In Annapolis, Anne Arundel Peace Action seeks children to fold 1,000 origami cranes in memory of the 50th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The project began a half century ago, with a 13-year-old Japanese girl who died of leukemia after exposure to the atomic bombing and her quest to fold 1,000 paper cranes. Chesapeake folders have until mid-October to complete their origami cranes: [email protected]…

On the Eastern Shore, Lt. Gov. Michael Steele was among those grabbing shovels in Crisfield last week to break ground for renovation of the town’s polluting wastewater treatment plant. The upgrade, made possible by Maryland’s new flush tax, will reduce by 80 percent the nitrogen and phosphorus contamination pouring into the Chesapeake. The fix is good for fish and crabs. Plus, Steele said, “It also means so much to those of us who just want to take a dip,” the Somerset Herald reported …

In Virginia, state fish experts have assembled a task force of experts from government, universities and conservation groups trying to try to figure out what killed 80 percent of the smallmouth bass and sunfish in the Shenandoah River in the northwestern part of the state earlier this summer. The fish developed lesions that became infected with bacteria. The task force held its first meeting last week …

In Louisiana, that’s really a dead zone. Scientists this week released results of the annual measurement of oxygen-deprived waters in the Gulf of Mexico: 4,564 square miles — just slightly smaller than the state of Connecticut. They blame the pollution on farm fertilizers from Midwestern corn and soybean fields flowing down the Mississippi River and then out into the Gulf …

Our Creature Feature comes from the remote depths of the Arctic Ocean where, researchers reported last week, they found lots of life: jellyfish; worms; cod; squid; octopus; and sea creatures heretofore unknown to science.

Using robot submarines and sonar, the University of Alaska-led team probed nearly two miles deep in the Arctic off of Canada’s coast. The discoveries were a bonus on the mission to study the damage of global warming on oceans. “Some of the species that we saw are completely new to science. They have not been described in any area of the earth so far,” Rolf Gradinger, the project’s chief scientist, told reporters in a conference call.