Kristen Villebrun and Wendy Bush hoped they wouldn't have to pray for Chedoke Creek, but four years after they first raised alarm about the water's condition, they were part of an Indigenous full moon ceremony to do just that. About 50 people showed up near Princess Point on the dark and frigid Monday evening for the monthly ceremony, which was particularly special as it focused on Chedoke Creek. The body of water that runs into Cootes Paradise had about 24 billion litres of sewage and storm water runoff leak into it due to a gate being left open.
There’s a new branch on the tree of life and it’s made up of predators that nibble their prey to death. These microbial predators fall into two groups, one of which researchers have dubbed “nibblerids” because they, well, nibble chunks off their prey using tooth-like structures. The other group, nebulids, eat their prey whole. And both comprise a new ancient branch on the tree of life called “Provora,” according to a paper published today in Nature.
Every couple of weeks, postdoctoral researcher Yosuke Yamada grabs a bucket and makes the short drive from his lab at Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology to one of the nearby ports on the southerly Japanese island of the same name. He passes Okinawa’s iconic beaches, where snorkelers visit clownfish and coral reefs, and continues to the fishing wharfs. After Yamada scoops a bucketful of water from between the boats, he heads back to his lab to study components of the island’s ecosystem that are so small they must be observed using a microscope: bacteria, viruses, algae, and fungi — the ocean’s microbes.
