From the CO2 solubility curve and the Captain Obvious department comes this press release that leaves us wondering if this isn’t just lip service to justify a grant:
How ocean acidification and warming could affect the culturing of pearls
Pearls have adorned the necklines of women throughout history, but some evidence suggests that the gems’ future could be uncertain. Increasingly acidic seawater causes oyster shells to weaken, which doesn’t bode well for the pearls forming within. But, as scientists report in ACS’ journal Environmental Science & Technology, the mollusks might be more resilient to changing conditions than previously thought.
Pearl aquaculture is big business, particularly in Asia and Australia. But much of it takes place in oceans, which are susceptible to the increasing amounts of carbon dioxide human activity releases into the atmosphere. CO2 from the air gets absorbed by the oceans, which become more acidic as a result. Research has found that pearl oysters produce weaker shells under these conditions, and this could hurt their chances of survival. But in addition to acidity, rising water temperature could also play a role in oyster health. Rongqing Zhang, Liping Xie and colleagues wanted to see how combining acidity and water temperature would affect pearl oysters.
The researchers tested oysters for two months under varying water temperature and pH conditions, including those predicted for oceans in 2100. Their results confirmed previous work that had found boosting acidity led to weaker shells, but that effect didn’t occur when the water temperature was also higher. The researchers concluded that warmer oceans could buffer these valuable marine animals from increasingly acidic seawater.
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The authors acknowledge funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation.
Were I not happily married I would gallantly volunteer to greatly increase the world supply of pearl necklaces just as I did when I was a bachelor.
Oh yes, the young and nasty days…
Wow, is this one helluva long publicly funded train that everybody everywhere wants to hop onto before it really picks up speed. It’s already left the station. It’s gonna’ be real dog eat dog as each and every single economic interest jockeys for position as it tries to protect itself by hopping aboard before being rammed and splattered by this stupid train. And, once aboard each and every single economic interest is gonna’ see if they can capitalize on this speeding train. Unfortunately, for all these simpletons, they don’t realize that speeding trains turn into runaway trains when the brakes begin to fail.
Why is it that the 4% of CO2 that we bad humans put into the atmosphere is the only CO2 that is bad for pearls (and everything else that is wrong with the World)?
Are they able to discriminate and NOT use the 96% naturally occurring CO2?
Does adding the (“projected”) demise of pearls to yet another “C” in the “CAGW” hype now make pearls of great vice?
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLB1g33viNM&w=1280&h=720%5D
Just think about how many better uses for those tax dollars there are. There clearly needs to be a comprehensive review of how and why projects are funded. This Government Funded Research Industry has clearly gone off track, and is now more welfare for professors.This video of Eisenhower proves we’ve been warned, and the outcome was obvious.
https://youtu.be/QowL2BiGK7o?t=1h2m6s
So long as Bill Clinton has access to interns we’ll always have pearl necklaces.