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Algae Protein…New Source to Feed Animals

Workers clear algae along the coast in Qingdao, Shandong province, China June 12, 2021. Picture taken June 12, 2021. China Daily via REUTERS
Workers clear algae along the coast in Qingdao, Shandong province, China June 12, 2021. Picture taken June 12, 2021. China Daily via REUTERS
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Algae Protein…New Source to Feed Animals

Workers clear algae along the coast in Qingdao, Shandong province, China June 12, 2021. Picture taken June 12, 2021. China Daily via REUTERS
Workers clear algae along the coast in Qingdao, Shandong province, China June 12, 2021. Picture taken June 12, 2021. China Daily via REUTERS

Animal feed is vital for the global food security, but it deeply affects the environment given the amount of greenhouse emissions emitted during its production and processing. Yet, new innovations and techniques could help provide sustainable and clean solutions in this field.

New feed source

The King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) has collaborated with the Ministry of Environment, Water, and Agriculture (MEWA) to produce a new source of animal feed in the KSA.

The new project, which aligns with Vision 2030 and the Saudi Green Initiative's focus on food security, aims at developing new techniques to produce the highest quality of algae protein used as feed for animals such as fish and poultry. The project supports producing local raw material for animal feed and reduces the reliance on imported raw materials. This could help establish a sustainable animal feed industry in Saudi Arabia.

“The microalgae project aligns with the kingdom’s Vision 2030 and the Saudi Green Initiative, and will bring environmental, social, and economic benefits not only for Saudi Arabia, but for the whole world,” said Dr. Ali Al Shaiki, CEO of National Fisheries Development Program.

The project, known as Development of Algal Biotechnology in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia- (DABKSA), is overseen by MEWA’s National Fisheries Development Program (NFDP) located on the KAUST campus. The project director in Dr. Claudio Grünewal, joined KAUST in October 2021 from Swansea University in Wales, bringing extensive experience in marine microalgal production, with the engineering expertise needed to design, build and operate high-scale aquaculture installations. Grünewald has delivered several microalgae industrial size projects in different countries such as Spain, Chile, Japan and the United Kingdom.

Pilot program

Phase one consisted of constructing an 870 m2 -experimental facility aimed at studying the feasibility of the high-protein algae. Opened on March 22, the facility provides documented data on the productivity of algae during the first year. The data will be used to assess the feasibility, economic benefits, and sustainability of the project.

Algae grows in both seawater and fresh water, driven by sunlight’s reaction with nitrogen, phosphorus and carbon dioxide. In the DABKSA project, algae rich in protein, oils and carbohydrates are planted in systems of outdoor ponds (raceways) and closed tubes (photobioreactors). The concentrated paste is made using a liquid culture (usually conducted in testing tubes), and then it’s freeze dried to make the powdered biomass that will be included in feed for animals.

The project has several environmental benefits, and the limited sources such as soil, water, and energy are being used in growing animals and their feed. It’s also expected to help reduce greenhouse emissions usually produced by the conventional animal feeds.

Algae-based techniques can also contribute to reducing environmental impacts. Among the proposed solutions is feeding the fish the algae-based food, and then reuse the water from the tanks used to grow the fish to grow more algae, which could lead to a circular economy. Algae can grow along the Saudi coasts (3,400 kilometers), the Red Sea, and the Gulf.

Production phase

Once feasibility is demonstrated in Phase I, the Algal Biotechnology project will proceed to Phase II, which involves designing and building a larger aquaculture and algae plant. The target tonnage of dry weight biomass is expected to reach approximately 1.5 – 2 tons in the first year, and a larger yield in Phase II (late 2023-24) — between 50 and 100 tons, when the plant expands to a four-hectare facility. A future goal of DABKSA is to apply multi-trophic aquaculture approaches to the Red Sea Project and NEOM, among other in-Kingdom projects.

KAUST is a center for wide-scale research on algae in the Kingdom. In the past two years, the university has preserved the main talents and equipment to accelerate – not only the animal feed project related to the food security initiative and the Saudi Vision 2030 – but also the use of algae in the production of tires, perfumes, and pharmaceutical drugs.

The university is also the only laboratory experimenting with algae-based applied biotechnology in the Arabian Peninsula, working on identifying local algae strains, their different behaviors and tolerance of external environmental factors. KAUST has also built a library featuring the local strains of algae of commercial value to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Among the project’s team members is Dr. Kyle Lauersen, KAUST assistant professor and algae expert, who helps professor Grünewald developing strategies to train future generations of algae experts and help them apply new techniques across the Kingdom.

"I truly believe that the Kingdom has a competitive advantage to run industrial algal cultivation along the Red Sea coast with its flat land, CO2 sources, and year-round solar irradiation," Grünewald said.

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Varieties

Dinosaur Fossils in Brazil Reveal New Giant Species

An employee works at the excavation site where dinosaur bones were found in Davinopolis, Maranhao state, Brazil, April 28, 2021. Giovani de Toledo Viecili/Handout via REUTERS
An employee works at the excavation site where dinosaur bones were found in Davinopolis, Maranhao state, Brazil, April 28, 2021. Giovani de Toledo Viecili/Handout via REUTERS
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Dinosaur Fossils in Brazil Reveal New Giant Species

An employee works at the excavation site where dinosaur bones were found in Davinopolis, Maranhao state, Brazil, April 28, 2021. Giovani de Toledo Viecili/Handout via REUTERS
An employee works at the excavation site where dinosaur bones were found in Davinopolis, Maranhao state, Brazil, April 28, 2021. Giovani de Toledo Viecili/Handout via REUTERS

Brazilian scientists have identified a new species of giant dinosaur with ties to a similar animal found in Spain, reinforcing knowledge that land routes once connected parts of South America, Africa and Europe about 120 million years ago.

Named Dasosaurus tocantinensis, the species is one of the biggest found in the South American country and was described this month in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, Reuters reported.

The fossils were uncovered in 2021 at a site hosting infrastructure works near Davinopolis, in Brazil's northeastern state of Maranhao, and the research was led by Elver Mayer of the Federal University of the Sao Francisco Valley.

The remains include a femur measuring about 1.5 meters (59 inches), which helped researchers estimate the animal stretched roughly 20 meters long.

"As the excavation progressed over the days, we began to see the evidence of that huge bone, which is the femur," said Leonardo Kerber, a paleontologist at the Federal University of Santa Maria (UFSM) who contributed to the research.

"This indicates it was a very large dinosaur. Today we know Dasosaurus is among the biggest dinosaurs ever found in Brazil," he noted.

According to UFSM, analysis indicated the species is the closest known relative of Garumbatitan morellensis, a dinosaur described in Spain.

Their lineage was European and may have dispersed into what is now South America roughly 130 million years ago, likely via northern Africa, before the Atlantic fully opened, the university said.

Dasosaurus tocantinensis's name combines references to the region where the dinosaur was found, including the Tocantins River, a major waterway whose eastern margins lie near the fossil site.

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German Philosopher Jurgen Habermas Dies Age 96

German philosopher Professor Juergen Habermas makes a speech during the awards ceremony for the "Understanding and Tolerance" prize at the Jewish museum in Berlin, November 13, 2010. REUTERS/Odd Andersen/Pool/File Photo
German philosopher Professor Juergen Habermas makes a speech during the awards ceremony for the "Understanding and Tolerance" prize at the Jewish museum in Berlin, November 13, 2010. REUTERS/Odd Andersen/Pool/File Photo
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German Philosopher Jurgen Habermas Dies Age 96

German philosopher Professor Juergen Habermas makes a speech during the awards ceremony for the "Understanding and Tolerance" prize at the Jewish museum in Berlin, November 13, 2010. REUTERS/Odd Andersen/Pool/File Photo
German philosopher Professor Juergen Habermas makes a speech during the awards ceremony for the "Understanding and Tolerance" prize at the Jewish museum in Berlin, November 13, 2010. REUTERS/Odd Andersen/Pool/File Photo

The German philosopher Jurgen Habermas has died, a spokesperson for his publishing house, Suhrkamp Verlag, told AFP on Saturday.

He died at the age of 96 in Starnberg, in southern Germany, she said, citing information from the family of the politically engaged theorist.

Habermas was considered the most influential German philosopher of his generation, involved in all the major postwar debates and seeing a united Europe, in his view, as the only remedy for the rise of nationalism, AFP reported.

In his later years, he devoted himself to promoting a federal European project and prevent the continent from falling, as it did in the 20th century, into nationalist rivalries.

Throughout his life, Habermas linked philosophy and politics, thought and action.

After serving as the voice of German student protest in the 1960s, he became its target thirty years later while warning of the risks of "left-wing fascism".

In 1989, he criticised the terms of German reunification, guided essentially by the demands of the market, and which made "the Deutsche mark its standard."

Born on June 18, 1929 in Duesseldorf, Habermas had been enrolled in the Hitler Youth, but he was too young to have taken an active part in the war. As a teenager, he was deeply marked by the collapse of Nazism.

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Research Reveals Decades-Long Silverpit Crater Triggered by Tsunami 40 Million Years Ago

A massive asteroid struck the North Sea millions of years ago (Getty)
A massive asteroid struck the North Sea millions of years ago (Getty)
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Research Reveals Decades-Long Silverpit Crater Triggered by Tsunami 40 Million Years Ago

A massive asteroid struck the North Sea millions of years ago (Getty)
A massive asteroid struck the North Sea millions of years ago (Getty)

A long-running dispute about the origin of a North Sea crater has finally been settled, as new research finds a massive asteroid hit the water and triggered a towering tsunami millions of years ago.

Scientists have found that the Silverpit Crater – which lies around 700 meters beneath the southern North Sea seabed, roughly 80 miles off the coast of Yorkshire – was formed when an asteroid or comet struck the region roughly 43 to 46 million years ago, sparking a 330 feet tsunami.

Since geologists first identified the formation in 2002, the 3km-wide crater and its surrounding ring of circular faults spanning about 20 km have sparked intense debate, according to The Independent.

But researchers say their new study marks the clearest evidence yet that the structure is one of Earth’s rare impact craters.

This confirmation places it in the same category as well-known structures such as the Chicxulub Crater in Mexico, which is linked to the dinosaur mass extinction.

The team used computer modelling and analyzed newly available seismic imaging and microscopic geological samples taken from beneath the seabed.

Dr. Uisdean Nicholson, a sedimentologist in Heriot-Watt University’s School of Energy, Geoscience, Infrastructure and Society, who led the investigation, said: “New seismic imaging has given us an unprecedented look at the crater.”

He said samples from an oil well in the area also revealed rare ‘shocked’ quartz and feldspar crystals at the same depth as the crater floor.

“We were exceptionally lucky to find these – a real ‘needle-in-a-haystack’ effort. These prove the impact crater hypothesis beyond doubt, because they have a fabric that can only be created by extreme shock pressures,” said Nicholson.

The scientists say these microscopic minerals form only under the extreme pressures generated during asteroid impacts, providing strong confirmation of the event.

Early research proposed that the feature was created by a high-speed asteroid impact. Supporters of that idea pointed to its round shape, central peak, and surrounding concentric faults, which are often seen in known impact craters.

But other scientists suggested different explanations. Some proposed that underground salt movement distorted the rock layers and created the structure.

Others argued that volcanic activity may have caused the seabed to collapse.

In 2009, geologists even voted on the issue. According to a report in the December 2009 issue of Geoscientist magazine, most participants rejected the asteroid impact explanation at the time.

The latest findings, published in the journal Nature Communications and funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), now appear to overturn that conclusion.

Dr. Nicholson said: “Our evidence shows that a 160-meter-wide asteroid hit the seabed at a low angle from the west.”

“Within minutes, it created a 1.5 km high curtain of rock and water that then collapsed into the sea, creating a tsunami over 100 meters high.”

The impact would have produced a violent explosion at the seafloor and sent enormous waves spreading across the region.

Professor Gareth Collins, of Imperial College London, who attended the 2009 debate about the crater’s origin and contributed to the new research, said the researchers have “finally found the silver bullet” to end the debate.

He said: “I always thought that the impact hypothesis was the simplest explanation and most consistent with the observations.”

“It is very rewarding to have finally found the silver bullet. We can now get on with the exciting job of using the amazing new data to learn more about how impacts shape planets below the surface, which is really hard to do on other planets,” Collins added.

Dr. Nicholson also expressed his excitement about using the new findings for further research into asteroids.

“Silverpit is a rare and exceptionally preserved hypervelocity impact crater,” he said.

“These are rare because the Earth is such a dynamic planet – plate tectonics and erosion destroy almost all traces of most of these events.”