Many people imagine Earth’s interior mantle as separate layers stacked on top of each other, like a layered cake, with each layer representing a plate. In reality, those internal zones are complex and often full of surprises.



Seismologists have relied on specific types of earthquake waves to learn about Earth's subsurface, but now a different technique is painting a far more detailed picture.



This fresh perspective has led scientists to wonder if there is hidden material in places once believed to be empty.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-understanding-earth-s-mantle-the-basics">Understanding Earth's mantle - the basics</h2>



Earth’s mantle is the thick layer of rock that lies between the planet's crust and its core. It stretches about 1,800 miles (2,900 kilometers) deep, making up around 84% of Earth's total volume. 



The mantle is primarily composed of silicate minerals rich in iron and magnesium, and it's mostly solid, but it behaves like a thick, slow-flowing fluid over long periods of time. 



This flow is what drives the movement of tectonic plates on Earth's surface, <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/can-we-detect-major-earthquakes-months-in-advance/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">causing earthquakes</a>, volcanic eruptions, and the shifting of continents. 



Heat from the Earth’s core causes <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/earths-inner-core-rotation-is-slowing-down-making/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">convection currents</a> in the mantle, where hot material rises, cools near the crust, and then sinks back down, creating a continuous cycle. This process plays a key role in shaping the planet's surface.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-tectonic-plates-in-earth-s-mantle">Tectonic plates in Earth's mantle</h2>



The discovery stems from the use of a high-resolution method called <a href="https://library.seg.org/doi/10.1190/1.9781560803027.entry6">full-waveform inversion</a>. Scientists use this approach to interpret every type of <a href="https://manoa.hawaii.edu/exploringourfluidearth/physical/ocean-floor/layers-earth/compare-contrast-connect-seismic-waves-and-determining-earth-s-structure#">seismic wave</a> produced by earthquakes, rather than focusing on only one kind.



Because of that, they can build a more precise model of <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/earths-crust-is-dripping-under-turkey/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Earth’s internal structures</a>.&nbsp;



After applying this method to the lower mantle, researchers saw pockets that appear to be leftover plate fragments in areas with no known history of subduction. 



Following their analysis, they were startled by just how common these hidden anomalies seemed to be.



This work was led by a team that includes doctoral student <a href="https://www.geology.ethz.ch/people/person-detail.Mjc3OTM4.TGlzdC82NjksNTE5NzQ3MzU0.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Thomas Schouten</a> from the <a href="https://www.geology.ethz.ch/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Geological Institute of ETH Zurich</a>, who collaborated with experts from the <a href="https://www.caltech.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">California Institute of Technology</a>.



Their combined efforts brought fresh insights that challenge assumptions about where old tectonic plate remnants might reside in Earth.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-interpreting-seismic-signals">Interpreting seismic signals</h2>



To understand how researchers got here, it helps to remember how seismic waves work. When an earthquake strikes, it sends waves radiating outward in all directions.



These waves bounce, bend, and shift as they travel through the planet. In much the same way that doctors use medical imaging techniques, geophysicists measure the time these waves take to reach various seismic stations around the globe.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-full"><img src="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/earth_lower-mantle_rock-zones_mysterious-sunken-worlds_credit-ETHZ_1s.webp" alt="Using a new model, researchers uncover zones in the Earth's lower mantle where seismic waves travel slower (red) or faster (blue). The large blue zone in the western Pacific (right above the center of the image) was previously unknown. Credit: Sebastian Noe / ETH Zurich" class="wp-image-1956322"/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Using a new model, researchers uncover zones in the Earth's lower mantle where seismic waves travel slower (red) or faster (blue). The large blue zone in the western Pacific (right above the center of the image) was previously unknown. Credit: Sebastian Noe / ETH Zurich</figcaption></figure>



The velocity of those signals reveals details about rock density and stiffness. In previous years, scientists relied heavily on <a href="https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/ssa/bssa/article-abstract/108/5A/2894/546740/Generalized-Seismic-Phase-Detection-with-Deep?redirectedFrom=fulltext" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">particular seismic phases</a>. 



But by examining all available wave data instead, new shapes and densities were identified from Earth's lower <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/mantle-heat-shaped-earths-crust-3-billion-years-ago/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">mantle</a>.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-why-is-earth-s-mantle-important">Why is Earth's mantle important?</h2>



Over hundreds of millions of years, plates have formed, shifted, and sunk back into Earth’s interior. This <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/JB073i006p01959">cycling</a> plays a role in controlling phenomena like volcano formation, earthquakes, and the slow drift of continents.&nbsp;



Researchers have long known that slabs of subducted plates cluster under regions where one tectonic plate slides under another. 



So it came as a surprise when the new images revealed large slabs below oceans and continental interiors that lack a clear history of plate collisions.



That signals a possible complication in our understanding of how plates evolve and where they end up.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-mysterious-plate-under-the-pacific-ocean">Mysterious plate under the Pacific Ocean</h2>



One of the biggest surprises was in a <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/ancient-sunken-oceans-discovered-between-earth-core-and-mantle/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">zone</a> under the western Pacific. According to current plate tectonic timelines, there is no reason for old plate fragments to be there.&nbsp;



“Apparently, such zones in the Earth's mantle are much more widespread than previously thought,” said <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-77399-2">Schouten</a>.



No geologic data points to historical subduction nearby. This indicates that the anomalies might not be chunks of plates at all, or at least not in the way scientists originally imagined.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-could-it-be-something-else">Could it be something else?</h2>



Scientists now face questions about the origin and nature of these structures.



Some say they may be ancient, silica-rich pockets left over from the early <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/how-earths-mantle-shapes-surface-topography/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">mantle</a>. Others suggest they might be iron-rich accumulations that have drifted over billions of years.&nbsp;



Schouten explained that the new model reveals anomalies throughout the Earth's interior, but the exact materials or plate fragments responsible for these patterns remain unclear. 



This uncertainty suggests a more diverse range of compositions in the Earth's mantle than previously understood.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-next-steps-for-deeper-understanding">Next steps for deeper understanding</h2>



Full-waveform inversion is a promising tool for these investigations, but it offers only a view of how fast or slowly waves move through the material. 



Researchers say they need further refinement to tease out chemical and thermal differences. 



Some are turning to additional datasets, including electromagnetic signals and data from mineral physics experiments. 



Combining those methods might highlight whether these mantle “blobs” are from primordial origins, from recycled ocean crust, or from something else entirely.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-implications-for-plate-tectonics">Implications for plate tectonics</h2>



If scientists confirm that more zones like these exist in Earth’s depths, they may have to adjust many theories about how heat moves through the planet. 



Such hidden zones might alter patterns of convection and the formation of mantle plumes.&nbsp;



The story of plate tectonics could also see updates, with new chapters on how plate fragments wander and transform in ways not previously documented. These discoveries remind us that <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/how-volcanic-hotspots-are-all-connected-to-earths-interior-mantle/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">geoscience</a>, like any science, is never settled.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-search-continues">The search continues</h2>



In the future, improved supercomputers may crunch even larger datasets to produce clearer images of Earth's lower mantle and its plate structures. That could resolve debates about the true nature of these mysterious anomalies.&nbsp;



By integrating various approaches - seismic, chemical, and computational - Earth scientists will keep uncovering pieces of our planet’s hidden complexity.



As Schouten’s team demonstrated, sometimes seeing the entire picture means looking beyond what we think we already know.



The study is published in <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-77399-2" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Scientific Reports</a>.



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'Sunken worlds' discovered under the Pacific ocean in Earth's mantle

Many people imagine Earth’s interior mantle as separate layers stacked on top of each other, like a layered cake, with each layer representing a plate. In reality, those internal zones are complex and often full of surprises. Seismologists have relied on specific types of earthquake waves to learn about Earth's subsurface, but now a different technique is painting a far more detailed picture. This fresh perspective has led scientists to wonder if there is hidden material in places once believed to be empty. Understanding Earth's mantle -...

Although <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/national-parks-endangered-species/">national parks</a> are the backbone of conservation efforts, mounting evidence suggests that many parks are too small to sustain long-term viable populations and maintain essential, large-scale ecological processes, such as large mammal migrations and natural disturbance regimes.&nbsp;



Now, a study published in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/srep/">Nature Scientific Reports</a> has found that enhancing ecological connectivity through so-called “corridors” or “linkages” among some of the oldest and largest national parks in Western U.S. and Canada would significantly extend the time that many mammal species populations can persist, while also allowing species to shift their geographic ranges more readily in response to climate change.



The experts investigated the value of establishing ecological corridors for large mammals between the Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks, and between Mount Rainier and North Cascades National Parks. The analysis revealed that linking these parks would increase the long-term persistence time of mammals by a factor of 4.3 compared to the persistence time in fragmented, individual parks.



“Eliminating barriers of movement between parks and more carefully managing land-use along these pathways are crucial for the survival of many mammal species,” said study lead author William Newmark, a research curator at the <a href="https://nhmu.utah.edu/">Natural History Museum of Utah</a>. “Establishing an expanded protected area network based on identified mammal pathways and incorporating adjacent wilderness areas would greatly enlarge available habitat for mammal species. And this would have a very positive effect on species persistence time.”



Since the corridor network that the researchers proposed would cross two- and four-lane highways, it would require multiple ecological bridges over and under these roadways. Fortunately, such over- and underpasses for wildlife are already in the process of being constructed in Western U.S. and Canada. “However, a much greater effort will certainly be required if we are to reduce the known adverse impacts of highways on species movement and dispersal,” said study co-author Paul Beier,&nbsp;a professor emeritus of Landscape Conservation at the <a href="https://nau.edu/">Northern Arizona University</a>.&nbsp;



Although scientists have long known that ecological corridors enhance population persistence of species, most previous studies have been small-scale experiments. By analyzing the positive effects of large-scale conservation initiatives that aim to enhance ecological connectivity between protected areas in Western U.S. and Canada, the present study could serve as an important template for large-scale biodiversity conservation both nationally and worldwide.



“The analytical approach presented in this paper can provide conservation planners and practitioners with a powerful method of prioritizing and quantifying the value of ecological linkages between protected areas,” concluded study co-author John Halley,&nbsp;an expert in Biological Applications and Technology at the <a href="https://www.uoi.gr/">University of Ioannina</a> in Greece.



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



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Linking national parks could help mammals survive

Although national parks are the backbone of conservation efforts, mounting...

A team of researchers led by the <a href="https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/">University of Sheffield</a> in the UK has recently discovered a new ring system on the edge of our Solar System. These <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/saturns-rings-may-have-formed-from-a-shattered-moon/">rings</a> – located around Quaoar, a Pluto-sized dwarf planet orbiting beyond Neptune – are unique, orbiting much further away from the planet than Saturn’s rings, for instance, and thus posing challenges to current ring formation theories.



The experts discovered the rings by using HiPERCAM, an extremely sensitive high-speed camera mounted on Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC), the world’s largest telescope, with a diameter of 10.4 meters. Since the rings are too small and faint to observe directly, the researchers detected them by noticing an “occultation” – a phenomenon in which the light from a background star was blocked by Quaoar as it orbited the Sun. Although this event lasted less than a minute, it was unexpectedly preceded and followed by two dips in light, indicating the presence of a ring system around this planet.



Such ring systems are quite rare in our Solar System, being present only around a handful of planets, including Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune, Chariklo, and Haumea. All these previously detected rings are able to survive due to the fact that they orbit close to their planets, so tidal forces prevent the ring material from accreting and forming moons. By contrast, the newly discovered ring lies at a distance of more than seven planetary radii – twice as far than what scientists thought to be the maximum radius where rings can form. Thus, this finding may force experts rethink current theories of ring formation.



“It was unexpected to discover this new ring system in our Solar System, and it was doubly unexpected to find the rings so far out from Quaoar, challenging our previous notions of how such rings form. The use of our high-speed camera -&nbsp;HiPERCAM - was key to this discovery as the event lasted less than one minute and the rings are too small and faint to see in a direct image,” said study co-author Vik Dhillon, an astrophysicist at Sheffield.



“Everyone learns about Saturn's magnificent rings when they’re a child, so hopefully this new finding will provide further insight into how they came to be.”



The study is published in the journal <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05629-6">Nature</a>.



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



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New rings found on the edge of our Solar System

A team of researchers led by the University of Sheffield...

Citizen science projects include <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/humans-create-a-landscape-of-fear-for-wildlife/">wildlife</a> recording activities that provide crucial data for assessing environmental change. A new study published in the journal <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10432">People and Nature</a> has found that science itself is not the only beneficiary of citizen science projects. According to the experts, engagement in such projects promotes well-being and a stronger connection to nature.&nbsp;



The experts enrolled 500 volunteers from across the United Kingdom and randomly assigned them to carry out a ten-minute nature-based activity at least five times during a period of eight days. The activities included a pollinating insects survey, a butterfly survey, simply spending time in nature and writing down three “good things” they noticed, or a combination of survey and observation activities. Then, the researchers developed a questionnaire to assess the differences in participants’ connection to nature, well-being, and pro-nature behavior.



The analysis revealed that all volunteers showed increased feelings of well-being and connectedness to nature after completing their assigned activities. Some of their comments included: “it gave me permission to slow down,” “it made me more aware of nature in all aspects of the environment,” and “it reminded me that small things can make a big difference to my mood.”



Moreover, those who were asked to write down three good things about their natural surroundings reported they were more likely to engage in pro-nature behaviors after the experiments, such as planting more pollinator-friendly plants in their garden or creating shelters for wildlife.



“Being in and around nature is good for our well-being, and we’ve shown that focused, active engagement with nature is just as important – whether that is ‘mindful moments’ in nature or taking part in citizen science,” said study lead author Michael Pocock, an ecologist and academic lead for public engagement with research at the <a href="https://www.ceh.ac.uk/">UK Center for Ecology &amp; Hydrology</a> (UKCEH).



“This has been a valuable exercise for us in exploring how we can make citizen science even better. We now know that if we design future projects with additional nature-noticing activities, for example, we can enhance people’s own connection to nature, while still collecting valuable data.”



“People connect with nature in different ways, so it’s great to see nature-based citizen science can provide another form of active engagement that can strengthen the human-nature relationship,” added co-author Miles Richardson, an expert in Nature Connectedness at the <a href="https://www.derby.ac.uk/">University of Derby</a>. “When combined with noticing the positive emotions nature can bring, citizen science and help unite both human and nature’s well-being.”



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



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Citizen scientists gain a stronger connection with nature

Citizen science projects include wildlife recording activities that provide crucial...

Since giraffes have no breeding season, don’t go into heat like cats or <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/why-do-some-dogs-howl-but-others-dont/">dogs</a>, and don’t make mating calls or provide visual cues of sexual readiness, understanding their sexual behavior is not an easy task. However, a recent study led by the <a href="https://www.ucdavis.edu/">University of California, Davis</a> has now provided novel insights into the unique sex life of these fascinating creatures, their reproductive behavior, and how their specific anatomy supports this behavior.



By observing giraffes during multiple research trips to Namibia’s Etosha National Park, the scientists found that males test females for sexual receptivity by first provoking them to urinate by nudging them and sniffing their genitalia. If the female is open to a bull’s invitation, she widens her stance and pees for around five seconds, while the male takes the urine in his mouth. Afterwards, he curls his lip, inhaling with an open mouth – a behavior known as “flehmen” which transports the female’s scent and pheromones from the male’s oral cavity to his vomeronasal organ.



Although flehmen is common among many animal species, including cats or horses, most mammals wait until the urine is on the ground before starting to investigate. The giraffes, however, are not built for such explorations.&nbsp;



“They don’t risk going all the way to the ground because of the extreme development of their head and neck,” said study lead author&nbsp;Lynette Hart, a professor of Population Health and Reproduction at UC Davis. “So they have to nudge the female, effectively saying, ‘Please urinate now.’ And often she will. He has to elicit her cooperation. If not, he’ll know there’s no future for him with her.”



“This is part of their reproductive behavior,” added senior author Benjamin Hart, a professor emeritus of Veterinary Medicine at the same university. “This adds to our understanding of what giraffes are doing as they accumulate around a water hole.&nbsp;People love watching giraffes. I think the more the public understands about them, the more interested they’ll be in their conservation.”



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/ani13030354">Animals</a>.



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



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Scientists shed new light on the sex life of giraffes

Since giraffes have no breeding season, don’t go into heat...

Calorie restriction, which has been proven to slow <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/managing-negative-emotions-may-prevent-dementia/">aging</a> in animals, has now produced evidence of slowing the pace of biological aging in humans.&nbsp;



An international team of researchers led by the Butler Columbia Aging Center at the <a href="https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/">Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health</a> conducted a randomized controlled trial of healthy adults that is the first of its kind.&nbsp;



“In worms, flies, and mice, calorie restriction can slow biological processes of aging and extend healthy lifespan," explained study senior author Daniel Belsky, “Our study aimed to test if calorie restriction also slows biological aging in humans.”



The CALERIE™ trial measured participants’ blood DNA using the algorithm DunedinPACE (Pace of Aging, Computed from the Epigenome). The calorie intervention resulted in a two top three percent slowing in the pace of aging. In other studies, this translates to a 10 to 15 percent reduction in mortality risk, an effect similar to a smoking cessation intervention.&nbsp;



The trial randomized 220 healthy men and women to a 25 percent calorie-restriction or normal diet for two years.&nbsp; To measure biological aging, blood samples were collected from the participants at pre-intervention baseline and after 12- and 24-month follow-ups.&nbsp;



The team analyzed methylation marks on DNA extracted from white blood cells. DNA methylation marks are chemical tags on the DNA sequence that regulate the expression of genes and are known to change with aging.



In the primary analysis, three measurements of the DNA methylation data were used. These measurements are sometimes known as “epigenetic clocks.”&nbsp;



The first two clocks, the PhenoAge and GrimAge clocks, estimate biological age, or the age at which a person’s biology would appear “normal." These provide a static measure of how much aging a person has experienced. The third measure studied was DunedinPACE, which estimates the pace of aging, or the rate of biological deterioration over time, much like a “speedometer”.



“In contrast to the results for DunedinPace, there were no effects of intervention on other epigenetic clocks,” said study co-lead author Calen Ryan. “The difference in results suggests that dynamic ‘pace of aging’ measures like DunedinPACE may be more sensitive to the effects of intervention than measures of static biological age.”



While calorie restriction may not be possible for everyone, the study provides evidence that slowing human aging may be possible. A follow-up trial is now ongoing to determine if the intervention had long-term effects on healthy aging.&nbsp;



The research is published in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/nataging/">Nature Aging</a>.



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



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Calorie restriction makes it possible to slow down aging

Calorie restriction, which has been proven to slow aging in...

A study led by <a href="https://www.cornell.edu/">Cornell University</a> is providing new details about how climate change is reducing oxygen availability in many lakes around the world. The researchers analyzed data on hundreds of <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/how-will-earths-new-lakes-affect-the-carbon-budget/">lakes</a> to investigate how often the concentration of dissolved oxygen has been dropping below critical levels that are needed to support fish and other marine species.



“Lakes with dissolved oxygen losses strongly outnumber those with gains,” said study lead author Stephen Jane, a postdoctoral fellow at the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability. “At large scales, aerobic organisms are losing available habitat as warming of lakes continues. This is particularly the case for organisms that rely on well-oxygenated cool waters deep in lakes to survive warm periods.”



The experts examined about 25 years of data for more than 400 lakes, most of which were temperate climate lakes located in the United States.&nbsp;



The study revealed that the amount of low oxygen water is increasing by 0.9 to 1.7 percent per decade. The researchers also found that the volume of lake water lacking oxygen has increased by more than 50 percent over the past three decades.



Rising temperatures are extending the number of summer weeks that lakes experience thermal stratification. This is when bodies of water divide into distinct layers due to different temperatures.&nbsp;



In July or August, it is typical for a lake surface to be about 70 degrees while the lake bottom is about 40 degrees. The result of stratification is that oxygen from the atmosphere is prevented from replenishing dissolved oxygen in deep waters, explained Jane. This can cause a state of oxygen deprivation called hypoxia, or even a complete lack of oxygen called anoxia.



“Water temperature and density are related,” said Jane. “So it becomes a situation where basically you have oil and vinegar, where strong water temperature differences between layers causes resistance to mixing – which is stratification.”



Stratification changes lead to more time for deoxygenation - the interruption of the natural oxygenation process - for deep-water habitats, said June.&nbsp;



“We show here that as warming is continuing, the amount of time that lakes exhibit stratification is increasing and this leads to increases in the amount of low-oxygen water in lakes,” explained study co-author Professor Kevin Rose of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. “The bad news is that given projected warming rates, we’ll likely see even greater increases in the amount of oxygen-depleted water in lakes in the future.”



The research is published in the journal <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/gcb.16525">Global Change Biology</a>.



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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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Lakes are struggling to maintain oxygen as temperatures rise

A study led by Cornell University is providing new details...

Studying rare species can be a significant challenge for researchers, particularly when the subject is as elusive as the Antarctic blue <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/killer-whale-mothers-pay-a-high-price-for-raising-sons/">whale</a>. Researchers have strived for years to find humane ways to tackle this challenge. In 2013, Dr. Virginia Andrews-Gold and her team managed to successfully deploy satellite tags on two of the rarely-sighted creatures.



The ten-year-old data has now been released by Dr. Andrews-Goff and her colleagues at the Australian Antarctic Divison, publishing the satellite tracks in the <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.10.e94228">Biodiversity Data Journal</a>. The data demonstrated to the United Nations International Court of Justice that the research can be conducted without killing whales. The research also sheds light on the logistical challenges of locating, tagging, and tracking the Antarctic blue whale.



“This is a unique data set that was incredibly challenging to get, and, unfortunately, for 10 years no-one has been able to generate more data,” said Dr. Andrews-Goff. "We know very little about the movement and distribution of Antarctic blue whales, where they migrate, where they forage and breed, and we don’t understand the threats they might face as they recover from whaling.”



Whilst tagging and tracking the creatures is certainly no easy task, the most significant challenge is finding them in the first place. An estimated 90 percent of the Antarctic blue whale population (approximately 290,000) was killed in commercial whaling throughout the 1960s and 1970s, leaving less than 2,280 individuals remaining by the late 1990s.&nbsp;



To tackle this challenge, cutting-edge acoustic tracking techniques were used to detect whale calls and estimate their location from up to 1,000 kilometers away. Once tagged, the recorded tracks revealed that the whales traveled 1,390 kilometers in just 14 days, and 5,550 kilometers across a 74-day period - moving at an average of 100 kilometers per day.&nbsp;



 “What became obvious is that these animals can travel really quickly,” commented Dr. Andrews-Goff. “If you consider how far and fast these animals moved, protecting the broader population against potential threats will be tricky because they could potentially circumnavigate Antarctica within a single feeding season.”



Thanks to new analytical method innovations in recent years, researchers have managed to gain some additional behavioral context from the data. Through these techniques, two separate movement rates were noted - a regular 4.2km/hr rate and a slower speed of 2.5km/hr, understood to correspond with searching and foraging behaviors.&nbsp;



“It looks like the whales might hang around in one area to feed and then move quickly to another area and hang around there for another feed,” explained Dr. Andrews-Goff.



She said that despite the small sample size, the satellite tracks will assist greatly in researchers’ understanding of the blue whale foraging ecology, movement rates, feeding habits, and habitat preferences. The findings will inform a further assessment of Antarctic blue whales, due to begin in 2024.



Image Credit: Australian Antarctic Division



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By <a href="mailto:calumvaughan05@gmail.com">Calum Vaughan</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer



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New insights into the behavior of Antarctic blue whales

Studying rare species can be a significant challenge for researchers,...

As humanity emits increasing amounts of greenhouse gases, the Earth’s <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/insect-swarms-charge-the-lower-atmosphere-with-static-electricity/">atmosphere</a> traps more and more of the sun’s energy, leading to a steady rise in our planet’s temperature. For decades, scientists have considered using screens or other objects to block enough of the sun’s radiation (about one to two percent) in order to mitigate the effects of climate change. Now, a team of researchers led by <a href="https://www.harvard.edu/">Harvard University</a> and the <a href="https://www.utah.edu/">University of Utah</a> has explored another strategy – the potential of using moon dust to shield sunlight.



The researchers investigated different properties of dust particles, quantities of dust, and the orbits which would be best suited for shading the Earth. They discovered that launching dust from Earth to a way station located at the so-called “Lagrange point” - the closest point between Earth and the sun where the gravitational forces are balanced and where objects tend to stay along a path between the two celestial bodies - would be the most effective strategy. This approach, however, would require enormous costs and efforts. To overcome these problems, the experts have proposed using moon dust as an alternative.



“It is amazing to contemplate how moon dust - which took over four billion years to generate - might help slow the rise in the Earth’s temperature, a problem that took us less than 300 years to produce,” said study co-author Scott Kenyon.



According to the researchers, planet formation is a messy process, kicking up astronomical dust that forms rings around host stars. Such rings intercept light from the central star and re-radiate it in ways that can be easily detected. “That was the seed of the idea; if we took a small amount of material and put it on a special orbit between the Earth and the sun and broke it up, we could block out a lot of sunlight with a little amount of mass,” said study lead author Professor Ben Bromley.



The scientists found that a sunshield’s effectiveness would depend on its capacity to sustain an orbit that casts a shadow on the Earth. “Because we know the positions and masses of the major celestial bodies in our solar system, we can simply use the laws of gravity to track the position of a simulated sunshield over time for several different orbits,” said study co-author Sameer Khan.



Since the inherent properties of lunar dust are perfect to effectively work as a sunshield, the scientists proposed to shoot this dust from a platform on the surface of the moon towards the sun – a cost-effective strategy due to the fact that much less energy is needed to launch dust from the moon than from the Earth. “It is astounding that the Sun, Earth, and Moon are in just the right configuration to enable this kind of climate mitigation strategy,” Kenyon said.



However, the researchers emphasize that this study only explores the potential impact of such a method, rather than evaluating whether this strategy is logistically feasible.&nbsp;



“We aren’t experts in climate change, or the rocket science needed to move mass from one place to the other. We’re just exploring different kinds of dust on a variety of orbits to see how effective this approach might be. We do not want to miss a game changer for such a critical problem,”&nbsp;concluded Bromley.&nbsp;



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://journals.plos.org/climate/">PLOS Climate</a>.



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



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Could moon dust help slow global warming?

As humanity emits increasing amounts of greenhouse gases, the Earth’s...

Individuals who cut their social media use by 30 minutes a day, and use this time for <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/how-physical-activity-protects-the-brain-from-aging/">physical activity</a>, can dramatically improve their mental health. This is the conclusion of a study led by Dr. Julia Brailovskaia of the Mental Health Research and Treatment Center at <a href="http://www.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/">Ruhr-Universität Bochum</a>.



Participants who replaced 30 minutes of social media with exercise every day for two weeks had powerful results. They reported feeling happier, more satisfied, less stressed, and less depressed. The positive effects persisted for at least six months after the study had ended.



“'Digitalization' is a main characteristic of the twenty-first century. It represents a transformation of society to an intensive use of digital technologies in various areas of life," wrote the study authors. "Daily use of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and WhatsApp is a central aspect of this transformation."



"The global outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 resulted in significant changes in people’s daily routine. Lockdowns, curfews, and restrictions of offline social contacts (“social distancing”) sped up the digital transformation in various sectors. Social media use became one of the main options for social interaction and pastime."



The experts noted that excessive social media use is known to have a negative influence on mental health. "Intensive active exchange with other users can evoke the perception of social support, which fosters the development of an emotional bond to social media. This bond is closely linked to an obsessive need to stay permanently online, even if the use interferes with obligations and causes interpersonal conflicts," wrote the study authors.



The researchers set out to investigate how to improve mental health in this time of rapid digitalization. They wanted to explore cost- and time-efficient strategies that may help protect the public from the adverse effects of social media addiction.&nbsp;



“Given that we don’t know for certain how long the coronavirus crisis will last, we wanted to know how to protect people’s mental health with services that are as free and low-threshold as possible,” explained Dr. Brailovskaia.&nbsp;



For the investigation, the team recruited a total of 642 volunteers, who were randomly assigned to one of four groups. The first group reduced daily social media use by 30 minutes, the second group increased physical activity by 30 minutes per day, and the third group was instructed to do both - reduce social media use and increase physical activity for 30 minutes a day. Members of the fourth (control) group did not change their behavior during the two-week trial.



The participants completed online surveys before, during, and up to six months after the two-week intervention phase. The surveys documented the duration, intensity and emotional significance of their social media use; physical activity; overall life satisfaction; subjective feeling of happiness; depressive symptoms; the psychological burden of the Covid-19 pandemic; and cigarette consumption.



The results clearly showed that both reducing the amount of time spent on social media and increasing physical activity had a positive impact on well-being. The experts found that in all of the experiential groups, addictive social media use and depressive symptoms decreased, while physical activity, life satisfaction, and subjective happiness increased. "All effects were stronger and more stable in the combination group in the longer-term," wrote the researchers.



The team found that six months after the intervention, the combination group dedicated one hour and 39 minutes more to physical activity each week. The positive mental health effects continued throughout the entire follow-up period.



“This shows us how vital it is to reduce our availability online from time to time and to go back to our human roots,” said Dr. Brailovskaia. “These measures can be easily implemented into one’s everyday life and they’re completely free – and, at the same time, they help us to stay happy and healthy in the digital age.”



The study is published in the <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10389-022-01751-x">Journal of Public Health</a>.



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

Exercise over social media: less stress, more life satisfaction

Individuals who cut their social media use by 30 minutes...

A new study led by the <a href="https://wsu.edu/">Washington State University</a> (WSU) and the <a href="https://www.nps.gov/index.htm">U.S. National Park Service</a> has found that, even without hunting activities, humans seem to have a strong negative influence on the movement of wildlife in the Glacier National Park. The experts examined activity on hiking trails during and after a Covid-19 closure of the park. According to the results, humans often create a “landscape of fear” like other apex predators, significantly changing how animals use an area simply with their presence.



The scientists discovered that when human hikers were present, 16 out of 22 mammal species – including both predators and prey – changed when and where they accessed certain areas of the park. While some completely abandoned places they previously used, others used them less frequently and some shifting to more nocturnal activities in order to avoid humans.



“When the park was open to the public, and there were a lot of hikers and recreators using the area, we saw a bunch of changes in how animals were using that same area,” said study senior author Daniel Thornton, a wildlife ecologist at WSU. “The surprising thing is that there’s no other real human disturbance out there because Glacier is such a highly protected national park, so these responses really are being driven by human presence and human noise.”



Initially, the researchers also expected to find an effect called “human shielding,” when human presence causes some large predators to avoid a certain area, providing opportunities for smaller predators or even some prey species to use that area more frequently. However, the analysis revealed such an effect on a single species, the red fox, which was more present on and near hiking trails since its competitors, coyotes, generally avoided such areas when humans were using them.



Species such as black bears, white-tailed deer, and elk showed a significant decline in the use of trails when the park was open, while others like the mule deer, the snowshoe hare, the grizzly bear, and the coyote decreased their daytime activities. Yet, a few species, including cougars, seemed largely indifferent to human presence.



Although these findings suggest that low-impact recreation is quite concerning, future research is needed to assess whether it has negative effects on wildlife survival. “This study does not say that hiking is necessarily bad for wildlife, but it does have some impacts on spatiotemporal ecology, or how wildlife uses a landscape and when,” said study lead author Alissa Anderson, a resent WSU master’s graduate. “Maybe they are not on the trails as much, but they’re using different places, and how much does that actually impact species’ ability to survive and thrive in a place, or not? There are a lot of questions about how this actually plays into population survival.”



“It’s obviously important that people are able to get out there, but there might be a level of which that starts to be problematic. Some additional research could help get a better understanding of that and help develop some guidelines and goals,” Thornton concluded.



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-27670-9">Nature Scientific Reports</a>.



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



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Humans create a "landscape of fear" for wildlife

A new study led by the Washington State University (WSU)...

When assessing the efficiency of the ocean’s biological <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/recovering-forests-act-as-carbon-sources/">carbon</a> pump (BCP) that carries carbon from the surface layers to the deepest depths, few people consider the role of salps. This is probably because these creatures, also known as sea squirts, are mostly small, gelatinous and transparent, and their patchy distribution in the ocean makes them difficult to study. But they have certain characteristics that potentially make them potent players in the ocean’s carbon cycle. They may even play a significant role in mitigating global warming.&nbsp;



Salps are reminiscent of small, tubular jellyfish but they are tunicates, more closely related to humans than to jellyfish. Their larvae have a notochord – a tough, flexible rod that protects the central nerve cord – running down the back. Although the adults lose this notochord, its presence in the larvae places them in the phylum Chordata, and makes them the closest relatives to vertebrate animals. Salps are zooplankton, meaning that they float around in the oceans, filtering out and eating mostly tiny plant plankton.



The role played by salps in the biological carbon pump has now been investigated as part of the research program known as EXPORTS (EXport Processes in the Ocean from RemoTe Sensing). This is a four-year, multi-institutional field program funded by NASA, with the goal of combining shipboard and satellite observations to more accurately quantify the global impact of the biological pump. Co-authors of the salp study hail from marine institutes in Maine, Bermuda, California, Newfoundland, British Columbia, and Alaska.



Carbon dioxide (CO2) enters the oceans at the surface, where phytoplankton use the sunlight’s energy and the atmosphere’s CO2 in photosynthesis, to produce organic molecules. The phytoplankton are eaten by zooplankton, including salps, which then incorporate the carbon into their own tissues. When zooplankton excrete waste, or die, this carbon sinks to the ocean depths and may become sequestered – stored in the benthic sediments, sometimes for millions of years. This means that this carbon is effectively removed from the atmosphere for that time.



During a month-long EXPORTS expedition to the northeast Pacific Ocean in 2018, Dr. Deborah Steinberg of William &amp; Mary’s <a href="https://www.vims.edu/">Virginia Institute of Marine Science</a>, and her colleagues, chanced upon a large bloom of poorly studied salps (Salpa aspera). These creatures have the ability to respond to favorable environmental conditions by reproducing very rapidly, forming massive blooms, called swarms. Salp swarms often go undetected because they do not last long – a salp may only live for a few weeks. The consequence is that the role of these “jelly barrels” in the movement of carbon is rarely included in measurements or models of the BCP.



“Salps follow a ‘bloom or bust’ life cycle, with populations that are inherently patchy in space and time. That makes it hard to observe or model their contribution to the export of carbon to the deep sea," says Steinberg.



In the case of the current study, the researchers identified a salp bloom that covered more than 4,000 square miles (~11,000 km2), about the size of Connecticut.&nbsp;They spent eight days aboard the R/V&nbsp;Revelle, sampling the particulate matter in the water column, along with the density of salps and other zooplankton, right down to a depth of 1,000 m. They made use of a wide range of ocean-observation tools, from traditional plankton nets and sediment traps to underwater video recorders and sonar-based computer models.&nbsp;



Sampling was done during both daytime and night-time, taking into account the fact that salps come to the surface at night to feed, but descend during the day to a depth of between 300 and 700 meters, in order to avoid their own predators. Moreover, by using two research vessels – the 277-ft&nbsp;Roger Revelle and the 238-ft&nbsp;Sally Ride – the scientists were able to observe conditions inside the salp bloom and compare them to conditions in the surrounding waters.



The results of the team’s unprecedented field campaign are published in the journal <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2022GB007523">Global Biogeochemical Cycles</a>. They show that, when present in dense swarms, salps have a massive effect on the amount of particulate organic carbon (POC) moving downwards in the water column, and improve the efficiency of the biological carbon pump significantly.&nbsp;



“High salp abundances, combined with unique features of their ecology and physiology, lead to an outsized role in the biological pump,” says Steinberg.&nbsp;



Salps produce relatively large, dense fecal pellets, that sink rapidly to the depths, giving bacteria little chance to decompose the organic matter on the way. The scientists found that 82 percent of the POC present was derived from salp fecal pellets. Furthermore, the daily migration from surface waters to deeper depths gives the pellets a headstart on their journey downwards. The researchers determined that salp-mediated carbon export markedly increased the biological carbon pump efficiency, increasing by 1.5-fold the proportion of net primary production exported as POC from the surface waters down towards the depths.&nbsp;&nbsp;



The onboard experiments showed that salps are capable of exporting a daily average of 9 milligrams of carbon through each square meter at 100 meters below the bloom, meaning that the amount of carbon exported to the deep sea was about 100 metric tons per day. For comparison, a typical passenger car emits 4.6 metric tons per&nbsp;year. Comparing these values shows the carbon removed from the climate system each day by the salps is equal to taking 7,500 cars off the road. Adjusting these values using the team’s highest measured rate of salp-mediated export (34 mg of C per day) increases the carbon offset to more than 28,000 vehicles.



Moving forward, the team calls for increased recognition of the key role that salps play in global carbon export. “Blooms like the one we observed often go undetected, and their contributions to the biological pump are rarely quantified, even in some of the best-studied regions of the world's oceans," says Steinberg.



Incorporation of salp dynamics into a recent carbon-cycle model illustrates the potential of salp-mediated export. In this global model, salps and other tunicates exported 700 million metric tons of carbon to the deep sea each year, equal to the emissions from more than 150 million cars.&nbsp;



“Greater use of new technologies, such as adding video imaging systems to autonomous floats, would help detect these salp blooms,” says Steinberg. “Our study serves as a ‘call to arms’ to better detect and quantify these processes, using technology and sampling schemes that enable their inclusion in measurements and models of the biological carbon pump.”.



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



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Salps play a key role in pumping carbon to the deep ocean

When assessing the efficiency of the ocean’s biological carbon pump...

While it is not unusual for parents – and especially mothers – to sacrifice their own future success for the sake of their offspring, a new study published in the journal <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2022.12.057">Current Biology</a> has found that <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/scientists-discover-a-new-type-of-killer-whale/">killer whale</a> mothers take this to a surprising extreme. Killer whale moms sacrifice their own reproductive success in order to care for their sons, even after they are full-fledged adults.&nbsp;



“We’ve known for over a decade that adult male killer whales relied on their mothers to keep them alive, but it had never been clear whether mothers pay a cost to do so,” said study lead author Michael N. Weiss, an expert in Behavioral Ecology at the <a href="https://www.exeter.ac.uk/">University of Exeter</a>.



The scientists studied a group of killer whales known as the “southern resident” population of the coastal waters of the Washington State and British Columbia to find out whether the care adult whales (particularly males) receive from their mothers comes at a significant cost.&nbsp;



“The southern resident killer whale community presents an incredible opportunity to investigate these kinds of questions. Along with their bizarre social system, where both males and females stay with their mom for life, they are also one of the best studied wild populations of mammal anywhere in the world,” Weiss explained.



The investigation revealed a marked negative correlation between females’ number of surviving weaned sons and their annual probability of producing another viable calf. Such costs did not appear to decline even as their sons grew older. These findings – which cannot be explained by lactation or group composition effects – provide the first clear evidence of lifetime maternal investment in any animal.



“The magnitude of the cost that females take on to care for their weaned sons was really surprising,” Weiss said. “While there’s some uncertainty, our best estimate is that each additional surviving son cuts a female’s chances of having a new calf in a given year by more than 50 percent. This is a huge cost to taking care of [adult] sons!”



According to the scientists, there seem to be major benefits to caring for adult sons, such as the latter’s reproductive success, which is enough to outweigh the large direct costs their mothers have to face.



“One big take-away is further evidence for how special (and maybe unique) the mother-son bond in killer whales is. Maybe more importantly, our study adds to the growing body of work showing the importance of animals’ social systems in determining demographic patterns. This is of central importance both for an understanding of our world, and to effectively conserve endangered species,” Weiss added.



Since the southern resident killer whales are critically endangered, these findings have important conservation implications, revealing a major and previously unknown factor in female’s reproductive success, which may help to inform future population viability analyses.



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



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Killer whale mothers pay a high price for raising sons

While it is not unusual for parents – and especially...

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



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



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



Video/ Image Credit: ESA



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

Nushagak Bay in southwest Alaska

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



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



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



Video/ Image Credit: American Chemical Society&nbsp;



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



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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

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

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



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Designing crops that can beat the heat

[sendtonews key="QGPzYnXEtN-1712599-12187" type="single"] Today’s Video of the Day from Carl...

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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?

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

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



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



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



Video/ Image Credit: ESA



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



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Santiago, Chile in South America

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

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

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



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



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



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



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



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



Video Credit: Johns Hopkins&nbsp;



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



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

Interactive map of the universe includes 200,000 galaxies

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

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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



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

The city of Dublin on Ireland's east coast

[sendtonews key="qjvhBOBnY8-2426650-12187" type="single"] Today's Video of the Day from the...

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



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



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



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



Video/ Image Credit: ESA



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



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The province of Zaragoza in northeast Spain

[sendtonews key="oL4FnPTGCV-2384527-12187" type="single"] Today's Video of the Day from the...

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

[sendtonews key="f8fukm28Vz-2491833-12187" type="single"] Today's Video of the Day from NASA...

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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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The rapid retreat of the Columbia Glacier

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

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



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



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



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



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



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



Video &amp; Image Credit: ESA



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



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The Pyrenees Mountains in southwest Europe

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

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



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



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



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



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



Video Credit: Stowers Institute for Medical Research&nbsp;



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



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How the immune system responds to injury

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

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



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



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



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



Video/ Image Credit: NASA Goddard



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



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2022 illustrated the consequences of a warming climate

[sendtonews key="3UUsNkFOuS-2487333-12187" type="single"] Today's Video of the Day from NASA...

Earth,Like,Exoplanet,3d,Render

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



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



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



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



Video Credit: NASA Goddard



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



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



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Two distant planets may be "water worlds"

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

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



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



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



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



Video Credit: NASA Goddard&nbsp;



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



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Satellites reveal how Earth's systems are interconnected

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

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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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Tiger sharks are shifting poleward as temperatures rise

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