Saving Seafood

Pollution-proof fish borrow genes from relatives to survive toxins

May 2, 2019 — In comic books, falling into a vat of toxic chemicals can give you super powers. The same is sort of true for one species of fish – with help from a superhero relative.

The 15-centimetre-long Gulf killifish (Fundulus grandis) lives in estuaries around the Gulf of Mexico, some of which are heavily polluted. They survive levels of toxic halogenated and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (HAHs and PAHs) that cause lethal deformities in other animals. The killifish in these regions have evolved resistance in less than 60 years.

To discover how they did it, Elias Oziolor of Baylor University in Texas and colleagues compared the genomes of the toughest fish with those from less polluted areas. They found that many of the genetic variants conferring resistance come from a related species, the Atlantic killifish or mummichog (Fundus heteroclitus) – an astonishingly tough fish that has evolved resistance to many pollutants.

Read the full story at News Scientist

For Scientists, Chunks of Whale Earwax Can Be Biological Treasure Troves

January 26, 2017 — Whale earwax? Really? It’s weird on so many levels—that whales even have earwax, that someone thought to go looking for something like that, and that the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History has stored not one, not ten, but about 1,000 samples of whale earwax plugs for well over 50 years.

And those samples, which not very long ago were gathering dust and some questions about their value, are now turning the scientific community on its (wait for it) . . . ear.

That’s because they are far more than the odd, quotidian and rather gross objects that they seem. We are learning now that samples of whale earwax are quite possibly unique in their ability to describe the life history of the longest-lived marine mammals, as well as give us a glimpse into a place and a time we cannot reach any other way. They are, in effect, physiological and ecological time capsules, and to research scientists who are trying to better understand the world’s oceans they are solid gold.

“It’s a good example of specimens which were collected for one purpose many, many years ago—the first ones were collected at the turn of the 20th century or so—and now as we find another way to interrogate these specimens, we’re able to discover that they have a whole other story to tell,” says Smithsonian researcher Charley Potter, who was the museum’s collection manager in the vertebrate zoology division until he retired in 2015.

Read the full story at Smithsonian