ISSN 1755-7585
Christmas Issue 2007
CLAM UP!!
OCEAN SCIENCES CONTROVERSY SPARKED BY 3.4 INCH CLAM
A
3.4 inch long clam has caused a wave of controversy around the world. Scientists from our own School of Ocean Science discovered what is believed to be the longest living animal known to science, a quahog clam Arctica islandica, and cut an end to its 400-year life span by cleaning out the flesh and putting the shell to one side. It was only when the shell was examined a year later that the true age was established. It was believed to be between 405 and 410 years old before its untimely death, and it is unknown just how much longer it could have lived if left on the sea floor. Ming would have started its life from lava on the sea floor when the first Queen Elizabeth was on the throne and William Shakespeare was writing his plays. It beats the unofficial record of the oldest animal, another Icelandic clam found in a museum, by about 30 years. The oldest known animal outside of the mollusc family was Adwaita, a male Aldabra Giant Tortoise who lived to 256 years. Many people feel that the University scientists involved should have been doing their part to protect Ming, instead of killing it in the name of research. It is however, very likely
that longer-lived individuals of the clam species remain to be found, as Icelandic waters seem to provide the ideal conditions for the extreme longevity of the species. The clam was dredged up from Icelandic coastal waters in 2006 during a data collection cruise as part of the EU Millennium project. The project is a collaboration of scientists from 15 European countries working together to investigate climate change over the last 1000 years. The clam, (nicknamed ‘Ming’ after the Chinese dynasty on the throne when it began its life), was in a load of 3,000 empty shells and 34 live molluscs taken up from the sea floor by team members Paul Butler and James Scourse. The true age of the shell was not discovered until earlier this month when post-doctoral scientist Alan Wanamaker drilled through the
and climate change. The age of the clam can also be calculated by counting the layers in the shell. The shell only grows at a rate of 0.1mm a year during the summer months when the temperature is warmer and there is a large food source available. While ancient clams may give us an insight in the climate over the past 400 years, it seems another direction of study is also being taken. Help the Aged, the UK-based charity
shell to count the growth lines. The Arctica islandica mollusc is often called the ‘tree of the sea’ as the annual growth lines in the shell give rise to a wave of information about environmental conditions such as salinity, seawater temperature and available food. Analysing the shell helps towards understanding the link between changes in the ocean
Inside SUPPLEMENT NERS IN IN W D E S N A s i XM BANGOR Th Issue
that provides help and support for disadvantaged older people both here and overseas has awarded the university a £40,000 grant for a preliminary study into how these animals can live to extraordinary ages. It is believed that the clams may have evolved exceptionally effective defences which hold back the destructive ageing processes that normally occur. Said Chris Richardson, the Bangor-based team leader, “What’s intriguing the Bangor group is how these animals have actually managed, in effect, to escape senescence [growing old].” “One of the reasons we think is that the animals have got some difference in cell turnover rates that we would associate with much shorter-lived animals.” “If, in Arctica islandica, evolution has created a model of successful resistance to the damage of ageing, it is possible that an investigation of the tissues of these real life Methuselahs might help us to understand the processes of ageing.” While the funding couldn’t come at a better time for a department that suffered huge budget cuts at the end of the last academic year, supporters of the charity seem less pleased.
MUSIC COVERAGE
Members on the website forum voiced their concern that such a large amount of money was going to fund research on molluscs when the money could be spent on the direct aid of people in need. Through the charity’s ‘Cows ‘n Things’ gift-giving service, the money given to the university could have provided 100 emergency shelters to protect older people and their families in emergency zones against extreme weather conditions, at a cost of £400 each. Indeed, even research into increasing the quality of life, rather than the length of it seems a more favourable outcome to many supporters. It is possible that a portion of the School of Ocean Science’s already cut budget could be directed into this study. Money, that many students argue, could be much better spent getting the standard of teaching and undergraduate research back to the standard of what it was in past years, where Bangor was seen as one of the best Marine Biology departments in the UK.
Katherine Sandford
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