Jul 28, 2021 07:01 PM
(This post was last modified: Jul 28, 2021 08:16 PM by C C.)
(travel, migration) Weird, noodle-shaped amphibians known as caecilians found in South Florida canal
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/923663
INTRO: Caecilians have arrived in Miami. Florida Fish and Wildlife biologists captured one of the obscure legless amphibians in the Tamiami Canal, the first example of an introduced caecilian in the U.S.
Florida Museum of Natural History scientists used DNA testing to identify the specimen as the Rio Cauca caecilian, Typhlonectes natans, a native of Colombia and Venezuela. While caecilians – pronounced like “Sicilians” – hunt and scavenge various kinds of small animals, museum experts say it’s too early to predict their potential impact on the local ecosystem.
“Very little is known about these animals in the wild, but there’s nothing particularly dangerous about them, and they don’t appear to be serious predators,” said Coleman Sheehy, Florida Museum’s herpetology collection manager. “They’ll probably eat small animals and get eaten by larger ones. This could be just another non-native species in the South Florida mix.” (MORE)
PAPER: https://doi.org/10.17161/randa.v28i2.15629
(travel) Lake Ohid: The neglected 'Galapagos of Europe'
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210...ng-fossils
EXCERPT: Ohrid is one of the oldest lakes in the world and is thought to have formed between four and 10 million years ago. Its hypnotic blue-green waters are surrounded by snow-capped mountains, and multiple towns and villages sit on its banks on both the Albanian and Macedonian sides.
The site has long been considered a holy spot in Orthodox Christianity, and the largest Macedonian town here – also called Ohrid – is thought to have once boasted 365 churches, or one for every day of the year. The Cyrillic alphabet, which is used in many Slavic languages including Russian, was also developed here at the Ohrid Literary School. The entire lake was declared a Unesco World Heritage Site in 1979, due to both its cultural significance and its immense natural beauty.
However, this special place is under threat from more than just overfishing. Construction and pollution have also increased over the past decade due to a tourism boom. "Back in 1979 it was pristine," says Mechtild Rössler, director of the world heritage centre at Unesco. "But over time, it became a matter of concern."
The lake itself is often referred to as the European Galapagos due to the high number of species found nowhere else but here. There are 212 in total, spanning the entirety of the food chain – from algae and zooplankton to plants, snails and worms. There are 17 fish species in total, of which eight are endemic. The lake is described by scientists as "a museum of living fossils", says Spase Shumka, a professor at the Agricultural University in the Albanian capital of Tirana. In its six million years of isolation, the species within it were able to evolve uniquely. According to Unesco it is by far the most biodiverse lake in the world, if size is taken into account.
Shumka explains that the lake is oligotrophic, "which means it's a clear lake with few nutrients in it". This makes the water beautifully clear, and safe for even humans to dip their hands in and drink from. However, it also means it has a low productivity – in other words, fish reproduce at a far slower rate compared to most other lakes.
The species here have evolved to thrive in these unusual conditions, including the Ohrid trout... (MORE - details)
(vehicles) Hybrid cars are twice as vulnerable to supply chain issues as gas-powered models
https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/press...odels.html
RELEASE: The global computer chip shortage has hit car manufacturers especially hard, indicating the importance of supply chain resilience. Yet, for hybrid electric vehicles, it isn't clear how their production could be impacted by fluctuating supplies and high prices. To get a grasp of these vulnerabilities compared to those for gas-powered models, researchers reporting in ACS' Environmental Science & Technology conducted a thorough analysis, finding that hybrid models have twice the vulnerability to supply chain disruptions.
Supply chain weaknesses were brought to the forefront during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially for industries relying on electronics, as the flow of raw materials slowed or sometimes stopped. On top of that, shifting consumer values and tougher environmental regulations have resulted in more people buying hybrid vehicles. The batteries in these cars require rare metals that, depending on their supplies, can have volatile and unpredictable prices.
But there are other scarce elements and materials that may be used in smaller amounts in hybrid models versus conventional gas vehicles, raising the question of how these vehicles really compare with regard to supply chain vulnerabilities. Although previous studies reported lists of the elements used in conventional cars' parts, similar information on the parts used in hybrid vehicles is lacking. So, Randolph Kirchain and colleagues wanted to develop a comprehensive comparison of the elements and compounds that go into all the parts in gas-powered, self-charging hybrid and plug-in hybrid cars, calculating each of the three vehicles' materials cost vulnerability.
The researchers collected information on the compounds in the more than 350,000 parts used to build seven vehicles from the same manufacturer with different levels of electrification, including four sedans and three sport utility vehicles (SUVs). Then, they calculated the amount of the 76 chemical elements present, as well as a few other materials, in each car type. To develop a monetary metric for vulnerability, the team considered the weight of each component, along with its average price and price volatility between 1998 and 2015.
The results showed that self-charging hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles have twice the raw material cost risks, which equates to an increase of $1 billion for a fleet of a million sedans and SUVs, compared to conventional models. The largest contributors to the increase in cost risks were battery-related elements, such as cobalt, nickel, graphite and neodymium; however, changes to the exhaust and transmission systems in hybrid vehicles reduced the impact of palladium and aluminum, respectively. The researchers suggest that as manufacturers ramp up electric vehicle production to meet demand, they can reduce raw material cost risks with long-term supplier contracts, substitute some materials or recycle others.
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/923663
INTRO: Caecilians have arrived in Miami. Florida Fish and Wildlife biologists captured one of the obscure legless amphibians in the Tamiami Canal, the first example of an introduced caecilian in the U.S.
Florida Museum of Natural History scientists used DNA testing to identify the specimen as the Rio Cauca caecilian, Typhlonectes natans, a native of Colombia and Venezuela. While caecilians – pronounced like “Sicilians” – hunt and scavenge various kinds of small animals, museum experts say it’s too early to predict their potential impact on the local ecosystem.
“Very little is known about these animals in the wild, but there’s nothing particularly dangerous about them, and they don’t appear to be serious predators,” said Coleman Sheehy, Florida Museum’s herpetology collection manager. “They’ll probably eat small animals and get eaten by larger ones. This could be just another non-native species in the South Florida mix.” (MORE)
PAPER: https://doi.org/10.17161/randa.v28i2.15629
(travel) Lake Ohid: The neglected 'Galapagos of Europe'
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210...ng-fossils
EXCERPT: Ohrid is one of the oldest lakes in the world and is thought to have formed between four and 10 million years ago. Its hypnotic blue-green waters are surrounded by snow-capped mountains, and multiple towns and villages sit on its banks on both the Albanian and Macedonian sides.
The site has long been considered a holy spot in Orthodox Christianity, and the largest Macedonian town here – also called Ohrid – is thought to have once boasted 365 churches, or one for every day of the year. The Cyrillic alphabet, which is used in many Slavic languages including Russian, was also developed here at the Ohrid Literary School. The entire lake was declared a Unesco World Heritage Site in 1979, due to both its cultural significance and its immense natural beauty.
However, this special place is under threat from more than just overfishing. Construction and pollution have also increased over the past decade due to a tourism boom. "Back in 1979 it was pristine," says Mechtild Rössler, director of the world heritage centre at Unesco. "But over time, it became a matter of concern."
The lake itself is often referred to as the European Galapagos due to the high number of species found nowhere else but here. There are 212 in total, spanning the entirety of the food chain – from algae and zooplankton to plants, snails and worms. There are 17 fish species in total, of which eight are endemic. The lake is described by scientists as "a museum of living fossils", says Spase Shumka, a professor at the Agricultural University in the Albanian capital of Tirana. In its six million years of isolation, the species within it were able to evolve uniquely. According to Unesco it is by far the most biodiverse lake in the world, if size is taken into account.
Shumka explains that the lake is oligotrophic, "which means it's a clear lake with few nutrients in it". This makes the water beautifully clear, and safe for even humans to dip their hands in and drink from. However, it also means it has a low productivity – in other words, fish reproduce at a far slower rate compared to most other lakes.
The species here have evolved to thrive in these unusual conditions, including the Ohrid trout... (MORE - details)
(vehicles) Hybrid cars are twice as vulnerable to supply chain issues as gas-powered models
https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/press...odels.html
RELEASE: The global computer chip shortage has hit car manufacturers especially hard, indicating the importance of supply chain resilience. Yet, for hybrid electric vehicles, it isn't clear how their production could be impacted by fluctuating supplies and high prices. To get a grasp of these vulnerabilities compared to those for gas-powered models, researchers reporting in ACS' Environmental Science & Technology conducted a thorough analysis, finding that hybrid models have twice the vulnerability to supply chain disruptions.
Supply chain weaknesses were brought to the forefront during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially for industries relying on electronics, as the flow of raw materials slowed or sometimes stopped. On top of that, shifting consumer values and tougher environmental regulations have resulted in more people buying hybrid vehicles. The batteries in these cars require rare metals that, depending on their supplies, can have volatile and unpredictable prices.
But there are other scarce elements and materials that may be used in smaller amounts in hybrid models versus conventional gas vehicles, raising the question of how these vehicles really compare with regard to supply chain vulnerabilities. Although previous studies reported lists of the elements used in conventional cars' parts, similar information on the parts used in hybrid vehicles is lacking. So, Randolph Kirchain and colleagues wanted to develop a comprehensive comparison of the elements and compounds that go into all the parts in gas-powered, self-charging hybrid and plug-in hybrid cars, calculating each of the three vehicles' materials cost vulnerability.
The researchers collected information on the compounds in the more than 350,000 parts used to build seven vehicles from the same manufacturer with different levels of electrification, including four sedans and three sport utility vehicles (SUVs). Then, they calculated the amount of the 76 chemical elements present, as well as a few other materials, in each car type. To develop a monetary metric for vulnerability, the team considered the weight of each component, along with its average price and price volatility between 1998 and 2015.
The results showed that self-charging hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles have twice the raw material cost risks, which equates to an increase of $1 billion for a fleet of a million sedans and SUVs, compared to conventional models. The largest contributors to the increase in cost risks were battery-related elements, such as cobalt, nickel, graphite and neodymium; however, changes to the exhaust and transmission systems in hybrid vehicles reduced the impact of palladium and aluminum, respectively. The researchers suggest that as manufacturers ramp up electric vehicle production to meet demand, they can reduce raw material cost risks with long-term supplier contracts, substitute some materials or recycle others.