Aurelia Butler

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    This marine biologist discovered a unique blue whale population in Sri Lanka

    Pooping whales changed the course of Asha de Vos’ career.

    The Sri Lankan marine biologist was aboard a research vessel near her home island in 2003 when she spotted six blue whales congregating. A bright red plume of whale waste was spreading across the water’s surface.

    Seeing whale poop, colored red thanks to the whale’s diet, was the first clue that Sri Lanka’s blue whales don’t migrate between feeding and breeding areas.A. de Vos

    De Vos, then a master’s student, recalls being “super excited.” What she witnessed went against prevailing dogma: Her textbooks and professors had taught that blue whales, like other large whales, embark on long-distance migrations between colder feeding areas and warmer breeding and calving areas. But seeing whales pooping in tropical waters meant the behemoths must be feasting locally.

    Intrigued, de Vos spent the next few years documenting how blue whales near Sri Lanka differ from those elsewhere in the world. For one, the population feeds on shrimp rather than krill. The whales also have unique songs. But the key difference, she realized, is that they remain year-round in the waters between Sri Lanka, Oman and the Maldives — making them the only nonmigratory blue whales in the world. Abundant upwellings of nutrient-rich water from the ocean depths support a steady food supply for the whales.

    Eventually, the International Whaling Commission, the intergovernmental body dedicated to protecting whales, recognized Sri Lanka’s blue whales as a distinct subspecies called Balaenoptera musculus indica.

    By studying the blue whales around Sri Lanka, marine biologist Asha de Vos discovered they are the only nonmigratory blue whales in the world.Franco Banfi/Nature Picture Library/Alamy Stock Photo

    This distinction is crucial for conservation management, explains retired whale biologist Phillip Clapham, formerly of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service. Small, localized populations — like the one in Sri Lanka — face higher risks of being wiped out in the face of environmental or human threats, such as deep-sea mining.

    More than two decades on, de Vos is now one of Sri Lanka’s most renowned scientists — famed for nurturing the country’s nascent marine biology scene. She is also an ardent champion for greater diversity among researchers in ocean conservation. More

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    Fans may not keep older adults cool during heat waves

    Air blowing from an electric fan alone isn’t enough to cool off older adults sweltering indoors in a heat wave, new research shows. A study of 18 adults aged 65 to 72, monitored in a controlled-climate chamber simulating extreme heat wave conditions, found little difference in peak core temperatures as a result of electric fan use, scientists report October 17 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

    Older adults, many of whom prefer to weather heat waves their own homes, are particularly at risk for heat-related health impacts (SN: 5/14/24). In the absence of access to air conditioning, using pedestal-style electric fans has been one recommended strategy for individuals at home to try to stay cool. Fans can speed up heat loss, lowering the body’s core temperature, by increasing sweat evaporation. More

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    An idea to save Mexico’s oyamel forests could help monarch butterflies too

    An experiment to grow new forests in central Mexico offers hope that the crucial winter habitat for millions of migrating monarch butterflies could survive into the next century.

    When scientists decided to plant hundreds of baby oyamel fir trees (Abies religiosa) about 100 kilometers from their native habitat, they weren’t sure how many trees would survive. Today, most of the saplings are flourishing, researchers report September 17 in Frontiers in Forests and Global Change. Even at an altitude of 3,800 meters, high above where the trees usually grow, almost 70 percent of the saplings survived at least three years. More

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    How tiny phytoplankton trek long distances upward in the ocean

    It’s one of the most massive migrations on Earth: a huge biomass of tiny plankton that travel from deep in the sea toward the surface. Yet not all of those organisms have limbs to propel themselves upward. So how some of them manage to undergo such a long journey has been a mystery.

    Now, a team of researchers has shown that one species of phytoplankton has an ingenious solution: swelling to six times its original size. The process reduces its density and allows it to float upward like a helium balloon, bioengineer Manu Prakash and his colleagues at Stanford University report October 17 in Current Biology. More

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    What leads rivers to suddenly change course?

    Shifting is in a river’s nature. But when a river breaks free of its channel and carves a new path across the landscape, devastating floods may descend upon communities with little to no warning.

    For decades, researchers have struggled to explain exactly how river channels become primed for such sudden diversions, or avulsions. A study published September 18 in Nature may have finally quelled the debate, showing how two factors work together to stage the rerouting of a river. Building on their findings, the researchers also developed a promising algorithm that can predict the new path of a river that has avulsed. More

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    Climate change fueled the fury of hurricanes Helene and Milton

    Meteorologists have watched in awe as Hurricane Milton, churning over the anomalously warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico, swiftly transformed into one of the strongest Atlantic storms on record.

    Over just 20 hours on October 7, Hurricane Milton explosively intensified from a Category 1 to a catastrophic Category 5 storm, with sustained winds of 290 kilometers per hour (180 miles per hour). The storm is expected to make landfall on the west coast of Florida either late on October 9 or early October 10 as a major Category 3 or 4 hurricane, bringing deadly storm surge and hurricane-force winds to coastal regions still reeling from Hurricane Helene just two weeks earlier (SN: 10/1/24). More

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    in Physics

    New electrical stitches use muscle movement to speed up healing

    Stitches are getting a shocking upgrade.

    In an experiment in rats, a new strong, flexible thread hastened wound healing by transforming muscle movement into electricity, researchers report October 8 in Nature Communications.

    If the material is eventually deemed safe for use in people, it “could change how we treat injuries,” says materials scientist Chengyi Hou of Donghua University in Shanghai.

    Researchers already knew that pumping electricity through stitches could speed healing, but previous technologies relied on bulky external batteries. The new sutures are powered by the body itself (SN: 3/2/23). More

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    A transatlantic flight may turn Saharan dust into a key ocean nutrient

    As dust from the Sahara blows thousands of kilometers across the Atlantic Ocean, it becomes progressively more nutritious for marine microbes, a new study suggests.

    Chemical reactions in the atmosphere chew on iron minerals in the dust, making them more water soluble and creating a crucial nutrient source for the iron-starved seas, researchers report September 20 in Frontiers in Marine Science.

    Dust clouds settling on the Atlantic can spawn phytoplankton blooms that support marine ecosystems, says Timothy Lyons, a biogeochemist at the University of California, Riverside. “Iron is incredibly important for life,” he says. Phytoplankton require it to convert carbon dioxide into sugars during photosynthesis. More