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2008, Oceanography 21(1):8–11, http://dx.doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2008.73
RIPPLE MARKS—The Story Behind the Story
Author | Stories and First Paragraphs | Full Article | Citation
Author
Cheryl Lyn Dybas is a marine scientist and policy analyst by training. She also writes on a freelance basis about the seas for The Washington Post, BioScience, National Wildlife, Wildlife Conservation, and many other publications.
Stories and First Paragraphs
Getting in the Way of a Big Ship Might Kill You: From Heart Disease or Lung Cancer
The next time you visit your doctor, he or she may ask about more than your diet and exercise: how close you live to a major shipping lane may be on the list of questions.
Pollution from marine shipping causes some 60,000 premature cardiopulmonary and lung cancer deaths, according to James Corbett of the University of Delaware, James Winebrake from the Rochester Institute of Technology, and colleagues, who published their results in the December 15, 2007, issue of the journal Environmental Science & Technology.
Alchemy at Work? Seaweed Transformed into Stem Cell Technology
A polymer found in common brown seaweeds has been transformed into a device that can support the growth and release of stem cells at the site of an injury or the source of a disease.
The device, say the scientists, Randolph Ashton and Ravi Kane of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, and their colleagues, marks an important step in efforts to develop new medical therapies using stem cells. They published results of their research online in the journal Biomaterials on September 19, 2007.
First International Deep-Sea Marine Protected Area Proposed
In the dark abyss of the Pacific Ocean, in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ) west of Central America, lie the world's largest fields of manganese nodules—boulders of rock laden with nickel, copper, and cobalt strewn across the seafloor. This vast resource soon may attract mining companies.
In an effort to safeguard biodiversity and ecosystems in the CCZ, deep-sea biologist Craig Smith of the University of Hawaii and colleagues are designing Preservation Reference Areas (PRAs). They hope that PRAs will form the largest network of marine protected areas in the world, the first in international waters—and the first created before exploitation of a resource.
Bear Predation Drives Salmon to Old Age
The annual fish feast enjoyed by brown bears in southwest Alaska as spawning sockeye salmon migrate upriver affects the rate at which the salmon age, according to scientist Stephanie Carlson, currently at the University of California at Santa Cruz. She and colleagues published their results in the December 2007 issue of the journal PLoS ONE.
Carlson studied salmon senescence—the process of a living organism approaching advanced age—in Southwest Alaska rivers in the Wood River Lakes area, during several levels of bear predation.
Full Article
Citation
Dybas, C.L. 2008. Ripple marks—The story behind the story. Oceanography 21(1):8–11, http://dx.doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2008.73.