A Project ReCon commercial fishing parter crew poses with a ghost net they pulled from the water - credit Project ReCon-Satlink
A Project ReCon commercial fishing partner crew poses with a ghost net they pulled from the water – credit Project ReCon-Satlink
Hi-tech GPS-tracking buoys washing up on Australian beaches were a strange find during a litter clean-up for the non-profit Tangaroa Blue.
On a normal day of operations for the marine debris prevention group, large numbers of these buoys were discovered on Cape York coast near Australia’s northeastern tip manufactured in Spain by a company called Satlink.
Rather than taking them to the dump and putting them in the e-waste dumpster, Tangaroa Blue founder Heidi Tait has secured permission from the Spanish company to put them to use tracking ‘ghost nets’.
These abandoned fishing nets drift unknowingly through ocean waters snaring turtles and other sea life. They’re typically left behind by fishermen after being snagged on a reef or rock outcrop, or when a weather event moves them from where the fishermen left them.
In either case, they’re deadly, multi-tonne pieces of marine debris that need large fishing vessels with hydraulic equipment to haul them in. Even if they are found, many fishing boats lack this expensive machine.
So Tait has gathered together a coalition of Australian mariners, from national park staff, Indigenous rangers, commercial fishermen, and charter boats, and handed out the derelict GPS-tracking buoys with a simple instruction—find a ghost net, hook the buoy to it.
Heidi’s partner, Brett, told Hakai Magazine’s Clare Watson that it really helps the organization clear two hurdles in one jump because trackers are “such a high-tech piece of equipment.” They’re obviously not cheap, and for them to go to a landfill “seemed like such a waste.”
The result was Project ReCon, a partnership between Satlink, Tangaroa Blue, and around 100 commercial fishing vessels representing 22 international companies. Project ReCon has also gained the support of two other major environmental organizations, The Nature Conservancy and The Pacific Community, as local partners. By the end of December, the project has extended its reach to a total of eight countries.
Tangaroa Blue volunteers pose with GPS buoys found in a recent beach clean-up – credit Tangaroa Blue, retrieved from X.
Tait can find and track the Satlink buoys with enough precision to be able to ask properly equipped boats to go and collect them.
So far, 3 ghost nets have already been removed by Tait and her coalition, including one that weighed over 3 metric tons.
150m+ of thick mooring rope was found snagged up on the reef. It was untangled and secured on a mooring with two #ProjectReCon buoys attached as we waited for the Cyclone to pass. Now the winds have settled, it was recovered and removed from the Great Barrier Reef! @SatlinkSLpic.twitter.com/yiye49rIVp
Suborno Bari- released by the family to the media.
Suborno Bari- released by the family to the media.
12-year-old Suborno Bari has graduated from high school, completing just grades 10 and 12 when all was said and done, skipping 5th, 6th, 7th, 9th, and 11th grades in the process.
He is the youngest-ever scholar to graduate from Malverne High School in Malverne, New York, but despite his stratospheric intelligence, he says his peers have always embraced him.
Suborno’s family designed his education so that he would spend the majority of school hours socializing with kids his age to ensure he developed like everyone else. He might spend the morning taking core classes at an 8th-grade level in the local middle school, and then hop on a bus and spend the rest of the school day in the 5th-grade classroom on electives and after-school activities.
Rebecca Gottesman, the director of K-12 school counseling at Malverne Union Free School District said she first met Suborno in 4th grade, and that even after 25 years in education, he was the most impressive student she had ever seen.
“Every year, school counselors are asked on behalf of the students that are applying to these colleges to answer the question, ‘Is this one of the most exceptional students that you’ve ever seen in your career?’ … and I can say without any doubt that Suborno is the most exceptional student I’ve ever met academically,” Gottesman told ABC’s ‘Good Morning America.‘ “He’s really a prodigy.”
Suborno Bari with family and teachers – released by the family to the media.
The young man said that even though other students were aware of his talents, they always treated him like he was just another friendly face, like any other student.
Scoring 1500 on the SAT, 34 on the ACT, and taking 5 AP classes, Suborno said he’s ready for college.
In the late summer, he’ll be heading off to New York University on a scholarship where he hopes to double major in physics and math—but not for the reasons you might think.
“Many people are doing it only because their parents said so or because engineers just make the most profit, not because they actually love what they’re doing. So I hope to fix that and help other people understand math and science and love it in all its beauty,” Suborno said.
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Quote of the Day: “America is another name for opportunity.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson (Happy Independence Day to the United States of America—born 248 years ago today.)
Photo by: specphotops
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A tiny fraction of the asteroid Bennu sample returned by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission, shown in microscope images - From Lauretta & Connolly et al. (2024) Meteoritics & Planetary Science, doi10.1111maps.14227.
A tiny fraction of the asteroid Bennu sample returned by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission, shown in microscope images – From Lauretta & Connolly et al. (2024) Meteoritics & Planetary Science, doi10.1111maps.14227.
Among the possible origins for the asteroid Bennu, which recently became the first asteroid ever sampled by a NASA mission, a surprising indication is that it may have come from a water world.
The development arose after researchers analyzed the mixture of rocks and dust from bodies beyond Earth, collectively called ‘regolith’, scooped up from Bennu by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission in 2020.
A spacecraft was able to extract the sample and carry it 200 million miles back to Earth.
Scientists had hoped the 4.3-ounce (121.6-gram) sample would hold secrets of the solar system’s past and the prebiotic chemistry that might have led to the origin of life on Earth.
An early analysis study of the sample, published in Meteoritics & Planetary Science, documents compounds found that are the components of biochemistry for all known life on Earth today.
The OSIRIS-REx Sample Analysis Team discovered that Bennu contains the basic building blocks for all life. The regolith is rich in carbon and nitrogen, as well as organic compounds, all of which are essential components for life as we know it.
This composition offers a glimpse into the early days of our solar system over 4.5 billion years ago. These rocks have retained their original state, having neither melted nor resolidified since their inception, affirming their ancient origins.
However, the sample also contains magnesium-sodium phosphate, which was a surprise to the research team, because it wasn’t seen in the remote sensing data collected by the spacecraft at Bennu.
Its presence in the sample hints that the asteroid could have splintered off from a long-gone, tiny, primitive, ocean world.
“The presence and state of phosphates, along with other elements and compounds on Bennu, suggest a watery past for the asteroid,” stated Dante Lauretta, co-lead author of the paper and principal investigator for OSIRIS-REx at the University of Arizona, Tucson.
“Bennu potentially could have once been part of a wetter world. Although, this hypothesis requires further investigation.”
Recently, scientists working with the James Webb Space Telescope spotted what they believed to be an ocean world called K2-18b, which lies 120 light years away from Earth in the constellation Leo, where it orbits the habitable zone of a red dwarf star called K2-18.
Believed to be 8.6 times larger than Earth, the abundance of methane and carbon dioxide, and shortage of ammonia detected on the planet supports the hypothesis that there may be a water ocean underneath a hydrogen-rich atmosphere.
Classed as a “sub-Neptune” meaning one which shares its characteristics but that is smaller than the planet of its namesake. Such planets are believed in some circles to be the most common type of rocky exoplanet.
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A broad coalition of natural trusts, farmers and businessmen, and conservationists are looking to turn the southern English coastline and the lands beyond into a biodiversity hotspot—and success can be seen and felt in the numbers of aquatic species that are returning to the Sussex coast.
The effort follows two major turning points for English nature—one on land and one at sea.
In 2022, a ban on trawling in Sussex Bay that had long been campaigned for was passed after decades of this unsustainable fishing practice destroying mussel beds, oyster reefs, kelp forests, and other anchors of the marine environment.
While that trawling was doing the damage at sea, two rogue landowners were looking to reverse what industrial agriculture had done on a lordly estate called Knepp. GNN reported on the Knepp rewilding project after the fact, and though for years surrounding farmers looked at the manor and grounds like a pariah state, their success in restoring a pre-agricultural slice of wild England has become the finest example in the country.
Now farmers all across Sussex are looking to create conditions and corridors through and around their farms that will allow the biodiversity concentrated on the 3,500 acres of Knepp to spill over. The project is called Weald to Waves, and aims to create 10,000 hectares (24,710 acres) of nature-friendly land in corridors running from the rolling hills of the South Downs along the valleys of the rivers Arun and Adur until they reach the sea.
It’s founder, James Baird, owns the last piece on undeveloped coastline in Sussex, and working with the Knepp Estate, he plans to allow their manor lands and the beasts and visitors thereupon to have access through natural environments all the way to the ocean.
credit – Weald to Waves
Another half of Weald to Waves is the reduction in farming practices that produce agricultural runoff, to help improve coastal water quality.
It’s already had a big effect, as the divers and marine biologists at Sussex Bay initiative are seeing every link in the marine food web coming back. They’re seeing beaches rich with signs of life—cuttlefish bones, kelp, and whelk eggs.
“We’ve had the biggest bed of mussels stretching from Lancing to Brighton,” Eric Smith, of Rewilding Britain who is engaged in the initiative, told the Guardian.
“I saw an electric ray last year and an angel shark, which is critically endangered. First one I’ve seen since 1966. Also the bream are coming back. They are very vulnerable to bottom trawling—and one of the species targeted by the vessels.”
Dolphins and porpoise sightings have gone up two years in a row.
“Previously, we’ve had reports of cetaceans offshore over winter and inshore between May and September,” says Thea Taylor, managing director of Sussex Dolphin Project. “Now we are starting to see them inshore all year round.”
Sussex Bay and Weald to Waves are working together so that the coast is a shining mirror to the South Downs National Park, where people can visit, walk for miles inland through biodiverse native habitats and then arrive at the sea which is filled with life. The two groups expect the collaboration, if successful, to be an effective driver of ecotourism, bringing in millions from hikers, ramblers, divers, and others.
WATCH a video explainer below…
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This is the heart-stopping moment a toddler was saved by a hero commuter after falling onto a railway line seconds before a high-speed train thundered past.
CCTV footage captured the dramatic near-miss at Newark Northgate railway station in Nottinghamshire last month.
The 36-second clip shows the three-year-old boy walking behind two adults before running to the edge of the platform.
He appears to lower himself over the edge before tumbling backwards onto the track.
A man who was with the child is seen sprinting across the platform while a hero bystander leaps onto the line and lifts the boy to safety.
Just 22 seconds later a train speeds through the station without stopping.
“I think the fact a train came through the station at speed just seconds after emphasized just how awful the outcome could have been,” said station customer services assistant Olivia Timms, who saw the incident. “Thankfully, everyone made it home safely that day and we want to make sure that happens every day.”
The footage of three such incidents was released by London North Eastern Railway (LNER) as part of Rail Safety Week.
In a second incident, passengers are seen leaving a train when a child falls through the gap between the train and the platform next to a station guard. A crowd gathers as the guard desperately pulls the young passenger to safety.
Already this year, eight safety incidents involving children have been recorded at LNER stations.
WATCH the near-miss at Newark below…
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Special recognition has been paid to a senior foster mom from Maryland: senior because she’s 88 years old, and senior because she’s one of the most experienced long-term foster moms in the American foster home system.
Since opening her home in Montgomery County in the 1980s, she’s fostered over 40 children, and was recently presented with an award for her services to the youth of her state after announcing that she would finally retire from foster care.
Interviewed by ABC News as part of their ‘America Strong’ segment, Emma Patterson said she first became involved when the two children she birthed started to occasionally bring other kids home with them who needed help.
Whether it was food, warm clothes, or a place to safely spend time after school, the two siblings knew their mom was the right person to offer help.
At the time, Patterson had just separated with her children’s father, and along with working at a local university, also had a retail job that offered a discount she used to get the children, hers and not hers, what they needed.
This led her to registering herself and her home in White Oak, Maryland, into the Montgomery County foster home system, where she would occasionally foster infants—born drug-addicted babies who couldn’t go home with their parents—where she would foster up to nine kids at a time—where some would stay with her until they were adults.
Patterson is one of the foster parents in the county who has housed the most children long-term and one of the longest-serving foster parents, a Montgomery County spokesperson confirmed to ABC News.
“This wasn’t something that I ever thought anybody paid attention to. You know, I didn’t do it for the purpose of anybody, give me any recognition,” Patterson told ABC News. “It was always a situation where it was just a boy or girl that didn’t have anybody to care anything about them. And they needed a place to sleep or something to eat.”
Quote of the Day: “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” – Thomas A. Edison
Photo by: Sara Darcaj
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A genetically specific pesticide has shown to be lethal to the destructive Colorado potato beetle while leaving all other tested species, even the beetle’s close relatives, unharmed.
Every year, this native of the Rocky Mountains causes $500 million or more in damages across the Northern Hemisphere—all across which it’s now found as an invasive species.
The company GreenLight Biosciences has developed a spray marketed as Calantha in the USA that uses RNA interference technology to target a gene called PSMB5 that codes for part of the cellular machinery that removes damaged proteins. If removed or inhibited, these dead or broken proteins build up and the larvae die within 6 days.
The potato beetle, which despite its name also damages eggplant, tomatoes, and bell peppers, has already developed immunity to 50 pesticide formulas.
Much like bacteria developing immunity to antibiotics, crop pests have gradually developed resistance or immunity to many kinds of pesticides, keeping pharma and agri-science companies forever at the drawing board figuring out how to combat different worms, beetles, and moths that ravage crops worldwide.
“They were chewing through treated plants like it was nothing,” Andrei Alyokhin, an entomologist at the University of Maine, told Science Magazine’s Erik Stokstad of the moment in 2001 when farmers in Maine noticed the then-new class of pesticides, neonicotinoids, were no longer effective.
RNA interference is considered the Holy Grail of this science, described as both way safer by researchers in the field, and innocuous to insects outside the potato beetle’s genetic relatives, including pollinators, lacewings, and ladybugs.
“You can … hit the insect you want to kill with precision,” said Subba Reddy Palli, an entomologist at the University of Kentucky, also to Stokstad. “You cannot get anything better than this.”
Produced in large batches at around $1 per gram, Calantha was approved by the United States FDA for use after it was found to be harmless to non-target species. In safety trials, GreenLight checked bioinformatics databases to see how different the version of PSMB5 found in the potato beetle was from the same in other insects. Four closely related beetle species had similar copies of PSMB5, and of those four, two were affected.
The pesticide research community is so excited about Calantha that they are already devising strategies and precautions to prevent the potato beetle from developing immunity to it. GreenLight has also applied for FDA approval on a Calantha variant for the varroa mite, a plague species on honeybees, which can resist almost all available pesticides.
Environmental groups have demanded that lessons should be taken from past examples and that Calantha trials should be made to include many other species that share the habitat of a potato farm. Furthermore, the formula that keeps the RNA stable inside the spray is confidential, and having spent decades seeking compensation for glyphosate poisoning, they are unlikely to be easily satisfied, and neither should they be.
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Vatican City - Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License CC BY-SA 3.0
Vatican City – Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License CC BY-SA 3.0
There’s no country anywhere on Earth that’s entirely powered by renewable energy every day, but that’s soon to change.
In a letter released on June 21 entitled “Brother Sun” Pope Francis announced his intention to transition Vatican City onto 100% renewable energy using solar panels.
The apostolic letter issued “motu proprio,” or on his own initiative, detailed the pontiff’s plan to use the Vatican’s multi-purpose land holdings 11 miles outside of Rome in an area called Santa Maria di Galeria.
Here, along with some agriculture, is the infrastructure needed for broadcasting Vatican Radio, and the area is large enough to accomodate enough solar panels to power the whole of the Holy See.
For many years the Pope has urged nations to take the climate crisis more seriously. In 2022, the Vatican joined the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, a global agreement among nations to address “dangerous human interference with the climate system,” but he has been more vocal individually than as the head of state of the world’s smallest country.
“The pope identifies the burning of fossil fuels as the primary driver of climate change…” The New York Times reported in 2023. “He dismisses those who deny the crisis, and accuses wealthy individuals, corporations and countries of selfishly turning a blind eye.”
Brother Sun was released on the Solstice, a day which ironically saw rain and clouds over much of Italy, particularly the north.
In South Africa, biologists and scientists have developed a novel way of disincentivizing poaching that will allow rhinos to keep hold of their horns.
Previously it was widespread practice to capture and de-horn rhinos to disincentivize poachers from killing them, but the lack of a horn deeply interfered with the animals’ social structures.
Instead, rhinos at a nursery in the northern province of Limpopo have had radioactive isotopes embedded into their horns. The idea is that the radiation given off by these isotopes will mark out anyone at any border crossing as having handled a rhino horn.
It’s a superior form of tracking because even if the tracker is removed the radiation remains on the horn, as well as anything that touches it.
Nuclear researchers at the University of the Witwatersrand’s Radiation and Health Physics Unit in South Africa injected 20 live rhinos with these isotopes.
“We are doing this because it makes it significantly easier to intercept these horns as they are being trafficked over international borders because there is a global network of radiation monitors that have been designed to prevent nuclear terrorism,” Professor James Larkin who heads the project told Africa News. “And we’re piggybacking on the back of that.”
Larkin adds that innovation in poaching prevention is urgently needed, as all existing methods have limitations, and South Africa still loses tens of rhinos every year.
Professor Nithaya Chetty, dean of the science faculty at Witwatersrand, said the dosage of the radioactivity is very low and its potential negative impact on the animal was tested extensively.
While poaching elephants for their ivory yields a unique material for sculpture and craft, rhino horn is trafficked to criminal groups in Asia who sell it for the incorrect belief that it contains therapeutic properties.
WATCH the story below from Africa News…
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Tarrant County Sheriff's Office, retrieved from Facebook
Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office, retrieved from Facebook
In Fort Worth, a derelict litter of puppies was rescued by police officers from roasting in the heat of a 100-degree day.
Left by their previous owner closed in a carrier without water, they were fortunate enough to be found by a good Samaritan who called the authorities. Tarrant County police and animal control arrived to take custody and get some fluids into the pups.
The police noted that the parking lot where the puppies were found lacked the necessary security camera coverage to ascertain the identity of whatever pathological owner left them there.
“The puppies that were rescued from a carrier in 100-degree weather by Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office are doing much better,” the department shared on Facebook, complete with a picture of Officer Haley Drew smiling with her arms overloaded with furballs.
Silcox Center believes the puppies to be some kind of shepherd mix, and named each one after a famous chip brand, including Frito, Dorito, Ruffles, Cheeto, Lays, Pringle, and Itz.
Quote of the Day: “Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.” – Desmond Tutu
Photo by: Shashank Sahay
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Ashlee Wallace, Justin Wallace, and their daughter Audrey (right) - supplied by the family to ABC News
Ashlee Wallace, Justin Wallace, and their daughter Audrey (right) – supplied by the family to ABC News
A saga in Australia’s news media has come to a head in the best possible way, as a struggling family and their terminally ill 6-year-old daughter are being moved into special housing ’round the clock care.
ABC News Down Under originally broke the story on June 23rd that 6-year-old Audrey Wallace, who was born with treatment resistant epilepsy, had entered palliative care after a bout of pneumonia saw her condition weaken considerably to the point where she could no longer swallow food or control well her left side.
The doctors aren’t sure how long she has left, but father Justin and mother Ashlee are determined to make the most of it—with a visit to the zoo, or at least a unicorn fairy princess party at home.
Entitled to financial support and assistance in adding accommodations for Audrey’s medical requirements from Australia’s National Disability Insurance Agency, (NDIA) the family’s care team ran straight into a slow “reactive” bureaucracy.
Their duplex apartment wasn’t wheelchair accessible, and the hallways were too narrow for Audrey to be wheeled to her bedroom or the bathroom. Additionally, the hospital care team said it was unsafe to travel in a normal car, but the family cannot afford a wheelchair accessible one.
According to ABC, the NDIA only approached Audrey’s request on June 6th, nearly a month after the initial worsening of Audrey’s condition. It took until the 17th for the department to receive all the necessary medical records to make an evaluation. It wasn’t until the 24th that a meeting and review could take place, which Mr. Wallace wasn’t good enough.
“We feel everyone is reactive instead of proactive… and we feel that this has taken a lot of time away from Audrey and time is something we don’t have,” Mr. Wallace told ABC.
But sunnier days lie ahead for the Gold Coast family, starting when couple Donna Moore and Erica Breitzke read the June 23rd report and offered to loan a wheelchair-accessible van, which they had previously planned to sell, to the Wallaces.
Ms. Moore told the outlet that she had epilepsy as a child, and was moved by Audrey’s plight.
“It’s going to open up so much freedom, just being able to do normal things like take her out to the shops,” Mrs. Wallace said about the van. “It just allows us to have our life back.
Then, after persistent inquiries from ABC News, the NDIA and the Queensland Department of Housing investigated the case and approved a disability-accessible home on the Gold Coast with 24-hour nursing assistance.
The family are busy packing.
“We can actually sit back and be parents, and not be all the hats,” said mom Ashlee. “Now we can focus on her unicorn party that’s happening at the end of July, to give her the best time ever.”
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This week, a giant, 112-foot-long sleeping infant floated above the shores of Lake Michigan.
It wasn’t a collective hallucination—it was “Baby You,” a breathtaking art installation that captured the imagination of Milwaukeeans over the Summer Solstice.
The spectacle celebrated the U.S. launch of Przekrój, an iconic 75-year-old Polish magazine. Known for observing the world with a “kind and playful eye” (and its tagline: Hard to spell, easy to read), Przekrój chose this whimsical installation to symbolize both its rebirth in America and its editorial mission to unleash the untapped potential in American readers.
Needless to say, the awe-struck crowd loved it, with Milwaukee Record reporter Bert Lauderdale calling it “the best thing I saw all year”, one fan telling CBS 58, “I don’t think any of us have seen anything like this before,” and an Instagrammer posting, “I really want them to make The Giant Baby an annual thing.”
Przekrój was a revolutionary Polish magazine that served as a cultural lifeline to the West during the Cold War. To celebrate the launch of its U.S. English-language online edition, they launched a massive, 112-foot-long baby-shaped balloon over the shores of Milwaukee’s Lake Michigan.
Przekrój’s editorial mission is embodied in “Baby You,” a spectacular sculpture of a newborn floating in the air—symbolizing the untapped potential within all people: unlimited, and waiting to be awakened.
Meaning “to cut through,” Przekrój (pronounced p-SHEH-crooy) got its name from the fused pages characteristic of older magazine binding techniques which required the reader to cut through and separate the pages with a letter opener. It has run for 80 years.
Photo by: Brian Slawson Photography
“We share knowledge because we believe in the unlimited potential within each of us,” said Tomek Niewiadomski, the chairman of the board of the Przekrój Foundation, which publishes Przekrój. “Our goal is to support every reader on their path of personal growth and self-discovery, whether they are searching for the meaning of life or simply seeking to find joy, relax, and appreciate the present moment.
Building “Baby You” took—aptly—nine months of work with a crew of engineers, designers, and sewers across Europe. Przekrój Foundation partnered with artist Bart Van Peel to troubleshoot the aesthetic, technical, and aeronautical elements needed to make the large balloon airworthy.
New techniques were developed to distribute air throughout the baby’s internal structure, the most challenging being the head. The tan fabric balloon’s colors change with the light, reflecting the many hues of human skin.
WATCH the baby’s inaugural flight below…
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One of the culinary world’s most prized fish, and one of the sea’s fastest most accomplished predators, has left regulators stunned at the power of its recovery.
A target for the pan-Pacific stock of bluefin tuna has already been reached a decade in advance, with one federal fisheries policy analyst suggesting the world isn’t far away from abundant harvests and perpetual population growth at the same time.
Coveted for its richness, combination of fattiness, firmness, and ability to hold a sear, bluefin tuna is the most desired of its genus. When caught by fishermen and brought to harbor in Japan, mature bluefins are auctioned right there on the wharf, with prices ranging from $40 a pound to $4,900 a pound.
In fact, the “Ferrari of Tuna” as it’s sometimes called, has set auction records of $1.8 million for 489-pound adult fish in 2013, and an astounding $3 million for a 612-pound fish in 2019.
One of the fastest fish in the sea, these accomplished predators who spawn in the Pacific between Japan and the Philippines but grow up along the coasts of Mexico and the Western United States, can migrate back to the Indo-Pacific waters—a distance of 6,000 miles—in just 55 days of swimming.
In 2022, a coalition of national fisheries managers and intergovernmental agencies conducted a survey of the population of Pacific bluefin tuna measured by their ‘unfished spawning stock biomass’—the theoretical amount of fish there would be in the absence of fishing.
These included the American National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, (NOAA) the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission, (IATTC) and the International Scientific Committee for Tuna and Tuna-Like Species in the North Pacific Ocean (ISC).
The NOAA reports that overfishing in the late 1990s and 2000s reduced the estimated bluefin biomass to a historic low of 2% of its potential unfished level in 2009–2012.
credit – Beth Macdonald – Unsplash
At first the goal was to rebuild to at least 20% of the spawning stock biomass by 2034. In 2016, the NOAA Fisheries bureau received a petition to put the bluefin tuna on the Endangered Species List because of this collapse, but opted not to, reasoning that the 1.6 million fish were enough to prevent extinction.
This allowed fishing of the Ferrari of Tuna to continue, and during a recent population assessment, it was found that the 2034 target of spawning stock biomass had already been reached and exceeded. The number of spawning bluefin reached 23.2% of the potential unfished spawning stock.
“There is a point where you can find a balance between abundant harvest while also allowing the stock to grow in perpetuity, and we’ve now exceeded that point,” said Celia Barroso, a Fishery Policy Analyst at the NOAA Fisheries West Coast Region.
Now in July, this coalition is set to meet in Japan to decide tuna catch and recovery targets up to 2025 and beyond, armed with the knowledge that the nearly 500 million people between the US and Japan can continue to enjoy this fish long into the future.
“The recovery of Pacific bluefin tuna shows what we can achieve when scientists, managers, and the fishing industry work together in the international arena in pursuit of a common objective,” said Ryan Wulff, Assistant Regional Administrator for the NOAA Fisheries West Coast Region. “We’ll continue this effort to ensure the sustainable harvest of bluefin for decades to come.”
GNN has reported recently on several other fishing stocks that have seen significant recoveries. The number of overfished stocks in salt and freshwaters in the US has reached all time lows, for starters, led by mackerel and snapper.
The Mediterranean stock of hake—a species that for Spanish cuisine is a must but which is rather absent on American plates—has returned to sustainable levels, with both population and catch limits growing in tandem.
In 2021, GNN reported that 4 other tuna species had had their classifications on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature improved. This included albacore and yellowfin tuna moved from Threatened to Least-Concern, and Atlantic bluefin tuna moved from Endangered to Least Concern.
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In a fairly rare cosmic occurrence this month, two annual meteor showers will appear to ‘peak’ at the same time on the night of July 30th.
Both will appear in the southern sky, and though they will radiate out from different constellations, it will be difficult to tell which shooting stars belong to which constellation.
The first and much grander of the two is the Southern δ-Aquariid meteor shower, believed to be the tailings of the comet 96P Machholz.
At its zenith, some writers are suggesting you should be able to see 25 shooting stars per hour under a clear sky. To see them, look to the southeast region of the sky toward the constellation Aquarius.
However, Aquarius is a very difficult constellation to find, and even with this 12-minute YouTube guide, the host said she needed “years” before she felt comfortable finding it.
On the bright side, you don’t have to identify the Water Bearer to see the shooting stars, if you find Capricornus, Aquila, or Pices—all surrounding Aquarius and easier to find—you’re looking in the right direction.
On the same night, the α-Capricornid shower will also peak, and as just mentioned, Aquarius and Capricornus sit beside each other. The Capricornids should produce an additional 5 per hour for a total viewing pleasure of around 1 every two minutes—perhaps just enough to keep the attention of a young child.
The best viewing will come from either the Southern Hemisphere, or the southerly latitudes of the of the Northern Hemisphere.
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Quote of the Day: “Education is the movement from darkness to light.” – Allan Bloom
Photo by: Rubén Rodriguez
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Howard Wicks wrote a book despite having locked-in syndrome – SWNS
Howard Wicks wrote a book with just his eyes – SWNS
An Englishman living with rare locked-in syndrome has completed a 50,000 word autobiography, using just his eyes.
Howard Wicks suffered a serious stroke as a teenager in Devon, leaving every muscle in his body paralyzed, except for his eyes.
The book chronicles the years leading up to and after his stroke, and was completed using an Eyegaze computer, a machine that tracks his eye movements.
The software allows the 29-year-old to communicate with others and to write his novel, which took 18 months to complete.
“It was a cathartic experience,” said Howard using the Eyegaze device. “I enjoyed writing it especially the parts I personally enjoyed living myself.
But, like for many authors, it soon became an all-consuming and challenging experience.
“It became a source of stress, as I felt I couldn’t truly enjoy myself until the book was completed.”
“The initial chapter introduces the reader to my life before the stroke, allowing them to understand who I was,” he told the BBC. “The book concludes with my transition from the hospital setting to community life.”
This stroke was a gift, not a curse. You’ve just got to shut out all the negativity and see out the heartbreak, then own what happens next. – excerpt from Howard Wicks
Howard hopes that the book will raise awareness for the nonprofit he founded in 2020, dedicated to supporting other people suffering from locked in syndrome.
“I have established a charity called the Locked in Trust dedicated to empowering individuals in a locked-in state to embrace the fullest potential of their lives,” said Howard.
But, in its first four years, the charity hasn’t achieved the reach or impact he envisioned, which was another motivation behind completing the book—“to propel the charity to the forefront of society.”
The global pandemic plunged the entire world into economic free fall and societal unrest. Since then, one notable country has emerged successfully to stabilize global markets and calm fears—it’s the United States, which has maintained the lowest inflation rate of any major nation.
Let’s look at measurements from ten major metrics that demonstrate how the American Recovery has benefited the lives of millions since the pandemic.
1. WAGE GROWTH IS RISING FASTER THAN INFLATION
Incomes for workers are at an all-time high and have been rising for four years. Last year marked the largest average wage increase in recorded US history, with salary increases exceeding inflation for the first time since 2020, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Employers reported an average salary increase of 4.4% in 2023, during a year when annual inflation rose 3.1%—and they plan to give raises of 4.0% this year, while many experts predict inflation will dip below 3%.
Another notable trend was uncovered by the Economist, which recently exclaimed in a headline that “Gen Z are now wealthier than any previous generation.”
2. ‘MADE IN THE USA’ – A MANUFACTURING BOOM
A manufacturing boom is taking hold across America: in two years, companies have announced hundreds of billions of dollars in manufacturing investments—many in technology and renewable energy—which are bringing back supply chains from overseas and creating good-paying jobs, many of which don’t require a four-year degree.
Since 1990, the US went went from producing nearly 40% of the world’s semiconductor chips to near 0 percent in 2022. Thanks to investments in the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, that global share could rise to 28% in eight years.
When the pandemic shut down the semiconductor chips factories overseas, the prices of so many products went up because these chips power so much of our lives—from smartphones to dishwashers and cars. That semiconductor shortage drove one third of the surge in inflation in 2021, according to the White House, and caused long wait lines for all kinds of products—which is why the Democrats in Congress joined Republicans in passing the CHIPS and Science bill.
The leaders of Samsung Foundry Business and Semiconductor R&D Center / Samsung. Released
$825 billion in private-sector investments have been pledged to U.S. semiconductor manufacturing, advanced packaging facilities, and creating a chipmaking ecosystem. [Micron is building factories in New York and Idaho; in Arizona, TSMC is building in Phoenix; Samsung is building in Taylor and Austin, Texas; Intel is building in Arizona, Ohio, New Mexico, and Oregon; Global Foundries will expand in New York and Vermont; Microchip Technology is erecting in Colorado and Oregon; Polar Semiconductor is expanding in Minnesota—and BAE Systems is springing up in New Hampshire.]
3. LOWEST UNEMPLOYMENT IN HALF-CENTURY
The unemployment rate has stayed below 4 percent for two years straight, the best such record since the 1960s.
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 invested $300 billion into repairing and rebuilding America’s roads and bridges—the largest investment since President Eisenhower—which contributed to the total of nearly 15 million jobs created since 2021, including 750,000 manufacturing jobs.
4. CRIME DROPS TO HISTORIC LOWS
Crime in the US has been falling fast—all kinds of crime—and nearly all over the country. Recent FBI Uniform Crime Reporting surveys show rates of murder and rape have dropped by more than 25% in 2024—and property crime also decreased by over 15 percent in data collected from more than 18,000 city, county, state, tribal, university and federal law enforcement agencies.
For instance, Detroit is on pace to have the fewest murders since 1966, and Baltimore and St Louis are tallying the fewest murders in each city in nearly a decade. Chicago was also hailing double-digit percentage declines in the number of homicides and shootings. More broadly, in more than 180 cities murder was down around 20% in 2023, compared to the previous year.
5. STOCK MARKET BREAKING RECORDS
Millions of Americans have invested their savings and retirement pensions in the stock market—which keeps breaking all-time records. The Dow Jones Industrial Average in December broke 37,000 for the first time, and today it’s over 39,000. One analyst described it as “33% percent higher than any sustained peak in US history—and 5-10 times higher than where it was for most of the last half century.” The S&P 500 broke 32 all-time records this year, while the Nasdaq also climbed to a record high, reaching 17,000 for the first time in June—and it keeps surging.
6. HEALTH AND PRESCRIPTION DRUG COSTS
Despite the absence of universal health care, the US has managed to slash its uninsured rate to 7.7 percent, the lowest in its history and a steep decline from 14.5% in late 2020. And now the government is muscling down drug prices.
For the first time, Medicare is negotiating the price of certain high-cost drugs. Another improvement is that Medicare beneficiaries now pay $0 out-of-pocket for recommended adult vaccines like the shingles shots. Also in 2024, Medicare seniors’ out-of-pocket expenses at the pharmacy will be capped at $2,000 per year, for the first time ever.
A month’s supply of insulin for seniors is now capped at $35 nationwide—and inhalers are now capped at $35—saving everyday people hundreds of dollars per month.
7. CONTINUOUS BUSINESS GROWTH
America’s economy has been the “envy of the world”, and in 2023 was growing faster than any other county. As inflation keeps falling, healthy consumer spending—almost 70% of nominal GDP—is continuously supported by real wage growth.
Another sure sign of its strong economy is the unprecedented small business boom. A record number of small business applications in the past three years have seen an unprecedented number of entrepreneurs open up shop in their homes or on Main Streets across America.
U.S. Census Bureau data, which has tracked business formations since 2004, showed that nearly 16 million new business applications recorded since the start of 2021, the most ever counted in a multi-year period.
8. OPTIMISM AND VIBES
And people are starting to feel the good vibes. Americans are feeling better about the economy for the first time in four months.
US consumer sentiment rose markedly toward the end of March, supported by strong stock-market gains and expectations that inflation will continue to ease.
The University of Michigan’s sentiment index climbed to 79.4 from 76.5 earlier in the month, reaching the highest since 2021.
Citizens in Southern border states may become more optimistic, now that the flow of undocumented immigrants over the Mexican border has dramatically slowed. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported that the number of undocumented migrants crossing into the U.S. dropped by 50% in January. And in the three weeks since the new White House executive order took effect, the Border Patrol’s 7-day encounter average has decreased more than 40% to under 2,400 encounters per day.
9. RENEWABLE ENERGY IS SURGING
With new projects coming online this year, solar power generation is expected to increase 75% this year, with wind power growing by 11%.
In 2023, renewable energy sources—wind, solar, hydro, biomass, and geothermal—accounted for 22% of the total electricity generated, and surpassed coal generation for the first time in 2022.
“More records were broken in March as wind plus solar produced more electricity than either nuclear power or coal—and solar was on the verge of overtaking hydropower,” executive director Ken Bossong of the nonprofit SUN DAY Campaign, told Electrek. “The mix of renewables provided almost 30% of US electrical generation in March and seems likely to surpass that level in the coming months.”
A win-win for job creation, the Department of Energy reports there are just over 8 million jobs in renewable energy today, and in 2021 and 2022, energy jobs grew faster than overall U.S. employment.
10. HIGH SCHOOL RATES OF GRADUATION UP, SMOKING AND PREGNANCY DOWN
And, finally, despite challenges, today’s youth in America are making some good decisions.
The high school graduation rate is the highest ever recorded.
