The Universe contains many types of massive formations that shape our understanding of how stars and galaxies group together. Astronomers have long studied these sprawling patterns, which give valuable clues about where matter gathers and where it remains thinly spread. 



These features define how cosmic evolution unfolds and guide current theories of how the universe expands.



Recently, a team of experts announced a giant find. This collection of galaxy clusters surpasses previous giants by orders of magnitude.



This study adds fresh insights by demonstrating that our <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/interstellar-tunnel-found-that-connects-our-solar-system-to-other-stars/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">cosmic neighborhood</a> can still surprise us with unexpected details about how matter arranges itself across unimaginable distances.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-galaxy-clusters-distribution">Galaxy clusters distribution</h2>



Hans Böhringer from the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (<a href="https://www.mpe.mpg.de/main" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">MPE</a>) coordinated the effort in collaboration with the Max Planck Institute for Physics (<a href="https://www.mpp.mpg.de/en/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">MPP</a>) and teams in Spain and South Africa. 



Their work relied on the ROSAT X-ray satellite’s survey, which singled out clusters of galaxies by detecting the energetic radiation these huge clusters emit. 



These data allowed the researchers to build a three-dimensional map of our cosmic vicinity.



<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-full"><a href="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/quipo_superstructure_3D-model_credit-MPE_1m.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><img src="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/quipo_superstructure_3D-model_credit-MPE_1s.webp" alt="Three-dimensional representation of the Quipu superstructure. Credit: MPE" class="wp-image-1960534"/></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Three-dimensional representation of the Quipu superstructure. Credit: MPE</figcaption></figure>



“If you look at the distribution of the galaxy clusters in the sky in a spherical shell with a distance of 416 to 826 million light-years, you immediately notice a huge structure that stretches from high northern latitudes to almost the southern end of the sky,” explains Böhringer.



By tracing each cluster’s position in space, his team pinpointed how matter spreads out in swirling patterns of galaxies.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-quipu-superstructure">The Quipu superstructure</h2>



The researchers named this discovery “Quipu,” taking inspiration from the knotted string recording system once used by the Incas. 



Observed as a long strand with smaller threads branching off, the Quipu superstructure contains 68 galaxy clusters with a combined mass of about 2.4 × 10^17 solar masses. 



Its size of roughly 1.4 billion light-years makes Quipu the largest superstructure ever accurately measured, surpassing the Sloan Great Wall’s 1.1 billion light-years.



<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-full"><a href="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/quipo_superstructure_illustration_credit-MPE_1m.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><img src="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/quipo_superstructure_illustration_credit-MPE_1s.webp" alt="Distribution of galaxies (color coding) and galaxy clusters (black dots) in a spherical shell with a distance of 416 to 826 million light years surrounding us. The five superstructures are marked: 1 Quipu, 2 Shapley, 3 Serpens-Corona Borealis and Hercules (overlapping in the sky), 4 Sculptor-Pegasus. The area enclosed by white lines is shadowed by the disk of the Milky Way. Credit: MPE" class="wp-image-1960536"/></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Distribution of galaxies (color coding) and galaxy clusters (black dots) in a spherical shell with a distance of 416 to 826 million light years surrounding us. The five superstructures are marked: 1 Quipu, 2 Shapley, 3 Serpens-Corona Borealis and Hercules (overlapping in the sky), 4 Sculptor-Pegasus. The area enclosed by white lines is shadowed by the disk of the Milky Way. Credit: MPE</figcaption></figure>



“This breaks the size record of all reliably measured cosmic structures,” note the researchers who compared the finding with other known formations. 



“The Quipu superstructure, end to end, is slightly longer than the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/figure/SDSS-3D-Universe-Map-Credit-Sloan-Digital-Sky-Survey-Team-NASA-NSF-DOE_fig2_357328983" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Sloan Great Wall</a>,” says J. Richard Gott III at Princeton University, who helped discover the Sloan Great Wall. “Congratulations to them for finding it.” 



The name also reflects a connection to Chile, where many distance measurements took place, and where ancient quipus are showcased in Santiago.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-quipu-and-cosmological-principle">Quipu and cosmological principle</h2>



Across extremely large distances, matter is believed to spread out nearly evenly. At smaller scales of about a billion light-years, it collects in superclusters and leaves behind voids. 



This balance underpins the <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/cosmic-order-or-chaos-universe-expansion-may-follow-a-hidden-pattern/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">cosmological principle</a>, which suggests that if we look far enough, the universe should appear uniform in every direction. 



Some experts argue these huge arrangements question that principle’s validity, with past findings triggering debates. 



<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-full"><a href="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/great-sloan-wall_superstructure_SDSS_credit-MIT_1m.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><img src="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/great-sloan-wall_superstructure_SDSS_credit-MIT_1s.webp" alt="Sloan Great Wall of galaxies. SDSS 3D Universe Map Credit: Sloan Digital Sky Survey Team, NASA, NSF, DOE." class="wp-image-1960531"/></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Sloan Great Wall of galaxies is 1.1 billion light years long. SDSS 3D Universe Map Credit: Sloan Digital Sky Survey Team, NASA, NSF, DOE.</figcaption></figure>



“Making observations in too small a part of the universe, which has been done earlier on, can be misleading,” says Böhringer. 



Another point comes from an ambiguous definition of the principle. “There is not yet one definition of the cosmological principle that every cosmologist agrees on,” says Alexia Lopez at the <a href="https://www.uclan.ac.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">University of Central Lancashire</a> in the UK. 



Meanwhile, Seshadri Nadathur at the <a href="https://www.port.ac.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">University of Portsmouth</a> notes that “some of those galaxies may drift apart from each other instead of collapsing in on themselves, in which case, according to some interpretations, it’s not really a bound structure.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-cosmic-measurements-and-consequences">Cosmic measurements and consequences</h2>



Quipu’s existence highlights how vast formations can shape calculations of cosmic expansion rates and the properties of primordial radiation left over from the early universe. 



Astronomers pay close attention to features like superclusters because they alter light paths and influence how we determine important parameters such as the <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/unknown-factors-are-accelerating-the-expansion-of-the-universe/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Hubble constant</a>. 



Small discrepancies can add up when researchers aim for precise numbers in modern cosmological studies.



“Even if these are only corrections of a few percent, they become increasingly important as the accuracy of cosmological observations increases,” emphasizes Gayoung Chon from the Max Planck Institute for Physics. 



This structure offers a reminder that the cosmos presents patterns on many scales. Those patterns appear to affect how we interpret data on the universe’s origin and shape the <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/massive-galactic-explosion-provides-clues-about-galaxy-evolution/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">evolution of galaxies</a> in our vicinity and beyond.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-quipu-and-the-incas">Quipu and the Incas</h2>



The Incas once managed vast territories using quipus, a system of knotted strings that helped track resources and information. 



Each knot arrangement acted like a code, revealing essential data in a form that required no written script.



Quipu’s naming borrowed that image of intertwined threads. 



Researchers see it as a nod to humanity’s long history of gathering knowledge, whether through knotted strings or advanced telescopes that trace the distribution of galaxies across cosmic depths.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-happens-next">What happens next?</h2>



The discovery underscores how ongoing surveys might uncover more structures. 



Scientists are keen to see if similar patterns exist in parts of the sky that remain less charted, which could either confirm current theories or reveal new gaps in our understanding.



Future maps will rely on technology to gather clearer data from remote regions. 



These efforts reflect a human wish to capture our place in the universe, searching for the patterns that connect everything from particles to vast congregations of galaxies.



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Featured image: The open cluster Westerlund 1 is located roughly 12,000 light-years away in the southern constellation Ara (the Altar) where it resides behind a huge interstellar cloud of gas and dust. Credit: <a href="https://www.esa.int" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">ESA</a>



The full study was published in the journal <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.19236" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Astronomy and Astrophysics</a>.



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Largest structure ever found in the universe is 1.4 billion light years long

The Universe contains many types of massive formations that shape our understanding of how stars and galaxies group together. Astronomers have long studied these sprawling patterns, which give valuable clues about where matter gathers and where it remains thinly spread. These features define how cosmic evolution unfolds and guide current theories of how the universe expands. Recently, a team of experts announced a giant find. This collection of galaxy clusters surpasses previous giants by orders of magnitude. This study adds fresh insights by demonstrating that our cosmic...

Shore,Breaking,Wave

In January 2022, a massive <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/catastrophic-volcanic-eruption-is-more-likely-than-we-think/">eruption</a> of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai underwater volcano, followed by a tsunami, killed five people and led to large scale destruction in the Tongan archipelago. An international team of researchers led by the <a href="https://www.bath.ac.uk/">University of Bath</a> has now found that the initial tsunami wave created by the eruption reached 90 meters in height - around nine times taller than that from the highly destructive 2011 tsunami that struck Japan.&nbsp;



According to the experts, these findings should act as a wake-up call for international organizations aiming to protect people from similar events in the future, since detection and monitoring systems for volcano-based tsunamis are three decades behind comparable tools used to detect earthquake-based events.



“The Tongan tsunami tragically killed five people and caused large scale destruction, but its effects could have been even greater had the volcano been located closer to human communities. The volcano is located approximately 70 km from the Tongan capital Nuku’alofa – this distance significantly minimized its destructive power,” explained study lead author Mohammad Heidarzadeh, the Secretary-General of the International Tsunami Commission and a senior lecturer of Civil Engineering at the University of Bath.



“This was a gigantic, unique event and one that highlights that internationally we must invest in improving systems to detect volcanic tsunamis as these are currently around 30 years behind the systems we used to monitor for earthquakes. We are under-prepared for volcanic tsunamis.”



By analyzing ocean observation data recordings of atmospheric pressure changes and sea level oscillations, in combination with computer simulations validated by real-world data, Dr. Heidarzadeh and his colleagues discovered that the Tonga tsunami was highly peculiar, with its waves being created not only by the water displaced by the volcanic eruption, but also by enormous atmospheric pressure waves that circled the globe multiple times. Since tsunami warning centers are programmed to detect such events based solely on water displacements, they failed to detect the initial waves created by the atmospheric pressure.



“What is important is to have efficient warning systems, which include both real-time warnings and education on what to do in a case of a tsunami or warning - such systems save lives. In addition, at volcanic areas, monitoring of volcanic activity should be organized, and more high-quality research into volcanic eruptions and areas at hazard is always a good idea,” concluded senior author Jadranka Šepić from the <a href="https://www.unist.hr/en/">University of Split</a> in Croatia.



The study is published in the journal <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.oceaneng.2022.112165">Ocean Engineering</a>.



---



By <a href="mailto:andrei.ionescu5891@gmail.com">Andrei Ionescu</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer&nbsp;&nbsp;

Tsunami wave from Tonga eruption was 90 meters tall

In January 2022, a massive eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga...

An international team of researchers led by the <a href="https://www.uzh.ch/en.html">University of Zurich</a> has used 3D modeling to reconstruct an individual megalodon discovered in the 1860s. The fossilized remains were well preserved, and dated back to 18 million years ago.&nbsp;



The reconstructed megalodon was 16 meters long and weighed over 61 tons. It could swim an estimated 1.4 meters per second, requiring over 98,000 kilocalories a day with a stomach volume of 10,000 liters.&nbsp;



The results suggest that the megalodon could travel long distances and was capable of eating <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/aquatic-blue-crabs-ambush-their-prey-on-land/">prey</a> of up to eight meters long. This is the size of a killer whale - today’s top ocean predator. The ability to eat large apex predators places megalodon at a higher trophic level than the largest modern predators.



“Shark teeth are common fossils because of their hard composition which allows them to remain well preserved,” said study first author Jack Cooper. “However, their skeletons are made of cartilage, so they rarely fossilize. The megalodon vertebral column from the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences is therefore a one-of-a-kind fossil.”



The research team, which includes researchers from Switzerland, UK, USA, Australia and South Africa, measured and scanned every vertebra before reconstructing the entire column. The experts attached the column to a 3D scan of a megalodon’s dentition from the United States. The model was completed by adding “flesh” around the skeleton using a 3D-scan of the body of a great white shark.



“Weight is one of the most important traits of any animal. For extinct animals we can estimate the body mass with modern 3D digital modelling methods and then establish the relationship between mass and other biological properties such as speed and energy usage,” said study co-author John Hutchinson.



The high energetic demand would have been met by feeding on calorie-rich blubber of whales, in which megalodon bite marks have been found in the fossil record. An optimal foraging model found that eating a single 8-meter-long whale may have allowed the shark to swim thousands of miles across oceans without eating again for two months.&nbsp;



“These results suggest that this giant shark was a trans-oceanic super-apex predator,” said study senior author Professor Catalina Pimiento. “The extinction of this iconic giant shark likely impacted global nutrient transport and released large cetaceans from a strong predatory pressure.”



The complete model can now be used for future reconstructions and further research. This study represents a leap in knowledge of the super predator and the ecological function that megafaunal species play in marine ecosystems - as well as the consequences of their extinction.



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.science.org/journal/sciadv">Science Advances</a>.



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By <a href="mailto:katherinebucko@gmail.com">Katherine Bucko</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Megalodon devoured huge prey up to eight meters long

An international team of researchers led by the University of...

A new study led by the <a href="https://www.aalto.fi/en">Aalto University</a> in Finland has found that food production – already one of the largest stressors on our planet – is made substantially more challenging by the interaction of <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/earth-just-experienced-its-shortest-day-on-record/">Earth</a> system processes, defined as the natural activities that keep the planet in a habitable and useful state, such as carbon sequestration in forests or nutrient run off into freshwater systems. According to the scientists, the complex interactions between these processes challenge their boundaries, and affect how well they function.



“Food production is a major cause of environmental stress, impacting on biodiversity loss, the climate, and overexploitation of marine resources,” said study co-author Steven Lade, an expert in Sustainable Development at the<a href="https://www.anu.edu.au/"> Australian National University</a> (ANU). “We need to start producing food in a sustainable way. By assessing the interaction of Earth system processes we can ensure they are considered when designing and implementing food production and agriculture policy.”



By examining and characterizing various Earth system processes, the researchers highlighted how they can be used in order to develop more sustainable food production techniques. The investigation revealed several pivotal interactions which are frequently overlooked, such as the impact of “green water” on food production and biodiversity.



“Green water refers to the water stored in soil that is available for plants to grow. It has a central role to play in interacting with, and regulating all the other processes like land, biodiversity, and water flow,” Dr. Lade explained. “Ensuring we address these various interactions will require action. We need better communication, meaning that authorities responsible for areas like agriculture policy and marine policy need to talk to each other.”



“We need to take a holistic approach when it comes to managing sustainable food production so that it doesn’t strain the boundaries of our natural systems. We need to look beyond just water and land as inputs for food production.”



The scientists argue that most challenges stem from a complex web of interactions between the ocean, freshwater, and land biospheres. Acknowledging these interactions and boundaries is crucial for maintaining stability and resilience in the Earth’s systems. “System interactions make sustainable food production more challenging. However, the interconnected nature means taking positive actions can have extensive flow on effects,” Dr. Lade concluded.



The study is published in the journal <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41893-022-00940-6">Nature Sustainability</a>.



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By <a href="mailto:andrei.ionescu5891@gmail.com">Andrei Ionescu</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer&nbsp;&nbsp;

Food production affects Earth’s natural processes

A new study led by the Aalto University in Finland...

While many mammals have the ability to detect sugars, most birds are insensitive to them. Recent studies have found evidence that both hummingbirds and songbirds have regained their ability to sense sugars by repurposing their savory receptor to detect carbohydrates in nectar and fruits. How other bird species sense sugars - and the extent to which taste receptor responses track the vast dietary diversity of birds - is still unclear.&nbsp;



Now, an international team of scientists led by the <a href="https://www.bi.mpg.de/en">Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence</a> has set out to investigate this question by focusing on <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/woodpeckers-recognize-pecking-patterns/">woodpeckers</a>. Their analyses revealed that, although most woodpeckers have also regained sweet taste, wrynecks – specialized ant-eating woodpeckers – selectively reversed this gain through a simple yet unexpected change in their taste receptors.



Using behavioral tests of wild birds, as well as functional analyses of their taste receptors, the scientists discovered that woodpeckers clearly prefer sugars and amino acids over water, and their taste receptors are highly sensitive to sugars. Surprisingly though, wrynecks displayed preference for amino acids but not for sugars.



According to the researchers, the common ancestor of woodpeckers and wrynecks already possessed a modified savory receptor capable of responding to sugars.&nbsp;



“This finding unveiled a third case of independent sugar-sensing evolution via modification of the savory receptor in birds,” said study first author Julia Cramer, a doctoral student in Ecology and Evolution at the Max Planck Institute. “Yet, what was even more exciting was the implication that wrynecks subsequently lost the receptor’s new function.”



By meticulously investigating the differences between wryneck and woodpecker receptors, Cramer and her colleagues showed that changes in a single amino acid in the wryneck receptor selectively turned off sugar-sensing. These findings trace an evolutionary history in which an early gain of sugar sensing in woodpeckers’ ancestors was followed by its reversion when the wryneck receptor was altered.&nbsp;



“We were very surprised to find that this reversion is caused by changes in only one single amino acid, acting as a molecular switch to selectively regulate sugar sensitivity in wrynecks,” Cramer explained. “Unexpectedly, the result of this small change is that wrynecks are now again unable to detect sugar in their food but have retained the receptor’s ability to gather information on specific amino acid content. This makes a lot of sense when most of your diet is made up of ants.”



Further research is needed to clarify how specific changes in taste receptors, as well as in other sensory and physiological systems, are related to the rich dietary diversity observed across bird species.



The study is published in the journal <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2022.07.059">Current Biology</a>.



---



By <a href="mailto:andrei.ionescu5891@gmail.com">Andrei Ionescu</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer&nbsp;&nbsp;

Woodpeckers and other birds can taste sugar - but how?

While many mammals have the ability to detect sugars, most...

Scientists have long known about the massive <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/the-building-blocks-of-life-may-come-from-asteroids/">asteroid</a> impact crater on what is now the Gulf of Mexico, which wiped out the dinosaurs and most other organisms on our planet 66 million years ago. Now, the discovery of what appears to be a second impact crater on the other side of the Atlantic - about 400 kilometers off the coast of Guinea, West Africa - raises the question of whether more than one giant meteorite bombarded the Earth on that fateful day.



The Nadir Crater, located 300 meters below the seabed, was discovered accidentally by Dr. Uisdean Nicholson, a geoscientist at the <a href="https://www.hw.ac.uk/">Herriot-Watt University</a>, while he was analyzing seismic survey data to better understand past climatic changes.&nbsp;



“These surveys are kind of like an ultrasound of Earth. I’ve spent probably the last 20 years interpreting them, but I’ve never seen anything like this,” Dr. Nicholson reported. “Nadir’s shape is diagnostic of an asteroid impact. It's got a raised rim surrounding a central uplift area, and then layers of debris that extend outwards.”



While the asteroid that created the Chicxulub Crater in the Gulf of Mexico is estimated to measure over 12 kilometers in diameter, simulations suggest that the one responsible for the Nadir Crater was only about 400 meters wide.&nbsp;



However, according to Veronica Bray, a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona, the impact would have generated a tsunami over one kilometer high, as well as an earthquake with a magnitude of about 6.5. "The energy released would have been around 1,000 times greater than that from the January 2022 eruption and tsunami in Tonga,”said Bray.



Yet, how closely related in time the two asteroid impacts were remains an open question. The analysis of fossils of known age drilled from a borehole near the Nadir Crater suggest that the impact may have occurred at a similar date with that in Mexico, but further examinations of rocks from the crater are needed to draw clear conclusions.&nbsp;



Geologist Sean Gulick argues that while the asteroid might have fallen to Earth on the same day, it is also possible that it struck our planet a million years before or after the Mexican cataclysm. “A much smaller cousin, or sister, doesn’t necessarily add to what we know about the dinosaurs’ extinction, but it does add to our understanding of the astronomical event that was Chicxulub,” he said.&nbsp;



“Was this a break-up of a parent body that had multiple fragments that hit the Earth over time? Was Chicxulub a double asteroid where a smaller object orbited a bigger one? These are interesting questions to pursue, because to learn that Chicxulub might have this extra excitement of a second crater at the same time changes the story a little bit about how Chicxulub came to be.”



The discovery of the Nadir Crater is reported in the journal <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abn3096">Science Advances</a>.



---



By <a href="mailto:andrei.ionescu5891@gmail.com">Andrei Ionescu</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer&nbsp;&nbsp;

New impact crater dates back to the end of the dinosaurs

Scientists have long known about the massive asteroid impact crater...

Researchers have discovered that a mysterious microscopic creature - from which <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/can-we-prevent-a-catastrophic-meltdown-of-the-worlds-largest-ice-sheet/">humans</a> were thought to descend - is part of a different family tree altogether. Saccorhytus shares the primitive feature of a large mouth surrounded by spines and holes of the deuterostome group, from which our own deep ancestors emerged.



However, a new analysis of 500 million year old fossils from China has shown that the holes around the mouth are bases of spines that broke away during the preservation of the fossils, revealing the evolution of the microfossil Saccorhytus.



“Some of the fossils are so perfectly preserved that they look almost alive,” said Professor Yunhuan Liu of Chang’an University in China. “Saccorhytus was a curious beast, with a mouth but no anus, and rings of complex spines around its mouth.”



The findings make important amendments to the early phylogenetic tree and the understanding of how life developed. The story of Saccorhytus’ ancestry lies in the microscopic internal and external features of this tiny fossil.&nbsp;



By taking hundreds of X-ray images, the experts reconstructed a detailed 3D digital model of the fossil. This revealed that pores around the mouth were closed by another layer, creating spines around the mouth.



&nbsp;“We believe these would have helped Saccorhytus capture and process its prey,” said study co-author Huaqiao Zhang from the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology.



The researchers believe that Saccorhytus is in fact an ecdysoszoan: a group that contains arthropods and nematodes.&nbsp;



“We considered lots of alternative groups that Saccorhytus might be related to, including the corals, anemones and jellyfish which also have a mouth but no anus,” said study co-lead author Professor Philip Donoghue of <a href="https://www.bristol.ac.uk/">University of Bristol</a>.



Saccorhytus’ lack of anus is an intriguing and important feature for a fundamental reason of evolutionary biology. How the anus arose – and sometimes subsequently disappeared – contributes to the understanding of how animal body plans evolved. Moving Saccorhytus to the ecdysozoan group means striking the feature of a disappearing anus off the deuterosome case history, and adding it to the ecdysozoan one.



“This is a really unexpected result because the arthropod group have a through-gut, extending from mouth to anus. Saccorhytus’s membership of the group indicates that it has regressed in evolutionary terms, dispensing with the anus its ancestors would have inherited,” said Shuhai Xiao from Virgina Tech. “We still don’t know the precise position of Saccorhytus within the tree of life but it may reflect the ancestral condition from which all members of this diverse group evolved.”



---



By <a href="mailto:katherinebucko@gmail.com">Katherine Bucko</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Mysterious creature with no anus is not a human ancestor

Researchers have discovered that a mysterious microscopic creature - from...

The location of continental plates affects how the ocean moves oxygen around. Continental movement could have the opposite effect, choking out marine oxygen killing most deep ocean creatures. These are the findings of a new study on oceanic oxygen.



“Continental drift seems so slow, like nothing drastic could come from it, but when the ocean is primed, even a seemingly tiny event could trigger the widespread death of marine life,” said study co-author Andy Ridgwell, a geologist at <a href="https://www.ucr.edu/">UC Riverside</a>.



The <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/snailfish-have-a-secret-weapon-to-survive-in-frozen-arctic-waters/">water</a> at the ocean’s surface becomes colder and denser as it approaches the north or south pole, and then it sinks. As the water sinks, it transports oxygen from Earth’s atmosphere down to the ocean floor.&nbsp;



Eventually, a return flow brings nutrients released from sunken organic matter back to the ocean’s surface, fuelling the growth of plankton. This function supports the incredible diversity of fish and other animals in today’s ocean.



For the study, the researchers investigated whether the location of continental plates affect how the ocean moves oxygen around. To their surprise, it does.&nbsp;



“Many millions of years ago, not so long after animal life in the ocean got started, the entire global ocean circulation seemed to periodically shut down,” said Ridgwell. “We were not expecting to find that the movement of continents could cause surface waters and oxygen to stop sinking, and possibly dramatically affecting the way life evolved on Earth.”



“Scientists previously assumed that changing oxygen levels in the ocean mostly reflected similar fluctuations in the atmosphere,” said study first author Alexandre Pohl.



The results show that collapse in global water circulation leads to a separation between oxygen levels in the upper and lower depths. For tens of millions of years, that separation caused the entire ocean seafloor to lose oxygen. This changed 440 million years ago at the start of the Silurian period.



“Circulation collapse would have been a death sentence for anything that could not swim closer to the surface and the life-giving oxygen still present in the atmosphere,” said Ridgwell. Creatures of the deep include bizarre-looking fish, giant worms and crustaceans, squid, sponges and more.



It is unknown whether the Earth could experience a similar event in the future. Existing climate models confirm that increasing global warming will weaken ocean circulation, and some models predict an eventual collapse of the branch of circulation that starts in the North Atlantic.“We’d need a higher resolution climate model to predict a mass extinction event,” said Ridgwell.&nbsp;



In theory, an unusually warm summer or the erosion of a cliff could trigger a cascade of processes that upends life as it appears today.&nbsp;



“You’d think the surface of the ocean, the bit you might surf or sail on, is where all the action is. But underneath, the ocean is tirelessly working away, providing vital oxygen to animals in the dark depths,” explained Ridgwell.&nbsp;



“The ocean allows life to flourish, but it can take that life away again. Nothing rules that out as continental plates continue to move.”



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05018-z">Nature</a>.&nbsp;



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By <a href="mailto:nire518@gmail.com">Erin Moody </a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

"Sleeping giant" could choke out oxygen on the ocean floor

The location of continental plates affects how the ocean moves...

Nightclub,Dj,Rave,Party,With,Crowd,Of,People,Hands,Up

Using data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), researchers at the Columbia University <a href="https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/">Mailman School of Public Health</a> have determined that over 5.5 million American adults have used hallucinogens since 2002. While hallucinogen use has increased among adults aged 26 and older, fewer adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17 seem to be consuming these <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/marijuana-use-reduces-demand-for-prescription-drugs/">drugs</a>. 



The study also showed that while the use of LSD increased for all age groups between 2002 and 2019, the use of PCP and ecstasy has decreased. Although hallucinogens may be beneficial in some cases, the researchers stress that these drugs present risks such as high blood pressure, decreased appetite, and seizures.



"While new findings suggesting benefits from use of certain hallucinogens among a range of cognitive areas are being published at a rapid rate, there are still gaps in knowledge concerning safe hallucinogen use, and evidence for potential adverse effects even with professionally supervised use that warrant attention." said study first author Dr. Ofir Livne.&nbsp;



The researchers are particularly concerned about the increased use of LSD and the perception that it's not dangerous.&nbsp;



"Our finding of an upward trend in 12-month LSD use, overall and by age, matches our finding of a downward trend in perception of LSD as risky," said senior author Dr. Deborah Hasin. "Factors such as changes in risk perception, in the specific types of drugs available and in expectations of beneficial effects of 'microdosing' may all have led to increased use of certain hallucinogens in recent years."



Given the increasing popularity and positive media coverage, the authors are concerned about public safety and believe that the use of hallucinogens should be continually monitored.&nbsp;



"In light of popular media reports of a forthcoming 'psychedelic revolution' with commercialization and marketing that may further reduce public perception of any risk, researchers, clinicians and policymakers should increase their attention to the rising rates of unsupervised hallucinogen use among the general public," said Dr. Hasin.



"Our results highlight such use as a growing public health concern and suggest that the increasing risk of potentially unsupervised hallucinogen use warrants preventive strategies."



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/add.15987">Addiction</a>.&nbsp;



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By <a href="mailto:nire518@gmail.com">Erin Moody </a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

More than 5.5 million American adults have used hallucinogens

Using data from the National Survey on Drug Use and...

A new climate modelling study led by the <a href="https://www.sydney.edu.au/">University of Sydney</a> has found that climate change and extreme weather events will significantly impact <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/forced-labor-is-a-big-part-of-the-food-supply-chain/">food supply chains</a> across different sectors and regions in Australia, which will likely cause cascading repercussions on income, food, and nutrient availability.&nbsp;



According to the experts, while more affluent communities would be better safeguarded against such supply shocks, rural communities would be the most severely affected. Moreover, climatic events such as floods, cyclones, bushfires, or heatwaves could affect surrounding areas by limiting food availability and employment, with effects felt in distant regions too, due to the complex interconnectivity of modern supply chains.



“Climate change can directly impact our economy, livelihoods, and health. Disruptions caused by extreme weather events can cascade across regions and sectors, resulting in job and income losses and impacts on food availability,” said study lead author Arunima Malik, a senior lecturer in Sustainability at the University of Sydney. “Our study has sought to model the indirect supply-chain repercussions of these events to bolster our understanding of interconnected supply chain networks and to promote climate preparedness.”



Previous studies have found that localized disasters – such as a cyclone in Queensland – can impact all the other Australian states, resulting in significant losses across primary, secondary, and tertiary sectors.&nbsp;



“What plays out globally seems to play out locally as well. Everyone is affected by climate change, even if they’re not in areas directly hit by extreme weather, and the vulnerable are affected most,” explained study co-author Manfred Lenzen, a professor of Sustainability Research at the University of Sydney.



Such impacts could lead to localized food price increases and diminished food quality, with poor people faring worse than their more affluent counterparts.&nbsp;



“Disruptions to food supply can negatively impact diet quality, through reducing the variety that contributes to a balanced diet, diverting diets to unhealthy processed foods that have a longer shelf life. This disproportionately impacts vulnerable groups, who do not have the means to pay escalating prices for scarce fresh foods,” said study co-author David Raubenheimer, a professor of Nutritional Ecology at the same university.



Impacts on food production would most likely affect employment and cause income losses too, not only in the supply food chains, but also in the transportation and service sectors.&nbsp;



“The cascading effects, generated by continuing climate variability and more frequent extreme weather events, not only disrupt supply chains, but may also trigger zoonotic diseases, foodborne epidemics, and broad socio-demographic stresses, including inter-regional migration and social unrest. It’s vital that we understand these impacts so we can build a more resilient society,” Dr. Malik concluded.



The study is published in the journal <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s43016-022-00570-3">Nature Foods</a>.&nbsp;



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By <a href="mailto:andrei.ionescu5891@gmail.com">Andrei Ionescu</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer&nbsp;&nbsp;

Climate-related disasters will disrupt food supply chains

A new climate modelling study led by the University of...

Women in their 20s, 30s and 40s tend to develop risk of cardiovascular-disease much faster than men do. <a href="https://www.wvu.edu/">West Virginia University</a> epidemiologist Bethany Barone Gibbs is exploring what role adverse pregnancy outcomes, such as preeclampsia and gestational diabetes, play in that disparity and whether <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/physical-activity-preserves-thinking-skills-among-women/">physical activity </a>can reduce or eliminate it.



“People always think that men have more cardiovascular disease than women,” said Gibbs. “But what happens is that women typically have lower risk factors for cardiovascular disease before their childbearing years. Then, between their 20s and 40s, they have this accelerated risk development."&nbsp;



"The incidence of hypertension and other risk factors increases in women compared to men, so they sort of catch up. We think that might be at least in part because of pregnancy exposures.”&nbsp;



For the study, more than 3,000 women will wear a special accelerometer that measures how much time they spend lying down, sitting, standing, stepping or cycling. The activity tracker will be worn for 24 hours a day over the course of one week to measure cardiovascular-disease risk factors such as BMI, cholesterol, blood pressure and glucose.



Gibbs and her team will investigate any associations that emerge among the participants’ pregnancy history, cardiovascular health, cardiovascular-disease risk factors and sedentary behavior.



“We’re thinking about patterns. How healthy are the people who sit a lot but also exercise a lot? Are they OK? What about people who don’t exercise but don’t sit very much? Are they OK? We will have the data to be able to look at all of these relationships very carefully.” she said.



Study participants will be chosen from a larger pregnancy study called NuMoM2b, or Nulliparous Pregnancy Outcomes Study Monitoring Mothers-to-Be. The women who enrolled in NuMoM2b were all pregnant for the first time.&nbsp;



Gibbs and her team will be able to paint a more complete portrait of how sedentary behavior and adverse pregnancy outcomes influence women’s risk of cardiovascular disease. This could help health care providers estimate cardiovascular-disease risk more accurately, and inform women with a history of adverse pregnancy outcomes to use physical activity.



“We’re in the business of trying to understand if therapeutic lifestyle interventions that reduce sitting, increase physical activity or both can help reduce risk in women overall, but specifically in women that have an elevated risk because of their pregnancy history,” said Gibbs.



Sedentary behavior is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease that’s distinct from not getting enough exercise. If you spend 12 of your waking hours sitting at a desk, on a couch or in a car, you can’t “run off” those long, sedentary blocks of time by taking a half-hour jog.



“In people who sit for a long time, there’s this negative cardiovascular cascade that happens, even healthy people. Blood pools in the lower legs, blood pressure increases, and your body doesn’t metabolize blood sugar as well.”&nbsp;



With this in mind, Gibbs recommends standing for at least 15 minutes each hour, taking a two-minute walk here and there, and doing your best to live a less sedentary lifestyle.&nbsp;



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By <a href="mailto:katherinebucko@gmail.com">Katherine Bucko</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Pregnancy may influence cardiovascular disease risk in women

Women in their 20s, 30s and 40s tend to develop...

The mountains of the Philippines are a biodiversity hotspot - home to more unique species of mammals than anywhere else on Earth. Filipino biologist Danilo Balete has spent most of his adult life doing fieldwork and recording the fascinating diversity of living creatures in these mountains. One of the mice he discovered has recently been revealed to belong not only to a new species, but to a whole new genus of rodents.&nbsp;



Larry Heaney, curator of mammals at Chicago’s <a href="https://www.fieldmuseum.org/">Field Museum</a> is the senior author of a paper describing the new mouse.in the&nbsp;<a href="https://academic.oup.com/jmammal">Journal of Mammalogy</a>. “In the past several decades, we’ve learned just how incredibly important the Philippines are in terms of being home to mammals that are found nowhere else," said Heaney, "and a lot of that knowledge can be traced back to fieldwork led by Danny Balete."



Before his untimely death in 2017, Danny Balete’s research overturned previously held notions that biodiversity decreases in mountainous regions because of their harsh environmental conditions. Instead, he proposed that mountainous environments could generate, rather than suppress, species diversity. The mountains of the Philippines are cooler and much wetter than surrounding lowlands, so they become like islands, isolated within the lowland environment below.&nbsp;



Fauna and flora on these “sky islands” tend to evolve separately from each other, meaning that each mountain or mountain range may end up with new and unique species. “The taller and the bigger the mountain range, the more species of mammals will be living there that don't live anywhere else in the world,” said Heaney, who has been studying the mammals of the Philippines for 40 years. He first met Danny Balete in the late 1980s, shortly after Danny completed his Bachelor’s degree at the University of the Philippines.



"I was establishing a research program, and asked around, ‘Who would be a really good, enthusiastic young person to take into the field?’ And several people immediately said, ‘Danny Balete.’ So I invited him to do some field work with me, and he did fantastically well,” recalls Heaney. “He was just a superb field biologist. Danny could identify every plant, every frog, every bug, everything that you encountered, it was just astounding.”



“Danny contributed hugely to scientific knowledge about biological diversity in the Philippines. His enjoyment of biodiversity was really infectious, making him a mentor and inspiration to a generation of researchers and conservationists,” said study co-author Professor Mariano Roy Duya.."By the time of his death, at far too young an age, he was already one of the most prominent biodiversity scientists working in the Philippines.”



In 2007 and 2010, Balete went on expeditions to Mount Kampalili on the island of Mindanao as part of a Field Museum collaboration with the Philippine Eagle Foundation. They wanted to know what mammals lived alongside one of the largest and most critically endangered birds, the Philippine Eagle, and Danny was the perfect person to take along. While on Mount Kampalili, he and the team made a startling discovery: a dark brown mouse with small eyes and a long, tapering nose like a shrew. The creature was different from anything he’d ever seen on that island and looked more like mice he’d seen before, hundreds of miles away, on the island of Luzon.



“High up in the mountains, Danny was able to get cell phone service, so he sent me a text message right away, saying, ‘We just caught this animal that looks a lot like the ones from Luzon and it shouldn’t be here,’” recalls Heaney. “So he immediately recognized that this was something really cool.”



DNA analysis was conducted on three specimens of the new mouse by Dakota Rowsey, the study’s first author, vertebrate collections manager at Arizona State University, and research associate at the Field Museum. The results confirmed that the rodent was different from any known to science, to the extent that it represents a brand new genus of mice. The researchers decided to name the new species Baletemys kampalili, in honor of their departed colleague.&nbsp;



“That DNA study demonstrated that the new mouse was not related to the species up in the northern Philippines, but instead was related to species from Mindanao.&nbsp; It appears to be a remarkable case of what biologists call convergence – distantly related species that have independently evolved to resemble each other in ways that allow them to use habitats and resources in similar ways,” said Rowsey.



“Naming a new species after anyone is a big deal, a major honor given to people who make long-term, high-impact contributions to biodiversity science. Naming a new genus after someone is one of the highest honors biologists can bestow.”



It is not uncommon to discover new species, but a whole new genus is something special. “New species of mammals are being discovered globally at a considerable clip, maybe 50 to 100 new species per year,” said Heaney. “Finding a brand-new genus, previously unknown to science like this one, that only happens at most a couple of times per year. In our 40 years of intensive study of Philippine mammals, this is one of nearly 50 new species, but just the fourth new genus we discovered.”



The new genus’s scientific name means “Balete’s mouse,” in honor of Balete’s work in discovering it and so many other creatures. “As we began picking up the pieces after his death, it became obvious to us that we had to name this new mouse after him; he deserves this,” said Professor Duya.



In addition to honoring Balete, the researchers say the new genus is important because it’s another puzzle piece in understanding the diversity of life in the Philippines. Demonstrating that Mount Kampalili is home to a mouse found nowhere else on Earth may bolster conservation efforts by Indigenous communities which would help the mouse’s neighbors, including the critically endangered Philippine Eagles.



“It’s really important to show that when we protect one species, like the magnificent Philippine Eagle, we protect not only our unique biological wealth but our cultural heritage as well,” said study co-author Jayson Ibanez of the Philippine Eagle Foundation.



The Philippine eagle and the new “Balete’s mouse” are neighbors to the Indigenous Mandaya group&nbsp;of Mount Kampalili. “Indigenous peoples get very excited whenever they learn that they share their homeland with a totally unique lifeform. And in this case, when we help protect Mount Kampalili, we also protect the primary watershed, airsheds, and biocultural sanctuaries for much of southeastern Mindanao, giving huge benefits to all the people who live here,” said Ibanez. “With all of the threats from watershed destruction and climate change, we need all the help we can get.”



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By <a href="mailto:bosman@truewan.co.za">Alison Bosman</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Shrew-like mouse will help protect Phillipine eagles

The mountains of the Philippines are a biodiversity hotspot -...

Disasters such as wildfires, hurricanes, floods and droughts, are set to increase in frequency in future as the world’s climate changes. Such events are devastating to the communities they strike, bringing both financial and health-related impacts that can have long-term consequences for people. Today, most U.S. jurisdictions have a local emergency management team to develop suitable responses to natural disasters, which may include evacuation, shelters, financial and food aid and relocation efforts for affected individuals and their families.&nbsp;



Strikingly, however, very few of these response plans take into account the needs of companion animals, such as <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/dogs-may-not-understand-humans-generosity/">dogs</a> and cats that are also victims of environmental disasters. Most households in the U.S. own pets in the form of dogs or cats and yet very little accommodation is made for the needs of these animals in the event of disasters. Although animal shelters and rescues are involved in disaster preparedness in most counties, and provide harm-reduction services such as microchipping and vaccine clinics, there is still a disconnect between animal and human disaster planning.



Janice Baldwin Rowitt and Heidi Brown are experts in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the <a href="https://www.arizona.edu/">University of Arizona</a>. The researchers investigated changes in cat and dog populations at U.S. animal care facilities during and after disaster events between 2013 and 2018. They limited their analysis to the effects of fires and hurricanes during those years, and considered the numbers of dogs and cats present at facilities at the end of the month in which the disaster occurred, as well as at the end of the month following the disaster and also at the end of the month a year after the disaster took place.&nbsp;



Data for the study was obtained from the Shelter Animals Count (SAC), and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which documents 272 fires, and 72 hurricanes between 2013 and 2018. The final, combined data set included 83,910 observations for dogs and 70, 538 observations for cats. In addition to data on shelter occupancy at rescue facilities, the researchers also considered the numbers of animals euthanized at these facilities after environmental disasters.&nbsp;



The results of the analysis, published in the journal <a href="https://journals.plos.org/climate/article?id=10.1371/journal.pclm.0000066">PLOS Climate</a>, show that the demand for shelter services varied depending on the type of disaster event (fire or hurricane) and on the species of pet.&nbsp;



“We found significant changes in the demand for animal care services in both the immediate and long-term aftermath of the disaster events we evaluated. These changes vary based across cats and dogs, hurricanes and fires, and the type of animal care facility," said the study authors.



In the case of dogs, there was an increased demand for housing within animal care facilities in the time periods following hurricanes, even after a year had elapsed since the disaster. However, this was not the case after fires, indicating that fires and hurricanes may affect dog interaction with animal care facilities differently. The experts hypothesize that the increase in dog intakes observed in the month and year following a hurricane may be due to the large influx of stray animals that typically occurs after the disaster, as residents move away from the area. The analysis did not indicate that fires and hurricanes result in more dogs having to be euthanized.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Cats appear to need housing in animal shelters particularly in the month of a disaster event. More animal shelter organizations reported higher numbers of cats the month of a fire compared with the month after. More organizations also reported higher cat euthanasia rates the month and year after a fire, though this action is only taken as a last resort, if facilities feel that no owner is searching for the pet. Cats may become burned or injured during a fire and this may lead to the increased need for euthanasia.



According to the researchers, the “findings suggest companion animals and the facilities that house them are greatly affected by the impacts of climate change, as evidenced by the shifts in demand on animal housing and euthanasia in the periods following a disaster.”



In response to these demands, Rowitt and Brown emphasize that the needs of companion animals should be fully integrated into human disaster management plans. The most effective way for this to happen is via collaboration between local governments, emergency management, animal shelter and rescue organizations, veterinarians, and pet owners themselves, say the researchers. Integrating animal welfare into human disaster planning is important as it has been shown that pet owners are likely to be more resistant to evacuation because of the stress of leaving their animals behind.&nbsp;



For many survivors of disasters, the presence of a beloved pet is integral to their emotional and psychological recovery, making integrated planning for animal and human victims even more important. One survey found that over 63 percent of respondents considered their pet to be an important coping mechanism during stressful situations, so losing a companion animal during a disaster event could lead to increased levels of stress and anxiety.



Although the current study indicates the need for increased housing for dogs in the time period after hurricanes, further research may show that different disaster events have different effects on populations of companion animals. The researchers suggest applying a One Health approach to disaster management strategies, whereby the welfare of companion animals is considered alongside the welfare of humans as we prepare to face the consequences of climate change.



"Given the importance of integrating human and animal disaster plans, combined with the fact that communities are currently experiencing adverse consequences associated with climate change, including extreme temperatures, more frequent and severe storms, drought, and rising sea levels, an organized," wrote the study authors. "One Health disaster response that addresses human and animal needs is essential for the continued welfare of companion animals and their owners.”&nbsp;



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By <a href="mailto:bosman@truewan.co.za">Alison Bosman</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Pets are unrecognized victims of climate-related disasters

Disasters such as wildfires, hurricanes, floods and droughts, are set...

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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

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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

[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

[sendtonews key="qjvhBOBnY8-2426650-12187" 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 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

[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

[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



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

[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

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