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Seashells changed the world. Now they’re teaching us about the future of the oceans.

<p><em>This story is part of</em> <a href="https://www.vox.com/down-to-earth"><strong>Down to Earth</strong></a><em>, a Vox reporting initiative on the science, politics, and economics of the biodiversity crisis.</em></p>
<p>Many years ago, the Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum in Florida surveyed its visitors to find out how much they knew about seashells. Ninety percent of them, as the survey revealed, didn’t know that shells were made by live animals.</p>
<p>“I was just absolutely floored when I heard the statistic,” said Cynthia Barnett, an author and environmental reporter who teaches journalism at the University of Florida. “Most people thought they were some sort of rock or stone, and I was really disturbed by that. It just got me thinking how separated we are from the natural world.”</p>
<p>Barnett didn’t let that thought go. It became an obsession — and eventually, a book. Published earlier this month, her new book, <em>The Sound of the Sea: Seashells and the Fate of the Oceans,</em> is a story about seashells and the creatures that make them.</p>
<p>Seashells aren’t just interesting because of the fascinating and bizarre animals that create them, Barnett writes. They’ve also shaped human societies and laid the groundwork for one of the world’s most recognizable oil companies, Royal Dutch Shell. And whether you know it or not, seashells are all around us — in construction materials, in the ground below our feet, even in our toothpaste.</p>
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<p>Shells also reveal a frightening future that climate change is swiftly ushering in. “The sea and its life are taking a far greater blow than those of us on land,” she writes. Oceans are absorbing <a href="https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-ocean-heat-content#:~:text=More%20than%2090%20percent%20of,has%20occurred%20in%20the%20ocean.">far more</a> heat than land and they’re becoming more acidic, as they suck up much of the carbon dioxide we emit into the air. That’s taking a toll on many mollusks, she writes, as is over-harvesting.</p>
<p>I recently spoke with Barnett about these threats, and her own place in the sweeping story of seashells. She used to spend summers harvesting wild scallops in Florida, and ate seafood on the road while reporting the book, she said.</p>
<p>But as she’s learned about the true price of harvesting, she’s changed her habits, and she’s optimistic that others are doing the same. “I think our ethics of gathering seafood, of cooking seafood, has changed, and that could give us a lot of hope,” she told me. “We do change over time.”</p>
<p>Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.</p>
<h4><strong>Benji Jones</strong></h4>
<p>Where do seashells actually come from?</p>
<h4><strong>Cynthia Barnett</strong></h4>
<p>Seashells are made by the wondrous creatures that live inside of them — the marine mollusks. There are about 50,000 of them known. Mollusks are the second-largest group of animals behind the arthropods — which include the insects — and they are scooting and flipping and scooching all over the world from the deepest parts of the ocean to the highest mountain peaks.</p>
<h4><strong>Benji Jones</strong></h4>
<p>When I think about seashells, I think of oysters in a restaurant or perhaps the beautiful conch shell. How varied are seashells?</p>
<h4><strong>Cynthia Barnett</strong></h4>
<p>There are the gastropods, which are animals that make a single coiled shell. Then there are the bivalves, which are those double-shelled animals like clams and scallops. And then, of course, there are the cephalopods like the unshelled octopus or the squid, which had a shell long ago but evolved out of it. They traded in their shells for speed.</p>
<p>Marine mollusks evolved shells to protect themselves. As fishes and crabs evolved stronger teeth and stronger claws for pinching, seashells became stronger and stronger and more varied and more elaborate over tens of millions and even hundreds of millions of years. It’s an evolutionary arms race.</p>
<p>The really cool thing is that so many other things we love about seashells also evolved as protection. Sometimes when you pick them up, they’ll slam shut their little trap doors. The terebrids, or auger shells, have these really narrow apertures — the part of the shell you hold up to your ear — so predators can’t pry into them. The cowries evolved these really smooth, glossy humps, which scientists think makes it hard for a crab to hold on to them.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="e-image__meta">A scallop.</span></figcaption>
<span class="e-image__meta"><cite>BSIP/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</cite></span></figure>
<h4><strong>Benji Jones</strong></h4>
<p>How do they make these shells in the first place?</p>
<h4><strong>Cynthia Barnett</strong></h4>
<p>That is the process of biomineralization. The primary element in seashells is calcium carbonate. And the animals take that from the sea around them and build their shells slowly as they grow. So they’re basically secreting the shell at the edges, and they do that over most of their lives. Although kind of like humans, they grow faster at different times of their lives.</p>
<h4><strong>Benji Jones</strong></h4>
<p>Until reading this book, I didn’t realize that seashells are essentially all around us — in our building materials and in the design of buildings.</p>
<h4><strong>Cynthia Barnett</strong></h4>
<p>When I set out to write this book, I started thinking about all the places that seashells are found. They’re underfoot, making up limestone aquifers where we’re getting our drinking water. We walk on the bodies of all the marine life that has ever lived. A lot of the built environment is also made of seashells including the Empire State Building and the Washington Cathedral — these are great buildings cut from limestone.</p>
<h4><strong>Benji Jones</strong></h4>
<p>Limestone is the result of ancient shells basically being compressed over millennia.</p>
<h4><strong>Cynthia Barnett</strong></h4>
<p>Yes, that’s exactly right, and it’s a really hardy building material. Beyond that, of course, seashells are models for a lot of classic architectural design. Gaudi’s vaulted rooftops in Catalonia, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim Museum in New York, Jørn Utzon’s Sydney Opera House in Australia. Utzon credited the fierce-looking cockscomb oyster for that waterfront beauty.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="e-image__meta">The Sydney Opera House in Australia.</span></figcaption>
<span class="e-image__meta"><cite>Gaye Gerard/Getty Images</cite></span></figure>
<h4><strong>Benji Jones</strong></h4>
<p>I just love this idea that the shells are the homes for mollusks, but also, in some cases, they house us. Is it also true that shells are in toothpaste, or am I making that up?</p>
<h4><strong>Cynthia Barnett</strong></h4>
<p>You are not making that up. Shells are in toothpaste for the calcium carbonate. The same thing that helps make them tough is a good material for keeping our teeth clean. The ancient Greeks ground oysters and used it on their teeth to keep their teeth white and clean.</p>
<h4><strong>Benji Jones</strong></h4>
<p>As you write, a small seashell called the cowrie was used as a form of currency for a long time. When and where was that?</p>
<h4><strong>Cynthia Barnett</strong></h4>
<p>These little shells were harvested en masse in the Maldives for a thousand years, and they were used as money around the world. The money cowrie is a reef-dwelling algae-eater in the genus Cypraea, which actually shares its Greek root word with cryptocurrency — crypto, meaning hidden or secret. I was really fascinated by the money cowrie when I found out that it had been used as a major currency of the slave trade. In West Africa, they actually purchased an estimated third of the enslaved Africans forced to the Americas.</p>
<figure class="e-image"><span class="e-image__inner"><span class="e-image__image" data-original="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22703434/GettyImages_492778715.jpg"><picture class="c-picture" data-cid="site/picture_element-1625920211_6816_70891" data-cdata='{"asset_id":22703434,"ratio":"*"}'><source srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/o3K6o9DuMD8qFT0JKHL1yGVp-mw=/0x0:4180x2770/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:4180x2770):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22703434/GettyImages_492778715.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/IsGyqlONBsts6bZcefsgc707vnI=/0x0:4180x2770/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:4180x2770):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22703434/GettyImages_492778715.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/iCXCnH4rJTg4RQrKTSxflm6PAjE=/0x0:4180x2770/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:4180x2770):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22703434/GettyImages_492778715.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/l_Vvo2hxa-RoRsDrp6fi-tFMrkc=/0x0:4180x2770/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:4180x2770):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22703434/GettyImages_492778715.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Sz9EPmYknqJBEQ3q0DO5c9UymcU=/0x0:4180x2770/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:4180x2770):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22703434/GettyImages_492778715.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/vsJw6Kj3X9e5r0X2NSHOYmZLYP8=/0x0:4180x2770/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:4180x2770):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22703434/GettyImages_492778715.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/-jf3nmANUYccoajAoF0AOJYmK24=/0x0:4180x2770/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:4180x2770):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22703434/GettyImages_492778715.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/cs1UmksPrvUSwRyYJJKseUoclrs=/0x0:4180x2770/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:4180x2770):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22703434/GettyImages_492778715.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/UGg7HYsPnh4-gBDjcVs-5BbzbOU=/0x0:4180x2770/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:4180x2770):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22703434/GettyImages_492778715.jpg 1920w" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" type="image/webp" /> <img alt="" data-upload-width="4180" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/tWDnCx51qk8V1QXpfbTpYSDKVrI=/0x0:4180x2770/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:4180x2770):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22703434/GettyImages_492778715.jpg" srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/6b8bZruevj3LQf2DBZvoi5uzaMw=/0x0:4180x2770/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:4180x2770):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22703434/GettyImages_492778715.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Jl_G8GqpJb3hCd0H6vh5I4SfpAI=/0x0:4180x2770/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:4180x2770):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22703434/GettyImages_492778715.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Ps7Xhkp197Cigb04fZiVUVJOop8=/0x0:4180x2770/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:4180x2770):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22703434/GettyImages_492778715.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/uBwdCyhvyDg7Up0DXNLFDZVLOaI=/0x0:4180x2770/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:4180x2770):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22703434/GettyImages_492778715.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/o6eRomfPgINMubI5josBfXZQVq8=/0x0:4180x2770/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:4180x2770):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22703434/GettyImages_492778715.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/GyxVkTSISRn1Gfu7Ggh0fXJY4o8=/0x0:4180x2770/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:4180x2770):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22703434/GettyImages_492778715.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/siVcveF67USIHIjA0JW1-ukcNrM=/0x0:4180x2770/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:4180x2770):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22703434/GettyImages_492778715.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/SfHhB-BirRgI_lBG15grzces9CM=/0x0:4180x2770/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:4180x2770):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22703434/GettyImages_492778715.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/AEZERG-6lyu_rTHB5gmBr7EpOj8=/0x0:4180x2770/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:4180x2770):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22703434/GettyImages_492778715.jpg 1920w" /></picture></span></span>
<figcaption><span class="e-image__meta">Shells of the money cowrie.</span></figcaption>
<span class="e-image__meta"><cite>DeAgostini/Getty Images</cite></span></figure>
<h4><strong>Benji Jones</strong></h4>
<p>And why the cowrie? Is there something particular that makes the shell so special?</p>
<h4><strong>Cynthia Barnett</strong></h4>
<p>For one, they’re very uniform in size, so they were easy to count. They also packed up really well into ship ballast. And they were something you could put into a pocket or a purse and easily use like coins. They are really small and could fit on the tip of your pointer finger.</p>
<h4><strong>Benji Jones</strong></h4>
<p>Do we have a sense of when they became money? Was there a formal process that made that happen?</p>
<h4><strong>Cynthia Barnett</strong></h4>
<p>It was informal at first. There’s a wonderful global historian named Bin Yang who has written an <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Cowrie-Shells-Money-Routledge-Approaches-ebook/dp/B07KY1R21S" has-subtag="true" data-cdata='{"rewritten_url":"https://www.amazon.com/Cowrie-Shells-Money-Routledge-Approaches-ebook/dp/B07KY1R21S?ascsubtag=[]vx[p]22329791[m]m-placeholder[s]s-placeholder[t]w[c]c-placeholder[r]r-placeholder[d]d-placeholder","subtag_max_length":99,"subtag_delim_length":2,"subtag_key":"ascsubtag","subtag_data":{"ascsubtag":"[]vx[p]22329791[m]m-placeholder[s]s-placeholder[t]w[c]c-placeholder[r]r-placeholder[d]d-placeholder"},"encode_subtag":false}'>entire history of the money cowrie</a> as currency, and he found that Maldivian cowries were spending like coins in India as early as the fourth century. Then they moved west to the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, they spread to mainland Southeast Asia, and then they took off.</p>
<h4><strong>Benji Jones</strong></h4>
<p>You tell another story about the value of shells — more specifically, the ones that laid the groundwork for Royal Dutch Shell, the oil company.</p>
<h4><strong>Cynthia Barnett</strong></h4>
<p>Shell’s history dates to a Jewish curio shop owner in the East End of London. His name was Marcus Samuel, and in the 1830s, he was importing tropical seashells. The big thing that made him wealthy were these little gift boxes bejeweled with seashells. He thought of the idea of selling them as tourist items at beaches all around the United Kingdom. They were really, really popular.</p>
<p>One of his sons, Marcus Samuel Jr., is the one who ended up founding Shell Oil. At that time, oil was transported in cases and it sort of sloshed around. It could catch fire. It could burn ships. What Marcus Samuel Jr. did was help design the first safe oil tanker to be able to take a large amount of oil through the Suez Canal.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="e-image__meta">The logo of Royal Dutch Shell is a scallop.</span></figcaption>
<span class="e-image__meta"><cite>Nathan Stirk/Getty Images</cite></span></figure>
<h4><strong>Benji Jones</strong></h4>
<p>Is the company’s logo a scallop?</p>
<h4><strong>Cynthia Barnett</strong></h4>
<p>Yeah. The first logo they had was like a homely little mussel — just really boring. The scallop is perhaps the most brilliant-ever marketing symbol. It’s been a beloved shape for most of humanity. That bright yellow scallop shell has become so iconic for Shell Oil that the company doesn’t need to use its name when it uses that logo.</p>
<p>What’s poignant about this, and another reason for doing this book, is the revelation that seashells are beginning to be impacted by acidifying and warming seas. A company that started out with a founder who loved seashells so much is now trading in a fossil fuel, whose emissions are harming the oceans and creating acidifying seas that are, in turn, harming seashells and the animals that make them.</p>
<h4><strong>Benji Jones</strong></h4>
<p>The increase in CO2 emissions is not only warming the oceans but increasing the level of acidity inside of them. How does that work?</p>
<h4><strong>Cynthia Barnett</strong></h4>
<p>The carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and in the oceans is a limiting factor for the mollusks in taking in calcium carbonate to build their shells. The carbon dioxide we’ve sent into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels has turned seawater about 30 percent more acidic than it was at the start of the industrial era. That chemical change in the ocean has begun to limit the carbonate that mollusks use to make their shells. Acidic waters can also bore into some shells, pitting them or eroding them.</p>
<p>Mollusks are also threatened by warming. Some parts of the ocean have already become too warm for the shell-making animals. But the other beautiful thing about marine mollusks is that these are incredible survivors, and they did make it through five mass extinctions.</p>
<h4><strong>Benji Jones</strong></h4>
<p>Shells, we now know, can represent wealth. But for many people, they are collector’s items. As you write in the book, there were these periods when shell collecting was a wildly popular hobby — there was “shell madness.” What does that look like?</p>
<h4><strong>Cynthia Barnett</strong></h4>
<p>There are two really fascinating periods of crazed shell collection. One begins in the 16th and 17th centuries in the Netherlands, when these exploratory ships began to take off for the Indo-Pacific and bring back these amazing, beautiful seashells — all kinds of chambered Nautiluses, Conchs, and things that you just don’t see on the beaches of the North Sea.</p>
<p>These seashells became extremely valuable to the Dutch. Rembrandt himself got caught up in the shell madness. You had dilettantes in Holland paying more for a single seashell than they would pay for a famous Dutch master painting. That lasted for a couple of hundred years, and it sort of collapsed in the wake of the French Revolution.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="e-image__meta">Shell collectors at Lighthouse Beach on Sanibel Island in Florida.</span></figcaption>
<span class="e-image__meta"><cite>Braunger/ullstein bild via Getty Images</cite></span></figure>
<p>Another shell madness happens in the United States, post-World War II. Part of that was spurred by the number of American soldiers who served in the Pacific, in places like Palau, Guam, and Hawaii that have incredible seashells. They brought home tropical shells as souvenirs or keepsakes, and that helped spark a great excitement for seashells that lasted for a couple of decades in the United States.</p>
<p>Florida was a hotspot for that madness. People would make a pilgrimage to Sanibel Island and collect as many shells as they could. It was really a mecca because, at that time, people collected live shells and they would just fill their car trunks with seashells to bring home.</p>
<h4><strong>Benji Jones</strong></h4>
<p>I’m sure that smelled good.</p>
<h4><strong>Cynthia Barnett</strong></h4>
<p>There was a joke here in Florida that the best seashells to be found were just south of the Georgia line because that’s when the station wagons would begin to stink and they would have to stop and unload all the shells on the side of the road.</p>
<p>If you stayed in a beachfront motel on Sanibel Island there would be a boiling station where everybody brought the live animals to just boil them and retrieve the shells. It was a big part of shell collecting culture. That has really changed. People who would have thought nothing of taking a whole trunk full of life, say, in the 1950s or 60s, would never do that today. It’s one of those stories that gives you some hope that people can change.</p>
<h4><strong>Benji Jones</strong></h4>
<p>I’m curious, and this is more of a philosophical question, but why did — or still do — seashells have such a grip on us?</p>
<h4><strong>Cynthia Barnett</strong></h4>
<p>I think we are fundamentally drawn to beauty. This is something that really makes us human and binds us. There’s something really mesmerizing about looking at the top of, say, a lightning whelk or certain kinds of conchs, that just have this wonderful, mesmerizing spiral. It’s something that was true 100,000 years ago, and it’s true today.</p>
<figure class="e-image"><span class="e-image__inner"><span class="e-image__image" data-original="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22703459/GettyImages_589095428.jpg"><picture class="c-picture" data-cid="site/picture_element-1625920211_8204_70894" data-cdata='{"asset_id":22703459,"ratio":"*"}'><source srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/nbUrRuTAy59DBlMO8HnKRVwrBDQ=/0x0:5760x3840/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:5760x3840):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22703459/GettyImages_589095428.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/OwuLKRhloSzWdGGDGgZd7IW3ip0=/0x0:5760x3840/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:5760x3840):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22703459/GettyImages_589095428.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/oU8JQpwDvxv_lWwCu1VBGl-TS1w=/0x0:5760x3840/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:5760x3840):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22703459/GettyImages_589095428.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/nsSElUGUsPROo6a0Z17kcva8PMk=/0x0:5760x3840/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:5760x3840):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22703459/GettyImages_589095428.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/NmhBDXYkOyE2Lq8J1xiiLTPQZXM=/0x0:5760x3840/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:5760x3840):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22703459/GettyImages_589095428.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/l1fj97xXB-qg4Cz7MtcbejDUWpI=/0x0:5760x3840/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:5760x3840):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22703459/GettyImages_589095428.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Tc4kDJOqRlrjnp_DR_zJucBhFKU=/0x0:5760x3840/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:5760x3840):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22703459/GettyImages_589095428.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/8eYYYwCzZEkJ1Ky29EqI5V2-62w=/0x0:5760x3840/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:5760x3840):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22703459/GettyImages_589095428.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/tOOW7dxQ3XTiPG8PGQrg1mIog_k=/0x0:5760x3840/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:5760x3840):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22703459/GettyImages_589095428.jpg 1920w" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" type="image/webp" /> <img alt="" data-upload-width="5760" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/00nRSl3Obmru4geQ9DDLJjE1gvo=/0x0:5760x3840/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:5760x3840):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22703459/GettyImages_589095428.jpg" srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/IfggEwmri814Mf73TYDR5h2cumQ=/0x0:5760x3840/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:5760x3840):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22703459/GettyImages_589095428.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Ogm0_RvZtcnBxgPe-td7jk0bVVk=/0x0:5760x3840/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:5760x3840):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22703459/GettyImages_589095428.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ZfjLDB4tLL96Wu6RiCBKMkorZ2k=/0x0:5760x3840/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:5760x3840):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22703459/GettyImages_589095428.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/BuAgP3WJGHudVj65mYGiLhbMTdI=/0x0:5760x3840/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:5760x3840):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22703459/GettyImages_589095428.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/gx0mpRCkSB6PIZnTes1UPvyuwzI=/0x0:5760x3840/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:5760x3840):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22703459/GettyImages_589095428.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Vyf6Secn417DiGoexlc77RCaXdg=/0x0:5760x3840/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:5760x3840):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22703459/GettyImages_589095428.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/U0lgQmuqdDXqD5sOOupH2dmCglM=/0x0:5760x3840/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:5760x3840):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22703459/GettyImages_589095428.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/aLrNFNyLkFWqEUtZ2kt-8rSsh10=/0x0:5760x3840/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:5760x3840):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22703459/GettyImages_589095428.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/WElTZxWxv11Ozb_OCksNtahZBMI=/0x0:5760x3840/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:5760x3840):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22703459/GettyImages_589095428.jpg 1920w" /></picture></span></span>
<figcaption><span class="e-image__meta">Lightning whelks.</span></figcaption>
<span class="e-image__meta"><cite>Getty Images/iStockphoto</cite></span></figure>
<h4><strong>Benji Jones</strong></h4>
<p>Are you a collector?</p>
<h4><strong>Cynthia Barnett</strong></h4>
<p>I am not a collector, and I know that because I followed real shell collectors around for about six years while I was working on this book. The hardcore shell collectors are known as conchologists. They’re really knowledgeable about shells and the animals that make them. Another way I know I’m not a collector is that I have a favorite shell. When I would interview conchologists, I soon found out that none of them have a favorite shell. That’s like asking them, “Who’s your favorite kid?” They just won’t answer the question.</p>
<h4><strong>Benji Jones</strong></h4>
<p>I’ve got to know, what’s your favorite shell?</p>
<h4><strong>Cynthia Barnett</strong></h4>
<p>My favorite shell is the lightning whelk. It’s this gorgeous spiraled gastropod that was also really loved by the indigenous Floridians called the Calusa. They actually built these great cities of shell in southwest Florida — all of these incredible shell structures and mounds that were later flattened for road fill and to spread on agricultural fields.</p>
<p>The lightning whelk has an unusual feature. It opens to the left, and usually, shells open to the right. If you hold a typical shell in front of you, the aperture — or the part that you hold to your ear — will be on your right, if the shell is pointing up. But in a lightning whelk, it’s on the left. It’s just a beautiful shell.</p>
<br />
<br />
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/22565750/seashells-mollusks-oceans-climate-cynthia-barnett">https://www.vox.com/22565750/seashells-mollusks-oceans-climate-cynthia-barnett</a>

vox Seashells changed the world. Now they’re teaching us about the future of the oceans.

This story is part of Down to Earth , a Vox reporting initiative on the science, politics, and economics of the biodiversity crisis. Many ...

South Korea Hits Third Straight Record High In Covid Cases

<div class="ins_instory_dv">
<div class="ins_instory_dv_cont"><img alt="South Korea Hits Third Straight Record High In Covid Cases" src="https://c.ndtvimg.com/2020-02/pp3566e_south-korea-coronavirus_625x300_22_February_20.jpg" title="South Korea Hits Third Straight Record High In Covid Cases" /></div>
<p class="ins_instory_dv_caption sp_b">Only about 11 percent of the country's 52 million population is fully vaccinated (File)</p>
</div>
<b class="place_cont">Seoul, South Korea:</b>
<p>South Korea reported 1,378 new coronavirus cases Saturday, a record high for the third day in a row as the country prepared to impose its highest-level curbs in the greater capital area next week.</p>
<p>The country had previously been held up as a model of how to combat the pandemic, with the public largely following social distancing and other rules, but it was slow to start its vaccine roll-out due to supply shortages.</p>
<p>More than 1,000 of the new cases were in the capital Seoul and its surrounding areas, home to around half the South Korean population.</p>
<p>Clusters have recently surfaced in areas including schools, offices and shopping malls, with people in their 20s and 30s -- most of whom are not yet eligible for vaccinations -- driving up the numbers.</p>
<p>Only about 11 percent of the country's 52 million population is fully vaccinated, according to health authorities.</p>
<p>On Friday, the country's prime minister Kim Boo-kyum said the record spike in new cases left authorities no choice but to implement the highest-level curbs.</p>
<p>Under the new restrictions, set to come into force on Monday and last for two weeks, gatherings of more than two people will be banned after 6 pm and schools will be closed.</p>
<p>Bars and clubs will be shut, while cafes and restaurants are allowed limited seating and dine-in services are prohibited after 10 pm.</p>
<p><i>(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)</i></p>
<br />
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source <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/south-korea-hits-third-straight-record-high-in-covid-cases-2483558">https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/south-korea-hits-third-straight-record-high-in-covid-cases-2483558</a>

news world South Korea Hits Third Straight Record High In Covid Cases

Only about 11 percent of the country's 52 million population is fully vaccinated (File) Seoul, South Korea: South Korea reported 1,...

WHO's Chief Scientist Warns The Pandemic Isn't Slowing Down

<div class="ins_instory_dv">
<div class="ins_instory_dv_cont"><img alt="WHO's Chief Scientist Warns The Pandemic Isn't Slowing Down" src="https://c.ndtvimg.com/2021-07/co4ho118_coronavirus-vaccine-bloomberg-650_625x300_10_July_21.jpg" title="WHO's Chief Scientist Warns The Pandemic Isn't Slowing Down" /></div>
<p class="ins_instory_dv_caption sp_b">Coronavirus News: WHO has urged governments to be careful when reopening</p>
</div>
<div class="highlghts_Wdgt lft-highlghts">
<h3>Highlights</h3>
<ul>
<li>Large parts of the world face oxygen shortage, said Soumya Swaminathan</li>
<li>In last 24 hours, close to 500,000 new cases have been reported, she said</li>
<li>The main reason for the increases being delta variant, slow jab rollouts</li>
</ul>
</div>
<p>Coronavirus infections are rising across most regions of the world as the delta variant spreads, clear evidence that the pandemic isn't on the wane, said the World Health Organization's chief scientist.</p>
<p>While vaccination levels in some countries are reducing severe cases and hospitalizations, large parts of the world face oxygen shortages, a lack of hospital beds and higher mortality, said the WHO's Soumya Swaminathan in an interview with Bloomberg Television.</p>
<p>"In the last 24 hours, close to 500,000 new cases have been reported and about 9,300 deaths -- now that's not a pandemic that's slowing down," Swaminathan said.</p>
<p>Cases are rising in five of six WHO regions, and mortality rates in Africa have jumped by 30% to 40% in two weeks, said Swaminathan. The main reason for the increases are the fast-spreading delta variant, slow vaccination rollouts globally and the <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/euro-2020-covid-look-at-euro-2020-governments-warning-on-crowds-during-pandemic-2483037?pfrom=home-coronavirus_coronavirus-lateststories_live" target="_self">relaxation</a> of safety measures like mask mandates and physical distancing rules.</p>
<p>The WHO this week urged governments to be careful when reopening so as not to put at risk the gains made. In England, remaining legal restrictions are set to be removed on July 19, and measures like wearing masks will become a personal choice. The U.S. and much of Europe have also loosened curbs as cases dropped.</p>
<p>"The idea that everyone is protected and it's kumbaya and everything goes back to normal is a very dangerous assumption right now anywhere in the world," Mike Ryan, the head of the WHO's health emergencies program, said in a media briefing on Wednesday.</p>
<p><i>(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)</i></p>
<br />
<br />
source <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/coronavirus-whos-chief-scientist-warns-the-pandemic-isnt-slowing-down-2483492">https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/coronavirus-whos-chief-scientist-warns-the-pandemic-isnt-slowing-down-2483492</a>

news world WHO's Chief Scientist Warns The Pandemic Isn't Slowing Down

Coronavirus News: WHO has urged governments to be careful when reopening Highlights Large parts of the world face oxygen shortage, sa...

Support For Afghan-Led Peace Process Important For Enduring Peace: US

<div class="ins_instory_dv">
<div class="ins_instory_dv_cont"><img alt="Support For Afghan-Led Peace Process Important For Enduring Peace: US" src="https://c.ndtvimg.com/2021-07/tg0fq8v4_afghanistan-conflict-afp-650_625x300_10_July_21.jpg" title="Support For Afghan-Led Peace Process Important For Enduring Peace: US" /></div>
<p class="ins_instory_dv_caption sp_b">Taliban terrorists are now thought to control about a third of Afghanistan. (File)</p>
</div>
<b class="place_cont">Washington:</b>
<p>The US has said that regional consensus and support for an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process is important for an enduring peace, stressing that Afghanistan's neighbours and countries in the region have a real stake in the war-torn nation's future.</p>
<p>The comments came on Friday, hours after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had a telephonic conversation with his Pakistan counterpart Shah Mahmood Qureshi, amidst a rapid withdrawal of American and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) troops from Afghanistan.</p>
<p>During the call, Blinken underscored the importance of continued bilateral cooperation between the US and Pakistan.</p>
<p>The conversation took place in the backdrop of reports that the Taliban has made huge territorial gains in Afghanistan. Taliban terrorists are now thought to control about a third of the war-torn country.</p>
<p>"Afghanistan's neighbours and countries in the region have a real stake in Afghanistan's future and influence with the parties," a State Department spokesperson told <em>PTI</em>.</p>
<p>"Regional consensus and support for an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process is important for an enduring peace," the spokesperson said in response to a question.</p>
<p>In reply to another question, the spokesperson said that security assistance to Pakistan was suspended in 2018.</p>
<p>"We continue to work with the Pakistan military on numerous issues and value our strong bilateral partnership," the spokesperson said.</p>
<p>"We do not comment or speculate on policies that may or may not be under deliberation," the official said when asked if President Joe Biden is reviewing the suspension of security assistance to Pakistan.</p>
<p>In May, Biden continued his predecessor Donald Trump's policy on suspending security assistance to Pakistan without any clarity if the administration will change its stance in the future.</p>
<p>Trump suspended all security assistance to Pakistan in January 2018, arguing that he was not satisfied with Islamabad's cooperation and role in the fight against terrorism.</p>
<p>Earlier during her daily news conference, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters that the American intelligence community has never said it was inevitable for the Taliban to take over Afghanistan after the withdrawal of US forces from there.</p>
<p>"We have trained over 300,000. We've provided $3.9 billion in humanitarian assistance. These are brave fighters who have taken on casualties and fought off over the course of the last several years. We want to equip and empower them, and it is now in their hands. But it is not inevitable, nor has any intelligence assessment predicted it was inevitable," she said.</p>
<p>Biden on Thursday announced that America's nearly 20-year military mission in Afghanistan will conclude on August 31.</p>
<p>The US military exit from Afghanistan before September 11 stems from the February 2020 agreement Washington signed with the Taliban in return for counterterrorism guarantees and pledges the group would negotiate a political settlement to the war with the Afghan government.</p>
<p>In April, President Biden announced that the US will withdraw all remaining troops from Afghanistan by the 20th anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks, in an effort to end a deadly conflict that has cost trillions of dollars and the lives of more than 2,300 American troops.</p>
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source <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/afghanistan-conflict-us-says-support-for-afghanistan-led-peace-process-important-for-enduring-peace-2483451">https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/afghanistan-conflict-us-says-support-for-afghanistan-led-peace-process-important-for-enduring-peace-2483451</a>

news world Support For Afghan-Led Peace Process Important For Enduring Peace: US

Taliban terrorists are now thought to control about a third of Afghanistan. (File) Washington: The US has said that regional consensus ...

Heavy Rain Hits Southern Japan, Over 1,20,000 Ordered To Evacuate: Report

<div class="ins_instory_dv">
<div class="ins_instory_dv_cont"><img alt="Heavy Rain Hits Southern Japan, Over 1,20,000 Ordered To Evacuate: Report" src="https://c.ndtvimg.com/2021-07/lnh1g1jg_tokyo-afp-650_625x300_10_July_21.jpg" title="Heavy Rain Hits Southern Japan, Over 1,20,000 Ordered To Evacuate: Report" /></div>
<p class="ins_instory_dv_caption sp_b">A woman walks past the Olympic Rings lit up at dusk in the rain, on the Odaiba waterfront in Tokyo</p>
</div>
<b class="place_cont">Tokyo:</b>
<p>Japan issued evacuation requests to more than 120,000 residents in some southern prefectures due to heavy rain on Saturday, NHK reported, just days after deadly landslides struck the seaside city of Atami southwest of Tokyo.</p>
<p>The Japan Meteorological Agency issued its highest rain alerts in three prefectures on Kyushu island, prompting some local governments to order residents to evacuate.</p>
<p>A week ago heavy rains lashed the resort city of Atami, triggering landslides that have killed at least nine people and left 20 missing.</p>
<p><i>(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)</i></p>
<br />
<br />
source <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/heavy-rain-hits-southern-japan-over-1-20-000-ordered-to-evacuate-report-2483374">https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/heavy-rain-hits-southern-japan-over-1-20-000-ordered-to-evacuate-report-2483374</a>

news world Heavy Rain Hits Southern Japan, Over 1,20,000 Ordered To Evacuate: Report

A woman walks past the Olympic Rings lit up at dusk in the rain, on the Odaiba waterfront in Tokyo Tokyo: Japan issued evacuation reque...

Uncertainty Over Foreign Students' Return As China Against Relaxing Covid Curbs

<div class="ins_instory_dv">
<div class="ins_instory_dv_cont"><img alt="Uncertainty Over Foreign Students' Return As China Against Relaxing Covid Curbs" src="https://c.ndtvimg.com/2021-06/etg19tp4_china-coronavirus-afp_625x300_10_June_21.jpg" title="Uncertainty Over Foreign Students' Return As China Against Relaxing Covid Curbs" /></div>
<p class="ins_instory_dv_caption sp_b">Over 4.40 lakh foreign students from various parts of the world studied in China. (File)</p>
</div>
<b class="place_cont">Beijing:</b>
<p>China has said it "cannot relax pandemic controls" to facilitate foreign travel, signalling that there are no immediate plans to permit over four lakh foreign students, including more than 23,000 Indians, mostly studying medicine in Chinese universities.</p>
<p>Li Bin, vice-minister of the National Health Commission, said authorities would continue to focus on preventing imported infections from spreading locally and strengthen inspection of imported goods.</p>
<p>"Some cities have recently seen local clusters caused by imported cases of the Delta variant, including in Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Ruili," he told reporters in Beijing on Thursday.</p>
<p>"These waves have reminded us that we cannot relax our pandemic control measures," Hong Kong-based <em>South China Morning Post</em> quoted him as saying.</p>
<p>Ruili, a city on the Myanmar border, went into lockdown on Wednesday as authorities try to keep a lid on China's latest COVID-19 outbreak, which has been linked to the Delta strain.</p>
<p>Li's comments came as the Chinese Foreign Ministry on Friday parried questions on growing calls to permit the return of over four lakh foreign students from different parts of the world to resume their studies as they are stuck in their countries since last year.</p>
<p>Calls for China to permit the return of the students grew louder not only from India but different countries as the frustrated students earlier this month wrote to Chinese President Xi Jinping, seeking his intervention to permit their return to their universities.</p>
<p>China International Student Union – an organisation campaigning for the return of foreign students to China – wrote an open letter to Xi, stating that foreign students were in "grave desperation".</p>
<p>The union drew upon comments Xi made in 2010, when he referred to foreign students as "forever, a friend of China", the <em>Post</em> reported earlier.</p>
<p>"Today these forever friends of China are in a precarious situation that only China can remedy. Our education is on the line, our future is at stake," the letter reads.</p>
<p>China for its part has been maintaining that the online classes were being conducted to the students by the universities, while parrying questions about permitting their return, citing the spread of pandemic in different countries.</p>
<p>But the online classes had little impact on over 23,000 Indian medical students as they needed to back up their studies with laboratory facilities.</p>
<p>Frustrations for the foreign students grew as hundreds of Chinese students studying in the US universities began rushing back after Washington opened the visa process to facilitate their return.</p>
<p>On Friday, an Arab journalist asked the Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin when will China allow the international students to return as many students from Arab countries want to resume their studies.</p>
<p>He reiterated that the Chinese government has attached great importance to the issue of foreign students coming to China, and will make overall considerations for the return of foreign students to China under the premise of ensuring the safety of epidemic prevention.</p>
<p>When pressed further on the growing frustration of foreign students, including those from India, Wang said: "On the basis of ensuring safety amid COVID-19, we will consider in a coordinated manner an arrangement for allowing foreign students to return to China for their studies."</p>
<p>"At the same time, I stress again that in light of the evolving epidemic situation, China will decide on prevention and control measures in a coordinated way based on scientific analysis.</p>
<p>"We stand ready to work actively towards the healthy, safe and orderly cross-border flow of people on the basis of sound epidemic measures," he said.</p>
<p>Indian diplomats in Beijing said that they have taken up with the Chinese government both at the level of foreign ministry and the education ministry about the plight of Indian students stuck at home and their pleas to return with an undertaking to follow all the specified protocols.</p>
<p>"As noted in its previous communications, the Embassy of India in Beijing has continued to follow up closely with Chinese authorities, including the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, regarding the concerns of Indian students in China, especially their early return to colleges/universities in this country," the Indian Embassy said in a statement on March 22.</p>
<p>It is not only the Indian students but those from countries like Pakistan, which have close ties with China, have not been permitted to return.</p>
<p>Pakistani students, who make up the third largest group of foreign students in China, are also suffering, a recent report in the <em>Post</em> said.</p>
<p>It quoted Waseem Iqbal, a third-year PhD student from Pakistan studying at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, who left China in December 2019 and has since been unable to find a job or withdraw money because all his documents are still at his university.</p>
<p>"I need to take care of (my parents), buy medicine. I worry that, God forbid, if something happens, I have nothing," the <em>Post</em> quoted him as saying.</p>
<p>Over 4.40 lakh foreign students from various parts of the world studied in China. This included over 23,000 Indian students, mostly studying medicine in various Chinese medical colleges after paying heavy fees.</p>
<p>Officials say China has to permit the return of the foreign students either by September this year or by April next year at the start of the new academic year.</p>
<p>Also, China is extremely cautious as it made preparations for the winter Olympics to be held in February next year.</p>
<p>China, which has broadly controlled the coronavirus after it first reported in Wuhan in 2019, is currently vaccinating its people at a hectic pace. As of now, it has administered about 1.34 billion doses of vaccines.</p>
<p>Officials expect China, which has over 1.4 billion people, to vaccinate about 70 per cent of its people by early next year to achieve herd immunity. Until then, China may continue to stonewall foreign travel.</p>
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source <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/covid-19-uncertainty-over-foreign-students-return-as-china-against-relaxing-curbs-2483366">https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/covid-19-uncertainty-over-foreign-students-return-as-china-against-relaxing-curbs-2483366</a>

news world Uncertainty Over Foreign Students' Return As China Against Relaxing Covid Curbs

Over 4.40 lakh foreign students from various parts of the world studied in China. (File) Beijing: China has said it "cannot relax ...