Bonobos can recognize when others lack knowledge and adjust their communication accordingly, a new study published in PNAS suggests.
In a study by Johns Hopkins University researchers, male bonobos were sat opposite a human partner one by one. A second person would place a treat – usually a Cheerio – under one of three cups. The bonobo would always be able to see where the treat was, but the human partner was sometimes kept in the dark.
The bonobo would only be able to have the treat if the human could find it.
When the bonobo knew the human didn’t know, he would “quite demonstratively” point to the right cup. This behavior indicates that bonobos may possess a basic understanding of others’ ignorance and use it to guide cooperative interactions.
These findings challenge long-standing beliefs that non-human primates cannot communicate based on mental state attributions and suggest that bonobos at least have a more flexible and advanced social cognition than previously thought.
In the icy waters surrounding Antarctica, a 10-kilometer stretch of sea is colored a reddish-brown. An Antarctic krill super-swarm floats along, millions of tons of shrimp-like crustaceans feeding on phytoplankton. The World Wildlife Fund estimates there are over 700 trillion adult individuals spanning up to 32 million square kilometers of the Antarctic Ocean, but even a number as high as this isn’t enough to keep them from threat.
Antarctic krill are other victims of the combined effects of ocean warming and loss of sea ice, further threatened by ocean acidification and increasing interest in the krill-fishing industry.
Krill fishing has emerged as a vital industry, particularly in the production of omega-3 supplements and aquaculture feed. The ecological significance of krill, a key species feeding a multitude of Antarctic life from fish to whales, seals to penguins, underscores the need for stringent traceability measures in fishing practices.
Traceability can ensure the sustainability and ecological integrity of Antarctic waters. Implementing robust traceability systems in krill fishing can help enforce compliance with conservation methods set forth by such international bodies as the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) and the Marine Stewardship Council.
“We can trace our krill oil all the way back to its origins in Antarctica.”
– Aker BioMarine
“Commercial krill harvesting in Antarctica takes place mainly in ‘Area 48’ and is strictly regulated by the CCAMLR,” according to Aker BioMarine, a krill-harvesting company. “Only 0.3 percent of the krill biomass in Area 48 is harvested annually by all fishing companies.”
These measures are designed to prevent overfishing and minimize the environmental impact of fishing activities. By tracing the origin, path and processing of krill products, stakeholders can ensure the krill was harvested responsibly, adhering to quotas and protected areas, thereby reducing the risk of ecological imbalance.
“It is critical for globally traded goods to know where sources are coming from,” the Aker BioMarine website states. “Our krill-harvesting vessels record the exact location of each krill catch which is associated with each batch of krill oil produced. We can trace our krill oil all the way back to its origins in Antarctica.”
Rimfrost is another company harvesting krill for omega-3 supplements. It reports its catch data electronically by satellite on a daily basis both to Norwegian authorities (in accordance with Norwegian requirements for a Norwegian company) and CCAMLR: “We always know in real-time how much, where and when the krill has been caught. All our products can be traced back to the GPS coordinated and the exact time of catching the krill.”
“Traceability is the answer and technologies are key,” Fransisco Aldon, CEO of MarinTrust writes. “Standardization of data is key.”
In a worldhungry for nutritious food, aquaculture is clearly a winning idea.
It isn’t a new one, either. Humans have been farming seafood for millennia. In more recent years, aquaculture has expanded to land-based tanks, where farmers raise fish and other seafood. Those tanks, however, take up increasingly valuable space on land and worsen competition for scarce water and other supplies.
This has more farmers looking back to the sea, where space is abundant and water and nutrients are free. Mariculture, the subset of aquaculture in the open seas, however, presents additional challenges.
A UAE tradition
Robotics could be on tap to move traditional Emirati fishing techniques into the future. Read more›››
The robots Lakmal Seneviratne and his team are working on at Khalifa University could eventually be employed to clean and repair hadra – fence traps placed perpendicular to shore – and gargour – fishing traps woven from palm leaves into a semicircular form, he says. ‹‹‹ Read less
Traditional mariculture relies on intensive manual labor to clean and repair equipment, monitor conditions, inspect nets and care for the plants and animals raised for human markets. That kind of manual labor is expensive, requiring trained commercial divers who are increasingly spread thin as aquaculture operations expand. It can also be dangerous work for those divers, particularly as farms move out into deeper and more perilous waters.
Mariculture can also pose threats for the environment, spreading disease, antibiotics and parasites or allowing farmed fish to escape and negatively affect native species.
Eleni Kelasidi, a senior researcher at SINTEF, one of Europe’s largest independent research organizations, thinks those issues could have a common solution: robots.
Putting a robot into the open water can be a bigger challenge, however, than putting a robot on the land.
For one thing, Kelasidi says, it’s important that autonomous systems do not harm farmed fish and/or damage the flexible structures.
This is both an ethical and economic consideration, she says. The ethical consideration: “We cannot harm any living thing and/or let them to escape from the fish farms.” The economic: “The fish are the profit of the industry.”
Happy fish
Kelasidi and her team have access to industrial scale fish farms and operate full scale research facility to investigate how robots stress or otherwise affect fish using equipment originally designed for the oil and gas industry. They test systems to see how well they function but also to observe how fish react to, say, different colors, sounds or lights. The goal is to learn what stresses fish and ensure healthier fish stocks and better profits.
Humans on the surface currently perform many aquaculture jobs using remotely operated machines, she notes.
“Our job is to cut the dependence from the humans to get the robotic systems to operate themselves. They need to understand their environment and make sure they don’t collide with structures,” Kelasidi says.
Another challenge for researchers, she says: making remote-operating vehicles “more clever.”
‘An exciting frontier’
Self-operating aquatic systems is an issue Lakmal Seneviratne, director of the Center for Robotics and Autonomous Systems at Khalifa University, is working on as well, and he’s optimistic.
CAPTION: Aquabots from Khalifa University
“It’s a very exciting frontier in underwater robotics,” he says, noting that 70 percent of the Earth is water but humans have explored only 5 percent of that.
Seneviratne and his team are also working on land-based agricultural robots such as “dogs” that can step lightly between rows of crops; “hands” that can gently pick fragile fruits; and robots on rails that can move up and down a field to monitor individual plants for signs of disease or readiness for harvest.
But ocean farms present a different set of challenges for autonomous systems.
“The problem isn’t that aquaculture is very deep, but (maintaining) navigation and control,” Seneviratne says, echoing Kelasidi’s concerns.
GPS doesn’t work beneath the water’s surface and robots have to be able to navigate currents and waves without damaging each other or farm structures.
Cameras, to capture images, and artificial intelligence, to sharpen and analyze those images, are important to managing these conditions, he says.
Looking to nature
But being able to see in the murky depths is only part of the issue for mariculture robotics. The machines also need control. So researchers are looking at life forms already adapted to aquatic environments for inspiration. Although not specifically designed for aquaculture, the biomimicry could prove useful in ocean farms. Among the ideas:
Aquaculture’s promise and challenges
As the world’s population grows and climate change puts more pressure on traditional terrestrial farming, sustainable aquaculture could play a key role, says Naveed Nabi, an assistant professor at Chandigarh University. Read more›››
“In the present times, when food security is a matter of serious concern, aquaculture has played a key role to mitigate this crisis, supplying about 178 million tons of food in which 20.2 kg per capita is destined for human consumption,” he says. “Aquaculture not only adds resilience to the global food system through improving resource-use efficiencies, but also by diversifying the farmed species.”
But he warns that farmed fish present challenges to the environment including fish escapees that harm native species and the spread of disease and parasites.
There’s also the issues of eutrophication, in which water becomes overloaded with nutrients, leading to deadly algae blooms; antibiotics in the environment through unconsumed food or fish waste; and threats associated with pesticides. ‹‹‹ Read less
A team from Harvard and the University of South Carolina in 2021 presented the Finbot, which uses four independently controllable fins.
In 2023, a team from Zhejiang University, China, in 2023 published results of their Copebot, designed to mimic the copepod, a small crustacean known to escape from predators with explosive jumps. Their bot, they report, was able to leap out of the water, land on a small pad, transmit data and jump back into the water.
Back at Khalifa University, meanwhile, researchers have other ideas.
“Looking at aquatic environments, many animals evolved flexible or completely soft bodies to improve their swimming capability and adaptability to the intricate underwater world,” says Federico Renda, who heads the team. “For instance, octopuses can squeeze into small apertures to hide or catch prey, and jellyfish developed the most efficient locomotion strategy of all. In my team, we take inspiration from soft creatures to build new underwater robots capable of replicating these functionalities while understanding the physical principles involved.”
One of KU’s designs mimics flagella, the whiplike structures that propel bacteria through liquid to solve another issue with underwater robots: Many are tethered. While the tethers allow the machines to be operated from the surface, they can also become tangled together.
“Recently, we have developed an untethered underwater robot inspired by flagellate microorganisms capable of efficient and safe locomotion in close proximity to sensible underwater habitats,” Renda says. “Furthermore, each flagellum can be used as a coiling gripper in addition to propulsion, achieving redundancy and multifunctionality, which can significantly simplify underwater operations.”
To test robots’ ability to navigate choppy waters, Khalifa University built a wave pool that simulates currents. Stanford University’s Oussama Khatib recently used it to run Ocean One, a humanoid robot designed to perform such tasks as monitor coral reefs and offshore oil rigs, through its paces.
SINTEF’s Kelasidi would like to see robots replace human divers or assist them on highly risky operations. Seneviratne likewise expects robots to allow human divers to inspect more often and longer.
“We see robots as helping divers instead of replacing them,” he says.
We track our deliveries, luggage and phones. But when it comes to tracking where our seafood comes from, it isn’t as easy as slapping an AirTag on a salmon.
And tracking that seafood is vital not only to economies but human rights and environmental health.
The seafood industry in 2023 was valued at over U.S.$236 billion so the economic impact of large theft can devastate a developing country.
Listen to the audio:
Not only to the income of seafood exports, but also those who rely on the ocean for food, such as the people of Argentina.
According to a 2021 study from the Financial Transparency Coalition — a company dedicated to transparency in financial and tax systems — Argentina’s waters are plagued with illegal operators. An estimated 500 vessels are illegally fishing in its waters, and Argentina doesn’t don’t have the resources to police it. This equals U.S.$2 billion to $3 billion annually in losses for the country.
Globally the annual economic impact is between U.S.$10 billion and $36.4 billion.
Illegal actions might be vessels operating in sovereign territorial waters without permission or a vessel that is legally flying that state’s flag but not operating within its laws.
Unreported fishing constitutes not only failure to report but misreporting catch volume. Unregulated fishing is any fishing activity outside of conservation regulations or where there may not be regulations in place, but activity is carried out against international regulations that protect not just economies but ocean health.
Nature Middle East reports that fish off Egypt’s 1,000-kilometer coast stretching from Palestine to Libya are dangerously overexploited, threatening the health of all marine life in the Mediterranean. Despite making up just 0.8 percent of the world’s oceans, the Mediterranean contains 4 to 18 percent of known marine species.
Myriam Khalfallah, who led the study for the Sea Around Us initiative at the Canadian University of British Columbia and the Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport in Egypt, recommends urgent action to better regulate and monitor fishing activity.
Another issue that puts illegal fishing at the forefront is mislabeling. Mislabeling can take place at any point in the supply chain and can be deliberate or unintentional, which makes it harder to trace. Mislabeled information might be anything from seafood species to product origin. This contributes to health risks for the 6.6 million Americans with seafood allergies.
And because mislabeling can obscure the origin of the product, it makes tracking forced labor difficult. Intentional mislabeling often masks illegal fishing.
“Up to 70 percent of the seafood export market is in developing countries. In seafood hubs such as Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines and Peru, slavery and child labor within the seafood industry are widespread. With the global demand for seafood consistently increasing, illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing has ensued in slavery and human trafficked labor,” according to a 2022 study published by PeerJ Life & Environment.
With so much money to be made from illegal fishing, how do we make sure the fish was sourced sustainably, isn’t mislabeled or wasn’t acquired via forced labor? It comes down to data and doing the right thing.
Know your fish
The idea of tracing seafood to ensure regulations are followed isn’t new. Its beginnings were paper-based, then digital. Now technology allows for tracing seafood throughout the supply chain and offers peace of mind to consumers that the fish they’re eating was sourced legally, ethically and inline with sustainable practices.
Regulated companies know the journey their product has been on, from ocean to plate, and can share that information with you.
A 2021 initiative by five of the world’s largest seafood companies called for global regulation and the industry to jump on board. The United States Food and Drug Administration put this call into action with its Final Traceability Rule, taking effect in January 2026. This requires entities that manage food, anywhere along the supply chain, to provide additional traceability information to those regulations already in existence.
How does it work?
One company assisting the seafood industry with traceability is U.S.-based BlueTrace, which offers simple solutions that all but eliminate error along the fishy journey.
It begins at the point of catch and concludes with a consumer. In between, our fish might encounter primary and secondary processors, traders, wholesalers, dealers, distributors and transporters.
The system includes software that can be operated from a mobile phone or tablet in conjunction with an industrial printer that prints spreadsheets, logs and labels on waterproof paper.
Their solutions can be implemented in a matter of days, require zero consultancy and are simple enough for employees to use with minimal training.
Labels and tags are equipped with QR codes that receivers, dealers and buyers can scan for details. Users can also request a PDF that can assist with harvest financial reporting documentation and can be sent on to the receiving end of a shipment to let customers know it’s coming.
Bonus: All data passed through the app is stored in the cloud.
Chip Terry, CEO of BlueTrace, says, “Our mission is to simplify the seafood industry. The seafood industry has been around forever, and it does a lot of things well, but they are drowning in redundant paperwork. The lack of visibility into their operations makes it hard for them to scale. Ninety percent of the seafood industry is small to midsize businesses that simply lack reasonably priced tools to do their jobs effectively.”
Though the system was designed for shellfish dealers, BlueTrace’s over 470 clients use the software to track inventory of species including swordfish, seaweed, groundfish, imported tuna, shrimp and many more.
The end of the complicated fish journey might be the salmon en croute you just ordered on your date night. So, the next time you order fish, have a look on the table or menu for a QR code — the story of your dinner might serve as a great conversation starter.
DUBAI-BASED TECH DEVELOPER PROVIDES TRANSPARENCY
The seafood industry is wracked with illegal, unreported and unregulated activity. Dubai’s Seafood Souq thinks technology can help.
“We build tools for fishers, aquaculture farms, distributors and retailers to ensure that seafood products are transparent in their source and tracking across the value chain,” says Fahim Al Qasimi, the company’s co-founder and CIO.
The Seafood Souq aims to digitize the seafood industry to ensure responsible trade and procurement from the point of catch to the end consumer using its traceability technology, SFS Trace.
It all begins with data at the source or point of catch. Harvesters use mobile applications to log a catch. The log data includes species, quantity, location and time.
Comparable tools are used in fish farms but SFS includes the lifecycle of the fish — data like what the fish has been fed, health treatments and environmental conditions.
Fisheries and ship operators use SFS technology to manage their fleets for compliance documentation, ensuring they meet the regulatory and sustainability standards of Global Dialogue and Seafood Traceability — a non-profit organization partnership between the World Wildlife Fund and the Institute of Food Technologists.
The trace audit component of SFS Trace compiles and scores products based on compliance with the organization. It reviews the data ensuring every stop along the supply chain is substantiated, from catch to consumer. This is possible because each event in processing, packaging and transportation is captured and stored. Data transmission between systems is secured by Electronic Product Code Information Services.
The company is working with local and international partners to achieve transparency and improve operations, including developing and implementing a digital logbook for South African tuna fisheries.
Closer to home, Seafood Souq is working with Jumeirah Hotels in Dubai to show guests via QR code where their seafood originated and how it came to land on their plate.
UAE supermarkets and caterers are also using the SFS Traceability Audit tool to ensure quality and compliance with the country’s sustainability goals.
What’s next for the Seafood Souq?
The company is in discussions for pilot logbook tools with UAE fishers. “It is an opportunity for NGOs, the government and the private sector to contribute to more transparency and the protection of fishers’ livelihoods. Conversations with regulators, fishers and the procurers of seafood need to continue to ensure the effective implementation of this project, and Seafood Souq is proud to be the convenor (and digital infrastructure) behind these conversations,” Al Qasmi tells KUST Review.
People with Alzheimer’s disease may breathe faster than those without it, research in Brain Communications suggests.
Researchers from Lancaster University and the University of Ljubljana found that participants with Alzheimer’s took about 17 breaths per minute, compared with 13 breaths per minute in healthy individuals.
This faster breathing was linked to poor coordination between brain activity and blood flow, which could reduce oxygen supply to the brain.
The study suggests that changes in breathing rate might be an early warning sign of Alzheimer’s as the brain struggles to regulate blood flow. Researchers hope this discovery could lead to new, non-invasive ways to detect and treat the disease.
Join our mailing list
Get the latest articles, news and other updates from Khalifa University Science and Tech Review magazine
