16th-century skeleton identified as astronomer Copernicus
November 22, 2008
Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus. Photograph: Hulton Archive
The long-lost skeleton of Nicolaus Copernicus – the 16th-century astronomer who transformed our understanding of the solar system – has been found, Polish researchers have confirmed.
Forensic detective work has successfully matched DNA samples recovered from remains in a cathedral grave with hairs retrieved from a book the scholar priest is known to have owned.
The identification is the culmination of four years of investigation and centuries of speculation about the final resting place of the man who challenged the Bible and medieval teachings of the church.
Copernicus’s planetary observations were the first to place the sun, not the Earth, at the centre of what is now known as the solar system. His heliocentric, cosmological revolution was condemned by Martin Luther.
Born in 1473 at Torun on the Vistula, Copernicus studied abroad and was made a canon at Frombork Cathedral, in Poland. He died in 1543. His grave was unmarked.
The hunt for his remains began in 2004. A Polish archaeologist, Jerzy Gassowski, started digging at the request of the regional Catholic bishop, Jacek Jezierski.
The following year bones and a skull were located under floor tiles near one of the side altars in the 14th-century Roman Catholic cathedral in Frombork. The lower jaw was missing.
“In the two years of work, under extremely difficult conditions – amid thousands of visitors, with earth shifting under the heavy pounding of the organ music – we managed to locate the grave, which was badly damaged,” Gassowski said.
This week the archaeologist revealed he is now confident, thanks to forensic facial reconstruction of the skull, that it bears a striking resemblance to existing portraits of the astronomer.
The reconstruction shows a broken nose and other features that resemble a self-portrait of Copernicus, and the skull bears a cut mark above the left eye that corresponds with a scar shown in the painting.
The skull, furthermore, belonged to a man aged around 70 – Copernicus’s age when he died.
“In our opinion, our work led us to the discovery of Copernicus’s remains but a grain of doubt remained,” Gassowski said.
Swedish genetics experts were called in to analyse DNA from a vertebrae, a tooth and femur bone. The material was matched and compared to that taken from two hairs retrieved from a book that the 16th-century Polish astronomer once owned. The tome is kept in the library of Sweden’s Uppsala University.
“We collected four hairs and two of them are from the same individual as the bones,” Marie Allen, a geneticist, said.
Copernicus, who studied eclipses, came up with his idea that the sun was at the centre of the universe between 1508 and 1514, and during those years wrote a manuscript commonly known as Commentariolus (Little Commentary). His theory prepared the way for such scientists as Galileo, Descartes and Newton.
Young Britons among least likely to study science
November 15, 2008
Microscope: young Britons are not attracted to science. Photograph: David Levene
Young Britons are among the least likely in Europe to consider studying science subjects, a European poll has found.
The Young People and Science study for the European Commission surveyed nearly 25,000 15- to 25-year-olds across the 27 countries of Europe.
When asked how they felt about studying science-based subjects, 86% of young Britons said they would probably or definitely not consider natural sciences, while 76% would consider neither engineering nor mathematics.
But the findings for young people in Britain were echoed by those in other European countries, where a minority said they would consider studying sciences.
When asked about natural sciences, the Netherlands (81%), Ireland (80%), France (75%) and Germany (78%) had similar results to the UK.
Young people in the newer European members in eastern Europe are somewhat more keen on studying science subjects - in Slovenia 53% were not considering natural sciences, and 62% in Romania.
Those surveyed were most likely to say that they would study social sciences, followed by economics and business studies. Mathematics was selected by the smallest group.
When it came to careers, the most popular options were engineers and health professionals (both 22%).
Next in line were those who wanted to study natural sciences or mathematics to become teachers.
The smallest group of respondents wanted to become technicians (9%).
Young women were more likely to study natural science or mathematics in order to become a health professional, teacher or public sector researcher.
Young men, however, were more liable to select engineer, technician or private-sector researcher as a career.
Despite their study preferences, the respondents were in agreement that an interest in science was essential for their country’s future prosperity: half agreed strongly and 39% tended to agree.
The findings will raise fears that recent government claims that young people in Britain are coming round to science subjects are misplaced.
The English funding council, Hefce, claimed a turnaround in the number of students taking up science, maths and language subjects at A-level and university last month.
Last week, the Science Council said not enough young people knew about the career advantages that come with taking science subjects.
The commission’s poll found young Britons were among the most optimistic of their European peers.
They had the highest levels of expectation of future improvements in air quality (30%), food quality (62%) and communication among people (73%).
They were also among the least likely to see health threats from GM foods (11%), pesticides (15%), new epidemics (19%) or fertilisers in the water supply (23%).
Copying keys from photos is child’s play
November 15, 2008
Keys are the new threat to your security. Photograph: Frank Baron
You have memorised your passwords and your PIN is secret, now it is the house keys that must be hidden from prying eyes.
Using only a camera, a computer and a key-cutting machine, scientists have duplicated sets of keys after taking snaps of them from more than 60 metres away.
Computer experts at the University of California in San Diego set out to show how easily keys could be copied from a digital image to highlight the potential security risk of leaving keys on display.
At a computer conference in Alexandria, Virginia, Stefan Savage, a computer security expert who led the “Sneakey” project, surfed the photo-sharing website Flickr and found pictures that clearly showed peoples’ keys, even if personal information in the shots had been blurred out.
In one demonstration, the team cut duplicate keys after analysing images taken on a mobile phone. In another, they used a telephoto lens to take pictures of a set of keys on a cafe table from the roof of a university building.
The software re-orients images of keys and determines the dimensions of the peaks and notches that connect with a lock’s mechanism. Then the information can be plugged into a key-cutting machine to produce an exact replica.
“We built our key duplication software system to show people that their keys are not inherently secret,” Savage said. “Perhaps this was once a reasonable assumption, but advances in digital imaging and optics have made it easy to duplicate someone’s keys from a distance without them even noticing.”
Experts have been able to copy keys by hand from high-resolution photographs for some time, but Savage believes that cheap digital cameras and computer software mean almost anyone with basic technological know-how could do it.
“If you go onto a photo-sharing site such as Flickr, you will find many photos of people’s keys that can be used to easily make duplicates. While people generally blur out the numbers on their credit cards and driver’s licences before putting those photos on-line, they don’t realise that they should take the same precautions with their keys,” Savage said.
Confusing creation with creationism
November 15, 2008
Creation of Adam
Two traditional beliefs held by Christians, Jews and Muslims are that God created the world and that he did it for a purpose — creation and design.
Creation is a religious concept, not a scientific one, so we don’t teach it in science. But neither can science justifiably deny it. Creation is the bringing-into-being and sustaining-in-being of everything there is. It is independent of any particular processes.
Scientific studies of origins can answer ‘what were these processes?’, but not ‘are they the actions of God?’ The latter question is one, in the words of the National Curriculum, ‘that science cannot address’.
Currently, science indicates an Earth some 4.6bn years old, but some people think the Genesis account of six “days” requires a geologically young Earth of 6,000-10,000 years. But that is not so. The historian, Professor David Livingstone, summarised a 19th-century perspective, when he wrote in Darwin’s Forgotten Defenders in 1987 that, “by and large, Christian geologists had both encountered and accommodated the issue of the age of the Earth long before the appearance of Darwin’s theory”.
The latter half of the 20th century saw a resurgence of young Earth creationism. It is the “young Earth” part that has caused a furore, since it runs counter to mainstream science and therefore has no place in science teaching – only in the history of science. So, is this belief required by the Genesis text? Interestingly, as early as around AD225 Origen, one of the early church fathers, wrote about the creation of the sun, moon and stars on day four of the Genesis account:
What man of intelligence, I ask, will consider as a reasonable statement that the first and the second and the third day, in which there are said to be both morning and evening, existed without sun and moon and stars…?
He, and others knew full well that 24-hour-days with mornings and evenings were meaningless before the sun and other stars arrived on “day” four. The Biblical text is apparently using a literary device and therefore those who insist on 24-hour-days actually need to treat the text much more carefully. A literal interpretation distracts from teaching about creation. People commonly think that by dismissing a young Earth (rightly, from current scientific evidence), they have removed the idea of creation – which they haven’t. They have just confused creation and creationism.
Another own goal lies in the arguments of the intelligent design movement. This claims that there are biological systems that are “irreducibly complex”, meaning that they only work if no components are missing, and therefore could not have evolved from less complete systems. According to ID’s proponents, such systems have no natural explanation and therefore provide evidence for intelligent design.
But this overlooks how intermediate components of evolutionary processes serve different functions at different stages of their evolutionary past, which torpedoes the argument. No one knows whether a natural explanation will be found tomorrow. If so, on ID reasoning, it appears that intelligence is no longer required.
Earlier claims that the development of immune systems and blood-clotting processes could not be accounted for by evolutionary change are now known to be incorrect. Furthermore, if irreducible complexity is the mark of intelligence, what about the rest of creation? If current gaps in scientific knowledge are where God acts, ID appears to be using a contemporary version of the “god-of-the-gaps”.
Charles Coulson, first professor of theoretical physics at King’s College London, coined this phrase in 1955 and commented from a Christian standpoint:
If [God] is in nature at all, he must be there right from the start, and all the way through it … When we come to the scientifically unknown, our correct policy is not to rejoice because we have found God: it is to become better scientists.
Both of what I have suggested are own goals provide unnecessary, and unserviceable, ammunition for religion’s detractors.
In attempting to defuse some current tensions over teaching about origins I have argued that both belief in a young Earth and the spurious argument of ID can be rejected, without providing grounds for rejecting the traditional concepts of creation and design held by Christians, Jews and Muslims.
Michael Poole, visiting research fellow in science and religion at the department of education and professional studies, King’s College London. He was a member of the working party which drew up the government’s guidelines on teaching evolution and creationism. His book, User’s Guide to Science and Belief was published last year.
First ‘exoplanets’ photographed from Earth
November 15, 2008
Keck telescope finds three planets (shown in red) around HR 8799. Image courtesy of National Research Council Canada
Astronomers have taken the first pictures of planets orbiting a distant star using telescopes on the Hawaiian island of Mauna Kea.
Three giant planets were snapped around a star known as HR 8799 in the constellation of Pegasus, 130 light years from Earth. Until now, images of “exoplanets” beyond our solar system have only been taken from space, or inferred indirectly.
“We’ve been trying to image planets for eight years with no luck and now we have pictures of three planets at once, ” said Bruce Macintosh an astrophysicist from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. The planets are several times the mass of Jupiter.
The astronomers used the Keck and Gemini telescopes on the island, according to a study in the journal Science. In the same issue, scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope reveal pictures of another planet, called Fomalhaut b, 25 light years from Earth in the constellation of Piscis Australis. It is the first exoplanet to be discovered purely visually.
“I nearly had a heart attack at the end of May when I confirmed that Fomalhaut b orbits its parent star,” said astronomer Paul Kalas at the University of California, Berkeley. “It’s a profound and overwhelming experience to lay eyes on a planet never before seen.”
None of the planets are likely to host life, but astronomers believe at least some of the solar systems also have smaller, rocky planets like Mars or Earth that are much harder to spot.
To understand a mockingbird: specimens that sparked Darwin’s theory of evolution
November 15, 2008
Mockingbirds: among the menagerie of animal specimens that inspired Charles Darwin’s thoughts on evolution. Photograph: Anna Gordon/Guardian
The significance of the two birds lying side by side on a purple cushion with tags dangling from their feet is easy to miss. But the subtle differences - a strip of white on the wing, a smudge of dark on the breast - set Charles Darwin on course to develop the most important scientific theory ever conceived: the evolution of species through natural selection.
The mockingbirds are perhaps the most important specimens Darwin collected from the Galapagos during his five-year voyage aboard HMS Beagle in the 1830s, and today they go on show as part of a major exhibition at the Natural History Museum in London. It reveals Darwin as a tenacious scientist, a pragmatic lover, and a man pained by losing his religion.
The exhibition is the centrepiece of a nationwide programme to mark the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birthday next February. Alongside specimens brought back from the voyage are notebooks describing his earliest hunches on evolution, personal letters, and hairs from his long, wispy beard recently discovered wrapped in tissue in a box kept by his daughter.
Darwin was a student clergyman when he joined HMS Beagle on its voyage round the world. At the time, many believed the species on Earth were unrelated and unchanged since the moment of creation, and the planet was only 6,000 years old.
Towards the end of the journey, Darwin collected specimens in the Galapagos, beginning in San Cristbal island. There he saw mockingbirds that looked similar to those he had seen in South America, but on Floreana, a neighbouring island, the mockingbirds were consistently different. They had darker breast markings, white bands on their wings, and longer beaks. The observation was Darwin’s first hint that species might evolve over time.
In a notebook dated March 1837, he wrote: “If there is the slightest foundation for these remarks, the zoology of archipelagoes will be well worth examining; for such facts would undermine the stability of species.”
Alex Gaffikin, exhibition developer at the museum, said: “It’s one of those theories that completely changes the way you think about the world. When you stop to think about it, that everything is related, it blows your mind, as it did Darwin’s.”
Sometimes Darwin’s discoveries owed more to fortuity than forethought. His search for the Lesser Rhea, an ostrich-like bird he heard could be found in Patagonia, ended one day when he realised he was eating one - shot by the ship’s artist.
Upon his return to England, Darwin spent much of his time at Down House in Kent in a comfortable, cluttered study that has been reconstructed for the exhibition. He had an upholstered chair fitted with wheels, allowing him to reach everything without getting up.
Pages from his personal notebook dated July 1838 reveal his quandary over whether to marry his first cousin, Emma Wedgwood. In favour of marrying, he listed “children”, “a friend in old age” and “an object to be loved and played with - better than a dog anyhow”. In the end, these outweighed the alternatives, “no children”, “no one to care for” and “freedom to go where one liked”.
Emma wrote to her aunt: “He is the most open, transparent man I ever saw, and every word expresses his real thoughts.” When Darwin finally proposed, her father wept “tears of joy”. They had 10 children.
It was at Down House that Darwin received the letter that shocked him into writing On the Origin of Species. Alfred Wallace, a biologist 16 years his junior, described a theory very similar to his own. Friends brokered a truce and papers from both men were read out at the Linnaean Society in London on July 1 1858. A year later, Darwin finished the book, but was so anxious about how it would be received he said it “felt like confessing a murder”.
Lorraine Cornish at the Natural History Museum said: “It was a bestseller. People were buying it at Waterloo station. The man in the street was suddenly looking at science very differently.”
While Darwin was distressed at the upset his theory caused, particularly to his wife, others relished the confrontation it brought with the church and wider scientific community. On November 23 1859, Thomas Huxley, a young biologist, wrote to Darwin: “I am sharpening up my claws and beak in readiness.”
Darwin’s dilemma: To marry or not
Marry
Children - (if it Please God) - Constant companion, (& friend in old age) who will feel interested in one, - object to be beloved & played with. - -better than a dog anyhow. - Home, & someone to take care of house - Charms of music & female chit-chat. - These things good for one’s health. - Forced to visit & receive relations but terrible loss of time. -
My God, it is intolerable to think of spending one’s life, like a neuter bee, working, working, & nothing after all. - No, no won’t do. - Imagine living all one’s day solitarily in smoky dirty London House. - Only picture to yourself a nice soft wife on a sofa with good fire, & books & music perhaps - Compare this vision with the dingy reality of Grt. Marlbro’ St.
Marry - Marry - Marry Q.E.D.
Not Marry
No children, (no second life), no one to care for one in old age.- What is the use of working ‘in’ without sympathy from near & dear friends-who are near & dear friends to the old, except relatives. Freedom to go where one liked - choice of Society & little of it. - Conversation of clever men at clubs - Not forced to visit relatives, & to bend in every trifle. - to have the expense & anxiety of children - perhaps quarelling - Loss of time. - cannot read in the Evenings - fatness & idleness - Anxiety & responsibility - less money for books &c - if many children forced to gain one’s bread. - (But then it is very bad for ones health to work too much). Perhaps my wife wont like London; then the sentence is banishment & degradation into indolent, idle fool
Oxford University opens controversial animal research lab
November 12, 2008
A mouse room in the new Biomedical Sciences Building. Photograph: PA
A controversial animal research laboratory that became the focus of a campaign of terror by animal rights activists was officially opened today at Oxford University.
Staff moved the first groups of mice into the £18m Biomedical Sciences Building last week and will transfer the other animals over the next few months. The centre is expected to be fully operational by the middle of next year.
Thousands of animals will eventually be housed in the new facility, which aims to bring the university’s disparate animal research projects under one roof. The centre will provide room for mice, ferrets, monkeys and other species, such as tadpoles.
Work on the building began in autumn 2003 but was abandoned less than a year later when contractors quit following intimidation from anti-vivisectionists.
Construction on the building was suspended for 16 months while the university obtained an injunction against animal rights protesters to protect staff and builders and establish an exclusion zone around the facility.
Yesterday the university said it accepted the right to protest, but called the campaign of intimidation, threats, damage to property and arson directed at the university “entirely unacceptable”.
“It has not been a simple matter to get to this point,” said Julie Maxton, registrar at the university. “We’re pleased to have got to this stage, but there’s no sense of triumphalism.”
University officials met with senior police officers and government ministers to draw up security measures that would allow the laboratory to go ahead. The bill for the extra security for the building will be picked up by the government.
Scientists will use the centre to test new treatments for cancer, leukaemia, heart disease, HIV, arthritis and diabetes. Safety tests on animals are required before new drugs can be licensed.
Around 98 per cent of the animals will be rodents, with non-human primates making up 0.5%. Some 130 projects that are currently run in laboratories across the university campus will be moved into the new building.
The facility, which the university describes as “world class”, will rehouse animals into more modern enclosures and bring together veterinary specialists to monitor their health. Other staff will be responsible for finding ways to reduce the number of animals used in research, improve their wellbeing and refine alternative techniques such as biochemical testing of tissue slices and computer modelling.
Alastair Buchan, head of medical sciences at the university, said: “Unfortunately there is a tension and there always will be a tension, between our needs and our patients’ needs, and those who seek to protect animals from any form of harm.
“The reality for those of us who look after the sick and sadly the disabled, is that we cannot get away from our need for careful, well monitored and meticulously regulated use of animals for biomedical research.”
The opening of the laboratory drew criticism from animals rights groups, but was welcomed by the broader medical community for setting what one organisation called the “gold standard” for animal research facilities.
Michelle Thew of the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection said: “Like the majority of the British public, I want to live in a world where no one wants or believes it’s necessary to test on animals. It is therefore depressing that in a collective failure of imagination our leading institutions are choosing to repeat the failed patterns of the past, rather than investing in the future. Humanity will pay a high price until our public money goes into modern, humane, reliable, non-animal research to deliver cures for diseases.”
But Mark Walport, director of the Wellcome Trust, said animal research played a “vital role” in developing treatments and understanding diseases that affect thousands of people around the world.
“Where there is no possible alternative, it will continue to be necessary to use animals in research and facilities such as those at the University of Oxford will ensure that animal welfare standards will be amongst the highest in the world,” he said.
Statins found to be effective against infertility condition
November 12, 2008
Jools and Jamie Oliver and their children
Statins, the cholesterol-lowering drugs, are also effective against a common condition that harms women’s fertility, according to a clinical trial that compared them with a drug often used to treat the condition.
In the randomised trial, which involved 60 women in Poland, statins improved various symptoms of polycystic ovary syndrome (Pcos) including acne, excess body hair and irregular periods. The drug also lowered the patients’ body weight and cholesterol levels.
“There’s a growing body of evidence that statins may be very beneficial in the treatment of women with Pcos,” said Dr Leszek Pawelczyk at the Poznan University of Medical Science in Poland. “I think that it is a completely new possibility for the treatment of patients.”
Pcos affects around one in 10 women in the UK according to the NHS, including Victoria Beckham and Jamie Oliver’s wife, Jools. The condition – which is also called Stein-Leventhal syndrome – is associated with multiple cysts in the ovaries. It is the most common cause of ovulation failure leading to infertility in pre-menopausal women.
It leads to irregular hormone levels including typically high levels of testosterone as well as unreliable egg release from the ovaries. Symptoms – which typically begin to appear in late teens or early 20s – include weight gain, acne, irregular or light periods, excess body hair and problems getting pregnant. Many women with the condition suffer very mild symptoms.
Pawelczyk and his colleagues split their 60 patients into three groups at random. All the women had Pcos and none were taking oral contraceptives. Eighteen of them received regular doses of simvastatin (one type of statin), 19 received metformin (a diabetes drug commonly used to treat Pcos) and 23 were given a combination of the two.
After six months on the medications the team found that those on simvastatin had increased their menstruation frequency by 89% compared with a 32% increase on metformin. The two drugs reduced acne by 67% and 59% respectively while the patients’ cholesterol levels dropped by 17% and 1%. The two drugs reduced testosterone levels in the patients by 27% and 19% and the body mass index of the two groups of women dropped by 2.2% and 4.3% respectively. Pawelczyk reported his results at the American Society of Reproductive Medicine annual meeting in San Francisco.
“Simvastatin may be a very good option,” said Pawelczyk although he stressed that it could not be given to women who were planning to get pregnant, because statins have been associated with birth defects. The results did not show any benefit to giving simvastatin and metformin together.
Cherrill Hicks: How booze affects the young
November 12, 2008
A young woman lies on a bench surrounded by alcohol bottles after a night binge drinking. Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images
A child under 10 undergoes hospital treatment for alcohol-related problems once every three days in England, according to government figures released on Sunday. And the number of under-age drinkers being treated overall jumped 40% in just one year, from 2006 to 2007. To qualify as an alochol-related admission, the diagnosis must mention either mental and behavioural disorders due to alcohol use, alcoholic liver disease, or the toxic effect of alcohol.
Meanwhile, a report published earlier this month on the number of pupils excluded from school for drinking made for equally alarming reading. It revealed that in the past four years, 2,000 pupils have been permanently excluded and a further 40,000 temporarily excluded for alcohol and drug-related incidents.
Educational problems aside, there is good evidence to show that the use of alcohol by under-18s is linked to a litany of high-risk behaviours, including unsafe (or unwanted) sex, traffic and other accidents, illegal drug use, family breakdown and even a higher risk of suicide.
But as if the behavioural problems caused by underage drinking aren’t grave enough, researchers’ attention has now turned to a more neglected area - the potential long-term health risks. Adolescence is a period of rapid growth, and a critical time for physical and emotional change. And although research in this area is in its early stages, it does suggest that underage drinking may cause physiological damage, even within a short time frame.
According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism in the US, which has published a summary of the research so far, the chief areas affected by alcohol use seem to be the adolescent brain, bones, liver and the complex system of hormone production that is vital to normal growth and sexual development.
While it is still rare for young drinkers to encounter the type of chronic health problems adults get after cumulative years of drinking, research has also found that young people who start to drink early (14 years or under) may be at high risk of alcohol dependence in later life, with all the dangers to their health that this can entail. These include a risk of heart and liver disease, certain cancers, digestive disorders and even dementia.
So far, most of the research on the impact of alcohol on adolescent health has been carried out on either animals, or on young people who are officially classed as alcohol-dependent - and will therefore be drinking heavily on a regular basis. Without more studies, it’s hard to say how far research on adolescent rats applies to young humans; and it’s also difficult to know, at present, how much alcohol is too much and in what timeframe - whether, say, a once-a-week binge over months or years is sufficient to cause damage.
What we do know is that while the government sets limits on the amounts of alcohol it is safe for adults to consume, these obviously don’t apply to those who are smaller, lighter and less developed physically. You might be surprised to learn, however, that young people have a higher tolerance to alcohol than adults. This means they’re able to consume far more alcohol than adults can, before getting any unwanted effects - which may partly explain the high rates of binge drinking among young people. Unfortunately, research also suggests that binge drinking (consuming several units of alcohol in a short space of time) is more physically harmful than a regular but moderate intake.
Body of evidence
• By the age of 13, the proportion of those who drink exceeds the proportion of teenagers who do not.
• The UK has some of the highest levels of drunkenness among young people in Europe. Young boys drink mainly beer, cider and lager. Alcopops remain popular among girls but consumption of them tends to drop with age.
• Four per cent of 15-to-16-year-olds have been in trouble with the police through drinking.
• According to Frank Soodeen, former Alcohol Concern press officer: “There are more than 800,000 children below the age of 15 drinking regularly in the UK.”
Carlene Thomas-Bailey
• Source: Alcohol Concern www.alcoholconcern.org.uk
Sharks and rays off UK shores critically endangered and facing extinction
November 12, 2008
Populations of basking sharks in the north Atlantic are classed as vulnerable. Photograph: Dan Burton/Alamy
More than a quarter of sharks and rays in the north-east Atlantic face extinction through the effects of overfishing, with 7% classed as critically endangered, conservationists have warned.
The Red List published by the International Union for Conservation of Nature states that 26% of these species are at risk of being wiped out and a fifth are now regarded as “near threatened”.
The true number of fish under threat may be considerably larger, the report by the IUCN’s shark specialist group cautions, because scientists have too little information on 27% of them to determine the health of their populations.
Many of the animals at risk are slow-breeding fish that have few young and reach sexual maturity late in life, a fact that makes them especially vulnerable to the fisheries’ activities.
The spiny dogfish (rock salmon) and porbeagle shark, both caught for their meat, are critically endangered. They are among a handful of species under EU fishing restrictions, though these quotas are well above the zero-catch levels proposed by scientists at the International Council for Exploration of the Sea (Ices).
Angel sharks and common skates are also critically endangered in the north-east Atlantic, according to the report. The realisation is prompting Ices scientists to call for greater restrictions on fisheries which either deliberately catch the fish or land them as bycatch.
The basking shark, the world’s second largest fish, is listed as vulnerable.
The report was released ahead of European commission recommendations for tighter controls on fishing, including zero-catches for porbeagle sharks and spiny dogfish. The advice is also for a ban on fishing vessels keeping aboard common skates, undulate rays, white skates and angel sharks, which should be returned safely to the water wherever possible.
Fisheries ministers are due to discuss the new restrictions at a meeting next month. If the quotas are cut in line with the proposals, fisheries would lose permission to catch 600 tonnes of porbeagles and 2,600 tonnes of spiny dogfish.
Sonja Fordham, policy director at the Shark Alliance and co-author of the report, said: “The north Atlantic is one of the most overfished regions in the world and yet only four species of sharks and rays are protected. This is a clear consequence of overfishing, whether these species are targeted or taken as bycatch.”
Another species listed as critically endangered is the deepwater gulper shark, sought for its rich liver oil, which is used by the cosmetics industry. In 2005 Ices urged the EU to ban deepwater shark fishing, but current quotas will allow more than 800 tonnes to be taken next year.
The IUCN finds that the percentage of sharks and rays in the north-east Atlantic region classified as threatened is higher than the figure for the species globally - which is given to be 18%. It says the decline in numbers is due to the activities of fishing nations such as Spain, Portugal, France and Britain.
Two species of guitarfish, whose fins are among the most highly sought after for use in shark fin soup in Asian markets, are classified as endangered in the north-east Atlantic. There are no limits on catches of them in European waters.
Scientists working for the IUCN said that it could already be too late to save two types of sawfish, both of which were critically endangered.
Claudine Gibson, former programme officer for the IUCN shark specialist group and lead author of the report, said: “North-east Atlantic populations of these vulnerable species are in serious trouble, more so than in many other parts of the world.
“Most sharks and rays are exceptionally vulnerable to overfishing because of their tendency to grow slowly, mature late, and produce few young. Those at greatest risk of extinction in the north-east Atlantic include heavily-fished large sharks and rays … as well as commercially valuable deepwater sharks and spiny dogfish.”
The EU is also looking to protect a string of other species, including cod and haddock, in proposals that reduce quotas by up to a quarter next year.
“We have made real progress in fisheries management over the last six years and we are starting to see positive results, such as the recovery in certain stocks under long-term management plans,” said the EU fisheries commissioner, Joe Borg. “But this good news remains the exception, not the rule. There has been so much overfishing over many years that the balance of the marine ecosystems on which our fisheries depend is seriously disturbed.”
Marine conservationists urged tighter curbs. “Such action is immediately possible and absolutely necessary to change the course toward extinction of these remarkable ocean animals,” said Fordham.
