New orca group off Oregon?
The Pacific Northwest has three distinct populations of orcas living off its shores. The , the and the . They have different ranges, and markings. They eat different kinds of food and even speak different languages.
But growing evidence suggests that there could be a fourth distinct population, or , living in the deep ocean off Oregon and California. Now from the have collected 25 years鈥� worth of sightings to understand the range and other distinctive characteristics of these 鈥渙ceanic鈥� whales.
The 49 new orcas 鈥� observed by researchers, fishermen and birders over the years 鈥� don鈥檛 match individuals in any other population. They have been witnessed hunting a full-sized , in addition to other large ocean mammals.
Wounds from seem to be a calling card for the new oceanic population. These small sharks live way offshore in the open ocean and bite round cookie-shaped chunks out of larger fish, sharks and marine mammals. Most of the new orcas have evidence of these bites, leaving the researchers to conclude the whales spend most of their time in deep water.
The paper was published in the journal .
Rounding up Roundup
Since the mid-1970s, the herbicide glyphosate (aka Roundup) has been one of the. The Environmental Protection Agency has maintained that glyphosate doesn鈥檛 pose a significant risk to human health or the environment. Yet recent Roundup producer Monsanto (now Bayer) has started offering billions of dollars to people who used the herbicide and subsequently developed certain cancers.
All this to say, the future of glyphosate is uncertain, and we might be cleaning it up from the environment, , for decades to come.
Now researchers at have discovered a way to break down and remove glyphosate from groundwater. They鈥檝e identified a specific that can break down glyphosate into non-hazardous substances through a reaction triggered by light.
The material, consisting of metals and organic compounds bound together, has the ability to remove glyphosate from water in just five minutes.
The results were published in the Nature Communications .
Increasing baby-making options for some same-sex couples (and others!)
Genetic technology has come a long way in a short period of time. But an area where researchers is creating viable human embryos that don鈥檛 require the strict sex-based combination of an egg and sperm.
Now researchers at have developed a way to combine genetic information to produce a viable egg 鈥� regardless of the parent鈥檚 reproductive sex or medical ability to have children. The process still requires sperm to create a viable embryo, but the egg can be created using skin cells from anyone.
Scientists developed the technique using cells from mice. They stripped the genetic information from a viable egg cell (kind of like taking out the software, but leaving the hardware behind) and injected that egg with chromosomes extracted from a skin cell. The researchers then coaxed the new skin cell-egg hybrid to drop half its , making it ready to be fertilized by sperm through .
The technique is still far from being ready for use with humans, but it offers a new avenue for male same-sex couples and infertile women to conceive children related to both parents.
The paper in Science Advances can be read .
Stitching for STEM
Despite concerted efforts to throw the doors open for women and underrepresented BIPOC communities to pursue careers, there is still a wide gap in representation in the workforce.
at the are looking for ways to offer education opportunities specifically tailored to inspire these groups to thrive in STEM fields. They鈥檝e developed a course that uses embroidery to teach basic concepts behind computer coding. The researchers say has natural links to because of the pixel-by-pixel and repetitive nature of the stitching. Through the embroidery, they were also able to offer a cultural connection for students not often present in STEM courses.
The high school students started by learning how to hand-embroider and spent time studying different cultural traditions of embroidery (Mexican, Arab and Japanese) from around the world.
They were then introduced to an open-source web app called , which is used to 鈥渃ode鈥� patterns for embroidery machines. The class spent several weeks working on designs, while learning coding concepts like loops and . The lead researcher plans to adapt the program further for different ages and experiences.
This research was published in the Proceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education and can be accessed .
Carbon-negative decking
People in the United States love decks. We use of decking boards each year. In recent years, there鈥檚 been a slow shift from wood decking to composite boards, which can be made of and wood fillers. The new composites are more expensive but last longer and require less maintenance.
Now researchers at are adding 鈥渃arbon negative鈥� to the list of benefits of composite boards.
They鈥檝e developed a new formulation of composite that uses or (both organic industrial waste products) instead of more typical fillers like wood flour. To get the lignin/lignite to bond with the plastic, the scientists created a reaction that attaches carbon dioxide to the surface. In the end, the filler material ends up being up to 5% CO2 by weight.
If manufactured using green methods, the researchers say the material will be carbon negative over its lifetime 鈥� a rare thing when it comes to building materials. In addition, the researchers say the material would actually be cheaper to manufacture than traditional composites, and its strength meets international building code standards.
was presented at the spring meeting of the .
Update: 鈥淭he solution to climate change is rural America.鈥�
Back in 2022, featured research about a . Scientists at were working on ways to fully integrate agriculture and solar power production on the same plot of land in a way that鈥檚 mutually beneficial to both.
featured was trying to figure out what mix of pasture plants would be best for grazing lambs around solar power arrays, given the need for the plants to perform well when shaded by the panels. Now she鈥檚 published the results in the journal , available .
Implementing agrivoltaic systems would be a significant shift in the way we approach green energy production and agriculture as a society. Nitty-gritty research like this is vital to provide the information farmers need to make a paradigm shift.
In this monthly rundown from OPB, 鈥�.鈥� creator Jes Burns features the most interesting, wondrous and hopeful science coming out of the Pacific Northwest.
And remember: Science builds on the science that came before. No one study tells the whole story.
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