• Surface DNA from artworks reveals biological patterns
• Findings offer clues, not conclusions: Research continues on
  definitive genetic identification of Leonardo
• Artworks emerge as biological archives, preserving traces
  of their human and environmental history

Renaissance artworks and historical documents associated with Leonardo da Vinci continue to preserve measurable biological traces shaped by centuries of human contact and environmental exposure, according to an international study published today.

Leonardo DNA Project researchers used minimally invasive techniques to sample drawings, sketches, and archival correspondence linked to Leonardo, as well as several other European masters. They found that genetic material recovered from surfaces of these cultural objects forms distinct signatures that reflect their long journeys through time.

Broadly, the work represents a landmark shift in heritage science. Biological material once dismissed as contamination is increasingly viewed as evidence. Microbial and environmental DNA recovered from artworks has already offered insights into where objects traveled and the conditions they endured.

Cultural artifacts can serve as biological archives

Initiated in 2015, the Leonardo DNA Project has helped establish arteomics, an emerging discipline focused on using genetic and microbial evidence to interpret and conserve artworks. Project scientists have developed protocols that allow DNA to be recovered from fragile papers and delicate drawings with minimal invasiveness.

Using light surface swabbing and low-input whole-metagenome sequencing, the team analyzed traces from several Leonardo-associated objects. These included a red chalk drawing known as The Holy Child, as well as letters written more than 500 years ago by a da Vinci relative, a key artifact uncovered by Italian journalist / project researcher Rossella Lorenzi. The same approach was applied to less valuable artworks of the same era to provide meaningful comparisons.

Across all artifacts, the research led by Norberto Gonzalez-Juarbe of the J. Craig Venter Institute and University of Maryland identified distinct biomes made up of bacteria, fungi, plants, animals, viruses, and parasites. These biological profiles differed systematically from object to object. Materials, geography, storage conditions, and conservation histories all appeared to influence what remained on each surface.

Statistical comparisons showed that every artifact carried a reproducible and distinguishable signature. In effect, objects once assumed to be biologically silent were found to function as living fingerprints of their environments.

Beyond environmental and microbial signals, the study also investigated the extraction of meaningful human genetic information from surface-derived DNA.

Using short-read sequencing data and forensic genetic profiling, the researchers consistently detected related Y-chromosomal lineages across multiple Leonardo-associated objects and family documents.

The scholars are careful to emphasize that these results are promising but not definitive, especially when it comes to isolating the DNA of a single historical individual.

Instead, the repeated detection of paternal signals suggests a shared lineage pattern that merits further investigation. Additional artifacts will be needed to strengthen or refine these observations.

Looking ahead, notebooks remain among the top future sampling priorities related to Leonardo.
Tombs and burial sites may also be considered if access becomes available.

The project’s impact extends beyond attribution. Researchers hope to determine whether Leonardo’s biology might help explain his extraordinary visual perception. His precise depictions of transient phenomena, such as turbulent water flows and dragonfly wingbeats, have led engineers and geneticists to wonder whether he perceived motion at unusually high temporal resolution.

Genes linked to retinal signal speed are among those under consideration. Even so, scholars stress that genius cannot be reduced to genetics alone. Biology may add clues about the man, but it will never replace the creative achievements that made his name immortal.

Implications for art, science, and history

The study demonstrates that combining metagenomic sequencing with targeted molecular analyses can extract biological and genealogical information from cultural objects. What began as a conservation experiment has grown into a new method for exploring the material history of humanity’s heritage.

Says Jesse Ausubel of The Rockefeller University, chair of the Leonardo DNA Project: “Even if confirmed DNA matches with Leonardo are still ahead, success is now inevitable in the sense that a threshold has been crossed. The project has established a solid ‘scaffold,’ a reference framework for detecting ‘signatures’ on ancient artworks or documents using DNA or microbiomes. The knowledge and landmark techniques pioneered by the project can and surely will be applied to gain insights into other major historical figures.”

Curators may use this framework to better understand deterioration processes and environmental risks. Provenance research gains a complementary layer, and conservation science acquires tools that were unimaginable only a decade ago.

Dr. Gonzalez-Juarbe adds that biology has long been treated as dirt to be cleaned away. “This project helps illustrate just how much we can learn from DNA and microbiomes that may have been preserved on artworks over centuries.”

The bioRxiv paper was produced by an international team from the J. Craig Venter Institute, The University of Maryland, Vanderbilt University and Vanderbilt University Medical Center, The Jackson Laboratory, The National Institute of Standards and Technology, The University of Basel, The University of Granada, and collaborating forensic laboratories in the United States and Europe.

Financial support was provided by the Achelis & Bodman Foundation, Richard Lounsbery Foundation, and Puffin Fund.

At a glance

The new study compared multiple independent swabs from Leonardo-linked artifacts, letters written by a documented distant relative, modern control samples, and artworks by other masters.

Artworks as biological archives: Cultural artifacts retain complex biological traces from centuries of human contact, environment, and material use.

Non-destructive science: Researchers used gentle swabbing and low-input sequencing that allowed biological analysis without damaging artworks.

Distinct biological signatures: Each artifact carried a unique biome of microbes, plants, animals, viruses, and parasites shaped by its history.

Consistent lineage signal: Multiple independent samples supported Y-chromosome haplogroups within E1b1/E1b1b, though not definitive identification.

Broader impact: The approach provides a scalable framework for conservation science, provenance research, and hypothesis-driven studies of cultural heritage.

Findings offer clues, not conclusions: The project continues cautiously toward a definitive genetic identification of Leonardo da Vinci.

Authors
● Harinder Singh
● Seesandra V. Rajagopala
● Rebecca Hart
● Pille Hallast
● Mark Loftus
● Rosana Wiscovitch-Russo
● Cody R. K. Conrad
● David S. Thaler
● Guadalupe Piñar
● Karina C. Åberg
● Rossella Lorenzi
● José A. Lorente
● Jesse H. Ausubel
● Thomas P. Sakmar
● Rhonda K. Roby
● Charles Lee
● Norberto Gonzalez-Juarbe

Coverage highlights

Have scientists found Leonardo da Vinci’s DNA?
Science Magazine, United States

Leonardo da Vinci’s DNA may be hiding in his artwork, researchers say
CNN, United States (91,593,162)

Leonardo Da Vinci’s DNA may be in his art, experts say.
CBS News, United States (43,929,078)

Mona Nix, yes?
Der Spiegel, Germany (16,781,758)

Searching for the real da Vinci code: Leonardo’s DNA
ABC Online, Australia (15,836,140)

Research roundup: 6 cool stories we almost missed
Ars Technica, United States (3,910,394)

Did Leonardo Leave More Than Paint Behind
Medium, United States (43,097,627)

Coverage summary in full, click here

News release in full, click here

Ancient Da Vinci family tomb: excavated remains undergo analysis

VINCI, Italy — For over five centuries, Leonardo Da Vinci has been celebrated as a visionary artist, scientist, and inventor, known for his extraordinary talent and groundbreaking experiments. Today, an international collaboration known as the Leonardo DNA Project is closer than ever to uncovering the biological secrets of the greatest genius of the Renaissance.

In their new book “Genìa Da Vinci. Genealogy and Genetics for Leonardo’s DNA,” published by Angelo Pontecorboli Editore, experts Alessandro Vezzosi and Agnese Sabato of the Leonardo Da Vinci Heritage Association, Vinci, present findings from 30 years of genealogical research that have culminated in groundbreaking insights. Published with the support of the Municipality of Vinci, the book documents an elaborate family tree tracing back to 1331, spanning 21 generations and involving over 400 individuals. The work lays the groundwork for one of the most advanced historical-genetic investigations ever undertaken: the reconstruction of Leonardo’s genetic profile.

Through meticulous analysis of sources and archival documents — now published in the book — Vezzosi and Sabato successfully reconstructed branches of the family to which Leonardo belonged, including the identification of 15 direct male-line descendants related genealogically to both Leonardo’s father and to his half-brother, Domenico Benedetto.

This allowed David Caramelli, the Leonardo DNA Project’s coordinator for anthropological and molecular aspects, and Director of the Department of Biology at the University of Florence, along with forensic anthropologist Elena Pilli, to subject six of these descendants to DNA testing. Their analysis revealed that segments of the Y chromosome — used for individual identification — matched across these men, confirming the genetic continuity of the Da Vinci male line, at least since the 15th generation.

The authors also confirmed the existence of a Da Vinci family tomb in the Church of Santa Croce in Vinci, currently under archaeological excavation in collaboration with the University of Florence. This may be the burial site of Leonardo’s grandfather Antonio, uncle Francesco, and several half-brothers — Antonio, Pandolfo, and Giovanni.

The excavation leaders, University of Florence anthropologists Alessandro Riga and Luca Bachechi, recovered bone fragments, some of which have been radiocarbon dated. One specimen, consistent in age with Leonardo’s presumed relatives, has undergone paleogenomic analysis. Preliminary results from Caramelli and molecular anthropologist Martina Lari indicate the individual was male.

“Further detailed analyses are necessary to determine whether the DNA extracted is sufficiently preserved,” says Caramelli, who is also President of the University Museum System. “Based on the results, we can proceed with analysis of Y chromosome fragments for comparison with current descendants.”

If the Y chromosome of the living descendants is also found in the older remains in the Vinci church tombs, it would support the accuracy of paternity records, the historical reconstruction of the lineage established through death registers, and would allow for a more in-depth examination of the biological material attributed to Leonardo, as well as traces left on his original manuscripts or other works, potentially leading to the reconstruction of his DNA.

Launched in 2016 and coordinated from The Rockefeller University, New York, the Leonardo da Vinci DNA Project involves the J. Craig Venter Institute of California, the University of Florence and other institutions, with support from the Achelis and Bodman Foundation (New York), the Richard Lounsbery Foundation (Washington, D.C.), and other public and private partners.

The team’s scientific starting point was a hypothesis as simple as it is crucial: to trace the Y chromosome, which is passed unchanged from father to son.

“Our goal in reconstructing the Da Vinci family’s lineage up to the present day, while also preserving and valuing the places connected to Leonardo, is to enable scientific research on his DNA,” says Vezzosi. “Through the recovery of Leonardo’s DNA, we hope to understand the biological roots of his extraordinary visual acuity, creativity, and possibly even aspects of his health and causes of death.”

”Even a tiny fingerprint on a page could contain cells to sequence,” says Jesse H. Ausubel of The Rockefeller University and director of the project.  “21st-century biology is moving the boundary between the unknowable and the unknown.  Soon we may gain information about Leonardo and other historical figures once believed lost forever.”

Surprising revelations

The book’s revelations extend beyond genetics. In 21 chapters, it takes readers on a rigorous and fascinating journey through genealogy, history, and geography to rediscover the environment that shaped Leonardo.

Through analysis of ancient land registries, the authors identified seven Da Vinci family homes in Vinci’s village and castle, as well as two properties owned by Leonardo himself, inherited from his uncle Francesco and contested in a long dispute with his half-brothers.

The authors devote special focus to two key figures in Leonardo’s life: His paternal grandfather Antonio — not merely a farmer but a merchant who traveled between Catalan Spain and Morocco — and Leonardo’s mother, Caterina. Through careful examination of existing research, sources, and archives, a clearer, non-romanticized picture of Caterina emerges. Increasingly plausible is her identification as a slave in the service of wealthy banker Vanni di Niccolò di ser Vanni. A series of wills and donation records from 1449 onward document the relationship between Vanni and his executor, the young notary ser Piero, Leonardo’s father.

A “Unicorn Dragon” … by Leonardo?

Among the most intriguing revelations: The authors publish for the first time a study hypothesizing that a mysterious charcoal drawing of rare expressive intensity may be attributed to Leonardo. It was discovered on the fireplace mantle of an old building in Vinci (formerly the Bracci house), now owned by the Municipality.

The fantastical creature features several striking iconographic elements, though worn by time: A spiral horn on the head, elongated snout and curved beak, hooked teeth, flaming tongue, clawed limbs, pointed ears, pronounced scales on the back and neck, and a fan-like membranous wing with fingered extensions — anticipating Leonardo’s later studies of bird and bat flight — along with a serpentine tail.

Due to these features, Vezzosi and Sabato have named the work “Unicorn Dragon.” Particularly compelling is a comparison with a detail from Windsor sheet RL 12370, dated to the 1470s.

The attribution hypothesis is currently supported by Roberta Barsanti, Director of the Leonardian Museum and Library, and by Vinci’s Mayor, Daniele Vanni. The Municipality has planned scientific analysis and restoration of the large drawing (about 80×70 cm), under the supervision of the Superintendency of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape for the Metropolitan City of Florence and the provinces of Pistoia and Prato.

Leonardo: Epigenetics Pioneer?

The book suggests that Leonardo may have intuited concepts we now call “epigenetic.” In his writings on heredity, he reflects on the influence of diet, blood, and parental behavior on offspring — observations still relevant today.

“Leonardo questioned the origins of human life not only biologically: in his studies on generation, conception becomes a complex act where nature, emotion, and fate intertwine — anticipating themes now central to the genetics–epigenetics debate,” explains Agnese Sabato.

Towards a genetic portrait

The final chapter explores evocative similarities between some current descendants and Leonardo’s famed self-portrait, offered as a reflection. Nonetheless, the project’s scientific ambitions remain paramount. If enough DNA fragments can be sequenced, researchers could reveal new insights into Leonardo’s genetic heritage, physical traits, and perhaps even vulnerabilities that shaped his life and work.

“This is not just about the author of the world’s most famous painting,” concludes Ausubel. “It’s a challenge to redefine the limits of historical knowledge and cultural heritage.”

Reconstructing Leonardo’s genetic profile represents a milestone of international significance — for both science and the valourization of historical identity.

For the small Tuscan town of Vinci, which once welcomed a very special illegitimate child named Leonardo, the echo of his “genetic voice” across the centuries is now a source of deep pride and renewed wonder.

The historical research will also support an upcoming documentary and an international film production.

The book’s premiere presentation is scheduled for May 22, 2025, at the Vinci Theater.

And one thing is increasingly clear: our understanding of Leonardo Da Vinci is far from complete.

Key Points:

Leonardo da Vinci DNA Project: The first scientific project aimed at reconstructing Leonardo’s genome, through indirect and comparative biological sources

Art meets genetics: DNA found on manuscripts or drawings could confirm artwork authenticity, and techniques developed through the project could revolutionize how contested works are verified

Forensic analysis: Leonardo’s genetic profile could reveal biological traits like left-handedness, visual perception, diet, possible health predispositions, and physical appearance

21 documented generations: The reconstructed family tree has been updated from 1331 to the present, including the documentation of extinct family lines

Rediscovered heritage: Over 400 individuals analyzed, including 219 Da Vinci/Vinci (119 males and 100 females)

15 male descendants identified belonging to the direct patrilineal line, crucial for the study of the Y chromosome

Y chromosome: 6 direct male-line descendants successfully involved in comparative DNA analyses

The “Unicorn Dragon”: The hypothesis that a large drawing in Leonardo’s hometown may be attributed to him

Archaeological excavation in Vinci: First effort to identify remains in a Da Vinci family tomb documented in the Church of Santa Croce

Digital Archive “GenìaDaVinci”: A genealogical and documentary database for scholars, genealogists, and enthusiasts, based on traceability and historical verification criteria

Residences of Leonardo’s family: A new map of Da Vinci homes in Vinci village and countryside, including two of Leonardo’s own properties

Maternal mystery: A historically updated reconstruction of the hypotheses about Leonardo’s mother’s identity

* * * * * * *

Coverage highlights:

Leonardo da Vinci was a genius. New DNA tests could finally explain why

Times of London — United Kingdom (687,323)

Leonardo da Vinci’s family tree: Historians chart the Italian polymath’s descendants back to 1331 – spanning 21 generations and involving over 400 individuals
Daily Mail – United Kingdom (53,982,906)

Six descendants of Leonardo da Vinci discovered
La Razón Digital – Spain (12,760,706)

Leonardo da Vinci has six living heirs, investigations on the Y chromosome

ANSA Italian – Italy (11,283,174)

Leonardo da Vinci may have 6 living heirs: investigations into the genius’ Y chromosome and excavations in an ancient burial

Corriere Della Sera – Italy (22,696,469)

Leonardo Da Vinci has 6 living descendants, says genetic study

Terra – Brazil (25,320,022)

500-year-old mystery: Leonardo da Vinci’s DNA traced through 15 generations
Interesting Engineering via MSN.com – United States (110,190,075)

DNA analysis has revealed up to six male descendants of Leonardo da Vinci who are still alive today.
La Vanguardia – Spain (14,307,516)

Decoding Leonardo da Vinci’s DNA: Revealing the genius’s mystery after 500 years
Báo Mới – Vietnam (13,599,612)

Six living descendants of Leonardo Da Vinci share Y chromosome, study finds
SAPO – Portugal (6,086,249)

Tracing Leonardo da Vinci’s family tree reveals six living descendants
National Geographic Español – Spain (5,651,075)

Genetic code of Leonardo da Vinci’s living relatives analyzed
derStandard.at – Austria (4,802,463)

Spectacular art discovery: The “Unicorn Dragon” – an early Leonardo da Vinci?
Der Spiegel – Germany (14,825,731)

Six Living Relatives Of Leonardo Da Vinci Have Been Identified Using DNA, Claims New Book
IFL Science – Canada (3,965,818)

Six living descendants of Leonardo Da Vinci share a Y chromosome

Europa Press – Spain (5,395,190)

Full coverage summary, click here

News release in full, click here

A new study documents the dramatic change in America’s material diet from 1900 to 2020 – ongoing shifts in US commodity consumption patterns with profound environmental, economic, and geopolitical implications.

Published by Iddo K. Wernick of The Rockefeller University’s Program for the Human Environment in the Elsevier journal Resources Policy, the paper details the consumption of 100 key commodities used to build cities, power cars, produce everyday products, and connect people. It charts transformative changes since the start of the 20th century in both absolute commodity demand (ABS) and demand compared to economic activity, called intensity of use (IOU).

And it concludes that, for much of the 20th Century, ABS for nearly all 100 materials grew steadily as did IOU for many of them. But the decoupling trend began around 1970 – coincidentally, the year in which Americans observed the first Earth Day.

Comparing ABS and IOU from 1970 to 2020, clear differences emerge: For many metals and minerals, the intensity of U.S. commodity use dropped.  While some of this decline may owe to production shifting to other countries, the inclusion of 100 commodities demonstrates broader factors at play as well.

For 51 materials, consumption grew but more slowly than the economy, with per-person use of many basic materials staying about the same. For a small group of 8 materials, including three high-tech “vitamins” (rhenium, indium, gallium), consumption grew faster than the economy from 1970 to 2020.

By looking at a wide range of materials over time, the work creates a way to better understand whether industrial societies are using relatively fewer physical materials to support their economies.

And, while this study focuses on the United States, it points the way for all countries to understand the materials their economies rely on and what this means for the environment, economic strength, and security.

“For much of the 20th century, America’s appetite for materials seemed insatiable,” says Dr. Wernick. “From the steel that built skyscrapers to the petroleum fueling the automobile revolution, demand for key commodities outpaced economic growth.”

Post-World War II industrial expansion saw aluminum, plastic, and other modern materials supplant traditional ones like iron and timber, enabling lighter, more efficient products, he notes.

“Constant change is here to stay, and the 1970s were pivotal, after many decades of unchecked growth in commodity demand. Slowdown accompanied maturation of infrastructure, growing environmental awareness and efficiency, and the shift from an economy based on extractive industries and manufacturing to one increasingly dominated by services.

America’s changing appetite for commodities

The study divides commodities into three groups based on consumption trends between 1970 and 2020. In the first group, only 8 commodities saw demand rise faster than economic growth. In addition to the trio of metals important for superalloys already mentioned, this group includes the high-tech metal titanium, essential for aerospace and military applications.  It also includes the high-tech protein, chicken, whose production soared thanks to efficiencies in poultry farming and dietary shifts.

The second group, 51 in all, consists of commodities that grew more slowly than the economy but still increased in absolute terms, such as petroleum and nitrogen fertilizers. These commodities offer an example of material use decoupled from economic growth, a phenomenon called “relative dematerialization,” and may auger that the USA is passing peak oil, peak paper, and peak beef.  

Then there are 41 commodities like iron ore, cadmium, and sodium sulfate whose demand declined in both absolute and relative terms. Some, like cadmium, mercury, arsenic, and asbestos fell out of favor due to environmental and health regulations, while others, like sodium sulfate, suffered from industry shifts such as the decline of glass container manufacturing. Astonishingly, the data show that the USA has passed peak water withdrawal. 

“The decline in demand for some commodities underscores how technological and societal changes reshape material consumption,” says Dr. Wernick. “Demand for iron ore, for example, once the backbone of the U.S. steel industry, plummeted as electric arc furnace technology made it easier to recycle scrap metal, reducing reliance on mined ore and metallurgical coal.”

Similarly, the fall in sodium sulfate—used in detergents and glassmaking—illustrates the impact of shifts in consumer behavior and industrial priorities. Plastic bottles, for instance, largely displaced glass as the preferred beverage container, while energy-intensive production processes faced mounting pressure from rising costs and environmental regulations.

Data on the industrial consumption of lithium and rare earth elements in the United States show steady, surprising decline.  As for several other commodities, Americans now consume the vast majority of their lithium and rare earth elements in imported products they consume, for instance as batteries or magnets.  These commodities exemplify the offshoring of US heavy industry and the globalization of supply chains.  In contrast, enormous US exports of agricultural products exemplify the opposite: the USA effectively exports cropland, water, and fertilizers and yet cropland and water are in Group 3 (ABS & IOU fell) and nitrogen and potash in Group 2 (ABS rose but IOU fell).

Dematerialization

Is America truly using relatively fewer materials? The study reveals a nuanced picture.

For many high-volume commodities like coal and iron ore, absolute demand has indeed fallen. For others, demand has decoupled from economic growth, growing more slowly than GDP. 

Along with the shift of the American economy towards services, the decoupling suggests increasing efficiency in how materials are used. Advances in manufacturing, recycling, and technology have allowed us to do more with less. The study cautions against over-optimism, however, as the “Jevons paradox” looms large: increased efficiency can rebound through affordability and abundance in greater overall consumption, offsetting environmental gains. 

 The paper also emphasizes that the growing complexity of manufactured products raises the costs associated with isolating and recovering materials from used products.  And, “Market success of renewable energy, electric vehicles, and batteries would redraw the global map of material demand,” says Dr. Wernick.

The study points to American successes in reducing consumption, like the 55% drop in coal use between 2007 and 2021, driven by the switch to cleaner natural gas, as proof that large-scale change is possible.  It also highlights the potential of increasing the share of nuclear energy to reduce material consumption in the US and even dematerialize hydrogen production, a favorite of futurists and technological purists alike. Increases in agricultural productivity through precision agriculture also promise future material reductions.

Says Dr. Wernick: “As the 21st century unfolds, the question isn’t just how much material we consume but what we use and how wisely we use it.”

“Technological leapfrogging is widely predicted but only time will tell whether developing nations will be able to avoid the USA’s –  and now China’s – material-intensive growth pattern.”

Concludes Jesse Ausubel, Director of the Programme for the Human Environment at The Rockefeller University: “Dematerialization has been a focus of our Programme’s research for decades and the scope of this paper – 100 commodities, in many cases over 100 years – offers extraordinary insight into the past and future of what we like to call ‘demandite’ the stuff of modern life.”

“Anyone ordering goods online knows that we need Ozempic not just for the human body but for the human economy.  Wernick’s paper shows the USA may finally be finding ways to become lean and why it’s hard to stay that way.”

News release in full, click here

Media coverage:

Real Clear Science, United States, click here

The Honest Broker, United States, click here

Using hydrophones to eavesdrop on a reef off the coast of Goa, India, researchers have helped advance a new low-cost way to monitor changes in the world’s murky marine environments.

Reporting their results in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (JASA), the scientists recorded the duration and timing of mating and feeding sounds – songs, croaks, trumpets and drums – of 21 of the world’s noise-making ocean species.

With artificial intelligence and other pioneering techniques to discern the calls of marine life, they recorded and identified

• a medium sized “grunter,” loudest at dusk, Terapon theraps (photo, right, at eol.org/media/15232663l audio https://bit.ly/41LQmn);
• fish of the Sciaenidae family (audio: https://bit.ly/3KWtawy);
  choruses of plankton-eating fish species (audio: https://bit.ly/3oAsGo5); and
• snapping shrimp (audio: https://bit.ly/3mTQ0gd), including commercially-valuable tiger prawns.

Some species within the underwater community work the early shift and ruckus from 3 am to 1.45 pm, others work the late shift and ruckus from 2 pm to 2.45 am, while the plankton predators were “strongly influenced by the moon.”

Also registered: the degree of difference in the abundance of marine life before and after a monsoon.

The paper concludes that hydrophones are a powerful tool and “overall classification performance (89%) is helpful in the real-time monitoring of the fish stocks in the ecosystem.”

The team, including Bishwajit Chakraborty, a leader of the International Quiet Ocean Experiment (IQOE), benefitted from archived recordings of marine species against which they could match what they heard, including:

• A cacophony of spawning tiger perch: (audio: https://bit.ly/3LkZYkj), and
• Snapping shrimp (audio: https://bit.ly/41NZWH2), whose sounds baby oysters reportedly like to follow
• Also captured was a “buzz” call of unknown origin (https://bit.ly/3GZdRSI), one of the oceans’ countless marine life mysteries.

A contribution to the International Quiet Ocean Experiment, the research will be discussed at an IQOE meeting in Woods Hole, MA, USA, 26-27 April.

Advancing the Global Library of Underwater Biological Sounds (GLUBS)

That event will be followed April 28-29 by a meeting of partners in the new Global Library of Underwater Biological Sounds (GLUBS), a major legacy of the decade-long IQOE, ending in 2025.

GLUBS, conceived in late 2021 and currently under development, is designed as an open-access online platform to help collate global information and to broaden and standardize scientific and community knowledge of underwater soundscapes and their contributing sources.

It will help build short snippets and snapshots (minutes, hours, days long recordings) of biological, anthropogenic, and geophysical marine sounds into full-scale, tell-tale underwater baseline soundscapes.

Especially notable among many applications of insights from GLUBS information: the ability to detect in hard-to-see underwater environments and habitats how the distribution and behavior of marine life responds to increasing pressure from climate change, fishing, resource development, plastic, anthropogenic noise and other pollutants.

“Passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) is an effective technique for sampling aquatic systems that is particularly useful in deep, dark, turbid, and rapidly changing or remote locations,” says Miles Parsons of the Australian Institute of Marine Science and a leader of GLUBS.

He and colleagues outline two primary targets:

• Produce and maintain a list of all aquatic species confirmed or anticipated to produce sound underwater;
• Promote the reporting of sounds from unknown sources
  Odd songs of Hawaii’s mystery fish

In this latter pursuit, GLUBS will also help reveal species unknown to science as yet and contribute to their eventual identification.

For example, newly added to the growing global collection of marine sounds are recent recordings from Hawaii, featuring the baffling

• Mystery fish
• 1 (audio: https://bit.ly/3LjHDUJ),
• 2 (audio: https://bit.ly/3UW24u0), and
• 3 (audio: https://bit.ly/3KWtVpo), now part of an entire YouTube channel (https://bit.ly/3H5Ly54) dedicated to marine life sounds in Hawaii and elsewhere (e.g. this “complete and total mystery from the Florida Keys”: https://bit.ly/41w1Xbc (Annie Innes-Gold, Hawai’i Institute of Marine Biology; processed by Jill Munger, Conservation Metrics, Inc.)

Says Dr. Parsons: “Unidentified sounds can provide valuable information on the richness of the soundscape, the acoustic communities that contribute to it and behavioral interactions among acoustic groups. However, unknown, cryptic and rare sounds are rarely target signals for research and monitoring projects and are, therefore, largely unreported.”

The many uses of underwater sound

Of the roughly 250,000 known marine species, scientists think all fully-aquatic marine mammals (~146, including sub-species) emit sounds, along with at least 100 invertebrates, 1,000 of the world’s ~35,000 known fish species, and likely many thousands more.

GLUBS aims to help delineate essential fish habitat and estimate biomass of a spawning aggregation of a commercially or recreationally important soniferous species.

In one scenario of its many uses, a one-year, calibrated recording can provide a proxy for the timing, location and, under certain circumstances, numbers of ‘calling’ fishes, and how these change throughout a spawning season.

It will also help evaluate the degradation and recovery of a coral reef.

GLUBS researchers envision, for example, collecting recordings from a coral reef that experienced a cyclone or other extreme weather event, followed by widespread bleaching. Throughout its restoration, GLUBS audio data would be matched with and augment a visual census of the fish assemblage at multiple timepoints.

Oil and gas, wind power and other offshore industries will also benefit from GLUBS’ timely information on the possible harms or benefits of their activities.

Other IQOE legacies include:

• Manta (bitbucket.org/CLO-BRP/manta-wiki/wiki/Home), a mechanism created by world experts from academia, industry, and government to help standardize ocean sound recording data, facilitating its comparability, pooling and visualization.
• OPUS, an Open Portal to Underwater Sound being tested at Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven, Germany to promote the use of acoustic data collected worldwide, providing easy access to MANTA-processed data, and
• The first comprehensive database and map of the world’s 200+ known hydrophones recording for ecological purposes

Marine sounds and COVID-19

The IQOE’s early ambition of humanity’s maritime noise being minimized for a day or week was unexpectedly met in spades when the COVID-19 pandemic began.

New IQOE research to be considered at the April meeting includes a paper, Impact of the COVID‑19 pandemic on levels of deep‑ocean acoustic noise (https://bit.ly/3KZTaIt) documenting a pandemic-related drop of 1 to 3 dB even in the depths of the abyss. With a 3 dB decrease, sound energy is halved.

Virus control measures led to “sudden and sometimes dramatic reductions in human activity in sectors such as transport, industry, energy, tourism, and construction,” with some of the greatest reductions from March to June 2020 – a drop of up to 13% in container ship traffic and up to 42% in passenger ships.

Other IQOE accomplishments include achieving recognition of ocean sound as an Essential Ocean Variable (EOV) within the Global Ocean Observing System, underlining its helpfulness in monitoring

• climate change (the extent and breakup of sea ice; the frequency and intensity of wind, waves and rain)
• ocean health (biodiversity assessments: monitoring the distribution and abundance of sound-producing species)
• impacts of human activities on wildlife, and
• nuclear explosions, foreign/illegal/threatening vessels, human activities in protected areas, and underwater earthquakes that can generate tsunamis

The Partnership for Observation of the Global Ocean (POGO) funded an IQOE Working Group in 2016, which quickly identified the lack of ocean sound as a variable measured by ocean observing systems. This group developed specifications for an Ocean Sound Essential Ocean Variable (EOV) by 2018, which was approved by the Global Ocean Observing System in 2021. IQOE has since developed the Ocean Sound EOV Implementation Plan, reviewed in 2022 and ready for public debut at IQOE’s meeting April 26.

One of IQOE’s originators, Jesse Ausubel of The Rockefeller University’s Programme for the Human Environment, says the programme has drawn attention to the absence of publicly available time series of sound on ecologically important frequencies throughout the global ocean.

“We need to listen more in the blue symphony halls. Animal sounds are behavior, and we need to record and understand the sounds, if we want to know the status of ocean life,” he says.

The program “has provided a platform for the international passive acoustics community to grow stronger and advocate for inclusion of acoustic measurements in national, regional, and global ocean observing systems,” says Prof. Peter Tyack of the University of St. Andrew’s, who, with Steven Simpson, guide the IQOE International Scientific Steering Committee.

“The ocean acoustics and bioacoustics communities had no experience in working together globally, and coverage is certainly not global; there are many gaps. IQOE has begun to help these communities work together globally, and there is still progress to be made in networking and in expanding the deployment of hydrophones, adds Prof. Ausubel.

A description of the project’s history and evaluation to date is available at https://bit.ly/3H7FCbN.

Encouraging greater worldwide use of hydrophones

According to Dr. Parsons, “hydrophones are now being deployed in more locations, more often, by more people, than ever before,”

To celebrate that, and to mark World Oceans Day, June 8, GLUBS recently put out a call to hydrophone operators to share marine life recordings made from 7 to 9 June, so far receiving interest from 124 hydrophone operators in 62 organizations from 29 countries and counting. The hydrophones will be retrieved over the following months with the full dataset expected sometime in 2024.

They also plan to make World Oceans Passive Acoustic Monitoring (WOPAM) Day an annual event – a global collaborative study of aquatic soundscapes, salt, brackish or freshwater – the marine world’s answer to the U.S. Audubon Society’s 123-year-old Christmas Bird Count.

Interested researchers with hydrophones already planned to be in the water on June 8 are invited to contact Miles Parsons (m.parsons@aims.gov.au) or Steve Simpson (s.simpson@bristol.ac.uk).

* * * * *

Media coverage highlights

BBC, UK (522 million) Future Planet: The people eavesdropping on the ocean https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230815-how-undersea-sounds-help-us-understand-ocean-life

UK Press Association via The Daily Mail (83,490,174), Scientists eavesdrop on underwater creatures to gain insights on ocean life https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/pa/article-12016539/Scientists-eavesdrop-underwater-creatures-gain-insights-ocean-life.html

Agencia EFE, Spain, via Forbes Mexico (2.84 million) La inteligencia artificial se pone a escuchar los hábitos de la vida marina
(Artificial intelligence listens to the habits of marine life)
https://www.forbes.com.mx/la-inteligencia-artificial-se-pone-a-escuchar-los-habitos-de-la-vida-marina/

Meteoweb, Italy (966,000)
Anche i pesci rispondono alla Luna: lo studio
(Even fish respond to the moon: the study)
https://www.meteoweb.eu/2023/04/pesci-rispondono-luna/1001234154/

Vice / Motherboard, USA (23,547,525) Scientists Recording Ocean Sounds Picked Up a Mysterious ‘Buzz’ They Can’t Identify
https://www.vice.com/en/article/wxjdqb/mysterious-ocean-buzz-soud

Visão – Sapo newswire, Portugal Investigadores ‘ouvem’ zumbido estranho no fundo do mar (Investigators hear strange sounds at the bottom of the sea) https://visao.sapo.pt/exameinformatica/noticias-ei/ciencia-ei/2023-04-27-investigadores-ouvem-zumbido-estranho-no-fundo-do-mar/

Yahoo! News Taiwan, Taiwan (10,753,841)海底魚蝦也會發聲？ 科學家號召全球加入水下生物聲音圖書館計畫 (Will fish and shrimp also speak? Scientists call on the world to join underwater biological sound library programs) here

ORF Online, Austria (7,397,979) Unterwassermikrofone belauschen FischeUnderwater microphones eavesdrop on fish https://science.orf.at/stories/3218981/

MSN France, France (244,797) Dans l’océan Indien, des sons non identifiés intriguent les scientifiques (In the Indian Ocean, unidentified sounds intrigue scientists) https://www.msn.com/fr-fr/actualite/technologie-et-sciences/dans-loc%c3%a9an-indien-des-sons-non-identifi%c3%a9s-intriguent-les-scientifiques/ar-AA1argbx

Down To Earth, India (713,481)Sonorous submarine: Technology used to study fish in Goa can help find how sea life responds to climate change  https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/wildlife-biodiversity/sonorous-submarine-technology-used-to-study-fish-in-goa-can-help-find-how-sea-life-responds-to-climate-change-88987

Gazete Duvar, Turkey (7,313,044)
Okyanusta tanımlanamayan bir ‘vızıltı’ keşfedildiAn unidentified ‘buzz’ was discovered in the ocean https://www.gazeteduvar.com.tr/okyanusta-tanimlanamayan-bir-vizilti-kesfedildi-haber-1615486

Futurezone, Germany (1,076,142)Ozean: Forscher zeichnen rätselhaftes Geräusch auf – niemand hat es je zuvor gehört (Ocean: Researchers record puzzling sound – nobody has ever heard of it before) https://www.futurezone.de/science/article448822/ozean-forscher-zeichnen-raetselhaftes-geraeusch-auf-niemand-hat-es-je-zuvor-gehoert.html

Coverage summary in full: click here

News release in full, click here

By assembling and expanding first-ever global audio collection of aquatic life, scientists aim to unveil unidentified swimming objects, monitor diversity, distribution, abundance, and more

Of the roughly 250,000 known marine species, scientists think all ~126 marine mammals emit sounds – the ‘thwop’, ‘muah’, and ‘boop’s of a humpback whale, for example, or the boing of a minke whale. Audible too are at least 100 invertebrates, 1,000 of the world’s 34,000 known fish species, and likely many thousands more.

Now a team of 17 experts from nine countries has set a goal of gathering on a single platform huge collections of aquatic life’s tell-tale sounds, and expanding it using new enabling technologies – from highly sophisticated ocean hydrophones and artificial intelligence learning systems to phone apps and underwater GoPros used by citizen scientists.

The Global Library of Underwater Biological Sounds, “GLUBS,” will underpin a novel non-invasive, affordable way for scientists to listen in on life in marine, brackish and freshwaters, monitor its changing diversity, distribution and abundance, and identify new species. Using the acoustic properties of underwater soundscapes can also characterize an ecosystem’s type and condition.

The team’s paper, “Sounding the Call for a Global Library of Biological Underwater Sounds,” is published in the journal “Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.”

Says lead author Miles Parsons of the Australian Institute of Marine Science: “The world’s most extensive habitats are aquatic and they’re rich with sounds produced by a diversity of animals.”

“With biodiversity in decline worldwide and humans relentlessly altering underwater soundscapes, there is a need to document, quantify, and understand the sources of underwater animal sounds before they potentially disappear.”

The team’s proposed web-based, open-access platform will provide:

• A reference library of known and unknown biological sound sources (by integrating and expanding existing libraries around the world);
• A data repository portal for annotated and unannotated audio recordings of single sources and of soundscapes;
• A training platform for artificial intelligence algorithms for signal detection and classification;
• An interface for developing species distribution maps, based on sound; and
• A citizen science-based application so people who love the ocean can participate in this project

The wide range of uses for PAM is expanding in step with advances in technology, providing a large volume of easily-accessible data on aquatic life.

Current uses include:

• Monitoring, characterizing and delineating underwater soundscapes
• Investigating aquatic communities
• Documenting distribution and migration patterns of fish, whales, and other marine mammals
• Characterizing marine life responses to changes in, e.g. temperature, salinity or tides, or changes in behavior and distribution in response to climate change, algal blooms, hurricanes and other extreme weather events
• Understanding how prey change their sound production rates or behaviors in the presence of predators
• Observing how human-caused ocean noise pollution – shipping, resource exploration, construction, aircraft or wind turbines, for example – affect aquatic life communication and other behaviors

Many fish and aquatic invertebrate species are predominantly nocturnal or hard to find, the paper notes, making visual observations difficult or impossible. As a result, “PAM is proving to be one of the most effective ways to monitor visually elusive but vocal species in aquatic environments, which can potentially aid in more effective conservation management,” including zoning in marine park areas or fishery closures, the paper says.

Besides making sounds for communication, many aquatic species produce ‘passive sounds’ while eating, swimming, and crawling – often less acoustically complex or distinct than active sounds but important contributions to an ecosystem’s tell-tale soundscape.

“Collectively there are now many millions of recording hours around the world that could potentially be assessed for a plethora of both known and, to date, unidentified biological sounds.”

Says co-author Aran Mooney of the Wood’s Hole Oceanographic Institution: “Like a biodiverse rainforest, coral reefs are rich with sounds produced by animals as they seek to communicate, defend territories, and attract mates.”

“Biodiversity and our ocean ecosystems are in trouble, with healthy coral reefs declining at alarming rates. This is a problem because reefs provide billions of US dollars in support, in terms of food, protection from storms, and pharmaceutical products. This developing library is a key way to catalog, monitor and track changes in biodiversity on reefs and other ocean habitats before they are gone but also help us define ‘what a healthy reef is’ as we seek to rebuild reefs.”

Adds Jesse Ausubel, a founder of the IQOE and a scientist at The Rockefeller University: “Human song varieties include love and work songs, lullabies, chants, and anthems. Marine animals must sing love songs. Maybe AI applied to the Global Library can help us understand the lyrics of these and many others.”

Example audio, identified species:

1) Growl of the streaked gurnard (Chelidonichthys lastoviza, recorded by Amorim and Hawkings, 2000 (from FishSounds.net; photos: https://bit.ly/3soVka8 and at the Encyclopedia of Life (EOL): eol.org/pages/51109318)

2) Complex ‘boop, grunt, swoop’ call of the Bocon toadfish (Amphichthys cryptocentrus) recorded by Staaterman et al., 2017 and 2018 (from FishSounds.net; photos https://bit.ly/3gxylnR; EOL: eol.org/pages/46565889)

3) Drum sound of the red piranha (Pygocentrus nattereri), recorded by Raick et al., 2020 (from FishSounds.net; photos https://bit.ly/3BaQykv, and at EOL: eol.org/media/2822570)

4) Kina, a sea urchin endemic to New Zealand (description, photo https://bit.ly/3HI6hu2)

5) Paddle crab, endemic to New Zealand (description, photos: https://eol.org/media/3027555

6) “Boing” produced by dwarf minke whales in Western Australia (Balaenoptera acutorostrata); Erbe et al., 2017 (taken from Marine Mammals of Australia and Antarctica).

What on Earth? Recordings of Unidentified Swimming Objects:

1) Chorus of unidentified fish species in the Indo-Pacific, recorded by Pine et al., 2018 (from FishSounds.net).

2) Unidentified fish species, Azores seamounts, recorded by Carriço et al., 2019 (from FishSounds.net)

3) Growl of an unidentified tropical coral reef fish species, recorded by Staaterman et al., 2013 (from FishSounds.net).

4) A fish call recorded off Austrlia’s western coast, the second half of which reminds scientists of “a section of the Hut of Baba Yaga from Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.”

* * * * *

“A database of unidentified sounds is, in some ways, as important as one for known sources,” the scientists say. “As the field progresses, new unidentified sounds will be collected, and more unidentified sounds can be matched to species.”

This can be “particularly important for high-biodiversity systems such as coral reefs, where even a short recording can pick up multiple animal sounds.”

Existing libraries of undersea sounds (several of which are listed with hyperlinks below) “often focus on species of interest that are targeted by the host institute’s researchers,” the paper says, and several are nationally-focussed. Few libraries identify what is missing from their catalogs, which the proposed global library would.

“A global reference library of underwater biological sounds would increase the ability for more researchers in more locations to broaden the number of species assessed within their datasets and to identify sounds they personally do not recognize,” the paper says.

“A global database could serve broader questions, like determining universal trends in underwater sound production, while individual, specialized repositories could continue to inform and detail other topics, such as documenting the presence of soniferous species in a particular region.”

The changing ranges of marine life

The scientists note that listening to the sea has revealed great whales swimming in unexpected places, new species and new sounds.

With sound, “biologically important areas can be mapped; spawning grounds, essential fish habitat, and migration pathways can be delineated…These and other questions can be queried on broader scales if we have a global catalog of sounds.”

Meanwhile, comparing sounds from a single species across broad areas and times helps understand their diversity and evolution.

Numerous marine animals are cosmopolitan, the paper says, “either as wide-roaming individuals, such as the great whales, or as broadly distributed species, such as many fishes.”

Fin whale calls, for example, can differ among populations in the Northern and Southern hemispheres, and over seasons, whereas the call of pilot whales are similar worldwide, even though their home ranges do not (or no longer) cross the equator.

Some fishes even seem to develop geographic ‘dialects’ or completely different signal structures among regions, several of which evolve over time.

Madagascar’s skunk anemonefish (https://bit.ly/3uA6Bad), for example, produces different agonistic (fight-related) sounds than those in Indonesia, while differences in the song of humpback whales have been observed across ocean basins.

“If the observer knows a target species’ signal characteristics, these sounds may be more easily detected, but without prior knowledge of either presence or structure of sounds, listening through the noise can be difficult,” the paper says.

“This has been highlighted by the recent COVID ‘anthropause’ experienced at various aquatic locations around the world.” Early in the pandemic, “removal of the anthropogenic component of some soundscapes has provided an opportunity to observe sounds (and therefore presence) of marine fauna that might otherwise be lost in the noise.”

Just as artificial intelligence has enabled facial or voice recognition, as well as phone apps that identify music or plants or birds, AI can one day help scientists distinguish marine life sounds from noise. However, a large number – ideally several thousands – of examples are needed, the paper adds.

As the library expands, it can form the foundation for AI training, which in turn will also facilitate the mining and extraction of marine life sounds from thousands of previously collected recordings.

Phone apps, underwater GoPros and citizen science

Much like BirdNet and FrogID, a library of underwater biological sounds and automated detection algorithms would be useful not only for the scientific, industry and marine management communities but also for users with a general interest.

“Acoustic technology has reached the stage where a hydrophone can be connected to a mobile phone so people can listen to fishes and whales in the rivers and seas around them. Therefore, sound libraries are becoming invaluable to citizen scientists and the general public,” the paper adds.

And citizen scientists could be of great help to the library by uploading the results of, for example, the River Listening app (www.riverlistening.com), which encourages the public to listen to and record fish sounds in rivers and coastal waters.

Low-cost hydrophones and recording systems (such as the Hydromoth) are increasingly available and waterproof recreational recording systems (such as GoPros) can also collect underwater biological sounds.

The library would help standardize the format in which sounds are reported.

“A library to archive unknown sounds and their recording times and locations will be crucial for guiding future studies of marine bioacoustics and biodiversity,” the scientists say. “This is especially important in areas that are rarely investigated or where source identification is particularly problematic, such as the twilight and midnight zones, where a description of unknown sounds can give us insights on biodiversity in the deep ocean.”

“The changing environment and decreasing biodiversity are compelling the documentation of baseline acoustic observations. Technical advances associated with data collection and an increasing number of researchers and institutes collecting PAM data are providing the ability to create bioacoustic databases.”

“Concurrently, awareness of the importance of acoustic cues to aquatic fauna, the impacts of noise on them and the potential for acoustic communities to provide an indication of ecosystem health has reached a stage where PAM is becoming appreciated as a mainstream data source across more species and ecosystems than ever.”

“Finally, public interest and access to user applications means citizen scientists can drive widespread knowledge sharing.”

“Now is the time to facilitate that progress by gathering the acoustic, ecological, and bioinformatic community together to realize an aquatic-sounds sharing platform.”

* * * * *

The paper, “Sounding the Call for a Global Library of Biological Underwater Sounds,” evolved from the ‘Working Group on Acoustic Measurement of Ocean Biodiversity Hotspots’ of the International Quiet Ocean Experiment, an international program of research, observation and modeling formed to better characterize and understand ocean sound fields and the effects of sound on marine life.

Support for IQOE is provided by the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research, Partnership for Observation of the Global Ocean, Richard Lounsbery Foundation, Monmouth University Urban Coast Institute, and Rockefeller Program for the Human Environment.

A more detailed discussion, involving a wider network of contributors, is planned through upcoming stakeholder engagement and scoping workshops.

* * * * *

Media coverage highlights:

Wall Street Journal, United States (35,138,925)

1. Listen: Scientists Are Recording Ocean Sounds to Spot New Species, click here
2. Artificial Intelligence and the Race to Master Animal Language, click here

Popular Science, United States (3,505,129) Why ocean researchers want to create a global library of undersea sounds, click here

Agence France Presse, Mysteries and music: listening in to underwater life, click here

The Guardian, United Kingdom, Fish love songs and fighting talk: underwater sound library to reveal language of the deep, click here

BBC World Service, UK, Newshour, click here 

Voice of America, United States, Marine Researchers Collecting Global Symphony of the Sea, click here 

IFL Science, Canada, From Squeaks To Boings: Scientists Plan Global Archive Of The Ocean’s “Underwater Orchestra”, click here

Actu-Environnement, France, Des chercheurs appellent à créer une bibliothèque mondiale de la biophonie sous-marine, click here

Deutschlandfunk, Germany, Bioakustik – Wie Fische und andere Gewässer-Bewohner kommunizieren, click here

ABC News, Australia, Underwater sound library being collated, click here

Schweizer Radio DRS, Switzerland, Muaaah, boong oder gragrag – Was Wassertiere sich erzählen, click here

Mother Jones, United States, Check out these strange aquatic boings, growls, and chatter, click here

InsideClimate News, United States, Warming Trends: The Cacophony of the Deep Blue Sea, Microbes in the Atmosphere and a Podcast about ‘Just How High the Stakes Are’, click here

ABC, Spain, Como zambombas o móviles vibrando: así suenan algunos de los animales marinos más curiosos, click here

Noti-Ultimas, Romania, Canciones de amor de los peces y charlas de lucha: biblioteca de sonidos submarinos para revelar el lenguaje de las profundidades, click here

Tag43, Italy, Dai Pesci al vento, una ricerca racchiuderà tutti i suoni del mare, click here

Nachrichten Welt, Germany, Fischliebeslieder und Kampfgespräche: Unterwasser-Soundbibliothek, um die Sprache der Tiefe zu enthüllen, click here

Klikbulukumba, Indonesia, Lagu Cinta Ikan dan Pembicaraan Pertempuran: Perpustakaan Suara Bawah Air untuk Mengungkapkan Bahasa Terdalam, click here

Natursidan, Sweden, Ny databas ska samla havens ljud, click here

Nederlands Dagblad, Netherlands, Wereldwijde online-bibliotheek van onderwatergeluiden in de maak, click here

Khabar 25, Saudi Arabia, اغاني حب الاسماك والقتال الحديث: مكتبة الصوت تحت الماء لتكشف عن لغة الاعماق | الحيوانات البرية  , click here

In print:

Wall Street Journal

The Guardian  |  18 Feb 2022  |  United Kingdom  |  English  | Page: 31
The Guardian (USA)  |  18 Feb 2022  |  United States  |  English  | Page: 23

Social media posts, click here (highlights: Andrew Revkin, Colombia University, 4 tweets, ~90,000 followers, retweeted by Philippe Cousteau and others.

Full coverage summary, click here

News release in full, click here (with links to existing marine sound libraries)

Of the 18 science news releases produced in 2021, 16 were environment-themed: food waste, e-waste, oceans, biodiversity, dams, and floods. And one announced 14 living male relatives of Leonardo da Vinci, advancing a project investigating his DNA. 

2 minute slideshow: Click here

These releases generated over 9,200 news articles, published at thousands of online news sites in scores of countries and dozens of languages, ~33 billion potential public impressions in all, according to the Meltwater news search engine, which estimates actual impressions via online news sites at 825 million. Millions of additional impressions were also generated via print newspapers, magazines, radio, TV and social media.

With thanks to the researchers and collaborators behind these stories, and to the many journalists who covered them, the following releases were the most noted last year.

Reducing marine debris by 50-90% and a globe circling, high-tech system of monitors are two essential aims among several championed today by nine distinguished international experts appointed to help the UN reach the goal of a clean ocean by 2030.

The Clean Ocean International Expert Group of the UN Decade for Ocean Science for Sustainable Development will formally present its short list of activities and goals, and a strategy to reach them, in a “manifesto” at the outset of a three-day online conference on achieving a clean ocean, Weds. 17 to Fri. 19 Nov. (https://bit.ly/3EQHRfQ).

Co-Chaired by Angelika Brandt of Germany, a Southern Ocean / Antarctica biodiversity expert, and Elva Escobar Briones of Mexico, a deep sea biodiversity expert, the group concisely outlines “the challenges and some of the opportunities that the Ocean Decade can provide for a Clean Ocean.”

The statement charts the most direct route to a clean ocean citing these objectives for 2030:

* Enlarge understanding of pathways for spread and fates of pollutants

* Reduce and remove top-priority forms of pollution (e.g., marine debris) by large amounts, as much as 50% to 90%

* To prevent recurrence, reduce sources or emission of pollutants (e.g., anthropogenic noise, discarded plastic and harmful chemicals, farming practices adding harmful sediment outflow)

* Improve dramatically the outcomes of control measures (e.g., to decrease amounts of mercury in tuna, die-offs of marine life, eutrophication)

* Improve monitoring (often as part of the Global Ocean Observing System [GOOS]) for more accurate, precise, timely, comprehensive real-time tracing of spills and monitoring of ocean soundscapes; improve systems to provide timely warning of pollutants emerging and increasing

* Identify and accelerate development and adoption of technologies to promote a Clean Ocean. These could range from cleaner, more efficient motors and fuels to new forms of remediation and waste management; better ways to monitor, track, and map marine pollutants and progress toward a clean ocean (such as aerial remote sensing, genomics, and hydrophone arrays); and better technologies for emergency cleanup

* Improve national mechanisms (legal, regulatory) for control and prevention, better align financial incentives, and lift compliance with international treaties

* Lift public engagement and understanding with access to information associated with behavioral shifts favoring the motto of “reduce, reuse and recycle” and encourage participation in citizen science as part of events involving sailing, surfing, and other activities dependent on a Clean Ocean

With such a framework agreed and in place, specific objectives can be identified and efforts activated, with targets and timetables similar in scope and character to next spring’s anticipated world agreement to protect 30% of the marine environment by 2030, and the completion of high-resolution mapping of the seabed, also by 2030.

Interim objectives for 2025

The expert group underlined that, “This process should aim to define and attract financial and other support to meet an initial set of goals for 2025, followed by goals for the end of the Ocean Decade in 2030.”

And they set out examples of nearer term objectives for 2025:

*Quantify the global harm of marine pollution from all major sources on ecosystems and organisms and on human health; assessment methods need to take into account multiple stressors.

* Survey the totality of anthropogenic chemicals flowing into the oceans.

* Define a Clean Ocean, including acceptable levels of pollution to set threshold values, and define ecological boundaries or maximal levels of pollutants as well as their rates of degradation to maintain well-functioning ecosystems; this includes understanding tolerances of species and ecosystems to pollutants.

* Develop a widely shared vision of a Clean Ocean.

* Identify high-priority geographic challenges such as polar regions and urban coasts.

* Identify barriers to action impeding scaling up solutions for regional and global impact; quantify possibilities for amelioration.

* Identify key partners, including those who might be left behind, and provide engagement strategies for early career ocean professionals, indigenous peoples, and island communities.

* Develop reference scenarios for industrialization of the oceans during the next decade, including tourism, seabed mining, windfarm development, for example, as they relate to a Clean Ocean.

* Develop initial estimates of costs associated with transitions to a Clean Ocean.

* Secure major financial commitments.

“By 2030 we want to achieve measurable improvement in monitoring and clear reduction of emissions and harm through a spectrum of technical and behavioral strategies,” the group says.

The three-day on-line conference Nov. 17-19 will highlight more than 30 activities in place or in development around the world that can make important contributions by 2030 to a Clean Ocean.

These include initiatives to:

*Successfully and consistently monitor marine debris from space as part of an Integrated Global Marine Debris Observing System

* Operate deep sea observatories in the Atlantic that document and publicize multiple stressors

* Observe the vast Southern Ocean to give early warnings of possible pollution hot spots in this relatively pristine ocean

* Instrument 30% of coastal city ocean spaces to report on pollution changes including restoration

* Identify and greatly reduce persistent organic pollutants globally.

The manifesto, which presents the signatories’ views and not official positions of their respective institutions, is also directed at other groups such as the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy, the Economist magazine World Ocean Initiative, and the World Ocean Council.

The group plans to share its manifesto with other expert groups, national committees, and with endorsed projects and programs of the UN Ocean Decade to speed development of a strong set of Clean Ocean activities.

Says lead author Jesse Ausubel, Director of the Program for the Human Environment at The Rockefeller University, New York City: “We want this decade to transition from increasing to decreasing the environmental problems of the oceans.”

Clean Ocean International Expert Group

Co-Chairs

• Angelika Brandt, biodiversity of the Southern Ocean and Antarctica; Germany
• Elva Escobar Briones, biodiversity of the deep sea; Mexico

Members

• Frida Armas-Pfirter, marine and coastal law; Argentina
• Jesse Huntley Ausubel, technologies for ocean observing; USA, lead author
• Gina Bonne, environment and climate, Seychelles
• Saskia Brix-Elsig, polar seafloor biology; Germany
• Angelique Songco, marine protected areas; Philippines
• Kaveh Samimi-Namin, coral reef ecosystems; Iran
• Sofia Fürstenberg Stott, maritime industry innovation; Sweden

Links

UN Decade for Ocean Science for Sustainable Development
www.oceandecade-conference.com/en/program.html

Creating the Ocean We Want
www.oceandecade-conference.com/en/creating-the-ocean-we-want.html

Clean Ocean Laboratory
www.oceandecade-conference.com/en/a-clean-ocean.html

Ocean Decade Factsheet
www.oceandecade-conference.com/files/Factsheet%20Ocean%20Decade.pdf

* * * * *

In full

Manifesto for Clean Ocean 2030
Clean Ocean International Expert Group,
in anticipation of the Ocean Decade Laboratory
A Clean Ocean, 17-19 November 2021
A clean ocean where sources of pollution are identified and removed

Comprising 71% of Earth’s surface, the ocean encompasses remote trackless seas and heavily trafficked harbors. It spans the seafloor through the water column to the sea surface and extends from coastal zones to mid-ocean. The ocean spans habitats from beaches and rocky shores to reefs and canyons and polar and deep seas. AClean Oceanbenefits both humanity and the spectrum of other forms of life ranging from whales and fish to mollusks, corals, and seagrasses with which we share it.Our Manifesto for Clean Ocean 2030 aims to increase circularity of the economy in the face of increasing industrialization of the oceans and promote mobilization to manage ocean pollution at its sources in ways that enable both a profitable Blue Economy and a Clean Ocean.

Ocean Pollutants

Many forms of pollution threaten or already dirty the ocean:

• Debris, including plastics
• Oil and chemical spills and releases from seafloor extraction, pipelines, and shipping
• Runoff of fertilizers, pesticides, and other chemicals from agriculture and both rural and suburban areas
• Sewage and other coastal runoff, including pharmaceuticals, from urban areas and harbors, and associated harmful algal blooms
• Contaminants that, although settled in sediments, can be remobilized by disturbances
• Sewage and other improperly discarded wastes from vessels
• Acute and chronic elevation of noise and light
• Radiation from radioactive materials deposited or discharged into the oceans
• Invasive species and other harmful aspects of bilge and ballast water carelessly released
• Construction debris from platform and island building, spoils from channel dredging and pipe-laying, and derelict facilities
• Abandoned and discarded equipment from ocean navigation and research and military activities

Threats to a Clean Ocean

Pollution in the ocean comes from land-based and atmospheric sources and from the sea itself.

• Land sources include agricultural fertilizers (causing deoxygenation or dead zones), herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, and other materials employed in the bioeconomy; micro- and macro-plastics from carelessly used and discarded products; non-metabolized medicines and other drugs from human consumption; detergents and many other chemicals that form parts of urban and industrial metabolism; heavy metals from mining; and brine from marine water desalination.
• Atmospheric sources include greenhouse gases (primarily generated on land) associated with climate change and acidification; forms of sulfur, nitrogen, mercury, and other harmful pollutants generated both at sea and on land; noise from aviation and wind farms, and dust from anthropogenic fires.
• Sea sources include spills from extraction, transport, and use of petroleum products; ship sources of waste, including discarded fishing gear and other forms of waste; untreated wastewater from recreational and commercial vessels; deep-sea tailing placements; lubricants and other chemicals from offshore facilities; underwater noise from shipping, mining, fishing, and pile driving; and night-time illumination of vessels and fleets.

Since 1969 the Joint Group of Experts on the Scientific Aspects of Marine Environmental Protection (GESAMP) has examined these and other threats to the Clean Ocean and provided authoritative, independent, interdisciplinary scientific advice to organizations and governments to support the protection and sustainable use of the marine environment.

The Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development

Launched in January 2021, theUnited Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development(2021-2030), the “Ocean Decade,” is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for ocean actors across the world to come together to generate knowledge and foster the partnerships needed to support a well-functioning, productive, resilient, sustainable, and inspiring ocean. We propose that the leadership of the Ocean Decade organize Clean Ocean activities in the following way:

• Collect the major Clean Ocean recommendations from the reports of GESAMP and other expert bodies, such as national academies of sciences.
• Consolidate and reduce these and other inputs to a set of not more than ten global goals for a Clean Ocean. New targets and timetables should be similar in scope and character to the Endorsed Recommendations to protect 30% of the marine environment by 2030 and complete the high-resolution mapping of the seabed by 2030.
• Work with the many concerned entities worldwide to coordinate and optimize roles and contributions so the Decade will achieve historic collaborative global objectives for a Clean Ocean.

This process should aim to define and attract financial and other support to meet an initial set of goals for 2025, followed by goals for the end of the Ocean Decade in 2030.

Examples of Clean Ocean objectives for 2025

• Quantify the global harm of marine pollution from all major sources on ecosystems and organisms and on human health; assessment methods need to take into account multiple stressors.
• Survey the totality of anthropogenic chemicals flowing into the oceans.
• Define a Clean Ocean, including acceptable levels of pollution to set threshold values, and define ecological boundaries or maximal levels of pollutants as well as their rates of degradation to maintain well-functioning ecosystems; this includes understanding tolerances of species and ecosystems to pollutants.
• Develop a widely shared vision of a Clean Ocean.
• Identify high-priority geographic challenges such as polar regions and urban coasts.
• Identify barriers to action impeding scaling up solutions for regional and global impact; quantify possibilities for amelioration.
• Identify key partners, including those who might be left behind, and provide engagement strategies for early career ocean professionals, indigenous peoples, and island communities.
• Develop reference scenarios for industrialization of the oceans during the next decade, including tourism, seabed mining, windfarm development, for example, as they relate to a Clean Ocean.
• Develop initial estimates of costs associated with transitions to a Clean Ocean.
• Secure major financial commitments.

By 2025 we aim to identify potential pathways toward solutions for knowing what is manageable. By 2030 we want to achieve measurable improvement in monitoring and clear reduction of emissions and harm through a spectrum of technical and behavioral strategies.

Examples of Clean Ocean objectives for 2030

• Enlarge understanding of pathways for spread and fates of pollutants.
• Reduce and remove top-priority forms of pollution (e.g., marine debris) by large amounts, as much as 50% to 90%.
• To prevent recurrence, reduce sources or emission of pollutants (e.g., anthropogenic noise, discarded plastic and harmful chemicals, farming practices adding harmful sediment outflow).
• Improve dramatically the outcomes of control measures (e.g., to decrease amounts of mercury in tuna, die-offs of marine life, eutrophication).
• Improve monitoring (often as part of the Global Ocean Observing System [GOOS]) for more accurate, precise, timely, comprehensive real-time tracing of spills and monitoring of ocean soundscapes; improve systems to provide timely warning of pollutants emerging and increasing.
• Identify and accelerate development and adoption of technologies to promote a Clean Ocean. These could range from cleaner, more efficient motors and fuels to new forms of remediation and waste management; better ways to monitor, track, and map marine pollutants and progress toward a clean ocean (such as aerial remote sensing, genomics, and hydrophone arrays); and better technologies for emergency cleanup.
• Improve national mechanisms (legal, regulatory) for control and prevention, better align financial incentives, and lift compliance with international treaties.
• Lift public engagement and understanding with access to information associated with behavioral shifts favoring the motto of “reduce, re-use and recycle” and encourage participation in citizen science as part of events involving sailing, surfing, and other activities dependent on a Clean Ocean.

Now is the time for ambitious targets and timetables to elicit the science for the Clean Ocean we want.

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Coverage highlights:

Agencia EFE, Spain, via Infobae, Argentina, Expertos piden reducir hasta un 90 % los desechos marinos antes de 2030, click here

Indo Asian News Service, India (via ProKerala.com) Reducing marine debris by 2030: UN panel, click here

SciTech Daily, United States, A Clean Ocean by 2030: UN Experts’ “Clean Ocean Manifesto,” click here

Earth.com, United States, Steps needed to achieve a clean ocean by 2030, click here

中文业界资讯站 (CN Beta), Mainland China, 到2030年实现清洁海洋：联合国专家的“清洁海洋宣言” (Achieving Clean Oceans by 2030: The “Clean Ocean Declaration” of UN Experts), click here

News Track, India, International experts to assist UN in cutting marine debris by 50-90-pc, click here

News release in full, click here

Researchers at The Rockefeller University have shed new light on “Moore’s Law” — perhaps the world’s most famous technological prediction — that chip density, or the number of components on an integrated circuit, would double every two years.  

The study published by PLOS ONE reveals a more nuanced historical wave pattern to the rise of transistor density in the silicon chips that make computers and other high-tech devices ever faster and more powerful.

In fact, since 1959, there have been six waves of such improvements, each lasting about six years, during each of which transistor density per chip increased at least 10-fold, according to the paper, “Moore’s Law Revisited through Intel Chip Density.”  The paper builds on an earlier study of DRAM chips as model organisms for the study of technological evolution.

The new work clarified the arcs of the wave pattern by adopting a novel perspective on chip density, factoring out the changing size of chips used in Fairchild Semiconductor International and Intel Processors starting in 1959.

After each six-year growth wave episode, about three years of negligible growth followed, according to authors Jesse Ausubel and David Burg of the Program for the Human Environment (PHE) at The Rockefeller University, New York.

The next growth spurt in transistor miniaturization and computing capability is now overdue, they say.  

And it will be pulled by demand for e.g. data-hungry artificial intelligence technologies like facial recognition, 5G cellular networks and equipment, self-driving cars and similar high-tech innovations requiring ever greater processing speed and computing capability.

A startup company, Cerebras, has touted the largest chip ever built, the Wafer-Scale Engine, 56 times the size of the largest graphical processing unit (GPU), which has dominated computing platforms for AI and machine learning. 

“The wafer-scale chip has 1.2 trillion transistors, embeds 400,000 AI-optimized cores (78 times more than the largest GPU), and has 3,000 times more in-chip memory.”

However, the end of the silicon chip era is in view, with only one or two silicon pulses left before further advances become exponentially more difficult due to physical realities and economic limitations, they say.

Continued growth of the computer industry will depend on such miniaturized innovations as nano-transistors, single-atom transistors, and quantum computing.  

In 2019, the paper notes, Google parent company Alphabet claimed a breakthrough in quantum computing with a programmable supercomputing processor named “Sycamore” using programmable superconducting qubits.

“The published benchmarking example reported that in about 200 seconds Sycamore completed a task that would take a current state-of-the-art supercomputer about 10,000 years.”

Says Mr. Ausubel, Director of the PHE: “We have climbed six times into higher valleys of silicon and similar substrates, but may be exiting the silicon valleys for landscapes of other materials and processes.”  

“Qubit Gardens may await at the end of the present climb.”

The paper’s title refers to Gordon Moore’s famous 1965 observation that the number of transistors in microchips grows exponentially – doubling every 12-24 months (Moore’s Law). 

However, the analysis of transistor density revealed a more complex pattern of serial waves of growth with each technological phase lasting about nine years in total before saturation and replacement with a new one.

Dr. Burg, also affiliated with Tel Hai College, Israel, says the new work reveals important subtleties within a technological phenomenon that has fuelled world progress for two generations.

The work drew on models developed for study of growth with complex feedback leading to limitations in density used previously in such research, he adds, and shows their power to illuminate the complex evolution of diverse machinery.

* * * * * 

About 

• Programme for Human Environment, The Rockefeller University: Click here

* * * * *

Media coverage highlights

Plos One, United States, Moore’s Law revisited through Intel chip density, click here

SciTech Daily, United States, Twilight for Silicon? End of “Moore’s Law” in View As Silicon Chip Density Nears Physical Limit, click here (also Space Daily, click here)

腾讯新闻客户端 (TenCent News), Mainland China, 研究员对影响半导体行业的摩尔定律有了新的认识 (Researchers have a new understanding of Moore’s Law affecting the semiconductor industry), click here

Focus Online, Germany, Moore’s Law: Wellen statt Exponentialkurve, click here

eeNews Europe, Belgium, How long has the semiconductor industry got?, click here

News release in full, click here

Full coverage summary, click here

Paper offers foundation to advance search for Leonardo’s DNA

The surprising results of a decade-long investigation by Alessandro Vezzosi and Agnese Sabato provide a strong basis for advancing a project researching Leonardo da Vinci’s DNA.

Their extensive study, published by the journal “Human Evolution” (Pontecorboli Editore, Florence), documents with new certainty the continuous male line, from father to son, of the Da Vinci family (later Vinci), from progenitor Michele (born 1331) to grandson Leonardo (6th generation, born 1452) through to today — 21 generations in all, including five family branches — and identifies 14 living descendants.

The work fills gaps and corrects errors in previous genealogical research into Leonardo’s family, while offering new discoveries and family tree updates.

This text deepens and enormously expands the discovery announced in Vinci, Italy, in 2016 by the same Vezzosi and Sabato of numerous living but indirect descendants including only two males in direct line, up to the 19th generation, from a single branch of the Vinci family.

It also provides for the first time the documentary data and information sources over seven centuries to the present day registry office, with work on additional family branches ongoing.

Leonardo himself had at least 22 half-brothers but no children; a new unpublished document shows that “Paolo di Leonardo da Vinci da Firenze” was a case of homonymy. The five family branches are traced from Leonardo’s father, ser Piero (5th generation), and half-brother Domenico (6th). Since the 15th generation, data have been collected on over 225 individuals. The study, with the collaboration of the living descendants, contributes to the work of the Leonardo Da Vinci Heritage Association.

This extraordinary, authoritative 690-year genealogical investigation is fundamental to affiliated scientific work Vezzosi and Sabato have underway with the international Leonardo da Vinci DNA project, supported by The Richard Lounsbery Foundation. The project involves the J. Craig Venter Institute of La Jolla, California and several other high-profile universities and research centers, including the Department of Biology of the University of Florence, directed by David Caramelli.

The Y chromosome, passed on to male descendants, is known to remain almost unchanged through 25 generations. Comparing the Y chromosome of today’s male relatives with that of their ancestors in ancient and modern burial sites would both verify the uninterrupted family line and certify Leonardo’s own Y chromosome marker.

Questions potentially probed once Leonardo’s DNA is confirmed include reasons behind his genius, information on his parents’ geographical origins, his physical prowess, premature aging, left-handedness, diet, health and any hereditary diseases, and his extraordinary vision, synaesthesia and other sensory perceptions.

Comparison of biological data could also potentially help verify the authenticity of artwork and materials handled by Leonardo, thereby pioneering links between biology and art with broad implications for the world’s art market in terms of artistic attribution and materials.

###

Leonardo Da Vinci DNA Project

Founded by anthropologists Brunetto Chiarelli and Henry de Lumley in 2014, goals of the project include obtaining and sequencing DNA of Leonardo to understand better his extraordinary talents, notably his visual acuity, through genetic associations. Three-dimensional images of Leonardo could possibly be created if sufficient genome sequence data becomes available.

Completed pilot studies confirm the ability to identify useful biological material from centuries old works of art and other kinds of relics and samples. The project also investigates the microbial flora located on and within artworks. Using 16S sequencing, the project has demonstrated a novel finding that there are differing bacterial communities when comparing artwork on wood and canvas, and microbes on stone/marble/plaster sculptures. It has also demonstrated that there are specific genera known for having oxidative positive strains present on paintings on wood and paintings on canvas that could potentially be responsible for deterioration and fading. More generally the Project seeks to stimulate fruitful interactions between, on the one hand, geneticists, molecular biologists, and microbiologists, and, on the other hand, historians, art historians, artists, and other experts in cultural heritage.

Funding for this project is provided by The Richard Lounsbery Foundation  and by the Achelis and Bodman Foundation.

Related news releases: here and here.

About the authors

Alessandro Vezzosi

Leonardist and art historian. He is originally from Vinci, where he founded the Leonardo Da Vinci Ideal Museum in 1993, with the Archives of fingerprints and Leonardisms, and with the project for “Leonardo’s Garden”. He is the author and curator of countless exhibitions, publications, conferences and lectures on Leonardo, as well as on Michelangelo and Raphael, the Garden of Pratolino, “and places of memory, contemporary art and design, from the United States to Japan.

His books have been translated into 19 languages ??(from Leonardo da Vinci: The Mind of the Renaissance, New York, Harry N. Abrams, 1997 to Leonardo Da Vinci: The Complete Paintings in Detail, New York, Prestel, 2019).

He began in 1973 the research on the locations and spaces and descendants of Leonardo, for what has been configured since 2000 as a search for Leonardo’s DNA. museoideale@gmail.com

Agnese Sabato

Agnese Chairs the Leonardo Da Vinci Heritage Association. She graduated in Modern History from the University of Florence. She collaborates in the organization of exhibitions, conferences, educational activities and institutional initiatives of the Leonardo Da Vinci Ideal Museum (including the “Fingerprint Archive”), and in books and study notebooks. She has published contributions on the history of slaves in Florence and on the myth and image of Leonardo. She has been working since 1993 researching the genealogy and living descendants of the Da Vinci, in collaborations with the Leonardo Da Vinci DNA Project since 2015. leonardodavinciheritage@gmail.com

Leonardo Da Vinci Heritage Association

The Association aims to protect and enhanceLeonardo’s cultural heritage and the spaces and locations related to his life and work. Born as an idea in 2017, the non-profit (Third Sector) Leonardo Da Vinci Heritage Association was established formally in January 2019 to spread in Italy and abroad the knowledge of Leonardo’s life – through research, publishing and exhibition activities; strengthen research, dissemination, documentation and information activities on his life story, with particular reference to the genealogy of his family; safeguard the privacy of his descendants; to promote studies, research and scientific examinations relating to the DNA of Leonardo and his relatives; safeguard his moral and ethical heritage, while respecting and protecting his cultural heritage.

The project is curating creation of the “GeniaDaVinci” database, which will collect the thousands of documents collected for this study and the family tree in progress, to make them accessible to scholars and the general public.

A volume of the new paper in Italian will be published soon with full iconography.

Human Evolution

Angelo Pontecorboli Editore – Firenze
ISSN 0393-9375 — ISSN ONLINE 1824-310X
A scientific journal founded in 1969 by Prof. Brunetto Chiarelli, University of Florence.
Managing Editor: Angelo Pontecorboli.

Human Evolution publishes scientific articles on the physical, sociological and cultural evolution of Humankind.

There are numerous disciplines involved in the study of human evolution which the magazine tries to address. Particular attention is paid to molecular evolution, genetics and DNA.

Human Evolution is published in English in Florence, Italy in one volume per year divided into four issues. http://www.pontecorboli.com – http://www.pontecorbolipress.com info@pontecorboli.it

* * * * *

Media coverage highlights

Newswires

ANSA, Italy
1) Caccia al Dna di Leonardo, trovati 14 discendenti viventi https://www.ansa.it/canale_scienza_tecnica/notizie/biotech/2021/07/06/caccia-al-dna-di-leonardo-trovati-14-discendenti-viventi_2104ab1a-944d-4fc0-b66e-bb3195d176ca.html
2) 14 living descendants found in hunt on for Leonardo’s DNA
https://www.ansa.it/english/news/2021/07/06/hunt-on-for-leonardos-dna-14-living-descendants-found_9b2a48d6-6372-413e-89b8-e416930856ce.html
3) Portuguese: Pesquisa encontra 14 descendentes vivos de Leonardo Da Vinci
https://epocanegocios.globo.com/Mundo/noticia/2021/07/pesquisa-encontra-14-descendentes-vivos-de-leonardo-da-vinci.html

Agenzia Giornalistica Italia, Italy
Leonardo da Vinci ha 14 discendenti viventi
https://www.agi.it/scienza/news/2021-07-06/leonardo-vinci-14-discendenti-viventi-13167044/

Agencia EFE, Spain
Leonardo Da Vinci tiene hoy 14 descendientes masculinos vivos
https://www.infobae.com/america/agencias/2021/07/06/leonardo-da-vinci-tiene-hoy-14-descendientes-masculinos-vivos/

HINA, Croatia
Talijanski znanstvenici su pronašli četrnaest potomaka iz obitelji Da Vinci
https://www.jutarnji.hr/vijesti/svijet/talijanski-znanstvenici-su-pronasli-cetrnaest-potomaka-iz-obitelji-da-vinci-15086074

NTB, Norway
14 etterkommere etter Da Vinci identifisert
https://www.abcnyheter.no/nyheter/verden/2021/07/06/195771041/14-etterkommere-etter-da-vinci-identifisert

Deutsche Presse Agentur, Germany
Ahnenforscher finden die Nachfahren von Leonardo da Vinci
https://www.t-online.de/nachrichten/panorama/buntes-kurioses/id_90396954/ahnenforscher-finden-die-nachfahren-von-leonardo-da-vinci.html

SDA, Switzerland
Ahnenforscher finden 14 lebende Nachfahren von Leonardo da Vinci
https://www.suedostschweiz.ch/wirtschaft/2021-07-06/ahnenforscher-finden-14-lebende-nachfahren-von-leonardo-da-vinci

ATS, Switzerland
Caccia al DNA di Da Vinci: trovati 14 discendenti viventi
https://www.cdt.ch/cultura-e-societa/caccia-al-dna-di-da-vinci-trovati-14-discendenti-viventi-LN4395184

PAP, Poland
Włochy: Naukowcy odkryli 14 żyjących potomków Leonarda da Vinci
https://www.wnp.pl/rynki-zagraniczne/wlochy-naukowcy-odkryli-14-zyjacych-potomkow-leonarda-da-vinci,480078.html

IndoAsian News Service, India
Leonardo Da Vinci: New family tree spans 21 generations, 690 years
https://www.prokerala.com/news/articles/a1175959.html

News sites

The Guardian, United Kingdom (96,922,151)
Leonardo Da Vinci project finds 14 living male descendants
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2021/jul/06/leonardo-da-vinci-project-finds-14-living-male-descendants

Daily Mail, United Kingdom (potential impressions, 76,039,119)
Leonardo da Vinci’s family tree: Historians trace the Italian polymath’s descendants across 690 years and 21 generations – and find 14 living male relations https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-9758023/Genealogy-Historians-trace-da-Vincis-descendants-14-living-male-relations.html

Telegraph, United Kingdom (26,938,178)
Leonardo: new DNA analysis discovers 14 living descendants of Renaissance master
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/07/06/leonardo-new-dna-analysis-discovers-14-living-descendants-renaissance/

Sky News, United Kingdom (22,833,616)
DNA researchers hope to uncover secret of Leonardo Da Vinci’s genius from 14 living descendants
https://news.sky.com/story/dna-researchers-hope-to-uncover-secret-of-leonardo-da-vincis-genius-from-14-living-descendants-12349981

London Evening Standard, United Kingdom (17,101,838)
Scientists trace 14 living relatives of Leonardo Da Vinci in hope of discovering genetic code of his genius
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/leornardo-da-vinci-relatives-italy-trace-study-b944424.html

Corriere Della Sera, Italy (23,710,111)
Firenze, caccia al Dna di Leonardo: trovati 14 discendenti diretti del genio del Rinascimento
https://www.corriere.it/cronache/21_luglio_06/firenze-caccia-dna-leonardo-trovati-14-discendenti-diretti-genio-rinascimento-29f24d0e-de3f-11eb-a77a-c19811af1134.shtml

La Repubblica, Italy (26,167,236)
Impiegati, geometri e artigiani tra i discendenti in vita di Leonardo: così scopriremo il suo Dna https://www.repubblica.it/tecnologia/2021/07/06/news/l_eredita_di_leonardo_da_vinci_trovati_col_dna_14_discendenti_viventi-309128027/

La Stampa, Italy (11,506,699)
1) Caccia al Dna di Leonardo, trovati 14 discendenti che abitano vicino a Vinci
https://www.lastampa.it/cultura/2021/07/06/news/caccia-al-dna-di-leonardo-trovati-14-discendenti-che-abitano-vicino-a-vinci-1.40468250
2) Impiegati, geometri e artigiani tra i discendenti in vita di Leonardo: così scopriremo il suo Dna https://www.lastampa.it/tecnologia/2021/07/06/news/l_eredita_di_leonardo_da_vinci_trovati_col_dna_14_discendenti_viventi-309128027/

Tiscali, Italy (3,507,240)
Caccia al Dna di Leonardo, trovati 14 discendenti viventi
https://notizie.tiscali.it/esteri/articoli/Caccia-Dna-Leonardo-00001/

La Vanguardia, Spain (30,694,248)
Quedan 14 descendientes masculinos vivos de Leonardo da Vinci
https://www.lavanguardia.com/cultura/20210706/7581425/leonardi-da-vinci-descendientes-vivos-estudio-adn-arbol-genealogico.html

EL MUNDO, Spain (29,304,872)
Leonardo da Vinci tiene 14 descendientes masculinos vivos
https://www.elmundo.es/cultura/2021/07/06/60e42dfbfdddff4d398b45ea.html

ABC, Spain (24,576,184)
Hallan catorce descendientes vivos de Leonardo da Vinci
https://www.abc.es/cultura/abci-hallan-catorce-descendientes-vivos-leonardo-vinci-202107061410_noticia.html

El Periodico, Spain (12,428,962)
El árbol genealógico de Da Vinci se completa: todavía hay 14 descendientes vivos del artista
https://www.elperiodico.com/es/ciencia/20210706/arbol-genealogico-leonardo-da-vinci-14-descendientes-vivos-11887178

Российская газета (Rossiyskaya Gazeta), Russia (24,429,436)
Обнародованы данные проекта по исследованию ДНК Леонардо да Винчи
https://rg.ru/2021/07/06/dnk-leonardo-da-vinchi.html

ThePrint, India (11,618,364)
‘Youngest Leonardo da Vinci descendant’ born in 2020, study to decode his genius finds 13 others https://theprint.in/science/youngest-leonardo-da-vinci-descendant-born-in-2020-study-to-decode-his-genius-finds-13-others/690170/

Full coverage summary here

News release in full, here

Unknown direction and pace of change in microbial — including viral — biodiversity may have deep consequences for all life on Earth

With alarms sounding about the declining diversity of plants and animals, a related concern with equally profound implications is posed: is the variety of microbial life, including viruses, changing too — and if so, in which direction and how fast?

In a new paper published by Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution (here), David S. Thaler of the University of Basel, Switzerland, and Guest Investigator at The Rockefeller University’s Programme for the Human Environment (PHE), notes the well-documented, “clearly downwards” trajectory of plant and animal diversity, constituting “a key issue of the Anthropocene.”

Whether change is underway also in the world of microbes — the tiniest cogs in planetary functioning — is “a complete unknown. We have no idea whether global microbial diversity is increasing, decreasing, or staying the same,” says Dr. Thaler.

“Most scientific papers tell us new facts. This is a different kind of paper; it does not answer anything but asks a new question,” says Dr. Thaler.

“Socrates called ignorance of what we do not know ‘profound ignorance.’ This kind of ignorance was also famously termed ‘unknown unknowns’ (youtu.be/GiPe1OiKQuk) by former US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Today’s paper identifies what is (or was, as of now) a biological ‘unknown unknown’.”

Dr. Thaler points out that assessing plant and animal biodiversity involves counting different species within a given timeframe, and then comparing a subsequent count. By doing so, we learned that some species have recently become extinct, and many exist in fewer numbers, with an estimated one million at risk of extinction within decades.

The same approach has been used to monitor, for example, changes in microbial diversity in an intestine due to dietary changes.

Unfortunately, says Dr Thaler, it may be impossible to “count everything at different times” to figure out the direction of change in global microbial biodiversity because:

• The extent of current microbial biodiversity is unknown, and a large fraction of the microbial world may exist in hard-to-access, rare, or extreme environments — the deeper the depth, the less we know. Previous research has theorized that the deep hot biosphere may contain the majority of our planet’s microbial biodiversity. Resolving this problem might require 20 years before there is a sufficient understanding of the deep biosphere and other hard-to-access environments.
• A possible ‘chicken and egg’ paradox may prove hard to resolve: Establishing a baseline sequence library may never be finished because new diversity is generated more rapidly than it is measured. If some or all parts of microbial diversity are rapidly increasing, then survey approaches may never catch up to this dynamic process.

Says Dr. Thaler: The world is finding hundreds of variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19, one of a very roughly estimated 10 billion different kinds of microbes each evolving in its own ways.

(Dr. Thaler cites a Harvard Medical School video, at https://youtu.be/plVk4NVIUh8, documenting how quickly bacteria can mutate to overcome increasing higher concentrations of antibiotics. Meanwhile, a recent study (bit.ly/IPBESpandemics) also estimates that there are more than 1 million animal viruses, about half of them potentially infectious to humans.)

“Microbial evolution is not always toward greater diversity, microbes can also become extinct, smallpox virus being an example,” he adds. “Countless other viruses and bacteria probably have also come and gone without our ever having known of their existence. Some microbes are specific in their associations with certain animals and plants. As these plants and animals become extinct, it seems likely that specialized microbes associated with them have also vanished.”

“The key point is that with plants and animals we know that the current overall trajectory of Earth’s biosphere is toward fewer species, but there is no comparable understanding of the overall trajectory or detailed fine-structure trajectories of microbial evolution.”

Possible implications in the trajectory of microbial evolution are not limited to the evolution of pathogens that attack humans or the few species we depend on for our food.

Changes in non-pathogenic microbial life might also have major implications for the biosphere. The importance of these complex communities of microorganisms — with estimates of up to 10 billion types of microbes alone — is hard to overstate: They maintain Earth’s habitability.

(In 2011, scientists estimated that Earth’s plant and animal species (or “macrobes”) numbered almost 10 million, meaning therefore that for every “macrobe” species there are 1,000 kinds of microbes, with the same macrobe/microbe ratio applicable to both terrestrial and marine species.)

Humanity depends on the ecological services performed by bacteria, archaea, fungi and protists, which recycle nutrients, nurture plant growth, purify water, make cheese and wine, and decompose wastes. And, by turning atmospheric carbon dioxide back into carbon to be stored in soils or the ocean depths (and doing likewise with nitrogen, sulfur, iron, manganese and more), microbes are key to Earth’s atmosphere and climate.

Globally today, heritable DNA sequence information “is probably dominated by microbes, including viruses,” Dr. Thaler says. “The intriguing possibility is that macroscopically visible animals and plants may constitute an ever-shrinking proportion of the biosphere’s heritable information. We really don’t know.”

“We probably ought to know if we are on the losing end of a biological information race, however, and might even want to take practical steps to increase the information content of ‘our team.’ There is also a purely intellectual interest to learn more about our place in the universe of biological information, perhaps analogous to our place in an expanding physical universe.”

This is a hard question but hard does not mean impossible, he adds, “what approaches at least begin to address it?”

DNA technologies are an obvious place to look. How might current technologies be applied and how might future developments help?

Two approaches suggest themselves, says Dr. Thaler.

One is to focus on “modulators and vectors” of microbial evolution such as bacterial sex. Other new approaches that might be harnessed include single molecule or single cell (DNA) sequencing.

DNA barcodes and other sequence-based methods used to identify species of plants and animals and to assess the amount of variation within species “invite comparison to measures of microbial biodiversity,” Dr Thaler says.

“The clustering pattern seen in macroscopic life seems in a general way also a property of microscopic forms of life. The details of comparison are of interest. There might be quantitative general principles behind the truism that ‘life is lumpy’.”

In both the microbial and the macroscopic world of visible plants and animals, a ‘species’ may be considered a cluster “in sequence space,” which can be thought of in terms of stars and galaxies, where individuals are stars and species are galaxies.

Concludes Jesse Ausubel, Director of The Rockefeller University’s PHE, a sponsor of the study: “Linnaeus started his Systema Naturae in 1735, almost 300 years ago, and we still do not have a complete list of the species of plants and animals that he started to catalogue. It will not be easy to do something similar with probably 1,000 times as many microbes, and measure the changes!”

Visual images from the laboratories of Gary Borisy (Forsyth Institute) and Jessica Mark Welch (Marine Biological Laboratory) show the difficulty of direct counts. A few tens of micrometers, the width of a human hair, span entire diverse, populous communities of microbes.

Dr. Thaler says this paper does not offer “protocols to solve the problem,” but tries “to frame the rate of change of microbial biodiversity as an interesting and possibly important question on which progress is possible. I hope that someone reading this paper is stimulated to think of new approaches better than the ones suggested in it.”

Adds Mr. Ausubel: “There is no agency yet monitoring the state of the microbial world, and no World Wildlife Fund, no Nature Conservancy for microbes. Perhaps one day soon we will realize and rectify our neglect and lift our respect for the diversity of microbial life.”

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About

Biozentrum, University of Basel
https://bit.ly/3d32Cdn

Programme for Human Environment, The Rockefeller University
https://bit.ly/3dJwgU5

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Media coverage highlights

The Guardian, UK: Microbes are ‘unknown unknowns’ despite being vital to all life, says study

RealClear Science, United States: Plant and Animal Diversity Is Declining, But What About Microbial Diversity?

Agencia EFE, Spain: Un estudio resalta la “profunda ignorancia” de la biodiversidad de microbios

Aargauer Zeitung, Switzerland: Biologie – Gilt das Artensterben auch für die Mikroben?

IndoAsian News Service, India: Is microbial life, including viruses, changing too?

Jioforme, India: Dangerous “serious ignorance” – are microbial life changing as plant / animal diversity declines?

COSMOS Magazine, Australia: The great unknown of global microbial diversity

Technology Networks, United Kingdom: Is Microbial Diversity Decreasing Like Animals and Plants?

Scientias, Netherlands: We hebben geen flauw idee hoe virussen en bacteriën er op dit moment voorstaan

The Science Times, United States: Study Seeks to Track Changes in Microbial Diversity, Indicates Difficulties

News 24, France: Le monde microbien, y compris les virus, change-t-il aussi?

South Africa Today, South Africa: Microbes, a missing piece in the biodiversity puzzle

Anygator, Italy: Microbi, perché è importante imparare a conoscerli

Mongabay News, United States: ‘Profound ignorance’: Microbes, a missing piece in the biodiversity puzzle

Radio Ecoshock, Canada (104 radio stations): Is the micro world in trouble too?

News release in full, click here

Full coverage summary, click here