Florida’s wetlands are home to two striking and often confused waterbirds - the&nbsp;anhinga&nbsp;and the&nbsp;double-crested cormorant. Both are expert divers that rely on their feet to propel themselves underwater. They are commonly seen perched on branches or docks with their wings spread wide to dry.



However, despite their similar appearances and behaviors, new research from the&nbsp;University of Miami&nbsp;reveals that these birds are quite different in their&nbsp;physiology, hunting techniques, and metabolism.



A research team led by&nbsp;Jeff White, a recent&nbsp;biology doctoral graduate, spent months studying these species to understand their unique adaptations.



The findings, which build on earlier work by ornithologist&nbsp;Oscar "Bud" Owre, offer fresh insights into these fascinating birds.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-how-anhingas-and-cormorants-hunt">How anhingas and cormorants hunt</h2>



To the casual observer, anhingas and cormorants might seem interchangeable. 



Both <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/habitat-and-evolution-shape-the-unique-sounds-of-birds/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">birds</a> dive beneath the water’s surface in search of fish and then emerge to dry their fully soaked feathers in the sun. However, their approaches to foraging and movement in the water set them apart.



Cormorants&nbsp;are&nbsp;aggressive hunters. They&nbsp;chase&nbsp;their prey with&nbsp;strong, rapid movements, often diving deep and pursuing larger fish. Their ability to consume more oxygen allows them to sustain this high-energy hunting style. 



"Cormorants have a really large muscle in their leg and are able to really prioritize storage of oxygen in their leg muscles," explained White, who is affiliated to the <a href="https://welcome.miami.edu" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">University of Miami</a>. This muscle adaptation gives them an edge in deep-water environments, including&nbsp;coastaland&nbsp;oceanic waters.



In contrast, anhingas are stealthy ambush <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/bird-wings-have-a-surprising-effect-on-island-biodiversity/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">predators</a>. Rather than chasing fish, they wait patiently in shallow water, camouflaged among vegetation, until their prey swims close enough for a lightning-fast strike.



This sit-and-wait strategy is common among ambush predators like herons and alligators, but it is unusual among diving birds. By minimizing movement, anhingas conserve energy and use less oxygen than cormorants.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-how-do-they-stay-underwater">How do they stay underwater? </h2>



Both species dive for about&nbsp;two minutes at a time, but their bodies handle oxygen storage differently. Unlike ducks and other diving <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/more-than-100-bird-species-have-been-lost-for-over-a-decade/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">birds</a>, anhingas and cormorants&nbsp;fully wet their feathers. 



This reduces buoyancy and allows them to stay underwater more easily. However, their methods of&nbsp;oxygen management&nbsp;vary.



"They both must hold their breath to dive, so we observed how each of these species convert their oxygen stores into energy in the swimming and flying muscles," noted McCracken, a co-author of the study.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-oxygen-use-of-anhingas-and-cormorants">Oxygen use of anhingas and cormorants</h2>



Cormorants store&nbsp;most of their oxygen in their leg muscles, which power their&nbsp;aggressive swimming style. These&nbsp;large, oxygen-rich muscles&nbsp;allow them to&nbsp;generate bursts of speed&nbsp;and maneuver swiftly to catch prey. This trait aligns them more with deep-diving seabirds like penguins.



Anhingas, on the other hand, rely on neutral buoyancy, meaning they neither sink nor float. This allows them to remain motionless under the water without needing to swim to stay in place.



"They are the only aquatic <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/terror-bird-phorusrhacid-discovery-was-largest-meat-eating-bird-of-its-time/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">bird</a> I know of that can sit underwater without having to swim to stay in place," said White. This&nbsp;passive diving adaptation&nbsp;is&nbsp;unique among aquatic birds&nbsp;and helps anhingas hunt with minimal energy expenditure.



Additionally, anhingas have a&nbsp;low metabolism, which means they require&nbsp;less oxygen to generate energy. While cormorants prioritize storing oxygen in their muscles, anhingas make efficient use of the oxygen in their blood.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-flight-differences-soaring-vs-powerful-wingbeats">Flight differences: Soaring vs. powerful wingbeats</h2>



Beyond their diving behaviors, the two species differ in&nbsp;flight mechanics. 



Cormorants are&nbsp;strong fliers. Their powerful wing muscles allow them to&nbsp;fly quickly and with sustained flapping, making them more agile in the air. This strength is necessary since they often travel between freshwater and saltwater environments in search of food.



Anhingas, by contrast, are less suited for continuous flapping. Instead, they&nbsp;soar and glide, using&nbsp;thermals&nbsp;(rising air currents) to stay in the air with minimal effort. This flight style is similar to&nbsp;hawks and vultures, rather than the rapid, flapping flight of cormorants.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-significance-of-the-research">Significance of the research</h2>



While this study sheds light on anhingas and cormorants, its implications&nbsp;reach far beyond ornithology. Understanding how these birds&nbsp;manage oxygen&nbsp;could offer insights into&nbsp;human physiology, exercise science, cardiovascular health, and metabolism.



"There might be benefits to understanding how other species can generate energy without oxygen," White noted. Some medical conditions and athletic performance studies could benefit from&nbsp;learning how these birds use oxygen efficiently.



Additionally, this research helps scientists&nbsp;better understand metabolism. Different species process nutrients and oxygen in distinct ways, and the anhinga’s ability to function&nbsp;with minimal oxygen use&nbsp;is a&nbsp;fascinating case study.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-future-research-on-anhingas-and-cormorants">Future research on anhingas and cormorants</h2>



Despite this latest research, anhingas remain one of the least studied aquatic birds. Jeff White hopes to continue his work to uncover more about their unique adaptations. He realized that scientists know surprisingly little about these birds, especially compared to other diving species.



Future studies could explore how anhingas achieve&nbsp;neutral buoyancy, allowing them to stay underwater without sinking or floating. Researchers also want to examine their&nbsp;metabolic rates&nbsp;to understand how they survive on lower oxygen levels compared to other diving birds. 



Additionally, studying their&nbsp;evolutionary adaptations&nbsp;could reveal how they developed their distinct physiological traits over time.



Anhingas’ unique energy conservation and oxygen use strategies could also help scientists learn more about metabolism in other animals, including humans. Further research will help unravel the mysteries of this remarkable waterbird.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-new-perspective-on-florida-s-waterbirds">New perspective on Florida’s waterbirds</h2>



For those who frequent Florida’s lakes, swamps, and coastal waters, the anhinga and the double-crested cormorant are&nbsp;familiar sights. Yet, beneath their seemingly similar exteriors, these birds have evolved&nbsp;very different strategies for survival.



Cormorants are the&nbsp;powerful, fast-moving predators, excelling in deep-water hunting and flight. Anhingas are&nbsp;masters of stealth and efficiency, conserving energy and using their&nbsp;neutral buoyancy&nbsp;to ambush prey.



Next time you see one of these birds perched with wings outstretched, take a closer look. The&nbsp;mystery of their adaptations&nbsp;is still unfolding, and there’s much more to learn about these remarkable waterbirds.



The study is published in the <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00360-024-01593-x" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Journal of Comparative Physiology B</a>. 



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Florida’s waterbirds: Expert divers with bold hunting techniques

Florida’s wetlands are home to two striking and often confused waterbirds - the&nbsp;anhinga&nbsp;and the&nbsp;double-crested cormorant. Both are expert divers that rely on their feet to propel themselves underwater. They are commonly seen perched on branches or docks with their wings spread wide to dry. However, despite their similar appearances and behaviors, new research from the&nbsp;University of Miami&nbsp;reveals that these birds are quite different in their&nbsp;physiology, hunting techniques, and metabolism. A research team led by&nbsp;Jeff White, a recent&nbsp;biology doctoral graduate, spent months studying these species to understand their...

Eleutherodactylus nortoni

Haiti may not be the first place you think of when nature reserves come to mind.  Much of Haiti has been ravaged by hurricanes, and the primary source of energy for use in homes in Haiti is charcoal, which is created by local people from local trees.  Mainly, the image of Haiti has been a stark one; the country has been called the most deforested country in this hemisphere.  

A photo in a 1987 <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com">National Geographic</a> centerfold showed a barren Haitian landscape next to a lush, green Dominican Republic. Studies have said that Haiti has only 2% forest remaining but this number is hotly contested.  Due to lack of clear data and long term studies, deforestation in Haiti is poorly understood. 

Despite warnings that wood for fuel and charcoal production would run out by the year 2000, prompting an environmental apocalypse, satellite photographs reveal that currently roughly one third of Haiti covered in trees.  Earlier studies were built on extrapolations from flights over the most deforested parts of Haiti. Because of the poor studies, the story of <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/dramatic-increase-brazilian-deforestation/">deforestation</a> in Haiti is one of <a href="http://www.envirosociety.org/2016/05/haiti-is-covered-with-trees/">exaggeration</a>.  

Despite the confusion and contradictions, Haiti is severely deforested. Much of the areas covered with trees in Haiti are fragmented and original old growth forest is a rarity.  According to <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/02/haitis-first-private-nature-reserve-seeks-to-protect-rare-plants-and-animals/">Mongabay</a>, recent research has found that as little as 1% of original forest in Haiti remains.  Deforestation in Haiti has a long history, starting in the modern era with large colonial production plantations.  There was actually a small forest resurgence after Haiti gained independence and large plantations were put out of production.  Still, trends today point toward a loss of forest in Haiti not a gain. Even with a third of the country covered with trees, very little virgin forest remains.      

The forest that is still untouched in Haiti is truly amazing.  According to a report from <a href="http://www.usaidgems.org/Documents/FAA&amp;Regs/FAA118119LAC/Haiti_FAA_118-119_Dec_2010%20(1).pdf">USAID</a>, the Caribbean is a hotspot of biodiversity with a large portion of species found nowhere else on Earth.  Even within the Caribbean, Haiti is special. Roughly one third of plants found in Haiti are found only there. Deforestation and the resulting erosion, flooding and destruction of aquatic habitat remain the biggest threat to the biodiversity of Haiti.  Officially, as much as 6% of Haiti’s land is protected by the government but effective protection is estimated to cover only about 0.5%.

One of these officially protected areas is <a href="https://www.haititrust.org/grand-bois">Grand Bois</a>, a place of great importance in terms of Haitian biodiversity. According to Haiti National Trust, Grand Bois is an isolated, bowl-shaped mountain in Southwest Haiti covered in rare rainforest.  The highest summit of the mountain is 1,262 meters (roughly 4,140 ft.) about half of which above the elevation of 1000 meters is still covered in forest.  

Grand Bois is home to 68 vertebrate species, including 2 threatened birds and three recently discovered frog species and a critically endangered frog.  Overall, 19 frog species are found in Grand Bois and nowhere else on Earth, which is more frog species than anywhere else in the Caribbean. One frog the Tiburon Stream Frog (Eleutherodactylus semipalmatus) was thought to be extinct until it was rediscovered on Grand Bois after four decades without being seen, according to <a href="https://www.globalwildlife.org/our-work/regions/caribbean/haitis-first-private-nature-reserve/">Global Wildlife Conservation</a>.  The rare Ekman’s Magnolia (Magnolia ekmanii) was also re-discovered after not being seen by scientists for decades.    

In 2015, Grand Bois National Park was created to protect this special part of Haiti and its rare species.  Unfortunately, studies by Blair Hedges, director of the Center for Biodiversity at Temple University in the US, and his colleagues show the official protection wasn’t enough.  Forest is still being lost inside national parks in Haiti.  

A rule in Haiti allows a national park to be entirely on private land, so Hedges started buying up lands near Bois National Park.  Partnering with <a href="https://www.globalwildlife.org/">Global Wildlife Conservation</a>, Haiti National Trust, (a non-profit founded by Hedges) and Société Audubon Haiti, a private nature reserve was founded bordering Grand Bois National Park.  This is Haiti’s first private nature reserve.  

The idea of a private nature reserve in a nation like Haiti raises lots of questions. According to the <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/haiti/overview">World Bank</a>, Haiti is extremely vulnerable to natural disasters with 90% of the population susceptible to harm from natural disasters.  In 2016, Hurricane Matthew caused the equivalent of 32% of Haiti’s GDP in damages and parts of the country are still rebuilding.  About 59% of Haitians live below the poverty line of US $2.41 per day and 24% lie below the extreme poverty line of US $1.23 per day.  Small economic growth was shown last year due to agriculture in Haiti, but a drop in financing from Venezuela is causing greater problems within Haiti’s government.  

Faced with these stark realities in one of the poorest countries in the Americas, the question become, ‘why care about a nature reserve at all?’ Is the creation of a nature reserve financed by wealthy Haitians and non-profits managed by outsiders just a form of colonialism or is it in the best interest of Haitians?

To answer that question, it must be realized that natural resources such as soil, water and clean air are more important than the money which is based on not only real resources but collective trust of those who use it.  As US President Franklin D. Roosevelt <a href="https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/us_8may_drought.pdf">said</a>, “A nation that destroys its soil, destroys itself.”  Besides trees, soil started to improve after the colonial period in Haiti.  Forest health and soil health go hand in hand. Soil health allows agriculture.  Healthy land also contributes to the health of marine habitats surrounding a nation, especially an island nation like Haiti.  Healthy oceans mean fish to eat.  

“With less than one percent of Haiti’s original forest left, the country is on the verge of a potential ecological collapse,” said Wes Sechrest, GWC chief scientist and CEO. “We knew that we needed to take action to protect the country’s staggering diversity of unique and threatened species, many of which are found only in Haiti. Global Wildlife Conservation has partnered with Haiti National Trust to directly protect, manage and restore this high-priority conservation site in an effort to begin to turn the tide of centuries of unregulated environmental destruction.”             

--

By <a href="mailto:zachfitzner@yahoo.com">Zach Fitzner</a>, <a href="http://earth.com">Earth.com</a> Contributing Writer

Image Credit: Robin Moore, Global Wildlife Conservation

Haiti gets its first private nature reserve to protect forests and species

Haiti may not be the first place you think of...

Evolution of the oldest segmented animal revealed in fossilized death march. A team of international researchers have discovered a fossil that may be one of the oldest mobile and segmented animals ever to exist on Earth. 

The fossilized death march of the bilaterally symmetrical animal (dubbed “bilaterian”) was found in a 550-million-year-old rock in <a href="http://www.earth.com/image/historic-flooding-has-killed-hundreds-across-china/">China</a>, placing its existence in the Ediacaran Period (635-539 million years ago).

The research was performed by scientists from the <a href="http://english.nigpas.cas.cn/">Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology</a> of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and <a href="https://vt.edu/">Virginia Tech</a> 

The evolution of bilaterians with segmented body parts is a huge event in early animal evolution, and this discovery, called Yilingia spiciformis, is the first piece of evidence to show that this evolution occurred during the Ediacaran Period, as previously estimated.

This fossil is especially unusual because of the connected and preserved trail it made while it moved across the earth. This animal-and-trail connection helps scientists understand the producers of other Ediacaran trace fossils. Evolution of the oldest segmented animal revealed in fossilized death march

Yilingia spiciformis is believed to have been capable of locomotion, and evidence of body segmentation, polarity, and directional locomotion points to Yilingia spiciformis being a bilaterian animal, despite scientists being unable to place it within the bilaterian family tree.

This discovery, published in <a href="https://www.nature.com/">Nature</a>, will help scientists better understand the origin of segmentation and animal motility, which led to the Cambrian substrate and agronomic revolutions.

--

By <a href="mailto:oliviagharvey24@gmail.com">Olivia Harvey</a>, <a href="http://earth.com">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Image Credit: NIGPAS

Evolution of the oldest segmented animal revealed in fossilized

Evolution of the oldest segmented animal revealed in fossilized death...

There are almost 400,000 different <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/100-new-species-beetle/">species of beetles</a>, and of those, more than 64,000 belong to the rove beetle family staphylinidae.  

When compared to the 5,800 different species of mammals, beetles have most other animal family trees beat. However, researchers are now rethinking the origin of staphylinidae rove beetles. 

Rove beetles are some of the oldest beetles in the world dating back to the Cretaceous period.  

New evidence suggests that the oldest known rove beetle isn’t actually a member of the rove family at all, which means that the entire beetle family tree may need to be rewritten. 

The beetle at the heart of it all is Leehermania prorova which, until recently, was believed to be the oldest species of rove beetle ever discovered. Leehermania prorova fossils were found in the 1990s along the border of Virginia and North Carolina. 

“When Leehermania was formally described, and more photos came out, we thought to ourselves ‘that doesn’t look quite right for a staphylinid,’” says Margaret Thayer, one of the researchers who thought something was not quite right about the beetle’s placement on the family tree. 

Thayer was not the only one who was tipped off by the description of the species. 

Researchers from the <a href="https://www.nm.cz/en">National Museum </a>in Prague and <a href="http://english.nigpas.cas.cn/">China’s Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology</a> thought that the fossil species did not fit with other rove beetles but more closely resembled beetles in the Myxophaga suborder. 

Unlike staphylinids, Leehermania didn’t have exposed mandibles and the narrow club-shaped antennae of Leehermania differs from the wider club-shaped antennae of staphylinids. 

Nine researchers across four continents collaborated together to reclassify Leehermania. 

After theorizing that the beetle didn’t belong to staphylinidae, the researchers conducted several tests that showed that the beetle belonged to the suborder Myxophaga. 

The new family placement means that rove beetles are not the oldest family of beetles ever to live. Instead, Leehermania is one of the oldest skiff beetles ever describes. 

“The re-classification of Leehermania means that staphylinids are now 50 million years younger than we thought,” said  Martin Fikáček, a member of the research team. “But if staphylinids are so much younger, that means that this family evolved into many lineages much more rapidly than we thought they did.”

The researchers published their findings in the journal Systematic Entomology. 

--

By <a href="mailto:kayvandette@gmail.com">Kay Vandette</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer 

Image Credit: Shutterstock/khlungcenter

Research reveals that the oldest known rove beetle actually isn’t a rove beetle

There are almost 400,000 different species of beetles, and of...

The Philippines may be the next nation to grant rights to nature In the West, non-human animals, plants and inanimate things such as mountains and rivers have long been seen as intrinsically different from humans. This is partially due to religious tradition. The Bible seems pretty clear that humans are superior to animals and everything else on Earth in Genesis 1:26:

“Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.””

Again in verse 28, God tells the new humans he created to “fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

Many Christians interpret these passages and others in the Bible as blanket permission to treat animals in whatever way they feel like. The idea of humanity’s superiority was also influenced by Aristotle who felt humans but not animals had immortal souls. 

Later thinkers like French philosopher René Descartes believed that animals were unfeeling machines merely responding to their environment with the illusion of feeling pain or other cognitive features. Descartes even dissected a live, conscious dog and interpreted his yelps of pain as nothing more than an automated response. 

Other Christians have interpreted the Bible as instructing humans to take good care of non-human animals and other life, each deserving respect as fellow creations. In most of mainstream America, it seems that the prevalent thinking is to assume non-humans as lesser beings with fewer rights to a life of dignity. Although we have some <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/canada-protect-whales-dolphins-captivity/">anti-cruelty laws</a>, they don’t apply in many cases such as animals raised for food. 

In general, animals have relatively few rights. Other countries have started to forge a different way ahead, influenced by different thinking, to grant animals and nature rights not afforded in the US as we slowly move forward as well. 

The first anti-cruelty animal laws date back to Ashoka, a Buddhist emperor of India who ruled from circa 268 to 232 BCE, but that was more of a historical anomaly than a trend. Slowly, concerns for nature and non-human life have been revived in recent centuries and gained some support. During the 2016 IUCN World Conservation Congress held in Hawaii, members from over <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2016/10/natures-right-to-exist-gets-a-boost-from-key-organizations/">170 countries supported</a> the idea that nature has an inherent right to exist.

Individual countries have taken more substantial steps forward. In 2018, an <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/07/05/animals-accorded-rights-humans-indian-national-park/">Indian court ruled</a> that animals have rights like humans in the Indian state of Haryana. Previously, courts in India have declared rivers to have rights as well, a decision that was overturned. Rulings in 2014 and 2015 also gave animals in India constitutional rights as well as affirmed the right of birds to fly.

South American countries have also pioneered the idea of granting non-human animals rights. <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/sandra-the-orangutan-inside-argentina-zoo-granted-human-rights-in-landmark-ruling-9940202.html#r3z-addoor">In Argentina</a>, animal rights activists filed a habeas corpus petition, a document used to free people held in prison without good reason. The petition in this case was filed for a captive orangutan named Sandra who was held at the Buenos Aires zoo. In a 2014 court ruling, the judge found Sandra to be not a thing but instead a “non-human person” thus granting her basic rights. The decision allowed Sandra to be transferred from the zoo where she is said to have been treated poorly to an animal sanctuary. 

This was followed by a <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/argentina-judge-says-chimpanzee-poor-conditions-has-rights-and-should-be-freed-from-zoo-a7402606.html">similar court ruling</a> in Argentina that forced the release of a chimpanzee from a zoo where she was held alone to a wildlife sanctuary. A similar trial in the US ended with a captive chimpanzee being <a href="https://gizmodo.com/new-york-court-says-chimps-aren-t-people-but-it-s-not-h-1825886329">denied person status</a> under the law but the judge acknowledged the inadequacy of the law as well. Germany and New Zealand have meanwhile advanced their own legal recognition of non-human rights. 

Germany was the first country in the EU to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/jun/22/germany.animalwelfare">change its constitution</a> in 2002 to give non-human animals the right to have their dignity protected under law. 

New Zealand went even further. The Māori tribe of Whanganui traditionally consider the Whanganui River an ancestor and thus worthy of consideration as a person. In 2017, the status of the river as a person was legally recognized in New Zealand. The new law allows humans to act as legal guardians of the river and opens the door for legal redress previously not available to the body of water. The trend of allowing non-human animals and even physical features or ecosystems legal standing seems to have caught hold worldwide.

The Philippines may be the next country to grant some sort of legal standing to the non-human world. A coalition in the Philippines including a local arm of the Catholic Church is pushing for a new <a href="http://www.pmpi.org.ph/news-statements/environment/417-press-statement-pmpi-and-nassa-caritas-philippines-spearhead-filing-a-rights-of-nature-bill">“right of nature” bill</a>. 

If passed, the bill would be similar to other bills in that humans could act as guardians of non-humans and seek legal redress in courts based on rights given to non-humans. Catholic Church leaders have spoken up in support of the new bill, calling for people to live in communion with nature. The bill is still being drafted and hasn’t been submitted to Congress yet but it’s already creating a discussion about the place of nature in law. 

The Philippines bill drew inspiration from <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2016/10/natures-right-to-exist-gets-a-boost-from-key-organizations/">Ecuador and Bolivia</a>. In 2008, Ecuador became the first country to allow nature the constitutional right to thrive. In 2010 Bolivia passed the Law of the Rights of Mother Earth which granted Earth itself a legal personhood. 

Despite these laws, non-human nature is still not always treated with deep amounts of respect in Latin America or other parts of the world where it has legal standing. Pollution still occurs as does animal abuse and poaching. It could be that changing the law is a first step towards changing daily reality.                         

--

By <a href="mailto:zachfitzner@yahoo.com">Zach Fitzner</a>, <a href="http://earth.com">Earth.com</a> Contributing Writer

Paid for by <a href="http://earth.com">Earth.com</a>

Image Credit: Shutterstock/Parmna

The Philippines may be the next nation to grant rights to nature

The Philippines may be the next nation to grant rights...

A new study led by conservation biologists at <a href="https://www.fsu.edu/">Florida State University</a> has revealed that <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/american-bellflower-plants-adapt/">climate change</a> could provide some loggerhead turtles with optimal conditions for reproductive success. These benefits, however, may ultimately be reversed as environmental changes become more drastic. 

The loggerhead turtle has a diverse geographic range, stretching from the cooler shores of Newfoundland to the much hotter beaches of Australia. The research suggests that some loggerhead populations in warmer regions will be adversely affected by climate change more immediately, while nesting areas across milder regions could experience short-term gains. 

The investigation was focused on 17 loggerhead turtle nesting beaches along the coast of Brazil. The experts found that hatchling production could improve in temperate areas that are projected to experience a boost in temperatures as a result of global warming. 

"Even though hatchling success is projected to increase by the year 2100 in areas that currently have lower temperatures, it is likely that as climate change progresses and temperatures and precipitation levels approach negative thresholds, hatchling production at these locations will start to decrease,” said study co-author Professor Mariana Fuentes.

During incubation, marine turtle eggs are strongly affected by their environments. External temperatures influence the sex of the hatchlings, solar radiation exposure can reduce their chances of survival, and excessive moisture content can drown developing embryos.

The FSU team analyzed how a number of environmental scenarios may influence hatchling production along the coast of Brazil. 

The study revealed that, for hotter beaches near the equator, accelerating climate change will likely increase air temperatures and precipitation levels beyond the thresholds for healthy incubation. Across the temperate beaches located hundreds of miles from the equator, however, similar environmental changes will produce completely different results for hatchling production.

"These cooler beaches are also predicted to experience warming air temperatures; however, productivity is predicted to increase under both the extreme and conservative climate change scenarios,” said study lead author Natalie Montero.

As temperatures rise in the coming decades, these cooler beaches will become more suitable for healthy loggerhead incubation. On the other hand, if climate change continues at the current rate, Montero explained that these beaches may also become too warm for successful production.

"Sea turtles have been around for a long time and have survived many changes to the global climate,” said Montero. “However, climate changes of the past took a long time, allowing sea turtles to adapt to the changing conditions. Today’s climate change is happening very quickly, and therefore sea turtles must adapt quickly or perish.”

The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/srep/">Scientific Reports</a>.

--

By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Paid for by <a href="http://earth.com">Earth.com</a>

Image Credit: Shutterstock/Pete Niesen

Loggerhead turtles may benefit from a warming climate, but not for long

A new study led by conservation biologists at Florida State...

T. Rex had a built-in air conditioning system to help keep cool. New evidence suggests that the <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/real-t-rex-feathers-massive-eyes/">Tyrannosaurus rex</a> was equipped with a built-in air-conditioner to help regulate heat. 

It was long believed that the two holes in the roof of a T. rex skull, the dorsotemporal fenestra, actually helped jaw movements and were filled with muscles. As T. rex is said to have a <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/05/17/528677883/tyrannosaurus-rexs-bite-force-measured-8-000-pounds-scientists-say">bite force of 8,000 pounds</a>, some extra muscle certainly couldn’t have hurt. 

However, researchers from the <a href="https://missouri.edu/">University of Missouri,</a> <a href="https://www.ohio.edu/">Ohio University</a> and the <a href="http://www.ufl.edu/">University of Florida </a>have good reason to believe that the dorsotemporal fenestra regulated heat and helped keep T. rex cool. 

The study, published in the journal the <a href="https://anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ar.24218">Anatomical Record</a>, challenges what researchers know about the massive Cretaceous carnivore. 

“Yet, we now have a lot of compelling evidence for blood vessels in this area, based on our work with alligators and other reptiles,” said Casey Holliday, the lead researcher of the study. 

The researchers studied alligators at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park in Florida and used thermal imaging to see body heat. 

“Therefore, we noticed when it was cooler and the alligators are trying to warm up, our thermal imaging showed big hot spots in these holes in the roof of their skull, indicating a rise in temperature,” said Kent Vliet, a co-author of the study. ‘Yet, later in the day when it’s warmer, the holes appear dark, like they were turned off to keep cool.”

Next, the alligator thermal imaging data was compared to dinosaur and crocodile fossils and the researchers tracked changes in the dorsotemporal fenestra over time. 

Alligators have an internal thermostat according to Vliet, which helps discharge and regulate heat, and T. Rex may have had a similar system. 

“We know that, similarly to the T. rex, alligators have holes on the roof of their skulls, and they are filled with blood vessels,” said Larry Witmer, a fellow co-author of the study. “By using some anatomy and physiology of current animals, we can show that we can overturn those early hypotheses about the anatomy of this part of the T. rex’s skull.”

--

By <a href="mailto:kayvandette@gmail.com">Kay Vandette</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer 

Image Credit: Shutterstock/Herschel Hoffmeyer

T. Rex had a built-in air conditioning system to help keep cool

T. Rex had a built-in air conditioning system to help...

An international team of researchers has re-analyzed recordings of Old World monkeys to gain a better understanding of their language. The experts discovered that while the primates have a more complex communication system than expected, this language is still very restricted compared to that of humans. 

With more than 130 species, including baboons and <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/logical-thinking-macaques/">macaques</a>, Old World monkeys are the largest family of primates. For decades, experts have studied communication within some of these species to investigate whether they may be capable of human language acquisition.

The current study has produced evidence that Old World monkeys can combine two items in a language sequence. For example, the animals can integrate two distinct speech items into the same message, such as a warning call about a specific predator accompanied by a command to run.

According to the researchers, however, this ability seems to be strictly limited to combining two speech items. By contrast, humans have languages that involve an infinite variety of sequences. 

Study co-author and MIT linguist Shigeru Miyagawa explained that this means the two communication systems are fundamentally different. The research highlights a major gap in the cognitive ability of humans and our primate cousins, and places new emphasis on the uniqueness of the human language. 

"If what we're saying in this paper is right, there's a big break between two and infinity," said Miyagawa. "There is no three, there is no four, there is no five. Two and infinity. And that is the break between a nonhuman primate and human primates."

The putty-nosed monkey of West Africa has a general alarm call, known as "pyow," and a specific alarm call to represent an eagle sighting, known as "hack." The monkeys often combine the calls in "pyow-hack" sequences of varying lengths.

Miyagawa's team found that even though the monkeys may change the length of their expressions, they never change the sequence. The length of the "pyow-hack" message is used to indicate how far the monkeys will relocate, and does not seem to take on any additional meaning.

"The putty-nose monkey's expression is complex, but the important thing is the overall length, which predicts behavior and predicts how far they travel," said Miyagawa. "They start with 'pyow' and end up with 'hack.' They never go back to 'pyow.' Never."

Miyagawa noted that it is very apparent that the calls are, in fact, made up of two items. "The other thing that is apparent is that they cannot combine more than two things." Compared to the human language, he concluded, "there is a whole different system here."

Miyagawa pointed out that when the Old World monkeys speak, they seem to use a part of the brain known as the frontal operculum. Human language is more strongly associated with Broca's area, a region of the brain that appears to support more complex operations. 

Miyagawa suggests that further comparison of the human language to that of other primates could shed new light on how our unique language skills evolved, perhaps about 100,000 years ago. 

"There's been all this effort to teach monkeys human language that didn't succeed. But that doesn't mean we can't learn from them."

The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology">Frontiers in Psychology</a>.

--

By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Image Credit: Shutterstock/Cloudia Spinner

Monkeys have humans have two fundamentally different language systems

An international team of researchers has re-analyzed recordings of Old...

The fall armyworm is one of the most destructive pests in the world. The armyworm is actually the larval stage of the Spodoptera frugiperda moth, but it’s in this stage that the insect can wreak havoc on crops. 

The armyworm isn’t picky and can feed on more than 80 plant species. 

Researchers are racing to find ways to control and <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/grass-variety-armyworm-infestations/">manage fall armyworm invasions,</a> especially in countries in Africa where in recent years, the pest has destroyed billions of dollars worth of crops. 

The fall armyworm is native to tropical and subtropical regions of the Americas but was recently detected in Nigeria in 2016, according to the <a href="http://www.fao.org/food-chain-crisis/how-we-work/plant-protection/fallarmyworm/en/">US Food and Agricultural Organization</a>. By 2017, the fall armyworm spread to 28 countries in Africa. 

Last week during trade talks between Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and President Trump, it was agreed that Japan would buy excess <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-g7-summit-trump-abe-trade/trump-abe-say-u-s-and-japan-have-agreed-in-principle-on-trade-deal-idUSKCN1VF0CU">US corn because of armyworm infestations</a>. 

There are now fears that the pest will spread to Australia and Europe. 

Predators in South America and the southern US help manage fall armyworm populations. It’s still not known how the armyworm spread to Africa but the damage it can do, even in one night, is considerable.  

Roger Day from the <a href="https://www.cabi.org/">Centre for Agriculture and Bioscience International</a> office in Kenya has been monitoring the fall armyworms steady march across sub-Saharan Africa, and the pest has become a main priority. 

Day and a team of researchers estimated that uncontrolled armyworm infestations could cost $6.2 billion in crop damages. 

“The caterpillars eat rice, sugar cane and maize, and can destroy a farmer’s entire crop in a night,” Day told <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24332462-600-worlds-hungriest-caterpillar-is-wreaking-destruction-around-the-world/?utm_medium=email&amp;utm_source=dailynewsletter&amp;utm_campaign=05092019">New Scientist.</a> 

Currently, there are four strategies to help manage armyworm infestations according to Toby Bruce from <a href="https://www.keele.ac.uk/">Keele University</a> in the UK. 

Step one is to identify and grow crops that are more resistant to armyworms. Next, researchers have suggested growing plants next to the maize that specifically repel the moths from laying their eggs. The third strategy includes growing special crops that can lure the moths away from the maize. 

The last step involves releasing predators that can feed on the armyworms and keep infestations in check like parasitoid wasps. 

However, importing such wasps to countries in Africa will need to be conducted safely to ensure that there aren’t any risks to local biodiversity and ecosystems. 

A possible solution could be finding parasitoid wasps species that are native to Africa to control the armyworms.

Other options for managing infestations include planting genetically modified crops, but many are banned in countries in Africa and are not easily accessible for small farmers. 

So far, the armyworm has yet to make its way into Europe or Australia, but it may just be a matter of time which is why finding ways to manage and control the pests is vital. 

--

By <a href="mailto:kayvandette@gmail.com">Kay Vandette</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Image Credit: Shutterstock/Aphakorn Fuengtee

Armyworms continue their relentless attacks on crops worldwide

The fall armyworm is one of the most destructive pests...

A nearly-complete duck-billed dinosaur fossil discovered in Japan. Archaeologists in Japan have unearthed a nearly-complete 72-million-year-old fossil of a crested dinosaur. The skeleton includes the skull, jawbone, spine, ribs, teeth, and both front and back legs, making it one of the most remarkable prehistoric fossils ever uncovered.

Furthermore, experts believe that this crested creature, named Kamuysaurus japonicus, is significant because it shows that Asia and the United States were joined by land at the time that this <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/increases-oxygen-levels-dinosaurs/">dinosaur</a> walked the earth.

“'It is rare and pretty astonishing to find an almost complete skeleton,” said corresponding author Professor Yoshitsugu Kobayashi. “There is no doubt that this is the best preserved large dinosaur skeleton from Japan.”

Kamuysaurus was a duck-billed plant eater, about 26 feet long, and weighed more than five tons. This creature walked on all fours and preferred to live near water. The bony crest on its head places it in the hadrosaur family, and within the species called Edmontosaurus, which lived during the Late Cretaceous period. 

Fossils of Edmontosaurus have been found in Montana, Nebraska, and New Jersey. Furthermore, genetic analysis showed that Kamuysaurus was also related to the Kerberosaurus from Russia and Laiyangosaurus from China.

However, after comparing Kamuysaurus to 70 other hadrosaurs, experts identified it as a completely new dinosaur.

“[This discovery] has global significance because this dinosaur shows us how the world has been connected through time,” said co-author Dr. Anthony Fiorillo, chief curator at the <a href="https://www.perotmuseum.org/">Perot Museum of Nature and Science</a> in Texas. “Kamuysaurus is closely related to the animal we study from Alaska, Edmontosaurus, a duck-billed dinosaur also found throughout much of western North America.”

“Because these dinosaurs are so closely related, they provide further evidence that long ago, Asia and North America were connected,” Dr. Fiorillo said.

It’s currently thought that Asia and North America were connected by the Bering Land Bridge, which ran between Siberia and Alaska. The Bering Land Bridge has been described as the “dinosaur migration highway.”

Though many of Kamuysaurus’s bones have yet to be identified, experts were still able to perform a total reconstruction.

--

By <a href="mailto:oliviagharvey24@gmail.com">Olivia Harvey</a>, <a href="http://earth.com">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Image Credit: Kobayashi Y., et al, Scientific Reports

A nearly-complete duck-billed dinosaur fossil discovered in Japan

A nearly-complete duck-billed dinosaur fossil discovered in Japan. Archaeologists in...

How do birds use the Earth’s magnetic field to navigate their migration paths?. Animals that can sense the Earth's <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/earths-magnetic-field-reversal/">magnetic field</a> are provided with important navigational information, such as a sense of direction that is associated with the field. Using this compass, along with other parameters such as the intensity of the magnetic field, birds can successfully navigate over long distances. 

It remains a mystery, however, what the birds actually use to sense the conditions of the magnetic field. It is known that birds have tiny magnets that contribute to their navigational ability, yet the precise underlying mechanism is unknown.

Beyond their ability to detect the energy of magnetic fields, birds have proteins in their eyes that allow them to visualize magnetic fields. The proteins single out strains of magnetism within the surroundings, and convert them into a visible compass.

Researchers from the <a href="https://www.goethe.de/en/index.html">Goethe-Institut</a> in Germany are investigating how the data obtained by the bird’s beak and eyes is combined to create a navigational map.

Even though the pieces of magnetic iron are so small that they have not been located, scientists believe that these particles play a major role in avian navigation.

"Presently, the specific location of the magnetite-based magnetoreceptors is still unclear," wrote study authors Roswitha and Wolfgang Wiltschko. "The observation that magnetic stimuli had been found to be transmitted by the ophthalmic nerve suggests that the receptors lie in the area innervated by this nerve, and here the region of the upper beak, where superparamagnetic magnetite had been described, seemed a likely candidate."

The researchers explained that the regions of the brain where magnetic directional information is processed are also not entirely clear. 

"Most probable candidates are areas associated with the visual system, yet it is still open whether the processing of magnetic information is an integrated part of vision or whether it is processed more or less independently as a sense of its own."

"One might consider the hippocampus as a most likely candidate for integrating all these types of information - however, displacement experiments with hippocampal-ablated pigeons showed that these birds departed homeward oriented like the control birds, i.e. navigation from greater distances, could still take place," wrote the study authors. 

The team said that further research will hopefully lead to a more complete picture of where magnetic information is processed in the brain and combined with other information for navigational processes.

The study is published in the <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/journal/rsif">Journal of the Royal Society Interface</a>.

--

By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Image Credit: Shutterstock/Delmas Lehman

How do birds use the Earth’s magnetic field to navigate their migration paths?

How do birds use the Earth’s magnetic field to navigate...

New AI software can recognize and track chimpanzees in the wild. Using more than 10 million images from <a href="https://www.pri.kyoto-u.ac.jp/">Kyoto University’s Primate Research Institute</a> (PRI), scientists at the <a href="http://www.ox.ac.uk/">University of Oxford</a> have just developed new artificial intelligence software that can recognize and track the faces of chimpanzees in the wild. 

These images from a video archive of wild <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/chimpanzees-hunting-eating-crabs/">chimpanzees</a> in Guinea, West Africa were used to develop what is now the first software to continuously track and recognize individuals in a wide range of poses. The AI is even able to do this in difficult conditions such as low lighting, poor image quality, and motion blur.

“For species like chimpanzees, which have complex social lives and live for many years, getting snapshots of their behavior from short-term field research can only tell us so much,” explains Dan Schofield, a researcher and DPhil student at Oxford University's Primate Models Lab, School of Anthropology. “By harnessing the power of machine learning to unlock large video archives, it makes it feasible to measure behavior over the long term, for example observing how the social interactions of a group change over several generations.”

This new software will help wildlife conservationists save time and resources currently spent analyzing video footage. 

“Our method differs from previous primate face recognition software in that it can be applied to raw video footage with limited manual intervention or pre-processing, saving hours of time and resources,” says Arsha Nagrani, co-author of the study and DPhil student at the Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford.

Detailed in a paper published in <a href="https://advances.sciencemag.org/">Science Advances</a>, this new technology – while it focuses on chimpanzees – can potentially be applied to monitoring other species as well. 

“All our software is available open-source for the research community,” says Nagrani. “We hope that this will help researchers across other parts of the world apply the same cutting-edge techniques to their unique animal data sets.”

As climate change and human interference threaten many species around the world, technology-driven conservation is a much-needed development in the fight to save these ecosystems. 

“With an increasing biodiversity crisis and many of the world’s ecosystems under threat, the ability to closely monitor different species and populations using automated systems will be crucial for conservation efforts, as well as animal behavior research,” says Schofield. “Interdisciplinary collaborations like this have huge potential to make an impact, by finding novel solutions for old problems, and asking biological questions which were previously not feasible on a large scale.”

--

By <a href="mailto:certz@earth.com">Connor Ertz</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Image Credit: Shutterstock/Sergey Uryadnikov

New AI software can recognize and track chimpanzees in the wild

New AI software can recognize and track chimpanzees in the...

Scientists have discovered what may be one of the first trails made by animals on the Earth’s surface about 550 million years ago. 

These ancient fossilized trails are some of the most convincing evidence to show that ancient animals had mobility about a half-billion years ago — before the dinosaur age and the Pangea supercontinent.

Both the trail and the fossilized creature who made it, dubbed Yilingia spiciformis (which translates to Yiling bug), were unearthed from multiple layers of rock near the city of Yiling in <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/china-co2-emissions-targets/">China</a>. 

They were discovered by Shuhai Xiao, a professor of geosciences with the <a href="https://www.science.vt.edu/">Virginia Tech College of Science</a>, and his colleagues from the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ <a href="http://english.nigpas.cas.cn/">Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology</a>.

"This discovery shows that segmented and mobile animals evolved by 550 million years ago," Xiao said. "Mobility made it possible for animals to make an unmistakable footprint on Earth, both literally and metaphorically. Those are the kind of features you find in a group of animals called bilaterans. This group includes us humans and most animals. Animals and particularly humans are movers and shakers on Earth. Their ability to shape the face of the planet is ultimately tied to the origin of animal motility."

Yilinia spiciformis was a millipede-like animal, about a quarter inch to an inch wide and about 4 inches long. It would move by dragging its body across the ocean floor, resting along the way, and thus leaving a trail as long as about 23 inches. 

What’s more is that this discovery places the evolution of bilaterians (symmetric animals with segmented bodies and directional mobility) exactly where scientists estimated it to be — between 635 and 539 million years ago. 

"We are the most impactful animal on Earth," Xiao said. "We make a huge footprint, not only from locomotion, but in many other and more impactful activities related to our ability to move. When and how animal locomotion evolved defines an important geological and evolutionary context of anthropogenic impact on the surface of the Earth."

This discovery is published in <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1522-7">Nature</a>.

--

By <a href="mailto:oliviagharvey24@gmail.com">Olivia Harvey</a>, <a href="http://earth.com">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Image Credit: Virginia Tech College of Science

550 million-year-old animal trail fossil discovered in China

Scientists have discovered what may be one of the first...

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features Nushagak Bay, a large estuary in southwest Alaska. Nushagak runs mainly north to south and exits in Bristol Bay, a large body of water in the Bering Sea.



"The bay is primarily fed by the Nushagak River, which begins in the Alaska Range and flows southwest approximately 450 km. The bay is also fed by several additional rivers including the Wood, Igushik, Snake and Weary rivers," says ESA.



"The dark colors of the Nushagak River are most likely due to tannins or lignins (chemical substances found in plants). Tannins and lignins from roots, leaves, seeds, bark and soil can leach into the water and give it a brown or even black colour. The sediments then flow southwards where it is mixed with the bluer waters of the bay."



Video/ Image Credit: ESA



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By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Nushagak Bay in southwest Alaska

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Today's Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.acs.org/">American Chemical Society</a> (ACS) reveals that proteins on flu viruses are actually flexible, tilting and waving in a “breath-like” motion. According to the experts, these proteins could be used to better defend against the flu.



"The main antigenic targets of influenza virus are two surface glycoproteins, hemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA). Whereas the structural and dynamical properties of both glycoproteins have been studied previously, the understanding of their plasticity in the whole-virion context is fragmented," wrote the researchers.



To investigate, the team conducted detailed simulations of the influenza A H1N1 virion, or the swine flu. The experts concluded that the visualizations show many new vulnerable states of flu viruses, which could improve future vaccines and antiviral drugs.



Video/ Image Credit: American Chemical Society&nbsp;



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



Check us out on <a href="https://www.earth.com/earthsnap/">EarthSnap</a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.

Flu viruses are more flexible than expected

[sendtonews key="G9bUoxcjr4-2511624-12187" type="single"] Today's Video of the Day from the...

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features Lake Trasimeno, which is located west of Perugia in central Italy. It is the fourth largest lake in the country. While Trasimeno’s water level varies, it has a maximum depth of approximately six meters.&nbsp;



"In this Copernicus Sentinel-2 image, captured on 6 August 2022, the lake’s emerald green colour is likely due to the presence of phytoplankton. Streaks in the water, particularly visible in the west, indicate the presence of soil and sediments which have been stirred up by winds. Dark colored waters in the southern part of the lake indicate a presence of submerged and floating macrophytes (aquatic plants) as well as algae," says ESA.



"Surrounded by hills on three sides, Trasimeno is subject to heavy storms created by winds, especially from the north and west. There are three islets in the lake: Maggiore, Minore and Polvese (the largest). The lake’s shores are sparsely inhabited with only two popular villages: Castiglione del Lago and Passignano sul Trasimeno."



"Italy is experiencing its worst drought in 70 years which has affected drinking water supplies, hydroelectric power and agricultural production. High temperatures, hot winds and lack of rainfall are the main causes of drought in the Umbrian region which saw Lake Trasimeno’s drop 1.3 m, reaching the limit of the hydrometric zero in July 2022."



Video/Image Credit: ESA&nbsp;



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By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Lake Trasimeno in Central Italy

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Today's Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.acs.org/">American Chemical Society</a> describes a new self-powered nanosensor that can instantly detect mercury contamination with the tap of a finger.&nbsp;



The oxidized form of mercury can be harmful when it is ingested through contaminated water or food. This makes it necessary for experts to develop sensors that can quickly and accurately detect the presence of mercury.&nbsp;



Zong-Hong Lin and colleagues have now created a triboelectric nanosensor (TENS) that can detect mercury by simply by touching a sample. According to the researchers, their TENS could serve as the basis for similar devices to safely and remotely monitor other pollutants.



Video Credit: American Chemical Society&nbsp;



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



Check us out on <a href="https://www.earth.com/earthsnap/">EarthSnap</a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.

Detecting mercury contamination with the tap of a finger

[sendtonews key="LvS8v8bp9z-2564889-12187" type="single"] Today's Video of the Day from the...

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.acs.org/">American Chemical Society</a> explores the ability of salt to transform the way that foods and beverages taste. Salt is known to cover up undesirable flavors, such as bitterness in coffee or beer, but how exactly does sodium chloride change the taste of other compounds?



One previous study showed that, not only does salt suppress bitterness, but also enhances sweetness and sourness. Another study revealed that bitterness reduction by salt seems to be happening at the tongue receptor level as well as in the brain.&nbsp;



While it is known that salt taste is mediated by the presence of sodium channels in the form of taste buds, experts believe that there is also an unknown receptor responsible for how we taste salt that has not yet been identified.&nbsp;



Video Credit: ACS Reactions



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



Check us out on <a href="https://www.earth.com/earthsnap/">EarthSnap</a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.

How does salt makes things taste better?

[sendtonews key="X0f6OHYoI4-2310561-12187" type="single"] Today’s Video of the Day from the...

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features Santiago, the capital city of Chile. The city is located in the center of the Santiago Metropolitan Region, which has a population of about eight million people.&nbsp;



'The weather of Santiago resembles the Mediterranean climate with dry and warm summers with temperatures reaching up to 35°C (from October to March) and cool and humid winters that can drop to 0°C (from April to September)."



"The city lies in the centre of the country’s central valley around 80 km from the Pacific Ocean to the west and borders Argentina to the east. A tiny part of Argentina is visible in the top-right corner of the image where the mountain crest of the Andes Mountains acts as a divider between the two countries," says ESA.



Video/ Image Credit: ESA



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



Check us out on <a href="https://www.earth.com/earthsnap/">EarthSnap</a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.

Santiago, Chile in South America

[sendtonews key="JRaP49ISmm-2357509-12187" type="single"] Today’s Video of the Day from the...

Spiral,Galaxy,,Illustration,Of,Milky,Way

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Astronomers at <a href="https://www.jhu.edu/">Johns Hopkins University</a> have created an interactive map of the universe, including the actual position and real colors of 200,000 galaxies. The map allows the public to access data that was previously only available to scientists.



The map was developed using data collected by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. For over two decades, a telescope in New Mexico was aimed at slightly different locations to capture the night sky.&nbsp;



"Growing up I was very inspired by astronomy pictures, stars, nebulae and galaxies, and now it's our time to create a new type of picture to inspire people," said map creator Brice Ménard, a professor at Johns Hopkins. "Astrophysicists around the world have been analyzing this data for years, leading to thousands of scientific papers and discoveries. But nobody took the time to create a map that is beautiful, scientifically accurate, and accessible to people who are not scientists. Our goal here is to show everybody what the universe really looks like."



"In this map, we are just a speck at the very bottom, just one pixel. And when I say we, I mean our galaxy, the Milky Way which has billions of stars and planets. We are used to seeing astronomical pictures showing one galaxy here, one galaxy there or perhaps a group of galaxies. But what this map shows is a very, very different scale."



"From this speck at the bottom, we are able to map out galaxies across the entire universe, and that says something about the power of science."



The <a href="https://mapoftheuniverse.net/">interactive map</a> is available online, where it can be downloaded for free.



Video Credit: Johns Hopkins&nbsp;



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



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Interactive map of the universe includes 200,000 galaxies

[sendtonews key="e4ZG0Jawp3-2374785-12187" type="single"] Astronomers at Johns Hopkins University have created...

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Lesotho: Africa's "Kingdom in the Sky" Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features northwest Lesotho in South Africa.



According to ESA, Lesotho is the only nation in the world that lies completely above 1,000 m in elevation. The country is famous for its tall mountains and narrow valleys, and is known as Africa's "Kingdom in the Sky."



Out of a population of around two million people, about 80 percent live in rural areas. More than 75 percent of these people are engaged in <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/climate-change-will-have-a-global-impact-on-agriculture/">agriculture</a>, including rainfed cereal production and animal grazing.&nbsp;



ESA reports that the country’s agricultural system faces a growing number of issues, with climate-related vulnerabilities such as drought, floods and extreme temperatures occurring more frequently. 



Diamonds are amongst the minerals found in the mountains. Indeed, Lesotho can truly be called the Kingdom in the Sky. Beautiful, culturally rich, safe, affordable, and easily accessible from Durban and Johannesburg, mountainous Lesotho is a vastly underrated travel destination. the Kingdom of Lesotho (Sotho: 'Muso oa Lesotho) is an enclaved country in southern Africa. It is just over 30,000 km2 (11,583 sq mi) in size and has a population of around 2 million.



Video Credit: ESA&nbsp;&nbsp;



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer 



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Lesotho: Africa's "Kingdom in the Sky"

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Today's Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features Dublin, the capital and largest city of Ireland. Beyond its pub culture, Dublin is known as a modern culinary destination and a UNESCO City of Literature.



"Dublin is located near the midpoint of Ireland’s east coast in the province of Leinster. The city, which covers an area of around 115 square kilometers, is bordered by the Dublin Mountains, a low mountain range to the south, and is surrounded by flat farmland to the north and west," says ESA.



"The city straddles the River Liffey, which rises in the Wicklow Mountains and flows around 80 kilometers eastwards through the city of Dublin, in which it is canalised and bordered with quays. It then empties into Dublin Bay, an arm of the Irish Sea."



Dublin has an abundance of green spaces, including one of the largest enclosed public parks in any European capital city. Phoenix Park, which was originally formed as a royal hunting park in the 1660s, includes 707 hectares of green space.



Video Credit: ESA&nbsp;



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



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The city of Dublin on Ireland's east coast

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Today's Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features the province of Zaragoza in northeast Spain. The image was captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission.



"Together with the provinces of Huesca and Teruel, Zaragoza formed the old kingdom of Aragon. Its capital, also called Zaragoza (not visible in this image) is home to around half of Aragon’s population," says ESA.



"The Ebro River can be seen winding its way through the province from west to east in this image. Between its source in the Cantabrian Mountains in the northwest and its delta on the Mediterranean coast, the Ebro River is fed by more than 200 tributaries as it flows 910 km across much of northern Spain."



Since rainfall is very scarce in this region, irrigation in the Ebro basin is critically important. In the valleys surrounding the Ebro River, many fields are used for growing crops such as corn, wheat, and barley.



Video/ Image Credit: ESA



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



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The province of Zaragoza in northeast Spain

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Today’s Video of the Day from <a href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/">NASA Earth Observatory</a> reveals the evolution of the Columbia Glacier in southeastern Alaska. Columbia is among the fastest shrinking glaciers in the world, and the video documents its rapid retreat over the years.&nbsp;



Columbia Glacier is a large, multi-branched calving glacier that flows out of the Chugach Mountains to the Prince William Sound.&nbsp;



According to USGS, Columbia had a long history of stability prior to 1980, with a length 41 miles, and small, short-lived advances or retreats.



In the years since 1980, however, satellite images have captured Columbia’s alarming retreat. By using false-color images, scientists can distinguish between snow and ice, open water, vegetation, and rocky debris on the glacier’s surface.



The series of false-color images featured in today's video were acquired over the span of 35 years. You can see that by 2021, the glacier’s main branch had retreated about 15 miles from its initial position.



The Columbia Glacier has also lost more than 50 percent of its volume, mostly due to calving. <a href="https://www.earth.com/video/nasa-reveals-3d-visual-of-an-atmospheric-river/">NASA</a> reports that while climate change likely started the retreat, mechanical processes kept the disintegration going.



The NASA images are provided by Jesse Allen, Robert Simmon, Joshua Stevens, and Lauren Dauphin using data from Landsat satellites, from the U.S. Geological Survey, and data from MODIS on NASA’s Terra satellite. The structure of Columbia’s moraine played a large role in the stability of the glacier before 1980. 



Like other tidewater glaciers, the Columbia built up a moraine over time, and the mixture of ice and rock functioned like a dam keeping out the sea. It was supported on one end by the shoreline and by the underwater terminal moraine at the other.



Video Credit: NASA Earth Observatory/&nbsp; NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



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The rapid retreat of the Columbia Glacier

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features the Pyrenees Mountains, which form a natural boundary between France and Spain in southwest Europe.



The mountain range is 430 kilometers in length. It stretches from the Mediterranean Sea on the east to the Atlantic Ocean on the west.



At an elevation of 3404 meters, Pico de Aneto is the highest mountain peak in the Pyrenees, and the third-highest peak in Spain. Pico de Aneto is located in the Posets-Maladeta Natural Park, which spans more than 82,000 acres.&nbsp;



"Geological studies have revealed that the Pyrenees Mountains have been around for longer than the Alps, with their sediments first deposited in coastal basins during the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras," reports ESA.



"The entire mountain range formed due to the upwelling of large sedimentary rocks by the collision of the Iberian and the Eurasian plate around 100 to 150 million years ago, followed by intense erosion from ice and water."



The western Pyrenees receive more precipitation due to moisture blowing in from the Atlantic Ocean. The mountain range contains many lakes, several small glaciers, and some of the highest waterfalls in Europe.



Video &amp; Image Credit: ESA



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



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The Pyrenees Mountains in southwest Europe

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Today's Video of the Day from <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/goddard">NASA Goddard</a> describes two exoplanets that are orbiting a star 218 light-years away. A team of researchers led by the University of Montreal has found evidence that these planets are "water worlds."



The experts used data from NASA’s Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes. They discovered that exoplanets Kepler-138 c and Kepler-138 could be composed largely of water.



"We previously thought that planets that were a bit larger than Earth were big balls of metal and rock, like scaled-up versions of Earth, and that's why we called them super-Earths," explained study co-author Björn Benneke.&nbsp;



"However, we have now shown that these two planets, Kepler-138 c and d, are quite different in nature and that a big fraction of their entire volume is likely composed of water. It is the best evidence yet for water worlds, a type of planet that was theorized by astronomers to exist for a long time."



Video Credit: NASA Goddard



Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and Leah Hustak (STScI)



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



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Two distant planets may be "water worlds"

[sendtonews key="QIoVYJqRBi-2434608-12187" type="single"] Today's Video of the Day from NASA...

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Satellites reveal how Earth's systems are interconnected Today’s Video of the Day from <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/goddard">NASA Goddard</a> describes Earth’s interconnected systems, and how this network is affected by rising temperatures.&nbsp;



During 2020, average global temperatures matched the hottest year on record. The hurricane season was also record-breaking, with many of the storms intensifying at extraordinary speeds. Hot water in the ocean is fuel for hurricanes. The satellite data shows that it's all one interconnected system showing how Satellites reveal how Earth's systems are interconnected.



According to NASA, dust swept up from Northern Africa plays a major role in the formation of hurricanes, and is also a key source of fertilization in the Amazon rainforest. As a result of<a href="https://www.earth.com/news/seagrass-wasting-disease-is-fueled-by-climate-change/"> climate</a> change, dust plumes are expected to decline, which will have an effect on vegetation far away.&nbsp;



Images from Earth-observing satellites show how the world’s plant life is affected by natural disasters, fires, and deforestation. Satellites also reveal how widespread changes in vegetation impact waterways,&nbsp; the climate, air quality. Satellites communicate by using radio waves to send signals to the antennas on the Earth. "Earth From Space" is a groundbreaking two-hour special that reveals a spectacular new space-based vision of our planet. 



Video Credit: NASA Goddard&nbsp;



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



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Satellites reveal how Earth's systems are interconnected

[sendtonews key="JbW4VsY53O-1632195-12187" type="single"] Satellites reveal how Earth's systems are interconnected...

Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://welcome.miami.edu/">University of Miami</a> Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science explores how changes in water temperatures have affected tiger shark habitats and movements in the North Atlantic Ocean. The study reveals that rising temperatures have caused the sharks to shift toward the poles over the past 40 years.



“Tiger shark annual migrations have expanded poleward, paralleling rising water temperatures,” explained study lead author Neil Hammerschlag. “These results have consequences for tiger shark conservation, since shifts in their movements outside of marine protected areas may leave them more vulnerable to commercial fishing.”



The researchers analyzed nine years of tracking data from satellite-tagged tiger sharks, combined with four decades of conventional tag and recapture data provided by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Cooperative Shark Tagging Program.



The experts found that during the last decade of record heat, for every one-degree Celsius increase in water temperatures, tiger sharks migrated further poleward by over 400 kilometers. They also migrated two weeks earlier than usual to waters off the northeastern coast of the United States.



“Given their role as apex predators, these changes to tiger shark movements may alter predator-prey interactions, leading to ecological imbalances, and more frequent encounters with humans,” concluded Professor Hammerschlag.



Video Credit: University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



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Tiger sharks are shifting poleward as temperatures rise

Today’s Video of the Day from the University of Miami...

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> is focused on the melt ponds that emerge during the spring and summer on the Greenland Ice Sheet, which is the largest ice mass in the northern hemisphere.



"Melt ponds are vast pools of open water that form on both sea ice and ice sheets and are visible as turquoise-blue pools of water in this Copernicus Sentinel-2 image," says ESA.



"When snow and ice melts atop glaciers, water flows in channels and streams and collects in depressions on the surface. These melt ponds can speed up the melting of the surrounding ice since they greatly reduce the ice’s ability to reflect sunlight."



"This can create a positive feedback where an increasing number of melt ponds absorb more heat which causes ice cover to melt even faster."



According to ESA, Greenland has been hit with a late-season heatwave that began in early September. This caused the type of melt event that usually occurs in the middle of summer.



"In a recent paper published in Nature Climate Change, scientists found that major sea-level rise from the melting of the Greenland ice cap is now ‘inevitable’ even if the burning of fossil fuels were to halt overnight," says ESA. "Using satellite observations of Greenland ice loss and ice cap from 2000 to 2019, the team found the losses will lead to a minimum rise of 27 cm regardless of climate change."



Video Credit: ESA&nbsp;



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



Check us out on <a href="https://www.earth.com/earthsnap/">EarthSnap</a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.

Melt ponds on the Greenland Ice Sheet

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> describes a new map of Mars that is providing insight into the planet’s watery past. The map also reveals where future missions could safely land on Mars.&nbsp;



The map has been created over the last decade using observations of water-rich rocks and mineral deposits. The images were captured by ESA’s Mars Express and NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.



"A big surprise is the prevalence of these minerals, with the map revealing hundreds of thousands of water-affected locations in the oldest parts of the planet," says ESA. "The new data will help answer exciting questions about Mars’ climate history, whether water was globally persistent or confined to short, intense episodes, and whether the conditions were ever suitable for life."



"Specifically, the map shows the locations and abundances of aqueous minerals. These are from rocks that have been chemically altered by the action of water in the past, and have typically been transformed into clays and salts."



According to John Carter of the Institut d’Astrophysique Spatiale (IAS), our collective understanding of Mars has been oversimplified. He explained that planetary scientists have tended to think that only a few types of clay minerals on Mars were created during its wet period, then as the water gradually dried up, salts were produced across the planet.



The new map shows that the composition of Mars is much more complicated than what we thought. For example, while many salts formed after Martian clays, there are some salts that are presumed to be older than some of the clays.&nbsp;



“The evolution from lots of water to no water is not as clear cut as we thought, the water didn’t just stop overnight. We see a huge diversity of geological contexts, so that no one process or simple timeline can explain the evolution of the mineralogy of Mars. That’s the first result of our study. The second is that if you exclude life processes on Earth, Mars exhibits a diversity of mineralogy in geological settings just as Earth does,” said Carter.



Video Credit: ESA



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



Check us out on <a href="https://www.earth.com/earthsnap/">EarthSnap</a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.

The history of Mars is much more complex than we thought

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Today's Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.stowers.org/">Stowers Institute for Medical Research</a> describes how cavefish adapted to a sedentary lifestyle over tens of thousands of years. 



The experts found that the muscle metabolism of cavefish has been genetically reprogrammed over time. As a result, the animals have experienced major changes in their morphology and behavior. Despite these changes, however, the cavefish remain healthy and fit.



The research may provide new clues about the evolutionary consequences of prolonged physical inactivity in humans.&nbsp;



“It’s no surprise that people are moving less and less as technology has advanced,” said Rohner. “With cavefish, we have a unique system where we can study what might happen if people remained couch potatoes over very, very long periods of time.”



Video Credit: Stowers Institute for Medical Research



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



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Cavefish are healthy despite their sedentary lifestyle

[sendtonews key="vpljfR2VBX-2560867-12187" type="single"] Today's Video of the Day from the...

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Today’s Video of the Day from <a href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/">NASA Earth Observatory</a> some of the most incredible waves in the world, as seen by Landsat satellites.



"With more than 370,000 miles of coastline on Earth, there are plenty of places where epic waves build up, curl over, and hurtle toward the shore.- much to the thrill of surfers," says NASA. "There are some places where these waves are so magnificent that they can be seen from space."



"With the broad perspective of satellites, we can see how these iconic waves develop into the world’s tallest, longest, fastest, and heaviest."



Video Credit: NASA Earth Observatory&nbsp;



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



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Satellites capture the world's biggest and fastest waves

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> describes why satellite images and measurements of our planet have become "essential to our survival, offering a new outlook of our world."&nbsp;



Rising sea levels pose one of the biggest societal threats associated with climate change. According to ESA, satellite altimeter missions such as Copernicus Sentinel-6 are essential in monitoring global and regional changes in sea level.



"Unbeknown to many, the island of Crete, Greece, plays an important role in the Copernicus satellite altimetry constellation and on an international stage," reports ESA.



"Satellite altimetry data have to be continuously monitored at the ESA’s Permanent Facility for Altimetry Calibration where different techniques have pioneered the use of transponders to provide the best measurements to validate satellite altimeters in space soon after launch."



Dr. Craig Donlon explains that, by understanding planet Earth through satellite measurements, we are able to find evidence of change.&nbsp;



Video Credit: European Space Agency&nbsp;



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By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Satellites have become essential to our survival

[sendtonews key="761m2QQvR1-2035772-12187" type="single"] Today’s Video of the Day from the...