As the drone ascended from the rugged cliffs of the Southern California coast, its camera lens poised to capture the secrets of the vast Pacific Ocean below, the unfolding video footage initially appeared serene and unassuming. Hovering over the azure expanse, the drone’s eagle-eyed view revealed nothing but endless waves rolling rhythmically towards the shore. Minutes passed and soon surfers came into view, gliding gracefully atop the wave’s crests. Soon, a playful pod of dolphins emerged, their sleek forms breaking the surface with effortless grace. And then, as if summoned by the ocean’s mystique, a peculiar sight materialized—a large great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias), moving erratically in the water before diving beyond the drone’s viewpoint. moments later… a small great white shark appeared.
A very small great white shark.
In this fleeting moment, the drone bore witness to something the shark science world has been chasing for decades.
The scene described above is similar to what Carlos Guana, a wildlife filmmaker, went through last July. “During one of my countless hours of filming white sharks I came across a very peculiar looking white shark. This small shark was literally white all over,” explains Gauna, also known as The Malibu Artist. “While Southern California is home to many white shark nurseries, this wasn’t technically in one. It was at a specific location that I’ve made some anecdotal observations over the years that were quickly becoming a trend. For the previous [three] years, a local aggregation of very large seemingly pregnant white sharks are visible for only a short period of time. I use the word ‘seemingly’ because the only way to confirm this, is by a means I don’t have access to. But based on the countless hours of observations I’ve made of sharks of all sizes, including pregnant ones, I deduced that some of these sharks were indeed pregnant.”
“It has been hypothesized by other researchers that white sharks are born in shallow, coastal waters … [+] in this region, but never observed,” said Greg Skomal, senior fisheries scientist at the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries.
getty
But on this particular day, one large shark was visible. “It disappeared just beyond the visual depths following some erratic yet unexpected movements. Shortly thereafter, this small, completely white covered white shark appeared. It was unlike anything I’ve seen before.” The footage, published in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Biology of Fishes, “was unlike anything we had ever seen before,” says study co-author Phillip Sternes, an organismal biologist at the University of California, Riverside. “It was exhilarating.” The team believes this could mark the first-ever observation of a newborn great white in the wild.
“The key is in the shape and size of the fins. Specifically the dorsal fin. It’s unmistakable that this is a very young white shark,” says Gauna. “The problem is, nobody has ever seen one so young before and this could very well be the youngest ever recorded alive. Notice the white substance. In our paper, we suggest this is a white uterine milk lining that has coated the shark. In the extended footage, the shark is visibly turning darker and shedding the layer.”
Great white sharks, notorious for their elusiveness, have puzzled scientists for decades. Their reproduction is of particular interest; unlike many other marine species, these sharks do not breed in captivity, making it difficult to study their reproductive behaviors up close. Due to the challenges associated with observing these apex predators in their natural habitat, no one has seen these sharks mate, let alone give birth. However, researchers have pieced together some insights into the reproductive biology of great white sharks through various observations and studies. Great whites are ovoviviparous (better known as ‘aplacental viviparity’), meaning that their embryos develop inside eggs within the mother’s body, and the mother gives birth to live young. Mating in great white sharks is believed to occur through a complex courtship ritual, although the details of this behavior remain largely undocumented. After mating, female great white sharks undergo a gestation period estimated to last around 12 months, although precise data on gestation duration is limited. Pregnant female great whites are believed to migrate to specific nursery areas, possibly in shallow coastal waters, to give birth to their pups.
While the birthing process itself remains largely unseen, researchers have occasionally encountered newborn great white sharks in the wild. But never this small. “Observations of free-swimming newborn white sharks are extremely rare,” Tobey Curtis, a shark scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who was not involved in the research, told Science. “[It’s] nearly impossible to be in the exact right place at the exact right time to observe and document the moment of birth.” So, is this that possible moment of someone being in the right place at the right time? According to scientists who have analyzed the footage, the shark’s diminutive size and its rounded fins suggest that it was likely a newborn, possibly only a few hours old.
A small white shark covered with a light-hued film.
Carlos Gauna
Yet, skepticism lingers. Gavin Naylor, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research, urges caution, noting the speculative nature of the finding. “White sharks typically have between 8 and 12 pups at a time, so where are all the others,” Naylor, who wasn’t involved in the study, told CNN. There also exists the possibility of alternative explanations for the shark’s appearance. The exact origins of the milky substance surrounding the shark remain debated, and Sternes has speculated that the unusual coloration may have been caused by a skin condition.
Still, the implications of this discovery reverberate throughout the scientific community. The importance of identifying breeding grounds for great whites is crucial for their conservation efforts and this discovery is a significant step toward unraveling the mysteries of great white shark reproduction.
“More work and observations will be needed, as the sample size of this observation is only one,” the team says. “Nevertheless, in either case, the use of the aerial drone has provided shark science with another interesting set of information.”
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
The European Space Agency is fast-tracking a new mission called Ramses, which will fly to near-Earth asteroid 99942 Apophis and join the space rock in 2029 when it comes very close to our planet — closer even than the region where geosynchronous satellites sit.
Ramses is short for Rapid Apophis Mission for Space Safety and, as its name suggests, is the next phase in humanity’s efforts to learn more about near-Earth asteroids (NEOs) and how we might deflect them should one ever be discovered on a collision course with planet Earth.
In order to launch in time to rendezvous with Apophis in February 2029, scientists at the European Space Agency have been given permission to start planning Ramses even before the multinational space agency officially adopts the mission. The sanctioning and appropriation of funding for the Ramses mission will hopefully take place at ESA’s Ministerial Council meeting (involving representatives from each of ESA’s member states) in November of 2025. To arrive at Apophis in February 2029, launch would have to take place in April 2028, the agency says.
This is a big deal because large asteroids don’t come this close to Earth very often. It is thus scientifically precious that, on April 13, 2029, Apophis will pass within 19,794 miles (31,860 kilometers) of Earth. For comparison, geosynchronous orbit is 22,236 miles (35,786 km) above Earth’s surface. Such close fly-bys by asteroids hundreds of meters across (Apophis is about 1,230 feet, or 375 meters, across) only occur on average once every 5,000 to 10,000 years. Miss this one, and we’ve got a long time to wait for the next.
When Apophis was discovered in 2004, it was for a short time the most dangerous asteroid known, being classified as having the potential to impact with Earth possibly in 2029, 2036, or 2068. Should an asteroid of its size strike Earth, it could gouge out a crater several kilometers across and devastate a country with shock waves, flash heating and earth tremors. If it crashed down in the ocean, it could send a towering tsunami to devastate coastlines in multiple countries.
Over time, as our knowledge of Apophis’ orbit became more refined, however, the risk of impact greatly went down. Radar observations of the asteroid in March of 2021 reduced the uncertainty in Apophis’ orbit from hundreds of kilometers to just a few kilometers, finally removing any lingering worries about an impact — at least for the next 100 years. (Beyond 100 years, asteroid orbits can become too unpredictable to plot with any accuracy, but there’s currently no suggestion that an impact will occur after 100 years.) So, Earth is expected to be perfectly safe in 2029 when Apophis comes through. Still, scientists want to see how Apophis responds by coming so close to Earth and entering our planet’s gravitational field.
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“There is still so much we have yet to learn about asteroids but, until now, we have had to travel deep into the solar system to study them and perform experiments ourselves to interact with their surface,” said Patrick Michel, who is the Director of Research at CNRS at Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur in Nice, France, in a statement. “Nature is bringing one to us and conducting the experiment itself. All we need to do is watch as Apophis is stretched and squeezed by strong tidal forces that may trigger landslides and other disturbances and reveal new material from beneath the surface.”
The Goldstone radar’s imagery of asteroid 99942 Apophis as it made its closest approach to Earth, in March 2021. (Image credit: NASA/JPL–Caltech/NSF/AUI/GBO)
By arriving at Apophis before the asteroid’s close encounter with Earth, and sticking with it throughout the flyby and beyond, Ramses will be in prime position to conduct before-and-after surveys to see how Apophis reacts to Earth. By looking for disturbances Earth’s gravitational tidal forces trigger on the asteroid’s surface, Ramses will be able to learn about Apophis’ internal structure, density, porosity and composition, all of which are characteristics that we would need to first understand before considering how best to deflect a similar asteroid were one ever found to be on a collision course with our world.
Besides assisting in protecting Earth, learning about Apophis will give scientists further insights into how similar asteroids formed in the early solar system, and, in the process, how planets (including Earth) formed out of the same material.
One way we already know Earth will affect Apophis is by changing its orbit. Currently, Apophis is categorized as an Aten-type asteroid, which is what we call the class of near-Earth objects that have a shorter orbit around the sun than Earth does. Apophis currently gets as far as 0.92 astronomical units (137.6 million km, or 85.5 million miles) from the sun. However, our planet will give Apophis a gravitational nudge that will enlarge its orbit to 1.1 astronomical units (164.6 million km, or 102 million miles), such that its orbital period becomes longer than Earth’s.
It will then be classed as an Apollo-type asteroid.
Ramses won’t be alone in tracking Apophis. NASA has repurposed their OSIRIS-REx mission, which returned a sample from another near-Earth asteroid, 101955 Bennu, in 2023. However, the spacecraft, renamed OSIRIS-APEX (Apophis Explorer), won’t arrive at the asteroid until April 23, 2029, ten days after the close encounter with Earth. OSIRIS-APEX will initially perform a flyby of Apophis at a distance of about 2,500 miles (4,000 km) from the object, then return in June that year to settle into orbit around Apophis for an 18-month mission.
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Furthermore, the European Space Agency still plans on launching its Hera spacecraft in October 2024 to follow-up on the DART mission to the double asteroid Didymos and Dimorphos. DART impacted the latter in a test of kinetic impactor capabilities for potentially changing a hazardous asteroid’s orbit around our planet. Hera will survey the binary asteroid system and observe the crater made by DART’s sacrifice to gain a better understanding of Dimorphos’ structure and composition post-impact, so that we can place the results in context.
The more near-Earth asteroids like Dimorphos and Apophis that we study, the greater that context becomes. Perhaps, one day, the understanding that we have gained from these missions will indeed save our planet.
