Scientists extract images from people’s thoughts

Impossible as it may seem, but a scientist has succeeded in pulling an image out of a person's brain.

In a recent experiment, Dr. Jack Gallant of the UCB psychology department has claimed that he could reproduce video images from human brain activity.

Although this research has not yet been peer reviewed, Gallant and his colleague Shinji Nishimoto have used fMRI to scan the brains of two patients as they watched videos.

"A computer program was used to search for links between the configuration of shapes, colors and movements in the videos, and patterns of activity in the patients’ visual cortex".

"It was later fed more than 200 days’ worth of YouTube internet clips and asked to predict which areas of the brain the clips would stimulate if people were watching them.

"Finally, the software was used to monitor the two patients’ brains as they watched a new film and to reproduce what they were seeing based on their neural activity alone.

"Remarkably, the computer program was able to display continuous footage of the films they were watching — albeit with blurred images,” he added.

For example, in one scene which featured Steve Martin wearing a white shirt, the software recreated his shape and torso but missed other details, like his facial features.

“Some scenes decode better than others. We can decode talking heads really well. But a camera panning quickly across a scene confuses the algorithm,” said Gallant.

This is the first time when video scenes were recovered from thought.

Previous work has been done to recover spatial memories seen in the hippocampus via fMRI.

ANI

Scientists 'grow meat in laboratory'

In what can be claimed a major breakthrough, scientists have for the first time grown a form of meat in a laboratory -- but they are yet to taste it.

A team in the Netherlands has created the "soggy pork" by using cells from a live pig to replicate growth in a Petri dish, which it believes may lead to sausages and processed products being made from laboratory meat in five years' time.

The scientists extracted cells from the muscle of a live pig and then put them in a broth of other animal products. The cells then multiplied and created muscle tissue. "You could take the meat from one animal and create the volume of meat previously provided by a million animals,"

'The Sunday Times' quoted Mark Post of Eindhoven University, who is leading the Dutch government-funded research.

The scientists have so far managed to develop a soggy form of pork and are seeking to improve its texture. "What we have at the moment is rather like wasted muscle tissue.”

"We need to find ways of improving it by training it and stretching it, but we will get there. This product will be good for the environment and will reduce animal suffering. If it feels and tastes like meat, people will buy it," Post said.

Vegetarian groups have welcomed the news, saying there was "no ethical objection". "As far as we're concerned, if meat is no longer a piece of a dead animal there’s no ethical objection," Peta, the animal rights group, said.

However the Vegetarian Society said: "The big question is how could you guarantee you were eating artificial flesh rather than flesh from an animal that had been slaughtered. It would be very difficult to label and identify in a way that people would trust."

Meat produced in a laboratory could reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with real animals. Meat consumption is predicted to double by 2050, and methane from livestock is said to currently produce about 18 per cent of the world's greenhouse gases.

PTI

Aliens exist on Earth, scientists claim

In a claim that may soon inspire another Hollywood science fiction, Bulgarian scientists have said that aliens exist on Earth and they are in contact with them.

"Aliens are currently all around us and are watching us all the time," said Lachezar Filipov, deputy director of the Space Research Institute of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.

"They are not hostile towards us, rather, they want to help us but we have not grown enough in order to establish direct contact with them," Filipov said.

"The human race was certainly going to have direct contact with the aliens in the next 10 to 15 years" but through the power of thought and not through radiowaves, he said.

Claiming that the the extraterrestrial creatures are currently answering 30 questions posed to them by the scientists, Filipov said work on "deciphering a complex set of symbols" sent to them is under way at the country's Space Research Institute.

The centre's researchers were analysing 150 crop circles from around the world, which they believe answer the questions.

Even the seat of the Catholic church, the Vatican, had agreed that aliens existed.

The publication of the BAS researchers report concerning communicating with aliens comes in the midst of a controversy over the role, feasibility and reform of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.

Last week it lead to a heated debate between Bulgaria's Finance Minister Simeon Djankov and President Georgi Parvanov.

Aliens have been one of the most sought-after subjects in Hollywood movies with a number of movies have been made on these extra-terrestrial creatures.

Ridley Scott's 1979 film 'Aliens', Steven Spielberg's 1982 blockbuster 'E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial' and 'Alien vs Predator by Paul WS Andersan in 2004 are some of the hit movies based on aliens.

James Cameron's upcoming movie 'Avatar', believed to be the most expensive Hollywood flick ever, is also based on such characters on a far away world who engage in an epic conflict with humans.

PTI

Lunar water probably came from comets

In a discovery that may solve the mystery behind the source of moon's water, an evidence from NASA's LCROSS mission suggested that much of it was delivered by comets that slammed into the Earth's satellite billions of years ago.

Previous missions had also found hints of lunar water but its source was never clear. One idea is that it forms when hydrogen atoms from the solar wind latch onto oxygen atoms in the lunar soil, creating hydroxyl and water.

According to the data revealed recently at the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group meeting, a gathering of 160 lunar scientists in Houston, the evidence is mounting in favour of an alternative explanation – comet impacts.

The first line of evidence comes from compounds that vaporise readily, called volatiles. LCROSS found spectral signs of volatiles containing carbon and hydrogen – likely methane and ethanol – as well as others such as ammonia and carbon dioxide, journal New Scientist reported.

"It appears that we impacted into a very volatile-rich area," LCROSS principal scientist Tony Colaprete said.

These compounds should have been mostly lost to space billions of years ago, when the moon coalesced from the debris of an impact between the Earth and a Mars-sized object.

Water formed through an interaction with the solar wind would therefore be relatively pure – and free of volatiles.

But comets, which are thought to have been responsible for many of the moon's impact scars, are "dirty iceballs" known to contain volatiles such as methane.

Bureau Report

World’s first eco friendly robot made of cardboard

Japanese scientists have unveiled the world’s first environmentally friendly robot, which is made out of cardboard.

The green-machine, which is named “D+ropop”, weighs just 6kg and is the brainchild of robotics firm Eager.

The life-size machine is made almost entirely out of card and has just eight lightweight motors to move its upper limbs and head.

Because it is made out of card, the company hopes they will be a hit with marketing firms looking for new green methods to push their products.

Once it becomes obsolete, it can be easily recycled. The bodies can also be painted with logos or made water-resistant.

Each machine will cost around 3000 pounds, although they will also be available for rent in Japan.

The “D+ropop” went on display on November 25 at the International Robot Exhibition 2009 in Tokyo.

ANI

Monkeys choose mating partners with different genes

Monkeys choose mating partners with genes different from their own to guarantee healthy and strong offspring, a new study has claimed.

A team of researcher from UK and Africa analysed blood samples and reproduction patterns of around 200 mandrills, a species closely related to humans, living in Gabon in Central Africa.

They observed that female mandrills reproduced most with those males whose genes were complementary to their own.

Presuming that the females use smell to select suitable mating partner for themselves, the scientists said, "monkeys know their own body smell, which is partly determined by their genes".

Male mandrills have a scent-gland on their chest, which they rub vigorously against trees to advertise their presence to females.

"The females sniff out the males whose body odour is different giving an indication that their genetic make up is likely to be unlike theirs," the team assumed, but made it clear that they were still trying to determine mandrill cent-marks.

"This is an important advance in our knowledge of how mate selection works in monkeys. We now need to dig deeper and establish how they do this," lead author Jo Setchell from Durham University's Anthropology Department said in a report in Journal of Evolutionary Biology.

Selective fertilisation could be another method adopted by female mandrills to 'choose' their mates, researchers speculate.

"Alternatively, it could well be that the female has a sophisticated way of somehow rejecting and accepting fertilisation depending on the genetic makeup of the sperm. This might help to explain why female primates go out of their way to mate with as many males as possible," Setchell said.

A female mandrill mates with a number of males and researchers believe that her body rejects sperm from males with a similar genetic makeup and 'picks' those with different genes.

"These results are very exciting and this is the first time that selection for genetic compatibility has been demonstrated in a species which is quite closely related to humans. So our results support the idea that humans might choose genetically compatible mates," Setchell said.

PTI

Jumping Peacock Spider

Jumping spiders are often very colourful spiders. Maratus volans is not an exception.
Although tiny, male spiders have an iridescent colouring of red, green and blue.

The cephalothorax (head-breast part) and legs are usually dark brown to black with red stripes but the greenish upper abdomen is patterned with red and blue stripes.
Females and the immatures of both sexes are dull, brown drab coloured creatures.
Mature spiders are small with a length of between 4 and 5 mm.
The spider can be found in Queensland and New South Wales.

The male spider has two rounded skin-like flaps on either side of his abdomen that are folded down close against the sides of the body, like a shawl, when not in use.
The spider has - like all saticids - excellent eye-sight and can detect prey 20 cm away.
The brilliant colouring is not just for decoration. The peacock spider has earned its name when he courts with his mate.

He raises his abdomen vertically, expands his flaps and displays them like a peacock's tail. He also raises his third legs which have a brush of black bristles and the white-tipped ends.
While vibrating his raised legs and tail, he starts dancing from side to side or rolls as a sailor as he approaches the female.
Altogether a spectacular courtship dance. After mating the male repeats the performance and dancing with other females.

The spider's courtship behaviour is comparable with the European Saitis barbipes. The name of the peacock spider was changed a few times. From Attus volans to Saitis volans and recently to Maratus volans.
Like many other Australian common spiders the genus name was given by European arachnologists more than a century ago. After detailed studying many Australian spiders are found not to be related to European spiders and will undergo name changes.

Maratus volans has a few common names: flying spider, gliding spider and the preferred name peacock spider.
Although volans in its name suggest the spider can fly, it actually does not use its flaps to extend the distance of its jump. He uses the abdominal flaps only for courtship and displays them like a peacock.

Literature:
- Spiders, Barbara York Main, 1976, ISBN 0 00 2165576 7
- Australian spiders, Keith C. McKeown, 1952
- Debunking an urban myth: The jumping spider Maratus cannot fly!, Julianne M. Waldock, 2008

By Ed Nieuwenhuys
Pictures by Jurgen Otto

New global map of Mars suggests Red Planet once had ocean

In a new study, scientists used an innovative computer program to produce a new and more detailed global map of the valley networks on Mars, which adds to the growing body of evidence suggesting the Red Planet once had an ocean.

The study was carried out by scientists from Northern Illinois University and the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, US.

The findings indicate the networks are more than twice as extensive (2.3 times longer in total length) as had been previously depicted in the only other planet-wide map of the valleys.

Further, regions that are most densely dissected by the valley networks roughly form a belt around the planet between the equator and mid-southern latitudes, consistent with a past climate scenario that included precipitation and the presence of an ocean covering a large portion of Mars’ northern hemisphere.

Scientists have previously hypothesized that a single ocean existed on ancient Mars, but the issue has been hotly debated.

“All the evidence gathered by analyzing the valley network on the new map points to a particular climate scenario on early Mars,” said NIU Geography Professor Wei Luo.

“It would have included rainfall and the existence of an ocean covering most of the northern hemisphere, or about one-third of the planet’s surface,” he added.

“The presence of more valleys indicates that it most likely rained on ancient Mars, while the global pattern showing this belt of valleys could be explained if there was a big northern ocean,” said Tomasz Stepinski, a staff scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute.

Valley networks on Mars exhibit some resemblance to river systems on Earth, suggesting the Red Planet was once warmer and wetter than present.

But, since the networks were discovered in 1971 by the Mariner 9 spacecraft, scientists have debated whether they were created by erosion from surface water, which would point to a climate with rainfall, or through a process of erosion known as groundwater sapping.

Groundwater sapping can occur in cold, dry conditions.

The large disparity between river-network densities on Mars and Earth had provided a major argument against the idea that runoff erosion formed the valley networks.

But, the new mapping study reduces the disparity, indicating some regions of Mars had valley network densities more comparable to those found on Earth.

“It is now difficult to argue against runoff erosion as the major mechanism of Martian valley network formation,” Luo said.

ANI

New aquatic fungus pushing amphibians on road to extinction

Reports indicate that a new aquatic fungus is threatening to make many amphibians like frogs and toads extinct.

According to a report in Microbiology Today, the fungus, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), was found to be associated with waves of amphibian extinctions in Central America and north-eastern Australia in the 1990’s.

Bd infects over 350 amphibian species by penetrating their skin, but little else is known about where it came from and how it causes disease.

The earliest published record of Bd is from a specimen of an African clawed frog in 1938 from South Africa.

Around this time, there was a huge trade in clawed frogs when they were used in one of the earliest human pregnancy tests.

The global exportation of the clawed frog is likely to have spread Bd around the world.

The infection is spread by fungal spores released into the water supply from imported infected animals.

Researchers are trying different approaches to treat existing Bd infection.

Some are treating tadpoles with antifungal drugs, whilst more innovative approaches involve introducing ‘probiotic’ bacteria that naturally secrete antifungal compounds that kill Bd on amphibians’ skin.

To help limit the spread of infection, the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH) now recommends screening imported amphibians for presence of Bd.

ANI

Dark galaxy may be crashing into Milky Way

New calculations by a team of astronomers have indicated that a dark galaxy may be crashing into our own Milky Way.

In 2008, a cloud of hydrogen with a mass then estimated at about 1 million suns was found to be colliding with our galaxy.

It appears that the object is massive enough to be a galaxy itself.

Called Smith’s cloud, it has managed to avoid disintegrating during its smash-up with our own, much bigger galaxy.

What’s more, its trajectory suggests it punched through the disc of our galaxy once before, about 70 million years ago.

To have survived, it must contain much more matter than previously thought, in order to provide enough gravity to hold it together.

Calculations by Matthew Nichols and Joss Bland-Hawthorn of the University of Sydney, Australia, indicate that it has about 100 times the previously estimated mass.

Many more such dark galaxies may be out there, according to Leo Blitz of the University of California, Berkeley.

Simulations of galaxy formation suggest a galaxy the size of the Milky Way should feature about 1000 dwarf galaxies, but only a few dozen have been found so far.

“Some of the missing dwarfs may be dark galaxies that are all but invisible,” said Blitz.

ANI

Birds 'can talk out of the corner of their mouths'

Birds are more clever than you thought -- the avians can talk out of the corner of their mouths in a bid to scare off predators, says a new study.

An international team, led by the University of California, has carried out the study and found that birds can direct their voices towards the potential threat, even if they are at a right angle to them.

In fact, the "remarkable sophistication" of their call helps the birds to signal to the predator that they should leave their area.

In their study, researchers found that two small American songbirds, the house finch and the yellow rumped warbler, could pull of the trick.

"Both species emit calls that are significantly skewed towards the left or right depending on whether the bird is facing to the left or the right of the predator.

"We found that some birds 'can talk out of the corner of their mouths' by beaming their calls to predators when facing lateral to them."

However, another similar bird, the dark-eyes junco, was not able to throw his call in the same way, the researchers, who tested how the birds reacted in the presence of an owl, found.

All three birds are common targets for bird or mammal predators, revealed the findings published in 'The Proceedings of the Royal Society B' journal.

Bureau Report

Butterflies aboard Atlantis to live in orbit on ISS

Reports indicate that NASA’s space shuttle Atlantis is carrying butterflies, which will live in orbit aboard the International Space Station (ISS), as part of a science outreach project.

According to a report in Discovery News, the butterflies, which are currently caterpillars, will be transferred to the station to live out their lives in orbit.

“Usually kids in school have ‘cookbook’ science where you already know the outcome before you begin,” Nancy Moreno, a biologist and science educator with the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, told Discovery News.

“This is a case where we really don’t know that much about how these organisms will survive in microgravity,” she said. “That’s a unique opportunity for students,” she added.

Pictures of the butterflies will be taken every 15 minutes and relayed to project organizers on the ground, who will post the images on websites.

The butterflies, which typically have a lifespan of about a month, will remain aboard the space station until the next shuttle flight in February.

“NASA attempted the experiment a year ago, but none of the critters developed past larvae,” said John Uri, NASA’s deputy manager of space station payloads.

“The problem was that the food they flew was from a new vender, and it turned out it was poor quality, and that’s why the butterflies didn’t develop,” Uri told Discovery News. “They’re hoping that with brand new food that’s been totally tested that this group will do OK,” he said.

Two species of butterflies are aboard the shuttle: painted lady and monarchs.

Scientists and students will be comparing how the space butterflies grow and develop compared to butterflies on the ground.

The animals will be contained in special habitats aboard the space station.

“They’re not going to be flying around or anything,” Uri said.

ANI

Ocean on Jupiter’s moon Europa may harbor 3 mn tons of fish

In a new research, a scientist has suggested that at least three million tons of fishlike creatures could theoretically live and breathe under Jupiter’s moon Europa’s global ocean.

The scientist in question is Richard Greenberg of the University of Arizona in Tucson.

Below its icy crust, Europa is believed to host a global ocean up to a hundred miles (160 kilometers) deep, with no land to speak of at the surface.

The extraterrestrial ocean is currently being fed more than a hundred times more oxygen than previous models had suggested, according to provocative new research.

That amount of oxygen would be enough to support more than just microscopic life-forms, and at least three million tons of fishlike creatures could theoretically live and breathe on Europa, according to Greenberg.

“There’s nothing saying there is life there now,” said Greenberg, who presented his work last month at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society’s Division for Planetary Sciences. “But we do know there are the physical conditions to support it,” he added.

“In fact, based on what we know about the Jovian moon, parts of Europa’s seafloor should greatly resemble the environments around Earth’s deep-ocean hydrothermal vents,” said deep-sea molecular ecologist Timothy Shank.

“I’d be shocked if no life existed on Europa,” said Shank.

Europa’s smooth surface is marred only by dark, crisscrossing ridges that suggest the icy shell is being stretched and compressed by tidal forces.

“We’re used to thinking of tides on Earth as something seen on the shore,” Greenberg explained.

But, on a larger scale, gravity from the sun and moon constantly squishes and stretches Earth as a whole.

Europa, which is about as big as our moon, also gets tidally stretched, not by the sun, but by the gravity of massive Jupiter.

“The friction from all this tidal stretching probably heats Europa enough to maintain liquid water,” Greenberg said.

The warmer ocean material may be oozing up through cracks in the ice and freezing on the surface at the same rate that older ice sinks and melts into the liquid interior.

This cycle of “repaving” would explain the young look of the surface ice—and would open the door for oxygen at the surface to permeate the subsurface ocean.

Greenberg’s generous estimate of oxygen in Europa’s ocean—and the resulting speculation that fishlike creatures may exist there—depends on the surface repaving to have happened at a relatively stable rate, in this case, a complete renewal every 50 million years.

ANI

Alien Looking Bugs

NASA's Atlantis takes worms into space

The space shuttle Atlantis has blasted off carrying thousands of microscopic worms and vital supplies and spare parts for the International Space Station to push its life past the 2010 retirement of the aging shuttle fleet.

According to the scientists the microscopic worms which would be flown into the orbit would help in finding out that how astronauts build and lose muscle as they circle the Earth.

Atlantis launched at 2:28 pm (1928 GMT) yesterday from the Kennedy Space Center near Florida's Cape Canaveral carrying six astronauts and some 27,000 pounds (12,300 kilos) of gyroscopes, ammonia tanks and other equipment.

“A perfect launch, right on time," said a NASA spokesman after the shuttle reached orbit about eight minutes into its flight, hurtling at a speed of more than 15,000 miles (24,000 kilometers) per hour, NASA said.

Moment before the lift-off, launch director Mike Leinback wished the crew godspeed, declaring: "All the vehicle systems are outstanding today, the weather is near perfect for a good lif-toff today."

Space agency officials said the mission was crucial as just five more shuttle launches remain before the planned September 2010 retirement of the fleet and the spare parts will add years to the space station's life.

"We can learn things in space that we would not be able to learn on Earth," Szewczyk said. Also "If we can identify what causes the body to react in certain ways in space we establish new pathways for research back on Earth."

"You'll see this theme in some of the flights that are going to come after ours as well," said mission director Brian Smith. "This flight is all about spares, basically, we're getting them up there while we still can."

In-orbit inspection scheduled for space shuttle

NASA officials say a quick look at the launch images shows nothing to be worried about. Tuesday's survey will provide additional data. The space agency has been extra cautious ever since the Columbia disaster six years ago.

Atlantis is delivering big spare parts to the space station. It's an 11-day flight, which will keep the crew in orbit over Thanksgiving.

Bureau Report

Molecular collisions kept Earth warm?

Some 2.5 billion years ago, the sun was so faint that the oceans should've been ice. They weren't, and now a new study suggests the answer to the puzzle lies with greenhouse effect and an extra helping of nitrogen.

Previous modelling efforts to resolve the paradox by loading the early atmosphere with greenhouse gases assumed that it has always had the same concentration of nitrogen.

Now, an international team, led by Colin Goldblatt of NASA Ames Research Center in California, ran a model in which the pressure of nitrogen was twice what it is today, the 'New Scientist' reported.

Nitrogen is not a greenhouse gas, but the pressure rise would have led to more collisions between these molecules and greenhouse gases, causing them to absorb more infrared wavelengths, the scientists said.

In fact, the study found that this would have raised global temperatures by 4.4 degrees C. The scientists admit that this doesn't close the temperature gap entirely, but it could be part of the answer.

Goldblatt has claimed that he has evidence that the crust and mantle have since absorbed the extra nitrogen.

The findings have been published in the latest edition of the 'Nature Geoscience' journal.

Bureau Report

Jellyfish swarm northward in warming world

A blood-orange blob the size of a small refrigerator emerged from the dark waters, its venomous tentacles trapped in a fishing net. Within minutes, hundreds more were being hauled up, a pulsating mass crowding out the catch of mackerel and sea bass.

The fishermen leaned into the nets, grunting and grumbling as they tossed the translucent jellyfish back into the bay, giants weighing up to 200 kilograms (450 pounds), marine invaders that are putting the men's livelihoods at risk.

The venom of the Nomura, the world's largest jellyfish, a creature up to 2 meters (6 feet) in diameter, can ruin a whole day's catch by tainting or killing fish stung when ensnared with them in the maze of nets here in northwest Japan's Wakasa Bay.

"Some fishermen have just stopped fishing," said Taiichiro Hamano, 67. "When you pull in the nets and see jellyfish, you get depressed."

This year's jellyfish swarm is one of the worst he has seen, Hamano said. Once considered a rarity occurring every 40 years, they are now an almost annual occurrence along several thousand kilometers (miles) of Japanese coast, and far beyond Japan.

Scientists believe climate change — the warming of oceans — has allowed some of the almost 2,000 jellyfish species to expand their ranges, appear earlier in the year and increase overall numbers, much as warming has helped ticks, bark beetles and other pests to spread to new latitudes. The gelatinous seaborne creatures are blamed for decimating fishing industries in the Bering and Black seas, forcing the shutdown of seaside power and desalination plants in Japan, the Middle East and Africa, and terrorizing beachgoers worldwide, the U.S. National Science Foundation says.

A 2008 foundation study cited research estimating that people are stung 500,000 times every year — sometimes multiple times — in Chesapeake Bay on the U.S. East Coast, and 20 to 40 die each year in the Philippines from jellyfish stings.

In 2007, a salmon farm in Northern Ireland lost its more than 100,000 fish to an attack by the mauve stinger, a jellyfish normally known for stinging bathers in warm Mediterranean waters. Scientists cite its migration to colder Irish seas as evidence of global warming.

Increasingly polluted waters — off China, for example — boost growth of the microscopic plankton that "jellies" feed upon, while overfishing has eliminated many of the jellyfish's predators and cut down on competitors for plankton feed.

"These increases in jellyfish should be a warning sign that our oceans are stressed and unhealthy," said Lucas Brotz, a University of British Columbia researcher.

Here on the rocky Echizen coast, amid floodlights and the roar of generators, fishermen at Kokonogi's bustling port made quick work of the day's catch — packaging glistening fish and squid in Styrofoam boxes for shipment to market.

In rain jackets and hip waders, they crowded around a visitor to tell how the jellyfish have upended a way of life in which men worked fishing trawlers on the high seas in their younger days and later eased toward retirement by joining one of the cooperatives operating nets set in the bay.

It was a good living, they said, until the jellyfish began inundating the bay in 2002, sometimes numbering 500 million, reducing fish catches by 30 percent and slashing prices by half over concerns about quality.

Two nets in Echizen burst last month during a typhoon because of the sheer weight of the jellyfish, and off the east coast jelly-filled nets capsized a 10-ton trawler as its crew tried to pull them up. The three fishermen were rescued.

"We have been getting rid of jellyfish. But no matter how hard we try, the jellyfish keep coming and coming," said Fumio Oma, whose crew is out of work after their net broke under the weight of thousands of jellyfish. "We need the government's help to get rid of the jellyfish."

The invasions cost the industry up to 30 billion yen ($332 million) a year, and tens of thousands of fishermen have sought government compensation, said scientist Shin-ichi Uye, Japan's leading expert on the problem.

Hearing fishermen's pleas, Uye, who had been studying zooplankton, became obsessed with the little-studied Nomura's jellyfish, scientifically known as Nemopilema nomurai, which at its biggest looks like a giant mushroom trailing dozens of noodle-like tentacles.

"No one knew their life cycle, where they came from, where they reproduced," said Uye, 59. "This jellyfish was like an alien."

He artificially bred Nomura's jellyfish in his Hiroshima University lab, learning about their life cycle, growth rates and feeding habits. He traveled by ferry between China to Japan this year to confirm they were riding currents to Japanese waters.

He concluded China's coastal waters offered a perfect breeding ground: Agricultural and sewage runoff are spurring plankton growth, and fish catches are declining. The waters of the Yellow Sea, meanwhile, have warmed as much as 1.7 degrees C (3 degrees F) over the past quarter-century.

"The jellyfish are becoming more and more dominant," said Uye, as he sliced off samples of dead jellyfish on the deck of an Echizen fishing boat. "Their growth rates are quite amazing."

The slight, bespectacled scientist is unafraid of controversy, having lobbied his government tirelessly to help the fishermen, and angered Chinese colleagues by arguing their government must help solve the problem, comparing it to the effects of acid rain that reaches Japan from China.

"The Chinese people say they will think about this after they get rich, but it might be too late by then," he said.

A U.S. marine scientist, Jennifer Purcell of Western Washington University, has found a correlation between warming and jellyfish on a much larger scale, in at least 11 locations, including the Mediterranean and North seas, and Chesapeake and Narragansett bays.

"It's hard to deny that there is an effect from warming," Purcell said. "There keeps coming up again and again examples of jellyfish populations being high when it's warmer." Some tropical species, on the other hand, appear to decline when water temperatures rise too high.

Even if populations explode, their numbers may be limited in the long term by other factors, including food and currents. In a paper last year, researchers concluded jellyfish numbers in the Bering Sea — which by 2000 were 40 times higher than in 1982 — declined even as temperatures have hit record highs.

"They were still well ahead of their historic averages for that region," said co-author Lorenzo Ciannelli of Oregon State University. "But clearly jellyfish populations are not merely a function of water temperature."

Addressing the surge in jellyfish blooms in most places will require long-term fixes, such as introducing fishing quotas and pollution controls, as well as capping greenhouse gas emissions to control global warming, experts said.

In the short term, governments are left with few options other than warning bathers or bailing out cash-strapped fishermen. In Japan, the government is helping finance the purchase of newly designed nets, a layered system that snares jellyfish with one kind of net, allowing fish through to be caught in another.

Some entrepreneurs, meanwhile, are trying to cash in. One Japanese company is selling giant jellyfish ice cream, and another plans a pickled plum dip with chunks of giant jellyfish. But, though a popular delicacy, jellyfish isn't likely to replace sushi or other fish dishes on Asian menus anytime soon, in view of its time-consuming processing, heavy sodium overload and unappealing image.

Bureau Report

Snowflake Art