 155 miles just to look for food, and the result of this study was that about four bears were not able to obtain a seal. From this study, we were given the percentage of about 35%, which showed how active they are, but it is even more alarming that they use up so much energy, mainly from reserves, as they use up about 12,325 calories a day, however they rarely get the chance to make up those calories again. The article also spoke of the myth of climate change, and how it doesn't affect people or animals. Leahy talked about a study that had shown that by scientific projections, populations now, of 20,000 to 30,000 are going to be less than 10,000 in the year 2050.  In another study by Andrew Derocher, it has been found that Polar bears are not made for walking, and because of their home melting, they have to exert themselves to find food. Overall, his article examined the importance of the factors that have been ailing the poor Polar bears, and has said again why the ice caps need saving, and why people need to be more open about and aware of.

Polar bears aren't the only things that get impacted by the melting ice caps. People also are afflicted by this, including having their homes washed away, and ocean levels rising. I think this article describes what the problems are and the effects of them, trying to make people aware of what is actually going on. Especially for those who do not want to see the truth in global warming, especially when the ice is melting about 14% every year. Over all this article helps to show people why saving the ice caps is and should be a real talked about issue.

I thought that the author of this article, Stephen Leahy, made it very simple for you to understand what is going on, and also showed pictures of these animals, trying to get the reader more involved with the issue, including showing a video of a poor bear, that is starved and skinny, walking around and trying to find food, which finally, it finds some in a garbage can, also telling readers that they become very desperate as they are trying to find food. I think the article could have been structured in a more professional way, instead of small paragraphs and then it moves on to the next section, which I found to be tedious. Regardless of this, this article was very informative and the video Leahy had included, really affected me and I think it will stay with every one of its readers.

 Maya Brinster 

AP Bio EF Even 

April 8, 2021 

Current Event #18 

“Key Brain Molecule May Play Role in Many Brain Disorders.” ScienceDaily, ScienceDaily, 6 Apr. 2021, https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/04/210406164203.htm

Scientists at the UNC school of medicine have discovered that the microRNA-29 molecule is a key controller of the maturation of mice brains. The absence of this molecule, they found, can create issues that are similar to the problems found in neurodevelopmental conditions such as autism and epilepsy. MicroRNAs are stretches of ribonucleic acid that regulate gene expression. Each of these microRNAs binds to an RNA transcript from other genes, preventing it from being translated into a protein, which inhibits the gene activity. Scientists found that levels of one specific microRNA, the microRNA-29 family, were “ 50 to 70 times higher in the adult mouse brains than in young mouse brains.” They then examined a mouse model in which the genes for the microRNA-29 family were only deleted in the brain. They found that the mice soon developed a mix of problems after birth such as hyperactivity and abnormalities seen in mouse models of autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders. Some even developed severe epileptic seizures. Much remains to be discovered, and the scientists are following up by studying how this lack of microRNA-29 in specific sets of brain cells can create the neurological disorders observed in the mice. 

This discovery is incredibly important, as scientists are hopeful that it can lead to new therapies that can prevent or lessen the effects of these neurological disorders. Mohanish Deshmukh, a professor at the UNC Department of Cell Biology & Physiology offers insight into this possibility: “Our work suggests that boosting levels of miR-29, perhaps even by delivering it directly, could lead to a therapeutic strategy for neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism." A preventative or even an effective therapy for these very serious disorders would be revolutionary.  

This article is extremely interesting and very well-written. It is engaging, and most of the points that the author makes are clear. However, some parts of the article were difficult to follow, and I found myself rereading multiple sections in order to gain a full understanding of what the author was explaining. Overall, this article has made me more optimistic about the future of therapies for neurological conditions that I previously thought were unable to be cured. 

Mars

 Willy Swenson

Mr. Ippolito

Current Event 18

April 7th, 2021

“What Happened to Mars’s Water? It Is Still Trapped There: New Data Challenges the Long-Held Theory That All of Mars’s Water Escaped into Space.” ScienceDaily, 2021, www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/03/210316132106.htm. Accessed 8 Apr. 2021.

There is a new theory emerging out of the scientific community in regards to the history of water on the planet Mars. For years, the theory has been that Mars was covered in water, roughly the same amount of water as the Atlantic Ocean, but because of Mars’ low gravity, the water was lost into the atmosphere and space. However, a team of scientists from Caltech and JPL have proposed a new theory that challenges this assertion, “Atmospheric escape clearly had a role in water loss, but findings from the last decade of Mars missions have pointed to the fact that there was this huge reservoir of ancient hydrated minerals whose formation certainly decreased water availability over time,” (Ehlmann). The team has found data to support the theory that water loss occurred roughly 3 billion years ago because water had been covered by Mars’ inactive crust. 

On our planet, our crust constantly is moving and recycling minerals (and thereby water) because of the active tectonic plates’ mechanisms, however Mars does not have active tectonics. So, once the crust dries over water or the water is turned into minerals, there is no chance for it to be recycled through volcanic activity, like on Earth. This is a very interesting theory that has been proposed because it suggests that Mars has a very mineral rich composition. Although, I do not know much about how this will help us humans, I hope that scientists, such as Elon Musk, will use this information to help the human race progress on our journey to explore space. 

Overall, I thought this was a very interesting read because I’ve always been interested in Mars. Since being a little boy thinking there were aliens living on the red planet to a senior in high school imagining the real possibility of visiting the planet in my life time, I think that we keep pushing to discover more and more about what lies beyond our own atmosphere. 

Julia Reich

Mr. Ippolito

AP Biology C even 

4/8/21

Link to article:

Saey, Tina Hesman. “Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccines May Reduce Coronavirus 

Transmission.” Science News, 30 Mar. 2021, www.sciencenews.org/article/coronavirus-covid-vaccine-moderna-pfizer-transmission-disease. 

Tina Hesman Saey covers the U.S used vaccines against COVID-19 and their ability to block infection as well as disease. Millions of people are terrified of the potential for a fourth surge in the U.S due to variants and lifting of mask/social distancing mandates. However, Jeff Burgess, associate dean for research at the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health at the University of Arizona in Tucson has recently proven that they, “‘clearly showed in our study that if you were at least 14 days out from your first shot, you had 80 percent protection’ from infection.”’ Their study concentrates on the evidence which suggests that vaccines may not only just reduce the risk of getting seriously ill, but also can prevent catching the virus initially. ‘““If you can’t get infected, you can’t infect anyone else, which means the vaccines can reduce transmission as well as the disease,’ says Marm Kilpatrick, an infectious diseases researcher at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who was not involved in the study.” According to a Texas report, 234 of 8.969 (2.61%) unvaccinated employees tested positive from December 15 to January 28. For those with one shot, the numbers were 112 of 6,144 (1.82%). For fully vaccinated employees, there was a 0.05% of those who tested positive (4 of 8,121). These are data which begin to prove that vaccines are working, and the nation needs younger people to sign up as soon as possible. Vaccines, social distancing, and masks are the keys to getting through this pandemic.

I chose to read this article as the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are highly spoken about today. The vaccines (globally as well) are all so new and testing may not be 100% accurate, which may cause doubt in people. However, the data shown in Saey’s article begins to prove that the vaccines are nearly 100% effective. Even if you do contract the virus, the likelihood that you will end up in the hospital is low, and that is what the vaccine’s goal is. It works similarly to the flu vaccine, and I think that is a detail many people are not aware of. Hopefully Saey’s article will convince those who are unsure of the vaccines to sign up.

Saey’s article had many strengths, one including the fact that she added a lot of data from numerous sources. She included studies from Arizona, California, Texas, and more. This includes a variety of numbers and locations. Secondly, her article is well written and very easy to read and understand. This makes the information accessible to all audiences. I don’t think she had many weaknesses in this article, except that it was highly opinionated. This was not an issue for me (as I agree with her), but others may feel less inclined to read and understand. To improve this, she would simply take out a few paragraphs that have subjective comments. Overall, I loved learning about the subject and reading her article.

 Henry Min

March 23, 2021

Mr. Ippolito

Einhorn, Catrin. “The U.S. to Remove Wolves From Protected Species List.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 23 Mar. 2021, www.nytimes.com/2021/3/23/climate/wolves-endangered-species-list.html?login=email.

       In her article "US to Remove Wolves From Protected Species List", author Catrin Einhorn discusses the US government's recent decision to no longer provide gray wolves with federal protection. For the past 45 years gray wolves have been protected by the Endangered Species Act, however, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt claims that the gray wolves have "exceeded all conservation goals for recovery" and no longer require protection. Einhorn proceeds to explain the controversy surrounding this decision. Firstly, after reading the proposal to delist the gray wolves, Carlos Carroll, an independent biologist with the Klamath Center for Conservation Research, stated that it disregarded possible genetic variation in the species (as it adapts to climate change); instead, the proposal based its decision on the low risk of extinction the wolves are experiencing now. In addition, Adrian Treves, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison explains that the proposal is flawed because it does not formulate an accurate estimate of how many wolves will end up being killed by people. In contrast, some researchers, such as Ya-Wei Li of the Environmental Policy Innovation Center believe that since wolves are not in immediate danger, the federal government should use its resources to protect the other species that are at a far greater risk of extinction. This controversial topic then forces researchers and officials to ask the question: What is the extent of the Endangered Species Act? Should it just save animals from extinction, or should it restore them until these species are able to assume an important role in their ecosystem? 

        I chose to read this article because I wanted to learn more about this controversial topic and the importance of gray wolves in ecosystems. I learned that the preservation of gray wolves is extremely important because these species help to enhance the growth of trees and other vegetation by eating deer and elk. Thus, the discontinuation of federal protection on the gray wolves could end up hurting ecosystems as well as cause the wolves to decrease in population and become at risk of extinction.

      This article was extremely informative and well-written. Einhorn offered opinions from both sides of the controversy as well as quotes from reliable researchers. I also liked how this author provided an explanation on the importance of gray wolves in the environment and illustrated their discussed their growth in population both prior to to the introduction of Europeans in North America and after they were placed under federal protection. This background information was necessary in order for the reader to understand the large impact of being federally protected. The only improvement I would make would be to have the author give her own opinion of the matter. Overall, this article was extremely well written and engaging.