NEWS 19
People who buy goldfish for aquariums are
often surprised by how big they grow: but
in captivity, the fish don’t grow as big as
they might, owing to their ability to secrete
a growth-inhibiting hormone. In the wild
it is a different story, and in Canada,
environmentalists are becoming increasingly
concerned by the presence, in urban storm
water ponds, of fish that have grown to
epic proportions. Last summer, biologists
in Toronto found 20,000 goldfish in a
pond that was not much bigger than a
tennis court. Not only had these fish
(probably the descendants of dumped pets) proliferated in these polluted waters, they
had become huge: they weighed up to 1.36kg.
Goldfish, which originate in East Asia, are already better adapted than other fish
to the low-oxygen conditions of a shallow pond; scientists now want to find out if
the fish in such ponds have adapted to be extra tolerant of harsh conditions. If so,
there are fears that if the pond fish escape into Canada’s rivers and lakes, they will
wreak more havoc and have a competitive edge over native species as climate
change causes oxygen levels in their waters to drop.Health & Science
9 April 2022 THE WEEKType-2 diabetes’s alarming impact
People with type-2 diabetes have an
increased risk of developing 57 other
conditions, a study has found. Rates of
type-2 diabetes – which is linked to obesity,
among other factors – have risen sharply
in the past 20 years or so. The condition
was already known to make people more
susceptible to other illnesses, but experts
say the new findings, laying bare the scale
of the risk, underline the need for better
preventative strategies. A Cambridge
University team examined data on three
million people from the UK Biobank to
assess the relative prevalence of 116
illnesses commonly found in the middle-
aged. Their study, which has yet to be
peer reviewed, revealed that people with
diabetes had a 9% increased risk of cancer,
a 2.6 times higher risk of neurological
issues, a 2.3 times higher risk of eye
problems, and a 1.8 times higher risk of
mental ill health. “This study is a stark
reminder of the extensive and serious long-
term effects of diabetes on the body,” said
Dr Elizabeth Robertson, of Diabetes UK.
More than four million people in the UK
have type-2 diabetes, and a further 13.
million are believed to be at risk of it.
Microplastics are in our blood
They’ve been found on the summits of the
highest mountains, and at the bottom of
the deepest oceans. They’re in the air we
breathe and in the food we eat. And now
it turns out almost eight in ten of us even
have microplastics in our blood. Research-
ers in Amsterdam examined samples from
22 donors, and found plastics in 17 of
them. The most commonly detected form
was polyethylene terephthalate (PET),
which is used to make plastic bottles; it
was found in half the samples tested. After
PET came polystyrene, which is used in
packaging and to make disposable cups,
and polyethylene, which is used in carrier
bags. The concentrations were at an
average of 1.6mcg of plastic per millilitre.
Study co-author Dick Vethaak, a professor
of ecotoxicology at Vrije University, said
that was like “a teaspoon of plastic in ten
large bathtubs”. It’s not clear what level of
plastic in the blood is safe; campaigners
say finding out is an urgent priority.Birds are nesting earlier
Many bird species are laying their eggs
almost a month earlier than they did 100
years ago, and climate change is probably
behind the shift. A team from the Field
Museum of Natural History in Chicago
examined recent avian studies and also
the museum’s extensive egg collection. It
consists of hundreds of eggs that were
collected in the late 19th and early 20th
century, and which are stored in boxes
detailing where and when, exactly, theywere found. Comparing the two data sets,
they found 72 species that appeared in
both, and that a third of these birds had
been nesting progressively earlier. In the
second part of the study, they sought to
shed light on whether climate change
might be the cause. In the absence of
accurate temperature records, they looked
at CO2 levels in the atmosphere over the
past 100 years and found that these
correlated with the shift in egg-laying
patterns. The change in temperature would
have been small, but enough to cause
flowers to bloom and insects to emerge
earlier, which might have a knock-on effect
on the behaviour of birds that eat insects.Spotted: the most far-flung star
The Hubble telescope has identified the
most distant individual star ever seen:
named Earendel, it is so far away, its light
has taken 12.9 billion years to reach Earth.
In other words, it appears to us as it did
just 900 million years after Big Bang, when
the universe was only 7% of its current
age. The previous record holder, Icarus,
was a lot closer: its light took only nine
billion years to reach us. Astronomers
were able to pick out the star because
of a phenomenon known as gravitational
lensing, which occurs when light from
a distant galaxy is distorted by the
gravitational pull of an intervening object,
creating a magnifying effect. Earendel, Old
English for morning star, is thought to
have a mass 50 times larger than our Sun,
and to be millions of times brighter. “It
existed so long ago that it may not have
had all the same raw materials as the stars
around us today,” said Dr Brian Welch of
Johns Hopkins University. “Studying
Earendel will be a window onto an era of
the universe that we are unfamiliar with,
but that led to everything we do know.”The early bird catches the prime nesting spotMPs have voted to retain early
“at-home abortions” for women in
England – a service introduced as a
temporary measure during the first
lockdown in 2020. Until then, patients
seeking a termination before ten weeks
of pregnancy had to have a face-to-face
consultation in a clinic, and usually had
a scan too. They could then take two
pills – the first pill at the clinic and the
second at home within 48 hours, and
they were routinely scanned. Under the
new regulations, they need only have
a telephone or online consultation; they
can take the pills at home, and they are
only scanned if concerns are raised. This
“pills by post” service has been used by
150,000 people in England since May- The Government had wanted to
end it, but in a free vote in the Commons
last week, 215 MPs (including 72 Tories),
voted for an amendment to make it
permanent, while 188 voted against.
At-home abortions
What the scientists are saying...
Monster goldfish cause alarm