136 types of seeds, including crops, forest vegetation, flowers, and microorganisms will be carried on board the Shenzhou-16 manned spacecraft to start their space breeding journey. These seeds will contribute to the advancement of China's agricultural science and technology and enhance food security, the China Manned Space Engineering Office announced on Wednesday in a statement. 

The seeds were selected through a four-month application and review process and have been chosen from 53 institutions across the country. The project, conducted by manned spaceflight, is of a public welfare nature and does not charge any carrying fees.

It has been 36 years since China's first space seed breeding effort in 1987, the country has sent the seeds of hundreds of plant species into space on dozens of retrievable satellites and Shenzhou spaceships. Nearly 1,000 new species have been created, of which 200 have displayed outstanding performances, according to media reports.

Space seed breeding uses cosmic radiation to mutate the genes of seeds sent into space, in order to create new species for greater variety. 

"Space peppers and watermelons" commonly found in supermarkets in China are successful varieties of space breeding. China ranks first in the world in the number of cultivated varieties and the range of popularization and application of space breeding, read media reports.

The area under cultivation for grains, vegetables, fruits and other plants developed by space seed breeding has surpassed 4 million hectares, and generated economic benefits of over 200 billion yuan ($30.51 billion), media earlier reported.

The seeds need further improvement, especially in disease resistance, through conventional breeding methods or space breeding, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

Space breeding involves exposing seeds and strains to cosmic radiation and microgravity during a spaceflight mission to mutate their genes. 

China's space seed breeding level also reflects the nation's advancing aerospace technology, Li Guoxiang, a researcher at the Rural Development Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.

"There are only a few countries in the world with mature aerospace technology, and Chi

For corals, baby fat is food. Coral mothers send their offspring into the world with a balanced meal of fat and algae, but baby corals mainly chew the fat, new research finds.

Adult corals of the species Pocillopora damicornis get most of their nutrition from symbiotic algae that live inside them, providing metabolic energy by photosynthesis. But coral larvae, researchers report online March 25 in Science Advances, rely instead on their “baby fat.”

The finding sheds light on corals’ metabolism during their most vulnerable developmental stage, says biological geochemist Anders Meibom of École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland. Baby fat “is a good thing,” he says. “It gives the coral some time to find a good home without running out of juice.” Larvae’s dependence on fat may make them less sensitive to bleaching — a process in which stressed corals jettison their algal tenants and eventually starve to death. So understanding larval nutrition could help scientists better understand the effects of ocean warming and acidification on bleaching, Meibom says.
Meibom and colleagues fed isotope-tagged nutrients to larvae of P. damicornis, commonly called cauliflower coral, and tracked how the larvae’s symbiotic algae used the nutrients over time. Algae are less abundant in larvae compared with adult corals and provide very little energy, the researchers found.

The next step is to pinpoint exactly when and how larvae switch from feeding on fat to algae as they transition into adulthood, Meibom says, as well as exploring how Earth’s changing oceans might impact the process.

Ocean outlook
Earth’s oceans are a hot mess. They absorb heat at twice the rate that they did nearly 20 years ago, Thomas Sumner reported in “Ocean heating doubles” (SN: 2/20/16, p. 18). Meanwhile, phytoplankton release more heat during photosynthesis than previously thought, Chris Samoray reported in “Ocean flora flunk photosynthesis test” (SN: 2/20/16, p. 12). And the trillions of plastic particles littering the oceans are creating new habitats for microbes with unknown consequences, Samoray wrote in “Floating fortress of microbes” (SN: 2/20/16, p. 20).
Anna Carter wondered if these findings are connected. “Is it possible that phytoplankton are contributing to ocean warming?” Carter asked. “How might the organisms now collecting on all the plastic in the ocean be related?”

Heat produced by phytoplankton doesn’t have a large impact on ocean temperature, says Sumner. “The phytoplankton are catching sunlight that otherwise could warm the water,” he wrote. “Another thing to keep in mind is that the oceans are colossal. At its deepest, the Pacific Ocean is about as deep as the cruising altitude at which most commercial airliners fly. Phytoplankton live in the top sliver of the water column, so any effect they have will be minuscule compared with the size of the ocean.” As for plastic-dwelling microbes, there is still so much to discover, Samoray says. Their contribution to ocean warming is currently unknown.

Ants on the move
Florida harvester ants may be the Frank Lloyd Wrights of the animal kingdom. They construct intricate and mysterious nests, Susan Milius reported in “Restless architects we don’t understand” (SN: 2/20/16, p. 4). Researchers investigated why ants frequently build and abandon elaborate nests, and scatter charcoal around nest openings.

Readers had their own ideas about the unusual behavior. “[Charcoal] is an effective absorber of organics. Is it possibly used for absorbing their scent as a protective measure against predators?” Mark Ayers asked.

Walter Tschinkel, the Florida State University scientist featured in the story, says that the scorched plant matter ants use may not be as effective for these purposes as commercial charcoal. Field tests found no sign that charcoal would deter attacks by other ants.

Reader Joe De Vita speculated that colonies abandon their nests because of waste buildup. Tschinkel notes that this hypothesis has yet to be tested. “Digging up the vacated nest often reveals chambers with matted, blackened floors, presumably from fungus and other microorganisms, but whether this condition has any negative (or for that matter, positive) effects on harvester ants is unknown,” he says. An experiment to test this hypothesis is possible, but “ain’t all that easy. Still, stay tuned.”

Milk for spills
Researchers have created a fibrous membrane made from milk proteins and carbon that could filter toxic heavy metals from severely polluted waters, Sarah Schwartz reported in “Altered milk protein cleans up pollution” (SN: 2/20/16, p. 14). In lab tests, the membrane removed over 99.9 percent of lead from a contaminated solution.

“It is a very exciting method,” wrote Janece Von Allmen. “Has anyone thought to test this method in the real polluted waters of Flint, Michigan?”

The filters are still in an early stage of design, Schwartz says. The membranes work in the laboratory to capture heavy metals and radioactive particles, but testing in the real world is a must. “Bodies of contaminated water are most likely chemically different from lab-made lead solutions and could change the membrane’s performance,” she says.

Whether or not these membranes would work in the Flint River is unclear because the river is not the original source of lead. The toxic heavy metal accumulates as the water passes through corroding pipes. The good news is the prototype shows signs of being efficient and is relatively cheap to produce.