News StoriesExcerpts of Key News Stories in Major Media
Note: This comprehensive list of news stories is usually updated once a week. Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news stories on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.
Say goodbye to GMOs. The new term for foods created with a boost from science is "bioengineered." As of Jan. 1, food manufacturers, importers and retailers in the U.S. must comply with a new national labeling standard for food that's been genetically modified in a way that isn't possible through natural growth. Consumers will begin to see labels on some foods that say "bioengineered" or "derived from bioengineering," as the new federal standard takes hold. The change has been several years in the making. In 2016, Congress passed a law to establish a national benchmark for the labeling of genetically modified food in an attempt to ... standardize labels across the country. Sonny Perdue, who served as agriculture secretary during the Trump administration, announced the regulations in 2018. But critics say the rules devised by the U.S. Department of Agriculture will actually confuse consumers further and make it harder to know what's in any given product. One advocacy group has even sued the USDA to try to block the new regulations from taking effect. Companies with products that qualify as bioengineered can comply with the new standard in several ways. They can include text on food packages that says "bioengineered food" or "contains a bioengineered food ingredient." They can also use two logos approved by the USDA. Finally, they can include a QR code for consumers to scan or a phone number for them to text that will provide more information about that food item.
Note: Replacing clear package labeling with QR codes is inherently discriminatory. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on food system corruption from reliable major media sources.
At this point, one thing about the pandemic is clear: The COVID-19 vaccines, even when followed by a booster, aren't going to stop the coronavirus – or provide long-term protection from infections. Right after the third shot – the booster – antibodies rise up quickly. But then about a month later, they begin to decline. As a result, protection against infection drops down to about 50% three months later. So the question is: Should you get a fourth dose to beef up protection again? A preliminary study from Israel ... suggests that for the general population, the answer is likely no. A fourth shot of the same vaccine – in this case Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna – offered very little extra protection against infection compared with only three shots. "Not a third dose, not a fourth dose, not a fifth dose will do anything to stop infections [long term]," says Dr. Gili Regev-Yochay, an infectious disease specialist at Sheba Medical Center in Tel HaShomer, Israel, and lead author of the new study. Regev-Yochay and her team gave about 300 health care workers a fourth shot, either Pfizer or Moderna. And then they looked to see if those people were less likely to become infected while working at Sheba Medical Center, compared with about 400 health care workers who had received only three shots. The extra dose reduced the risk of an infection by only about 10% to 30%, Regev-Yochay and her team report. The extra dose also didn't appear to activate T cells, which are critical for clearing out a future infection.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on coronavirus vaccines from reliable major media sources.
Catholic groups and abuse survivors on Tuesday called on the Roman Catholic Church in Italy, which has yet to reckon with the scourge of sexual abuse by priests, to create an independent commission to investigate how the crisis has been handled. In a number of countries – including Australia, France, Ireland and the United States – the church has allowed some scrutiny of its actions. But so far, the church in Italy has resisted calls for an independent inquiry, even after Pope Francis in 2019 held a landmark meeting on clerical sexual abuse and called "for an all-out battle against the abuse of minors." "Italy is an anomaly," said Francesco Zanardi, a clerical abuse survivor and president of Rete l'Abuso, the country's most outspoken victims' rights group, which has independently tracked more than 350 cases of pedophile priests in the Italian justice system. The consortium wanted the church in Italy to "assume responsibility for the abuses, the cover-ups and the abandonment of the victims" who were not heard or given compensation. It also called on the Italian Parliament to improve existing legislation and draft new laws to make it easier for cases of abuse by priests to be reported and tried. Several abuse survivors ... said that at least in the past, church officials had not listened to their complaints. Antonio Messina ... said he was abused for four years when he was a minor. He said that when he tried to bring his abuser to justice, in 2014, the prelates he turned to for help either didn't believe him or tried to bribe him to keep quiet.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
An unprecedented spree of policy changes and carveouts aimed at protecting Ukrainian civilians from Facebook's censorship systems has earned praise from human rights groups. But a new open letter addressed to Facebook and its social media rivals questions why these companies seem to care far more about some attempts to resist foreign invasion than others. In response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Meta Platforms, which owns Facebook and Instagram, rapidly changed its typically strict speech rules in order to exempt a variety of posts that would have otherwise been deleted for violating the company's prohibition against hate speech and violent incitement. The rule change ... included a rare dispensation to call for the death of Russian President Vladimir Putin, use dehumanizing language against Russian soldiers, and praise the notorious Azov Battalion of the Ukrainian National Guard, previously banned from the platform due to its neo-Nazi ideology. In a statement signed by 31 civil society and human rights groups ... criticism is directed squarely at American internet titans like Facebook. "We call for ... equal and consistent application of policies to uphold the rights of users worldwide," reads the letter. "Once platforms began to take action in Ukraine, they took extraordinary steps that they have been unwilling to take elsewhere. From the Syrian conflict to the genocide of the Rohingya in Myanmar, other crisis situations have not received the same amount of support."
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on media manipulation from reliable sources.
BlackRock Inc. and Vanguard Group – already the world's largest money managers – are less than a decade from managing a total of US$20 trillion, according to Bloomberg News calculations. Amassing that sum will likely upend the asset management industry, intensify their ownership of the largest U.S. companies and test the twin pillars of market efficiency and corporate governance. Vanguard founder Jack Bogle, widely regarded as the father of the index fund, is raising the prospect that too much money is in too few hands, with BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street Corp. together owning significant stakes in the biggest U.S. companies. "That's about 20 per cent owned by this oligopoly of three," Bogle said. "It is too bad that there aren't more people in the index-fund business." Vanguard is poised to parlay its US$4.7 trillion of assets into more than US$10 trillion by 2023, while BlackRock may hit that mark two years later, up from almost US$6 trillion today, according to Bloomberg News projections based on the companies' most recent five-year average annual growth rates in assets. BlackRock and Vanguard's dominance raises questions about competition and governance.
Note: This empire directly benefits from relaxation of financial regulations. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on financial industry corruption from reliable major media sources.
The intelligence community is about to get the equivalent of an adrenaline shot to the chest. This summer, a $600 million computing cloud developed by Amazon Web Services for the Central Intelligence Agency over the past year will begin servicing all 17 agencies that make up the intelligence community. If the technology plays out as officials envision, it will usher in a new era of cooperation and coordination, allowing agencies to share information and services much more easily and avoid the kind of intelligence gaps that preceded the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. For the first time, agencies within the intelligence community will be able to order a variety of on-demand computing and analytic services from the CIA and National Security Agency. What's more, they'll only pay for what they use. For the risk-averse intelligence community, the decision to go with a commercial cloud vendor is a radical departure from business as usual. It is difficult to underestimate the cloud contract's importance. In a recent public appearance, CIA Chief Information Officer Douglas Wolfe called it "one of the most important technology procurements in recent history," with ramifications far outside the realm of technology. The importance of the cloud capabilities the CIA gets through leveraging Amazon Web Services' horsepower is best exemplified in computing intelligence data. Instead of each agency building out its own systems, select agencies ... are responsible for governing its major components.
Note: The CIA tries to "collect everything and hold on to it forever." For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on intelligence agency corruption from reliable major media sources.
Nikola Tesla, father of modern methods of generation and distribution of electrical energy, who was 78 years old yesterday, announced a new invention, or inventions, which he said, he considered the most important of the 700 made by him so far. He has perfected a method and apparatus, Dr. Tesla said yesterday ... which will send concentrated beams of particles through the free air, of such tremendous energy that they will bring down a fleet of 10,000 enemy airplanes at a distance of 250 miles from a defending nation's border and will cause armies of millions to drop dead in their tracks. This "death-beam," Dr. Tesla said, will operate silently but effectively at distances "as far as a telescope could see an object on the ground and as far as the curvature of the earth would permit it." It will be invisible and will leave no marks behind it beyond its evidence of destruction. An army of 1,000,000 dead, annihilated in an instant, he said, would not reveal even under the most powerful microscope just what catastrophe had caused its destruction. Dr. Tesla said this latest invention of his would make war impossible. It would make every nation impregnable against attack by airplanes or by large invading armies. But while it will make every nation safe against any attack by a would-be invader, Dr. Tesla added, the death-beam by its nature could not be employed similarly as a weapon for offense. For this death-beam, he explained, could be generated only from large, stationary and immovable power plants.
Note: To read the full article, visit this webpage. Learn more about this prolific inventor in Nikola Tesla's Autobiography.
Scientists have discovered a way to capture solar energy and store it for nearly two decades, before releasing it when it is needed. Using a system called molecular solar thermal energy storage (MOST), researchers at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden and Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China developed an ultra-thin chip to act as a thermoelectric generator. "This is a radically new way of generating electricity from solar energy," said Kasper Moth-Poulsen, a professor at the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at Chalmers who led the research. "It means that we can use solar energy to produce electricity regardless of weather, time of day, season, or geographical location." The MOST system uses a specially designed molecule that reacts to sunlight in order to capture the Sun's energy. After loading it with solar energy in Sweden, Chalmers University sent it to their colleagues in Shanghai where they were able to convert it into electricity. "Essentially, Swedish sunshine was sent to the other side of the world and converted into electricity in China," said a statement released by Chalmers University. The researchers hope the technology can lead to self-charging electronics that use stored solar energy on demand, as well as holding the potential to transform renewable and emissions-free energy production. More research and development is required before the system can be implemented at scale, thought Chalmers University said it has already attracted "great interest worldwide."
Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.
China and India have planted so many trees that the world is now greener than it was 20 years ago, a counterintuitive new study claims. The superpowers are two of the world's top three most polluting nations and the increase in foliage is mostly a result of 'ambitious tree planting programs'. NASA research discovered there is five per cent more greenery every year compared to the 2000s, resulting in more than two million square miles of extra greenery - the equivalent of more than the Amazon rainforest. Chi Chen from Boston University, who led the research, said China and India 'account for one-third of the greening, but contain only 9 percent of the planet's land area covered in vegetation'. The greening on the planet was first detected in the mid-1990s and from images provided by NASA'S MODIS tool which orbits the Earth on two satellites and provides high resolution images of Earth's surface. China is responsible for a quarter of the overall increase in green leaf area but has only 6.6 per cent of all the world's foliage. India has contributed a further 6.8 per cent rise in green leaf area. Scientists say it is important to factor in this latest finding into future climate change prediction models. 'This long-term data lets us dig deeper,' said Rama Nemani, a research scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center, and a co-author of the work. The research was published in the journal Nature Sustainability.
Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.
The Human Library challenges stereotypes and prejudices through dialogue. In the Human Library, people, instead of traditional books, are on loan to readers. Founder, Ronni Abergel says the Human Library was started to create a space "where you can walk in, borrow a human being and talk to them about a very challenging topic. Ideally, we wanted people to talk about issues that they normally would not talk about, or potentially don't like to talk about, but that we need to talk about." These human "books" are volunteers that come from diverse backgrounds and have experiences that they are willing to share with their human readers. Just like traditional books, the human books have titles that describe their experiences like Black Activist, Chronic Depression, Survivor of Trafficking, Muslim, Latino, Transgender and many more. Sometimes one-on-one and sometimes in small groups, the Human Library creates a safe space where people can engage with someone different from themselves. When the library aids in corporate diversity and inclusion efforts, the readers are the organization's employees who are encouraged to ask difficult questions of the human books–things they always wanted to know but never had the opportunity to ask."It's easy to hate a group of people, but it's harder to hate an individual, particularly if that person is trying to be friendly and open and accommodating and totally non-threatening," says Bill Carney, a volunteer book in the Human Library.
Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.
The low rate of coronavirus infections, hospitalizations and deaths in West and Central Africa is the focus of a debate that has divided scientists on the continent and beyond. If Covid has in fact done less damage here, why is that? The answers "are relevant not just to us, but have implications for the greater public good," said Austin Demby, Sierra Leone's health minister. The assertion that Covid isn't as big a threat in Africa has sparked debate about whether the African Union's push to vaccinate 70 percent of Africans against the virus this year is the best use of health care resources. In the first months of the pandemic, there was fear that Covid might eviscerate Africa, tearing through countries with health systems as weak as Sierra Leone's, where there are just three doctors for every 100,000 people. New research shows there is no longer any question of whether Covid has spread widely in Africa. It has. Studies that tested blood samples for antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 ... show that about two-thirds of the population in most sub-Saharan countries do indeed have those antibodies. Since only 14 percent of the population has received any kind of Covid vaccination, the antibodies are overwhelmingly from infection. A new W.H.O.-led analysis ... found that 65 percent of Africans had been infected. A research project at Njala University in Sierra Leone has found that 78 percent of people have antibodies for this coronavirus. Yet Sierra Leone has reported only 125 Covid deaths since the start of the pandemic.
Note: Could it be that widespread use of the antimalarial drug chlorequine kept many Africans from getting sick? For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.
The Food and Drug Administration last week authorized Americans 50 and over to get a fourth Covid vaccine dose. Some of the FDA's own experts disagree with the decision, but the agency simply ignored them. Eric Rubin, editor in chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, sits on the advisory committee. He told CNN last month that he hadn't seen enough data to determine whether anyone needs a fourth dose whose immune system isn't seriously deficient. At the crux of the broad opposition to second boosters is the recognition of B- and T-cells, which public-health officials have long ignored. They talk only about antibody levels, which tend to decline in the months after vaccination. B- and T-cells, activated by the primary vaccine series or an infection ... are highly and durably effective at preventing serious illness from Covid. An additional vaccine dose induces a fleeting high in antibody levels, offering only mild and short-lived protection. Two top FDA officials quit the agency in September complaining of undue pressure to authorize boosters. Marion Gruber, former director of the Office of Vaccine Research and Review, and her deputy, Philip Krause, later wrote about the lack of data to support a broad booster authorization. Hours after the FDA authorized the fourth dose, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gave its formal approval to the move–also without convening its external vaccine experts.
Note: To read the full article without a subscription, see this webpage. Read Prof. Mark Skidmore's eye-opening study titled "How Many People Died from the Covid-19 Inoculations?" For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on coronavirus vaccines from reliable major media sources.
Cities in California spent large portions of their federal Covid relief money on police departments, a review of public records has revealed, with several cities prioritizing police funding by a wide margin. As part of the American Rescue Plan Act (Arpa), the Biden administration's signature stimulus package, the US government sent funds to cities to help them fight coronavirus and support local recovery efforts. The money, officials said, could be used to fund a range of services. But most large California cities spent millions of Arpa dollars on law enforcement. Some also gave police money from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (Cares) Act, adopted in 2020 under Donald Trump. San Francisco received $312m in Arpa funds for fiscal year 2020 and allocated 49% ($153m) to police, 13% ($41m) to the sheriff's department, and the remainder to the fire department. San Francisco also gave roughly 22% ($38.5m) of its Cares funds to law enforcement. Los Angeles spent roughly 50% of its first round of Arpa relief funds on the LAPD. In Fresno, the city allocated more than double of its Cares money to police than it did to Covid testing, contact tracing, small business grants, childcare vouchers and transitional housing combined. Cities using relief funds for police have typically funneled the money to salaries, although The Appeal recently reported that some jurisdictions were using stimulus dollars to buy new surveillance technology and build new prisons.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus and police corruption from reliable major media sources.
Los Angeles jail guards have frequently punched incarcerated people in the head and subjected them to a "humiliating" group strip-search where they were forced to wait undressed for hours, according to a new report from court-appointed monitors documenting a range of abuses. The Los Angeles sheriff's department (LASD), which oversees the largest local jail system in the country, appears to be routinely violating use-of-force policies, with supervisors failing to hold guards accountable and declining to provide information to the monitors tasked with reviewing the treatment of incarcerated people. The report, filed in federal court on Thursday, adds to a long string of scandals for the department. The monitors [were] first put in place in 2014 to settle a case involving beatings. The monitors, Robert Houston, a former corrections official, and Jeffrey Schwartz, a consultant, alleged that the use of "head shots", meaning punches to the head, had been "relatively unchanged in the last two years or more, and may be increasing". They also wrote that deputies who used force in violation of policy were at times sent to "remedial training" but that "actual discipline is seldom imposed." And supervisors who failed to document violations were also "not held accountable." The authors cited one incident in which a deputy approached a resident. "With no hesitation ... Deputy Y punched [him] 5-9 times in the head, and Deputy Z punched [him] 6-8 times in the head as they took [him] to the floor.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in policing and in the prison system from reliable major media sources.
It was an attention-grabbing assertion that made headlines around the world: U.S. officials said they had indications suggesting Russia might be preparing to use chemical agents in Ukraine. President Joe Biden later said it publicly. But three U.S. officials told NBC News this week there is no evidence Russia has brought any chemical weapons near Ukraine. They said the U.S. released the information to deter Russia from using the banned munitions. It's one of a string of examples of the Biden administration's ... deploying declassified intelligence as part of an information war against Russia. Coordinated by the White House National Security Council, the unprecedented intelligence releases have been so frequent and voluminous, officials said, that intelligence agencies had to devote more staff members to work on the declassification process, scrubbing the information so it wouldn't betray sources and methods. The idea is to pre-empt and disrupt the Kremlin's tactics, complicate its military campaign, "undermine Moscow's propaganda and prevent Russia from defining how the war is perceived in the world," said a Western government official familiar with the strategy. Multiple U.S. officials acknowledged that the U.S. has used information as a weapon even when confidence in the accuracy of the information wasn't high. Sometimes it has used low-confidence intelligence for deterrent effect, as with chemical agents, and other times, as an official put it, the U.S. is just "trying to get inside Putin's head."
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on intelligence agency corruption and war from reliable major media sources.
The U.S. provided an estimated $83 billion worth of training and equipment to Afghan security forces since 2001. This year, alone, the U.S. military aid to Afghan forces was $3 billion. Putting price tags on American military equipment still in Afghanistan isn't an easy task. In the fog of war – or withdrawal – Afghanistan has always been a black box with little sunshine. Not helping transparency, the Biden Administration is now hiding key audits on Afghan military equipment. This week, our auditors at OpenTheBooks.com reposted two key reports on the U.S. war chest of military gear in Afghanistan that had disappeared from federal websites. 1. Government Accountability Office (GAO) audit of U.S. provided military gear in Afghanistan (August 2017). 2. Special Inspector General For Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) audit of $174 million in lost ScanEagle drones (July 2020). An unnamed official told Reuters that current intelligence assessment was that the Taliban took control of more than 2,000 armored vehicles, including American Humvees, and as many as 40 aircraft that may include UH-60 Black Hawks, scout attack helicopters and ScanEagle military drones. "We don't have a complete picture, obviously, of where every article of defense materials has gone, but certainly a fair amount of it has fallen into the hands of the Taliban," White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said.
Note: There was no good reason to so rush that departure out of Afghanistan that a huge amount valuable military weapons and equipment was left behind for the Taliban to use. Could it be that certain rogue elements at high levels in government wanted them armed to keep the conflict going and keep the money flowing into the pockets of those who benefit from war? For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on war from reliable major media sources.
Kyrie Irving has always described his decision to remain unvaccinated, and as a result miss nearly two-thirds of the season, as a personal choice. But on Sunday night, after his first game at Barclays Center this season, his comments about that decision expanded beyond the personal. "The point of this season for me was never to just take a stance," he said. "It was really to make sure that I'm standing in what I believe in, in freedom. Freedom – I don't think that's a word that gets defined enough in our society, about the freedom to make choices with your life without someone telling you what the [expletive] to do ... There's nobody that's enslaving me." He added: "Tonight my presence out there was bigger than a basketball game – just representing a lot of individuals that are out there in a similar situation as me, and now that I can play, I think we should be opened up for everybody." That, of course, currently is the focus of controversy. Originally, Irving could not play because of a since-repealed mandate that dictated that people entering indoor entertainment venues had to be vaccinated. After that ended on March 7, a different mandate came into focus: a private-sector mandate that had gone into effect on Dec. 27 and stated that all those who do in-person work or interact with the public in their employment also need to be vaccinated. As a result, nearly 1,500 city workers were fired in February. It's not clear how many private workers also were fired.
Note: If you are unable to read the entire article, you can also find it on this webpage. Irving is a seven-time All-Star and three-time member of the All-NBA Team. He won an NBA championship with the Cavaliers in 2016. Read also Prof. Mark Skidmore's eye-opening study titled "How Many People Died from the Covid-19 Inoculations?" For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on coronavirus vaccines from reliable major media sources.
On April 10, Microsoft uploaded a film to its YouTube account about Marina Abramovic, the Serbian performance artist known for pushing her body to the limit. Ms. Abramovic's work can be violent, sometimes bloody, but the Microsoft video was more innocuous: It was focused on "The Life," in which museumgoers wear special headsets so that Ms. Abramovic seems to appear before them. The video was essentially some P.R. fluff for the tech company's role in the artwork. But in one corner of the internet, it was seen as ... evidence of a Satanist conspiracy. The YouTube clip racked up more than 24,000 dislikes. Microsoft took it down on April 14. Ms. Abramovic said ... that she had rarely spoken about her treatment by conspiracy theorists because she did not want to encourage them. She is breaking that silence now, she said, because she is fed up. The conspiracy theory goes back to October 2016, when WikiLeaks released hacked emails from the account of John Podesta, then the chairman of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. The emails included one from Ms. Abramovic, in which she discussed Mr. Podesta's invitation to a "Spirit Cooking" dinner at her home. Some internet users saw this as evidence that tied Ms. Abramovic to a wider conspiracy known as #PizzaGate, in which Mr. Podesta was said to be involved in a child-trafficking ring run out of a pizza parlor. Since then, Ms. Abramovic has received many emailed death threats – sometimes three a day, she said.
Note: Watch a very disturbing video on the "Spirit cooking" of Abramovic. Then read verifiable information on how she is tied in to the Podesta brothers and pizzagate theories. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Giraffe numbers have increased across Africa, new research shows, a rare spot of good news in the conservation world. According to a recent analysis of survey data from across the African continent, the total giraffe population is now around 117,000, approximately 20 percent higher than it was thought to be in 2015, when the last major survey was published. This rise is a result of genuine growth in some areas, but also stems from more accurate census data, says Julian Fennessy, executive director of the Giraffe Conservation Foundation, based in Namibia. "It's great to see these numbers increasing," says Fennessy, a co-author of the new research. Giraffes were once considered a single species. But recent genetic evidence shows there are likely four species of giraffe, three of which have increased considerably in number: northern, reticulated, and Masai giraffes. The fourth, southern giraffes, have remained relatively stable. Data were collected during the last few years across 21 countries, by governments, researchers, nonprofits, and even citizen scientists. Fennessy and six co-authors then analyzed this vast trove of information and published the results ... in the peer-reviewed research volume Imperiled: The Encyclopedia of Conservation. Northern giraffes, the most threatened species, live in isolated populations across Central and West Africa, as well as Uganda and parts of Kenya. The new paper estimates there are more than 5,900 of this species, a significant increase from 2015, when there were 4,780.
Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.
The deep-ocean floor is teeming with undiscovered life-forms that help to regulate Earth's climate, a new study finds. Researchers sequenced DNA from deep-sea sediments around the world and found that there is at least three times more life on the seafloor than there is higher up in the ocean. What's more, nearly two-thirds of that life has not been formally identified yet. "It's been known since the 1960s that species diversity is very high in the deep sea, so very high numbers of species," co-author Andrew Gooday [said]. "What was new about this study was that there was a lot of novel diversity at the higher taxonomic level." In other words, there are a lot of unknown evolutionary lineages – like whole families of species – waiting to be discovered. The deep-ocean floor covers more than half of Earth's surface but is home to some of the least-studied ecosystems, according to the study. Previous research analyzed DNA collected through the water column, from above the ocean floor up to the surface, so this latest study sought to complete the picture and give a global view of biodiversity in the ocean by looking at seafloor DNA within deep-sea sediments. The researchers also learned more about the role the deep ocean plays in the so-called biological pump, the process by which ocean organisms such as phytoplankton absorb carbon from the atmosphere near the surface and sink to the deep sea, where the carbon is sequestered in the sediments.
Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.
Important Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news stories on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.