(Press-News.org) MELVILLE, N.Y., Nov. 21, 2024 – In the winter of 2022-2023, nearly a dozen whales died off the coast of New Jersey, near the sites of several proposed wind farms. Their deaths prompted concern that related survey work being conducted in the area somehow contributed to their deaths.
Michael Stocker of Ocean Conservation Research will present his work Thursday, Nov. 21, at 3:29 p.m. ET in a session dedicated to examining the circumstances surrounding these whale deaths, as part of the virtual 187th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, running Nov. 18-22, 2024.
In pursuit of clean energy goals and to reduce atmospheric carbon emissions, developers are increasingly exploring building wind turbines in the waters off the East Coast of the United States. Three offshore wind farms are already in operation, with several more planned or underway. These wind farms stand to generate a significant amount of carbon-free electricity, which can help coastal states meet their decarbonization goals.
The increased presence of these turbines in coastal waters, along with the noise from construction and surveys, has led to concerns of their impact on marine life. In particular, cetaceans such as whales and dolphins are likely to be sensitive to the noises and increased marine traffic brought by these turbines.
However, the Marine Mammal Commission, a federal oversight agency, states there is no evidence linking the whales that died in the New Jersey region in the winter of 2022-2023 to wind energy development.
According to necropsies performed on recovered whales, many of them died from collisions with ships. The Marine Mammal Commission notes that this is not a particularly unusual occurrence, nor is the number of whale deaths in this period higher than average. A rise in ship strikes over the last decade is mostly due to a simple combination of more whales plus more ships.
“In the case of a lot of whales, population recoveries since the cessation of commercial whaling are coincident with increasing shipping traffic and increasing fishing efforts,” said Stocker. “This is resulting in increased interactions between whales and the industrialization of the ocean.”
Stocker, however, is concerned that the increased presence of survey ships in and around New Jersey waters may have exacerbated this issue.
“Were the ship strikes just a coincidence?” asked Stocker. “Or were they a product of compromised whale vigilance due to aggregated stress factors?”
Survey ships are employed by wind farm developers to map the seafloor in preparation for construction. These ships use underwater acoustic devices in their efforts, which can stress marine mammals such as whales. While one survey ship likely has little effect, Stocker highlights that 11 different surveys were operating in the region from December 2022 to March 2023, and that the cumulative impact of these surveys has not been properly evaluated.
Stocker hopes his Thursday session will spark a discussion among attendees with the goal of identifying approaches to minimize whale deaths in the future.
###
Media are invited to attend a virtual press conference about this research and other sessions on Monday, Nov. 18. A full schedule is available at https://acoustics.org/asa-press-conference-schedule-for-monday-nov-18-asa187. To register for virtual press conferences or sessions, email media@aip.org.
———————– MORE MEETING INFORMATION ———————–
Main Meeting Website: https://acousticalsociety.org/asa-virtual-fall-2024/
Technical Program: https://eppro01.ativ.me/src/EventPilot/php/express/web/planner.php?id=ASAFALL24
ASA PRESS ROOM
In the coming weeks, ASA’s Press Room will be updated with newsworthy stories and the press conference schedule at https://acoustics.org/asa-press-room/.
LAY LANGUAGE PAPERS
ASA will also share dozens of lay language papers about topics covered at the conference. Lay language papers are summaries (300-500 words) of presentations written by scientists for a general audience. They will be accompanied by photos, audio, and video. Learn more at https://acoustics.org/lay-language-papers/.
PRESS REGISTRATION
ASA will grant free registration to credentialed and professional freelance journalists. If you are a reporter and would like to attend the virtual meeting and/or press conferences, contact AIP Media Services at media@aip.org. For urgent requests, AIP staff can also help with setting up interviews and obtaining images, sound clips, or background information.
ABOUT THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA
The Acoustical Society of America is the premier international scientific society in acoustics devoted to the science and technology of sound. Its 7,000 members worldwide represent a broad spectrum of the study of acoustics. ASA publications include The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (the world’s leading journal on acoustics), JASA Express Letters, Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics, Acoustics Today magazine, books, and standards on acoustics. The society also holds two major scientific meetings each year. See https://acousticalsociety.org/.
###
END
Exploring the impact of offshore wind on whale deaths #ASA187
Some experts are worried wind farm survey noise adds stress and increases whale deaths.
2024-11-21
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Mass General Brigham and BIDMC researchers unveil an AI protein engineer capable of making proteins ‘better, faster, stronger’
2024-11-21
Nature is pretty good at designing proteins. Scientists are even better. But artificial intelligence holds the promise of improving proteins many times over. Medical applications for such “designer proteins” range from creating more precise antibodies for treating autoimmune conditions or cancers to more effective vaccines against viruses. Applications may extend beyond medicine to, for example, growing better crops that could be more nutritious or absorb more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Investigators from Mass General Brigham and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) have developed an artificial intelligence (AI) tool known as EVOLVEpro that may represent a ...
Metabolic and bariatric surgery safe and effective for patients with severe obesity
2024-11-21
BATON ROUGE – A team of researchers led by Pennington Biomedical Research Center’s Dr. Florina Corpodean confirmed through a data analysis that metabolic and bariatric surgery is largely safe and effective for patients who are experiencing severe obesity. In the recent study “BMI ≥ 70: A Multi-Center Institutional Experience of the Safety and Efficacy of Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery Intervention,” published in Obesity Surgery: The Journal of Metabolic Surgery and Allied Care, researchers affirmed ...
Smarter city planning: MSU researchers use brain activity to predict visits to urban areas
2024-11-21
Highlights:
Researchers from Michigan State University are the first to measure the brain activity of people who had never been to a specific city and then use this brain activity to predict other people’s actual visits to places around that city. This offers potential applications for urban planning and design that addresses the well-being of residents and visitors.
For this study, researchers used principles from the budding field of neurourbanism, which involves measuring the human brain to predict and understand the influence of urban environments on behavior.
The study’s findings suggest that the neural activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex — a key region ...
Using the world’s fastest exascale computer, ACM Gordon Bell Prize-winning team presents record-breaking algorithm to advance understanding of chemistry and biology
2024-11-21
ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery, named an eight-member team drawn from Australian and American institutions as the winner of the 2024 ACM Gordon Bell Prize for the project, “Breaking the Million-Electron and 1 EFLOP/s Barriers: Biomolecular-Scale Ab Initio Molecular Dynamics Using MP2 Potentials.”
The members of the team are Ryan Stocks, Jorge L. Galvez Vallejo, Fiona C.Y. Yu, Calum Snowdon, Elise Palethorpe (all of Australian National University); Jakub Kurzak (Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.); Dmytro Bykov (Oakridge National ...
Jeffrey Hubbell joins NYU Tandon to lead new university-wide health engineering initiative & expand the school’s bioengineering focus
2024-11-21
Marking a bold step in its transformation into a global research powerhouse, NYU Tandon School of Engineering welcomes Jeffrey Hubbell, a world-renowned chemical engineer and member of four National Academies, to spearhead an ambitious agenda integrating engineering, the sciences, and medicine, to advance healthcare innovation.
As part of this vision, Hubbell will lead a new cross-institutional initiative to translate scientific discoveries into pioneering treatments. A collaboration led out of NYU Tandon and Langone Health, the initiative will include unprecedented investments in new faculty, state-of-the-art new facilities, ...
Fewer than 7% of global hotspots for whale-ship collisions have protection measures in place
2024-11-21
Link to Google Drive folder containing images (caption and credit information below):
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1r5eJr78OdIYV0la1pBvRx-ksu9hsNqcw?usp=sharing
Post-embargo link to release:
https://www.washington.edu/news/2024/11/21/whale-ship-collisions/
FROM: James Urton
University of Washington
206-543-2580
jurton@uw.edu
(Note: researcher contact information at the end)
Embargoed by Science
For public release at 2 p.m. U.S. Eastern Standard Time (11 a.m. Pacific Standard Time) ...
Oldies but goodies: Study shows why elderly animals offer crucial scientific insights
2024-11-21
A new study on ageing in the animal kingdom has highlighted how urgently Earth’s oldest and wises creatures must be protected, with knowledge and environmental stability lost due to human intervention.
The new study, led by Charles Darwin University’s (CDU) Research Institute for the Environment and Livelihoods (RIEL), explores the consequences of the loss of old, often large and wise animals in the wild and the value these individuals have to scientific knowledge, biodiversity and more.
Humans are responsible ...
Math-selective US universities reduce gender gap in STEM fields
2024-11-21
Nationally, men in colleges and universities currently outpace women in earning physics, engineering, and computer science (PECS) degrees by an approximate ratio of 4 to 1. To better understand the factors driving these gaps, NYU researchers analyzed bachelor’s degrees awarded in the US from 2002-2022, and found that the most selective universities by math SAT scores have nearly closed the PECS gender gap, while less selective universities have seen it widen dramatically.
“These findings challenge our understanding of gender inequality in STEM education,” says Joseph Cimpian, the study’s lead author and professor of economics and education ...
Researchers identify previously unknown compound in drinking water
2024-11-21
A team of researchers from the United States and Switzerland have reported the discovery of a previously unknown compound in chloraminated drinking water. Inorganic chloramines are commonly used to disinfect drinking water to safeguard public health from diseases like cholera and typhoid fever. It’s estimated that more than 113 million people in the United States alone drink chloraminated water.
The researchers have now identified chloronitramide anion, chemically expressed as Cl–N–NO2−, as an end product of inorganic chloramine decomposition. While its toxicity is not presently known, its prevalence and similarity to other ...
Chloronitramide anion – a newly characterized contaminant prevalent in chloramine treated tap water
2024-11-21
Many public water systems in the United States use inorganic chloramines to disinfect drinking water, but their decomposition products have long been a mystery. In a new study, researchers report the discovery of chloronitramide anion – a compound whose existence, though not identity, has been known for 30 years. Detected in the tap water of millions of Americans, this compound’s toxicity remains untested, prompting calls for immediate toxicological evaluation and raising questions about the safety of chloramine in public water supplies. For over a century, chemical disinfection of public water ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
Two scientific researchers to receive 2025 Ralph L. Sacco Scholarships for Brain Health
Researchers improve chemical reaction that underpins products from foods to fuels
Texas Tech to develop semiconductor power devices through $6 million grant
Novel genomic screening tool enables precision reverse-engineering of genetic programming in cells
Hot Schrödinger cat states created
How cells repair their power plants
Oxygen is running low in inland waters—and humans are to blame
ACP’s Best Practice Advice addresses use of cannabis, cannabinoids for chronic noncancer pain
Beyond photorespiration: A systematic approach to unlocking enhanced plant productivity
How a small number of mutations can fuel outbreaks of western equine encephalitis virus
Exposure to wildfire smoke linked with worsening mental health conditions
Research uncovers hidden spread of one of the most common hospital-associated infections
Many older adults send their doctors portal messages, but who pays?
Fine particulate matter from 2020 California wildfires and mental health–related emergency department visits
Gender inequity in institutional leadership roles in US academic medical centers
Pancreatic cells ‘remember’ epigenetic precancerous marks without genetic sequence mutations
Rare combination of ovarian tumors found in one patient
AI-driven clinical recommendations may aid physician decision making to improve quality of care
Artificial intelligence has potential to aid physician decisions during virtual urgent care
ACP and Annals of Internal Medicine present breaking scientific news at ACP’s Internal Medicine Meeting 2025
New study reveals polymers with flawed fillers boost heat transfer in plastics
Signs identified that precede sudden arrhythmic death syndrome in young people
Discovery of bacteria's defence against viruses becomes a piece of the puzzle against resistance
Pre-eclampsia is associated with earlier onset and higher incidence of cardiovascular risk factors
Warwick astronomers discover doomed pair of spiralling stars on our cosmic doorstep
Soil conditions significantly increase rainfall in world’s megastorm hotspots
NK cells complexed with bispecific antibody yield high response rates in patients with lymphoma
Planetary health diet and mediterranean diet associated with similar survival and sustainability benefits
Singapore launches national standard to validate antimicrobial disinfectant products
Molecular stool test could improve detection of tuberculosis in adults with HIV
[Press-News.org] Exploring the impact of offshore wind on whale deaths #ASA187Some experts are worried wind farm survey noise adds stress and increases whale deaths.