A new biomedical robot measuring just 0.95 millimeters (roughly 0.04 inches) in diameter has captured attention across the medical community. It is 60 percent smaller than similar instruments currently in use and promises more precise, minimally invasive surgery.



The tiny device has been developed at the School of Engineering of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology <a href="https://seng.hkust.edu.hk/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">(HKUST)</a>. The research team was led by Yajing Shen, an associate professor in the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering.



The scientists tackled the challenge of creating a tool that combines ultra-compact size with fine-tuned navigation and various therapeutic functions.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-smaller-robot-with-fewer-surgery-risks">Smaller robot with fewer surgery risks</h2>



The mini-robot can traverse tiny corridors, including those found in the <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/how-the-covid-19-virus-travels-deep-inside-our-lungs/">bronchi of the lungs</a> and the fallopian tubes. Physicians often struggle to deliver interventions in these slender regions, so this petite structure could expand diagnostic and therapeutic possibilities significantly.



It performs tasks such as laser ablation, tissue sampling, and drug delivery at the exact sites that need attention. Researchers see this as a potential method to reduce surgical damage and accelerate patient recovery.



Experts in robotics emphasize that smaller instruments pose fewer risks of injuring sensitive tissues. Delicate pathways can then be probed without large incisions or cumbersome endoscopes that obscure surgical views.



Such a shift could improve doctors’ ability to treat conditions early, particularly in organs with branching passages. <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/new-robot-could-revolutionize-breast-cancer-diagnosis/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Early access</a> often means swift actions and better treatment outcomes.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-tiny-yet-powerful-robot">Tiny yet powerful robot</h2>



This ultra-compact surgical robot features multiple advanced components that work together in one tight layout. An optical fiber assembly captures images, while a microscopic 3D printing process produces a hollow skeleton that holds fibers and tools.



The engineers have coated it using a special magnetic spray technique, such that a functionalized skin is formed. This allows magnetic steering from outside the patient, which gives physicians a non-invasive way to guide the device.



A thin, gel layer covers the exterior to decrease friction and ensure smooth travel of the robot through winding channels. All of these steps aim to keep the robot tiny yet powerful.



At less than 0.04 inches across, it fits into places that many clinicians have never been able to reach with standard instruments, thus addressing a longstanding problem in surgical technology.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-endoscopic-images-and-surgical-precision">Endoscopic images and surgical precision</h2>



In addition to its petite form, the <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-55199-6" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">device</a> achieves approximately 30 micrometers of positional accuracy. This level of control helps surgeons target precise spots without straying into surrounding tissues.



Along with its accuracy, the robot detects blockages at distances up to about 9.4 millimeters (0.37 inches). This figure is roughly a tenfold increase over older endoscopic robots, which often fell short when navigating or scanning for obstructions.



In addition, a broad field of view - around 25 times larger than some conventional systems - lets doctors gather detailed images from a single vantage point. This is particularly useful in branching areas where strong visual feedback is needed to prevent collisions or misplacements.



Such imaging and obstacle detection capacities are crucial when weaving through body structures that branch unpredictably. Enhanced awareness can give physicians more confidence in exploring these obscure regions.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-lab-evaluations-and-real-tissue-tests">Lab evaluations and real tissue tests</h2>



The researchers assessed the robot in <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/in-vitro-studies#:~:text=In%20vitro%20studies%20in%20experimental,From%3A%20Animal%20Biotechnology%2C%202014" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">in vitro studies</a> of <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34547790/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">bronchial networks</a>, and confirmed smooth motion control. They then tested it on extracted pig lungs, and found it could gather images and perform minor treatments where standard scopes struggle.



“Small-scale continuum robots hold promise for interventional diagnosis and treatment, yet existing models often struggle with compactness, precise navigation, and visualized functional treatment all in one,” said Professor Shen.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-opportunities-for-specialized-treatments">Opportunities for specialized treatments</h2>



<a href="https://www.earth.com/news/new-blood-test-diagnoses-heart-attacks-in-minutes-not-hours/">Early detection</a> often means better outcomes for patients. By traveling into narrow organ branches, doctors might detect infections, tumors, or other anomalies that were previously difficult to reach.



With local drug delivery, the therapy remains concentrated in the area of the target, thus sparing the rest of the body from unnecessary exposure. Such specificity may reduce medication dosages and side effects.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-reducing-surgical-burdens">Reducing surgical burdens</h2>



Smaller incisions generally mean less pain, lower infection risk, and quicker healing. The robot could decrease surgery trauma by limiting how much tissue is moved or cut.



Once inside, it can complete multiple tasks in one session, limiting the need for additional procedures. This efficiency could save time for patients and clinics alike.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-path-to-clinical-acceptance">Path to clinical acceptance</h2>



The research team hopes to conduct <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/in-vivo-studies" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">in vivo studies</a> next. They aim to confirm whether the robot can navigate real physiological conditions with the same level of agility.



“We aim to further optimize the design and control of the fiberscopic robot, prioritizing safety and reliability during interventional surgery,” said Dr. Zhang Tieshan, a postdoctoral fellow at HKUST. 



Fine-tuning the technology will help doctors integrate it seamlessly into everyday practice.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-testing-the-robot-for-surgery">Testing the robot for surgery</h2>



In the long-term, experts predict that more integrated features could be added, such as advanced imaging modes, automated motion guidance and specialized accessories. 



These extra elements could expand the range of possible interventions without increasing the robot's size.



Any improvements would, however, have to undergo careful testing to confirm they are <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/nanotech-material-graphene-passes-human-safety-tests/">safe for human use</a>.



Progress in material science and software development could also improve durability, navigation algorithms, and data processing. If tests results match the early promise, hospitals may adopt these tools to enhance their standards of care.



The study is published in <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-55199-6" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Nature Communications</a>.



-----



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World's smallest robot could transform minimally invasive surgery

A new biomedical robot measuring just 0.95 millimeters (roughly 0.04 inches) in diameter has captured attention across the medical community. It is 60 percent smaller than similar instruments currently in use and promises more precise, minimally invasive surgery. The tiny device has been developed at the School of Engineering of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). The research team was led by Yajing Shen, an associate professor in the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering. The scientists tackled the challenge of creating a tool...

The turquoise waters became darker and darker, and squiggly glow-in-dark marine creatures began to glide past in the inky depths like ghosts.
The three-man submarine went down, down, down into the abyss and drew within sight of something no human had ever laid eyes on: Cook seamount, a 13,000-foot extinct volcano at the bottom of the sea.
Scientists aboard the vessel Pisces V visited the volcano earlier this month to examine its geological features and its rich variety of marine life, and an Associated Press reporter was given exclusive access to the dive. It was the first-ever expedition to the Cook seamount by a manned submersible.
Among other things, the researchers from the University of Hawaii and the nonprofit group Conservation International spotted such wonders as a rare type of octopus with big fins that look like Dumbo's ears, and a potentially new species of violet-hued coral they dubbed Purple Haze.
Conservation International hopes to study 50 seamounts, or undersea volcanoes, over the next five years.
"We don't know anything about the ocean floor," said Peter Seligmann, chairman, CEO and co-founder of Conservation International. "What we know is that each one of those seamounts is a refuge for new species, but we don't know what they are. We don't know how they've evolved. We don't know what lessons they have for us."


[caption id="attachment_87187" align="alignleft" width="150"]<img class="size-thumbnail wp-image-87187" src="http://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/cook-seamount-volcano-pisces-v-vessel_1big_ap-150x150.jpg" alt="The Pisces IV submersible at the Cook seamount undersea volcano" width="150" height="150" /> The Pisces IV submersible at the Cook seamount undersea volcano[/caption]
During the Sept. 6 dive, the submarine splashed into the water, and as it dove, the only sounds were radio communications from the surface, the hum of an air scrubber that removes carbon monoxide from the passenger chamber, and the voices of the crew. The thick, hot tropical air inside the steel sphere became cooler and drier as the submarine descended.
"We don't know what we're going to find," said Conservation International's Greg Stone, a marine biologist on board. "There will always be the unexpected when you go into the deep ocean."
Halfway to the volcano's summit, which is 3,000 feet below the surface of the Pacific, no sunlight penetrated. The only light that could be seen from the submarine's face-sized windows was the bluish glow of the vessel's own bright lights. Occasionally, bioluminescent creatures drifted past in the darkness.
Stone and subpilot Terry Kerby, who helps run the Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory at the University of Hawaii, watched as the volcano and its rugged basalt walls hundreds of yards high came into view.
Seamounts are either active or dormant volcanoes that rise dramatically from the bottom of the ocean and never reach the surface. They are hotspots for marine life because they carry nutrient-rich water upward from the sea floor. Seamounts are believed to cover about 18 million square miles of the planet.
Cook, situated over 100 miles southwest of Hawaii's Big Island, is part of a group of undersea volcanoes known as the Geologist Seamounts that are about 80 million years old and could hold many new animal species, as well as elements such as nickel and cobalt that mining companies could extract.
"My goal today is to ... find out what's living on them, find out how they support ocean life, what their effect is from ocean currents and essentially what drives the ocean, what makes the ocean what it is," Stone said. "Seamounts are a key part of that, and something which humanity knows very little about."


[caption id="attachment_87189" align="alignleft" width="150"]<img class="size-thumbnail wp-image-87189" src="http://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/cook-seamount-volcano-undersea_2big_ap-150x150.jpg" alt="Cook seamount undersea volcano expedition" width="150" height="150" /> Cook seamount undersea volcano expedition[/caption]
Within minutes of the vessel's arrival at the summit, life began to appear - a starfish clinging to a rock, joined shortly after by eels, sharks, chimaera (also known as "ghost sharks"), shrimp, crabs and two rare Dumbo octopuses. One of the octopuses changed color from white to pink to reddish brown as it swam by.
Several types of deep-sea corals were found along the seamount's cliffs, including a vibrant purple one.
"I need to go home, look through the literature ... and also go and run some genetic analyses," said Sonia Rowley, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Hawaii who is taking part in the project. "But as this is a new seamount ... that no one had dived on before, it won't be any surprise to me whether this is going to be a new species."
Two other seamounts were studied over three days of expeditions: McCall, home to a large number of small deep-sea sharks, and Lo'ihi, an active volcano.
Lo'Ihi has been extensively surveyed by manned submersibles over the past 30 years. The past few times Kerby was there, he saw a large Pacific sleeper shark lurking about the volcano's crater.
As hot vents shot out volcanic gases around them, the team released bait in the water and the 7-foot shark appeared in front of the submarine. Kerby was delighted to see his "old friend."
The team also saw 6-foot eels and a number of new geological formations around the crater. Scientists say Lo'ihi is likely to someday become the newest island in the Hawaii chain as volcanic activity pushes the summit upward.
---
Find more stories by AP's Caleb Jones at <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/journalist/caleb-jones.">http://bigstory.ap.org/journalist/caleb-jones.</a> Follow Jones on Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/CalebAP">https://twitter.com/CalebAP</a>
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Scientists visit Cook seamount undersea volcano

The turquoise waters became darker and darker, and squiggly glow-in-dark...

The sea ice cover of the Arctic Ocean and surrounding seas helps regulate the planet’s temperature, influences the circulation of the atmosphere and ocean, and impacts Arctic communities and ecosystems. Arctic sea ice shrinks every year during the spring and summer until it reaches its minimum yearly extent. Sea ice regrows during the frigid fall and winter months, when the sun is below the horizon in the Arctic.

This summer, the melt of Arctic sea ice surprised scientists by changing pace several times. The melt season began with a record low yearly maximum extent in March and a rapid ice loss through May. But in June and July, low atmospheric pressures and cloudy skies slowed down the melt. Then, after two large storms went across the Arctic basin in August, sea ice melt picked up speed through early September.

“It’s pretty remarkable that this year’s sea ice minimum extent ended up the second lowest, after how the melt progressed in June and July,” said Walt Meier, a sea ice scientist with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. “June and July are usually key months for melt because that’s when you have 24 hours a day of sunlight – and this year we lost melt momentum during those two months.”

But in August, two very strong cyclones crossed the Arctic Ocean along the Siberian coast. These storms didn’t have as much of an immediate impact on the sea ice as the great cyclone of 2012, but in late August and early September there was “a pretty fast ice loss in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas that might be a delayed effect from the storms,” Meier said.

[caption id="attachment_87184" align="alignleft" width="150"]<img class="size-thumbnail wp-image-87184" src="http://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/arctic-sea-ice-minimum-2016_1big_nasa-150x150.jpg" alt="Arctic sea ice minimum, 2016" width="150" height="150" /> Arctic sea ice minimum, 2016[/caption]

Meier also said that decades ago, the melt season would slow down by the middle of August, when the sun starts setting in the Arctic.

“In the past, we had this remaining sea ice pack that was mostly thick, old ice. But now everything is more jumbled up, which makes it less resistant to melt, so even late in the season you can get weather conditions that give it a final kick,” Meier said.

Arctic sea ice cover has not fared well during other months of the year either. A recently published study that ranked 37 years of monthly sea ice extents in the Arctic and Antarctic found that there has not been a record high in Arctic sea ice extents in any month since 1986. During that same time period, there have been 75 new record lows.

“When you think of the temperature records, it’s common to hear the statement that even when temperatures are increasing, you do expect a record cold here or there every once in a while,” said Claire Parkinson, main author of the study and a senior climate scientist at Goddard. “To think that in this record of Arctic sea ice that goes back to the late 1970s, since 1986 there hasn’t been a single record high in any month of the year, and yet, over that same period, there have been 75 record lows. It’s just an incredible contrast.”

“It is definitely not just September that’s losing sea ice. The record makes it clear that the ice is not rebounding to where it used to be, even in the midst of the winter,” Parkinson said.

Parkinson’s analysis, which spans from 1979 to 2015 found that in the Antarctic, where the trends are toward more rather than less sea ice, there have only been six record monthly record lows after 1986, and 45 record highs.

“The Antarctic numbers are pretty amazing, except when you compare them with the Arctic’s, which are much more amazing,” Parkinson said.

---

<a href="http://www.nasa.gov" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NASA</a>

Arctic sea ice cover hits second lowest level in history

The sea ice cover of the Arctic Ocean and surrounding...

Fishermen in New England say President Barack Obama needlessly dealt a big blow to their industry when he created the Atlantic Ocean's first marine national monument and circumvented the existing process for protecting fisheries.
The new Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument consists of nearly 5,000 square miles of underwater canyons and mountains off the New England coast. The designation will close the area to commercial fishermen, who go there primarily for lobster, red crab, squid, whiting, butterfish, swordfish and tuna.
After Thursday's announcement, fishermen pondered their next move: sue, lobby Congress to change the plan or relocate. It's hard to move, they said, because other fishermen would likely already be fishing where they would want to go.
They said the designation process wasn't transparent and the administration should have let the New England Fishery Management Council, which is charged with regulating the region's fisheries, finish working on the coral protection measures it's considering.
"There seems to be a huge misconception that there are limitless areas where displaced fishermen can go," said Grant Moore, president of the Atlantic Offshore Lobstermen's Association. "Basically with the stroke of a pen, President Obama put fishermen and their crews out of work and harmed all the shore-side businesses that support the fishing industry."
The lobstermen's association and other fishermen wanted the White House to allow fishing in depths of up to 450 meters (1,476 feet), so they could still go there but still protect deep-sea corals. Annually, about 800,000 pounds (362,877 kilograms) of lobster are caught near the canyons, according to the lobstermen's association.
White House officials said the administration listened to industry's concerns and made the monument smaller, with a seven-year transition period for the lobster and red crab industries.
Industry advocate Robert Vanasse said it's clear the plan will lead to a decrease in supply and raises prices. It's difficult to gauge the economic impact this early, added Vanasse, executive director of Saving Seafood.
A lobsterman in Newport, Rhode Island, wants Congress to act. One of Bill Palombo's three boats catches lobster exclusively in the monument area. If nothing changes within seven years, Palombo said, "I guess you just go out of business."
"What can you do?" he said. "That's why we're so upset."
Palombo and others questioned why, if the area is considered pristine and fishermen have been going there for decades, can't fishing continue?
The designation was widely praised by environmentalists as a way to sustain important species and reduce the toll of climate change.
Priscilla Brooks, of the Conservation Law Foundation, said it's a "very small area" compared to what's currently open to fishing. She said the White House struck a balance so there would be a "soft landing" for the industry, with seven years to phase out fishing.
"The fishing activities taking place in the monument aren't compatible with the protection of vulnerable marine life," she said.
Brad Sewell, of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said fishing gear has been seen on top of coral and has entangled marine mammals. He worries these problems will worsen over time as fishing gear reaches deeper.
"You want to protect an area like this is when it's relatively pristine," he said. "The time to do it is now, not wait until the damage is done."
Affected fishermen formed the Southern Georges Bank Fishing Coalition on Wednesday to oppose the monument. Coalition attorney Drew Minkiewicz said the president doesn't have the authority to use the American Antiquities Act to declare a marine monument far offshore and Congress granted the right to protect these areas to the federally mandated fisheries councils that manage them.
"For people who live and work on the water, this is terrifying," he said. "This is the government using eminent domain on your workplace."
Minkiewicz wouldn't say whether the coalition plans to sue.
The New England Fishery Management Council said it needs to reassess its management strategy given the new developments. Mary Beth Tooley, a council member from Maine, said the public process used by the council "is the way it should be done" and she's disappointed it was circumvented.
Eric Reid, general manager of a seafood processing facility in Rhode Island, knows more than 20 boats that fish in the area covered by the monument.
"If they can't get fish, I'm not in the processing business," said Reid, of Seafreeze Shoreside Inc.
Reid said Obama, who leaves office in January, will deal with the intended and unintended consequences of his decision for the rest of his term, while fishermen have to live with them forever.
© 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

Fishermen upset over creation of Atlantic Ocean marine national monument

Fishermen in New England say President Barack Obama needlessly dealt...

The European Union has admitted Indonesia to a special licensing system it hopes will prevent the illegally felled tropical timber that makes up a substantial part of the country's wood production from being shipped to the 28-nation bloc.
The EU said Thursday that Indonesia is the first country to qualify for the licenses. It will mean that traders of goods such as wooden furniture, plywood and paper that earn the certification will find it easier to do business with Europe.
But some environmental and civil society groups are already concerned the licensing system could become a conduit for illegal timber from a country where tropical forests are being cut down at an epic rate.
The EU has been trying to implement its timber system internationally for over a decade and over the same time Indonesia has developed its own legal wood verification scheme that has become a key part of its admission to the EU's program.
"We do believe the system is credible," said Charles-Michel Geurts, deputy head of the EU mission to Indonesia, who emphasized the lengthy process to establish it reflected substantial effort in countering deep-seated problems in Indonesia's forestry industry. "But today is the start date, not the finish."
Indonesia has struggled for years to combat illegal logging that destroys the tropical forest habitat of unique animal species and deprives the government of significant revenue that could be used to improve basic services for a largely poor population of more than 250 million.
A study by the country's anti-corruption commission estimated that the commercial value of undeclared logging amounted to $60.7 billion to $81.4 billion between 2003 and 2014. The study released in October last year said official statistics on timber production capture less than a quarter of what is cut down.
Fires deliberately set by agricultural conglomerates and small-time farmers to clear forests and peatland for plantations also contribute to deforestation and are responsible for the unhealthy haze that chokes a swathe of Indonesia and neighboring countries each year.
Under the EU system, Indonesia will be able to issue the special licenses to producers using timber that it believes complies with environmental, social and economic laws. Third party certifiers issue the licenses and the overall process will be monitored by environmental groups. Indonesia will be able to issue the licenses from Nov. 15, the EU announced Thursday.
Christopher Barr, executive director of Woods &amp; Wayside International, said a "critical weakness" of Indonesia's timber verification system is that it largely focuses on administrative compliance and falls short in the area of field checks, including surprise inspections, to ensure logs are harvested from fully legal areas.
The system was designed to audit timber from selective forestry concessions but in the past decade increased volumes of wood have been produced through the clearing of forests for palm oil and pulpwood plantations and other uses, he said.
<img class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-87168" src="http://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/deforestation-tropical-rainforest_1big_stock-150x150.jpg" alt="deforestation-tropical-rainforest_1big_stock" width="150" height="150" />Lafcadio Cortesi, Asia director of the Rainforest Action Network, said it may be premature for the EU to create a "green lane" that expedites the export of Indonesian timber and timber products.
Deforestation in Indonesia often goes hand in hand with human rights violations such as companies grabbing the traditional lands of communities, he said.
The scale of illegal and unreported logging in Indonesia could be beyond the scope of civil society groups and others to effectively monitor and when violations are identified, the process for dealing with them is cumbersome and lengthy, he said.
"There is not adequate capacity in the system," said Cortesi. "The government has had to contract out auditing."
Earlier this month, a palm oil company held captive seven officials from the Ministry of Environment and Forestry who had visited its plantation as part of an investigation into forest fires.
Mardi Minangsari from the Independent Forest Monitoring Network, which is involved in checking companies' compliance with legal timber requirements, said the system is not perfect but can be refined and improved.
The environment and forestry ministry has demonstrated its commitment to reform with more than a decade of effort to tackle the illegal timber crisis, she said.
A potential loophole stems from the wood furniture industry in Java, which comprises many small-scale producers who use wood from private forests that can be as small as a hectare or two, and get less scrutiny. Larger companies could abuse that by representing products as coming from small producers, Minangsari said.
"Implementation is the biggest challenge," she said. "If the government is not really hands on, they can blame the third party certifiers" for any failures.
Europe is already an important market for Indonesian wood, buying about a third of its tropical timber shipments and more than a tenth of its paper and other timber products.
A study in the journal Nature Climate Change estimated that by 2012, Indonesia was clearing 840,000 hectares of forests a year, more than any other country.
In 2014, it renewed a moratorium on new licenses for logging in virgin forests but deforestation has continued largely unabated.
---
Follow Stephen Wright: www.twitter.com/<a href="https://twitter.com/stephenwrightAP">stephenwrightAP</a>
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European Union works to save tropical timber in Indonesia

The European Union has admitted Indonesia to a special licensing...

The world’s population is expected to soar by 2.5 billion people by 2050, bringing a host of global challenges – including how to feed so many hungry mouths.

If projections hold, the global demand for animal protein will double over the next four decades, rising along with pressure to find ecologically sustainable food production practices.

Could farmed fish save the day? Just maybe, says UC Santa Barbara’s Steve Gaines. He and his team looked at wild-caught fish, farmed fish and land-based farming to assess the most viable long-term options.

The surprise: Fish farming floated above the rest for ecologic and economic reasons.

But there’s one big catch: Aquaculture has gotten a bad rap with American consumers.

“I meet people all the time who say, ‘I will only eat wild fish because aquaculture is bad,’” said Gaines, dean of the Bren School of Environmental Science &amp; Management at UC Santa Barbara.

Gaines has been working to change minds about aquaculture, speaking at conferences around the country like this week’s Monterey Bay Aquarium Sustainable Foods Institute.

While some forms of aquaculture can harm the environment, others have a much lower impact, especially when compared to raising livestock – and in some cases even compare favorably to an entirely vegetarian diet, he said.

“The analysis shocked us. It completely changed my perspective,” Gaines said. “There are some really bad ways to do aquaculture, but if you look at best practices, they are dramatically better than any production on land. In many cases, it’s 50 to 100 times higher environmental impact to produce on land than in the ocean.”

Limits of wild fish

As part of UC’s Global Food Initiative, Gaines and his team analyzed global fish stocks. They found that increasing the productivity of wild-caught fish would only meet 5 to 10 percent of global demand.

They compared land-based options such as goats and sheep and were floored to find that feeding the 2050 world population would require converting the equivalent of 75 percent of South America into new food production. When they penciled the numbers, aquaculture surprisingly surfaced to the top.

The life-cycle assessment took into account such things as the area used for food production and the cost of feed and fuel and how they impact greenhouse gases.

The lowest environmental impact came from unfed aquaculture such as clams, mussels, oysters and seaweed, which can grow without being fed fish meal.

Farmed salmon, trout and other fish that require feeding have a higher environmental impact, Gaines said, but that impact will likely be reduced in coming years as researchers find better ways to feed fish, including developing food from bacteria and yeast.

“We should be encouraging the best sustainable practices in aquaculture,” Gaines said.

Aquaculture rising

Currently, meat is the largest source of animal protein consumed globally, accounting for more than two-thirds of the total. Fish consumption has increased since 1980, and the mix of farmed versus wild-caught fish also has changed. Aquaculture now accounts for nearly half of all seafood, up from just 10 percent in 1980. By 2030, aquaculture is projected to provide close to two-thirds of global fish consumption, with Asia accounting for the bulk of that. The fastest growing types of farmed fish are expected to be tilapia, carp and catfish.

“There’s not enough wild fish to feed us all,” said Ryan Bigelow, program engagement manager for the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch, which helps consumers and businesses choose seafood that’s caught or farmed sustainably. “There’s no scenario where aquaculture is not part of our food future. If we’re going to do it, we should do it well. There are good options out there.”

Scaling up solutions

To prepare for the shift, UC Santa Barbara’s Sustainable Aquaculture Research Center is helping to develop environmentally sound solutions for fish farming around the world, and looking at the policy shifts that could support it.

In California, the center is working with fish farmers and legislators to advance offshore and onshore marine aquaculture, with the goal of identifying best practices and minimizing environmental impacts.

In Mexico, the center is collaborating with others to assess the feasibility of enhancing populations of the totoaba (large sea bass) and Catarina scallop through aquaculture.

The center also is working with UC San Diego researchers to compare the ecological and human health effects of different aquaculture habitats (offshore, coastal, land-based) and what this might mean for the development and regulation of aquaculture in California and globally.

Meanwhile, Gaines and his colleagues aren’t ignoring wild fisheries. Indeed, UC Santa Barbara is partnering with others to preserve the sustainable health of fisheries from Maine to Mozambique.

A UC Santa Barbara-Columbia University study found that factoring in climate variability may enable fishery managers to protect New England cod stocks from future collapse.

In another example, UC Santa Barbara is partnering with the Environmental Defense Fund and Rare on Fish Forever, which is empowering small-scale fishers in coastal communities of Belize, Brazil, Indonesia, Mozambique and the Philippines to sustainably manage their fisheries.

“Find out what works and scale that,” Gaines said. “If you fix fisheries, you catch more fish and you make more money.”

---

<a href="http://universityofcalifornia.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">University of California</a>

Can farmed fish solve the world's food problem?

The world’s population is expected to soar by 2.5 billion...

President Barack Obama said Thursday that creating the Atlantic Ocean's first marine national monument was a needed response to dangerous climate change, ocean dead zones and unsustainable fishing practices.
The new Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument consists of nearly 5,000 square miles of underwater canyons and mountains off the New England coast. It's the 27th time that Obama has created or enlarged a national monument.
"If we're going to leave our children with oceans like the ones that were left to us, then we're going to have to act and we're going to have to act boldly," Obama said at a State Department conference. More than 20 countries represented at the meeting were also announcing the creation of their own marine protected areas.
Monument designations come with restrictions on certain activities. The White House said the designation will lead to a ban on commercial fishing, mining and drilling, though a seven-year exception will occur for the lobster and red crab industries. Recreational fishing will be allowed within the monument.
Supporters of the new monument say protecting large swaths of ocean from human stresses can sustain important species and reduce the toll of climate change. Fishermen worry it will become harder for them to earn a living as a result of Obama's move.
"We've been fishing out there for 35 years. It's a big blow to us," said Jon Williams, president of the Atlantic Red Crab Company in New Bedford, Massachusetts.
White House officials said the administration listened to industry's concerns, and noted the monument is smaller than originally proposed and contains a transition period for companies like Williams'.
Williams said his company will survive, but the changes designed to address some of his concerns don't sway him about the merits of the monument.
"I think the entire New England fishery is upside down over this," Williams said.
Obama said the world was asking too much of its oceans. He said the investments the U.S. and other nations were taking with new marine protected areas were vital for their economy and national security, but "also vital to our spirit."
"We cannot truly protect our planet without protecting our oceans," Obama said.
In all, the Atlantic Ocean monument will include three underwater canyons deeper than the Grand Canyon and four underwater mountains. It is home to such protected species as the sperm, fin and sei whales, and Kemp's ridley turtles. Expeditions also have found species of coral found nowhere else on earth.
Environmental groups pushed the effort to designate the new monument and sought to make the case it was as important to be good stewards of the ocean as it was the land and air.
"Just as wild lands around the globe are beleaguered by human development and climate change, our oceans are under duress today more than ever before," said Jamie Williams, president of The Wilderness Society.
---
On Twitter, reach Kevin Freking at <a href="https://twitter.com/APkfreking">https://twitter.com/APkfreking</a>
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Obama: Oceans are key to protecting Earth from climate change

President Barack Obama said Thursday that creating the Atlantic Ocean's...

In the Earth's oceans these days, the bigger a species is, the more prone it is to die off. That's unheard of in the long history of mass extinctions, a new study finds.
As subfamilies of marine animal species - called genera - grow larger in body size, the likelihood of them being classified as threatened with extinction increases by an even greater amount, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/">Science</a> . In past extinctions, smaller creatures were more prone to die off, or size didn't matter, said study lead author Jonathan Payne, a paleobiologist at Stanford University.
Almost none of the genera that have species averaging 0.4 inches (1 centimeter) long are threatened with extinction, But 23 percent of those that are 3.9 inches (10 centimeters) are threatened, 40 percent of those that are 39 inches (1 meter) are endangered and 86 percent of those that are 32.8 feet (10 meters) are vulnerable, Payne said.
These are species that are not extinct yet, but are on the respected Red Listof threatened and endangered species created by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.
"The proportion of species that are threatened increases enormously as body size increases," Payne said.
Take the blue whale , not only the largest living animal, stretching close to 100 feet long, but the largest to ever have existed, Payne said. It's on the IUCN endangered list and has lost as much as 90 percent of its population in the last three generations, according to the IUCN.
On the other end of the spectrum is a grouping of fish, bioluminescent bristlemouths , that are about three inches long. They are the most abundant creatures with a backbone; the population is estimated to be in the trillions.
Payne compared fossil records, looked at past mass extinctions and compared them to current threats, concentrating on 264 genera that have the best modern and ancient records. Payne concentrated on oceans, where the fossil records are better over time. The mass extinction 65 million years ago that killed off the dinosaurs didn't kill off bigger marine species at higher rates than smaller ones, unlike what's happening now, Payne said.
The study "shows us how unusual this crisis of biodiversity we have right now," said Boris Worm, a top marine scientist at Dalhousie University in Canada. He wasn't part of the study but praised it. "We have had mass extinctions before. This one is totally different than what has happened before."
Worm spoke from a break during research in Canada's Bay of Fundy, where after a more-than-20-year career he finally saw his first underwater right whale and basking shark .
"They are both in trouble and both among the largest of their kind," Worm said.
Payne's study didn't try to explain why larger animals were more threatened, but both he and Worm point to one main suspect: humans. Mostly through fishing and hunting, but also through environmental degradation such as warmer and more acidic oceans, humans have made it tougher for the biggest marine animals to survive, they said.
Catherine Novelli, the U.S. undersecretary of state for environment, said a world oceans conference that starts Thursday in Washington, will see the announcement of "many more" areas where nations set aside large areas of the seas where animals are protected and fishing is prohibited.
Duke University biologist Stuart Pimm also praised the study as both compelling and disturbing because "even if some species do hang on, we have massively changed the ecology of much of the oceans."
Payne said there is still hope, since these species haven't gone extinct yet. He points to northern elephant seals which had a population below 100 in the early 1910s, but are now more than 100,000 strong. But they are the exception.
"It pains you to the core to know that these animals might be gone in a generation or two," Worm said. "You can't imagine a world without them. It's such an important and beautiful part of our planet."
---
Online:
Science: <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/">http://www.sciencemag.org</a>
---
Follow Seth Borenstein at http://twitter.com/borenbears and his work can be found at <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/content/seth-borenstein">http://bigstory.ap.org/content/seth-borenstein</a>
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Bigger species are more threatened in Earth's oceans

In the Earth's oceans these days, the bigger a species...

Most Americans are willing to pay a little more each month to fight global warming - but only a tiny bit, according to a new poll. Still, environmental policy experts hail that as a hopeful sign.
Seventy-one percent want the federal government to do something about global warming, including 6 percent who think the government should act even though they are not sure that climate change is happening, according to a poll conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago.
And those polled said they'd be willing to foot a little of that cost in higher electric bills.
If the cost of fighting climate change is only an additional $1 a month, 57 percent of Americans said they would support that. But as that fee goes up, support for it plummets. At $10 a month, 39 percent were in favor and 61 percent opposed. At $20 a month, the public is more than 2-to-1 against it. And only 1-in-5 would support $50 a month.
"I feel we need to make small sacrifices - and money is a small sacrifice - to make life better for future generations, " said Sarah Griffin, a 63-year-old retired teacher in central Pennsylvania. "Surely I have enough money to spend on something that's worthwhile."
Greg Davis, a 27-year-old post-graduate student in Columbus, Ohio, agreed: "It's far more important to protect the environment than to save money. I think that's true for businesses as well as individuals."
That a majority is willing to pay more is a new phenomenon, said Tom Dietz, professor of sociology and environmental science and policy at Michigan State University.
"While the amounts may seem small, the willingness to take action, even if there are some out-of-pocket costs, is encouraging," Dietz said in an email.
Dana Fisher, director of the Program for Society and the Environment at the University of Maryland, said it's noteworthy that a majority was "willing to pay at all," and added that the levels of support for $10 a month and $20 a month are significant.
But so was the opposition to higher costs.
James Osadzinski, 52 of Rockford, Illinois, said simply: "I have a set budget. I don't have the money," while for 26-year-old nurse Marina Shertzer of Pensacola, Florida, it doesn't make sense because she doesn't see climate change as a threat, but something cyclical and normal.
Of those polled, 77 percent said climate change is happening, 13 percent weren't sure, and only 10 percent said it wasn't happening.
There remains a partisan divide in how Americans view climate change. While 84 percent of Democrats and 55 percent of independents view global warming as a fact and a problem that the government needs to address, only 43 percent for Republicans agree. And 18 percent of Republicans said they think climate change is happening but don't think the government should address the issue.
Slightly more than half of Americans - 54 percent - said they approved of Obama administration rules to cut pollution from coal power plants, the biggest emitter of heat-trapping carbon dioxide. When the question also mentions that thousands of jobs may be eliminated while reducing coal use by one-third, only 45 percent favor the policy; 29 percent are opposed.
Last December, 190 nations in the world signed an agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Two-thirds of those polled were at least moderately confident that the United States could meet its obligations. But about the same number of Americans weren't that sure that China - the No. 1 polluter - and India could meet their goals.
Davis, the Ohio student, wasn't very optimistic about the future
"I think as the younger generation starts displacing the older people, I think we'll get somewhere," he said. "But I'm afraid that may be too late."
The AP-NORC poll of 1,096 adults was conducted Aug. 11-14 using a sample drawn from NORC's probability-based AmeriSpeak panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.6 percentage points.
The survey was paid for by the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago.
Respondents were first selected randomly using address-based sampling methods, and later interviewed online or by phone.
---
AP Polling Editor Emily Swanson contributed to this report.
---
Online:
AP-NORC Center: <a href="http://www.apnorc.org/">http://www.apnorc.org/</a>
---
Follow Seth Borenstein at <a href="http://twitter.com/borenbears">http://twitter.com/borenbears</a> and his work can be found at<a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/content/seth-borenstein">http://bigstory.ap.org/content/seth-borenstein</a>
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Poll: Americans will tolerate higher bills to fight global warming

Most Americans are willing to pay a little more each...

Polar bears are among the animals most affected by the seasonal and year-to-year decline in Arctic sea ice extent, because they rely on sea ice for essential activities such as hunting, traveling and breeding.

A new study by University of Washington researchers, funded by NASA and using satellite data from NASA and other agencies, found a trend toward earlier sea ice melt in the spring and later ice growth in the fall across all 19 polar bear subpopulations, which can negatively impact the feeding and breeding capabilities of the bears. The paper, published on Sept. 14 in the journal The Cryosphere, is the first to quantify the sea ice changes in each polar bear subpopulation across the entire Arctic region using metrics that are specifically relevant to polar bear biology.

"This study shows declining sea ice for all subpopulations of polar bears," said co-author Harry Stern, a researcher with the University of Washington's Polar Science Center in Seattle.

The analysis shows that the critical timing of the sea ice break-up and sea ice freeze-up is changing in all areas in a direction that is harmful for polar bears.

“Other researchers have used the satellite-derived sea ice data to look at how the sea ice extent in a particular place is changing in a particular month. But for us the important thing was the timing of the retreat of sea ice in the spring and its advance in the fall, for all 19 polar bear subpopulations,” Stern said.

Nineteen separate polar bear subpopulations live throughout the Arctic, spending their winters and springs roaming on sea ice and hunting. The bears have evolved mainly to eat seals, which provide necessary fats and nutrients in the harsh Arctic environment. Polar bears can't outswim their prey, so instead they perch on the ice as a platform and ambush seals at breathing holes or break through the ice to access their dens.

"Sea ice really is their platform for life," said co-author Kristin Laidre, a researcher at the UW's Polar Science Center. "They are capable of existing on land for part of the year, but the sea ice is where they obtain their main prey."

[caption id="attachment_87150" align="alignleft" width="150"]<img class="size-thumbnail wp-image-87150" src="http://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/sea-ice-melt-polar-bears_1big_nasa-150x150.jpg" alt="Three adult polar bears travel across sea ice in southeast Greenland." width="150" height="150" /> Three adult polar bears travel across sea ice in southeast Greenland.[/caption]

The new study draws upon 35 years of satellite data showing sea ice concentration each day in the Arctic. NASA scientists process the data, stored at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado.

The center also reports each fall the yearly minimum low for Arctic sea ice. This August saw the fourth lowest in the satellite record and the September minimum extent is likely headed to its second lowest level in the record.

In 17 of the 19 polar bear subpopulations, the researchers found that the total number of ice-covered days declined at the rate of seven to 19 days per decade between 1979 and 2014. The decline was even greater in the Barents Sea and the Arctic basin. Sea ice concentration during the summer months — an important measure because summertime is when some subpopulations are forced to fast on land — also declined in all regions, by 1 percent to 9 percent per decade.

The most striking result, researchers said, is the consistent trend across all polar bear regions for an earlier spring ice melt and a later fall freeze-up. Arctic sea ice retreats in the springtime as daylight reappears and temperatures warm. In the fall months the ice sheets build again as temperatures drop.

"These spring and fall transitions bound the period when there is good ice habitat available for bears to feed," Laidre said. "Those periods are also tied to the breeding season when bears find mates, and when females come out of their maternity dens with very small cubs and haven't eaten for months."

The researchers found that on average, spring melting was three to nine days earlier per decade, and fall freeze-up was three to nine days later per decade. Over the 35 years of Arctic sea ice satellite data. that corresponds to a roughly 3-and-a-half-week shift at either end — and seven weeks of total loss of good sea ice habitat for polar bears.

"We expect that if the trends continue, compared with today, polar bears will experience another six to seven weeks of ice-free periods by mid-century," Stern said.

The trend appears to be linear and isn't accelerating or leveling off, Stern added.

The study's results currently are used by the Polar Bear Specialist Group, part of the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Species Survival Commission. . The Polar Bear Specialist Group used the sea ice metric as a measure of polar bear habitat in the IUCN Red List assessment of polar bears, which assesses the conservation status of polar bears. The researchers plan to update their findings each year as new ice coverage data are available.

"It's nice to see this work being used in high-level conservation goals," Laidre said.

“This NASA-funded work is an excellent example of the use satellite imagery to understand the distribution and abundance of an Arctic keystone species, with the added benefit of providing vital information to those charged with managing polar bear populations globally,” said Woody Turner, the Program Scientist for Biological Diversity and Program Manager for Ecological Forecasting in the NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.

The study was funded by NASA and the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources.

---

<a href="http://www.nasa.gov" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NASA</a>

Polar bears are facing shorter sea ice season

Polar bears are among the animals most affected by the...

A NASA airborne mission designed to transform our understanding of Earth's valuable and ecologically sensitive coral reefs has set up shop in Australia for a two-month investigation of the Great Barrier Reef, the world's largest reef ecosystem.

At a media briefing today at Cairns Airport in North Queensland, Australia, scientists from NASA's COral Reef Airborne Laboratory (CORAL) mission and their Australian collaborators discussed the mission's objectives and the new insights they expect to glean into the present condition of the Great Barrier Reef and the function of reef systems worldwide.

"CORAL offers the clearest, most extensive picture to date of the condition of a large portion of the world's coral reefs," said CORAL Principal Investigator Eric Hochberg of the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS), Ferry Reach, St. George's, Bermuda, prior to the briefing. "This new understanding of reef condition and function will allow scientists to better predict the future of this global ecosystem and provide policymakers with better information for decisions regarding resource management."

CORAL's three-year mission combines aerial surveys using state-of-the-art airborne imaging spectrometer technology developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, with in-water validation activities. The mission will provide critical data and new models for analyzing reef ecosystems from a new perspective. CORAL will generate a uniform data set for a large sample of reefs across the Pacific Ocean. Scientists can use these data to search for trends between coral reef condition and the natural and human-produced biological and environmental factors that affect reefs.

Over the next year, CORAL will survey portions of the Great Barrier Reef, along with reef systems in the main Hawaiian Islands, the Mariana Islands and Palau.

In Australia, CORAL mission will survey six discrete sections across the length of the Great Barrier Reef, from the Capricorn-Bunker Group in the south to Torres Strait in the north. Two locations on the reef -- one north (Lizard Island Research Station) and one south (Heron Island Research Station) -- will serve as bases for in-water validation activities. Scientists from Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and the University of Queensland in Brisbane are collaborating with NASA and BIOS to conduct additional complementary in-water validation activities.

The Great Barrier Reef: Australia's National Treasure

Located in the Coral Sea off Queensland, the Great Barrier Reef encompasses more than 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands. It is more than 1,400 miles (2,300 kilometers) long and covers an area of about 133,000 square miles (344,400 square kilometers). The largest single structure made by living organisms on Earth, the reef teems with biodiversity, including about 400 species of coral. It attracts about 2 million visitors a year; in turn, tourism and fishing generate billions annually and employ tens of thousands of people. However, the reef faces environmental pressures from various human and climate change impacts.

"The Great Barrier Reef is Australia's national treasure, so having a broader understanding of its condition and what's threatening it will help us better understand how we can protect it," said Tim Malthus, research leader of CSIRO's Coastal Monitoring, Modeling and Informatics Group in Canberra, Australia. "Along with surveying several large sections of the reef, CORAL will also survey the health of corals in the Torres Strait, a complex high-tide area that has been historically less studied. It is also opportunistic for us to see if the reef is recovering after the recent bleaching event."

Stuart Phinn, professor of geography at the University of Queensland (UQ), said CORAL will provide Australian coral reef science and management with unique new maps and mapping approaches. These will expand ongoing efforts to map and understand Great Barrier Reef dynamics. "Being able to support and collaborate on NASA's CORAL project will enable groups like ours to advance our capabilities and transfer them to Australian science and management agencies," Phinn said. "Part of this includes building a process for mapping the entire reef. UQ and CORAL will exchange field data, knowledge and experience to cross-validate mapping and monitoring approaches."

An Urgent Need for Better Data

Around the world, concerns among scientists, resource managers and the public that coral reef ecosystems are degrading at alarming rates due to human-induced factors and global change have motivated increased assessment and monitoring efforts. The urgency of the problem has forced estimates of global reef status to be synthesized from a variety of local surveys with disparate aims, methods and quality.

The problem with current assessments of reef degradation, said Hochberg, is that the data supporting these predictions are not uniform and surprisingly sparse. "Virtually all reef assessments to date rely on in-water survey techniques that are laborious, expensive and limited in spatial scope," he said. "Very little of Earth's reef area has been directly surveyed. More importantly, there are no existing models that quantitatively relate reef conditions to the full range of biological and environmental factors that affect them -- models that can help scientists better understand how coral reefs will respond to expected environmental changes. CORAL addresses an urgent need in the face of ongoing worldwide reef degradation, and also serves as a pathfinder for a future satellite mission to globally survey the world's reefs."

Natural, balanced coral reefs comprise mosaics of coral, algae and sand on the seafloor that, together, drive the structure and function of reef ecosystems. When corals die, algae rapidly take over their skeletons. A non-stressed, healthy reef will usually increase coral coverage as it recovers from disturbance. But when a stressed reef is disturbed, the carbonate structure of its coral erodes, and the reef ultimately becomes a flat-bottom community dominated by algae, shifting rubble and sand, with little to no coral recovery. Such ecosystem phase shifts, as they are called, represent a radical change in a reef's character, marked by a decline in the diversity of reef flora and fauna.

CORAL will generate scientific data products describing coral reef condition, measuring three key components of reef health for which we currently have limited data: composition, primary productivity and calcification. Primary productivity is a measure of how much energy is available to drive biological activity in a reef system. Calcification measures the net gain in carbonates, which determine a reef's long-term growth.

PRISM: Shining New Light on Coral Reef Condition

To accomplish its science objectives, CORAL will use JPL's Portable Remote Imaging Spectrometer (PRISM). PRISM will literally peer through the ocean's surface to generate high-resolution images of reflected light in the specific regions of the electromagnetic spectrum important to coral reef scientists. Mounted in the belly of a modified Tempus Solutions Gulfstream IV aircraft, PRISM will survey reefs from an altitude of 28,000 feet (8,500 meters) to generate calibrated scientific data products.

"PRISM builds on an extensive legacy of JPL spectrometers that have successfully operated for NASA and non-NASA missions," said Michelle Gierach, NASA CORAL project scientist at JPL. "It provides the coral reef science community with high-quality oceanographic imagery at the accuracy, range, resolution, signal-to-noise ratio, sensitivity and uniformity needed to answer key questions about coral reef condition. PRISM data will be analyzed against data for 10 key biological and environmental factors affecting coral reef ecosystems, acquired from pre-existing data sources."

NASA collects data from space, air, land and sea to increase our understanding of our home planet, improve lives and safeguard our future. NASA develops new ways to observe and study Earth's interconnected natural systems with long-term data records. The agency freely shares this unique knowledge and works with institutions around the world to gain new insights into how our planet is changing.

For more information about NASA's Earth science activities, visit:

<a href="http://www.nasa.gov/earth">http://www.nasa.gov/earth</a>

NASA's CORAL mission begins study of the Great Barrier Reef

A NASA airborne mission designed to transform our understanding of...

<div>A new desert city in the United Arab Emirates without light switches or water taps has much to teach people around the world about saving energy and precious resources.</div>
<div>

With its low-rise and energy efficient buildings, smart metering, excellent public transport and extensive use of renewable energy, the 2,000 citizens of Masdar City, in Abu Dhabi, are living in a place which is a 'green' example to city planners around the globe.

There are no light switches or water taps in Masdar City. Movement sensors control lighting and water in order to cut electricity and water consumption by 51% and 55% respectively.

Masdar is the world's first city designed to be 'zero carbon' and 'zero waste', but its environmental experts can learn much from the historic, post-industrial British city of Birmingham, as it too aims to become a low-carbon metropolis.

Sustainability experts at the University of Birmingham conducted a detailed study comparing energy supply and use in the two cities. They have identified a set of five core 'lessons' as part of their research, which is published in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Review.

Lead researcher Susan Lee, from the University's School of Civil Engineering, said: "We compared two very different cities - both aspiring to be 'low-carbon'. Masdar has started well by building low-rise, energy-efficient buildings with smart metering.

"Data from such buildings can help to change people's behaviour and help develop more energy-efficient new and retrofitted UK buildings. The UAE is a hot and arid place; experience gained in Masdar will help us plan here in the UK for projected hotter summers, with more frequent heatwaves, particularly in cities, as the climate changes.

"As an established city, Birmingham has been flexible in adapting to new energy requirements and has much to teach Masdar. For example, the University of Birmingham's research into cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells could help the UAE city's desalination plants to develop a valuable energy source."

The Birmingham research team's 'lessons learned' cover the following key areas:

1. Innovation and experimentation. Innovation requires talented people and, often but not always, money. Masdar City benefits from attracting talented citizens, students and businesses and from access to generous national funding. Birmingham has limited means to experiment with alternative energy opportunities, thus impeding its practical progress.

2. Lock-in. Energy supply and demand are part of a complex system-of-systems when linked with other resources such as water, food and other city systems. Masdar City benefits from starting from a blank slate, whereas Birmingham has existing processes, procedures and an ageing infrastructure to negotiate.

3. Balance. Economic, societal and environmental aspects of sustainability are all critical. Unduly emphasising one can lead to negative consequences for the others. There is evidence that Masdar City is concentrating on economic goals at the expense of social cohesion. During the 20th Century, Birmingham did the same, focussing on the car industry.

4. Resilience. Despite increasingly-sophisticated predictions of the future, none are reliable. Masdar City and Birmingham must both make efforts to future-proof the decisions they take today so that they continue to deliver what was intended, into the future.

5. Governance. Both cities have vision statements that include aims to be as sustainable and resource secure as possible. To be successful, these aims must run through all city policies and sit at the heart of its vision.

The team analysed each city's energy flows within the context of their respective country's energy systems. They worked within the framework of the 'Urban Metabolism' theory whereby each city is viewed as a living organism which is constantly restructuring and developing.


</div>
<div></div>

Masdar is the first 'zero carbon' city in the world

A new desert city in the United Arab Emirates without...

August 2016 was the warmest August in 136 years of modern record-keeping, according to a monthly analysis of global temperatures by scientists at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York.
Although the seasonal temperature cycle typically peaks in July, August 2016 wound up tied with July 2016 for the warmest month ever recorded. August 2016's temperature was 0.16 degrees Celsius warmer than the previous warmest August in 2014. Last month also was 0.98 degrees Celsius warmer than the mean August temperature from 1951-1980.
"Monthly rankings, which vary by only a few hundredths of a degree, are inherently fragile," said GISS Director Gavin Schmidt. "We stress that the long-term trends are the most important for understanding the ongoing changes that are affecting our planet."
The record warm August continued a streak of 11 consecutive months dating back to October 2015 that have set new monthly high-temperature records. The monthly analysis by the GISS team is assembled from publicly available data acquired by about 6,300 meteorological stations around the world, ship- and buoy-based instruments measuring sea surface temperature, and Antarctic research stations. The modern global temperature record begins around 1880 because previous observations didn't cover enough of the planet.
--

<h4>Related Links</h4>
For more information on NASA GISS's monthly temperature analysis, visit: <a href="http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/">data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp</a>.

For more information about NASA GISS, visit: <a href="http://www.giss.nasa.gov/">www.giss.nasa.gov</a>.

August 2016 was the warmest August in 136 years

August 2016 was the warmest August in 136 years of...

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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

[sendtonews key="0ynNMYkMKa-2340414-12187" 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> (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



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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



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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



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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



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Santiago, Chile in South America

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

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



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



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



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



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



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



Video Credit: Johns Hopkins&nbsp;



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



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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



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Remote sensing will revolutionize the way we monitor trees

[sendtonews key="EjmSP20gQK-2593093-12187" 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 Dublin, the capital and largest city of Ireland. Beyond its pub culture, Dublin is known as a modern culinary destination and a UNESCO City of Literature.



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



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



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



Video Credit: ESA&nbsp;



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



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The city of Dublin on Ireland's east coast

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



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



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



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



Video/ Image Credit: ESA



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



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The province of Zaragoza in northeast Spain

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Today's Video of the Day from <a href="https://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



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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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The rapid retreat of the Columbia Glacier

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



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



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



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



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



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



Video &amp; Image Credit: ESA



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



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The Pyrenees Mountains in southwest Europe

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Today’s Video of the Day from <a href="https://www.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



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How the immune system responds to injury

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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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2022 illustrated the consequences of a warming climate

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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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Two distant planets may be "water worlds"

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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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Satellites reveal how Earth's systems are interconnected

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

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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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Tiger sharks are shifting poleward as temperatures rise

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