a techno crew member is on vacation in thailand when he comes across this all too common display he's told of their ivory pieces offered up for sale for a price the sale of ivory to foreigners is illegal in thailand yet as our camera reveals it goes on as this old newsreel footage shows ivory was once very popular. croft into his own but all that changed in one thousand nine hundred ninety when the international trade in ivory was made illegal. d.n.a. analysis is one tool that could ultimately help government's crackdown on where ivory is coming from but it can't tell investigators when the killing took place anything postin is illegal to trade what it comes down to is this this radio carbon dating method can tell us if trade of ivory is legal or not kevin you know is a geochemist who uses a method known as radiocarbon dating to determine the age of ivory this is the part

of the tusk that was actually growing when the animal was shot because we need to know when did this elephant die and so this part of the tusk tells us that and so we drove the powder on to this wave paper here. and we collect it into these vials next to ivory powder is combusted and turned into pure c o two so what is this we can bust it in this tube it there's other impurities in there other gases we need to get rid of those so that when we measure the radio carbon content we just are measuring the c o two gas radiocarbon dating literally relies on the fallout from the events that took place from one thousand nine hundred fifty two to one thousand nine hundred sixty three. one fire. above ground atomic testing between the united states in the soviet union we basically doubled the radio carbon concentration in the atmosphere now what does

that mean then for organisms when you have a spike in radio carbon in the atmosphere what it did do is give them all the unique geochemical fingerprint in their tissues all these photosynthetic organisms trees grasses that sort of thing are taking in c o two some of it having carbon fourteen in it and in the animals that eat that then also take on that radio carbon signature look there it is you can actually see it's freezing down on the right side so now we're going to do is torch it off and have the final final product. it's fun to bring this to them and you do this individually for each sample yeah this is time consuming it's say you want to wear these to to watch this awesome just so this is just a regular methane torch but not to be done at home and warm the glass. all around that it's very like. holding soft serve. and it's unique. and now you can see.

there's our c o two right there that's that's the frozen c o two from an elephant heading for radio carbon announces after you know receives the radio carbon content of a piece of ivory he can match it against the bomb curves a record of atmospheric levels of c fourteen before and after the atomic testing era the radio carbon dating a five re could be used to verify the age of ivory being sold on the legal market as antiques but here's the bottom curve and i call this left side before nine hundred sixty three the rising limb so the tusk is imprinted with the radiocarbon concentration from that year so we can and go and measure that radiocarbon concentration and say ok it's for example one point three and that allows us to draw a horizontal line across the bottom curve here and you can see it actually intersects it into place lengths to have two answers it can be nineteen sixty or it could be

one thousand and eighty so the way to do this is to sample part of the test that you know is older and in the part of the sooner it is younger and compare the relative radiocarbon concentrations and just fit them back onto this curve so if the older one has a higher concentration in the younger has a lower than your on this falling limb of the bomb curve november two thousand and thirteen canadian authorities learned that a pair of tusks are being offered by this toronto based auction house. as antiques suspecting the tusks are not as old as the sellers claim authorities confiscate them and turn them over to. buy david a pair of tasks clearly showing his elephant was poached after the law went into effect and the auction house went to court and pleaded guilty now you know and collaborator turi serling have teamed up with wasser to apply this technique to investigate trends in the international trade in illegal ivory since the international ban african countries have been stockpiling confiscated ivory

occasionally they destroy some of it but much of it remains sitting in government warehouses so they have huge stockpiles on the order of one hundred or one hundred twenty tons in some of these nations there so they're sitting on this ivory waiting for the day that the international market opens. its current poaching hotspots are shut down the next major source for ivory could be the stockpiles and radiocarbon dating would help confirm it to what extent do you wrestle with despair at the situation and to what extent do you embrace hope and there have been some seizures where i got to say you know when we pulled them out and started rinsing in often the blood was pouring out that we were just sitting there in tears i mean you know that that has happened but you know you get. used to it and and then you start getting these breakthroughs and so no i feel like you know we've got a plan i feel like we're making an impact and that's really what drives me.

to steps of d.n.a. techniques that you talk about that practice has been done for a long time to maybe track the origin of the disease what took him so long to get through tracking down poachers you know we've used d.n.a. techniques to understand populations of lots of wildlife we're using it within the context of conservation a lot more now it's still a fairly new field so there was a time when ivory was used and can. they keys and billiard balls and now it's illegal but why is the market still so robots the main markets are in china and then actually the united states is the second largest player here part of what's driving that is that there are some communities in the us that really value ivory iris you mostly find it as an ornamental carving it's very beautiful when it's polished and carved and it carries a sort of status because of its value so there's still

a pretty high demand there is a crisis unfolding on the coast of california from san diego up to san francisco and beyond the sea lions are leaving their natural ocean habitat and wandering up on shore even sometimes in people's yards and streets well i joined a ride on my we were literally rescuing sea lion pox the story is crazy some of it's heartbreaking and it's coming up that. this named johnny cash is making a run towards the open ocean with a satellite transmitter tied to his back he may hold the on says to a sad epidemic among california's coastline. there are plenty of highways that hug california's ocean shores and he's ninety freeway isn't one of them the sight of a baby seen a quarter of a mile inland is unsettling. but in two thousand and fifteen it's not that unusual

according to local news agencies the creatures are stranding starving and apparently dying in record numbers this year along the coast the images tell us a haunting story well we have seen spikes and rethink years two thousand and fifteen is already off to an unusually start the headlines paint a picture of an epidemic of sick pops in desperate search of food but what's really going on is more complex techno went to the san diego headquarters for a federal agency that studies the oceans for. says what's happened in the last two years is the waters in the northeast pacific i warmed up way beyond anything where your stove according to noah a warm up ocean off southern california has made it hard to financing sea lions to forage and as a result the pups are not getting enough nourishment el nino is an event scientists have seen several times but this year's temperature is a quite different what's really different is that the waters in the northeast

pacific warmed up over a year ago and usually that warming occurs after the only in your developed in this case that preceded it ocean warming impacts the food chain from the bottom up as upwelling wins a causing deep water currents typically rife with cold water nutrients to circulate up mostly nutrient depleted warm water so when you talk about nutrients what is that that biologic material in the deep ocean gets remember allies tend to work in organic nutrients and so the upwelling them keeps that cycle going so how does it affect the top of the food chain the whole food chain gets depressed a lot of the those fish species that could move move northward and a food source there's a lot less than we had last year and the evidence can be seen daily all along the california coast from san diego to san francisco in san diego sea world the company which face public heat for. has taken a public role in sea lion rescue efforts. it's really

a new thing i was lucky i think that is how long do you feed them for typically it will be two pleading for about twelve days and about five days they have gained enough strength to actually start showing some interest again a question and they will start taking water to the sea lions a facet method to an almost trio like setting the pups to fed a special protein which formula up to two hundred two feedings a day take place behind the scenes we have to gradually read about it because their bodies haven't seen. and they can't process it properly and they have to show do as i do can i fully process three to five pounds of fish per day which is what they would require to maintain their weight before we stop to feeding brands to it observe sea lion health at sea by nonprofit research on. so in studying their habitats you able to get a better idea of what's happening in terms of global climate change food seem to have vanished for some reason the question is whether that's

a sign i think of long term climate change the bigger issue is are these little intensive answered we're seeing recently going to become more common as climate generally changes according to the national marine fisheries service is the west. as rescued pops or returning starved again is the most historically busy year ever there's already been twenty five hundred sea lions stranded in california this year alone in the first twelve weeks that we're into the year marine biologists and executive director of the pacific marine mammal center a key from a tosser has seen it all but. they're actually six months old coming into us under birthweight that's all start there the other difference in this year that we didn't see in twenty thirteen and twenty forty is that we're now seeing a lot of adults coming in that are very me seated very star you can see every bone

in their body and that's a difference from the last two years metacity and his team east satellite titan technology to understand why this is happening tagging sea lions is so new to these pups the research pioneers and we want to make sure that the animals that we're putting back out into the wild during this unusually bad rush and make it tagging happens fast as i learned watching johnny cash get his device he spent two months gaining twenty five pounds and is a worthy candidate here so you'll know that i am your get your sandwich honestly believe edges where we're going further somewhere in the back of that and that's the feel good think you are going to tighten up the back it will be good this year several sea lions return to metastases rehab starving once again but rescue centers along the coast compiling satellite tagging dates. this hype that johnny cash and his newly released friends who beat the odds a move the line toward survival rather than the stranding. will hopefully then not

return even then live and long happy life that's the plan and that's what's going to have and we're going to see them out on the rocks in nine or ten years we're going to begin helping you. know i work a lot of behavior in my research and what i found really fascinating about this is what is causing this behavior of the pope's arches going in a little bit from shore they're going miles are going on this long journey in there so something evolved in them that the changing climate is just messing with their their innate response to temperature it's sort of or could it be just utter desperation right i mean if you reach a certain level of lack of nutrition does that suddenly kick in some sort of in instinct to just go where ever necessary to find something i mean because it see the temperature is it a the food that they normally feed on has moved somewhere and cited the scene i'm starving and they are cold my they are absolutely desperate that's just that's

really heartbreaking each of tonight's stories showed problems with the environment but more importantly we got to meet some very smart folks trying to solve them that's it for today's episode be sure to check in so next time you're on techno dive deep into these stories and go behind the scenes at al-jazeera dot com slash techno follow our expert contributors on twitter facebook instagram google plus and more. in the next episode of techno the team travels to the heart of the amazon. where we are now should be praying for to investigate illegal gold mining mercury has a very unique characteristic of binding the goal for a minor it's almost like magic and the technology being used to expose its devastating impact and so what we end up doing is imaging the worst in a very high fidelity stream. techno all knowledge is zero. well i think one

of our biggest strengths is that we talk to normal everyday people we get them to tell their stories and doing that really reveals the truth people are still gathered outside these gates waiting for any information most of them don't know whether their loved ones are alive or dead or miami really is a place where two worlds meet we can get to washington d.c. two hours to get it on jurists in the rest of central america at about the same time but more importantly why those two cultures north and south america beats us to teach it like it's a very important place for al-jazeera to be russian filmmaker under a necker self continues his journey across his homeland to discover what life was like under putin during his travels he meets christians and muslims patriots and separatists i told flew the locals in the southeast will our side when i arrive i don't do something completely different some long to leave russia but for others a russian passport means hope and the challenge of happens in search of putin's russia on al-jazeera.

al-jazeera. it's. where ever you. israel takes aim at iranian military targets in syria killing at least four syrian soldiers. down in jordan this is al jazeera law. also coming up the u.s.

and turkey discuss the withdrawal of american troops from syria with ankara ready to take over security in the kurdish town. seeking peace voters in the southern philippines cast their ballots in a referendum aimed at ending a decades long conflict. our licensing laws in the death knell for taiwan's traditional medicine industry. for syrian soldiers have been killed in israeli airstrikes on iranian targets in syria the video posted to social media appears to show missiles intercepted near damascus russia says during those strikes early on monday syrian air defenses destroyed more than thirty cruise missiles and guided bombs on sunday israel said it intercepted a rocket fired at the golan heights from syria but a solid binge of aid is live for us now in gaziantep that's on the turkey syria border the russians there saying that syrian air defenses shot down more than

thirty israeli cruise missiles what more can you tell us. well daryn we've been watching these videos which have been posted by various people on social media showing these explosions over the skies in damascus a number of explosions can be seen very missiles coming in where intercepted israel maintains that it did hit multiple targets inside the damascus airport as well as other facilities in near and close to damascus and these are iranian military sites and the russians are saying that the book and the princess a missile defense systems were used and they were able to attack from so from the accounts of the syrian government side the syrian state media they have been saying that they were able to successfully thought this attack and not confirming any off the of the casualties so far israel insists that it was a provocation from iranian. forces based inside syria and the responsibility lies

with the syrian government says that what it had were specific military targets including the munitions depo and iranian military target near the damascus international airport as well as intelligence and training camps inside syria you have to realize that the cooperation between the syrian government only reinforces present in their thousands and syria has been crucial in the. effort to not just defeat tyson but push back the rebel fighters in taking and taking back control and always getting any indication as to how effective these asteroids have actually been. both sides are maintaining their own lines the syrian government saying that it has successfully thought. the government one of the iranian. commander saying that they're ready to take on

israel and you know their usual rhetoric that comes out and the israelis insisting and showing videos of specific targets that they have hit all sides maintaining that they have. successful syrian saying that they have been successful in defending themselves the israelis saying that they have been successful in hitting these targets so depending on where you are standing out it is an attack which feels like it's coming at a point where it is very crucial times for syria this is happening at a time when the u.s. troops are going to be pulling out there is a sort of a road that is being drawn between the united states and turkey the kurdish fighters which are remaining on the northeastern belt of syria are actually trying to get closer to the syrian government forces so it is a very interesting time and according to israel this was a provocation that they responded to which came from iranian forces. in gaza thank you well for more on this let's talk to and he's in tel aviv he's a defense and government analyst israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu had

warned that israel would not allow iran to entrench itself minutes and really in syria how significant are these latest stan strikes and what message is israel sending here. they are very significant because obviously these rallies knew far in advance that the iranians have been preparing this rocket launch and in a way these rarely action the israeli attack earlier sunday was intended to lure the iranians into trapped into this ambush and once the rocket was launched and intercepted by israeli other phones israel launched its prepared its preplanned attack on various iranian assets including the biggest look just ticks exchange as they call it in the damascus international

airport as well as another intelligence installation now the rocket itself was not launched from a base apparently it was launched from an urban area not far from damascus so israel did not retaliate. against this particular target but the message is loud and clear israel will insist on expelling the iranians a minute just briefly how unusual is it for israel to officially confirm its operations inside syria i mean the i.d.f. made the surprise announcement on twitter just as the airstrikes were actually happening the twitter announcement was intended to warn off the syrians but the israelis say that there is a difference between the secret war that they have been conducting and this particular and that you're reading and rate because directness and the syrians

themselves have been announcing these strikes so there was no point in trying to hide them any longer what about the russians amir because we know they are supposedly given proper notice before any israeli air strikes but under this deal what exactly is really allowed to do inside syria. israeli and russian officers operations specialists met only last week and have reaffirmed the conflicting mechanism which exists between the israeli air force high command in tel aviv and the syrian and the russian base in syrian territory in come in and obviously the russians are giving prior notice regarding the various areas if not the targets themselves and the various time and targets so that their own aircraft would be away from this particular and.