Sea Creatures in a Warming World: Winners and Losers

As atmospheric carbon dioxide increases, more of it dissolves into the oceans, turning the seas more acidic. While some sea creatures will likely not be able to cope, studies have shown the purple sea urchin may have ways to survive.

MONTEREY, Calif. — The world's oceans are getting more acidic, a phenomenon predicted to wreak havoc on most sea life. But some organisms are performing better in these caustic conditions than researchers had anticipated, raising questions about what the oceans will look like in the future.

"We know evolution can occur on relatively short ecological timescales," said Gretchen Hofmann, a biologist at the University of California at Santa Barbara, at the Third International Symposium on the Oceans in a High CO2 World meeting last week. She added that the big remaining question is which species will survive, and which won't be able to cope.

As carbon dioxide levels increase in the atmosphere (as a result of burning fossil fuels), about a quarter of that atmospheric carbon makes its way into the oceans, where it dissolves and makes the waters more acidic. Currently, because of this process, the oceans are about 30 percent more acidic than they were at the start of the industrial revolution.

Species that make shells out of calcium carbonate are particularly compromised in acidic waters, where the carbonate ions needed for shell-making are not available. But other ocean-dwellers that rely on protein instead of calcium carbonate to create shells fare better. For instance, small crablike arthropods about the size of sand fleas actually increase productivity in extremely acidified water, said Kristy Kroeker, a biology doctoral student at Stanford University. "These are rapidly growing, small-bodied creatures with larvae that crawl instead of swim, and they actually do very well,"Kroeker told LiveScience. [Spectacular Photos of Sea Creatures]

Hofmann's lab has found that purple sea urchins are able to cope with highly acidic waters, probably because of the amount of genetic diversity within the species. The group collected sea urchins from a spot off the Oregon coast that has naturally high acidity from the upwelling of deep ocean water. In the lab, the researchers compared the genetic data of these urchins when raised at high-acidity and normal-acidity conditions, finding 150 genes turned on that helped the urchins move calcium around their systems.

In addition to urchins, some corals tolerate the changing oceans better than others. Katharina Fabricius, a coral reef ecologist with the Australian Institute of Marine Science, said that colorful branching coral can't cope with higher temperatures and ocean acidity, but massive boulder corals and sea grasses survived in these conditions. Fabricius has worked in Papua New Guinea, along vents that bubble carbon dioxide into shallow water, giving a good experimental lab to researchers looking at future ocean conditions. [Photos of Colorful Corals]

Her research suggests these reefs will still exist in 100 years. "But they would be much more simple. The complex species are unable to deal with high carbon dioxide situations," she said. Reefs are hope to hundreds of thousands of species, and replacing the branching coral — with its myriad nooks and crannies for habitat — with boulder coral means a drop in biodiversity. "If you don't have the structure, you don't have the habitat," Fabricius said.

Other parts of the world share a similar story. Kroeker works in carbon-dioxide-bubbling vents off the coast of Italy. As waters become more acidic there, Kroeker explained, fewer patches of bright orange-and-pink algae can survive. "Instead, we see lots of fleshy seaweed. It looks like a dark mat on the seafloor." Kroeker’s 2010 meta-analysis detailed in the journal Ecology Letters also showed that crustaceans generally do better than other calcium-carbonate shell-making creatures. Some lobsters, prawns and crabs actually increase their shell-building when faced with more acidic waters.

Even different algae species differ in their responses to ocean acidification. Dave Hutchins, a marine biologist at UCLA, said that harmful algae blooms like those that cause red tides are likely to produce more toxins in future ocean conditions.

"These blooms cost around $100 million per year in the U.S. alone, and may get more toxic in the future," Hutchins told LiveScience, adding that they're a special problem on the West Coast; sea lions washing up around the LA area were poisoned by algae called Pseudo-nitzschia that produce a powerful neurotoxin that leads to memory loss, nerve damage and death.

A group of cyanobacteria called Trichodesmium that turn atmospheric nitrogen into a form other organisms can use for growth are also winners. His lab has looked at hundreds of generations of algae, and found that they produce far more nitrogen in high carbon-dioxide (CO2) conditions.

"For hundreds of generations, we grow them under lab conditions, and their production of nitrogen goes way up under high CO2," he said.

Hutchins said he also found the algae couldn't scale back their nitrogen production, even when the carbon dioxide level drops. "They're stuck in an 'on' position, and we're trying to understand what that means in terms of marine food chains," he said.

Ocean acidification also interferes with some fish's ability to sense predators. One bit of research presented at the conference showed that juvenile clownfish lost their ability to sniff out predators in high carbon-dioxide environments.

• 8 Ways Global Warming Is Already Changing the World
• Image Gallery: Small Sea Monsters
• Image Gallery: One-of-a-Kind Places on Earth
  
  Copyright 2012 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
  
  

Jihadists Warned U.S. on Facebook

Report: Ambassador was a known target Terrorists openly made threats on the Benghazi consulate prior to the fatal attack.'Very volatile situation'

In the five months leading up to this year’s 9/11 anniversary, there were two bombings on the U.S. consulate in Benghaziand increasing threats to and attacks on the Libyan nationals hired to provide security at the U.S. missions in Tripoli andBenghazi.

Details on these alleged incidents stem in part from the testimony of a handful of whistleblowers who approached theHouse Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in the days and weeks following the attack on the Benghazi consulate. The incidents are disclosed in a letter to be sent Tuesday to Hillary Clinton from Rep. Darrell Issa, the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Rep. Jason Chaffetz, the chairman of the oversight committee’s subcommittee that deals with national security.

READ MORE Italy’s Destitute South

The State Department did not offer comment on the record last night.

The new information disclosed in the letter obtained by The Daily Beast strongly suggests the U.S. consulate in Benghazi and the late Ambassador Chris Stevens were known by U.S. security personnel to be targets for terrorists. Indeed, the terrorists made their threats openly on Facebook.

READ MORE Nigerian Students Shot in Rampage

For example, following a May 22 early-morning attack on a facility that housed the International Committee on the Red Cross, a Facebook page claimed responsibility, and said the attack was a warning and a “message for the Americans disturbing the skies over Derna.” That reference was likely to American surveillance drones over a city that provided fighters to al Qaeda in Iraq in the last decade.

In June a Facebook page associated with militants linked to the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi posted a threat to Stevens based on the route he took for his morning jog. The Facebook page also posted a picture of Stevens. The letter to Clinton notes that “after stopping these morning runs for about a week, the Ambassador resumed them.”

READ MORE Sunset for Misha?

A senior State Department official contacted for this story said the ambassador was “not reckless” with his own security or that of his staff. But this official also acknowledged that the ambassador was “an old-school diplomat” and strongly desired to have as few barriers between himself and the Libyan people.

The letter also discloses for the first time a bombing at the U.S. consulate that occurred on April 6, 2012. It says that on that day, two former security guards for the consulate in Benghazi threw homemade improvised explosives over the consulate fence. That incident resulted in no casualties. The Wall Street Journal first reported last month that on June 6 militants detonated an explosive at the perimeter gate of the consulate, blowing a hole through the barrier. The letter to Clinton quotes one source who described the crater as “big enough for forty men to go through.”

READ MORE Alleged DSK Rape Case Dropped

Obama administration officials have said there was no specific intelligence predicting the 9/11 anniversary assault on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. A senior State Department official acknowledged that there were five serious attacks on Western targets since the spring in the lead-up to the attack on the 9/11 anniversary. Speaking of the June 6 attack at the consulate’s perimeter gate, this official said, “The IED attack caused no loss of life and no injury. The wall acted as designed. It absorbed it.” This official said that compared with the 9/11 anniversary assault, the earlier attacks in Benghazi were mild. “We faced a coordinated, military-style assault. We’ve never seen that kind of attack before,” this official added.

Until Sept. 19, eight days after the consulate attack, senior administration officials had said it resulted spontaneously from riots at the U.S. embassy in Cairo against an Internet videodenigrating the Muslim prophet. Spokesmen for the State Department and the National Security Council did not return emails late Monday evening.

READ MORE Georgia Opposition Wins Election

Rep. Chaffetz told The Daily Beast Monday that the allegations detailed in the letter were based on whistleblowers he described as “people who have firsthand knowledge of the incidents themselves.” Chaffetz declined to provide more details about the whistleblowers other than to say they were U.S. government employees and there were fewer than 10 of them.

In some cases the incidents against U.S. personnel or Libyans working to protect U.S. personnel were mild. In April a U.S. foreign-service officer stationed in Benghazi was attending a “trade-related event” at the International Medical University when the security forces of the university got into a fistfight and then a gunfight with the security detail for the trade delegation. Eventually the American officer had to be evacuated by the local Libyan militia that provided security for the consulate, known as the February 17 Brigade.

READ MORE Journalist Arrested for Computer Hacking

On May 1 at the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, the deputy commander of the embassy’s local security force was “carjacked, beaten, and detained by a group of armed youth.” Eventually the man escaped his captors and phoned the embassy. “Libyan security forces fought a gun battle with the assailants in order to recover a number of stolen vehicles and release other detainees,” the letter says.

Security deteriorated significantly in June. On June 10, a man fired a rocket-propelled grenade in broad daylight into a convoy carrying the British ambassador to Libya. Later that month, the Red Cross was attacked again. By the end of June, the British Consulate and the Red Cross closed their facilities in Benghazi. By the start of July, the U.S. Consulate was one of the only Western targets left in the city.

READ MORE U.S. Abandons Taliban-Afghan Peace

“This was not a safe country on its way to a normalized situation. It was a very volatile situation,” Chaffetz told The Daily Beast.

The House Oversight Committee is expected to hold a hearing on Oct. 10 on the threats leading up to the attack.

Iran president: 'Psychological' blows hit currency

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran's president on Tuesday blamed the steep drop in Iran's currency on "psychological pressures" linked to Western sanctions over Tehran's nuclear program and Iran's increasing bitter political battles.

The remarks were part of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's attempt to deflect criticism from political rivals that his government's policies also have contributed to the nosedive of the Iranian rial, which has lost more than half its value against the U.S. dollar this year and has sharply pushed up costs for many imported goods.

The price hikes have added to the burdens on Iran's economy as it struggles with tougher sanctions targeting its crucial oil exports and measures blocking it from key international banking networks. The U.S. and its allies have imposed the punishing measures in attempts to force Iranian concessions over its nuclear program, which the West says is aimed at developing atomic weapons. Tehran insists the program is for peaceful purposes.

An Iranian parliament member, Mohammad Bayatian, was quoted on the chamber's website, icana.ir, as saying that enough signatures have been collected to force Ahmadinejad to face questioning before lawmakers over the currency's tumble.

Ahmadinejad directly criticized parliament speaker Ali Larijani for his claims, reported by the semiofficial Fars news agency, that "80 percent" of economic problems were linked to government mismanagement and the rest to sanctions.

The rial's sharp decline is attributed to a combination of Western sanctions and government policies, such as fueling inflation by increasing the money supply while also holding down bank interest rates, which prompted many people to withdraw their rials to exchange forforeign currency.

"The speaker should help the government overcome the problem instead of accusing the administration," Ahmadinejad told reporters his first news conference since returning from the U.N. General Assembly. Larijani is among the possible candidates for next June's presidential elections that will pick Ahmadinejad's successor.

Iran's currency fell again Tuesday, hitting a record low of 35,500 rials against the U.S. dollar on the unofficial street trading rate, which is widely followed in Iran. It was 29,500 rials to the dollar Sunday. Two years ago, it was close to 10,000 rials for $1.

"Are these (currency) fluctuations because of economic problems? The answer is no," Ahmadinejad said. "Is this because of government policies? Never ... It's due to psychological pressures. It's a psychological battle ... The enemy is making pressure by playing with (exchange rate) numbers in the street."

Ahmadinejad described the sanctions as part of a "heavy battle" that has succeeded in driving down oil exports "a bit," but he gave no precise figures. Some oil analysts estimate exports have fallen by more than 30 percent since July, when the 27-nation European Union halted purchases of Iranian crude.

The Iranian president claimed Iran has enough hard currency to meet the country's needs. Iranian officials also have insisted that Iran can ride out sanctions by expanding oil contracts with Asian markets such as China and India.

But the currency nosedive could bring even more political heat on Ahmadinejad, who has been left severely weakened after unsuccessfully challenging Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over the powers of the presidency. Ahmadinejad now could face increasing domestic attacks before elections.

Earlier this year, Ahmadinejad became the first president hauled before the 290-seat parliament for questioning over his public feud with Khamenei.

Unusual Dallas Earthquakes Linked to Fracking, Expert Says

Three unusual earthquakes that shook a suburb west of Dallas over the weekend appear to be connected to the past disposal of wastewater from local hydraulic fracturing operations, a geophysicist who has studied earthquakes in the region says.

Preliminary data from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) show the first quake, a magnitude 3.4, hit at 11:05 p.m. CDT on Saturday a few miles southeast of the Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) International Airport. It was followed 4 minutes later by a 3.1-magnitude aftershock that originated nearby.

A third, magnitude-2.1 quake trailed Saturday's rumbles by just under 24 hours, touching off at 10:41 p.m. CDT on Sunday from an epicenter a couple miles east of the first, according to the USGS. The tremors set off a volley of 911 calls, according to Reuters, but no injuries have been reported.

Not a coincidence

Before a series of small quakes on Halloween 2008, the Dallas area had never recorded a magnitude-3 earthquake, said Cliff Frohlich, associate director and senior research scientist at the University of Texas at Austin's Institute for Geophysics. USGS data show that, since then, it has felt at least one quake at or above a magnitude 3 every year except 2010.

Frohlich said he doesn't think it's a coincidence that an intensification in seismic activity in the Dallas area came the year after a pocket of ground just south of (and thousands of feet below) the DFW airport began to be inundated with wastewater from hydraulic fracturing.

During hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," millions of gallons of high-pressure, chemical-laden water are pumped into an underground geologic formation (the Barnett Shale, in the case of northern Texas) to free up oil. But once fractures have been opened up in the rock and the water pressure is allowed to abate, internal pressure from the rock causes fracking fluids to rise back to the surface, becoming what the natural gas industry calls "flowback," according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

"That's dirty water you have to get rid of," said Frohlich. "One way people do that is to pump it back into the ground."

In a study he recently published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Frohlich analyzed 67 earthquakes recorded between November 2009 and September 2011 in a 43.5-mile (70 kilometers) grid covering northern Texas' Barnett Shale formation. He found that all 24 of the earthquakes with the most reliably located epicenters originated within 2 miles (3.2 km) of one or more injection wells for wastewater disposal.

The injection well just south of DFW airport has been out of use since September 2011, according to Frohlich, but he says that doesn't rule it out as a cause of the weekend's quakes. He explained that, though water is no longer being added, lingering pressure differences from wastewater injection could still be contributing to the lubrication of long-stuck faults.

"Faults are everywhere. A lot of them are stuck, but if you pump water in there, it reduces friction and the fault slips a little," Frohlich told Life's Little Mysteries. "I can't prove that that's what happened, but it's a plausible explanation."

History of human-induced earthquakes

Oliver Boyd, a USGS seismologist and an adjunct professor of geophysics at the University of Memphis, agrees that, in general, links between wastewater injection and seismic activity are plausible.

"Most, if not all, geophysicists expect induced earthquakes to be more likely from wastewater injection rather than hydrofracking," Boyd wrote in an email to Life's Little Mysteries. "This is because the wastewater injection tends to occur at greater depth where earthquakes are more likely to nucleate. I also agree [with Frohlich] that induced earthquakes are likely to persist for some time (months to years) after wastewater injection has ceased."

For past examples of likely human-induced earthquakes, Boyd points to the story of the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, a now-closed U.S. Army chemical weapons manufacturing center that operated just outside of Denver until the early '90s.

In 1961, the Rocky Mountain Arsenal drilled a 12,000-foot-deep (3,658 meters) waste fluid disposal well near Denver. According to the USGS, "an unusual series of earthquakes erupted in the area soon after."

Use of the well was discontinued in February 1966. A year and a half later, on Aug. 9, 1967, a 5.3-magnitude earthquake, the most powerful in Denver's history, struck. It was followed by a 5.2-magnitude quake in the region that November, according to the USGS.

Follow Life's Little Mysteries on Twitter @llmysteries. We're also on Facebook & Google+.

• Top 10 Ways to Destroy Earth
• 13 Crazy Earthquake Facts
• Can Oil Extraction Cause Earthquakes?
  
  Copyright 2012 Lifes Little Mysteries, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Official: Hezbollah fighters killed in Syria

This image taken from video obtained from the Shaam News Network, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, purports to show smoke rising from buildings due to government forces shelling in Daraa, Syria, on Tuesday, Oct. 2, 2012. (AP Photo/Shaam News Network via AP video)

This image taken from video obtained from the Shaam News Network, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, purports to show a Syrian military tank in Daraa, Syria, on Tuesday, Oct. 2, 2012. (AP Photo/Shaam News Network via AP video)

BEIRUT (AP) — A Hezbollah commander and several fighters have been killed inside Syria, a Lebanese security official said Tuesday, a development that could stoke already soaring tensions over the Lebanese militant group's role in the civil war next door.

Hezbollah's reputation has taken a beating over its support for the Syrian regime, but any sign that the group's fighters are taking part in the battle raises fears that the conflict could expand into a wider fight engulfing the region.

Hezbollah has stood by Syrian President Bashar Assad since the uprising began 18 months ago, even after the group supported revolts in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Bahrain.

Assad's fall would be a dire scenario for Hezbollah. Any new regime led by Syria's majority Sunni Muslims would likely be far less friendly — or even outright hostile — to Shiite Muslim Hezbollah. Iran remains the group's most important patron, but Syria is a crucial supply route. Without it, Hezbollah will struggle to get money and weapons as easily.

The Syrian uprising has left Assad deeply isolated — making his remaining allies such as Iran and Russia all the more important. At last week's gathering of world leaders at the United Nations, dozens of nations excoriated the Assad regime for its role in a conflict that activists estimate has killed at least 30,000 Syrians.

It was not immediately clear how the Hezbollah militants were killed or whether they had been fighting alongside the Syrian army. But Hezbollah's newspaper al-Intiqad said Hezbollah commander Ali Hussein Nassif, who is also known as Abu Abbas, was killed "while performing his jihadi duties." It did not say when or where he was killed.

A Lebanese security official said Nassif was killed in Syria and his body was returned toLebanon through the Masnaa border crossing on Sunday. Speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media, the official said the bodies of several other Hezbollah fighters have been brought back to Lebanon in recent days.

Hezbollah spokesman Ibrahim Moussawi on Tuesday confirmed the deaths of the Hezbollah members but said he had no further information on where or how Nassif was killed. He declined further comment.

The Syrian opposition has long accused the group of helping the Syrian leadership crack down on the uprising — a claim the group has repeatedly denied. Hezbollah has to tread a careful path with its support for the regime, mindful that many of its supporters in Lebanon dread getting sucked into the conflict.

Nassif's funeral, which was held in the eastern town of Budai, near Baalbek, was attended by top Hezbollah officials including the head of the judicial council and the political bureau, an indication of Nassif's high prestige.

On Tuesday, Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV showed the funerals of at least two other Hezbollah members it said were killed while performing their "jihadi duty." Both funerals were attended by Hezbollah officials and commanders.

The coffins of the dead were draped with Hezbollah's yellow flags and carried by militants in black uniforms and red berets. Hundreds of people marched in the funeral.

Samer al-Homsi, an activist in Syria's central Homs province, which borders Lebanon, said Nassif was killed Saturday when a roadside bomb went off as the car he was in passed just outside the town of Qusair. He said Nassif and several other people were killed in the blast.

"His job was to coordinate with Syrian security agencies," al-Homsi said via Skype.

He added that the rebels detonated the bomb "without knowing" that the target was a Hezbollah official. "We knew he was a Hezbollah official after it was announced by the group in Lebanon," he said. Al-Homsi's account could not be independently verified.

Although Hezbollah's ties to Syria have stayed strong during the uprising, the government's longstanding relations with the Palestinian militant group Hamas have frayed.

Syria's state-run media unleashed a scathing attack on the leader of Hamas, accusing him of turning his back on Assad and describing him as ungrateful and traitorous.

In an editorial aired Monday, Syrian TV said Khaled Mashaal, who pulled Hamas' headquarters out of Damascus this year, had abandoned the resistance movement againstIsrael and the United States.

The comments show just how much ties between Hamas and the Syrian regime — once staunch allies — have disintegrated since the uprising began 18 months ago.

The regime's verbal attack appeared to be prompted by Mashaal's decision to take part in a major conference Sunday of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's ruling party. Erdogan has been one of Assad's sharpest critics.

Less than two years ago, Syria, Iran, Hamas and Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group were part of what they called an "axis of resistance" against Israel and the U.S. With Hamas' departure, they lost a major Palestinian faction that rules the Gaza Strip.

Hamas initially staked out a neutral position toward the uprising, but as the estimated 500,000 Palestinians living in Syria became increasingly outraged over the regime's brutal crackdown on protesters, Hamas came under pressure for its cozy ties with the government, prompting the group in February to shift its stance and praise Syrians for "moving toward democracy and reform."

Since then, most Hamas leaders have left Syria for Egypt, where their allies in the Muslim Brotherhood have taken power in elections following the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak. Egypt's new Islamist president, Mohammed Morsi, has been a strong critic of Assad, calling his government an "oppressive regime."

Mashaal himself shuttered Hamas' Damascus offices and now spends most of his time in Qatar, the tiny Gulf country that has strongly backed the rebels battling to overthrow Assad.

In its editorial, Syrian state TV sought to remind Mashaal, who holds Jordanian citizenship, of when he was expelled from Jordan in 1999 for "illicit and harmful" activities, and how several countries refused to welcome him after he was kicked out.

"Remember when you were a refugee aboard planes. Damascus came and gave you mercy," the station said. "No one wanted to shake your hand then, as if you had rabies."