Day: August 30, 2023

Scores of sea lions have died from bird flu in Argentina, officials said Tuesday, as an unprecedented global outbreak continues to infect mammals, raising fears it could spread more easily among humans. 

Animal health authorities have recently reported dead sea lions in several locations along Argentina’s extensive Atlantic coast, from just south of the capital Buenos Aires to Santa Cruz near the southern tip of the continent. 

Another “50 dead specimens have been counted … with symptoms compatible with avian influenza,” read a statement from a Patagonian environmental authority.  

Authorities have asked the population to avoid beaches along Argentina’s roughly 5,000-kilometer coastline where cases have been reported. 

Sea lions are marine mammals, like seals and walruses. Adult males can weigh about 300 kilograms. 

The H5N1 bird flu has typically been confined to seasonal outbreaks, but since 2021 cases have emerged year-round, and across the globe, leading to what experts say is the largest outbreak ever seen. 

Hundreds of sea lions were reported dead in Peru earlier this year, as the virus has ravaged bird populations across South America. 

There is no treatment for bird flu, which spreads naturally between wild birds and also can infect domestic poultry. 

Avian influenza viruses do not typically infect humans, although there have been rare cases. 

The outbreak has infected several mammal species, however, such as farmed minks and cats, and the World Health Organization warned in July this could help it adapt to infect humans more easily. 

“Some mammals may act as mixing vessels for influenza viruses, leading to the emergence of new viruses that could be more harmful to animals and humans,” the WHO said in a statement. 
…

England will bring forward the start of its autumn flu and COVID-19 vaccination programs as a precautionary step after the identification of highly mutated COVID variant BA.2.86, which has been found in Britain. 

Scientists have said BA.2.86, an offshoot of the omicron variant, was unlikely to cause a devastating wave of severe disease and death, given immune defenses built up worldwide from vaccination and prior infection. 

However, Britain’s health ministry said annual vaccination programs for older and at-risk groups would start a few weeks earlier than planned in light of the variant. 

“As our world-leading scientists gather more information on the BA.2.86 variant, it makes sense to bring forward the vaccination program,” junior health minister Maria Caulfield said in a statement. 

The variant was first detected in Britain on August 18, and vaccinations will start on September 11, with care home residents and people at highest risk to receive the shots first. 

It is not currently categorized as a “variant of concern” in Britain, and the health ministry said there was no change to wider public health advice. 

The variant was first spotted in Denmark on July 24 after the virus that infected a patient at risk of becoming severely ill was sequenced. It has since been detected in other symptomatic patients, in routine airport screening, and in wastewater samples in a handful of countries. 

England has been without coronavirus restrictions since February 2022, but UK Health Security Agency Chief Executive Jenny Harries said new variants were expected.

“There is limited information available at present on BA.2.86, so the potential impact of this particular variant is difficult to estimate,” Harries said in a statement. 

“As with all emergent and circulating COVID-19 variants … we will continue to monitor BA.2.86 and to advise government and the public as we learn more.”
…

Astronomy enthusiasts are in for a treat Wednesday night: a rare “super blue moon” that won’t be seen again for more than a decade. 

Supermoons occur when the moon passes through its perigee — the point in its elliptical orbit that takes it closest to Earth. This makes it look about 14% bigger, compared with when it is at its furthest point, and a touch brighter.  

Full moons are defined by the exact moment they are opposite the sun, which will occur at 9:36 p.m. Eastern Time on August 30 (0136 GMT Thursday), according to NASA.  

The Virtual Telescope Project, hosted by Italian astronomer Gianluca Masi, will host a YouTube livestream beginning at 0336 GMT as it sets below the skyline of Rome. 

Despite the description, it won’t actually be blue: the term “blue moon” simply refers to when we see a full moon twice in a month. This happens because lunar cycles are a bit shorter at 29.5 days than calendar months, which last 30 or 31 days, so it’s possible for one to happen at the start of a month and a second at the end. 

The previous super blue moon occurred in December 2009, with the next set to come in quick succession: January and March of 2037. 

The origins of the English expression “once in a blue moon,” today understood to mean something that is very rare, go back hundreds of years. In Elizabethan times, “he would argue the moon was blue” could be said about a person making outlandish or patently absurd claims. 

It is possible, however, for the moon to take on a blue hue in the right circumstances. This can occur as a result of smoke or dust particles in the atmosphere scattering red wavelengths of life, such as following the eruption of Krakatoa in Indonesia in 1883. 

Dust from the event “turned sunsets green and the Moon blue all around the world for the best part of two years,” according to Sky & Telescope magazine. A more recent example may have occurred after 1950’s Chinchaga Firestorm, a huge blaze that consumed the northern boreal forests of Canada. 

The planet Saturn, just a few days out from its closest and brightest approach to Earth this year, will also appear near the moon. 

Wednesday’s full moon coincides with the Hindu festival “Raksha Bandhan” or Rakhi, which celebrates the bond between siblings. It is traditional for sisters to tie a rakhi, or cotton bracelet, around their brother’s wrist, who give a gift in return. 

It also falls in the month of Elul in the Hebrew calendar, a time of seeking and granting others forgiveness, as well as beginning and ending letters with wishes for the recipient to have a good year. 

“As usual, the wearing of suitably celebratory celestial attire is encouraged in honor of the full Moon. Take care of your siblings, let go of grudges, and here’s wishing you a good year!” a NASA post said. 

While the super blue moon will make for spectacular photos, its stronger gravitational pull also makes tides higher, which could exacerbate coastal flooding from Hurricane Idalia as it sweeps across Florida. 
…

There is a lot less plastic pollution floating on the surface of the oceans, according to a recent study published in the scientific journal, Nature Geoscience. And while that sounds like good news, it means there must be much more plastic deep within the oceans, the study added.

The report also indicated the amount of plastic that reaches the sea is 10 times less than some scientists previously thought. 

Still, using 3D computer modeling of beaches, sea surfaces and ocean depths to determine the flow of the plastics, the researchers estimated that about a half million metric tons of plastic makes its way into the oceans each year.

“We’re accumulating more and more plastics in the environment,” said Mikael Kaandorp, the lead author and a research scientist at Forschungszentrum Jülich, a research institute in Germany.

Earlier this year, the Five Gyres Institute, a California-based group that focuses on reducing plastic pollution, published a study that estimated similar amounts of plastic floating in the ocean.

“Even with the lower estimates of the amount of plastics entering the ocean each year, we are still faced with its visible and widespread impacts globally,” said Britta Baechler, associate director of oceans plastics research with the Ocean Conservancy in Portland, Oregon, in the northwestern U.S. Baechler, who did not take part in the study, told VOA, “They’re pervading coastlines and critical habitats, as well as smothering corals and invading sensitive ecosystems.”

According to the report, more than 3 million metric tons of surface plastic could remain in the water for decades. And plastic going into the oceans is likely to increase by 4% each year, meaning sea surface plastic could double within 20 years.

Most of the plastic is larger and likely to be concentrated in huge garbage patches in ocean gyres formed from circulating ocean currents.

About half of the plastic is from fishing gear, such as nets and ropes. The other half comes off the land.

They enter from the coasts “as non-watertight landfills or maybe waste dumped into the sea by rain runoff in coastal cities or carried into the ocean by the wind,” said Kaandorp.

“I’ve seen shampoo bottles and wildlife interacting with all different sizes of plastic pollution,” said Erica Cirino, communications manager for the Plastic Pollution Coalition in Washington.

Marine animals can get tangled in the debris and become sick or injured from ingesting plastic.

Cirino, author of the book, Thicker Than Water: The Quest for Solutions to the Plastic Crisis, thinks the study is not providing the full picture of the problem.

She points out that two kinds of plastic commonly found in the oceans were excluded from the research, which focuses more on sea surface plastics, she said. The first is PVC, (Polyvinyl chloride) used for items like pipes, bottles and packaging, and the other is PET (Polyethylene terephthalate) used for fibers in clothing and in containers for liquids and foods.

“These are denser than water and so they are actually more likely to be suspended below the surface and ultimately sink,” Cirino told VOA.

There’s also a huge amount of tiny pieces of microplastic floating in the oceans, which are consumed by fish and other sea life. As they enter the marine food chain, they can pose a risk for human health.

“You can see these little flecks of brightly colored plastic that looks like confetti on the surface of the ocean,” said Lisa Erdle, director of science and innovation at the Five Gyres Institute. “You can see microfibers that are coming from ropes and clothing. Close to shore, near cities, you see fragments of plastic from car tires.”

Kaandorp said his study underscores that the plastic pollution problem will only get worse if action isn’t taken now.

“It’s going to take a really long time before these plastics actually are removed from our seas,” he emphasized.

“[What] we need to be looking at is what types of products can be eliminated,” Baechler of the Ocean Conservancy said. “Which ones don’t need to be made of plastic. There’s a lot of leakage of plastics into the environment since not all plastics are recyclable.”

Meanwhile, representatives of 175 nations are writing a global treaty to restrict the explosive growth of plastic pollution. The legally binding agreement would commit those countries to clean up plastic waste and to improve recycling as well as curb plastics production.
…