In any event, it’s time to start thinking about sunscreens (for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere.) One other thing, this is informational; it is not an endorsement. A March 1, 2022 Mblue Labs product announcement on EurekAlert (also on EIN Presswire) describes some of the research that went into this new sunscreen,
(Bethesda, MD – March 1, 2022) Mblue Labs releases the first sunscreen based on a recent study that found Methylene Blue, a century old medicine, to be a highly effective, broad-spectrum UV irradiation protector that absorbs UVA and UVB, repairs ROS (Free Radicals) and UV irradiation induced DNA damages, and is safe for coral reefs. The research paper, “Ultraviolet radiation protection potentials of Methylene Blue for human skin and coral reef health ” was published in Nature’s Scientific Reports (5/28/2021) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-89970-2 [open access].
80% of today’s sunscreens use Oxybenzone as a chemical UV blocker, despite multiple studies that have shown it expedites the destruction of coral reefs. Several states and countries have now banned the use of Oxybenzone and its derivatives to stop the devastating effects on the world’s marine ecosystem. In addition, consumers focus primarily on the Sun Protection Factor (SPF) to prevent sunburns and potentially dangerous long-term health issues. However, SPF only measures UVB exposure, leaving sunscreen users vulnerable to UVA-triggered oxidative stress and photo-aging.
“Our peer-reviewed study demonstrates that Methylene Blue is an effective UV blocker with a number of highly desired characteristics as a novel ingredient to be included in sunscreens. It shows a broad spectrum absorption of both UVA and UVB rays, promotes DNA damage repair, combats reactive oxygen species (ROS) induced by UVA, and most importantly, poses no harm to coral reefs.” says the study’s senior author Dr. Kan Cao, Founder of Mblue Labs, Bluelene Skincare and a Professor at the University of Maryland Department of Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics.
Mblue Labs and the University of Maryland have a pending patent on the property of Methylene Blue as an effective UV blocking agent that also delays skin aging and promotes DNA damage repair. The company’s first anti-aging sunscreen called “Bluevado SunFix”, contains the FDA approved, safe active ingredients Zinc Oxide and Titanium Dioxide, together with an optimized dosage of Methylene Blue.
“Our Vision for this novel multifunctionsunscreen is deeply rooted in our concern for coral reefs – the rainforest of the ocean. We look forward to working with the industry and the FDA to get Methylene Blue included in the sunscreen monograph. We are confident that Bluevado SunFix not only delivers broad spectrum UVB/UVA protection and post sun repair, but also provides the full anti-aging benefits of our Bluelene Moisturizer with the same cosmetic elegance.” says Jasmin EL Kordi, CEO Mblue Labs.
This research was supported by a National Science Foundation (NSF) Small Business Technology Transfer Grant (Grant: 1842745). This press release does not necessarily represent the views of the NSF. This study was conducted jointly by researchers at Mblue Labs and the University of Maryland.
About Mblue Labs + Bluelene:
MBlue Labs provides revolutionary anti-aging technology to consumers around the world. The company’s clinical skincare brand Bluelene uses patented ingredient Methylene Blue to repair and protect skin on the mitochondrial level. Mblue Labs’ recent research demonstrates Methylene Blue as the new retinol challenger for anti-aging treatments, in addition to its exciting properties as a new UV sunscreen.
I went looking for the new sunscreen (Bluevado SunFix) and found this,
$58.00
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Bluevado SunFix is the first FDA-approved anti-aging sunscreen with Methylene Blue. Methylene Blue’s unique ability to promote skin cell health, repair/delay skin aging and protect against UVA and UVB radiation, is now captured in the bravado of this revolutionary SPF Day Cream.
Our innovative formulation blends Methylene Blue with proven minerals to outperform Oxybenzone, deliver cosmetic elegance, and protect our precious coral reefs from harmful substances.
Methylene Blue is a preferred alternative to retinol for sensitive skin sufferers and with SunFix there is no retinol sun sensitivity.
Bluevado SunFix is proudly made in the USA and is formulated for ALL skin types.
Preorder now to reserve your SunFix. First shipments are available in mid-March [2022].
Application:
Use as a daily SPF Moisturizer. For sun protection apply 15mins before sun exposure and reapply after 40 minutes of swimming or sweating.
Benefits:
Broad-spectrum UVA/UVB sun protection
Prevents pre-mature aging
Repairs photo-aging DNA damage caused by UVA exposure
Reduces fine lines, crows feet, and wrinkles
Improves skin elasticity & firmness
Provides all-day skin hydration
Protects coral reefs
Free USPS shipping for all domestic orders over $34!
Ingredients:
Active Ingredients: Zinc Oxide 8.2%, Titanium Dioxide 2.8%
Caution: For external use only. Keep out of reach of children. In case of irritation or allergic reaction, discontinue use and consult your physician.
There’s 3 fl oz or 90 mL of product in the tube and it’s SPF 21. (If memory serves, Methylene Blue’s placement at the end of the list ingredients means that it’s the ingredient that weighs the least.)
Again, I am not endorsing this product. That said, it does look interesting.
Caption: Corals exposed to Methylene Blue remain healthy. Credit: Mblue Labs
BTW, Finding a product announcement on EurekAlert (online science news service sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science [AAAS]) was a little unexpected but only because I was ignorant of their Content Eligibility Guidelines (scroll down to Business Announcements). Duly noted.
This posting started out with two items and then, it became more. If you’re interested in marine bioacoustics especially the work that’s been announced in the last four months, read on.
Fish songs
This item is about how fish sounds (songs) signify successful coral reef restoration got coverage on BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation), CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) and elsewhere. This video is courtesy of the Guardian Newspaper,
Newly discovered fish songs demonstrate reef restoration success
Whoops, croaks, growls, raspberries and foghorns are among the sounds that demonstrate the success of a coral reef restoration project.
Thousands of square metres of coral are being grown on previously destroyed reefs in Indonesia, but previously it was unclear whether these new corals would revive the entire reef ecosystem.
Now a new study, led by researchers from the University of Exeter and the University of Bristol, finds a heathy, diverse soundscape on the restored reefs.
These sounds – many of which have never been recorded before – can be used alongside visual observations to monitor these vital ecosystems.
“Restoration projects can be successful at growing coral, but that’s only part of the ecosystem,” said lead author Dr Tim Lamont, of the University of Exeter and the Mars Coral Reef Restoration Project, which is restoring the reefs in central Indonesia.
“This study provides exciting evidence that restoration really works for the other reef creatures too – by listening to the reefs, we’ve documented the return of a diverse range of animals.”
Professor Steve Simpson, from the University of Bristol, added: “Some of the sounds we recorded are really bizarre, and new to us as scientists.
“We have a lot still to learn about what they all mean and the animals that are making them. But for now, it’s amazing to be able to hear the ecosystem come back to life.”
The soundscapes of the restored reefs are not identical to those of existing healthy reefs – but the diversity of sounds is similar, suggesting a healthy and functioning ecosystem.
There were significantly more fish sounds recorded on both healthy and restored reefs than on degraded reefs.
This study used acoustic recordings taken in 2018 and 2019 as part of the monitoring programme for the Mars Coral Reef Restoration Project.
The results are positive for the project’s approach, in which hexagonal metal frames called ‘Reef Stars’ are seeded with coral and laid over a large area. The Reef Stars stabilise loose rubble and kickstart rapid coral growth, leading to the revival of the wider ecosystem.
Mochyudho Prasetya, of the Mars Coral Reef Restoration Project, said: “We have been restoring and monitoring these reefs here in Indonesia for many years. Now it is amazing to see more and more evidence that our work is helping the reefs come back to life.”
Professor David Smith, Chief Marine Scientist for Mars Incorporated, added: “When the soundscape comes back like this, the reef has a better chance of becoming self-sustaining because those sounds attract more animals that maintain and diversify reef populations.”
Asked about the multiple threats facing coral reefs, including climate change and water pollution, Dr Lamont said: “If we don’t address these wider problems, conditions for reefs will get more and more hostile, and eventually restoration will become impossible.
“Our study shows that reef restoration can really work, but it’s only part of a solution that must also include rapid action on climate change and other threats to reefs worldwide.”
The study was partly funded by the Natural Environment Research Council and the Swiss National Science Foundation.
Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,
The sound of recovery: Coral reef restoration success is detectable in the soundscape by Timothy A. C. Lamont, Ben Williams, Lucille Chapuis, Mochyudho E. Prasetya, Marie J. Seraphim, Harry R. Harding, Eleanor B. May, Noel Janetski, Jamaluddin Jompa, David J. Smith, Andrew N. Radford, Stephen D. Simpson. Journal of Applied Ecology DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.14089 First published: 07 December 2021
There is one item here. This research from Cornell University also features the sounds fish make. It’s no surprise given the attention being given to sound that the Cornell Lab of Ornithology is involved. In addition to the lab’s main focus, birds, many other animal sounds are gathered too.
There’s a whole lot of talking going on beneath the waves. A new study from Cornell University finds that fish are far more likely to communicate with sound than generally thought—and some fish have been doing this for at least 155 million years. These findings were just published in the journal Ichthyology & Herpetology.
“We’ve known for a long time that some fish make sounds,” said lead author Aaron Rice, a researcher at the K. Lisa Yang Center for Conservation Bioacoustics at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology [emphasis mine]. “But fish sounds were always perceived as rare oddities. We wanted to know if these were one-offs or if there was a broader pattern for acoustic communication in fishes.”
The authors looked at a branch of fishes called the ray-finned fishes. These are vertebrates (having a backbone) that comprise 99% of the world’s known species of fishes. They found 175 families that contain two-thirds of fish species that do, or are likely to, communicate with sound. By examining the fish family tree, study authors found that sound was so important, it evolved at least 33 separate times over millions of years.
“Thanks to decades of basic research on the evolutionary relationships of fishes, we can now explore many questions about how different functions and behaviors evolved in the approximately 35,000 known species of fishes,” said co-author William E. Bemis ’76, Cornell professor of ecology and evolutionary biology in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. “We’re getting away from a strictly human-centric way of thinking. What we learn could give us some insight on the drivers of sound communication and how it continues to evolve.”
The scientists used three sources of information: existing recordings and scientific papers describing fish sounds; the known anatomy of a fish—whether they have the right tools for making sounds, such as certain bones, an air bladder, and sound-specific muscles; and references in 19th century literature before underwater microphones were invented.
“Sound communication is often overlooked within fishes, yet they make up more than half of all living vertebrate species,” said Andrew Bass, co-lead author and the Horace White Professor of Neurobiology and Behavior in the College of Arts and Sciences. “They’ve probably been overlooked because fishes are not easily heard or seen, and the science of underwater acoustic communication has primarily focused on whales and dolphins. But fishes have voices, too!”
What are the fish talking about? Pretty much the same things we all talk about—sex and food. Rice says the fish are either trying to attract a mate, defend a food source or territory, or let others know where they are. Even some of the common names for fish are based on the sounds they make, such as grunts, croakers, hog fish, squeaking catfish, trumpeters, and many more.
Rice intends to keep tracking the discovery of sound in fish species and add them to his growing database (see supplemental material, Table S1)—a project he began 20 years ago with study co-authors Ingrid Kaatz ’85, MS ’92, and Philip Lobel, a professor of biology at Boston University. Their collaboration has continued and expanded since Rice came to Cornell.
“This introduces sound communication to so many more groups than we ever thought,” said Rice. “Fish do everything. They breathe air, they fly, they eat anything and everything—at this point, nothing would surprise me about fishes and the sounds that they can make.”
The research was partly funded by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the Tontogany Creek Fund, and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
I’ve embedded one of the audio files, Oyster Toadfish (William Tavolga) here,
Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,
Evolutionary Patterns in Sound Production across Fishes by Aaron N. Rice, Stacy C. Farina, Andrea J. Makowski, Ingrid M. Kaatz, Phillip S. Lobel, William E. Bemis, Andrew H. Bass. Ichthyology & Herpetology, 110(1):1-12 (2022) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1643/i2020172 20 January 2022
This paper is open access.
Marine sound libraries
Thanks to Aly Laube’s March 2, 2022 article on the DailyHive.com, I learned of Kieran Cox’s work at the University of Victoria and FishSounds (Note: Links have been removed),
Fish have conversations and a group of researchers made a website to document them.
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It’s so much fun to peruse and probably the good news you need. Listen to a Bocon toadfish “boop” or this sablefish tick, which is slightly creepier, but still pretty cool. This streaked gurnard can growl, and this grumpy Atlantic cod can grunt.
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The technical term for “fishy conversations” is “marine bioacoustics,” which is what Kieran Cox specializes in. They can be used to track, monitor, and learn more about aquatic wildlife.
The doctor of marine biology at the University of Victoria co-authored an article about fish sounds in Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries called “A Quantitative Inventory of Global Soniferous Fish Diversity.”
It presents findings from his process, helping create FishSounds.net. He and his team looked over over 3,000 documents from 834 studies to put together the library of 989 fish species.
Fascinating soundscapes exist beneath rivers, lakes and oceans. An unexpected sound source are fish making their own unique and entertaining noise from guttural grunts to high-pitched squeals. Underwater noise is a vital part of marine ecosystems, and thanks to almost 150 years of researchers documenting those sounds we know hundreds of fish species contribute their distinctive sounds. Although fish are the largest and most diverse group of sound-producing vertebrates in water, there was no record of which fish species make sound and the sounds they produce. For the very first time, there is now a digital place where that data can be freely accessed or contributed to, an online repository, a global inventory of fish sounds.
Kieran Cox co-authored the published article about fish sounds and their value in Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries while completing his Ph.D in marine biology at the University of Victoria. Cox recently began a Liber Ero post-doctoral collaboration with Francis Juanes that aims to integrate marine bioacoustics into the conservation of Canada’s oceans. Liber Ero program is devoted to promoting applied and evidence-based conservation in Canada.
The international group of researchers includes UVic, the University of Florida, Universidade de São Paulo, and Marine Environmental Research Infrastructure for Data Integration and Application Network (MERIDIAN) [emphasis mine] have launched the first ever, dedicated website focused on fish and their sounds: FishSounds.net. …
According to Cox, “This data is absolutely critical to our efforts. Without it, we were having a one-sided conversation about how noise impacts marine life. Now we can better understand the contributions fish make to soundscapes and examine which species may be most impacted by noise pollution.” Cox, an avid scuba diver, remembers his first dive when the distinct sound of parrotfish eating coral resonated over the reef, “It’s thrilling to know we are now archiving vital ecological information and making it freely available to the public, I feel like my younger self would be very proud of this effort.” …
Cows moo. Wolves howl. Birds tweet. And fish, it turns out, make all sorts of ruckus.
“People are often surprised to learn that fish make sounds,” said Audrey Looby, a doctoral candidate at the University of Florida. “But you could make the case that they are as important for understanding fish as bird sounds are for studying birds.”
The sounds of many animals are well documented. Go online, and you’ll find plenty of resources for bird calls and whale songs. However, a global library for fish sounds used to be unheard of.
That’s why Looby, University of Victoria collaborator Kieran Cox and an international team of researchers created FishSounds.net, the first online, interactive fish sounds repository of its kind.
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“There’s no standard system yet for naming fish sounds, so our project uses the sound names researchers have come up with,” Looby said. “And who doesn’t love a fish that boops?”
The library’s creators hope to add a feature that will allow people to submit their own fish sound recordings. Other interactive features, such as a world map with clickable fish sound data points, are also in the works.
Fish make sound in many ways. Some, like the toadfish, have evolved organs or other structures in their bodies that produce what scientists call active sounds. Other fish produce incidental or passive sounds, like chewing or splashing, but even passive sounds can still convey information.
Scientists think fish evolved to make sound because sound is an effective way to communicate underwater. Sound travels faster under water than it does through air, and in low visibility settings, it ensures the message still reaches an audience.
“Fish sounds contain a lot of important information,” said Looby, who is pursuing a doctorate in fisheries and aquatic sciences at the UF/IFAS College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. “Fish may communicate about territory, predators, food and reproduction. And when we can match fish sounds to fish species, their sounds are a kind of calling card that can tell us what kinds of fish are in an area and what they are doing.”
Knowing the location and movements of fish species is critical for environmental monitoring, fisheries management and conservation efforts. In the future, marine, estuarine or freshwater ecologists could use hydrophones — special underwater microphones — to gather data on fish species’ whereabouts. But first, they will need to be able to identify which fish they are hearing, and that’s where the fish sounds database can assist.
FishSounds.net emerged from the research team’s efforts to gather and review the existing scientific literature on fish sounds. An article synthesizing that literature has just been published in Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries.
In the article, the researchers reviewed scientific reports of fish sounds going back almost 150 years. They found that a little under a thousand fish species are known to make active sounds, and several hundred species were studied for their passive sounds. However, these are probably both underestimates, Cox explained.
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Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,
A quantitative inventory of global soniferous fish diversity by Audrey Looby, Kieran Cox, Santiago Bravo, Rodney Rountree, Francis Juanes, Laura K. Reynolds & Charles W. Martin. Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries (2022) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11160-022-09702-1 Published 18 February 2022
This paper is behind a paywall.
Finally, there’s GLUBS. A comprehensive February 27, 2022 Rockefeller University news release on EurekAlert announces a proposal for the Global Library of Underwater Biological Sounds (GLUBS), Note 1: Links have been removed; Note 2: If you’re interested in the topic, I recommend reading either the original February 27, 2022 Rockefeller University news release with its numerous embedded images, audio files, and links to marine audio libraries,
Of the roughly 250,000 known marine species, scientists think all ~126 marine mammals emit sounds – the ‘thwop’, ‘muah’, and ‘boop’s of a humpback whale, for example, or the boing of a minke whale. Audible too are at least 100 invertebrates, 1,000 of the world’s 34,000 known fish species, and likely many thousands more.
Now a team of 17 experts from nine countries has set a goal [emphasis mine] of gathering on a single platform huge collections of aquatic life’s tell-tale sounds, and expanding it using new enabling technologies – from highly sophisticated ocean hydrophones and artificial intelligence learning systems to phone apps and underwater GoPros used by citizen scientists.
The Global Library of Underwater Biological Sounds, “GLUBS,” will underpin a novel non-invasive, affordable way for scientists to listen in on life in marine, brackish and freshwaters, monitor its changing diversity, distribution and abundance, and identify new species. Using the acoustic properties of underwater soundscapes can also characterize an ecosystem’s type and condition.
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“A database of unidentified sounds is, in some ways, as important as one for known sources,” the scientists say. “As the field progresses, new unidentified sounds will be collected, and more unidentified sounds can be matched to species.”
This can be “particularly important for high-biodiversity systems such as coral reefs, where even a short recording can pick up multiple animal sounds.”
Existing libraries of undersea sounds (several of which are listed with hyperlinks below) “often focus on species of interest that are targeted by the host institute’s researchers,” the paper says, and several are nationally-focussed. Few libraries identify what is missing from their catalogs, which the proposed global library would.
“A global reference library of underwater biological sounds would increase the ability for more researchers in more locations to broaden the number of species assessed within their datasets and to identify sounds they personally do not recognize,” the paper says.
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The scientists note that listening to the sea has revealed great whales swimming in unexpected places, new species and new sounds.
With sound, “biologically important areas can be mapped; spawning grounds, essential fish habitat, and migration pathways can be delineated…These and other questions can be queried on broader scales if we have a global catalog of sounds.”
Meanwhile, comparing sounds from a single species across broad areas and times helps understand their diversity and evolution.
Numerous marine animals are cosmopolitan, the paper says, “either as wide-roaming individuals, such as the great whales, or as broadly distributed species, such as many fishes.”
Fin whale calls, for example, can differ among populations in the Northern and Southern hemispheres, and over seasons, whereas the call of pilot whales are similar worldwide, even though their home ranges do not (or no longer) cross the equator.
Some fishes even seem to develop geographic ‘dialects’ or completely different signal structures among regions, several of which evolve over time.
Madagascar’s skunk anemonefish … , for example, produces different agonistic (fight-related) sounds than those in Indonesia, while differences in the song of humpback whales have been observed across ocean basins.
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Phone apps, underwater GoPros and citizen science
Much like BirdNet and FrogID, a library of underwater biological sounds and automated detection algorithms would be useful not only for the scientific, industry and marine management communities but also for users with a general interest.
“Acoustic technology has reached the stage where a hydrophone can be connected to a mobile phone so people can listen to fishes and whales in the rivers and seas around them. Therefore, sound libraries are becoming invaluable to citizen scientists and the general public,” the paper adds.
And citizen scientists could be of great help to the library by uploading the results of, for example, the River Listening app (www.riverlistening.com), which encourages the public to listen to and record fish sounds in rivers and coastal waters.
Low-cost hydrophones and recording systems (such as the Hydromoth) are increasingly available and waterproof recreational recording systems (such as GoPros) can also collect underwater biological sounds.
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Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,
Sounding the Call for a Global Library of Underwater Biological Sounds by Miles J. G. Parsons, Tzu-Hao Lin, T. Aran Mooney, Christine Erbe, Francis Juanes, Marc Lammers, Songhai Li, Simon Linke, Audrey Looby, Sophie L. Nedelec, Ilse Van Opzeeland, Craig Radford, Aaron N. Rice, Laela Sayigh, Jenni Stanley, Edward Urban and Lucia Di Iorio. Front. Ecol. Evol., 08 February 2022 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2022.810156 Published: 08 February 2022.
Off the coastline of Sri Lanka, where a burning cargo ship has been spilling toxic chemicals and plastic pellets over the past two weeks, the government is preparing for the next possible stage of the disaster: As the ship sinks, it may also spill some of the hundreds of tons of oil in its fuel tanks.
The government is readying oil dispersants, booms, and oil skimmers, all tools that were used in the massive Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. They didn’t work perfectly then—more than 1,000 miles of shoreline were polluted—and more than a decade later, they’re still commonly used. But solutions that might work better are under development, including reusable sponges that can suck up oil both on the surface and underwater.
Dispersants, one common tool now, are chemicals designed to break up the oil into tiny droplets so that, in theory, microorganisms in the water can break down the oil more easily. But at least one study found that dispersant could harm those organisms. Deep-sea coral also appears to suffer more from the mix of dispersant and oil than oil alone. Booms are designed to contain oil on the surface so it can be scraped off with a skimmer, but that only works if the water’s relatively calm, and it doesn’t deal with oil below the surface. The oil on the surface can also be burned, but it creates a plume of thick black smoke. “That does get rid of the oil from the water, but then it turns a water pollution problem into an air pollution problem,” says Seth Darling, a senior scientist at Argonne National Laboratory who developed an alternative called the Oleo Sponge [emphasis mine].
…
… a team from two German universities that developed a system of wood chips that can be dropped in the water to collect oil even in rough weather, when current tools don’t work well. The system is ready for deployment if a spill happens in the Baltic Sea. Another earlier-stage solution proposes using a robot to detect and capture oil.
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I’m glad to see at least one new oil spill cleanup technology being readied for deployment in Peters’ June 4, 2021 article, we should be preparing for more spills as the Arctic melts and plans are made to develop new shipping routes.
Amongst other oil spill cleanup technologies, Peters mentions the ‘Oleo Sponge’, which was featured here in a March 30, 2017 posting when researchers were looking for investors to commercialize the product. According to Peters the oleo sponge hasn’t yet made it to market; it’s a fate many of these technologies are destined to meet. Meanwhile, scientists continue to develop new methods and techniques for mopping up oil spills as safely as possible. For example, there’s an oil spill sucking robot mentioned in my October 30, 2020 posting, which features yet another article by Peters.
In the summer of 2020 there were two major oil spills, one in the Russian Arctic and one in an ecologically sensitive area near Mauritius. For more about those events, there’s an August 14, 2020 posting, which starts with news of an oil spill technology featuring dog fur and then focuses primarily on the oil spill in the Russian Arctic with a brief mention of the spill near Mauritius in June 2020 (scroll down to the ‘Exceptionally warm weather’ subhead and see the paragraph above it for the mention and a link to a story).
I don’t usually concern myself with SPF numbers on sunscreens as my primary focus has been on the inclusion of nanoscale metal particles (these are still considered safe). However, a recent conversation with a dental hygienist and coincidentally tripping across a June 19, 2018 posting on the Schrodinger’s Cat blog shortly after the convo. has me reassessing my take on SPF numbers (Note: Links have been removed),
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So, what’s the deal with SPF? A recent interview of Dr Steven Q Wang, M.D., chair of The Skin Cancer Foundation Photobiology Committee, finally will give us some clarity. Apparently, the SPF number, be it 15, 30, or 50, refers to the amount of UVB protection that that sunscreen provides. Rather than comparing the SPFs to each other, like we all do at the store, SPF is a reflection of the length of time it would take for the Sun’s UVB radiation to redden your skin (used exactly as directed), versus if you didn’t apply any sunscreen at all. In ideal situations (in lab settings), if you wore SPF 30, it would take 30 times longer for you to get a sunburn than if you didn’t wear any sunscreen.
What’s more, SPF 30 is not nearly half the strength of SPF 50. Rather, SPF 30 allows 3% of UVB rays to hit your skin, and SPF 50 allows about 2% of UVB rays to hit your skin. Now before you say that that is just one measly percent, it actually is much more. According to Dr Steven Q. Wang, SPF 30 allows around 1.5 times more UV radiation onto your skin than SPF 50. That’s an actual 150% difference [according to Wang’s article “… SPF 30 is allowing 50 percent more UV radiation onto your skin.”] in protection.
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Schrodinger’s Cat (author of the ‘eponymous’ blog) offers a good overview of the topic in a friendly, informative fashion albeit I found the ‘percentage’ to be a bit confusing. (S)he also provides a link to a previous posting about the ingredients in sunscreens (I do have one point of disagreement with Schrodinger’s Cat regarding oxybenzone) as well as links to Dr. Steven Q. Wang’s May 24, 2018 Ask the Expert article about sunscreens and SPF numbers on skincancer.org. You can find the percentage under the ‘What Does the SPF Number Mean?’ subsection, in the second paragraph.
Ingredients: metallic nanoparticles and oxybenzone
The use of metallic nanoparticles (usually zinc oxide and/or (titanium dioxide) in sunscreens was loathed by civil society groups, in particular Friends of the Earth (FOE) who campaigned relentlessly against their use in sunscreens. The nadir for FOE was in February 2012 when the Australian government published a survey showing that 13% of the respondents were not using any sunscreens due to their fear of nanoparticles. For those who don’t know, Australia has the highest rate of skin cancer in the world. (You can read about the debacle in my Feb. 9, 2012 posting.)
At the time, the only civil society group which supported the use of metallic nanoparticles in sunscreens was the Environmental Working Group (EWG). After an examination of the research they, to their own surprise, came out in favour (grudgingly) of metallic nanoparticles. (The EWG were more concerned about the use of oxybenzone in sunscreens.)
Over time, the EWG’s perspective has been adopted by other groups to the point where sunscreens with metallic nanoparticles are commonplace in ‘natural’ or ‘organic’ sunscreens.
As for oxybenzones, Schrodinger’s Cat in a May 23, 2018 posting about sunscreen ingredients notes this (Note: Links have been removed),
Oxybenzone – Chemical sunscreen, protects from UV damage. Oxybenzone belongs to the chemical family Benzophenone, which are persistent (difficult to get rid of), bioaccumulative (builds up in your body over time), and toxic, or PBT [or: Persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic substances (PBTs)]. They are a possible carcinogen (cancer-causing agent), endocrine disrupter; however, this is debatable. Also could cause developmental and reproductive toxicity, could cause organ system toxicity, as well as could cause irritation and potentially toxic to the environment.
It seems that the tide is turning against the use of oxybenzones (from a July 3, 2018 article by Adam Bluestein for Fast Company; Note: Links have been removed),
On July 3 [2018], Hawaii’s Governor, David Ig, will sign into law the first statewide ban on the sale of sunscreens containing chemicals that scientists say are damaging the Earth’s coral reefs. Passed by state legislators on May 1 [2018], the bill targets two chemicals, oxybenzone and octinoxate, which are found in thousands of sunscreens and other skincare products. Studies published over the past 10 years have found that these UV-filtering chemicals–called benzophenones–are highly toxic to juvenile corals and other marine life and contribute to the fatal bleaching of coral reefs (along with global warming and runoff pollutants from land). (A 2008 study by European researchers estimated that 4,000 to 6,000 tons of sunblock accumulates in coral reefs every year.) Also, though both substances are FDA-approved for use in sunscreens, the nonprofit Environmental Working Group notes numerous studies linking oxybenzone to hormone disruption and cell damage that may lead to skin cancer. In its 2018 annual sunscreen guide, the EWG found oxybenzone in two-thirds of the 650 products it reviewed.
The Hawaii ban won’t take effect until January 2021, but it’s already causing a wave of disruption that’s affecting sunscreen manufacturers, retailers, and the medical community.
For starters, several other municipalities have already or could soon join Hawaii’s effort. In May [2018], the Caribbean island of Bonaire announced a ban on chemicals sunscreens, and nonprofits such as the Sierra Club and Surfrider Foundation, along with dive industry and certain resort groups, are urging legislation to stop sunscreen pollution in California, Colorado, Florida, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Marine nature reserves in Mexico already prohibit oxybenzone-containing sunscreens, and the U.S. National Park Service website for South Florida, Hawaii, U.S. Virgin Islands, and American Samoa recommends the use of “reef safe” sunscreens, which use natural mineral ingredients–zinc oxide or titanium oxide–to protect skin.
Makers of “eco,” “organic,” and “natural” sunscreens that already meet the new standards are seizing on the news from Hawaii to boost their visibility among the islands’ tourists–and to expand their footprint on the shelves of mainland retailers. This past spring, for example, Miami-based Raw Elements partnered with Hawaiian Airlines, Honolulu’s Waikiki Aquarium, the Aqua-Aston hotel group (Hawaii’s largest), and the Sheraton Maui Resort & Spa to get samples of its reef-safe zinc-oxide-based sunscreens to their guests. “These partnerships have had a tremendous impact raising awareness about this issue,” says founder and CEO Brian Guadagno, who notes that inquiries and sales have increased this year.
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As Bluestein notes there are some concerns about this and other potential bans,
“Eliminating the use of sunscreen ingredients considered to be safe and effective by the FDA with a long history of use not only restricts consumer choice, but is also at odds with skin cancer prevention efforts […],” says Bayer, owner of the Coppertone brand, in a statement to Fast Company. Bayer disputes the validity of studies used to support the ban, which were published by scientists from U.S. National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, the nonprofit Haereticus Environmental Laboratory, Tel Aviv University, the University of Hawaii, and elsewhere. “Oxybenzone in sunscreen has not been scientifically proven to have an effect on the environment. We take this issue seriously and, along with the industry, have supported additional research to confirm that there is no effect.”
Johnson & Johnson, which markets Neutrogena sunscreens, is taking a similar stance, worrying that “the recent efforts in Hawaii to ban sunscreens that contain oxybenzone may actually adversely affect public health,” according to a company spokesperson. “Science shows that sunscreens are a key factor in preventing skin cancer, and our scientific assessment of the lab studies done to date in Hawaii show the methods were questionable and the data insufficient to draw factual conclusions about any impact on coral reefs.”
Terrified (and rightly so) about anything scaring people away from using sunblock, The American Academy of Dermatology, also opposes Hawaii’s ban. Suzanne M. Olbricht, president of the AADA, has issued a statement that the organization “is concerned that the public’s risk of developing skin cancer could increase due to potential new restrictions in Hawaii that impact access to sunscreens with ingredients necessary for broad-spectrum protection, as well as the potential stigma around sunscreen use that could develop as a result of these restrictions.”
The fact is that there are currently a large number of widely available reef-safe products on the market that provide “full spectrum” protection up to SPF50–meaning they protect against both UVB rays that cause sunburns as well as UVA radiation, which causes deeper skin damage. SPFs higher than 50 are largely a marketing gimmick, say advocates of chemical-free products: According to the Environmental Working Group, properly applied SPF 50 sunscreen blocks 98% of UVB rays; SPF 100 blocks 99%. And a sunscreen lotion’s SPF rating has little to do with its ability to shield skin from UVA rays.
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I notice neither Bayer nor Johnson & Johnson nor the American Academy of Dermatology make mention of oxybenzone’s possible role as a hormone disruptor.
Given the importance that coral reefs have to the environment we all share, I’m inclined to support the oxybenzone ban based on that alone. Of course, it’s conceivable that metallic nanoparticles may also have a deleterious effect on coral reefs as their use increases. It’s to be hoped that’s not the case but if it is, then I’ll make my decisions accordingly and hope we have a viable alternative.
As for your sunscreen questions and needs, the Environment Working Group (EWG) has extensive information including a product guide on this page (scroll down to EWG’s Sunscreen Guide) and a discussion of ‘high’ SPF numbers I found useful for my decision-making.
Given that today, Oct. 31, 2013, is Hallowe’en, it seems thematically appropriate to be talking about skeletons, in this case, coral skieleton. An Oct. 29, 2013, news item on Nanowerk profiles the research (Note: A link has been removed),
An international team of scientists, led by physicists from the University of York, has shed important new light on coral skeleton formation.
Their investigations (“Microstructural evolution and nanoscale crystallography in scleractinian coral spherulites”), carried out at the nanoscale, provide valuable new information for scientists and environmentalists working to protect and conserve coral from the threats of acidification and rising water temperatures.
As corals grow, they produce limestone – calcium carbonate – skeletons which build up over time into vast reefs. The skeleton’s role is to help the coral’s upper living biofilm to move towards the light and nutrients.
Understanding the calcification mechanism by which these skeletons are formed is becoming increasingly important due to the potential impact of climate change on this process.
The scientists looked at the smallest building blocks that can be identified – a microstructure called spherulites – by making a thin cross-section less than 100 nanometres in thickness of a skeleton crystal. They then used Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) to analyse the crystals in minute detail.
The TEM micrographs revealed three distinct regions: randomly orientated granular, porous nanocrystals; partly oriented nanocrystals which were also granular and porous; and densely packed aligned large needle-like crystals.
These different regions could be directly correlated to times of the day – at sunset, granular and porous crystals are formed, but as night falls, the calcification process slows down and there is a switch to long aligned needles.
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“It has been suspected for some time that the contrast bands seen in crystals in optical images were daily bands. Through our research we have been able to show what the crystals actually contain and the differences between day and night crystals.” [said corresponding author Renée van de Locht,]
I know coral is important but I didn’t know why (from the news release),
Corresponding author Renée van de Locht, a final-year PhD student with the Department of Physics at the University of York, says, “Coral plays a vital role in a variety of eco-systems and supports around 25 per cent of all marine species. In addition, it protects coastlines from wave erosion and plays a key role in the fisheries and tourism industries. However, the fundamental principles of coral’s skeleton formation are still not fully understood.
While the researchers are concerned about climate change and ocean acidification, there are other agendas being pursued as well (from the news release),
The York researchers are now turning their attention to looking directly at the effects of acidification. Their latest research is looking at five-day old coral larvae and compares a population from a normal seawater environment with another in an acidic environment.
The aim is to investigate the nanoscale impacts of the different environments at an early growth stage to assess how these could affect the whole colony and the bigger reef.
The coral research at York is also part of a much larger project looking at the hard and soft matter interface called the MIB – Interface between Materials and Biology – project. Nature has created materials that combine mineral (hard) and organic (soft) components in a way that provides properties that are extremely well suited to function – for example in bone, egg or mollusc shells. The collaborative project aims to develop a working understanding of how this control is worked out in natural systems, so that the same techniques can be used to develop new materials with specially tailored properties.
Here’s a citation for and a link to the published research paper,
The paper is behind a paywall which includes a rental option, as well as, the option of paying for the paper outright. You can also try accessing the paper here at ResearchGate which requires that you register for a free account.
