Scientific news in small doses | The Press

A few milligrams of all the scientific news of the week

Mathieu Perreault
The Press

Aquaculture to the rescue

Aquaculture could sustainably meet rising demand for fish, according to a new California study. In Nature At the end of April, biologists at the University of California, Santa Barbara calculated that the annual aquaculture production increase of 7% over three decades can be sustained without damaging the oceans if current best practices are spreading and if the improved feed given to farmed fish is maintained. Aquaculture generates 47% of global fish and shellfish production, according to the FAO.

Quiz

What is the new tourism harm affecting iguanas in the Bahamas that has just been detected?

They become diabetic because tourists give them too many grapes. In the Journal of Experimental Biology just after Easter, American biologists report that iguanas living on tourist-friendly islands control their blood sugar levels less well than those living on isolated islands. Animals normally control their sugar level through their diet, which becomes messy with tourism. Iguanas exposed to visitors have learned to approach them as soon as they hear a boat coming, and feeding them is a popular tourist activity, Utah State University researchers say.

The number

60%

This is the proportion of cactus species that will suffer from global warming, according to a new study from the University of Arizona. A quarter of cactus species will live by 2070 in a climate different from their current area of ​​distribution. The American biologists, who published their results in mid-April in the journal Nature Plants, examined 408 of the 1500 species of cacti on the planet. One in three cactus species is currently considered threatened.

Starlink on planes

Free internet on planes took a big leap last week with the announcement of the adoption of SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service by a major airline, Hawaiian Airlines. the wall street journal further revealed earlier in the month that Delta is testing Starlink. The service will be offered free of charge, according to specialized publications, but its deployment is slowed down by the requirements of the aeronautical authorities for a different certification for each type of aircraft.

The mystery of Oreos

It’s impossible to separate an Oreo so that the cream is exactly distributed between the two cookies, engineers from the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have discovered. In the magazine Physics of Fluid In mid-April, MIT fluid dynamics specialists described how they mechanically tested different kinds of Oreos, and several techniques, including dipping the Oreo in milk. In the lab, the Oreos were stuck under the two plates of an instrument called a rheometer. The two plates were then rotated counter to each other.