Marine creature cooks up chemical defense from food
One beastie’s pigment is another’s poison. The marine-dwelling sea hare converts pigment from its food into a chemical weapon, a new study shows.
It is the first description of an animal taking photosynthetic pigment from its diet and turning it into a molecule that can wield off would-be attackers, researchers report in an upcoming issue of Animal Behaviour.
There is a photo of a sea hare emitting a cloud of ink at the link.
Do-It-Yourself Projects for Soon-to-Be Banned Plastic Bags
In its latest environmentally friendly legislative move, California is planning on banning single-use plastic bags from its grocery stores. If shoppers happen to forget a bag or stubbornly refuse to purchase reusable grocery sacks, they will have the option to buy a single-use paper bag for five cents or more.
I’m not certain how practical the projects are. The chair from plastic bags sounds like it might be a good dorm room budget cutter.
Kellogg to Restrict Ads to Settle U.S. Inquiry Into Health Claims for Cereal
The Kellogg Company has agreed to advertising restrictions to resolve an investigation into its claims about the health benefits of its Rice Krispies cereal, the Federal Trade Commission said on Thursday.
…Last summer, Kellogg unveiled product packaging claiming that Rice Krispies “now helps support your child’s immunity” and that the cereal “has been improved to include antioxidants and nutrients that your family needs to help them stay healthy.”
Florida coast suffers first impact from oil spill
Tar balls and sticky oil sheen washed ashore on a northwest Florida beach on Friday, the first apparent impact on the tourism-dependent state from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
Oil debris came ashore on Pensacola Beach, part of the Gulf Islands National Seashore which advertises “the world’s whitest beaches,” as the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history continued to widen.
Florida, the “Sunshine State” with a $60 billion annual tourism industry, had braced for oil from the 46-day-old spill to arrive. Oil had already hit the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama to the west.
Using robot submarines, British energy giant BP has clamped a containment cap over the ruptured wellhead a mile (1.6 km) below the ocean surface.
But initial estimates of how much crude was being collected and siphoned safely to the surface amounted to a fraction of the oil that continued to belch from the ruined well.
Obama: I’ll stand with the Gulf
President Barack Obama promised Saturday to stand with the people of the Gulf Coast “until they are made whole” from the oil spill catastrophe.
Obama recorded his weekly radio and Internet address from this barrier island town he visited Friday on his third trip to the Gulf since an April 20 drilling rig explosion unleashed a gusher of crude into the waters there.
He spoke of the people he’d met — an oyster fisherman named Floyd whose oyster beds have been destroyed by oil, and Terry, a shrimper who is losing income because shrimp fishing has been shut down.
“These folks work hard,” Obama said. “They meet their responsibilities. But now because of a manmade catastrophe — one that’s not their fault and that’s beyond their control — their lives have been thrown into turmoil.”
“It’s brutally unfair. It’s wrong. And what I told these men and women — and what I have said since the beginning of this disaster — is that I’m going to stand with the people of the Gulf Coast until they are made whole,” the president said.
Obama reiterated some of the steps his administration has taken to respond to the spill, including mobilizing National Guard troops.
And in the increasingly forceful tone he’s directing toward BP PLC, the British oil giant that was drilling the well that blew up, Obama said: “We will make sure they pay every single dime owed to the people along the Gulf coast.”
tangledwing 