Hazen, on the other hand, believes that most of the oil is gone due to degradation and dilution. He is the lead author of a paper in Science about the amazing microbes that ate much of the oil. In his team’s continuous sampling of 120 sites in the Gulf from May through October 2010, he hasn’t seen much oil– only seven sites that have oil above EPA standards. He admits he may have missed some areas.

While they started the conference by saying they agreed about much, they seemed to disagree about everything brought up: the southeast plume that came out of the well; the oil on the surface, shore, sea floor and water column; the amount of oil that naturally seeps into the Gulf; what did or didn’t happen with the way the oil dispersed after the riser was removed on June 3rd.

Jane Lubchenco, head of NOAA, spoke after the conference and said that indeed, they were both right, “It’s not a contradiction to say that most of the oil is gone but some still lingers out there.”

(Her conference was actually an announcement of the next step of restoration in the Gulf– you can read more about that here.)

But remember, the press conference was supposed to be on “Deepwater Drilling: Worth the Risk?” Rao did address this issue. He thinks it’s worth it if there were better support onshore for these deepwater wells– with real time data available to experts and regulators, who would be perhaps monitoring several wells at the same time.

Lubchenco was not so certain it was worth the risk, “We must further evaluate the trade-off.”

Two smart reporters, trying to steer the original press conference back on course, asked Hazen if the oil-eating (and Gulf-saving) microbes were present near other sites of deepwater drilling. Some of the bacteria are found in the Arctic, and possibly the Atlantic, as well, Hazen said.

What do you think? Worth the risk? Oil there or gone? Share your thoughts.

(To learn more, you can check out the recent report on the monitoring of the Gulf or Samantha Joye’s blog. Science News also posted an interview with Joye over the weekend.)

If only BP had consulted a few preschoolers first, they may have been more successful.

Last week, physicists published a paper in Physical Review Letters on the power of oobleck, that magic mixture of two-parts cornstarch and one-part water often found surrounding the grubby hands of toddlers.

Scientists were skeptical of the top kill method to begin with, even though BP thought it would be 60-70% successful. At the time, Jonathan Katz, PhD, of Washington University, suggested a simple fix, changing the mud recipe to the cornstarch and water oobleck mixture. His reasoning:

It can flow slowly as a liquid, but turns stiff and elastic when flow is rapid. If an instability were to occur, this stiffness would suppress it, and it would sink in the well, accumulating at the bottom until its pressure became sufficient to stop the leak.

But the top kill mud had worked previously, during the first Gulf War, and Katz’s suggestion was ignored.

Despite the brush-off, and perhaps because of the top kill failure, Katz worked with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researchers in testing his theory in the lab:

We poured cornstarch ‘mud’ into the top of the oil column and observed that, as predicted, the instability was suppressed. The surrogate ’mud’ sank rapidly through the oil to the bottom of the tube.

Based on this experiment, the addition of a shear-thickening polymer like cornstarch to a dense top-kill mud might have allowed slugs of mud to descend against the upwelling oil instead of being ripped up and spat out of the well. Eventually, the column of mud would have prevented any further infiltration from the oil reservoir, killing the well.

Katz hopes there will never be an opportunity to repeat the experiment at full scale and under field conditions, but if there is, perhaps his advice will reach beyond the ears of preschoolers.

Image by eyspahn/flickr

“I don’t imagine you’ll ever hear the phrase ‘seal the deal’ again, unless perhaps the worst worst-case scenarios unfold and the climate system comes utterly unglued.” That’s Andrew Revkin’s reaction to the closing of the Cancun climate talks in today’s New York Times. Heads of States seemed to be missing, debates continue to rage over the Kyoto Protocol and developing nations’ and climate-affected island states’ shouts were not heard. From New Scientist:

…on the platform, the chairman of the African Union Commission, Jean Ping, noted that “Africa’s billion people are polluting roughly as much as Texas, which has 25 million people.” But Barack Obama was not there to answer.

The talks end today… don’t expect too much, says Nature’s The Great Beyond blog:

Contrary to Copenhagen, the goal going into Cancun was to make incremental progress. That seemed doable at the time, but nobody is taking anything for granted today.

Now for some fun! Through Twitter, we found this great defense of the existence of Santa… in the Multiverse. Yes, Virginia…

Follow that frog! Did you know that frogs’ bladders can hunt and remove foreign objects in their bodies? In their attempts to track frogs in Australia, scientists were implanting the amphibians with bead-sized transmitters. Within a few weeks, the transmitters had moved to their bladders and/or had simply been expelled (peed) out and left behind. Lab tests followed and results published. Read more here or here.

Bio-Inspiration: Ants travels could lead to better computer networks. According to Nature News, Argentine ants are so adept at finding the shortest routes to food and changing those routes when necessary (high traffic, obstacles), that systems engineers are hoping to learn from their behavior and build more efficient networks.

Continue to follow Science Today’s efficient science news network and lead us down some new paths by adding your comments below!

The scientists were in the middle of a multi-year expedition studying coral reefs and natural oil seeps in the Gulf. Even after the disaster struck last spring, they never expected to find what they saw via an automated submersible last Tuesday—corals covered with brown material, probably not oil, but likely tissue and sediment caused by something toxic.

According to National Geographic Daily News,

About 90 percent of 40 large groups of severely damaged soft coral were discolored and either dead or dying, the researchers say.

In addition to the coral, Nature News reports that:

The brittle sea stars that commonly intertwine these soft corals, which are normally seen waving their arms, were discolored and immobile.

The coral community resides about 4,500 feet below the surface (about the same depth as the now capped well) and smack-dab in the path of an oil plume spotted last May.

Samples of the coral will now be tested for signs of oil, dispersant, and other materials to determine the exact cause of the damage. The researchers also plan on returning in December for further study at this site and others.

Jane Lubchenco, the administrator of NOAA, had this to say in a statement:

Given the toxic nature of oil and the unprecedented amount of oil spilled, it would be surprising if we did not find damage.

But the chief scientist from the expedition, Charles Fisher from Pennsylvania State University, expressed surprise (as quoted in Nature):

Honestly, we went out there expecting to find subtle effects. I don’t think any of us really expected to be slapped in the face with it like this.

Image credit: Lophelia II 2010, NOAA OER and BOEMRE

After five months of and a total of 205.8 million gallons of oil leaked into the gulf, the death of the well may be cause for celebration…

Or, maybe not. It’s true that many reports do appear upbeat about the damage done—taking the stand that it could have been a lot worse. Marsh grasses are coming back and there were fewer birds harmed in this oil disaster than the much smaller Exxon Valdez spill twenty years ago. From the New York Times:

…as the weeks pass, evidence is increasing that through a combination of luck (a fortunate shift in ocean currents that kept much of the oil away from shore) and ecological circumstance (the relatively warm waters that increased the breakdown rate of the oil), the gulf region appears to have escaped the direst predictions of the spring.

However, oil sediments continue to be found on the gulf floor. And it may be years before scientists are able to measure the total destruction to the region. The Ocean Conservancy’s Stan Senner, told Discovery News that

it will take scientists at least three years to understand the ecological damage from the Gulf spill, and that it will last anywhere from 10 to 20 years.

Hopefully, we can learn from this disaster sooner than that and perhaps prevent future spills. According to the 80beats blog in Discover:

Offshore oil drilling will go on, eventually. But the ongoing fallout from the BP disaster means that when drilling resumes, oil companies will have to figure out not only how to do it more safely, but also how to convince the public they’re doing it more safely.

So, if we’re not celebrating, let’s at least let out a sigh of relief, if not more. Ding Dong the well is dead, the wicked well…

Where’s the Plastic?

While there’s been much coverage of plastic in the Pacific Ocean, the actual amount of garbage in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch remains a mystery. In addition, we’ve heard little of the garbage in the Atlantic. This week researchers published an article in Science quantifying the amount of plastic garbage in the Atlantic. And their results were surprising. From New Scientist:

The amount of floating plastic trapped in a north Atlantic current system hasn’t got any bigger in 22 years, despite more and more plastic being thrown away.

(New Scientist also has a great video on the process of collecting the plastics.)

So where is it? That seems to be a mystery, even to the researchers. An article in Science reports:

That suggests that either people are keeping their trash on land or plastic is going to some unknown destination in the sea.

It may also just be too small to catch.

Where’s the Oil? Still There

Not surprisingly, scientists are reporting that despite a NOAA report saying that almost three-quarters of the oil released in the Gulf is gone, the oil actually still exists.

In late June, scientists followed a plume of oil that was a mile long and 650 feet thick as it traveled southwest of the blown well. It was average as these plumes go, but, as Wired reports so well:

its behavior may give some indication of what is happening elsewhere…

…the results suggest that lots of oil is still in the Gulf, and will be there for a long time.

Their study, focusing on the microbes breaking down the oil, was also published in Science. Other researchers from the University of Georgia are also stating that the oil is still there.

Athletic Brain

Ever since Malcolm Gladwell published his great article about brain damage in football players in the New Yorker last fall, there’s been a lot to read and watch on the subject. This week the New York Times reported that Lou Gehrig may not have had Lou Gehrig’s disease (!)—but perhaps his illness was a result of concussions (and other brain trauma), much like the football players who receive hit after hit to the head.

Also, writing in Discover this week, one of our favorite science writers, Carl Zimmer, went inside the brain to find out what happens to the neurons of a linebacker.

Happy reading. Let us know what other science news sparked your interest this week.

The vast majority of the oil from the BP oil spill has either evaporated or been burned, skimmed, recovered from the wellhead or dispersed much of which is in the process of being degraded. A significant amount of this is the direct result of the robust federal response efforts.

According to NOAA, of the calculated 4.9 billion barrels of oil spilled, 33% was burned, skimmed or dispersed by recovery efforts; 41% naturally evaporated, dissolved or dispersed and 26% remains—either in the water, washed ashore, collected on shore or buried in sand or sediments.

“Cautious” is the active word—stories in many news outlets from the BBC to the New York Times to NPR seem to question these findings, despite NOAA’s claim that “More than 25 of the best government and independent scientists contributed to or reviewed the calculator and its calculation methods. “

Even NOAA remains cautious. From another article in the New York Times:

She [Jane Lubchenko, head of NOAA] emphasized, however, that the government remained concerned about the ecological damage that has already occurred and the potential for more, and said it would continue monitoring the gulf.

“I think we don’t know yet the full impact of this spill on the ecosystem or the people of the gulf,” Dr. Lubchenco said.

Among the biggest unanswered questions, she said, is how much damage the oil has done to the eggs and larvae of organisms like fish, crabs and shrimp. That may not become clear for a year or longer, as new generations of those creatures come to maturity.

And Nature gives prior oil spill examples to back this up:

Studies of the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska show that oil ingested by marine life accumulates in tissues, lowers reproductive rates and increases disease and mortality rates… The blowout of the Ixtoc I offshore well in Mexico’s Bay of Campeche, which spewed some 530 million liters of oil into the Gulf between June 1979 and March 1980, gave similar results… it reduced or threatened populations of coral, sea turtles, shrimp and fish.

So what happened to the oil? The New York Times and New Scientist gives us one reason it’s not there—oil-eating microbes. Their populations have exploded recently (New Scientist):

Oil-eating bacteria in the Gulf’s deeper waters may have reacted so fast thanks in part to being primed by natural oil seeps along the sea floor.

But one potential side effect is that these growing little creatures could consume much of the oxygen in the water. The New York Times:

…drops in oxygen could especially threaten an unusual class of creatures that also live on oil: communities of clams, mussels and tube worms that flourish in the sunless depths of the gulf.

Which makes us more cautious. Meanwhile, scientists are trying to determine the current and long term effects of almost two million gallons of chemical dispersant put into the gulf. And clean-up efforts along 600 miles of shoreline remain underway.

A bit too soon to celebrate…

Image by Louisiana GOHSEP

Over the past two days, New Scientist, Wired and Discover have published some great articles about the pelicans’ plight. If you missed them, here’s a brief summary.

Brown Pelican Population

New Scientist reports that the species of brown pelicans as a whole will be okay, because much of the population actually resides in Peru. However, for the sub-species that live and breed along the Gulf coast:

The slicks threaten the birds and their fragile wetland habitat only a few months after brown pelicans were removed from the US federal endangered and threatened species list in November last year. The birds had been on the list since 1970 after the pesticide DDT poisoned and nearly wiped out pelicans across the country. At the time Louisiana, where the pelican is the official state bird, lost its entire population. After years of resettling individual birds from Atlantic coast populations, Louisiana was able to boast the largest brown pelican population of any Gulf state, with 16,000 nesting pairs in 2004.

It goes on to say that brown pelicans could go back on the Endangered Species List:

If populations drop significantly in the Gulf, brown pelicans could be relisted, even if populations along the Pacific and Atlantic coasts remain stable.

Wired tackles the entire Endangered Species Act in a post called “Oil Disaster Shows Need for Endangered Species Act Overhaul”. The posting argues that while the act does cover impacts like ship traffic and actual oil wells, it should also consider the impacts of an oil spill.

“We need to include disaster planning in the Endangered Species Act consultation process,” said environmental lawyer Keith Rizzardi. “We can learn from experience.”

Rizzardi intends to discuss changes to the Act at the next meeting of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Marine Fisheries Advisory Committee, of which he is a member. Congress has the ultimate responsibility for changing the law, which would be relatively easy, requiring little more than amendments to its wording.

Clean vs. Kill

New Scientist also describes the cleaning and recovery process, while Discover’s 80beats blog takes on the cleaning vs. euthanizing the pelicans debate.

New Scientist:

Only a small fraction of oiled birds are ever found – many die at sea or on remote shores. Those that are found and can be approached are covered with vegetable oil to loosen up the crude oil before being cleaned with dishwashing liquid.

Wildlife rehabilitators have learned and try to make the clean-up process as stress-free as possible to boost the birds’ survival.

The International Bird Research Rescue Center, one of two organizations heading up the treatment of oiled birds in the Gulf, claims that 50 to 80 per cent of the birds treated survive at least to the point of where they can be released back into the wild.

80beats quotes UC Davis ornithologist Daniel Anderson, PhD, on both sides of the debate of whether or not to clean:

We can’t really address damage oil has done to internal organs, which is part of the reason the numbers show no significant survival rates for the hard-to-save animals over the long term. He says, “It might make us feel better to clean them up and send them back out. But there’s a real question of how much it actually does for the birds, aside from prolong their suffering.”

But, Anderson counters, maybe we just owe it to them. “If nothing else, we’re morally obligated to save birds that seem to be savable,” Anderson said.

We’ll be watching how the pelicans fare. If you have an opinion on the debate, please share it with us below.

Creative Commons image by Alan D. Wilson, www.naturespicsonline.com