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First large-scale UK onshore salmon project at risk over ‘factory farm’ claimss

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Sunday, September 15, 2024

On former railway sidings at Grimsby docks in Lincolnshire, the seafood industry is backing new plans for an onshore salmon farm that it claims will create jobs, cut emissions and help meet the nation’s huge demand for the fish.The scheme would be the UK’s first large-scale onshore salmon farm, with the fish growing to a weight of four or five kilograms. The project’s backer says the closed system would prevent disease and invasions of sea lice, which can blight open-net salmon farms.But the project is now at the centre of a legal battle between North East Lincolnshire council, which approved the scheme in November last year, and animal rights campaigners, who claim it is a “new form of factory farming”. The animal welfare charity Animal Equality UK has successfully sought permission for a judicial review over the scheme, which is supposed to produce about 5,000 tonnes of fish a year.Abigail Penny, the charity’s executive director, said: “To accommodate the extremely tight profit margins for a project of this nature, the fish must be crammed into crowded tanks and kept in artificial environments throughout their entire lives. Many similar farms have suffered mass mortality events, with thousands of fish dying due to failing equipment.”Councillors who approved the scheme last year were told that concerns about fish welfare should be noted, but “are not considered to be material land use planning considerations”.Animal Equality UK was granted permission for judicial review on 5 September after it argued animal welfare could be considered during the planning process and the councillors were misdirected by officials.UK consumers spend more than £1.2bn a year on salmon in supermarkets and large retailers, making it the nation’s most popular fish. Farmed salmon is one of the UK’s biggest exports, but the operators of open-net salmon farms have been accused of having a “catastrophic impact” on fish welfare and the environment.The proposed onshore salmon farm will be located at the docks in Grimsby, Lincolnshire. Photograph: AP S (uk)/AlamyCharities and conservation groups in January called for organic certification to be removed from open-net salmon and trout farms, because of the “negative environmental impacts”.The Scottish salmon industry says its farmers meet the highest international standards and are committed to protecting the marine environment.The Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, a government agency, has highlighted the potential role of indoor tank systems, known as recirculating aquaculture systems.It says these “closed-loop systems” minimise the risks associated with conventional fish farming such as pollution, parasites and escapees. An English aquaculture strategy published in November 2020 said there was growing investor interest in the land-based production of Atlantic salmon close to large English cities.The proposed new £120m farm on the eastern outskirts of Grimsby docks is backed by the company AquaCultured Seafood. The business says the facility would “optimise” fish welfare and prevent disease or sea lice from entering the system. The scheme is supported by the Seafood Grimsby and Humber Alliance as a “stepping stone’ to UK food security.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionA submission to the planning committee by Mark Borthwick, a doctoral fellow in salmon farming, warned the farm would require high stocking densities. He said salmon ranged widely with a strong migration drive and it was unknown how they would cope in the cramped conditions of an onshore farm.His submission stated: “The industry’s hope is that by doing the whole operation under factory conditions, they can control disease. However, as has been abundantly established in other farming environments, there is no truly biosecure factory farm and other diseases will emerge.”Edie Bowles, solicitor at Advocates for Animals, the legal firm representing Animal Equality UK in the case against the council, said: “I am delighted with the [judicial review] application being granted permission. It will hopefully be a wake-up call to other planning authorities that they need to follow the correct process.“This case is all about proper scrutiny being given for planning decisions that pose huge risks, including to animal welfare.”The council said it would not comment while legal proceedings were continuing. AquaCultured Seafood has been approached for comment.

Animal rights campaigners win a judicial review over pioneering £120m scheme at Grimsby portOn former railway sidings at Grimsby docks in Lincolnshire, the seafood industry is backing new plans for an onshore salmon farm that it claims will create jobs, cut emissions and help meet the nation’s huge demand for the fish.The scheme would be the UK’s first large-scale onshore salmon farm, with the fish growing to a weight of four or five kilograms. The project’s backer says the closed system would prevent disease and invasions of sea lice, which can blight open-net salmon farms. Continue reading...

On former railway sidings at Grimsby docks in Lincolnshire, the seafood industry is backing new plans for an onshore salmon farm that it claims will create jobs, cut emissions and help meet the nation’s huge demand for the fish.

The scheme would be the UK’s first large-scale onshore salmon farm, with the fish growing to a weight of four or five kilograms. The project’s backer says the closed system would prevent disease and invasions of sea lice, which can blight open-net salmon farms.

But the project is now at the centre of a legal battle between North East Lincolnshire council, which approved the scheme in November last year, and animal rights campaigners, who claim it is a “new form of factory farming”. The animal welfare charity Animal Equality UK has successfully sought permission for a judicial review over the scheme, which is supposed to produce about 5,000 tonnes of fish a year.

Abigail Penny, the charity’s executive director, said: “To accommodate the extremely tight profit margins for a project of this nature, the fish must be crammed into crowded tanks and kept in artificial environments throughout their entire lives. Many similar farms have suffered mass mortality events, with thousands of fish dying due to failing equipment.”

Councillors who approved the scheme last year were told that concerns about fish welfare should be noted, but “are not considered to be material land use planning considerations”.

Animal Equality UK was granted permission for judicial review on 5 September after it argued animal welfare could be considered during the planning process and the councillors were misdirected by officials.

UK consumers spend more than £1.2bn a year on salmon in supermarkets and large retailers, making it the nation’s most popular fish. Farmed salmon is one of the UK’s biggest exports, but the operators of open-net salmon farms have been accused of having a “catastrophic impact” on fish welfare and the environment.

The proposed onshore salmon farm will be located at the docks in Grimsby, Lincolnshire. Photograph: AP S (uk)/Alamy

Charities and conservation groups in January called for organic certification to be removed from open-net salmon and trout farms, because of the “negative environmental impacts”.

The Scottish salmon industry says its farmers meet the highest international standards and are committed to protecting the marine environment.

The Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, a government agency, has highlighted the potential role of indoor tank systems, known as recirculating aquaculture systems.

It says these “closed-loop systems” minimise the risks associated with conventional fish farming such as pollution, parasites and escapees. An English aquaculture strategy published in November 2020 said there was growing investor interest in the land-based production of Atlantic salmon close to large English cities.

The proposed new £120m farm on the eastern outskirts of Grimsby docks is backed by the company AquaCultured Seafood. The business says the facility would “optimise” fish welfare and prevent disease or sea lice from entering the system. The scheme is supported by the Seafood Grimsby and Humber Alliance as a “stepping stone’ to UK food security.

skip past newsletter promotion

after newsletter promotion

A submission to the planning committee by Mark Borthwick, a doctoral fellow in salmon farming, warned the farm would require high stocking densities. He said salmon ranged widely with a strong migration drive and it was unknown how they would cope in the cramped conditions of an onshore farm.

His submission stated: “The industry’s hope is that by doing the whole operation under factory conditions, they can control disease. However, as has been abundantly established in other farming environments, there is no truly biosecure factory farm and other diseases will emerge.”

Edie Bowles, solicitor at Advocates for Animals, the legal firm representing Animal Equality UK in the case against the council, said: “I am delighted with the [judicial review] application being granted permission. It will hopefully be a wake-up call to other planning authorities that they need to follow the correct process.“This case is all about proper scrutiny being given for planning decisions that pose huge risks, including to animal welfare.”

The council said it would not comment while legal proceedings were continuing. AquaCultured Seafood has been approached for comment.

Read the full story here.
Photos courtesy of

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Lab-Grown Organoids Could Transform Female Reproductive Medicine

Artificial tissues that mimic the placenta, endometrium, ovary and vagina could point to treatments for common conditions such as preeclampsia and endometriosis

In 2017, Ashley Moffett, a reproductive immunologist, walked to the pharmacy near her laboratory at the University of Cambridge, UK, to buy a pregnancy test. But it wasn’t for Moffett. Her postdoc, Margherita Turco, had created what she thought might be the first cluster of cells capable of mimicking the tissue of the placenta — a placental organoid. But she needed a way to be sure.“We must do a pregnancy test on them,” Moffett said.If Turco was correct, the miniature ball of cells she had created would secrete HCG, the hormone that triggers a positive pregnancy test. “I took the stick, put it in, and it was positive,” says Turco, now a reproductive biologist at the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research in Basel, Switzerland. “It was the best celebration.”On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.Scientists make organoids such as this by coaxing stem cells to grow in a jelly-like substance and to self-assemble into clumps of tissue. The typically hollow or solid balls of cells don’t look anything like real organs. But they do take on key aspects of the organ that they’re meant to represent — liver, brain, lung or stomach, for instance.The mini-organs have the advantage of being more realistic than a 2D cell culture — the conventional in vitro workhorses — because they behave more like tissue. The cells divide, differentiate, communicate, respond to their environment and, just like in a real organ, die. And, because they contain human cells, they can be more representative than many animal models. “Animals are good models in the generalities, but they start to fall down in the particulars,” says Linda Griffith, a biological engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.Over the past decade, organoid research has exploded. Researchers have used them to study early brain development, test cancer therapies and much more. And these 3D models stand to become even more crucial as US agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency, aim to move away from animal testing.Now researchers are using organoids to study female reproduction, an area in which animal models can be especially limited. Lab mice, for example, don’t menstruate. And their placentas don’t develop in the same way as human placentas do. That challenge, along with a historical lack of funding for women’s health research, has left basic questions unanswered.“I really see it as a powerful model to do science,” says Mirjana Kessler, a cell biologist at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in Germany, who has developed an organoid that mimics the fallopian tube and a biobank of ovarian cancer organoids.Organoids of the placenta, endometrium, ovary and vagina could help to reveal how these organs function, and what happens when things go awry.“There’s so much work to do to understand the normal biology,” Turco says.The placenta invadesThe placenta plays a key part in maternal health during pregnancy. Humans aren’t the only species that develops a placenta, but the “human placenta is quite different than most other species, even primates actually, apart from apes”, says Moffett. Mice and humans, for example, both have placentas that invade the uterine lining, but the timing of development and the depth of invasion differ. Exactly what happens during the early days of placental development is still unclear, but problems at this stage can have serious consequences later.One of the placenta’s first jobs is to create a link between the mother and the developing embryo. To do this, the placenta invades the spiral arteries that feed the uterus. The invasive cells open up the arteries, “essentially making a channel so that mom can provide what she needs through her blood supply”, says Victoria Roberts, a developmental biologist at the Oregon National Primate Research Center in Beaverton. (Nature recognizes that transgender men and non-binary people might have female reproductive organs and might become pregnant. ‘Mother’ is used in this article to reflect language used by the field.)The process can be deadly if it goes wrong. If the placenta invades too deeply, a condition called placenta accreta, the expectant mother can lose too much blood during birth. And if the organ doesn’t invade deeply enough, then the fetus might not get enough nutrients to sustain its growth.Organoids made of placental cells can help reveal how the organ invades the uterine lining.Turco lab, Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical ResearchShallow invasion can also impact the mother’s health. When the placenta doesn’t get enough blood, research suggests it can become inflamed and secrete harmful factors into the mother’s blood that trigger pre-eclampsia, a condition characterized by protein build-up in the blood and dangerously high blood pressure. Worldwide, 2–8% of pregnant people develop the condition. “It’s a very serious pregnancy complication that goes silent and undetected until very late into pregnancy,” says Quinton Smith, a chemical engineer at the University of California, Irvine. The only way to cure the condition is to deliver the baby, even if that means a preterm birth.To better understand the condition, Smith, Turco and other researchers are using organoids made of placental cells called trophoblasts to model the molecular processes involved. Turco is focused on the basic biology of how invasion is regulated, a process that seems to be controlled by both the fetus and the mother. “It’s got to be a compromise,” Moffett says. “It’s an absolute dialogue.”That dialogue seems to be happening between the placenta and the uterine lining. As a case in point, when an embryo implants somewhere the lining doesn’t exist — on a scar left by a previous caesarean delivery or in a fallopian tube, for example — “there’s no control of the invasion at all”, Turco says.Research suggests that immune cells called uterine natural killer cells have a key role in this conversation. The cells don’t kill but instead send out chemical signals that help to regulate the invasion of the uterine lining.When Turco, Moffett and their colleagues exposed the mini-placentas to these chemical signals and analysed which genes the cells expressed, they found that many were associated with pre-eclampsia.“I’m sure it’s not the whole story,” Moffett says. “But it does show you how you can use those organoids to ask these fundamental questions about human pregnancy.”Mimicking menstruationTurco’s first attempt to create a mini-placenta in 2016 didn’t go as planned. The placental tissue she was working with contained not only trophoblasts, but also a few rogue maternal cells from the endometrium, the uterine lining that builds up and then sheds each month during menstruation. Those maternal cells “kept on growing and taking over,” she says. “It was a setback at that time.”But now Turco sees it as a wonderful discovery, because she instead grew organoids that represent the endometrium. This, along with another endometrial model published in the same year, really opened the door for everyone else, says Griffith.Griffith has been studying the endometrium for more than a decade. The research is personal. When Griffith hit puberty, she developed a debilitating condition called endometriosis. The disease, which affects about 10% of people with a uterus who are of reproductive age, occurs when endometrium-like tissue grows in places it doesn’t belong.Because this tissue is trapped inside the body, it can’t be shed properly. Instead, it can irritate surrounding healthy tissue, causing inflammation, pain and scar tissue. Although existing therapies address some of the symptoms, they don’t provide a cure.Organoids are typically grown in Matrigel, a jelly-like substance extracted from mouse tumour cells that allows the cells to assemble into 3D structures. Griffith wanted to put epithelial cells, which compose the uterine lining, with stromal cells that support that lining. In the body, these cells need to communicate with each other to bring about the changes that occur with the monthly cycle. But Matrigel is packed with proteins that can hamper the cell-to-cell communication. So Griffith and her colleagues developed a hydrogel that’s entirely synthetic.Griffith’s team has also been working on the next step, a model of abnormal endometrial tissue that the researchers can use to test therapies for the condition. Because blood vessels are crucial to maintaining this tissue, Griffith knew she wanted to include them. To do this, she and her colleagues placed the organoid on a microfluidic chip surrounded by cells that form blood vessels. “We put all of these cells in together at the beginning in a gel, and the blood vessels form spontaneously,” she says. “So the organoids turn into lesion-like structures,” she adds. “It’s actually kind of wild.”Griffith and her team have created these model systems from the cells of about a dozen people with endometriosis, and they’re beginning to use them to test compounds that could be promising therapies for the condition.Turco, meanwhile, has developed her endometrial organoid into a model of menstruation. Her team treated the endometrial organoids with hormones to mimic what happens when the endometrial lining is regenerating. Then the researchers stopped the hormones to mimic the start of menstruation. In the uterus, the lining breaks up naturally. In the model, however, the researchers break the organoids up mechanically. When the cells are put back into a gel, the organoids reform. “And you can keep doing this over and over again,” she says.The model allows them to study the mechanisms at work during regeneration. “That’s not possible to study in humans — like ever,” Turco says. Researchers have long thought that the stem cells that lie beneath the surface of the lining are solely responsible for regenerating it. But Turco’s research suggests that cells on the surface might have a role, too.The vagina, ovaries and moreFor Kathryn Patras, a microbiologist at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, organoids are a way to explore the diversity of bacteria that colonize the vagina and how they influence human health. A healthy vaginal microbiome can help to prevent harmful bacteria from taking over. A disrupted microbiome, however, seems to increase a woman’s risk of catching a sexually transmitted infection and of experiencing complications during pregnancy.The vaginal microbiome is particularly tricky to study in mice. Its composition is entirely different from that of humans. And introducing a human microbiome into the mouse vagina is nearly impossible. Patras tried for years. “It just failed splendidly,” she says.So Patras and her colleagues harvest naturally existing stem cells from the human vagina and coax these cells to form organoids. These mini-vaginas are hollow balls, not tubes. And because the researchers are trying to study the vaginal lining, which isn’t spherical, they break up the organoids to make “open-faced tissue layers”, says Patras. On one side, the cells have media that nourishes them. On the other, “they’re seeing air, which is what they would see in the human tissue,” she says.One of the team’s goals is to look at whether beneficial microorganisms that are found typically in the vagina, such as Lactobacillus, can protect the vaginal tract from being colonized by harmful microbes. Although the assumption has long been that the pathogens that cause urinary tract infections come from the gut, some research suggests that the vaginal microbiome could play a part. Preventing colonization there might reduce the risk of infections in the urinary tract.Ovaries are also getting the organoid treatment, both for studying fertility and the transition to menopause, which comes with a host of aggravating symptoms and an increased risk of heart disease, stroke and osteoporosis.Francesca Duncan, a reproductive biologist at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, Illinois, and her colleagues are using ovarian organoids to study reproductive ageing. Researchers in this field have focused conventionally on the ovary’s follicle. “That’s the kind of functional unit,” says Duncan. It’s the part that generates hormones and contains the developing egg. About a decade ago, however, researchers in her lab discovered that, in mice, it’s not just the egg that ages — the ovary becomes inflamed and stiffer with age. She suspects that this ovarian ageing could influence both the number and quality of the eggs and, therefore, affect fertility.Duncan wanted an in vitro model to study this ageing process and whether drugs might be able to reverse it. Plenty of labs have managed to grow follicles outside the ovary. They’ve even managed to get those follicles to give rise to eggs. But Duncan wanted to study the other cells that make up the ovary. When a graduate student suggested trying to grow an ovarian organoid, Duncan was sceptical. “It seemed like a fad,” she says. But the student was so enthusiastic that Duncan gave the project the green light. The research has already been “really, really fruitful”, she says.So far, Duncan’s team has created ovarian organoids from the ovaries of mice and rhesus macaques, finding, for example, that the stiffening of individual cells in the ovary might be responsible for how the ovary tissue stiffens as it ages.The team’s next step is to develop human ovarian organoids to screen compounds that could stave off this stiffening or even reverse it, Duncan says.Researchers are also using organoids to study ovarian cancer, the fifth-leading cause of cancer-related deaths in women. Some teams are studying how the disease emerges by examining organoids that mimic the fallopian tube. That’s because research suggests that the vast majority of the deadliest ovarian cancers actually originate there. Other groups are modelling ovarian and other cancers of the female reproductive tract by growing organoids from tumour tissue that has been taken from people with the disease.Although researchers are learning a great deal from organoids that represent a single tissue or cell type, some teams are hoping to learn even more by combining them with other organoids or incorporating them into more-complex systems. Endometrial organoids can be combined with placental organoids to study a fuller picture of invasion, for example. Or they can be mixed with lab-created embryo models to study implantation.Even these more-intricate organoids won’t capture the full complexity of human tissue. But they don’t have to. Organoids might be a reductionist model, but “still they’re revealing so much,” Turco says. “I keep getting surprised.”This article is reproduced with permission and was first published on September 23, 2025.

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Scientists Find Brain Circuit That Locks Alcohol Users in Addiction Cycle

Researchers at Scripps Research have shown in an animal model that the brain learns to pursue alcohol as a way to find relief, rather than only for its rewarding effects. What drives a person to keep drinking alcohol despite the harm it causes to their health, relationships, and overall well-being? New research from Scripps Research [...]

Scientists have pinpointed a hidden brain circuit that may explain why withdrawal drives people back to alcohol. Credit: ShutterstockResearchers at Scripps Research have shown in an animal model that the brain learns to pursue alcohol as a way to find relief, rather than only for its rewarding effects. What drives a person to keep drinking alcohol despite the harm it causes to their health, relationships, and overall well-being? New research from Scripps Research points to a possible answer: a small midline brain region helps shape how animals learn to drink in order to relieve the stress and discomfort of withdrawal. In a study recently published in Biological Psychiatry: Global Open Science, the Scripps Research team examined brain activity in the paraventricular nucleus of the thalamus (PVT) in rats. They discovered that when rats linked environmental cues with alcohol’s ability to ease withdrawal symptoms, activity in this brain region increased, reinforcing relapse behaviors. By uncovering this pathway, the study highlights one of addiction’s most persistent aspects—using alcohol not for enjoyment but to avoid suffering—and may pave the way for new therapies for substance use disorders (SUDs) and related conditions such as anxiety. “What makes addiction so hard to break is that people aren’t simply chasing a high,” says Friedbert Weiss, professor of neuroscience at Scripps Research and senior author of the study. “They’re also trying to get rid of powerful negative states, like the stress and anxiety of withdrawal. This work shows us which brain systems are responsible for locking in that kind of learning, and why it can make relapse so persistent.” “This brain region just lit up in every rat that had gone through withdrawal-related learning,” says co-senior author Hermina Nedelescu of Scripps Research. “It shows us which circuits are recruited when the brain links alcohol with relief from stress—and that could be a game-changer in how we think about relapse.” From behavior to brain maps About 14.5 million people in the United States are estimated to have alcohol use disorder, a condition that includes a spectrum of harmful drinking behaviors. Similar to other forms of substance addiction, it is marked by recurring cycles of withdrawal, abstinence, and relapse. In 2022, researchers Weiss and Nedelescu investigated these processes in rats to better understand how learning shapes addiction in the brain. At the outset, the animals linked alcohol with pleasurable effects and were motivated to drink more. But as they went through repeated periods of withdrawal and relapse, the drive to drink became much stronger. Once the rats learned that alcohol could relieve the distress of withdrawal—an example of negative reinforcement, or the easing of a “negative hedonic state”—they pursued alcohol more intensely and continued seeking it even in challenging conditions. “When rats learn to associate environmental stimuli or contexts with the experience of relief, they end up with an incredibly powerful urge to seek alcohol in the presence of that stimuli –even if conditions are introduced that require great effort to engage in alcohol seeking,” says Weiss. “That is, these rats seek alcohol even if that behavior is punished.” In this study, the researchers set out to identify the specific networks of brain cells that drive the learning process in which environmental cues become linked to the relief of a negative hedonic state. Using advanced whole-brain imaging in rats, they analyzed cellular activity to determine which regions became more responsive to alcohol-associated cues. Four groups of rats were compared: one group that had experienced withdrawal and learned that alcohol reduced a negative hedonic state, and three separate control groups that had not developed this association. Although multiple brain regions showed heightened activity in the withdrawal-experienced group, one region in particular stood out: the paraventricular nucleus of the thalamus (PVT), a structure already recognized for its involvement in stress and anxiety. “In retrospect, this makes a lot of sense,” says Nedelescu. “The unpleasant effects of alcohol withdrawal are strongly associated with stress, and alcohol is providing relief from the agony of that stressful state.” The researchers hypothesize that this negative hedonic state, and the activation of the PVT in the brain as a response, is critical for how the brain learns and perpetuates addiction. A better understanding of addiction The implications of the new study extend well beyond alcohol, the researchers say. Environmental stimuli conditioned to negative reinforcement—the drive to act in order to escape pain or stress—is a universal feature of the brain, and can drive human behavior beyond substance use disorders such as anxiety disorders, fear-conditioning and traumatic avoidance learning. “This work has potential applications not only for alcohol addiction, but also other disorders where people get trapped in harmful cycles,” says Nedelescu. Future research will zoom in even further. Nedelescu and colleagues at Scripps Research want to expand the study to females and to study neurochemicals released in the PVT when subjects encounter environments associated with the experience of this relief from a negative hedonic state. If they can pinpoint molecules that are involved, it could open new avenues for drug development by targeting those molecules. For now, the new study underscores a key shift in how basic scientists think about addiction. “As psychologists, we’ve long known that addiction isn’t just about chasing pleasure—it’s about escaping those negative hedonic states,” says Weiss. “This study shows us where in the brain that learning takes root, which is a step forward.” Reference: “Recruitment of Neuronal Populations in the Paraventricular Thalamus of Alcohol-Seeking Rats With Withdrawal-Related Learning Experience” by Hermina Nedelescu, Elias Meamari, Nami Rajaei, Alexus Grey, Ryan Bullard, Nathan O’Connor, Nobuyoshi Suto and Friedbert Weiss, 5 August 2025, Biological Psychiatry Global Open Science.DOI: 10.1016/j.bpsgos.2025.100578 This work was supported by funding from the National Institutes of Health (Ruth L. Kirschstein Institutional National Research Service Award T32AA007456, K01 DA054449, R01 AA027555, and R01 AA023183). Never miss a breakthrough: Join the SciTechDaily newsletter.

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This Invasive Vampire Fish Is Helping Researchers Understand the Human Nervous System in Jaw-Dropping Ways

The sea lamprey looks like it’s from another planet, but this ancient creature has a surprising amount in common with humans

This Invasive Vampire Fish Is Helping Researchers Understand the Human Nervous System in Jaw-Dropping Ways The sea lamprey looks like it’s from another planet, but this ancient creature has a surprising amount in common with humans A sea lamprey shows off its nightmarish mouth. NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory via Wikimedia Commons under CC By-SA 2.0 Key takeaways: Sea lampreys and research Sea lampreys have large neurons and synapses, making them ideal for neuroscience research. Scientists study the creatures to learn more about how we might recover from spinal cord injuries. With a suction-cup mouth and over 100 teeth, the sea lamprey has earned the nickname "vampire fish" and comparisons to sea monsters. Sea lampreys are one of the world’s most ancient fish species, killing prey by latching their suction-cup mouth onto a fish's skin and rasping away the fish's flesh with a rough tongue to feed on blood and bodily fluids. Sea lampreys sound like something from a horror movie, but the creatures have been crucial to almost two centuries of neuroscience research. Neuroscientists study sea lamprey spinal cells, which the animals can regenerate if their spinal cord is damaged, as a model to understand the human nervous system, spinal cord injuries and neurological disease. The evolution of human brains and nervous systems is also closely tied to these alien-like creatures. Neurologists and zoologists began studying lampreys in the 1830s, examining their nerve cells to understand how the spinal cord works. Lamprey research took off after 1959, when biologists first described lampreys’ ability to regenerate spinal cord neurons and eventually swim after spinal damage. Sea lampreys are ideal for neuroscientists to work with because the animals have large nerve cells and synapses, making observation easier than in other species. “The synapses are so big that you can see them, and you can record from them and access them very easily,” says Jennifer Morgan, neuroscientist at the University of Chicago’s Marine Biological Laboratory. The creatures also have a similar molecular and genetic toolkit to humans, she says, which can make it simpler to translate research from lampreys to humans and find tools that work in both species. Lampreys thrive in different types of water, all over the globe. “[Lampreys] have been found on every continent except for Antarctica,” says Morgan, whose lab uses sea lampreys for research. “So, they’re very hearty animals and super easy to maintain.” The sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus) filter feeds as a larva but becomes parasitic once it reaches adulthood, latching onto fish and feeding on their blood. They can feed on trout, salmon and other large, commercially important fish, and one sea lamprey can destroy up to 40 pounds of fish per year. Much of the supply of sea lampreys for research comes from the Great Lakes, where lampreys wreak havoc on the fishing industry. Although the species is native to the Atlantic Ocean, improvements in the late 1800s and early 1900s to canals connecting Lake Ontario and Lake Erie to the ocean enabled lampreys to bypass Niagara Falls, which had previously been a natural barrier. From there, lampreys invaded the lakes, where they have no natural predators. By the 1960s, lampreys had devastated trout fisheries in the region and a control program began to weed them out using pesticides. Sea lampreys’ invasion of the Great Lakes has actually boosted their use in research. Over the last century, the Great Lakes Fishery Commission has directed considerable amounts of research funding toward lampreys, to study their life cycle and how to eradicate them. This put more lampreys in labs, resulting in studies on other aspects of their anatomy and evolution. Collectors catch wild lampreys in the Great Lakes, says Morgan, and send them to the lab in coolers. “Great Lakes fisheries harvested these lampreys, and they wanted scientists to understand them more,” says Robb Krumlauf, developmental biologist and scientific director emeritus at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research, who also researches lampreys sent from the Great Lakes. “They had a natural supply that they could give to those who are interested in the research.” Although lampreys look like they’re from another planet, they have more in common with us than it might seem. Lampreys branched off from other vertebrates about 500 million years ago, so they have some of the oldest traits in the lineage: they’re at the base of the vertebrate branch of the evolutionary tree. Because of this, studying lampreys’ genomes can clarify important evolutionary steps in the lineage—like when vertebrates developed jaws, or arms and legs. Sea lampreys survived multiple mass extinction events, including the asteroid 66 million years ago that wiped out roughly 80 percent of life on Earth. “It’s a chance to have a glimpse of the past. It’s sort of like a living fossil,” says Krumlauf. Krumlauf studies how sea lamprey evolution and human evolution are related through how our faces and heads develop. The brain region that shapes facial and cranial features is similar across vertebrates, from lampreys to chickens to mice to zebrafish, even though all these animals’ heads look quite different. “There’s a common toolkit,” says Krumlauf. “If you have building materials, and they’re all the same, you can build a garden shed or you can build a mansion––what’s different is the way the blueprint is put together.” Studying lampreys shows how these blueprints evolved in the earliest vertebrates, says Krumlauf. His research links facial and head development in the animals to the development of craniofacial abnormalities in humans. The evolutionary history of lampreys and other vertebrates also helps scientists like Yi-Rong Peng, ophthalmologist and neurobiologist at UCLA, illuminate the evolution of vision. Peng’s research has found lamprey retinal cells are similar to those of other vertebrates, such as mice, chickens and zebrafish. Such a finding suggests retinal vision, like humans have, evolved early in the vertebrate lineage. Studying the overlaps between animal retinas gives a window into how vertebrates saw the world 500 million years ago. And understanding how the retina first formed in humans can help Peng’s research team study retinal cell degeneration that leads to blindness. Morgan’s lab studies how sea lampreys regenerate spinal cords, and its work could lead to advances that help humans recover from spinal damage. When researchers cut a sea lamprey’s spinal cord, it becomes paralyzed but can regenerate nerve connections. The process does not have to be perfect to work, adds Purdue University science historian Kathryn Maxson Jones. Lampreys’ original neuron connections don’t reform in the same way, but cells grow in flexible ways to compensate for damage––biology can take different routes to achieve the goal of a spinal cord that works again. And the large size of lampreys’ cells and synapses enable the research team to closely examine the whole process. A microscopic view of a sea lamprey’s reconnected spinal cord shows how it healed after being cut. Daniel Cojanu, Under Current Productions Sea lampreys are also crucial to Morgan’s research on Parkinson’s disease. A specific protein’s accumulation in the brain is linked to the progression of the disease, so injecting that protein into lamprey synapses allows the researchers to observe how it affects the nervous system. This gives insight into how the disease progresses in the human nervous system and how exactly neurons can recover. Scientists observe how damaged lamprey neurons regenerate and how many synaptic connections are restored, guiding how to target treatment in human brains. Morgan’s research team hopes to move from understanding nervous system damage in lampreys and humans to how to fix it. When you cut your finger and the area becomes numb, that’s because of damage to the nerve endings in the finger, which is part of your peripheral nervous system, explains Morgan. But you do eventually get feeling back, because humans can regenerate cells in the peripheral nervous system––just not in our central nervous system. But lampreys can. “When lampreys regenerate the spinal cord and recover function, they are using a lot of the same changes in gene expression that occur during regeneration of the peripheral nervous system in mammals,” says Morgan. “Why we can’t do that in our spinal cord is a big question. But I think learning from the adaptations of these animals, that can do these really neat feats of nature like regeneration, will tell you something about the recipe that needs to happen, the conditions that need to be met,” adds Morgan. And the parallels between lampreys’ brain features and ours make crucial research possible when studying human brains isn’t an option. “It often points us in the direction of things we would’ve never looked at in humans,” says Krumlauf. Get the latest Science stories in your inbox.

Animals
Extinction
Nature

Will Portland weaken its policy to phase out diesel, replace it with biofuels?

Portland’s Renewable Fuels Standards Advisory Committee is poised to recommend delaying the phase-out -- but the decision on how to move ahead will be made by city leaders.

Portland leaders may soon weigh whether to roll back parts of the city’s signature climate policy on replacing diesel with renewable fuels, a first-in-the-nation standard critical to reducing emissions and harmful particulate matter pollution. The policy, adopted by the City Council in 2022 and aimed at medium and heavy trucks, phases out the sale of petroleum diesel by 2030, gradually replacing it with diesel blended with renewable fuels at increasingly higher increments.Council members had hailed the diesel phase-out as a tool to reduce pollution in low-income neighborhoods often located near freeways with high concentrations of diesel emissions. As part of the policy, a 15% blend requirement began in 2024, a 50% blend will be required by 2026 and a 99% blend by 2030. Medium and heavy trucks affected by the policy include delivery trucks, school and transit buses, dump trucks, tractor trailers and cement mixers. But Portland’s Renewable Fuels Standards Advisory Committee is poised to recommend weakening the phase-out. The committee was established in July 2023 to advise the city Bureau of Planning and Sustainability director on technical and economic issues related to the renewable fuel supply as well as meeting the policy’s fuel requirements. A draft memo, made public in advance of the committee’s meeting this week, shows the committee is planning to ask the city to reduce the 2026 biofuel percentage requirement from 50% to 20% and delay implementation until 2028 or 2030. The memo was obtained by the Braided River Campaign, a Portland nonprofit that advocates for a green working waterfront, and shared with The Oregonian/OregonLive. The proposed rollback essentially would allow trucks to continue to emit black carbon or “soot” at a higher level and for longer than under the original plan.The draft also recommends pausing for at least two years strict restrictions on the type of feedstock used to make renewable fuels – a standard that three years ago was hailed as the most innovative, emission-reducing part of Portland’s diesel phase-out. The pause would allow retailers to fall back on using biofuels made from feedstocks such as soybean, canola and palm oils which have been linked to much higher carbon emissions, displacing food production and causing deforestation. The draft memo, addressed to Planning and Sustainability’s Director Eric Engstrom, says the changes would respond to unfavorable biodiesel and renewable diesel market conditions in Oregon and Portland, including the scarcity of low-carbon intensity feedstocks such as used cooking oil and animal tallow.It’s unclear who will decide on the future of the diesel phase-out. While Engstrom has sole discretion to make changes to the program’s rules, the City Council holds the authority to amend city code. Engstrom did not immediately comment on whether the recommended changes would require rule or code changes. Portland officials have said they are fully committed to electrification of trucks but that transition will take many years. Moving from diesel to biofuels is an interim step, they said, allowing for faster emission and particulate matter reductions. The committee’ draft recommendation comes as Portland leaders are debating the future of the Critical Energy Infrastructure Hub, a 6-mile stretch on the northwest bank of the Willamette River where most of Oregon’s fuel supply is stored. Zenith Energy, which operates a terminal at the hub that has drawn environmental opposition, has promised the city to convert from fossil fuel loading and storage to renewable fuels. Other companies at the hub are also eyeing renewable fuels as a new income stream. Earlier this week, the city unveiled four alternatives for the hub, one of which allows for unlimited renewable fuel expansion. Environmental advocates said the committee’s recommendations are unacceptable and would gut the renewable fuel policy’s environmental credibility.“This is a complete walk-back of a promise made to Portlanders,” said Marnie Glickman, Braided River Campaign’s executive director. “The city sold this policy on the promise of a rapid decline in carbon pollution. Now, before the strongest rules even take effect, the industry-dominated advisory board is asking for a hall pass to continue using the cheapest, dirtiest biofuels.” The committee is set to refine the memo at its meeting on Thursday and may vote on the recommendation. It must submit the final recommendation to Engstrom by mid-October. Biofuel cost is one of the major reasons the committee cites for the recommended changes. “If the RFS (renewable fuel standard) is left unchanged, the cost of the diesel fuel in Portland could get significantly higher in the City of Portland compared to the rest of the state of Oregon due to the combined higher requirement of renewable content and lower carbon intensity,” the memo said. The draft memo also says Portland’s program has trouble competing with other regional markets such as California for scarce low-carbon intensity biofuels. It also mentions Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill excluding feedstocks supplied from countries outside North America from tax incentives – which is likely to further reduce the supply of low-carbon feedstocks. Glickman said she’s also concerned about the committee’s potential conflict of interest when making recommendations to the sustainability director – a fact the draft memo acknowledges. Six of the seven members of the advisory committee are representatives of fuel producers and suppliers – including bpAmerica, Phillips 66 and the Western States Petroleum Association. The committee’s only non-industry member – Andrew Dyke, a senior economist at ECOnorthwest – declined to comment on the draft memo. In 2006, Portland became the first city in the U.S. to adopt a renewable fuel standard, which required the city’s fuel retailers to sell a minimum blend of 5% biodiesel. The city updated the policy in 2022 to a full diesel phase-out. The current policy far exceeds the federal and state renewable fuel standards.If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

Animals
Climate
Energy

Salmon farmer accused of blocking UK investigations into alleged animal rights breaches

Faroese firm Bakkafrost wants to ban campaigner Don Staniford from going within 15 metres of its fish farmsOne of Europe’s largest salmon farmers has been accused of attacking the civil rights of environmental campaigners by asking for sweeping restrictions on their freedom to investigate alleged animal rights breaches.The Faroese company Bakkafrost, which produces about 20% of the UK’s farmed salmon, has asked a judge to consider banning the campaigner Don Staniford from going within 15 metres of any of its fish farms, boats and barges. Continue reading...

One of Europe’s largest salmon farmers has been accused of attacking the civil rights of environmental campaigners by asking for sweeping restrictions on their freedom to investigate alleged animal rights breaches.The Faroese company Bakkafrost, which produces about 20% of the UK’s farmed salmon, has asked a judge to consider banning the campaigner Don Staniford from going within 15 metres of any of its fish farms, boats and barges.The company is seeking an interdict, or injunction, that would extend to anyone acting with Staniford, or guided by him, from approaching, entering or boarding any of Bakkafrost’s more than 200 salmon farms, ships, factories, docks, hatcheries and offices – including its head office in Edinburgh.Don Staniford has documented conditions in Scottish salmon farms. Civil rights groups argue that Bakkafrost’s legal action amounts to an attempt to shut down legitimate investigations in the public interest, using a tactic known as a strategic lawsuits against public participation, or Slapp.Staniford, one of the UK’s most prominent fish farm campaigners, has already been ordered to stay away from fish farms and land bases in Scotland owned by the Norwegian multinational Mowi and by Scottish Sea Farms.Staniford, who is based in north-west England and known to his supporters as the “kayak vigilante”, boards salmon farms to look for any evidence of disease or parasite infestations on fish, or any evidence of illegal chemical discharges, at times with documentary film-makers and journalists.All three firms say they uphold the highest legal and welfare standards on their farms.Bakkafrost’s legal action, being heard at Dunoon sheriff court near Glasgow, is trying to establish an even broader restriction than its competitors by asking for the 15-metre exclusion zone around all its assets. Breaching that interdict would be a contempt of court, exposing campaigners to the risk of imprisonment.Mowi tried and failed to impose a similar exclusion area against Staniford but that restriction was thrown out on appeal. Staniford said Mowi is pursuing him for £123,000 in court costs and legal costs – a bill he is unable to pay.Nik Williams, a policy officer with the Index on Censorship and a co-chair of the UK Anti-Slapp coalition, said sweeping bans of this kind, particularly if the interdict appeared to include anyone associated with Staniford, had a chilling effect on public debate.He said: “Anywhere there are legal constraints like this, people will step back scrutinising these incredibly influential industries”, adding it was “quite concerning” that Bakkafrost was seeking a 15-metre exclusion area despite knowing that Mowi’s application to do so had failed.Bakkafrost wants its “extended interdict” to include Staniford “by himself or by his agents, employees, or servants, or by anyone acting on his behalf or under his instructions, or procurement”.skip past newsletter promotionThe planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essentialPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionIn the first day of the hearing, Staniford’s lawyer, Nicole Hogg, told the sheriff, Laura Mundell, the judge presiding over the case, that Bakkafrost wanted sweeping restrictions on him without specifying why they were needed.She said it had failed to produce evidence that it owned or leased the land-based properties it wanted to protect, or why an exclusion zone was necessary at sea. “It is not sufficiently precise,” she told Mundell.Ruairidh Leishman, acting for Bakkafrost, said the 15-metre zone was useful because it set a precise boundary for the court, but it was asking for it to be imposed only if the judge believed it necessary.He said the case it had against Staniford would be disclosed at a later hearing, but this was not an attack on his freedom of expression.Even though Staniford had voluntarily agreed not to enter its properties in December 2024 while its application was being heard, he had continued to make highly critical comments about Bakkafrost. “This a case about property rights and not freedom of expression,” Leishman told the court.The case is due to continue at a later date.

Animals
Chemicals
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