Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Airport’s chief executive to formally spell out expansion plans in speech at British Steel plant in Scunthorpe Heathrow will submit third runway proposals to the government this summer, pledging to use UK steel and boost growth, the airport has confirmed. Its chief executive, Thomas Woldbye, will formally spell out plans for a third runway to follow a multibillion-pound upgrade of the London airport’s existing terminals and facilities, in a speech at the British Steel plant in Scunthorpe on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Mowi to give fishers £36 per fish after loss from farm in what campaigners say is a ‘disaster for wild salmon’ The global seafood company Mowi is offering a bounty to fishers who catch escaped salmon after an estimated 27,000 fish went missing from a farm off the Norwegian coast in what campaigners said was a “disaster for wild salmon”. The world’s largest farmed salmon producer is offering a reward of 500 kroner (£36) per salmon caught after it said a quarter of its 105,000 salmon population escaped from a cage in Troms, north-west Norway. Continue reading...

Scientists observe decreased motor function in rodents exposed to microplastics Microplastics can move through mice brains and block blood vessels, essentially mimicking blood clots that could potentially be fatal or otherwise disrupt brain function. The findings are detailed in a peer-reviewed paper for which researchers for the first time used real-time imaging to track bits of plastic as they moved through and accumulated in brain blood vessels. When one piece of plastic got stuck, others accumulated behind it, like a “car crash”, the authors reported. Continue reading...

A wave of incidents threatens the survival of the species in the country, say conservationists Inside the Pakistan Museum of Natural History, in Islamabad, two taxidermists work on a leopard skin. They scrape away at the remaining flesh and sprinkle the underside with boric acid powder. It’s difficult to look away from the two holes where the leopard’s eyes should be. “We ask conservation groups, if they find any dead specimen, to relay it to us so that we can preserve it and make it available to young researchers,” says Muhammad Asif Khan, the museum’s director of zoological science. “This particular leopard died from gunshot wounds in the Azad Jammu and Kashmir region,” he says. Clockwise from main image: taxidermists at the Pakistan Natural History Museum work on a leopard specimen that was shot in the Azad Jammu and Kashmir region; Asif Khan holds a piece of shot; a bullet hole or shot wound can be seen in the pelt Continue reading...