If you were to rewind the clock to the 1980s and tune your ear to the deep-sea waters off the coast of New Zealand, a peculiar sound might have caught your attention. 



This sound, reminiscent of a "quack," echoed through the South Fiji Basin's underwater soundscape in July 1982, presenting a unique mystery for researchers investigating marine acoustics at the time.



This strange, quack-like sound quickly became a topic of widespread interest, and its continuous repetition earned it the nickname "Bio-Duck."



Initially recorded during an experiment designed to characterize the marine audio environment of the region, the sound's repetitive and patterned nature left researchers astonished and intrigued at the possibility that it was biological in origin.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-source-of-the-quack-still-unknown">The source of the quack still unknown</h2>



One of the pivotal contributors to this research was Ross Chapman who, at the time, was associated with the <a href="https://www.uvic.ca/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">University of Victoria</a>. He reflects about how the sound generated heated discussions among scientists who were perplexed about its source.



"The sound was so repeatable, we couldn't believe at first that it was biological. But in talking to other colleagues in Australia about the data, we discovered that a similar sound was heard quite often in other regions around New Zealand and Australia."



The mysterious <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/baleen-whales-cannot-escape-human-noise/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">underwater communications</a> became a major point of discussion at the 187th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in November, 2024, where Chapman and his team presented their findings. They have yet to identify the makers of these enigmatic sounds.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-unchartered-territory-of-ocean-noise-exploration">Unchartered territory of ocean noise exploration</h2>



Chapman’s journey into deciphering the mystery began in 1986 with the analysis of the data from the experiment. 



"We discovered that the data contained a gold mine of new information about many kinds of sound in the ocean, including sounds from <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/marine-mammals-in-the-us-are-highly-vulnerable-to-climate-change/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">marine mammals</a>," he recalled. 



The field of marine acoustics was in its fledgling stages in the '80s, and every day was an opportunity for a new discovery. 



Despite the thrill and excitement, the source of the Bio-Duck sounds remained an enigma, with some theories suggesting that the sounds could be originating from <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/whales-may-have-ultrasonic-hearing-as-a-form-of-defense/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Antarctic minke whales</a>.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-engaging-in-a-deep-sea-dialogue">Engaging in a deep-sea dialogue</h2>



Chapman, however, had a different hypothesis. He believed these sounds were something more than just random noises - they could be a conversation. 



This hypothesis was supported by the pattern of the sounds recorded by an acoustic antenna, an array of hydrophones towed behind a ship. 



The acoustic array's unique design allowed the researchers to identify the direction the sounds were originating from and revealed that they came from different directions all around the ship.



"The most amazing thing was that when one speaker was talking, the others were quiet, as though they were listening. Then the first speaker would stop talking and listen to responses from others," Chapman noted.



This observation hinted at an organized communication pattern among the unseen marine speakers. He likened this to a conversation where one individual speaks while the others wait to respond.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-a-story-unfolds-in-the-deep-sea">A story unfolds in the deep sea</h2>



"Maybe they were talking about dinner, maybe it was parents talking to children, or maybe they were simply commenting on that crazy ship that kept going back and forth towing that long string behind it," said Chapman.



While the mystery of the Bio-Duck is yet to be conclusively solved, the intriguing possibility of a deep-sea dialogue continues to fascinate us. 



It offers a reminder that the <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/monitoring-ocean-life-through-underwater-soundscapes/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">underwater</a> universe is rich with life and communication, and humbles us with the realization that there is so much more left for us to understand about the world beneath the waves.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-legacy-of-the-bio-duck-mystery">The legacy of the Bio-Duck mystery</h2>



The quack-like sounds of the Bio-Duck are not just a relic of past research; they’ve become a cornerstone for understanding the complexity of deep-sea ecosystems. 



These sounds have inspired decades of study into marine <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/language-like-patterns-decoded-in-sperm-whale-communication/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">animal communication</a>, particularly among whales and other cetaceans. 



Today, advancements in acoustic technology allow scientists to revisit these historical recordings with modern tools, uncovering new layers of information that were previously inaccessible.



In recent years, the Bio-Duck has been referenced in studies seeking to map marine animal behaviors and migration patterns. 



These efforts emphasize the importance of long-term data collection, proving that even recordings from the 1980s can yield fresh insights when paired with today’s computational power.



The continued analysis of sounds like the Bio-Duck serves as a reminder of the mysteries still hidden in the deep sea. 



They highlight the need for sustainable marine exploration to protect these habitats and preserve the uncharted conversations of the underwater world.



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Quack-like sounds in the deep sea have an unknown source

If you were to rewind the clock to the 1980s and tune your ear to the deep-sea waters off the coast of New Zealand, a peculiar sound might have caught your attention. This sound, reminiscent of a "quack," echoed through the South Fiji Basin's underwater soundscape in July 1982, presenting a unique mystery for researchers investigating marine acoustics at the time. This strange, quack-like sound quickly became a topic of widespread interest, and its continuous repetition earned it the nickname "Bio-Duck." Initially recorded during an experiment designed...

Gardeners know that tomatoes and marigolds are good friends, with the bright flowers protecting against a variety of hungry bugs. Now, scientists have discovered how marigolds stave off one common tomato pest – whiteflies.

"We spoke to many gardeners who knew marigolds were effective in protecting tomatoes against whiteflies, but it has never been tested scientifically,” doctoral student Niall Conboy, who co-led the study, said in a press release.

Conboy and fellow scientists from <a href="https://www.ncl.ac.uk/">Newcastle University</a> narrowed it down to the chemical limonene, which is released by marigolds. The smell repels the common tomato pest.

They performed two trials. The first, which used French marigolds, determined that the marigold trick really did repel whiteflies and wasn’t just an old wives’ tale. The second analyzed the chemicals and gases released by marigolds, allowing them to pinpoint limonene as the key repellent. 

In the course of the study, they also found that other limonene-containing plants can repel the common tomato pest, not just marigolds.

“This is exciting because limonene is inexpensive, it's not harmful and it's a lot less risky to use than pesticides, particularly when you don't apply it to the crop and it is only a weak scent in the air,” Conboy said.

The discovery could lead to new innovations in pest control. The common tomato pest isn’t killed by limonene; it just doesn’t like the smell. Using the chemical is unlikely to lead to resistance in the bugs, the researchers said. It could also be much safer for the tomatoes – and the workers who pick them and families who eat them – as well as beneficial or neutral species that live around them.

"Most pesticides are sprayed onto the crops,” Conboy said. “This doesn't only kill the pest that is targeted, it kills absolutely everything, including the natural enemies of the pest."

Limonene isn’t just found in marigolds. It makes up around 90 percent of the oil in citrus peels and can be found in common household products like mosquito repellent.

Repelling the common tomato pest and other limonene-hating insects with marigolds is also bee-friendly. It doesn’t harm them as pesticides can, plus it offers a food source for the pollinators.

"Any alternative methods of whitefly control that can reduce pesticide use and introduce greater plant and animal diversity into agricultural and horticultural systems should be welcomed,” said Dr. Colin Tosh, who co-led the study with Conboy.

The study has been published in the journal <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0213071">PLOS ONE</a>.

—

By Kyla Cathey, <a href="https://www.earth.com/">Earth.com</a> staff writer

How marigolds protect against common tomato pest

Gardeners know that tomatoes and marigolds are good friends, with...

Planet Earth is noticeably greener than it was two decades ago, thanks to massive tree planting programs in China and India.

While the two countries often find themselves listed among the world’s worst polluters, they’re also taking major steps to counteract those labels. <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/">NASA</a> has discovered that tree planting programs around the world – led by India and China – are helping to add about 5 percent more greenery year over year since the 2000s. That’s totaled out to about 2 million square miles, more than the Amazon rainforest.

India and China “account for one-third of the greening, but contain only 9 percent of the planet's land area covered in vegetation,” lead researcher Dr. Chi Chen of <a href="https://www.bu.edu/">Boston University</a> told the <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/">Daily Mail</a>. 

In China, about 42 percent of the new green space comes from forests, and another 32 percent from farmland, researchers found.

The re-greening was first spotted by NASA’s MODIS tool in the 1990s. MODIS orbits the Earth on two satellites, taking high-resolution photographs of the planet’s surface.

The downside: All that extra greenery in Asia isn’t nearly enough to offset deforestation. At least, not alone.

[caption id="attachment_1869014" align="aligncenter" width="700"]<a href="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/green.jpg"><img class="wp-image-1869014" src="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/green.jpg" alt="" width="700" height="527" /></a> Image Credit: NASA Earth Observatory[/caption]

But the new findings are encouraging scientists to take another look at tree planting programs and other ways humans can re-green the environment.

“When the greening of the Earth was first observed, we thought it was due to a warmer, wetter climate and fertilisation from the added carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, leading to more leaf growth in northern forests, for instance,” NASA research scientist and study co-author Rama Nemani told the Mail. “Now, with the MODIS data that lets us understand the phenomenon at really small scales, we see that humans are also contributing.”

Programs all over the world are encouraging people to plant more trees, but in China and India, tree planting programs have ranged from <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/indian-state-hopes-to-plant-50-million-trees-in-a-day/">government-backed initiatives</a> to projects <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/disabilities-pair-planting-trees/">launched by citizens</a>. Another recent study found that <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/planting-trillion-trees-cancel-emissions/">planting a trillion trees</a> around the world could massively offset carbon emissions.

The study has been published in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-019-0220-7">Nature Sustainability</a>.

—

By Kyla Cathey, <a href="https://www.earth.com/">Earth.com</a> staff writer

Chinese, Indian tree planting programs greening the Earth

Planet Earth is noticeably greener than it was two decades...

A team of researchers from <a href="https://www.yale.edu/">Yale University</a> are studying the ultra-sensitive skin found on <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/new-model-extinct-ducks-fly/">duck</a> and waterfowl bills in an effort to better understand how human touch works. They’ll present their findings early this month at the <a href="https://www.biophysics.org/">63rd Biophysical Society Annual Meeting</a>.

“We know a lot about how we see, taste, and smell," Yale’s Slav Bagriantsev said, "but we actually don't know much about how touch works at the molecular level."

As of right now, the scientists have only discovered one molecule, called Piezo2, that plays a significant role in vertebrate touch. Piezo2 has been previously studied in mice, however, because mice are covered in fur, the effects of Piezo2 in glabrous skin, like palms, lips, or duck bills has not yet been studied.

So, Bagriantsev and his Yale colleagues, Eve Schneider and Evan Anderson, investigated the glabrous skin of waterfowl bills to see how it relates to human touch. They found that humans and ducks share a similar density of neurons in their glabrous skin responsible for sensing touch.

When ducks use their bills to sense movement in water and mud, a small force from a tadpole or other food source stretches the neurons in a duck’s bill. Then, Piezo2 opens and allows ions into the neuron, which then fires, thus sending a signal to the brain that movement was sensed. Duck Piezo2, as the researchers found out, stays open longer than in mouse Piezo2, which most likely makes duck bills more sensitive than mouse paws.

"It seems that ducks capitalized on what most vertebrates normally have," Bagriantsev said.

The team realizes that Piezo2 is probably just one of several molecules involved in touch sensitivity. Therefore, they hope to continue their research on duck bills to discover more information about how touch sensitivity in glabrous skin operates.

--

By <a href="mailto:oliviagharvey24@gmail.com">Olivia Harvey</a>, <a href="http://earth.com">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Duck bills help reveal how our sense of touch operates

A team of researchers from Yale University are studying the...

A research team from the <a href="http://www.mit.edu/">Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)</a> have found that spider silk, one of the strongest natural materials for its weight, contains a property that could be useful in the development of artificial, robotic muscle. The team noted that spider silk reacts to humidity, contracting and twisting in environments at a certain level of relative humidity. This reaction exerts enough force that spider silk is now a contending material for creating actuators — devices that move to perform some activity, like controlling a valve.

As explained in their study, published March 1st in <a href="http://advances.sciencemag.org/">Science Advances</a>, the shrinking and twisting reaction to humidity is called “supercontraction.” It’s the twisting action, which provides strong torsional force, that Professor Markus Buehler, head of MIT’s <a href="https://cee.mit.edu/">Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering</a>, calls “a new phenomenon.”

"We found this by accident initially," said team member Dabiao Liu, an associate professor at <a href="http://english.hust.edu.cn/">Huazhong University of Science and Technology.</a> "My colleagues and I wanted to study the influence of humidity on spider dragline silk." 

To do so, the team created a pendulum by suspending a weight from the <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/new-species-widow-spider/">spider</a> silk. The entire contraption was enclosed in a humidity-controlled chamber. 

"When we increased the humidity, the pendulum started to rotate,” Liu said. “It was out of our expectation. It really shocked me."

"This could be very interesting for the robotics community," Buehler said, in regards to spider silk being used as a control system for sensors or devices. "It's very precise in how you can control these motions by controlling the humidity."

Researchers believe that the spider silk supercontraction property may be a protective reaction to morning dew collecting on a web. The fibers may pull taught in order to keep the web safe from damage. The team found via molecular modelling that when the silk contracts, a protein called proline is actually folding within the fiber.

"Spider dragline silk is a protein fiber," Liu explained. "It's made of two main proteins, called MaSp1 and MaSp2." Proline is found within MaSp2., When water interacts with MaSp2, it disrupts the protein’s hydrogen bonds, thus causing the rotation.

Buehler suggests that now that the protein has been discovered, scientists may be able to recreate synthetic versions of spider silk that also twist and contract. 

"Silk's unique propensity to undergo supercontraction and exhibit a torsional behavior in response to external triggers such as humidity can be exploited to design responsive silk-based materials that can be precisely tuned at the nanoscale," said former MIT postdoc Anna Tarakanova, now an assistant professor at the <a href="https://uconn.edu/">University of Connecticut</a>. "Potential applications are diverse: from humidity-driven soft robots and sensors, to smart textiles and green energy generators."

--

By <a href="mailto:oliviagharvey24@gmail.com">Olivia Harvey</a>, <a href="http://earth.com">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Spider silk could be used as artificial muscle for robots

A research team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)...

cover2

A study by experts at the <a href="https://www.uio.no/english/">University of Oslo</a> is shedding new light on the spontaneous events that led to <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/earliest-common-ancestor-life/">life</a> on Earth. One of these events was the formation of compartments enclosed by lipid membranes. For the first time, the researchers have described how these vesicles manage to self-assemble on surfaces with no external assistance. 

The team was initially focused on studying biomaterials, not the origins of life, when they discovered the most straightforward explanation for the formation of early life that has ever been introduced.


“We were actually trying to do another experiment and this came as a discovery,” said study co-author Irep Gözen. “The formation of lipid tubes and the emergence of thousands of vesicles was happening spontaneously when we left lipids on a silicon dioxide surface.”

The lipids in their experiment were similar to those in bacteria membranes that have water-loving heads and water-avoiding tails. Due to these preferences, the lipids spontaneously organize with their tails facing in and their heads facing out. 

On a silicon dioxide surface, the lipids became sheets that contained layers of organized lipids. At some points the two layers would separate due to stickiness on the surface, causing the top layer to bulge out. This creates tubes and then round balls as they gain more lipids. 

According to the researchers, the entire process is fully autonomous. The movement of liquid can cause these vesicles to detach from the surface and create protocells - just like those that are thought to be a critical step in the origin of life. “This is a new and novel means of compartmentalization,” said Gözen.

Silicone dioxide, or silica, is one of the most abundant minerals on the surface of the Earth. Fatty molecules could have easily existed in the early days of our planet, and a process similar to what has been described by the experts feasibly occurred.

“Our research may explain, for the first time, the details of self-directed transition from weakly organized lipids on solid surfaces to protocells with secluded internal contents,” said Gözen.

The research will be presented at the 63rd <a href="https://www.biophysics.org/">Biophysical Society</a> Annual Meeting in Baltimore, Maryland.

--

By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Paid for by <a href="http://earth.com">Earth.com</a>

Image Credit: Irep Gözen

Scientists find new clues in the mystery of how life began on Earth

A study by experts at the University of Oslo is...

A three-week expedition to Belize has produced the first 360 degree map of the <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/plastic-belizes-great-blue-hole/">Great Blue Hole</a>, a massive marine sinkhole that is 984 feet across and more than 400 feet deep. Equipped with two submarines and high-resolution sonar, the researchers explored the fascinating features of the sinkhole. 

The sonar enabled the team to view features that were 20 or 30 feet away in perfect detail. The researchers found a conch “graveyard” created by thousands of shellfish that likely fell to their death and observed mineral formations called stalactites near the bottom of the hole that had never been seen before.

[caption id="attachment_1868929" align="aligncenter" width="700"]<a href="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Screen-Shot-2019-02-28-at-9.04.15-PM.png"><img class="wp-image-1868929" src="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Screen-Shot-2019-02-28-at-9.04.15-PM.png" alt="" width="700" height="384" /></a> Image Credit: Aquatica Submarines[/caption]

According to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/">CNN</a>, the team also discovered some intriguing tracks at the bottom of the sinkhole that could not be identified. Erika Bergman was the chief pilot, oceanographer, and operations manager on the expedition.

'The aptly named Great Blue Hole is a collapsed cave, filled with stalactite caverns, and built up from layers of fine limestone and rougher calcium carbonate walls,” Bergman wrote on the website <a href="http://www.southernfriedscience.com/">Southern Fried Science</a>.

“With a variety of sonar heads, used sequentially over the course of the Expedition, we've been able to create a high resolution, three dimensional sonar image of the interior of the Great Blue Hole.”

[caption id="attachment_1868930" align="aligncenter" width="700"]<a href="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Screen-Shot-2019-02-28-at-9.05.48-PM.png"><img class="wp-image-1868930" src="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Screen-Shot-2019-02-28-at-9.05.48-PM.png" alt="" width="700" height="489" /></a> Image Credit: Aquatica Submarines[/caption]

The Great Blue Hole also has a hydrogen sulfide layer around 300 feet down that blocks out any light, transitioning divers into total darkness. “You lose all of that Caribbean sunlight and it just turns completely black, and it’s totally anoxic down there with absolutely no life,” Bergman told CNN.

[caption id="attachment_1868931" align="aligncenter" width="700"]<a href="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Screen-Shot-2019-02-28-at-9.04.39-PM.png"><img class="wp-image-1868931" src="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Screen-Shot-2019-02-28-at-9.04.39-PM.png" alt="" width="700" height="352" /></a> Image Credit: Aquatica Submarines[/caption]

The research team included Fabien Cousteau, the grandson of French oceanographer and filmmaker Jacques Cousteau, who made this region famous in the early 1970s. The project was funded in part by Virgin founder and billionaire Richard Branson, who also joined the expedition.

The <a href="https://aquaticasubmarines.com/blue-hole-belize/">Blue Hole Belize 2018 Expedition</a> was live streamed on the Discovery Channel on December 2, 2019.

--

By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Researchers reveal first ever 3D map of Belize’s Great Blue Hole

A three-week expedition to Belize has produced the first 360...

Researchers from <a href="https://med.nyu.edu/education">New York University’s School of Medicine</a> have discovered the brain circuit that could be responsible for the ability to have high-speed, back-and-forth conversation. By studying the male Alston singing mouse, from the cloud forests of Costa Rica, researchers have launched a new model to examine the brain’s mechanisms that allow behind the sub-second precision of vocal turn-taking.

“Our work directly demonstrates that a brain region called the motor cortex is needed for both these mice and for humans to vocally interact," said senior author Michael Long, PhD, an associate professor of neuroscience at NYU School of Medicine."We need to understand how our brains generate verbal replies instantly using nearly a hundred muscles if we are to design new treatments for the many Americans for whom this process has failed, often because of diseases such as autism or traumatic events, like stroke.”

The study, published March 1st in <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/">Science</a>, shows that circuits in the motor cortex of the brain enable the fast starts and stops of conversation while other areas of the brain tell muscles to create vocal notes.

"By segregating sound production and control circuits, evolution has equipped the brains of singing mice with the tight vocal control also seen in cricket exchanges, bird duets, and possibly, human discussion," said co-first author Arkarup Banerjee, PhD, a postdoctoral scholar in Long's lab.

Banerjee explained that, before their study, there were no suitable mammalian models to help them explore conversation besides the marmoset, a primate whose back-and-forth conversation is much slower than human speech. However, once the team realized that the singing mice “bend and break” their songs to fit a changing social situation, researchers were able to pinpoint the relationships between <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/depth-sleep-brain-flush-toxins/">brain</a> centers and song musculature during a mouse-to-mouse sing-song conversation.

Furthermore, researchers found that the orofacial motor cortex (OMC), located at the front and side of the motor cortex, regulated song timing. Knowing this, they were then able to slow the OMC via a safe method called “focal cooling” to observe functional separation between the brain between sound generation and timing functions.

The team will continue to use their mouse model to deeper explore speech circuits in human brains in an effort to better understand what happens when things go wrong due to disease and trauma.

--

By <a href="mailto:oliviagharvey24@gmail.com">Olivia Harvey</a>, <a href="http://earth.com">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Image Credit: NYU School of Medicine

Singing mice reveal how the brain clicks into conversation

Researchers from New York University’s School of Medicine have discovered...

<a href="https://www.earth.com/news/antibiotic-resistance-supermarket-produce/">Antibiotic resistance</a> is a growing global health crisis fueled by decades of antibiotics being over-prescribed and misused. 

Now, a new study could help further the fight against drug-resistant bacteria due to the discovery of a previously unknown survival strategy employed by single-celled organisms under extreme stress. 

Researchers from the <a href="http://sils.uva.nl/">University of Amsterdam’s Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences</a> and <a href="https://www.ncl.ac.uk/">Newcastle University</a> starved a non-pathogenic bacterium and found that the bacteria enter a zombie-like state between dormancy and being active. 

The findings of the study, detailed in the journal Nature Communications, could help researchers understand the underlying mechanisms of drug resistance. 

Normally when bacteria are starved of nutrients, they form endospores and enter a state of total dormancy. 

A mutation ensured that the bacteria were not able to form endospores which allowed the researchers to observe the new state termed oligotrophic growth. 

“Normally, Bacillus is rod-shaped, but the starved bacteria shrank until they were almost spherical,” said Leendert Hamoen, a co-author of the study. “All kinds of processes that are normally active in the bacterium were altered.”

Amazingly, the bacteria were still alive and dividing just at a rate one hundred times slower than usual. 

When bacteria form spores, it can survive harsh extremes and antibiotics, and once conditions are more favorable, the bacteria can come out of dormancy. However, forming endospores is a costly process, and this new third state is less energy consuming. 

The researchers next plan to examine other strains of bacteria to see if oligotrophic growth is isolated to Bacillus subtilis or if other forms of bacteria employ this useful survival strategy.

--

By <a href="mailto:kayvandette@gmail.com">Kay Vandette</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Bacteria sometimes enter zombie-like state when under stress

Antibiotic resistance is a growing global health crisis fueled by...

The <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/relict-megafauna/">giant ground sloths</a> that trudged across the Earth millions of years ago weighed thousands of pounds and could measure as long as 20 feet in length. These long-since extinct herbivores could prop themselves up on their hind legs to reach twigs and leaves in trees. 

The discovery of a giant ground sloth fossil has helped shed light on a year in the life of the sloth as it’s diet changed to adapt to variations in climate and vegetation. 

The fossil was discovered in a sink-hole in Belize by divers, and Jean T. Larmon, a Ph.D. candidate at the <a href="https://illinois.edu/">University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign</a> analyzed a fossilized tooth from the remains along with a team of researchers. 

Carbon dating and studying fossil teeth can be challenging if the tooth lacks enamel, and the researchers soon realized that isotopic analyses on certain layers of the sloth’s tooth were inaccurate. 

Without enamel, some of the layers were more impacted by sedimentary processes that eventually led to fossilization than others. 

A sloth’s teeth, like other herbivorous species, continue to grow throughout its life and so the fossil represented a unique opportunity to study dietary changes over time if the researchers could find the right layers to analyze.

[caption id="attachment_1868816" align="aligncenter" width="700"]<a href="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/sloth-graphic.jpg"><img class="wp-image-1868816" src="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/sloth-graphic.jpg" alt="" width="700" height="467" /></a> Giant ground sloth, Graphic by Julie McMahon[/caption]

Larmon and colleges analyzed carbon and oxygen stable isotope data from 58 samples collected from a single tooth of the fossil. The samples were collected from three layers of the tooth: the cementum and the outer and inner orthedentin. Cathodoluminescence microscopy was used to evaluate the data and ensure accuracy. 

The carbon and oxygen isotope data differed from layer to layer, but the inner orthedentin layer seemed to have withstood the chemical and physical sedimentary processes over the years, and so that layer was used to date the tooth. 

The researchers found that the tooth was around 27,000 years old and the sloth lived during the Last Glacial Maximum. 

The variations in oxygen isotopes in the tooth indicated that the sloth lived during a year divided by short wet seasons and one long dry season and likely eat grass and shrubs during the wet seasons. 

The study, published in the journal Science Advances and backed by the <a href="https://www.aaas.org/">American Association for the Advancement of Science</a>, shows that sloths in Belize changed their diets depending on the season and ate what was available. 

--

By <a href="mailto:kayvandette@gmail.com">Kay Vandette</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Main Image Credit: Stanley Ambrose

Fossilized tooth sheds light on the diet of the giant ground sloth

The giant ground sloths that trudged across the Earth millions...

Paleontologists at <a href="https://vt.edu/">Virginia Tech</a> have identified the fossil remains of what may be the oldest frogs in North America. The fragments of Chinle frogs, which measure smaller than a pinky nail, represent the first known Salientia from the Late Triassic around 216 million years ago.

The scientists analyzed several small pieces of hip bones from Chinle frogs, which are indirect ancestors of modern <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/frogs-charm-city/">frogs</a>. The specimens were named after the Chinle Formation of Arizona where they were found in May of 2018.

“This new find highlights just how much there is still to learn about the Late Triassic ecosystem, and how much we find when we just look a little closer,” said study co-lead author Professor Michelle Stocker. “We're familiar with the charismatic archosaurs from the Chinle Formation, but we know that based on other ecosystems, they should make up a small percentage of the animals that lived together. With this new focus we're able to fill in a lot of those missing smaller components with new discoveries.”

The hip bones were long and hollow and had a hip socket that was offset rather than centered. Professor Stocker said that the bones were so small that the Chinle frog could fit on the end of your finger.

“These are the oldest frogs from near the equator,” said Professor Stocker. “The oldest frogs overall are roughly 250 million years old from Madagascar and Poland, but those specimens are from higher latitudes and not equatorial."

Professor Sterling Nesbitt added, “Now we know that tiny frogs were present approximately 215 million years ago from North America, we may be able to find other members of the modern vertebrate communities in the Triassic Period.”

The study is published in the journal <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/journal/rsbl">Biology Letters</a>.

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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

Image Credit: Virginia Tech

Scientists find fossils of the oldest known frogs in North America

Paleontologists at Virginia Tech have identified the fossil remains of...

Up-cycling plastics

Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is a lightweight and waterproof plastic commonly used to make containers and packaging. From the food you eat to the water you drink, chances are good that it was packaged in PET.

PET is also fully recyclable, and yet millions of tons of PET <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/billions-tons-plastic-thrown/">end up in landfills or the oceans</a> every year where it takes hundreds of years to break down. When PET is recycled, it can only be used again once or twice after the recycling process and is much less valuable the second time around.  

But now, researchers from the <a href="https://www.nrel.gov/">U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory</a> (NREL) have developed a new recycling process that effectively upcycles PET into a more valuable material with a longer lifespan.

A study detailing the new recycling process was published in the journal JOULE and reveals how the new recycled material could be used in a wide range of products. 

“The process we came up with is a way to ‘upcycle’ PET into long-lifetime, high-value composite materials like those that would be used in car parts, wind turbine blades, surfboards, or snowboards,” said Greg Beckham, the senior author of the study.

The researchers combined recycled PET with renewable materials like plant-biomass and developed two fiber-reinforced plastics that are two to three times more valuable than PET.  

PET upcycling would also require 57 percent less energy to produce than other recycling processes and would emit fewer greenhouse gasses. The key is to find a way to process the new upcycled material on a large scale.

“The idea is to develop technologies that would incentivize the economics of PET reclamation,” said Beckham. “That's the real hope--to develop ‘second-life’ upcycling technologies that make single-use waste plastic valuable to reclaim. This, in turn, could help keep waste plastic out of the world's oceans and out of landfills.”

The researchers plan to continue studying upcycled PET and finding efficient ways to make the process feasible for manufacturing and 100 percent recyclable. For now, the materials combined with PET in the study, although durable and long lasting, are not recyclable at the end of their life, according to the researchers.

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By<a href="mailto:kayvandette@gmail.com"> Kay Vandette</a>,<a href="https://www.earth.com/"> Earth.com</a> Staff Writer 

Image Credit: Dennis Schroeder / NREL

New method ‘upcycles’ plastic to give it a more valuable second life

Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is a lightweight and waterproof plastic commonly...

You may remember the great public debate surrounding the photograph of a dress that quickly became a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/28/business/a-simple-question-about-a-dress-and-the-world-weighs-in.html">viral sensation in 2015</a> after the public could not agree on its color. 

Was it blue with black stripes or white with gold stripes? The two color schemes were so different that the internet exploded when it became clear that so many people perceived the same image so differently. 

Now, a new study of colorful snail shells has once again revealed that people see and <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/hormone-see-color/">categorize some colors differently</a>. 

Researchers from the <a href="https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/">University of Nottingham</a> first categorized analyzed the color of Cepaea nemoralis (grove snail) shells and then measured the shells using a spectrometer to see if there were differences in the way people saw the color of shells. 

The study was published in the journal Heredity, and the researchers explain how the ability to accurately identify and categorize colors is crucial to how we classify species and to our understanding of evolution. 

Grove snails are common across Europe, and their shells can be yellow, brown, and pink. The color of the shell may have evolved in response to the snail’s preferred habitat or to evade predators.

If there are documented color changes that have evolved in a species, like if a grove snail’s shell changed color, researchers can work understand what environmental factors prompted the change. 

However, it’s important to know what color that snail’s shell is in the first place.  If researchers studying the snails see different colors, it represents of a problem in classifying them.

[caption id="attachment_1868714" align="aligncenter" width="700"]<a href="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/snail-shells.jpg"><img class="wp-image-1868714" src="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/snail-shells.jpg" alt="" width="700" height="343" /></a> Snail shell color variations, Image Credit: Daniel Ramos Gonzalez[/caption]

“The shell patterns and colour are hugely variable - almost like a snail fingerprint. As scientists, to ensure the accuracy of our studies and the subsequent interpretation, it is important that we have a reproducible measure of colour,” said Angus Davison, the leader of the study. “The problem is that there are obvious differences in how humans perceive and categorise their colour, making it very difficult to compare the different types.”

For the study, Davison and a Ph.D. student categorized grove snail shell colors by eye. The snail shells were then measured with a spectrometer which measured the light that reflects off the shell to accurately identify the color of the shell. 

Yellow snail shells were accurately identified by eye and matched the yellow shells measured by the spectrometer. But the researchers found that humans struggled to agree on the color of brown or pink shells.

Now, the researchers have a better understanding of how people process and label colors which going forward could help with future studies examining color and evolution. 

--

By <a href="mailto:kayvandette@gmail.com">Kay Vandette</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Main Image Credit: Dr Angus Davison/The University of Nottingham

Pink or brown? ‘The Dress’ debate returns, this time over snail shells

You may remember the great public debate surrounding the photograph...

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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

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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

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features Kainji Lake, a reservoir on the Niger River.



In 1968, Kainji Lake was created by the construction of the Kainji Dam. The Niger River, the third longest in Africa, enters the lake in the north.&nbsp;



According to <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/rivers-in-the-american-west-are-a-lifesaving-resource-for-birds/">ESA</a>, the creation of the lake submerged Foge Island and the town of Bussa and permanently flooded other riverine settlements, leaving around 50,000 people displaced.&nbsp;



Large parts of Foge Island are temporarily exposed during low water tides, and the land is often used by migrating fishermen. Kainji Dam is a dam across the Niger River in Niger State of Central Nigeria. 



Wild mammals occur at relatively low densities due to illegal hunting. Lake Kainji has suffered a dramatic decline as a fishery due to the high numbers of artisanal and subsistence fisherfolk using the lake. It has been suggested that a period of closure, together with controlled fishing rights may help improve fish stocks.



Kainji Lake National Park is the oldest of its kind in Nigeria. The park contains three distinct areas: a part of the Kainji Lake, the Borgu Game Reserve to the west of the lake, and the Zugurma Game Reserve to the southeast. The park is home to around 65 mammal species, 350 bird species, and 30 species of reptiles and amphibians. 



Video/ Image Credit: European Space Agency&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.

Kainji Lake in north central Nigeria

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Today’s Video of the Day from <a href="https://www.igb.illinois.edu/">Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology</a> reveals how scientists can modify common crops like soybean, rice, and wheat to protect them from heat stress.



“We need to double crop production by 2050 to feed a growing global population, and not only are we not on track to do that, but climate change is further complicating things,” said Amanda Cavanagh, a lecturer at the University of Essex. 



The study is part of Realizing Increased Photosynthetic Efficiency (RIPE), an international research project that aims to develop food crops that turn the sun’s energy into food more efficiently.



“Using an engineering approach we designed multiple alternative metabolic pathways to photorespiration. Testing them in the field showed increases in productivity which led Amanda to significantly move the project forward by showing our engineered plants can withstand pretty extreme temperature stress,” said study co-author and RIPE researcher Paul South.&nbsp;



“As the climate changes and temperature stresses increase the pressure on our global food supply, farmers will need every tool available including engineering approaches like the synthetic biology used here to maintain safe and productive harvests.”



The experts tested plants modified to have more efficient photorespiration to see if they were better adapted to warmer temperatures.&nbsp;



The team found that the engineered plants produced 26 percent more biomass than the wild-type plants exposed to the same temperatures, and had 15 percent less yield loss under the higher temperatures.



Video Credit: Amanda Nguyen/University of Illinois



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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.

Designing crops that can beat the heat

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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?

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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

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Today's Video of the Day from <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/goddard">NASA Goddard</a> describes the first comprehensive estimate of carbon density in the Saharan, Sahel, and Sudanian zones of Africa. In an effort to measure the amount of carbon stored across these drylands, a team of scientists used high-resolution satellite images and artificial intelligence to map nearly 10 billion individual trees. 



"The high spatial resolution (50 cm) combined with AI and field measurements used in this study is key to improving tree inventories in drylands," said Pierre Hiernaux, a French researcher working for NASA. "The ever-increasing availability of very high-resolution satellite imagery will make it possible to assess carbon pools and their dynamics at the individual tree level on a global scale."



"This study is exceptional because it is pioneering a type of approach that will revolutionize the monitoring of trees and forests on a global scale: in the short term, it will be possible to map the world's trees from the centre of the Amazon to our schoolyards," said <a href="https://www.inrae.fr/en">INRAE</a> researcher Jean-Pierre Wigneron.



"Many fields of application will become much more efficient and accurate, such as tracking carbon stocks, biodiversity, monitoring logging and protection against illegal forest degradation, in near real time.”



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.

Remote sensing will revolutionize the way we monitor trees

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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://www.nasa.gov/goddard">NASA Goddard</a> features a visual dataset of.methane emissions from wetlands across the globe. Atmospheric methane levels have reached record highs in recent years, and wetlands are a major source of these emissions.&nbsp;



"Methane is an important greenhouse gas that contributes substantially to global warming. On a molecule by molecule basis, methane is much more efficient at trapping heat than carbon dioxide, the main driver of warming," says NASA.



"Though human activities, including agriculture, oil and natural gas production and use, and waste disposal, collectively contribute the majority of methane to the atmosphere, about a third of total methane emissions comes from wetlands."&nbsp;



According to NASA, understanding methane emissions from wetlands and other natural sources is critically important for scientists and policymakers who are working to combat climate change by reducing emissions from human activities.



Video Credit: NASA Goddard



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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.

Wetlands are a major source of methane emissions

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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

[sendtonews key="6HyfrAJTBI-1831843-12187" type="single"] Today’s Video of the Day from the...

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Today’s Video of the Day from <a href="https://www.stowers.org/">Stowers Institute for Medical Research</a> describes why experts are studying zebrafish to gain a better understanding of how the immune system responds to injury. Zebrafish have the ability to repair and regenerate organs.



“Organ regeneration offers an exciting opportunity for studying the immune system and to inquire why some species can regenerate organs like the heart or missing limbs while others like humans cannot,” explained Dr. Tatjana Piotrowski.



Zebrafish sensory organ hair cells are an ideal system to investigate the pathways and cell types involved in regeneration since they are easily destroyed with antibiotics and begin regenerating within five hours. This enabled the researchers to identify the exact timing and genetic programs for each anti-inflammatory macrophage activation state.&nbsp;



“Our hypothesis is that human macrophages do not receive the proper chemical activation 'cocktail' to instruct pro-regenerative processes,” said Dr. Nicolas Denans. “Identifying the molecular recipe of macrophage activation in zebrafish may one day enable us to design regenerative immunotherapies in humans.”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



“The new evidence is a valuable resource for comparative studies on the genetic programs involved in macrophage-mediated repair and regeneration. In other words, different types of injuries may induce different kinds of inflammatory responses. We want to decipher whether this 'language' is universal or if there are a variety of dialects."



Video Credit: Stowers Institute for Medical Research&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.

How the immune system responds to injury

[sendtonews key="0dEcERCq61-2283382-12187" type="single"] Today’s Video of the Day from Stowers...

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Today's Video of the Day from <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/goddard">NASA Goddard</a> describes how record-breaking heat expressed itself around the world in 2022.



Scientists have determined that 2022 was the 5th warmest year since 1880. Furthermore, the last nine consecutive years have been the warmest on record.



From devastating floods and wildfires to natural disasters like Hurricane Ian, 2022 showed us yet again how a warming climate affects people across the globe.&nbsp;



"As we look back at 20:22 and years past, we see that each year we better understand the challenges we face and how important it is to meet them," says NASA.



Video/ Image Credit: NASA Goddard



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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.

2022 illustrated the consequences of a warming climate

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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...