The idea of life continuing on Earth without humans has a way of catching our attention. Our species has spread across land and sea, altering the planet in countless ways.



Still, Earth’s history shows that no species lasts forever. It can be sobering to consider a future without us, but it also sparks plenty of curiosity about what might follow in our absence.



<a href="https://www.earth.com/news/fossil-discovery-anadoluvius-turkae-suggests-humans-originated-in-europe-not-africa/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Human beings</a> have been at the center of ecological change on Earth for thousands of years. Our inventions and communities have reshaped forests, oceans, and even the atmosphere. 



Yet many researchers say nature will adapt once we are gone. This leads to questions about who - or what - would occupy our spot.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-earth-after-humans">Earth after humans</h2>



<a href="https://www.biology.ox.ac.uk/people/tim-coulson" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Professor Tim Coulson</a> from the <a href="https://www.ox.ac.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">University of Oxford</a> has spent years studying biology and evolution. He believes our disappearance could open the door to surprising new species that take over Earth’s ecological roles.



In his book, <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/459065/the-universal-history-of-us-by-coulson-tim/9780241662304" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The Universal History of Us</a>, he traces life’s entire history and zeroes in on a single, striking prediction about what might come next.



One of his main themes involves evolution, which he describes as the “gradual change in living organisms over time as they better adapt to their environments.”



He emphasizes that “most mutations are harmful, but a few provide a survival or reproductive advantage.” Because genes are heritable, these beneficial mutations become more common over generations.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-natural-selection-and-change">Natural selection and change</h2>



Mutations, in Coulson’s view, drive life forward despite the risks. Yet he reminds readers that no species is permanent.



“Extinction is the fate of all species, <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/scientists-predict-how-and-when-humans-and-mammals-will-face-extinction/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">including humans</a>, although let’s hope our demise is far in the future.” 



That message can feel unsettling. But it also serves as a reminder that every life form, no matter how successful, eventually faces an endpoint.



Coulson’s outlook stems from years of research into how species emerge, survive, and sometimes vanish. “I started to wonder what species might take our place if humans, and our close great ape relatives, were to die out,” he says.



Once humans are removed from the picture, Earth's ecosystems could find balance again, which might allow new creatures to fill the empty slots.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-new-forms-of-intelligence-emerge">New forms of intelligence emerge</h2>



Nobody knows if the next ruling life form would mirror humanity. Coulson proposes that “new forms of intelligence and complexity could emerge in unexpected ways.”



This opens the possibility that a future species might come up with solutions and technologies unlike any we can picture right now.



Some believe that primates are the likeliest successors, but Coulson raises doubts.



“Primates depend heavily on strong social networks,” he explains, along with the idea that “they engage in activities like hunting, grooming, and defense, which are essential for their survival. These constraints might help them struggle to adjust to a world undergoing dramatic ecological shifts.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-potential-successor-to-humans-on-earth">Potential successor to humans on Earth</h2>



In place of our <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/bonobos-group-cohesion-common-enemy-effect-do-not-kill-inside-their-species/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">primate relatives</a>, Coulson offers a contender that many might find startling: <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/world-octopus-day-the-intelligent-creatures-of-the-sea/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">the octopus</a>. He points to their cleverness and adaptability.



“Their ability to solve complex problems, communicate with one another in <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/blue-ringed-octopus-a-master-of-deception-inspires-new-technology/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">flashes of color</a>, and manipulate objects suggests that, given the right <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/turquets-octopus-dna-tells-scientists-that-west-antarctic-ice-sheet-collapse-is-close/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">environmental conditions</a>, they could evolve into a civilization-building species.”



He adds, “their advanced neural structure, decentralized nervous system, and remarkable problem-solving skills make several <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/rare-dumbo-octopus-captured-on-film-and-video-in-hawaii/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">species of octopus</a> well suited for an unpredictable world.”



<a href="https://www.earth.com/news/warming-seas-impair-octopus-vision-to-a-critical-extent/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Octopuses</a> already have a reputation for <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/the-octopus-has-mastered-the-art-of-multispecies-hunting/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">being creative</a> and a bit mischievous. 



“Some individuals even escape from their tanks at night in some research centers, visiting those of their neighbors, believe it or not,” Coulson says. They are known to use tools, open jars, and display signs of curiosity.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-life-underwater">Life underwater</h2>



If humans were gone, oceans might become even more central to Earth’s future. Though land-based creatures have typically held top positions on the food chain, Coulson notes a critical challenge for <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/do-octopuses-dream-a-recent-study-shows-octopuses-sleep-is-very-similar-to-humans/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">octopuses</a>.



“Octopuses are unlikely to adapt to life on land due to their lack of a skeleton, which makes swift and agile movement out of water challenging,” he explained.



"With evolutionary advances, it is possible, if not probable, that they might develop ways to breathe outside of water and eventually hunt terrestrial animals like deer, sheep, and other mammals - assuming they have survived the catastrophic event that drove humans extinct."



That sounds extreme. Yet Coulson is simply highlighting how evolution can lead life down paths that seem impossible at first.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-would-octopus-earth-look-like">What would octopus-Earth look like?</h2>



<a href="https://www.earth.com/news/octopuses-adapt-to-seasonal-temperatures-by-rewiring-their-brains/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Octopuses</a> might build underwater habitats, find new ways to interact with their surroundings, and even reach beyond the waves one day.



“Would octopuses build vast underwater cities and come onto land wearing breathing apparatus to shoot a deer? We’ve no way of knowing,” he says.



No one predicted that ancient primates would slowly turn into bipedal humans with advanced technology.



Coulson believes that “random mutations, unforeseen extinction events, and population bottlenecks can all significantly influence the trajectory of evolution.” This means the future is wide open, shaped by countless variables that scientists can’t fully predict.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-impossible-to-know-fun-to-think-about">Impossible to know, fun to think about</h2>



“The future of life on Earth is shaped by countless variables,” he points out. The path of evolution might take strange turns. Some scenarios might never pan out. Others could surprise us by unfolding in real time.



“But could <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/octopus-and-squid-senses-linked-to-human-brain-evolution/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">octopuses replace humans</a> - and potentially also <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/primates-face-an-uncertain-future-due-to-climate-change/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">primates</a> - if they were to die out? Absolutely. They could become the brains of the sea.”



For now, it remains an intriguing thought experiment to imagine aquatic invertebrates overseeing a planet once dominated by upright mammals.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-imagining-earth-without-humans">Imagining Earth without humans</h2>



Coulson does not claim that this outcome is inevitable. Instead, he suggests it as a lesson in how nature might rearrange itself without us. 



Earth’s past is packed with examples of life enduring massive upheavals. It’s possible that intelligence, in some form, might spring up long after humans are gone.



His book underscores evolution’s capacity to produce forms and behaviors that seem strange from our perspective.



This speculation encourages us to think about the delicate nature of our own hold on the planet. Our species is part of a story that began ages ago, and life will keep moving forward, one step at a time.



The full interview was published in <a href="https://the-european.eu/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The European</a>.



-----



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What animal will replace humans as Earth's dominant species? This scientist has an idea

The idea of life continuing on Earth without humans has a way of catching our attention. Our species has spread across land and sea, altering the planet in countless ways. Still, Earth’s history shows that no species lasts forever. It can be sobering to consider a future without us, but it also sparks plenty of curiosity about what might follow in our absence. Human beings have been at the center of ecological change on Earth for thousands of years. Our inventions and communities have reshaped forests, oceans,...

Ants are one of the more fascinating creatures to study, given how they <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/ants-bees-community-first/">work together</a> to create massive structures and are able to carry objects many times their bodyweight. The way these insects process different odors is also quite interesting, and was the focus of a recent study by scientists at the <a href="https://www.ice.mpg.de/ext/index.php?id=home0">Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology</a>. 

In a paper published in <a href="http://www.pnas.org/">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</a>, behavioral scientist Markus Knaden details experiments that show desert ants’ ability to quickly learn many different food odors, and remember them for the entirety of their lives. Along with this finding, he and his colleagues also determined that the way these ants remember nest odors differs from how they remember food odors.

The desert ant used in this study (Cataglyphis fortis) has an incredible ability to trace food and also find its way home in the North Africa desert. The ant’s sense of smell has an integral function for its orientation. But this insect isn’t only a fantastic navigator, it is also great at remembering scents.

Knaden wanted to find out how these ants are so good at finding their way back to their nest after they search far and wide for food. He and his team developed a simple experiment to test how the ants respond to over 30 different food odors. They held a stick with one end scented with an odor about two meters away from a foraging ant, with wind blowing the odor to the ant. Initially, most odors were ignored by the ants, and did not result in a response.

“After we had offered a food crumb to the ants which had been scented with one of these odors, however, the ants were almost always attracted by this odor afterwards,” says Knaden. “We were amazed how quickly the ants learned food-associated odors and how long they could remember them. Even ants that had learned an odor more than 25 days ago were able to remember it.”

However, the researchers soon found that ants were not able to learn nest odors as quickly as food odors. When they repeated the experiment using a nest scent, the ants needed five to ten trials before they learned the odor as a nest cue. When the odor was then removed from the nest, the ants completely stopped responding to the former nest cue. It was clear to the scientists that the odors for nest and for food are processed differently in the ants’ brain depending on the type of cue.

“The two different odor memories make sense. During its entire life, an ant encounters many different pieces of food while foraging. Since the insect finds its food mainly through olfactory cues, it is important for an ant to learn the odor of good food in order to specifically search for it later,” Knaden explains. “The nest, in contrast, should always smell the same during an ant’s short life. Therefore, no extraordinary memory is needed to locate the nest entrance by following olfactory cues. It is sufficient if an ant knows how the nest smelled when it left to search for food, to find it on its way home. It is unlikely that the nest odor changes while an ant is away foraging.”

In the future, the researchers want to design lab studies to supplement these behavioral experiments – except they will be in the desert ants’ natural habitat. They plan on employing imaging techniques in order to locate and visualize the different memories in the ant brain, as well as to compare brain activity during food a nest search. “We already use similar techniques for the visualization of brain activity in flies and moths,” says Knaden. “It would be great to establish these techniques for ants as well, because ants exhibit a particularly complex behavior.”

--

By <a href="mailto:certz@earth.com">Connor Ertz</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Image Credit: Markus Knaden/Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology

Desert ants remember food smells for the rest of their lives

Ants are one of the more fascinating creatures to study,...

Apis mellifera

Researchers at <a href="https://www.utexas.edu/">The University of Texas at Austin</a> have discovered that the most commonly used weed killer in the world may be inadvertently killing bees. The study provides evidence that weed killers are contributing to the declines of honey bees and other bee populations worldwide. 

When bees are exposed to the active ingredient in <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/cancer-suit-weedkiller-roundup/">Roundup</a> called glyphosate, they lose important gut bacteria and become more susceptible to infection and death from harmful bacteria.

Graduate student Erick Motta co-led the study with Professor Nancy Moran.

“We need better guidelines for glyphosate use, especially regarding bee exposure, because right now the guidelines assume bees are not harmed by the herbicide,” said Motta. “Our study shows that's not true.”

While glyphosate has long been assumed to be non toxic to animals, including humans and bees, the current research suggests otherwise. Glyphosate compromises a bee’s ability to fight infection by modifying the gut microbiome, which plays an important role in health and disease.

For their investigation, the researchers exposed honey bees to glyphosate at levels that would be common in crop fields or anywhere that the herbicides are used. Three days later, they observed that exposure to the weed killer significantly reduced healthy gut microbiota. 

Of the eight dominant species of healthy bacteria, four were found to be less abundant after exposure. Snodgrassella alvi, a microbe that helps bees process food and defend against pathogens, was affected the most.


The study also revealed that the bees with impaired gut microbiomes were far more likely to die from Serratia marcescens, a widespread opportunistic pathogen that infects bees around the world.

“Studies in humans, bees and other animals have shown that the gut microbiome is a stable community that resists infection by opportunistic invaders,” said Professor Moran. “So if you disrupt the normal, stable community, you are more susceptible to this invasion of pathogens.”


The study authors recommend that farmers, landscapers, and homeowners avoid spraying glyphosate-based herbicides on flowering plants that bees are likely to visit.


“It's not the only thing causing all these bee deaths, but it is definitely something people should worry about because glyphosate is used everywhere,” said Motta.

The study is published in the <a href="http://www.pnas.org/">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</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: Alex Wild/University of Texas at Austin

Most popular weed killer linked to declining bee populations

Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have discovered...

The songs that many <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/birds-heavy-fly/">bird species</a> are able to produce are quite unique sounds in the animal kingdom. While four-limbed animals like reptiles and mammals make sounds with voiceboxes in their throats, birds’ songs come from a different organ – called a syrinx – which is located in their chests. This organ is unique to birds, and scientists haven’t been sure how or when it evolved.

A new study published in <a href="http://www.pnas.org/">Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Science</a> pulls together work from a team of developmental biologists, evolutionary morphologists, and physiologists who examined the windpipes of different groups of animals. The animals they analyzed were birds, crocodiles, salamanders, cats, and mice. And while their findings shed light on the evolutionary origin of the syrinx, it doesn’t mean it is any less complicated. 

“Birds have a unique organ in their airway to produce sounds – it’s like a flute,” says Chad Eliason, a postdoctoral researcher at <a href="https://www.fieldmuseum.org/">Chicago’s Field Museum</a> and co-first author of the study. “We don’t know where that organ came from, how and why it evolved. But in this study, when we zoomed out and looked at the windpipes of other animals, we found deep similarities that we didn’t expect.”

Mammals, birds, and reptiles all have a larynx, which is a hollow, muscular organ at the top of the trachea that helps air pass through to the lungs and keeps food from getting into the airway. In mammals and reptiles, the larynx has small folds of tissue that vibrate when air passes over them, producing sound. In birds, the larynx isn’t able to produce sound. Birds’ sounds are produced from the bottom of the trachea and a cartilage juncture just before the trachea branches into the lungs. This junction is called the syrinx.

“The syrinx is a tiny box of cartilage – in a sparrow, it’s about 8 millimeters in diameter, about four times the thickness of a strand of spaghetti,” says Eliason. “It reinforces the airway, and when air passes over the folds in it, it produces a sound: birdsong.”

The fact that birds have both a larynx and syrinx has confused scientists, as it’s not clear why or when syrinx took over sound production over the larynx.

“Birds’ closest living relatives, crocodiles, produce sound in their throats with a larynx. So how did ancestors of birds transition from making sounds with their larynx to making sounds with their syrinx?” asks Eliason. “If we found fossil evidence of a syrinx in dinosaurs, that would be a smoking gun, but we haven’t yet. In the meantime, we have to look at other animals for clues.”

From their analysis of numerous other species, the researchers were able to determine that it’s likely bird ancestors used to make sounds with a larynx, but then developed a syrinx that may have helped with structural support of the airway. The syrinx then became able to produce sound, and over time birds began to lose the ability to make sounds with their larynxes.

“It seems more intuitive to me that birds’ development of the syrinx would have been step-wise, that they’d have maintained their ability to make sounds with both the larynx and the syrinx, and then gradually lost the ability to make sound with the larynx,” explains Eliason.

Moving forward, the researchers believe this study could be useful for other scientists studying how new features evolve. “One of the grand challenges in biology is understanding how novel structures arise, why we see weird traits in some organisms,” says Evan Kingsley of <a href="https://hms.harvard.edu/">Harvard Medical School</a>. “This study gives us an idea of how one of those novel structures, the syrinx, might have come about.”

--

By <a href="mailto:certz@earth.com">Connor Ertz</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Image Credit: John Bates, Field Museum

Birds developed a special separate organ to sing unique sounds

The songs that many bird species are able to produce...

“For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.”

The refrain of W.B. Yeats’s 1889 poem “The Stolen Child” entices the children kidnapped by fairies to embrace their illicit heritage by suggesting that the human world from which they have been taken is one of misery and strife. Stolen from their parents, they are sheltered from the woes of humanity by the magic of their supernatural surrogates. Legends of changeling children abound in world mythology. 

Most of them are menacing. While fairies and demons conspire to keep their human charges, lifted from their cradles in the dead of night as their parents slumber, the vicious creatures left in their place torment the humans whose children were abducted. Modern scholarship has suggested that children thought to be changelings were unhealthy due to congenital disorders that made them fussy and unpleasant to their parents. Sickly and irritable children were often referred to as changelings and were sometimes subjected to brutal and inhumane tests intended to prove their humanity, including placing them on hot griddles.

Changelings in the animal world are no less savage than their mythological human counterparts. Perhaps even more so. So, too, the reactions of the duped parents.

Brood parasitism, a phenomenon in which animals compel other animals, related or not, to raise their offspring, it not uncommon. These changeling eggs are incubated, hatched, and raised to maturity by unwitting parents compelled by instinct to care for the young that appear in their nests. This practice has obvious evolutionary benefits to the parasitic species. By passing off the costs of raising young to another animal, they save enormous amounts of energy. The strategies that they employ range from the relatively benign, in which eggs are simply laid in the nests of a relative or another species and there raised to fledging, as in some ducks (Anatidae) and cowbirds (Molothrus), to the brutal, in which eggs are thrown from the nest (cuckoos; Cuculidae) and freshly hatched babies stab their adoptive siblings to death (honey guides; Indicatoridae and Cuculidae) with specially adapted beaks. 

While brood parasitism occurs in insects, fish, and even amphibians, it is most prevalent and best studied in birds. Some 1-4% of all bird species reproduce by laying their eggs in either the nests of conspecifics or those of unrelated species of birds. Six families of birds exhibit this behavior. The Anatidae (ducks), Cuculidae (cuckoos), Hirundinidae (swallows), Icteridae (blackbirds, notably cowbirds), Indicatoridae (honey guides) and Viduidae (indigo birds and whydahs) all contain members who are facultative, meaning occasional and opportunistic, and/or obligate, meaning necessarily, brood parasites. Of the 430 species <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4027383/">identified in one study</a>, 96 are obligate brood parasites.

That is to say: some species pop an occasional egg into a neighbor’s nest in the hopes of increasing the chances of their genes being passed on while still raising their own broods, and others make no effort at all to raise their own young, relying solely on the work of other birds to support the changelings they foist upon them. Nearly all brood parasites are altricial; that is, their young are defenseless and featherless upon hatching. Ducks, geese, and coots are the only only precocial birds to parasitize nests and only one species, the black-headed duck (Heteronetta atricilla) of <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/grasshoppers-south-american-origins/">South America</a>, is an obligate parasite. 

The strategies used by brood parasites are multifarious. Some have evolved to produce eggs that resemble those of their hosts. The eggs of parasites often have thick shells resistant to puncture by confused parents and they often hatch earlier than the host’s own eggs, giving the interloper an advantage. The nestlings of some species of cuckoos have evolved depressions in their backs that aid them in scooping up the eggs of their foster parents and dumping them over the side of the nest, effectively eliminating all competition. 

The young of Indigo birds, which parasitize several finch species in Africa, have evolved to mimic the markings found on the insides of the mouths of their host species, making them more convincing changelings. The adults of a number of Old World <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259084588_Cuckoos_in_raptors'_clothing_Barred_plumage_illuminates_a_fundamental_principle_of_Batesian_mimicry">cuckoos</a> have evolved to resemble raptors such as sparrowhawks. Their barred underparts and flight patterns resemble the predators and are thought to aid the cuckoos in frightening host species away from their nests long enough for the deposition of a changeling egg. 

This <a href="https://academic.oup.com/beheco/article/22/3/574/268552">has also been demonstrated</a> in New World cuckoos. One might think that being raised by parents of another species would make it difficult for the parasite to learn the behaviors and calls of its own species. Indeed, some parasites do grow up mimicking their surrogate parents’ calls. The brown-headed cowbird (Molothrus ater) <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003347215003401">has found a work-around</a>: before fully fledging, it sneaks away from its host nest at night and socializes with other cowbirds and there is some suggestion that cowbird parents may watch from a distance as their young are reared. 

Though the credulity of host species is sufficient for brood parasitism to have evolved multiple times, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4027383/">even putting parasitic species at lower risk of extinction</a>, not all host species take it lying down. Superb fairy-wrens (Malurus cyaneus) <a href="https://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(12)01125-6">appear to teach their babies a password</a> used during feeding while they are still in the egg; young of the Horsfield's bronze-cuckoo (Chalcites basalis) are fed less because they do not learn the password. Black-collared barbets and weavers gang up on and kill honeyguides and cuckoos respectively. Mangrove gerygones (Gerygone laevigaster) <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1474-919X.2010.01056.x">simply toss</a> little bronze cuckoo (Chalcites minutillus) changelings to the ground. In rare instances, as in the spotted cuckoos that parasitize carrion crow nests, <a href="https://theconversation.com/shameless-parasites-perhaps-but-cuckoos-bring-benefits-to-the-nest-24611">the parasite may in fact be advantageous</a>. Cuckoo nestlings spray predators with a foul-smelling substance and thus protect themselves and the carrion crow nestlings.

Brood parasitism appears to be far more common in Old World birds. In the Americas, only cowbirds, some cuckoos, and a few species of ducks rely on this reproductive strategy. In Europe and Asia, they are far more prevalent. <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24357317">One 2013 study</a> intriguingly posits that the prevalence of cooperative breeding in Old World birds evolved as a defense against brood parasitism. Cooperative breeding, in which birds nest colonially and sometimes share the care of young, is far more common in the Old World, correlating to the higher incidence of brood parasitism. 

The obvious defense benefits provided by larger numbers of vigilant birds on the lookout for possible nest parasites correlate to the larger numbers of birds looking to pawn their offspring off on unsuspecting hosts. <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4593460/">One theory</a> about New World cowbirds claims that their evolution toward parasitism was a result of their itinerant plains lifestyle; they followed the buffalo and thus dispensed with the sedentary period required of breeding birds.

In fish, the best known brood parasite <a href="https://phys.org/news/2018-05-brood-parasitism-fish.html">is the cuckoo catfish</a> (Synodontis multipunctatus), which cleverly inserts its eggs amongst those laid by mouth-brooding cichlids, which then care for the young after they hatch. <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003347205805299">Insects such as burying beetles</a> (Necrophorus) also pawn their larvae off on other beetles. A particularly insidious case occurs in some species of <a href="http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/5/2/148.short">Peruvian poison frogs</a> (Dendrobates), which dump their tadpoles in pools containing smaller tadpoles, which are then summarily devoured by the new arrivals.  

Though in healthy ecosystems, a balance is struck, in fragmented areas of the United States, brown cowbirds have begun parasitizing the nests of species unable to withstand this additional pressure, such as Kirtland’s warblers (Setophaga kirtlandii), driving them toward extinction. Despite such instances, one can’t help but admire the devious evolutionary strategems of parasitic birds and the enfants terribles they leave, like living time bombs, in the nests of their hosts.

--

By <a href="mailto:rtpallardy@gmail.com">Richard Pallardy</a>, <a href="http://earth.com">Earth.com</a> Contributing Writer

Take my kid: Brood parasitism in the animal kingdom

“For the world’s more full of weeping than you can...

A new study led by the <a href="https://www.berkeley.edu/">University of California Berkeley</a> has found that human-induced climate change is causing <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/air-pollution-national-parks/">national parks</a> to become even hotter and drier than the rest of the country. This is the first investigation of its kind to estimate the extent of the effects of climate change on all 417 national parks. 

The analysis has revealed that over the past century, the average temperatures in national parks have risen at twice the rate of the rest of the United States. In addition, yearly rainfall has declined more in national parks than in any other region of the country.


The researchers also found that, with no action to limit harmful emissions, many small mammal and plant species will be pushed to their tipping point toward extinction by the end of this century. 


If emissions persist at the current rate, the team has predicted that temperatures in the most vulnerable national parks could increase by as much as nine degrees Celsius, or 16 degrees Fahrenheit, by the year 2100. This rate of climate change would be too rapid for many small mammals and plants to migrate elsewhere. 

UC Berkeley Professor Patrick Gonzalez is also a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, which provides a summary of the most up-to-date scientific knowledge of climate change.

“Human-caused climate change is already increasing the area burned by wildfires across the western U.S., melting glaciers in Glacier Bay National Park and shifting vegetation to higher elevations in Yosemite National Park,” said Professor Gonzalez.

“The good news is that, if we reduce our emissions from cars, power plants, deforestation, and other human activities and meet the Paris Agreement goal, we can keep the temperature increase in national parks to one-third of what it would be without any emissions reductions.”

The locations of national parks and their unique ecosystems are what make them particularly vulnerable to climate change, Professor Gonzalez explained. Many national parks are found in regions that are known to be the hardest hit by global warming such as deserts, high mountains, or in the Arctic region of Alaska.

“National parks aren't a random sample - they are remarkable places and many happen to be in extreme environments,” said Professor Gonzalez said. “Many are in places that are inherently more exposed to human-caused climate change.”

Study co-author John Williams is a professor of Geography at the <a href="https://www.wisc.edu/">University of Wisconsin-Madison</a>.

“It is important to note that even if we really do a strong mitigation of greenhouse gases, the national park system is still expected to see a 2 degree temperature change,” said Professor Williams. 

“At this point, it is likely that the glaciers in Glacier National park will ultimately disappear, and what is Glacier National park if it doesn't have glaciers anymore? So I think this adds weight to the importance of reducing our future levels of climate change and also extends the National Park Service mission to both adapt to these changes and educate all of us about these changes.”

The study is published in the journal <a href="http://iopscience.iop.org/erl">Environmental Research Letters</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: Patrick Gonzalez

National parks hit harder by climate change than any other region

A new study led by the University of California Berkeley...

Personal odors provide information about many aspects of a person's identity, including the status of their health. A new study from the <a href="https://www.monell.org/">Monell Center</a> has revealed that, when animals are around others who are unhealthy, the odors of the healthy individuals actually shift to become more like the odors of the sick animals. 

The findings of the research suggest that odor cues associated with sickness can cause changes in healthy individuals, which could potentially impact social contacts and the patterns of <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/cooking-wood-coal-respiratory-disease/">disease</a> spread.

“Exposure to the odors of sick individuals may trigger protective or preparative responses in their social partners to minimize the risk of impending infection,” explained study lead author and chemical ecologist Dr. Stephanie Gervasi.

The Monell team has demonstrated in previous work that inflammation leads to bodily odor changes, suggesting that immune-activated odors may signal the risk of disease to other members of a group.

For the current investigation, the researchers injected mice with lipopolysaccharide (LPS), a non-infectious bacterial toxin that causes inflammation, immune system activation, and other symptoms associated with illness. The LPS-injected animals were then placed in cages with healthy animals.

Next, mice trained to differentiate between urine odors indicated that the healthy cage partners of sick animals smelled more like sick animals than healthy ones. An analysis of urinary odor compounds confirmed the findings of the “sniffer" mice, classifying odor compounds from healthy mice as being sick when the healthy mice had been housed with sick animals.

“This work shows not only that odors signal disease but that they can have strong effects on individuals that detect them,” said study senior author Dr. Gary Beauchamp. “This is a remarkable transfer of information via olfaction that specifically alters physiology and could play a role in disease transfer among individuals in many species.”

Dr. Bruce Kimball, who was also a senior author of the paper, added: “This knowledge that healthy animals can emit odors associated with sickness may inform our efforts to use bodily odors to understand how pathogens are transmitted within a population of animals.”

The study is published in the journal <a href="http://www.nature.com/scientificreports">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

Odors of healthy animals change when they’re around sick animals

Personal odors provide information about many aspects of a person's...

When a praying mantis sits down to eat, its usual prey is other insects. So it caught the attention of researchers in Karnataka, India when they spotted one fishing up guppies at at rooftop pond.

While rumors have circulated before of praying mantises chowing down on small birds, mice and reptiles, they’ve never been recorded hitting up the vertebrate cafe for a meal outside of man-made conditions – or at least, no such recordings could be validated by scientists.

So Drs. Roberto Battison of the <a href="http://www.osservatorio-canaledibrenta.it/Rete-Museale.html">Musei del Canal di Brenta</a>,  Rajesh Puttaswamaiah of the <a href="http://www.sanctuaryasia.com/resources/ngo-profiles/10349-bat-conservation-india-trust.html">Bat Conservation India Trust</a>, and Nayak Manjunath set out to capture the hunting mantis in a proper study.

The first thing they learned is that once a praying mantis finds a source of food, it remembers. The mantis returned to the roof pond for five days in a row, catching nine guppies in all.

"Remembering the prey's abundance in a particular site, in relation to their ease of capture and their nutritional content, could be one important factor of this choice and indirectly influence the individual predator's fitness," the researchers said in a press release. "This should be investigated in further studies."

Showing some problem-solving abilities, the praying mantis used leaves of water lilies and water cabbage to reach an ideal fishing spot.

It also, of course, proves that the insects don’t just dine on invertebrates, even without human interference. The new information could change how mantises are studied, since it shows their diet could have a wider ecological impact than scientists previously believed.

The study raised questions about how the eyes of praying mantises work, too. Mantises are thought to have evolved to prey in daylight, which their eye structure supports – or so scientists thought. But the angling mantis appeared to prefer sunrise and sunset for its fishing trips.

The study has been published in the open access <a href="http://jor.pensoft.net/">Journal of Orthoptera Research</a>.

Image credit: Rajesh Puttaswamaiah

Praying mantis in India fishes up a nice, big meal

When a praying mantis sits down to eat, its usual...

Basking sharks aren’t known for their speed or aggression. The gentle sharks spend much of their time, in fact, swimming around slowly, mouths gaping wide as they feed on small sea creatures.

Appearances can be deceiving. When it comes time to breach the ocean’s surface, basking sharks can match the speed, height and grace of their terrifying great white cousins.

“The impressive turn of speed that we found basking sharks exhibit shows how much we are yet to learn about marine animals – even the largest, most conspicuous species have surprises in store, if we’re willing to look,” Dr. Nick Payne told the <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/">Daily Mail</a>.

Payne and his colleagues at <a href="https://www.tcd.ie/">Trinity College Dublin</a> captured a group of massive basking sharks breaching the sea’s surface off the coast of Malin Head, Ireland recently. They used the footage to calculate the sharks’ speed as they leapt out of the water.

They also managed to attach a recording device to one the sharks so that they could monitor its speed and movement.

Turns out, basking sharks are hiding some killer skills.

The sharks were able to reach speeds of 5 meters per second, faster than an Olympic swimmer. They were also able to leap out of the water with such force that they could sail nearly a meter and a half above the surface before diving back in. The swimming speed and height are on par with those reached by great white sharks.

The finding has surprised scientists. Basking sharks generally grow to between 20 and 26 feet long, although some have topped 30 feet. 

Like whale sharks – the only fish larger than them – they are mostly harmless to humans and have a reputation for being relatively passive. 

“This finding does not mean that basking sharks are secretly fierce predators tearing round at high speed; they are still gentle giants munching away happily on zooplankton,” Dr. Jonathan Houghton of <a href="https://www.qub.ac.uk/">Queen's University Belfast</a> told the Mail. “It simply shows there is far more to these sharks than the huge swimming sieves we are so familiar with. It’s a bit like discovering cows are as fast as wolves.”

Basking sharks hide some serious swimming skills

Basking sharks aren’t known for their speed or aggression. The...

Researchers at the <a href="http://institute.sandiegozoo.org/">San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation</a> set out to investigate various characteristics of <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/group-the-giant-panda-is-no-longer-endangered/">giant panda</a> bleats, including sex differences and how far the calls could travel across a dense bamboo forest. The experts found that signals contained in the panda bleats revealed important information about the sex and identity of the callers.

According to the researchers, the bleats are used to recognize potential mates and to avoid dangerous predators.

Overall, the bleats maintained their acoustic structure including information about the caller's identity at distances of up to 65 feet. Information about the sex of the caller was successfully broadcast up to 30 feet.

“Our findings indicate that vocal recognition and the ability to vocally signal individual identity may only attain importance when individuals are within 65 feet (20 meters) of one another,” wrote the researchers.

“At these distances, the ability for male giant pandas to distinguish between the bleats of unfamiliar and familiar same-sexed rivals could facilitate the avoidance of direct, and potentially aggressive, encounters.”

“Females would have the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the vocalizations of certain males that can outcompete other rivals and maintain close proximity to them in the lead up to oestrus (fertility).”

For the sound transmission test, the experts played back 100 pre-recorded bleats from 10 giant pandas in a mixed bamboo plantation at the San Diego wild animal park. The sounds had been recorded at various distances from the playback speaker, which enabled the team to analyze how far the panda calls could travel before the acoustic structure started to degrade.

The findings of the research not only provide new insight into how far giant pandas can potentially signal important information, but may also be used to help conservation biologists estimate population numbers using non-invasive bioacoustic techniques.

The study is published in the journal <a href="http://www.nature.com/scientificreports">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

Giant panda calls carry important information about their identity

Researchers at the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation set...

Migratory birds often travel incredibly long distances.  At one extreme is the Arctic Tern, which according to <a href="https://www.audubon.org/news/9-awesome-facts-about-bird-migration">Audubon.org</a> is the bird with the longest migration, traveling an impressive 49,700 miles.  I’ve seen these terns flying along the coast of the Sea of Cortez in Mexico, diving headfirst into the water like winged torpedoes.  It’s amazing to think of the same terns I saw in Mexico winging around the Arctic and the Antarctic as well. <a href="http://earthsky.org/earth/which-bird-migrates-the-farthest">Earthsky.org</a> notes that over a tern’s 25 year life span, the distance the bird will travel is about 3 times the distance from the Earth to the moon.  

Other birds have <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/birds-arrive-fall-migration/">migration</a> distances nearly as impressive as the Arctic Tern.  The Wandering Albatross sometimes covers 18,000 miles in a year. Sandhill Cranes sometimes travel as far as Siberia from Cuba, New Mexico or Florida for migrations.  The <a href="http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=wildlifenews.view_article&amp;articles_id=478">Alaska Fish and Game</a> website tells the story of a typical rufous hummingbird that was banded in Florida and then recaptured 3,530 miles away in Alaska.  It total, the hummingbird might fly as far as 8,840 total miles every year. 

All these distances covered by birds powered only by muscle, feather and wind requires an enormous amount of calories.  Once all the calories needed for these impressive migratory flights were supplied by wild food sources: fish or flowers or seeds.  Humans have continued to encroach on habitats, increasingly making wild places into human dominated landscapes to best serve their own interests.  

It’s not often that someone thinks of Nebraska when talking of beautiful landscapes or wildlife spectacle, but if you are ever lucky enough to visit Kearney Nebraska when Sandhill Cranes visit, you won’t be disappointed.  A couple years ago my fiancé, Erin, and I were living in South Dakota, as close to the migration pathway of sandhill cranes as we might ever be and so we decided to visit. 

One of the first things you notice driving just outside of the city of Kearney in the Platte River Valley is how Cranes really like visiting corn fields.  By the time the cranes visit in the spring, corn has been harvested the previous year and the fields are mostly barren looking but are secretly littered with leftover corn.  The cranes flock to these agricultural leavings, according to <a href="http://outdoornebraska.gov/sandhillcrane/">Nebraska Game &amp; Parks</a>, 90% of migrating crane’s diet is corn.  Only 10% of what cranes visiting Nebraska’s Platte River valley is insects and other invertebrates.  Cranes will also eat frogs, mice and other small vertebrates if they can. Corn is absolutely important for the cranes though, calories are needed for birds that are flying across the whole of the North American continent, on their way to their summering grounds in Siberia from Mexico or the southern US.  It’s estimated that cranes consume 1,600 tons of leftover corn while visiting Nebraska. 

According to <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/500000-cranes-are-headed-nebraska-one-earths-greatest-migrations-180949816/?page=1">Smithsonian Magazine</a>, cranes arriving from the south must add 20% of their body weight before continuing north from Nebraska.  It’s not just Sandhill Cranes that fatten up on corn during migrations either. In the mix are the easy to miss Whooping Cranes as well.  30% of Northern Pintail (ducks) also visit, along with 90% of white-fronted geese and numerous other species.

Before agriculture existed in Nebraska, great migrations still occurred, the Platte River Valley was still abundant with life.  Before it was corn it was plant and animal life fostered in a rich river valley ecosystem that drew the birds. It is still vastly important that instead of some forms of development, corn started being planted in Nebraska.  Human development often spells doom for other animals, migrating birds included. Agriculture isn’t always friendly towards wildlife either. According to <a href="http://migratorysoaringbirds.undp.birdlife.org/en/sectors/agriculture">Birdlife International</a> that habitat conversion or loss is a threat to almost 80% of all threatened or near-threatened bird species worldwide.  This includes habitats now used for agriculture, especially in areas dependent on agriculture like Africa or America’s midwest.  

For now, agriculture in places like Kearney Nebraska is helping or at least allowing cranes to continue their ancient migrations.  Much of how beneficial farmland is to wildlife is dependent on the <a href="http://sustainableagriculture.net/our-work/campaigns/fbcampaign/what-is-the-farm-bill/">Farm Bill</a>.  The Farm Bill is a set of federal laws passed about every five years.  The bill covers a range of topics on farming, which is important for the environment as the specific type of farming practiced can either be in relative harmony with the surrounding environment or detrimental to it.  The first Farm Bill was part of FDR’s New Deal Legislation, confronting some of the problems of the dust bowl and its connection with the Great Depression. Although new farm bills have come and gone, the main purposes of each remain roughly the same as FDR’s original bill, to protect natural resources, keep food prices fair and prevent a catastrophe such as the dust bowl.  

One thing that the current Farm Bill, first passed in 2014 and reauthorized this year, does is give money to farmers to leave easements of land alone, unfarmed for wildlife, including birds.  Leaving land unused can also benefit farmers in the long run; by rotating fallow fields, it prolongs the usefulness of land for agriculture. The bill also encourages and assists farmers and ranchers in activities that promote clean water and air, which is obviously beneficial to wildlife.  For agriculture and animals like the Sandhill Crane to coexist relatively peacefully, there needs to be careful and diligent work.

<a href="https://www.kqed.org/science/10452/farming-for-cranes-can-agriculture-save-an-ancient-migration">KQED</a> tells the story of Greater Sandhill Cranes being listed as threatened in California in 1983.  At one time farmers in California would burn their fields in the fall, to remove unwanted agricultural waste and kill pests.  Obviously the practice of burning left no food for hungry migratory birds and it increased air pollution. Burning was banned in California in 1991 and farmers decided to flood fields instead, to promote decomposition of left over agriculture waste and kill insect pests.  Flooding turned out to benefit cranes by providing wetland habitat for the birds. The Nature Conservancy now owns an island where they show the agricultural benefits of flooding fields and how it also helps birds. 

Other birds can be hurt or helped by agriculture as well.  Hummingbirds can be hurt more easily than larger birds by <a href="https://www.thespruce.com/threats-to-hummingbirds-386488">pesticides</a>.  Hummingbirds are also important in that they play a unique role in agriculture, they can be beneficial pollinators as well.  Not only birds but <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/bat-friendly-tequila-species-recovery/">bats</a> can help pollinate crops, if the farming techniques are in their favor.  Many other birds can help agriculture by controlling natural pests. Once the system of natural predation breaks down, humans must do the work themselves, much to their detriment.  Almost as important as agricultural products is the deep psychological benefits we all get from sharing the globe with other creatures. 

Sandhill Cranes are possibly one of the oldest birds alive.  The oldest known Sandhill Crane <a href="http://rowe.audubon.org/crane-facts">fossil</a> is the 2.5 million year old remains found in Florida.  Cranes have been living and migrating through North America and other parts of the world for a long time.  The Sandhill Cranes that visit Nebraska every spring, are the largest global population of cranes left. Standing near the Platte River or even on a bridge spanning it and listening for cranes in the morning or evening hours, it’s hard not to feel witness to something ancient.  The birds have an eerie trilling call that’s hard to describe which floats through the cool air. Hundreds, thousands of cranes pass over head or land in groups on sandbars in the water. For a few fleeting months, part of Nebraska is taken over by something not human, something ancient.  An animal that travels under its own muscle power to places as far away as Siberia, with a life we’ll never fully understand passes through. We can but watch and wonder at a creature so comforting and so different; I am grateful birds still share our planet. Whether the beauty of such migrations continues depends on us and how we get our food.             

--

By <a href="mailto:zachfitzner@yahoo.com">Zach Fitzner</a>, <a href="http://earth.com">Earth.com</a> Contributing Writer

Agriculture can both help and hurt annual bird migrations

Migratory birds often travel incredibly long distances.  At one extreme...

New research from the <a href="https://www.uwa.edu.au/">University of Western Australia</a> has revealed that bottlenose dolphins can synchronize their movements with “extreme precision.” 

A team of experts led by behavioral biologist Dr. Stephanie King conducted a series of experiments with pairs of <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/human-chemical-compounds-dolphins/">dolphins</a>. The trials took place in a lagoon at the <a href="https://dolphins.org/">Dolphin Research Center</a> in the Florida Keys.

As the dolphins learned to coordinate their activity by pushing an underwater button at the same time as their partners, the animals demonstrated that they may be even smarter than previously realized. 

In an article for <a href="http://theconversation.com/au">The Conversation</a>, Dr. King explained:

“Each trial began with both dolphins and their respective trainers located at the opposite side of the lagoon from the buttons, about 11 meters away.”

“The trainers would either both give a ‘press the button’ hand signal at the same time, or one trainer would give the signal first, while the second trainer asked her dolphin to wait up to 20 seconds before giving the signal.”

When the dolphins successfully pressed the button at the same time, they were rewarded with fish and social praise. Even when they had to wait for their partners, the dolphins were found to work together with a tremendous amount of precision.

“When one dolphin figured out the game first, if their partner was sent first on a particular trial, they knew that the partner (who had not figured out the game) was not going to wait,” Dr. King wrote in The Conversation. 

“So in the early phases, we found that many successes were achieved not by the first dolphin waiting, but by the second dolphin swimming extremely fast to catch up.”

“But once both animals understood the task, this behaviour disappeared and the timing of their button presses became extremely precise (with the time difference between button presses averaging just 370 milliseconds).”

The study is published in the <a href="http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/">Proceedings of the Royal Society B</a>.

--

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

Dolphins work together to perfectly coordinate their activities

New research from the University of Western Australia has revealed...

A new report from the <a href="https://www.ap.org/en-us/">Associated Press</a> (AP) is describing a lack of flying insects that were once abundant in the summertime. The obvious signs of population declines among insects such as <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/save-native-bees/">bees</a>, butterflies, and moths have scientists concerned, and there is not enough data from previous decades to confirm or calculate most of these losses. 

Helen Spafford is an entomologist at the <a href="https://www.hawaii.edu/">University of Hawaii</a>. She told the AP, “We don't know how much we're losing if we don't know how much we have.”

Even though flying insects were not always monitored closely, there is a noticeable lack of them across the globe. 

One of the only broad studies on the issue was conducted last summer in Germany. The researchers found that the number and weight of bugs captured in traps in 63 nature preserves across the country declined by 82 percent over the last 27 years. 

<a href="https://uconn.edu/">University of Connecticut</a> entomologist David Wagner has documented moth declines in the northeastern United States. “It's clearly not a German thing,” Wagner told the AP. “We just need to find out how widespread the phenomenon is.”

May Berenbaum, an entomologist at the <a href="https://illinois.edu/">University of Illinois</a> said that the lack of older data makes it “unclear to what degree we're experiencing an arthropocalypse.” While individual studies may not be as compelling, “the sheer accumulated weight of evidence” is creating a shift, according to Berenbaum.


Research has found declining numbers of individual species in certain places, including moths, lightning bugs, and bumblebees. One study estimated that ladybugs declined by 14 percent in the United States and Canada from 1987 to 2006. 

<a href="https://www.udel.edu/">University of Delaware</a> entomologist Doug Tallamy told the AP: “You have total ecosystem collapse if you lose your insects. How much worse can it get than that?” Tallamy said that, without insects, “the world would start to rot.”

According to the AP’s report, the suspected causes of vanishing insects include habitat loss, insecticide use, the killing of native weeds, invasive species, highway traffic, light pollution, and climate change.
--

By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Some flying insects are mysteriously vanishing at an unusual rate

A new report from the Associated Press (AP) is describing...

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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



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Santiago, Chile in South America

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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



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.

Interactive map of the universe includes 200,000 galaxies

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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 



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.

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



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 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



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 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



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 rapid retreat of the Columbia Glacier

[sendtonews key="0879czfG3k-1785905-12187" type="single"] Today’s Video of the Day from NASA...

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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



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 Pyrenees Mountains in southwest Europe

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Earth,Like,Exoplanet,3d,Render

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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



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.

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



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.

Satellites reveal how Earth's systems are interconnected

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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



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.

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



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.

Cavefish are healthy despite their sedentary lifestyle

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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



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.

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...