Glutton of the Galaxy: Kepler 10c, the Plus Sized Planet

We talked about Kepler 78b, the rocky hellscape that likely formed in the center of a star (or…somehow, researchers still aren’t sure.) That was one of our first entries last year, you can read that here (The Planet that Should Not Be: Kepler 78b). We also discussed HD 106906b that formed so far away from its parent star that scientists have no clue as to how it came about either. (HD 106906b: The Avant-Garde of Planetary Formation.)

 Science is all about proving and disproving theories, but lately there seems to be far more disproof than better understanding. The newest of which to join the ranks of scientific head-scratchers is Kepler 10c. Located 564 light-years away in the Draco system, this rock giant has thrown yet another wrench in the spokes of planetary formation.

Last week we talked about Space Medicine, Nazis, and the Habitable Zone. This week we’re heading deep into space to a…less hospitable environment. We’re going to talk about the current state of the Kepler Satellite, this super-giant rocky world, and what scientists are planning for the future of space exploration.

But first, what’s the deal with Kepler?

You Had ONE Job Kepler…

Launched in 2009, the Kepler space observatory had one mission: find hospitable planets out there in the galaxy, and find as many as possible. Five years later, Kepler has not only outlived expectations, but it has discovered far more planets than we initially had thought it would. With almost 1,000 confirmed exoplanets in over 400 star systems, with another 3,200 possibilities, Kepler was truly a remarkable piece of equipment.

I say ‘was’ not because it crashed or exploded or anything like that. The Kepler Satellite is still floating around out there about forty million miles from Earth, but it’s not exactly up to par. It seems, its prolonged exposure to the universe has weighed heavy on its solar powered soul and the $550 million dollar satellite has been looking into retirement plans.

In early 2013 the reaction wheels on the satellite went out. This is bad because those wheels don’t work like the ones on your car, they aren’t for landing. They’re for visual attenuation. They work like a flywheel in space, keeping the spacecraft from burning fuel whilst allowing researchers to dial it in on specific points in the galaxy.

They allow for a spacecraft to make micro-adjustments. This is extremely important because when you’re searching for a needle in the proverbial planetary haystack it pays to have a an accurate magnifying glass to poke around with. These wheels keep the spacecraft aligned with whatever object it’s looking at on the horizon. Without them, the slightest shift could send the picture spiraling out of focus.

Because of this failure, researchers at NASA have had to power down Kepler, returning it to a Point Rest State (PRS). Essentially this is like a sleep mode for satellites. They’ve shut down all non-vital hardware on Kepler and are keeping it afloat for now while they decide whether to bring him home or alter mission parameters.

But just because this eye-in-the-sky isn’t quite as spry as he used to be doesn’t mean he’s done, on the contrary, Kepler is far from finished. Having just discovered Kepler 186f, (Third Reich from the Sun: Nazis, Space Medicine, and the Habitable Zone) so far the most likely hospitable planet we’ve found, it’s proving that even with manual thrust and some complicated mathematics on the part of astronomy teams, he still has much, much more to show us.

Enter, Kepler 10c, the rocky Earth-like super-giant.

“That’s a Huge ‘Disc’”

Current theories of planetary formation tell us that once a rocky planet gathers the mass of ten Earth’s it becomes a gas giant, (I’m sure Galactus got backed up too after eating too many worlds…) but apparently no one remembered to send an email out to Kepler 10c. This giant is 17 times the mass of Earth. Yeah, that’s right…just let that sink in for a minute. This planet is seventeen times bigger than us! That’s huge.

Because of its size, Kepler 10c has found itself in a class all of its own, called a “Mega-Earth”. The reason it’s such a big deal is that originally, astronomers had thought a rocky planet would max out its size by the time it reached ten times the mass of Earth. The reason being is that the disc it was forming from would use up all of the solid material in the area and would resort to using gases such as helium and hydrogen. These gases aren’t very compressible, meaning they don’t become solid matter as the planet spins and forms. Because of this, planets this large would form atmospheres similar to Jupiter and Neptune.

Not only is this a shot to planetary formation, it also throws a wrench in the formation of stellar systems as a whole in the search for extraterrestrial life. Astrobiologists had originally ruled out ancient stars as being able to host rocky planets because astronomers had assumed that heavier elements that make up rocky planets like carbon, oxygen, and silicon were much less abundant than they are today. Kepler 10, the star that Kepler 10c orbits, is around 11 billion years old. In contrast, our star, the sun, is only 4.6 billion, just an astrological adolescent really.

This forces them to extend their search for life into other regions of the galaxy previously thought to contain only gaseous bodies. As we mentioned before, the Kepler satellite is down for the count. So how do scientists propose we look into space again to discover new planets? And Kepler was great, but it couldn’t distinguish between rocky Terra worlds, like Mars and Earth, and Jovian, like Jupiter and Neptune, worlds very well.

Well, I’m here to tell you NASA has a solution to both.

And it sounds like a new Transformer.

Starshade. Autobot or Decepticon?

Looking like something straight out of Michael Bay’s concept art room, the Exo-S, or, Starshade, is a unique dual part satellite NASA is looking into. Aside from sounding like something a Dragonball Z character would yell out before an attack, the Starshade has one very important function, to block and redirect incoming starlight so a camera can capture a much clearer and more precise photograph.

The problem with current telescope technology is that it has difficulty finding planets against the backdrop of a star. Ever tried to catch a baseball that’s found its path directly in front of the sun? It usually results in a base-run, a black eye, and a possible concussion. The same rule applies to space. If you want to see something clearly, you have to block out the sun.

Currently there are two proposed ways to accomplish this. The first one, the Starshade, is a two part telescope system. The first part is a massive panel that will block the light around the satellite so as not to interfere with the photograph, the second part is a telescope with a much higher resolution threshold than Kepler ever dreamed of. The second proposition is a telescope with shape changing mirrors inside.

Sara Seager of MIT is one such dreamer. She has proposed the Exo-S. The dual satellite system will employ a 34-meter-wide, sunflower shaped disk that will float some distance away from the satellite itself. The purpose of this petal formed parachute isn’t to slow the satellite down, but to filter starlight in specific patterns so as to minimize glare on the images, and allow us to capture better, brighter, pictures of exoplanets as they orbit around their star.

The biggest benefit of Sara’s design is that it doesn’t require a complex and extremely expensive telescope to accompany the Starshade. Sara says that it will only need a telescope about one centimeter in diameter. However this would be impractical for scientists to build and it will likely be just over a meter across. This is still less than half the diameter of the Hubble, which is quite a large deal.

A separate proposal, called Exo-C goes in the complete opposite direction of Sara’s design. It would require an extremely complex design as opposed to the simplicity put forth by the Exo-S. The Exo-C relies on something called Adaptive Optics, or shape-changing mirrors. It would also require a Coronagraph, a small light-blocking disk, to work in tandem with the mirrors.

The coronagraph was implemented in 1931 by the French astronomer Bernard Lyot. The way they work is by creating a sort of superficial solar eclipse within the telescope by blocking out the star so that only the corona is observable. No, we’re not talking about the same Corona you drink on a white beach during a Caribbean cruise; we’re talking about the aura of light surrounding a star.

With the main source of light being blotted out, the aura would provide just enough residual light for astronomers to pick out orbiting planets more easily. Not only that, but they would be able to more clearly distinguish between which ones are gas giants and which ones are rocky. No longer will we have to wait three years like we did with Kepler 10c to discover that not only do they exist, but what kind of planet they are.

While both designs are in their interim stages, both plans have to be submitted to NASA in full detail by 2015 so engineers can decide which project to go with. Regardless of which one they choose they both have pros and cons. The Exo-C would be highly expensive to build, but it would be far more maneuverable. The Exo-S would certainly be more wallet friendly, but the amount of calculations and precision accuracy that would go into steering both the satellite and the Starshade at the same time would be difficult to say the least.

Either way, NASA plans to start building one of them by 2017, and hopefully, by 2024, we can get a much closer glimpse at the fat cats floating around the intergalactic domains.

-       Ryan Sanders

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed the article feel free to share it around on Twitter and Facebook! And if you would like to know more about any of the topics discussed above today, follow the links below! Happy Learning everyone!

-       Center for Astrophysics article on Kepler 10c

-       NASA report on Kepler 10c

-       NASA statement on Kepler Satellite failure

-       FCW article on Kepler Satellite failure

-       Wiki on Kepler Satellite

-       Interim report on Exo-S

-       Interim report on Exo-C

-       Wiki on Adaptive Optics

Third Reich from the Sun: Nazis, Space Medicine, and The Habitable Zone

Oh yeah… You read that right.

The Nazis.

Space medicine.

And the Circumstellar Habitable Zone.

What do all three of these things have in common?

One brilliant German physiologist’s tarnished reputation. His name was Hubertus Strughold, and he was truly a remarkable man. Today at To Infinity and…In Theory we’re going to talk about this World War II doctor of the Luftwaffe, Operation Paperclip (swear to God, actual name), the beginnings of Space Medicine, and something else.

Oh yeah.

The Habitable Zone.

The Habitable Zone is where we live, Earth. We’re just the right distance from our sun to meet all the requirements to sustain life. But if extremophiles have taught us anything in recent years it’s that the requirements for life may be a little more bendable then we initially led ourselves to believe.

But the Habitable Zone isn’t just important because of Earth, which would be narcissistic to say at best. Turns out, there are billions of planets out there that may meet the requirements to sustain life of some kind. Even rogue planets may experience enough tidal heating to maintain an atmospheric pressure suitable. Our entire way of thinking may have to shift in the search for life..

But before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let’s strap on our combat boots and climb down into the trenches of WWII with Hubertus Strughold.

The Führer of Space Medicine

Here at To Infinity and…In Theory we like to laugh, however…if Monty Python taught us anything it’s that Nazis just aren’t that funny.

So, being that Nazis aren’t funny, you’re probably wondering why I’m making jokes about Dr. Strughold. Well, let me clarify this for you then. I’m making jokes because…drum roll please…

Yep, you guessed it. Hubertus Strughold wasn’t a Nazi.

He was a high ranking medical officer for the Luftwaffe however, which was the German Infantry. Basically, he just worked for the Army…but I can totally see how you’d get those two mixed up… (Kidding…sarcasm…actually can’t believe people get those mixed up…). Several of his assistants and pupils had gone on to work for the Nazi regime however, and before the start of the war Strughold had correspondence with Joseph Goebbels, a high ranking SS officer.

But saying because he knew one psychopath would be akin to saying that because you went to high school with Charles Manson you’re going to grow up to be part of his celebrity killing cult.

Needless to say a brilliant man’s reputation has been tarnished, and brilliant he was indeed. His research during World War II propelled modern aeronautics medicine ahead by decades. I won’t go into the details of the people performing the experimentation processes, but they studied oxygen deprivation and hypothermia amongst other things.

At the end of the war Hubertus found himself on the losing side in an appalling war. I firmly believe he had nothing to do with the Nazi war machine or the abhorrent nature of the Nazis’ atrocities, but that is just one man’s humbly earnest opinion. Needless to say however he had a unique skill set, and Uncle Sam wasn’t one to overlook talent. Hubertus Strughold found himself amongst 1,500 or so odd German doctors, scientists, engineers, and technicians that were immigrated to the United States to work on various projects through a program titled “Operation Paperclip”.

If you’ve seen the Shamwow infomercial you know, “The Germans build good stuff!” Despite the fact the endorser on the advertisement strikes me as a strange fellow and slightly daft he makes a good point. The Germans are well known for building products that are…well, good. They make them to last, and keep great records. Even as a doctor Hubertus was no slouch at sciences in general, which made him an invaluable asset. Good thing they snagged him up in the draft too, because he went on to achieve some truly great things.

He was the first to figure out what the effects of space would be on a human being by overseeing the construction of the Space Cabin Simulator and supervising the testing. He also designed the pressure suit and life support systems used onboard the Apollo missions, without Strughold, we’d have never beat the Russian’s to the moon!

Strughold was investigated extensively by the Department of Justice, and since he was found clean every time, was allowed to continue his work with NASA and the United States government. Hubertus was awarded dual citizenship in the late 50’s and an award was established in his name in 1962. What was the award for you ask? Space medicine. He is known as the Father of Space Medicine after all.

Anyone who advanced the field of space medicine significantly was given the Hubertus Strughold award. It was presented by the Aerospace Medical Association. Every year since 1963 the award has been presented, and a prestigious one it is, but in 2013, due to his tepid past, the Hubertus Strughold award was suspended. It still has not been confirmed as to whether or not it will be brought back. Personally, I hope it will. It isn’t fair to ruin someone’s reputation with slander

. But that didn’t stop him from making major contributions to our space programs and to the medical field in general. I have no need to discuss what happens to your body when it’s exposed to space; from oxygen deprivation to genetic mutations the publication IFLScience.com has a wonderfully written article all about it. You can read that here. In short, they wouldn’t know all that if it wasn’t for Hubertus…and Nazis unfortunately…but not a Nazi Hubertus!

Make sense?

Heaven to Betsy I hope so.

Anyway, it wasn’t just space medicine and alleged war crimes that Hubertus showed a propensity for. He was also, (like almost every scientist who ever existed before him) a bit of a philosopher. He wrote a treatise on physiology in space titled The Green and the Red Planet: A Physiological Study of the Possibility of Life on Mars and in it used the words “ecosphere” and referenced various “zones” in which life could possibly propagate in relation to distance from a star.

While his arguments weren’t exactly grounded in Astrobiological Science, he raised some good points. Which is why shortly after he wrote it in 1953, an American Astronomer took strong interest in it, because unlike Hubertus, he could apply the missing puzzle pieces of the Science that Hubertus had overlooked.

He called it “Liquid Water Belt theory”, and that’s what we’re going to talk about next.

“You Are ‘Here’”

In 1953, Harlow Shapley took Strughold’s theory a step further by making it plausible. He proposed what was then called “Liquid Belt Theory”. In his theory he surmises that given what we knew about the sun, and what we knew about life on Earth and it’s necessity for water, that only planets within a certain “range” of their star would be able to support liquid water at its surface. Therefore, only these planets would be able to sustain life. Sounds like wild conjecture right?

Except for the fact that Shapley was already well beyond qualified to answer these questions. How was he qualified you ask? Well in 1920 he was able to correctly postulate our position in the Milky Way Galaxy and our sun’s relation to it. Long before the technology even existed to correctly just “guess” that kind of thing. The man was a genius.

What was exceptional about him though is that had one known Shapley in his youth, they never would have guessed his massive intellect. He had dropped out of school in the 5^th grade, and later, when he applied to a high school, he and his brothers were denied as being “unprepared”. Instead they attended a parochial school, received a diploma, and by 1910, when Harlow was only twenty-five, he received his B.A. with high honors in mathematics and physics.

Not bad for a grade school dropout, eh? A year later he received his Masters and was recommended for the prestigious fellowship offered by Princeton for his remarkable achievements. During his fellowship he disproved the age old theory of Cepheid stars being binaries. It would not be the last time Cepheid’s would be studied and revised however, but his contributions to it were the most tremendous since 1784, when Edward Pigott first proposed it.

So why were the ecosphere and the liquid belt theory so important? Because they became the key components of our next subject. The Circumstellar Habitable Zone.

Goldilocks and the Three Suns

Ecosphere, Biosphere, Hydrosphere, call it whatever you want, but at the end of the day, it’s the golden area of opportunity for life to exist called the Habitable Zone. Colloquially called “The Goldilocks Zone” by some researchers, this area of hospitality in the fundamentally harsh regions of space has been tossed and turned by scientists for decades.

Certain stars burn at certain temperatures. Red dwarf stars tend to be cooler than our medium sized yellow one. Blue stars are thought to burn the hottest. Then you get into Orange, White, and Brown dwarfs, and blah, blah, blah. There’s a dozen or so odd star types, but for our purposes, we’re going to talk about suns that are actually life sustainable.

As you can see from the picture above the areas that are red around each star are the hottest and are deemed inhospitable for life to exist. But if extremophiles here on Earth have taught us anything it’s that life can exist in the most unforgiving environments. (Remember our four part spotlight on Extremophiles? Catch up here! Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four)

So while these zones may not be able to sustain human life as we know it, it could certainly maintain Methanotrophic bacteria, such as the ones that thrive at the bottom of the Marianas trench, or maybe some of the Cryophiles that survive in the depths of Lake Vostok beneath Antarctica. Our understanding of “life as we know it” has shifted drastically in the last decade.

But even cooler still are the planets that can support our kind of life. Humans. Those are the ones that scientists are most interested in. We should all be interested in them too, because we’re quickly destroying our current one, and we may be long overdue already for a reset button.

So where are some of these planets capable of supporting life of some kind? Let’s go all Guardians of the Galaxy…

…and do a little exoplanetary exploration of our own. Also, just as a quick disclaimer, the photos in the accompanying sections of the exoplanets are just artists’ representations (like that amazing concept art above!) and not photographs, still, enjoy!

HD 85512 b

HD 85512 b finds itself nested in the Vela constellation about 36 light-years from our planet. It’s a super-Earth, being that its mass is almost four times bigger than our own. Through the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) program in Switzerland, HD 85512 b was discovered to be flying within the habitable zone and this one could potentially contain liquid water at its surface.

But this one isn’t the only potential candidate for life support abilities. HD 85512 b so far is thought to be one of best, but so isn’t the next one on our list.

Gliese 581 d

Unlike HD 85512 (The Sun of the planet we just talked about) which is an Orange Dwarf, Gliese 581 d orbits a Red Dwarf. According to scientists it would have a dark and murky atmosphere with twice the gravity of Earth. Initially thought to have been tidally locked, this giant with seven times the mass of our planet, has been rethought extensively. Now it’s believed that Gliese 581 d has a dense Co2 atmosphere, meaning it could trap heat well and maintain liquid water on the surface.

The drinkability of that water is questionable and the distance is over twenty light-years from us making this a far off candidate for the distant future. But what about the next one on our list?

Gliese 581 g (or is it??)

Nothing will bring you to the verge of an existential quandary faster than people questioning your existence, (or your status…I miss Pluto…), but that’s exactly what’s happening to 581 g in the Gliese 581 orbit. He orbits the habitable zone, has the potential to harbor liquid water at its surface, maybe even be a better candidate than his brother, but there’s one problem…

They don’t even know if he exists…

Poor Gliese 581 g. Unlike him, we’re certain of the next one, discovered as a part of the Kepler program.

Kepler 186 f

If you thought that HD and Gliese were a long distance off, you were sadly mistaken. Those systems are right around the corner in comparison to the 490 light-years between us and Kepler 186 f. Recently discovered this year back in April, it is only a mere 10% larger than Earth and is the closest planet to Earth in size ever found in a habitable zone.

This is a huge deal. Not only does that mean Kepler 186 f can sustain life as we know it scientists are saying that life could even thrive on its surface. Its system is set up a lot like ours as well, with multiple planets too far away from or too close to their star to sustain life. Unfortunately, its great distance means tremendous strides will have to be made in telescoping technology in order for us to get a close up glimpse of its surface.

Kepler 22 b

But if you thought Kepler 186 was a ways out there, Kepler 22 b is here to tell you that’s just a skip across the pond. At a whopping 600 light-years from us, this Earth 2.0 planet discovered in 2010 was initially thought to be the end-all for the search. With an estimated surface temperature of 72 degree F, Kepler 22 b is more than capable of sustaining liquid water. However, given its distance, that’s probably all we’re really going to know about him for a while.

HD 40307 g

Located a measly 44 light-years away, this Super-Duper mega-sized Earth could hold seven of our little blue balls inside of it. With a length of year slightly half that of ours and a distance of 40 million miles closer to its star, HD 40307 g finds himself right smack in the habitable zone.

Because of its relative closeness to us, next generation telescopes are thought to be able to peer at its surface. Perhaps within a decade we may actually be able to catch a glimpse of life on another planet.

Tau Ceti e

The last one on our list today is the unconfirmed planet Tau Ceti e. The strangest thing about this planet is the fact that it’s unconfirmed when it’s the closest one on our list at only 11 light-years from our sun. Should the confirmation come about however this could prove gigantic to the scientific community, because not only would the surface of the planet be close enough to take snapshots of in a few years, but being in our own “cosmic backyard” could mean Tau Ceti would become the target of future interstellar missions.

Take that Orson Scott Card. No more 3 millennium long trips.

All jokes aside every planet on this list, and many, many more just like them, could prove once and for all that we’re not alone out there in the galaxy. Now the real question is…

Do they even want to meet us?

-       Ryan Sanders

Thanks for reading! As always if you would like to know more feel free to follow any of the links below! Share this around on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit or wherever else Social Media takes you, and be sure to head over to Facebook and give the To Infinity and In Theory page a big thumbs up! Happy Learning everyone!

-       Wall Street Journal article on Hubertus Strughold

-       Wiki on Hubertus Strughold

-       Wiki on Circumstellar Habitable Zone

-       Wiki on Operation Paperclip

-       Wall Street Journal Article on suspension of Hubertus Strughold award

-       Wiki on Cepheid Stars

-       Encyclopedia.com Biography of Harlow Shapley

-       Article on Shapley’s study of our place in the Milky Way

-       Discovery article on Gliese 581 d

-       Wiki on HD 85512 b

-       Space.com article on Gliese 581 g

-       Space.com article on Kepler 186 f

-       Space.com article on Kepler 22 b

-       Space.com article on HD 40307 g

-       Discovery article on Tau Ceti e

Prozac for Perch! Big Pharma's "Current" Issue

“Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink.”

Of course Samuel Taylor Coleridge was talking about the ocean when he wrote that line from the poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” but it’s a fitting epitaph for our freshwater supply these days it seems. Between dumping pollutants, rubbish, human waste, and run-off, our lakes, rivers, and streams, are running worse for wear. This has an effect on us eventually, but there’s someone this affects immediately. The ecology in and around the rivers. Namely, the fish.

In recent years environmentalists and ecological supporters have been banding together behind local governments and deep pockets and trying to clean up these environmental hazards. From the 19-year-old student Boyan Slat who came up with an ambitious project to clean our oceans, to the EPA finally recognizing the fact that you shouldn’t be able to ignite the surface of the Hudson River (Thought that one was obvious…), cleanup and conservation is on the forefront of everyone’s mind.

I know what you’re thinking. “Uh…don’t we have waste treatment facilities that handle all that “crap”” Yes and no. Water treatment plants are equipped to handle large particles but when it comes to the microscopic stuff, sometimes that slips through.

And not much is more microscopic than Pharmaceutical waste.

Today at TI&IT we’re going to talk about Big Pharma (yay…) in a big way, how their effluent affects the local wildlife, Prozac and Ibuprofen, Hormesis, and Electrodeionization. If none of that made sense to you that’s okay. Let’s see if we can clarify it all by the end of this article today.

Let’s start with the big issue first. Pharmaceuticals in the water supply.

Little Swimmers

Personally, I loathe the pharmaceutical industry, which is why it saddens me to say that while they are at the epicenter of the issue, they are not the sole cause of the water contamination. Pharmaceutical corporations (here in the U.S. anyway) have strict EPA guidelines they’re required to follow. Most comply, those that don’t, well, they face the wrath of the environmentalists.

Turns out the real culprit here, is us. Well, at least, those of us who take prescription medications. Our bodies don’t use most of the chemicals found in our medications, they expel the excess in the form of waste, urine. That urine is sent to the water treatment plant where it’s moved through multiple cleansing processes before coming out the other side as a drinkable agent once more and is then returned to the ecology.

But there’s a problem. These treatment facilities aren’t equipped to handle breaking down chemicals we expel like Fluoxetine and Norfluoxetine which are the active ingredients found in Prozac. In a study published by Nature in 2003, a wastewater-treatment facility in Texas came under scrutiny when several species of fish downriver from them began showing strange signs and symptoms. Turns out, they all had high concentrations of these compounds, and others, in their brains, livers, and muscles.

The researchers said that while you’d have to eat a lot of these contaminated Crappie to feel the effects of the Prozac (dude this Bluegill is like…making me totally chill right now…) the fish don’t need the anti-depressants. I mean, who are we to say they’re depressed? (Yes Mr. Trout, but how do you really feel?)

The real problem is that fishy physiology is significantly different from our own. Prozac to a depressed human can perk the person up, Lorazepam can calm us down, and Vicodin can take away or ease the pain of a tweaked disc, but what do these drugs do to our little swimmers in the water supply? Lots of studies have been conducted, and none of them look good, even the ones that are supposed to look good.

Let’s make an appointment with a Mackerel and see if we can’t sift through to the sediment of this issue.

Druggie Fish Drop Out Of Schools

In 2003 there were no strict EPA guidelines for policing the toxins produced by pharmaceutical effluent. Effluent is the outflow of wastewater from the facility producing a consumer good of some kind. By 2011, as more and more studies were published on the effects this had on fish, these rules and guidelines changed. But how was it changing the fish?

Pharmaceutical runoff isn’t like pesticides and toxic waste. It doesn’t immediately kill the fish. In fact, the concentrations of chemicals that are found in the runoff can have positive or negative effects on them depending on how you look at it. Either way, it’s unnatural.

In 2010 another study in Nature dug into the mating habits of Fathead Minnows that had been exposed to high concentrations of the chemicals triclosan and triclocarbon. Both are antibacterial agents found in soap and other household cleansers that get flushed down the drain. Both are microscopic enough in size to pass right through treatment facilities without being removed from the water.

Melissa Schultz, the head researcher of the study from a college in Wooster, Ohio, United States is quoted as saying, “It’s easy to tell if a fish suffers from obvious anatomical changes such as being intersex or not having mature secondary sexual characteristics, [but determining the effects on mating behavior] takes more meticulous work.”

After filling aquariums with water and minnows and exposing them to the two chemicals mentioned above, she began to observe some peculiar behavior. After contamination levels reached .01 - .5 micrograms per litre, (also referred to here as parts per billion [ppb]) which are the levels that are found occurring in their native habitats, males became a little less adamant about defending their nests from predators. That’s bad.

Another study focused on the anti-inflammatory drug Ibuprofen. After Zebra fish were exposed to 50 µg/L (micrograms per litre) of the drug they began to show a reduction in courtship behavior. While natural levels of Ibuprofen in the environment typically only reach 20 µg/L scientists say there’s no real difference in the magnitude of the impact it has.

See Ibuprofen works by inhibiting two enzymes in the human body called COX-1 and COX-2 which are part of the pathway to producing Prostaglandins. Prostaglandins play a key part in the inflammation process, but in fish, it’s a pheromone that deals with their mating behavior. If this is thrown too far out of whack, it could lead to irregular breeding patterns.

Or a lack thereof.

There are other studies as well. In 2013 a study of Perch involving the anti-anxiety medication Oxazepam showed that fish exposed to high concentrations of this displayed much more aggressive behavior. As dosages were increased their behavior went from fighting with other males more frequently, obsessive compulsive nest-building habits, ignoring females entirely, to killing females for interfering with their nest-building activities. Prozac has also been found to have some strange effects on fish as well.

Not all studies are negative however. Researchers in Sweden took some Eurasian Perch and exposed them Oxazepam just like here, but they took a different approach to the matter. Standard studies are set up to use fish in a control group that are typically unstressed to begin with and are bred for 100% survivability. Nature is far crueler than we are and there is no such thing in a standard ecosystem as 100% survivability.

So the researchers, led by Jonatan Klaminder at Umeå University, decided to use wild fish. Two seperate groups were set up, one that was clusters of eggs (Roes), and the other was full of two-year old healthy fish that only had just thawed from a cold winter. The fish were split up and one group was exposed to 1,000 µg/L whereas the others were only exposed to 1.9 µg/L. The lower levels mimicked those found naturally occurring in urban neighborhoods around the area.

Mortality rate was high in the lower concentration group’s hatchlings, which was to be expected, but what wasn’t expected is what happened to the group exposed to 1,000 µg/L. It improved the survival rate of hatchlings and also in the mature fish. Klaminder states, “It’s a new era of contamination research if we want to include pharmaceuticals, because their effects are not as traditional as our thinking.”

That doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a good thing. Ecosystems love homeostasis. Nature is constantly working to achieve what it considers a perfect balance despite our misconstrued opinion of what that may be. If more Perch survive their hatching, that means there will be more Perch in the area. This can lead to over-predation of local food sources or to the extinction of another species entirely. The far reaching implications of this research still aren’t well understood.

What seems really odd is the behavioral effects of a drug intended to calm people down. It seemed to have an opposite result on the Perch in the study. Fish exposed to higher concentrations were more bold, more aggressive, and less sociable. One possible explanation of this is the phenomenon known as Hormesis.

What is Hormesis you ask? It’s the subject of our next topic.

“I Hate You! I Love You! Oh Look Something Shiny…”

Hormesis is defined as a toxin or chemical having a generally favorable biological response in nature when administered in low concentrations as opposed to the opposite effect in higher dosages. This effect is not very well understood yet as the science on it is relatively new, so new in fact that scientists are still debating on whether or not to include Hormetics as a real study.

Klaminder’s Eurasian Perch study is a fine example of Hormesis so let’s analyze that for a moment and see if we can’t elaborate on this further.

Let’s say that we knew these Perch were extremely stressed out, so we begin intentionally dumping Prozac into the water supply. We do it in large quantities because these are some really stressed out fish. The contaminated water is now at, let’s say for the purpose of our hypothetical study, at 2,000 µg/L. Fish begin killing each other, aggression is high, there are serial killer Crappie everywhere! Naturally, this is problematic.

So we back off the dosage drastically in our next group, to say, 2 µg/L. The chemical is still a toxin but now all of a sudden the fish are getting along, even better than before. Breeding is up, socialization has increased, and awareness of predators and escape ability has shot up tenfold.

That is Hormesis in a nutshell.

Typically, one would assume that a higher concentration would chill our stressed Perch out more than would a lower dosage. That is after all how it works in humans. But as I said before, fishy physiology is far removed from our own. But Hormesis is just one explanation for the erratic behavior of these aquatic animals. More studies have to be put forward in order to definitively prove that is the force at work here.

But there is one thing we don’t need to study to know it’s bad. The disruption of the local ecology. The problem is, as we mentioned before, water treatment facilities aren’t equipped to handle the influx of drugs being pumped into their cleaning reservoirs. So how do we change that?

The answer may lie in Electrodeionization.

Filtering for Flounders

The current water treatment process is sound to say the least, I mean, we’ve only been doing it for over a hundred years this way. Water is pumped in from a source and heavy sediments are filtered out via screening processes. The water is treated with a few chemicals and sent through another filter, typically charcoal, where sediment is further filtered. The clean water is passed through a chlorine basin and sent through several levels of sand and gravel where more cleansing agents are applied. It’s then sent to a tank where it undergoes a process known as “Reverse Osmosis” and then shipped to your local water tower for home consumption.

Sounds good right?

The problem is that while the current practice removes the big particles and some of the smaller ones, it doesn’t remove the chemicals like the ones found in Ibuprofen and Oxazepram, which as we learned earlier, can lead to adverse effects on local fish populations.

The answer lies in Electrodeionization. General Electric is already well underway with its plans to equip facilities with the means to filter out these potentially harmful chemicals, but it’s a costly and slow moving process. It does work though, the question is, how?

Remember last year when we talked about Michael Faraday? No?! Well…refresh your memory then! (The Gold Nanoparticle Rush of ’09 (Cancer’s Worst Nightmare). What about his process of electrolysis? No!? Sheesh, head on over here and fix that! (Fossilizing Fossil Fuels for Fundamental Molecules). When Faraday discovered electrolysis he had unlocked one of the most useful technologies of our time.

Electrodeionization isn’t meant to replace current filtration methods, rather to supplement them. The phytochemicals from pharmaceutical runoff are so diminutive in size they could almost pass for a subatomic particle. These particles contain positive and negative charges which can thereby be affected by electrolysis. Electrodeionization aims to use electrolysis to remove bad ions from the water that have collected these particles by zapping them into non-existence.  

But ions in and of themselves aren’t bad. They just contain a positive charge that allows the chemicals to stick to them more effectively. Once these dirty, dirty ions have been removed, clean electrolytes are pumped back into the water supply before heading off to storage so that the process can be replicated once more in the future.

The major factor here like we mentioned before is ‘cost’. Electrodeionization systems can cost hundreds of thousands (if not more) dollars. Most water treatment facilities can’t afford that, fortunately, pharmaceutical foundries are being equipped with these at rapid rates, so at least their effluent can be controlled. That just leaves the problem of us humans dropping our drawers and relieving ourselves of these chemicals to be dealt with.

Otherwise, we may have to shell out the shillings for Threadfin therapy.

-       Ryan Sanders

Thanks for reading! If you would like to know more about any of the topics discussed today feel free to follow the links below! Be sure to follow us on Twitter @ToInf_InTheory and head over to Facebook to give the To Infinity and…In Theory page a big thumbs up! Happy learning everyone!

-       Wiki on Electrodeionization

-       Nature article on benefits of Anxiety drugs on fish

-       Nature article on heightened aggression of exposed fish

-       Wiki on Hormesis

-       National Institute of Health paper on Hormesis

-       Nature article on effects of phytochemicals on breeding response

-       Nature article on antibacterial agents effects on river minnows

-       Guidelines for Pharmaceutical Effluent as defined by the EPA