A naturally produced melanoma-fighting compound called "Palmerolide A" has been found in a microbe that lives in Synoicum adareanum, a species of ascidian common to the waters of Antarctica's Anvers Island archipelago, where it grows in small colonies.
Ascidians, or "sea squirts," are primitive, sac-like marine animals that live attached to ocean bottoms around the world, and feed on plankton by filtering seawater.
“The wreck is made from oak, cut between 1233 and 1240, so nearly 800 years ago,” said Staffan von Arbin, a maritime archaeologist at the University of Gothenburg.
Last autumn, the University of Gothenburg conducted archaeological diving inspections along the coast of Bohuslän to find out more about known wrecks on the seafloor. It was during this work that the maritime archaeologists came upon the wreck outside of Fjällbacka, which has been given the name “Dyngökoggen.”
The hamlets, a group of reef fishes from the wider Caribbean, sport a stunning array of colours and patterns, but the genetic basis of this morphological variety is unclear.
Although the hamlet lineage is about 26 million years old, the diversification of colours appears to have occurred only within the last 10,000 generations in a burst of diversification that ranks among the fastest in fishes.
Along with Norway and Japan, Iceland is one of only a few countries that still hunt whales commercially.
However, demand for whale meat has decreased dramatically since Japan—Iceland's main market—resumed commercial whaling in 2019, after a 30-year ban. Commercial whaling was banned in a 1986 International Whaling Commission embargo, but Japan withdrew from the IWC in December 2018.
