12 ms·

Underwater power cables make lobsters larvae bad swimmers

ncmncm 5y ago
The article doesn't say, but the paper abstract says this is from an unchanging DC magnetic field, which is somewhat surprising, as it, unlike an AC field, does not generate electric current within the animal's body.
herpderperator 5y ago
Title was modified without adding apostrophe. Can it be reverted or fixed?
pvaldes 5y ago
The design of the experiment makes me wonder a few questions. One is why to study the impact of submarine cables that lie at, lets say 1000 m deep?, over larvae that live a 2m deep. Eggs, yes, could have an effect, but Zoea I that would be kept in pelagic cages? they don't share the same space. If I remember correctly (I could be wrong), The lobsters in the article had not settled for the bottom yet. I assume also that there will be a tank influence. That explains why crabs perform better, as expected. Lobster larvae are incredibly delicate to cavitation, or impact with aquarium walls or bubbles. When they molt is a huge problem to keep them without deformations.
adhesive_wombat 5y ago
It's OK, eventually their shells will dissolve in the sea water^Wcarbonic acid and it won't matter anyway.
- kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
  Crustaceans are not negatively impacted by adicification.
  - adhesive_wombat 5y ago
    This recent literature review[1] disagrees: > Our global literature review and synthesis of OA [Ocean Acidification] thresholds for decapod crustaceans reveals that this group is sensitive to OA across multiple pathways, ranging from physiological and behavioral responses to mortality. But I'm not a marine biologist, and I'm open to new information. (Also temperature rises is a threat to lobsters, but at least they can just keep moving North[2] for the time being, there are more lines of latitude to go). [1]: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2021.651102/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2021.6511... [2]: https://www.businessinsider.com/lobsters-move-north-as-ocean-warms-2015-6 https://www.businessinsider.com/lobsters-move-north-as-ocean...
  - pvaldes 5y ago
    > Crustaceans are not negatively impacted by acidification. Anything with an outer skeleton made of Calcium carbonate will die in a high acidic environment, or will be eaten that is the same
- maa5444 5y ago
- wongarsu 5y ago
  We certainly have to also consider the damage from not laying the cable as well. As ocean acidification from climate change is killing lobsters, the cable might be the lesser of two evils
  - adhesive_wombat 5y ago
    That's what I was saying. But I'm sure we'll find a lot of people suddenly very emotionally invested in lobsters living within 10m of power lines, just like there are people who have a sudden overwhelming love for birds near wind turbines, but conveniently don't really rate other birds being killed by windows, cats, fossil fuel emissions, vehicles, farming, habitat destruction, etc. And I'm sure if you looked, you wouldn't find any of them happen to be astroturfing for fossil energy companies (not saying this study necessarily is, but it'll be gleefully seized on forever after by those who are).
    - belorn 5y ago
      There is always nuclear which don't kill birds, don't put their emissions into the air, don't destroy the habitat for animals, and in general has proven to be fairly safe for animals even in the case of catastrophic accidents. Wind power need to consider endangered birds. Hydro power need to consider migrating fish (many which are currently on the brink of extinction), and now offshore wind need to consider the impact on animals living in the ocean. And we still need to solve the issue of storage for countries depending primarily on a combination of fossil fuels and wind and is located too far north to survive on solar during low wind conditions. We can't just sweep the problems under the rug and present it as the perfect solution without any issues.
    - adolph 5y ago
      > suddenly very emotionally invested in lobsters Maybe for the 1%, for everyone else it is emotional labor. Unlike turbine-chum, lobsters are delicious. http://www.columbia.edu/~col8/lobsterarticle.pdf http://www.columbia.edu/~col8/lobsterarticle.pdf
refurb 5y ago
”Chronic exposure to 2.8 mT EMF throughout embryonic development resulted in significant differences in stage-specific egg volume and resulted in stage I lobster and zoea I crab larvae exhibiting decreased carapace height, total length, and maximum eye diameter.” 2.8mT at 1 meter requires 14,000 amps of current, which is far beyond most under seas cables (except the largest). So suffice to say any lobsters more than 1-2m away will be just fine.
- DoingIsLearning 5y ago
  I remember some other study in which crabs were actually EM sensitive and were attracted to power cables underwater. If this also holds for lobsters it could be a similar phenomenon with lobster larvae or the lobster adults settling to reproduce a few centimetres away from the cables because they are attracted to the EM field.
- LeifCarrotson 5y ago
  Far beyond most undersea cables, and even then the article is concerned not with the largest long-distance high-voltage/high-current transmission lines, but with individual wind turbines. Power loss scales with the square of current (P=I^2 x R), and copper is already expensive, so they typically use step-up transformers to reduce the current in a wind farm to something on the order of a hundred amps. I've pushed 40,000 amps for a distance of a couple hundred millimeters, using some giant water-cooled electrodes for a resistance welding application...but there's zero reason to have 14 kA as a distribution line in a wind farm, that's absurd. Yes, some lobster and crab larvae will probably also exhibit decreased carapace height if they're squished by the wire as it is fed out onto the sea floor...but that's about the same distance as the region in which they'll be affected by magnetic currents.
tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
> “One potential solution is to bury the cables in the seafloor. This is already done for many marine renewable developments but can be expensive and difficult to maintain. It will be important to ensure its continued inclusion in the consenting process for future projects. That's a great way to make renewable projects more expensive and thus less likely to happen, the effects of which may be worse (even for those crabs) than a couple cables in specific locations. OTOH, it shows that electromagnetic fields, even static (DC) ones, can have significant biological impacts. Was this already known or is that a new discovery that could have impact beyond protecting crabs?
- ncmncm 5y ago
  There is a book, "The Body Electric", by Robert Becker, about his investigations of electromagnetic effects on, mostly, salamanders. During the time he worked, and for long after, such investigation was effectively forbidden in the US, on threat of losing grants and invitation to present at conferences. Becker had a free pass based on a relationship with the US Veterans Administration, which hoped he would be able to find a way to regenerate severed limbs, a topic of some interest. The mode of action he found was orchestration of development and growth by way of sub-nanosecond electric currents. He was able to control healing and regeneration -- turn it off and on -- by applying these small currents in different directions. AC fields, from 60Hz up into microwaves, can be persuaded to induce such currents by modulation. So, with no or with one modulation, exposure may have no effect, but with another you get a pronounced effect. You cannot generalize from one exposure to another, one modulation to another. The effect observed in this study might easily not be replicated in another, according to some apparently trivial variation in their setup.
  - ncmncm 5y ago
    *"sub-nanoampere electric currents"
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- dylan604 5y ago
eternauta3k 5y ago
What's the mechanism?
- superkuh 5y ago
  Cherry picking data and bias in setting up an unrealistic, unphysical experiment. There is no mechanism.
  - lizardactivist 5y ago
    I'm betting you wrote that without even reading the paper.
    - hatware 5y ago
      At least they used a few big words
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    It's pretty easy to establish a potential mechanism for this so I'm not sure why you would throw this result out without further investigation. Plenty of animals have a sense for the earth's magnetism and this is well documented: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetoreception https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetoreception Putting cables carrying strong electric currents which in turn generate magnetic fields around those cables would be almost sure to have some effect, the question then becomes how much of an effect rather than whether or not such an effect is possible.
- aeternum 5y ago
  The mechanism could be epigenetic signaling. Recently scientists have been able to control and influence cell-differentiation via long-lifetime electric fields. (Although the electric potential was created chemically via ion pumps rather than externally). Still they showed pretty crazy results like being able to create a worm with heads on both ends. It's looks like this kind of electrical signaling is likely the primary mechanism by which your cells know what to become and in which direction to grow. A super interesting paper that I'm surprised isn't more famous: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/05/170523124219.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/05/170523124219.h...
NikhilVerma 5y ago
Issues like this and micro-plastics in our bloodstreams will be causing so many issues in our lifetimes. Future generations (if there are any) will be appalled that we used to be so unaware of the impact of our own existence. It's akin to people relieving themselves in their own water supply.
nonrandomstring 5y ago
aaron695 5y ago
jbverschoor 5y ago
I’m more concerned about “clean cooling “ solutions, which basically heat up rivers and oceans
- smachiz 5y ago
  most of the actual clean cooling solutions have retention ponds that are man made to use for cooling. At least in the US, the EPA regulates water that is returned to rivers and streams, including temperature. Not to say the heat isn't radiated back into the atmosphere from those retention ponds, but that heat has to go somewhere. Better than the alternatives though.
chris_va 5y ago
This is an interesting lab setup, but... Are underwater cables ever not paired? HVDC are always coaxial, so... No field. Edit: paired but not always coaxial, so it's possible to get a small field.
- ncmncm 5y ago
  I strongly doubt they are paired. A single conductor with earth return works as well, at half the cost.
  - londons_explore 5y ago
    Earth return is really what we should be banning. It causes small amounts of metal corrosion across areas hundreds of miles wide, destroying other infrastructure like bridges. It probably also is bad for the environment, but evidence for that is weak so far.
    - ncmncm 5y ago
      I have not heard of this. It seems ... unlikely. If you have a reference you would like to pass along, you might change minds about this.
mothsonasloth 5y ago
Meanwhile people in the UK who live near electric pylons are at an increased risk of developing cancer.

The article doesn't say, but the paper abstract says this is from an unchanging DC magnetic field, which is somewhat surprising, as it, unlike an AC field, does not generate electric current within the animal's body.

herpderperator 5y ago

Title was modified without adding apostrophe. Can it be reverted or fixed?

pvaldes 5y ago

The design of the experiment makes me wonder a few questions. One is why to study the impact of submarine cables that lie at, lets say 1000 m deep?, over larvae that live a 2m deep. Eggs, yes, could have an effect, but Zoea I that would be kept in pelagic cages? they don't share the same space. If I remember correctly (I could be wrong), The lobsters in the article had not settled for the bottom yet. I assume also that there will be a tank influence. That explains why crabs perform better, as expected. Lobster larvae are incredibly delicate to cavitation, or impact with aquarium walls or bubbles. When they molt is a huge problem to keep them without deformations.

adhesive_wombat 5y ago

It's OK, eventually their shells will dissolve in the sea water^Wcarbonic acid and it won't matter anyway.

kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
Crustaceans are not negatively impacted by adicification.
- adhesive_wombat 5y ago
  This recent literature review[1] disagrees: > Our global literature review and synthesis of OA [Ocean Acidification] thresholds for decapod crustaceans reveals that this group is sensitive to OA across multiple pathways, ranging from physiological and behavioral responses to mortality. But I'm not a marine biologist, and I'm open to new information. (Also temperature rises is a threat to lobsters, but at least they can just keep moving North[2] for the time being, there are more lines of latitude to go). [1]: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2021.651102/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2021.6511... [2]: https://www.businessinsider.com/lobsters-move-north-as-ocean-warms-2015-6 https://www.businessinsider.com/lobsters-move-north-as-ocean...
- pvaldes 5y ago
  > Crustaceans are not negatively impacted by acidification. Anything with an outer skeleton made of Calcium carbonate will die in a high acidic environment, or will be eaten that is the same
maa5444 5y ago
wongarsu 5y ago
We certainly have to also consider the damage from not laying the cable as well. As ocean acidification from climate change is killing lobsters, the cable might be the lesser of two evils
- adhesive_wombat 5y ago
  That's what I was saying. But I'm sure we'll find a lot of people suddenly very emotionally invested in lobsters living within 10m of power lines, just like there are people who have a sudden overwhelming love for birds near wind turbines, but conveniently don't really rate other birds being killed by windows, cats, fossil fuel emissions, vehicles, farming, habitat destruction, etc. And I'm sure if you looked, you wouldn't find any of them happen to be astroturfing for fossil energy companies (not saying this study necessarily is, but it'll be gleefully seized on forever after by those who are).
  - belorn 5y ago
    There is always nuclear which don't kill birds, don't put their emissions into the air, don't destroy the habitat for animals, and in general has proven to be fairly safe for animals even in the case of catastrophic accidents. Wind power need to consider endangered birds. Hydro power need to consider migrating fish (many which are currently on the brink of extinction), and now offshore wind need to consider the impact on animals living in the ocean. And we still need to solve the issue of storage for countries depending primarily on a combination of fossil fuels and wind and is located too far north to survive on solar during low wind conditions. We can't just sweep the problems under the rug and present it as the perfect solution without any issues.
  - adolph 5y ago
    > suddenly very emotionally invested in lobsters Maybe for the 1%, for everyone else it is emotional labor. Unlike turbine-chum, lobsters are delicious. http://www.columbia.edu/~col8/lobsterarticle.pdf http://www.columbia.edu/~col8/lobsterarticle.pdf

refurb 5y ago

”Chronic exposure to 2.8 mT EMF throughout embryonic development resulted in significant differences in stage-specific egg volume and resulted in stage I lobster and zoea I crab larvae exhibiting decreased carapace height, total length, and maximum eye diameter.” 2.8mT at 1 meter requires 14,000 amps of current, which is far beyond most under seas cables (except the largest). So suffice to say any lobsters more than 1-2m away will be just fine.

DoingIsLearning 5y ago
I remember some other study in which crabs were actually EM sensitive and were attracted to power cables underwater. If this also holds for lobsters it could be a similar phenomenon with lobster larvae or the lobster adults settling to reproduce a few centimetres away from the cables because they are attracted to the EM field.
LeifCarrotson 5y ago
Far beyond most undersea cables, and even then the article is concerned not with the largest long-distance high-voltage/high-current transmission lines, but with individual wind turbines. Power loss scales with the square of current (P=I^2 x R), and copper is already expensive, so they typically use step-up transformers to reduce the current in a wind farm to something on the order of a hundred amps. I've pushed 40,000 amps for a distance of a couple hundred millimeters, using some giant water-cooled electrodes for a resistance welding application...but there's zero reason to have 14 kA as a distribution line in a wind farm, that's absurd. Yes, some lobster and crab larvae will probably also exhibit decreased carapace height if they're squished by the wire as it is fed out onto the sea floor...but that's about the same distance as the region in which they'll be affected by magnetic currents.

tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago

> “One potential solution is to bury the cables in the seafloor. This is already done for many marine renewable developments but can be expensive and difficult to maintain. It will be important to ensure its continued inclusion in the consenting process for future projects. That's a great way to make renewable projects more expensive and thus less likely to happen, the effects of which may be worse (even for those crabs) than a couple cables in specific locations. OTOH, it shows that electromagnetic fields, even static (DC) ones, can have significant biological impacts. Was this already known or is that a new discovery that could have impact beyond protecting crabs?

ncmncm 5y ago
There is a book, "The Body Electric", by Robert Becker, about his investigations of electromagnetic effects on, mostly, salamanders. During the time he worked, and for long after, such investigation was effectively forbidden in the US, on threat of losing grants and invitation to present at conferences. Becker had a free pass based on a relationship with the US Veterans Administration, which hoped he would be able to find a way to regenerate severed limbs, a topic of some interest. The mode of action he found was orchestration of development and growth by way of sub-nanosecond electric currents. He was able to control healing and regeneration -- turn it off and on -- by applying these small currents in different directions. AC fields, from 60Hz up into microwaves, can be persuaded to induce such currents by modulation. So, with no or with one modulation, exposure may have no effect, but with another you get a pronounced effect. You cannot generalize from one exposure to another, one modulation to another. The effect observed in this study might easily not be replicated in another, according to some apparently trivial variation in their setup.
- ncmncm 5y ago
  *"sub-nanoampere electric currents"
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
dylan604 5y ago

eternauta3k 5y ago

What's the mechanism?

superkuh 5y ago
Cherry picking data and bias in setting up an unrealistic, unphysical experiment. There is no mechanism.
- lizardactivist 5y ago
  I'm betting you wrote that without even reading the paper.
  - hatware 5y ago
    At least they used a few big words
- jacquesm 5y ago
  It's pretty easy to establish a potential mechanism for this so I'm not sure why you would throw this result out without further investigation. Plenty of animals have a sense for the earth's magnetism and this is well documented: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetoreception https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetoreception Putting cables carrying strong electric currents which in turn generate magnetic fields around those cables would be almost sure to have some effect, the question then becomes how much of an effect rather than whether or not such an effect is possible.
aeternum 5y ago
The mechanism could be epigenetic signaling. Recently scientists have been able to control and influence cell-differentiation via long-lifetime electric fields. (Although the electric potential was created chemically via ion pumps rather than externally). Still they showed pretty crazy results like being able to create a worm with heads on both ends. It's looks like this kind of electrical signaling is likely the primary mechanism by which your cells know what to become and in which direction to grow. A super interesting paper that I'm surprised isn't more famous: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/05/170523124219.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/05/170523124219.h...

NikhilVerma 5y ago

Issues like this and micro-plastics in our bloodstreams will be causing so many issues in our lifetimes. Future generations (if there are any) will be appalled that we used to be so unaware of the impact of our own existence. It's akin to people relieving themselves in their own water supply.

nonrandomstring 5y ago

aaron695 5y ago

jbverschoor 5y ago

I’m more concerned about “clean cooling “ solutions, which basically heat up rivers and oceans

smachiz 5y ago
most of the actual clean cooling solutions have retention ponds that are man made to use for cooling. At least in the US, the EPA regulates water that is returned to rivers and streams, including temperature. Not to say the heat isn't radiated back into the atmosphere from those retention ponds, but that heat has to go somewhere. Better than the alternatives though.

chris_va 5y ago

This is an interesting lab setup, but... Are underwater cables ever not paired? HVDC are always coaxial, so... No field. Edit: paired but not always coaxial, so it's possible to get a small field.

ncmncm 5y ago
I strongly doubt they are paired. A single conductor with earth return works as well, at half the cost.
- londons_explore 5y ago
  Earth return is really what we should be banning. It causes small amounts of metal corrosion across areas hundreds of miles wide, destroying other infrastructure like bridges. It probably also is bad for the environment, but evidence for that is weak so far.
  - ncmncm 5y ago
    I have not heard of this. It seems ... unlikely. If you have a reference you would like to pass along, you might change minds about this.

mothsonasloth 5y ago

Meanwhile people in the UK who live near electric pylons are at an increased risk of developing cancer.