When you think of antidepressants, treating aggressive brain tumors might not be the first thing that comes to mind, as these medications are typically associated with mental health conditions like depression or anxiety.



Yet, a recent study led by Switzerland’s renowned ETH Zurich has uncovered a unique and hopeful approach to battling one of the deadliest forms of brain cancer: glioblastoma.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-navigating-the-blood-brain-barrier">Navigating the blood-brain barrier</h2>



Glioblastoma is a particularly aggressive and devastating brain <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/holy-grail-molecule-can-kill-all-types-of-solid-cancer-tumors/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tumor</a> that is notorious for its resistance to conventional treatment methods and its rapid progression.



Despite the best efforts of medical professionals, current treatments - such as surgery, radiation, and <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/cancer-cells-hibernate-like-bears-to-survive-chemotherapy/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">chemotherapy</a> - can only extend life expectancy for a limited time, with half of the patients tragically succumbing to the disease within just twelve months of diagnosis.



One of the greatest challenges in treating glioblastoma lies in finding drugs that can effectively cross the blood-brain barrier.



This barrier is a highly selective filtering mechanism that protects the brain from harmful substances, but also prevents many cancer drugs from reaching their target. The blood-brain barrier significantly limits the number of therapeutic options available for brain <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/new-anti-aging-drug-interleukin-11-boosts-lifespan-prevents-cancer-gray-hair/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">cancer</a>.



Consequently, neuro-oncologists have been searching for innovative treatments capable of breaching this barrier and directly targeting the tumor, offering hope for improved outcomes in the battle against this deadly disease.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-unexpected-role-of-an-antidepressant">Unexpected role of an antidepressant </h2>



Researchers led by Professor Berend Snijder at <a href="https://ethz.ch/en.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">ETH Zurich</a>, in collaboration with neurologists Michael Weller and Tobias Weiss at the University Hospital Zurich (USZ), have discovered that an antidepressant known as Vortioxetine could play an unexpected role in this battle. 



Using a novel screening platform called pharmacoscopy, lead author Sohyon Lee found that Vortioxetine, a widely available and FDA-approved antidepressant, was remarkably effective in targeting glioblastoma cells. "Vortioxetine proved to be the most effective antidepressant,” said Lee.



The pharmacoscopy platform allowed researchers to test hundreds of active substances on living tumor cells from 40 glioblastoma patients, offering unprecedented insight into how drugs interact with <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/unique-fingerprint-of-cancer-cells-revealed-in-hydrogen-atoms/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">cancer cells</a>.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-suppressing-cell-division-in-the-tumor">Suppressing cell division in the tumor</h2>



Through the meticulous screening of 130 different agents, researchers were surprised to discover that certain antidepressants demonstrated significant effectiveness against brain tumor cells.



These neuroactive drugs, traditionally used to treat mental health conditions, triggered a unique signaling cascade shared by both neurons and cancer cells, effectively suppressing cell division within the tumor. 



This unexpected mechanism of action opened new doors in the search for alternative <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/ai-is-the-next-frontier-in-cancer-treatment/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">cancer treatments</a>.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-testing-a-million-substances">Testing a million substances</h2>



To further explore these findings, the research team employed advanced computer modeling to test over a million different substances, aiming to deepen their understanding of the interaction between neuroactive drugs and cancer cells. 



This extensive modeling revealed crucial insights into why some antidepressants worked so effectively against glioblastoma, while others did not.



The promising laboratory results encouraged the researchers to move their discovery from the lab to animal trials. 



When tested on mice with glioblastomas, Vortioxetine - the most effective antidepressant in the screening - produced encouraging results.



Notably, its effectiveness was amplified when combined with standard treatments like chemotherapy and radiation, suggesting its potential as a complementary therapy in glioblastoma treatment protocols.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-antidepressants-and-brain-tumors">Antidepressants and brain tumors</h2>



The team at ETH Zurich is now preparing for two clinical trials at the University Hospital Zurich, where glioblastoma patients will receive Vortioxetine in addition to standard treatments. 



“The advantage of Vortioxetine is that it is safe and very cost-effective,” noted Professor Michael Weller. "As the drug has already been approved, it could soon supplement the standard therapy for this deadly brain tumor."



However, Weller urges caution, noting that clinical trials are essential before Vortioxetine can be widely prescribed for glioblastoma. 



“We don’t yet know whether the drug works in humans and what dose is required to combat the tumor, which is why clinical trials are necessary. Self-medicating would be an incalculable risk,” said Professor Weller.



“So far, it’s only been proven effective in cell cultures and in mice," said Professor Snijder. Still, he believes this research represents an ideal outcome: “We started with this terrible tumor and found existing drugs that fight against it. We show how and why they work, and soon we’ll be able to test them on patients.”



If successful, this will mark the first time in decades that a new active substance has been found to improve the treatment of glioblastoma, offering newfound hope to patients around the world.



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-024-03224-y" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Nature Medicine</a>.



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How antidepressants could help treat brain tumors

When you think of antidepressants, treating aggressive brain tumors might not be the first thing that comes to mind, as these medications are typically associated with mental health conditions like depression or anxiety. Yet, a recent study led by Switzerland’s renowned ETH Zurich has uncovered a unique and hopeful approach to battling one of the deadliest forms of brain cancer: glioblastoma. Navigating the blood-brain barrier Glioblastoma is a particularly aggressive and devastating brain tumor that is notorious for its resistance to conventional treatment methods and its rapid...

Teen,Wild,Orangutan,Climbing,Down,The,Tree,In,The,Forest

An international team of researchers from 16 different institutions published a paper in the journal <a href="https://elifesciences.org/">e-life</a> on a two million year old primate <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/fossil-linking-snakes-and-lizards-was-wrongly-identified/">fossil</a>. The research combined the discovery of a vertebrae from a human relative, Australopithecus sediba, along with previously discovered vertebrae fossils. The study revealed that not only could A. sediba walk upright like a human, she could also climb like an ape.



The fossils were discovered in 2015 during a mining excavation in South Africa next to the “cradle of humanity” near the site of the first A. sediba fossil that was found in 2008. The fossil vertebrae were discovered in a hard matrix, nearly perfectly articulated. Rather than removing the fossils in dangerous and laborious preparation, they were analyzed with a Micro-CT scanner. 



Once the fossils were imaged, it was clear that these vertebrae articulated well with type specimens of the same fossil - a female nicknamed “Issa” which means “protector” in Swahili. The ancient fossils of human relatives showed that A. sebida had, like modern humans, only five lumbar vertebrae.



“The lumbar region is critical to understanding the nature of bipedalism in our earliest ancestors, and to understanding how well adapted they were to walking on two legs," said study lead author Professor Scott Williams of New York University and <a href="https://www.wits.ac.za/">Wits University</a>.



"Associated series of lumbar vertebrae are extraordinarily rare in the hominin fossil record, with really only three comparable lower spines being known from the whole of the early African record.”



The discovery of Issa makes her one of only two hominin fossils with well preserved backs, especially lower backs. 



“While Issa was already one of the most complete skeletons of an ancient hominin ever discovered, these vertebrae practically complete the lower back and make Issa’s lumbar region a contender for not only the best-preserved hominin lower back ever discovered, but also probably the best preserved," said Professor Lee Berger, original discoverer of A. sebida and leader of the Malapa project.



This relatively complete lower back allowed the scientists to see that Issa had a curved spine similar to modern humans, something seen as an adaptation for bipedalism.&nbsp;



Other adaptations suggest that Issa had strong trunk muscles, an adaptation for climbing. All together this shows Issa to be a transitional fossil, somewhere between an animal that spent all her time walking and one that spent all her time climbing. “Issa walked somewhat like a human but could climb like an ape,” said Berger.



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By <a href="mailto:zachfitzner@yahoo.com">Zach Fitzner</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Ancient relative climbed like an ape, walked like a human

An international team of researchers from 16 different institutions published...

New research published in the journal <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.abm8136">Science</a> has found that warmer <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/rising-temperatures-are-harming-bumblebee-diet/">temperatures</a> and artificial lights in cities can alter the timing of urban tree greening in the spring. The study revealed that tree leaves bud earlier in U.S. cities compared to rural areas, and that artificial light accelerates this effect, as the climate warms.



“The effect of light pollution on vegetation phenology is a blind spot,” said study lead author Lin Meng, a postdoctoral fellow at <a href="https://www.lbl.gov/">Lawrence Berkeley National Lab</a> in Berkeley, California. 



“We as ecologists know a lot about the impact of warming and increased carbon dioxide concentration on plants because these are the two most significant aspects of climate change… but light doesn’t change in nature…So, most people just didn’t think of it.”



While global warming has shifted the timing of global seasonal tree events such as leafing, budding, or greening, urban environments pose additional challenges to trees, including warmer temperatures than in rural areas (a phenomenon known as the “<a href="https://www.earth.com/earthpedia-articles/urban-heat-island/">urban heat island effect</a>”), and the presence of artificial light at night from a variety of sources (public streetlights, buildings, advertising lights, vehicles) that has a significant impact on the regular light cycle plants depend on.



By using satellite data from the <a href="https://www.usanpn.org/usa-national-phenology-network">USA National Phenology Network</a> and <a href="https://blackmarble.gsfc.nasa.gov/">NASA’s Black Marble</a>, Dr. Meng compared spring “green-up dates” in urban versus rural areas in the 85 largest U.S. cities for the period 2001 to 2014. She discovered that, due to warmer temperatures, green-up occurred about six days earlier in urban areas compared to rural ones. Furthermore, in locations with intense artificial light, green-up occurred nine days earlier.



“My findings highlight artificial light as an understudied factor on phenology, which may supplement daylength and facilitate earlier spring greening under a warmer climate,” said Meng.



“This research provides important insight into the impacts of the urban environment on natural processes essential to ecosystem function. Understanding how city-induced temperature and light influence vegetation both increases our knowledge of these basic ecological interactions and will help us design more resilient urban landscapes," concluded Sacha Vignieri, Deputy Editor for Research at the journal&nbsp;Science.



This study was the grand winner of the 2021 <a href="https://scienceprize.scilifelab.se/">Science and SciLifeLab Prize for Young Scientists</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

Artificial lights cause earlier tree greening in the spring

New research published in the journal Science has found that...

For hundreds of millions of years, large vertebrate herbivores inhabited most of the <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/staggering-amount-of-wastewater-impacts-coastal-ecosystems/">ecosystems</a> on our planet. But during the late Quaternary period, particularly between 50,000 and 6,000 years ago, rapid extinctions of these megaherbivores occurred. This has left most continents depauperate in large grazing species today. In addition, other species, such as predators and parasites that were dependent on the ancient grazers, also suffered massive extinctions.



While the potential causes of these extensive megafaunal extinctions have been studied and debated, less attention has been given to the consequences for ecological interactions and ecosystem functioning.&nbsp;



In collaboration with the Utah Natural History Museum, Yale scientists have now conducted research into whether the extinctions of large herbivores, such as woolly mammoths, giant bisons, giant deer, rhinoceroses and ancient horses, were associated with a contemporaneous increase in fires in the world’s ecosystems. Their hypothesis was that the loss of these grazers would have resulted in a build-up of grass that could fuel such fires.



The researchers first gathered data on the large mammals that became extinct in the late Quaternary period across four continents, and their approximate dates of extinction. The information revealed that South America lost the most grazers (83% of all its recorded species), followed by North America (68%). These losses were significantly higher than in Australia (44%) and Africa (22%).



They then compared these findings with records of fire activity as revealed by the presence of charcoal deposits in lake sediments. Using sediments from 410 sites globally, which provided a historical record of regional fire activity across continents, they found that fire activity increased after the mega grazer extinctions.&nbsp;



Moreover, continents that lost more grazers (South America, then North America) saw larger increases in the incidence of fires, whereas continents that had lower rates of extinction (Australia and Africa) saw little change in grassland fire activity.



“These extinctions led to a cascade of consequences,” said study co-author Allison Karp, a postdoctoral associate in the Department of Ecology &amp; Evolutionary Biology at <a href="https://www.yale.edu/">Yale University</a>. “Studying these effects helps us understand how herbivores shape global ecology today.”



Interestingly, Karp and senior author Carla Staver, associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology in Yale’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences, found that although many ancient browser species – such as mastodons, diprotodons, and giant sloths, which foraged on shrubs and trees in wooded areas – also went extinct during the same period, their losses had less impact on fires in woodland habitats.



By contrast, grassland ecosystems were altered forever by the loss of the mega grazers. Grasses tolerant of herbivore grazing pressure were wiped out by the more frequent fires, and predator populations collapsed. Certain fruit-bearing trees, that were dependent on the herbivores for seed dispersal, also became extinct. New species of grass became established and new grazers, including domestic livestock, eventually adapted to the transformed ecosystems.



The findings illustrate why scientists should consider the role of grazing livestock and wild grazers in fire mitigation and climate change, the authors said.&nbsp;



“This work really highlights how important grazers may be for shaping fire activity,” said Staver. “We need to pay close attention to these interactions if we want to predict the future [effects] of fires accurately.”



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



---



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

Extinction of ancient grazers changed fire regimes

For hundreds of millions of years, large vertebrate herbivores inhabited...

Flavored vapes have recently been regarded with just as much suspicion as traditional <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/e-cigarettes-potential-carcinogen/">cigarettes</a>. However, a new study from researchers at the <a href="https://www.uea.ac.uk/">University of East Anglia</a> suggests that vaping is less harmful than smoking, and may make it easier to kick the habit.&nbsp;



“There has been a lot of concern that young people may start vaping because they are attracted to e-liquid flavors, and that it could potentially lead them to start smoking tobacco," said study lead author Caitlin Notley.



"We wanted to find out more about the links between vape flavors, the uptake of vaping among young people, and whether it leads to regular vaping and, potentially, tobacco smoking.”



Examining 58 past studies, which cumulatively examined over 500,000 subjects, Notley and her colleagues find that "flavored e-liquids are an important aspect of vaping that young people enjoy. This suggests that flavored products may encourage young people to switch away from harmful tobacco smoking towards less harmful vaping.”&nbsp;



In other words, given the choice between vaping and smoking actual cigarettes, adolescents and young adults are more likely to choose the former, and are less likely to adopt traditional smokes afterward.



“Flavors may be an important motivator for e-cigarette uptake – but we found no evidence that using flavored e-liquids attracted young people to go on to take up tobacco smoking.” Importantly, Notley says she and her colleagues “found no adverse effects or harm caused by using liquid vape flavors."



However, these results are not necessarily to be taken at face value. The researchers noted that previous research attempts did not very clearly define what they meant when they said “e-liquid flavors.” Without clear definitions, it’s hard to test and replicate the results of the study.&nbsp;



Still, Notley believes that “ensuring the continued availability of a range of e-liquid flavors is likely to be important in encouraging young people who smoke to switch to vaping as a less harmful alternative.”



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.addictionjournal.org/">Addiction</a>.



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By <a href="http://mailto:rugerpaleo@gmail.com">Alex Ruger</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Flavored vapes may actually help young people quit smoking

Flavored vapes have recently been regarded with just as much...

Old,Man,Or,Grandfather,In,Medical,Mask.,The,Dangers,Of

The first data from COVID-19 research by the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA) has been published today in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/nataging/">Nature Aging</a>. The analysis shows that the pandemic has had significant impacts on the mental health of older people, particularly those who were lonely, <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/isolated-tropical-birds-may-represent-new-species/">isolated</a> or had pre-existing medical conditions.&nbsp;



The research team, led by Parminder Raina from the <a href="https://www.mcmaster.ca/">McMaster University</a>, found that 43 percent of adults aged 50 or older experienced moderate or high levels of depressive symptoms at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, and that this rate increased over time.&nbsp;



Data was collected using telephone and online surveys to examine how factors such as health status, income and social participation had impacted the development of depressive symptoms in older people. Data was gathered during the initial lockdown, starting in March 2020, and after re-opening following the first wave of COVID-19 in Canada.&nbsp;



The researchers found that loneliness was the most significant predictor of worsening depressive symptoms, with other pandemic-related stressors, such as family conflict, also increasing the odds. In addition, people with lower income and poorer health, either due to pre-existing health conditions or health concerns that developed during the pandemic, experienced a greater impact.



“The COVID-19 pandemic has had a disproportionate impact on older adults, with groups of people who were already marginalized feeling a far greater negative impact,” said Raina, who is a lead principal investigator of the CLSA and also a professor in the Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact and scientific director of the McMaster Institute for Research on Aging.



“Those who were socially isolated, experiencing poorer health and of lower socioeconomic status were more likely to have worsening depression as compared to their pre-pandemic depression status, collected as part of the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging since 2011."



Women were also disproportionately affected, with higher odds of pandemic depression than men. Female respondents reported that factors such as separation from family and increased time caregiving were stressors during this time.



The CLSA is a large, national, long-term study that follows approximately 50,000 adults, aged between 45 and 85 when first recruited. The study aims to understand how changing biological, medical, psychological, social, economic and lifestyle factors impact the health of people as they age. The platform is funded by the Government of Canada through the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Canada Foundation for Innovation.



The research team included CLSA principal investigators Christina Wolfson of McGill University, Susan Kirkland of Dalhousie University, Lauren Griffith of McMaster, along with a national team of investigators.



“These findings suggest the negative mental health impacts of the pandemic persist and may worsen over time, and [this] underscores the need for tailored interventions to address pandemic stressors and alleviate their impact on the mental health of older adults,” concluded Raina.



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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

Older people twice as likely to suffer from pandemic depression

The first data from COVID-19 research by the Canadian Longitudinal...

Over 90 percent of <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/dopamine-plays-a-central-role-in-songbird-mating/">bird</a> species are monogamous, often mating for life, and albatrosses are some of the most loyal. Albatrosses have a rather awkward growing-up phase. They try out relationships with several partners, but they generally stick together for life.&nbsp;



However, a new study published in the journal <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rspb.2021.2112">Proceedings of the Royal Society B</a> has found that, due to climate change, albatrosses start “divorcing” more. “In many socially monogamous species, divorce is a strategy used to correct for sub-optimal partnerships and is informed by measures of previous breeding performance,” wrote the study authors.



“The environment affects the productivity and survival of populations, thus indirectly affecting divorce via changes in demographic rates. However, whether environmental fluctuations directly modulate the prevalence of divorce in a population remains poorly understood.”



By using a longitudinal dataset on the long-lived black-browed albatross (Thalassarche melanophris), a team of researchers led by the <a href="https://www.ulisboa.pt/en">University of Lisbon</a> investigated how environmental variability affected divorce rates among albatrosses. They found that in recent years, in which water temperatures gradually rose, up to eight percent of albatross couples split up.



Normally, albatross divorce is triggered by a failure to breed. However, the new findings showed that albatross pairs were even divorcing after a successful breeding season. According to the researchers, this might be caused by the problems long-distance relationships entail. Since warming waters force the birds to hunt for longer and fly further away, often failing to return for the next breeding season, their partners may move on with another bird.



Furthermore, albatross stress hormones increase in harsher environments, such as when sea waters are warmer. With tougher breeding conditions and food scarcity, albatrosses can start “blaming” each other for their difficulties in proper sustenance and breeding, ultimately leading to divorce.



“For the first time, to our knowledge, we document the disruptive effects of challenging environmental conditions on the breeding processes of a monogamous population, potentially mediated by higher reproductive costs, changes in phenology and physiological stress. Environmentally driven divorce may therefore represent an overlooked consequence of global change,” concluded the researchers.



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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

Albatrosses are divorcing more due to climate change

Over 90 percent of bird species are monogamous, often mating...

An international team of researchers from <a href="https://english.jiangnan.edu.cn/">Jiangnan University</a>, China, <a href="https://www.qmul.ac.uk/">Queen Mary University of London</a>, and the <a href="https://www.oulu.fi/en">University of Oulu</a>, Finland, have recently discovered that a specific type of gut bacteria (Lactobacillus apis) is linked to enhanced memory in <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/bumblebees-are-attracted-to-the-humidity-of-flowers/">bumblebees</a>. This study adds to the growing scientific evidence that the gut microbiome, consisting of trillions of microbes living in our intestines, can affect animal cognition and behavior.



Since bees have a relatively small community of gut microbes compared to mammals, they are ideal models to explore the role of specific gut bacteria on differences in cognition and behavior between individuals.



In order to test bees’ memory and learning abilities, the researchers created different colored artificial flowers, some of them associated with a sweet sucrose solution, and others with a bitter tasting solution containing quinine, which is a repellent for bees. Afterwards, they assessed how quickly the bees managed to learn which colors are associated with a sugar reward, and whether they were able to remember this information three days later.



By sequencing gut samples from the bees, the scientists compared individual differences in learning and memory abilities with the levels of different gut microorganisms. They found that bumblebees with more Lactobacillus apis in their microbiome had a better memory and stronger learning abilities than those with fewer bacteria.&nbsp;



Furthermore, to confirm that the numbers of Lactobacillus apis were directly responsible for the differences in learning and memory, the researchers added these bacteria to the bumblebees’ diet and measured their responses to the same task.&nbsp;



“Our results suggest not only that the natural variation in the amount of a specific gut bacterium effects memory, but also show a causal link – that by adding the same bacterial species to a bee’s diet can enhance their memories,” said study lead author Dr. Li Li, a postdoctoral fellow at Jiangnan University.



“This is a fascinating finding that could apply to humans as well as to bees. Our findings add to growing evidence of the importance of gut-brain interactions in animals and provide insights into the cause of cognitive differences in natural bumblebee populations,” added study co-author Lars Chittka, a professor of Zoology at Queen Mary University.



This study, published in the journal <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-26833-4">Nature Communications</a>, shows that we can improve our cognitive abilities by regulating gut microbiota.&nbsp;&nbsp;



---



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

Gut bacteria enhances memory in bees

An international team of researchers from Jiangnan University, China, Queen...

Couple,Stretching,Outdoors,Before,Morning,Run.,Handsome,Bearded,Man,And

A new study used anonymous data from nearly 3,000 US counties to examine the correlation between <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/extreme-heat-events-are-becoming-increasingly-common/">extreme heat</a> and visits to the hospital emergency department for heat-related illness. The study specifically examined emergency department visits to people’s ages, something rarely looked at for younger and middle aged people.&nbsp;



Study senior author Dr. Gregory Wellenius is a professor at <a href="https://www.bu.edu/sph/">Boston University School of Public Health</a> (BUSPH).



“Many illnesses that lead to utilization of the emergency department do not lead to hospitalization because they can be treated in a short amount of time, particularly among the younger adult population," explained Dr. Wellenius.



"By looking at emergency room visits, we aimed to obtain a more comprehensive picture of the true burden of disease that might be attributed to the days of high heat.”



The difference in visits to the emergency department may have more to do with lifestyle differences between the young and older people than with physiological differences.



“Younger adults may be at greater risk of exposure to extreme heat, particularly among workers that spend substantial time outdoors," said Dr. Shengzhi Sun. "Younger adults may also not realize that they too can be at risk on days of extreme heat.”



The study also showed that unusual highs for usually cooler regions are especially dangerous, something likely to increase with continued climate change.



“While extreme heat threatens everyone’s health, this study provides further evidence that it is especially dangerous in regions with cooler climates that may be less adapted to heat," said . Dr. Kate Weinberger.&nbsp;



"As temperatures continue to rise due to climate change, the implementation of heat adaptation measures in these regions will be critically important.”



“Although climate change is a global problem and heat threatens the health of everybody across the world, the impacts are felt locally, and the solutions have to be tailored to local needs," said Dr. Wellenius.



"What works for heat wave preparedness in the Pacific Northwest is really different from what works in the southeastern US, so the solutions have to be localized to accommodate the needs of the local community.”



The study is published in the <a href="https://www.bmj.com/">British Medical Journal</a>.



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By <a href="mailto:zachfitzner@yahoo.com">Zach Fitzner</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Young adults have a greater risk of extreme heat exposure

A new study used anonymous data from nearly 3,000 US...

A recent study by <a href="https://www.osu.edu/">Ohio State University</a> reveals that extending social support to one's spouse, friends, and family is just as crucial as receiving it when it comes to one's health.



While experts have long believed that obtaining social support from others is beneficial to health, previous studies have yielded varied results. The research team set out to investigate whether providing assistance can also have a positive impact on one's health.



The researchers looked for a key indicator of health - chronic inflammation. Study participants who reported they were able to provide social support to family and friends had lower inflammation. 



“Positive relationships may be associated with lower inflammation only for those who believe they can give more support in those relationships,” said study lead author Professor Tao Jiang.



The results suggest that having friends to depend on may not improve your well-being unless you also express your willingness to assist them when they are in need of support. The findings also indicate that the healing potential of strong relationships stems from mutual support. 



“It may be that when people believe they can give more support to friends and family, these relationships are especially rewarding and stress-relieving, which reduces inflammation,” said Professor <a href="https://psychology.osu.edu/people/way.37">Baldwin Way</a>.



The study relied on information from 1,054 healthy adults between the age of 34 and 84 who took part in the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States.&nbsp;



The participants responded to a questionnaire that evaluated their "social integration," which included questions about their marital status, living with a partner, how frequently they contacted family and friends, and how frequently they joined social groups or activities.



The volunteers were also asked to rate how much they think they could rely on their relatives, friends, or spouse for assistance in the event of an emergency.



According to Professor Jiang, the significance of this research is due to the fact that this dataset is one of the few that additionally asked individuals to rate how much they were available to support family, friends, and spouses.



“This work underscores the importance of incorporating the concept of giving support into future research in this area,” said Professor Jiang.



Two sets of blood tests were conducted years apart, and the parameters studied included an interleukin-6 (IL-6) test, which measures the systemic inflammation in the body.



“Higher levels of IL-6 are associated with increased risk for many of the diseases that are the top killers of Americans, including cardiovascular disease and cancer. That’s why we thought it was important to find out why previous studies found such weak evidence for the link between social support and lower inflammation,” explained Professor Way.



The experts determined that the health benefit of being accessible to others remained true, even after accounting for a wide range of other characteristics that could influence inflammation, such as age, income, and education, as well as health habits, medication use, and known medical illnesses. 



The researchers also found that the relationship between health and the desire to help others may be more significant for women. According to Professor Jiang, a preliminary analysis indicates that the link between providing social support and improved health is more evident in women.



“This reflects the idea that social relationships are often seen as more important for women than for men. But our sample size was not large enough to show that conclusively. We need to study that issue further,” said Professor Jiang. 



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By <a href="http://mailto:ashikha92@gmail.com">Ashikha Raoof</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Giving social support to others is good for your health

A recent study by Ohio State University reveals that extending...

Humans in all <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/ancient-cultures-marijuana-psychoactive-effects/">cultures</a> play games in order to learn and practice group norms. Through games, cultural knowledge is often stored and taught to community members. New research led by the <a href="https://www.eva.mpg.de/index/">Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology</a> in Leipzig has found that different cultures play different types of games. Thus, if a culture is cooperative, the games people play tend to be more cooperative, while if a culture is competitive, the activities will be more competitive in nature.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



“If you live in Germany, chances are high that you played a competitive game,” said study lead author Sarah Leisterer-Peoples, a doctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute. “We think that games might reflect aspects of human cultures, such as how competitive and cooperative the cultures are.”



Previous research suggested that in socially hierarchical cultures or those with large wealth or status differences, competitive games are most frequently played, while in egalitarian cultures, with little differences in status and wealth, traditional activities are usually more cooperative. However, this relationship was investigated in just a few cultures, thus problematizing attempts of generalization.



In their new study, Leisterer-Peoples and her colleagues used a large historical database about games played by cultures located in the Pacific.&nbsp;



“The cultures in our study lived in a broad geographic range, spanning the Pacific Ocean. The cultures were very diverse, but also shared similarities, which allowed for a comparison on several aspects of the cultures,” said Leisterer-Peoples.



The scientists discovered that cultures frequently engaging in conflicts with other cultures had more cooperative rather than competitive games, while cultures with frequent internal conflicts had the opposite.



“These findings might be non-intuitive at first glance, but make sense in light of theories on the evolution of cooperation in cultural groups. In times of conflict with other cultures, group members have to cooperate with one another and compete with their opponents. This is reflected in the kinds of games that are played - games with competing groups. And when there’s a lot of conflict among the members of a group, they tend to play games that are competitive. These findings suggest that the games we play reflect the socio-ecological characteristics of the culture that we are in,” explained Leisterer-Peoples.&nbsp;



By mimicking real-world behavior, games are an important avenue through which group norms are learned and practiced during childhood. Further research is needed to assess whether this is the case in modern-day cultures too, where video games have largely replaced traditional activities.



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0259746">PLoS One</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

Games reflect the culture in which they are played

Humans in all cultures play games in order to learn...

Oceans all over the world have been getting warmer, but none as much as the Arctic Ocean, which is the world’s smallest and shallowest ocean. Concerned scientists have been monitoring changes in temperature in this ocean for the past 20 years, using satellites, and have identified that warmer <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/deforestation-has-darkened-coastal-waters-off-belize/">waters</a> flowing into the Arctic Ocean from the North Atlantic may be exacerbating the phenomenon.&nbsp;&nbsp;



However, a new study conducted by an international team of scientists, has quantified the flow of Atlantic waters into the Arctic Ocean, a process known as Atlantification, from pre-industrial and early industrial times. They have found that the warming of the Arctic waters had begun by early in the 20th Century, decades earlier than warming was first recorded by modern instruments. Their study is published today in the journal <a href="https://www.science.org/journal/sciadv">Science Advances</a>.



“The rate of warming in the Arctic is more than double the global average, due to feedback mechanisms,” said co-lead author Dr Francesco Muschitiello from the <a href="https://www.cam.ac.uk/">University of Cambridge</a>. “Based on satellite measurements, we know that the Arctic Ocean has been steadily warming, in particular over the past 20 years, but we wanted to place the recent warming into a longer context.”



The researchers analyzed the marine sediments in the eastern Fram Straight, a gateway through which the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans exchange waters. Fram Straight lies between Greenland and Svalbard. They used biochemical markers found in the shells of tiny marine organisms in the sediments to reconstruct the changes in water column properties over the past 800 years.&nbsp;



The sediments were dated precisely using a combination of methods and the researchers looked for diagnostic signs of Atlantification, such as changes in temperature and salinity. Atlantic Ocean waters are both warmer and more saline than the waters of the Arctic.



“When we looked at the whole 800-year timescale, our temperature and salinity records look pretty constant,” said co-lead author Dr Tesi Tommaso from the Institute of Polar Sciences of the National Research Council in Bologna. “But all of a sudden at the start of the 20th&nbsp;century, you get this marked change in temperature and salinity – it really sticks out.”



The results indicate that the flow of warmer Atlantic waters into the Arctic began to increase in the early 1900s. This evidence provides the first historical perspective on Atlantification of the Arctic Ocean and reveals that the Arctic’s connection with the North Atlantic Ocean is much stronger than previously thought. The connection is capable of shaping Arctic climate variability, which could have important implications for sea-ice retreat and global sea level rise as the polar ice sheets continue to melt.



Scientists expect that, as the Arctic Ocean gets warmer, the ice in the polar region will melt which will, in turn lead to global rises in sea level. As the ice melts, it exposes more of the ocean’s surface to the sun, releasing heat and raising air temperatures. As the Arctic continues to warm, it will melt the permafrost, which stores huge amounts of methane, a far more damaging greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.



Interestingly, the findings suggest that increasing Arctic Atlantification at the start of the industrial era was probably driven by a change in the North Atlantic ocean’s circulation pattern that brought warmer, sub-tropical waters further northwards than before, noted the study authors. This warming was not, at the time, influenced by the activities of humans.&nbsp;



“The reason for this rapid Atlantification at the gate of the Arctic Ocean is intriguing,” said Muschitiello. “We compared our results with the ocean circulation at lower latitudes and found there is a strong correlation with the slowdown of dense water formation in the Labrador Sea. In a future warming scenario, the deep circulation in this subpolar region is expected to further decrease because of the thawing of the Greenland ice sheet. Our results imply that we might expect further Arctic Atlantification in the future because of climate change.”



The researchers say their results also expose a possible flaw in climate models, because they do not reproduce this early Atlantification at the beginning of the last century.



“Climate simulations generally do not reproduce this kind of warming in the Arctic Ocean, meaning there’s an incomplete understanding of the mechanisms driving Atlantification,” said Tommaso. “We rely on these simulations to project future climate change, but the lack of any signs of an early warming in the Arctic Ocean is a missing piece of the puzzle.”



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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

The Arctic Ocean has been warming for more than 100 years

Oceans all over the world have been getting warmer, but...

Although bees are related to <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/wasps-are-undervalued-as-predators-and-pollinators/">wasps</a>, they gave up being predatory long ago. While most species of wasps catch and kill prey, largely other insects, bees have evolved to depend on pollen and nectar from flowers. Some people view bees as vegetarian wasps. However, a group of stingless bee species in the tropics has developed an interest in eating meat in the form of carrion, and some of these "vulture bees" have even become entirely dependent on this source of protein. 



“These are the only bees in the world that have evolved to use food sources not produced by plants, which is a pretty remarkable change in dietary habits,” said <a href="https://www.ucr.edu/">UC Riverside</a> entomologist Doug Yanega.



Given this rather extreme dietary shift, a team of scientists from UC Riverside wondered what the gut microbiome of the carrion-eating bees might look like. They traveled to Costa Rica to study closely related species of stingless bees living in the same area, that fed on different diets. Some had a traditional diet of nectar and pollen, some ate exclusively carrion from carcasses, and a third group foraged on both flower products and carrion. The experts compared the microbiomes of bees from the three groups.



Honeybees, bumblebees, and stingless bees have guts that are colonized by the same five core microbes. “Unlike humans, whose guts change with every meal, most bee species have retained these same bacteria over roughly 80 million years of evolution,” said Jessica Maccaro, a UCR entomology doctoral student.



The researchers hypothesized that either the core microbes would persist in the carrion-eating bees and would have evolved to digest meat protein instead of pollen, or that the diet shift would have resulted in the extinction of core microbes and their replacement by different microbe species that can break down carrion.&nbsp;



To test this theory, the researchers set up baits composed of pieces of raw chicken suspended from branches in the tropical forest trees. These attracted carrion-eating species, that they refer to appropriately as vulture bees, as well as related bee species that feed opportunistically but not exclusively on carrion for their protein. For comparison, the team also collected bees from species that feed only on pollen and nectar.



Normally, stingless bees have baskets on their hind legs for collecting pollen. However, the team observed carrion-feeding bees using those same structures to collect the bait. “They had little chicken baskets,” said Quinn McFrederick, a UCR entomologist.



On analyzing the microbiomes of all three bee types, they found the most extreme changes among exclusive meat-eaters.&nbsp;These vulture bees had lost some of the ancestral core microbes, retained others, and made use of new, acid-loving microbes that are usually found in the environment and on carrion. The abundance of acid-loving bacteria suggests that an acidic gut is important for vulture bee nutrition and health, as has been found in other carrion-feeding animals.&nbsp;



“The vulture bee microbiome is enriched in acid-loving bacteria, which are novel bacteria that their relatives don’t have,” McFrederick said. “These bacteria are similar to ones found in actual vultures, as well as hyenas and other carrion-feeders, presumably to help protect them from pathogens that show up on carrion.”



For example, Lactobacillus bacteria were found in vulture bee guts; this is the bacterium used by humans to culture milk into yogurt and make sourdough bread. The researchers also found Carnobacterium present as part of the gut biome; this bacterium is associated with the digestion of flesh. &nbsp;



“It’s crazy to me that a bee can eat dead bodies. We could get sick from that because of all the microbes on meat competing with each other and releasing toxins that are very bad for us,” Maccaro said.&nbsp;



The researchers noted that these bees are unusual in a number of ways. “Even though they can’t sting, they’re not all defenseless, and many species are thoroughly unpleasant,” Yanega said. “They range from species that are genuinely innocuous to many that bite, to a few that produce blister-causing secretions in their jaws, causing the skin to erupt in painful sores.”



In addition, the carrion-eating bees still produce honey that is sweet and edible. “They store the meat in special chambers that are sealed off for two weeks before they access it, and these chambers are separate from where the honey is stored,” Maccaro said.



The research team is now planning to investigate vulture bee microbiomes further, hoping to learn about the genomes of all the bacteria as well as the fungi and viruses in their bodies.&nbsp;They hope to learn more about the larger role that microbes play in overall bee health.&nbsp;



The research is published in the journal <a href="https://journals.asm.org/journal/mbio">mBio</a>.



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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

Vulture bees have acquired a taste for dead bodies

Although bees are related to wasps, they gave up being...

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



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



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



Video/ Image Credit: ESA



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

Nushagak Bay in southwest Alaska

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



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



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



Video/ Image Credit: American Chemical Society&nbsp;



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



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

Flu viruses are more flexible than expected

[sendtonews key="G9bUoxcjr4-2511624-12187" type="single"] Today's Video of the Day from the...

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features Lake Trasimeno, which is located west of Perugia in central Italy. It is the fourth largest lake in the country. While Trasimeno’s water level varies, it has a maximum depth of approximately six meters.&nbsp;



"In this Copernicus Sentinel-2 image, captured on 6 August 2022, the lake’s emerald green colour is likely due to the presence of phytoplankton. Streaks in the water, particularly visible in the west, indicate the presence of soil and sediments which have been stirred up by winds. Dark colored waters in the southern part of the lake indicate a presence of submerged and floating macrophytes (aquatic plants) as well as algae," says ESA.



"Surrounded by hills on three sides, Trasimeno is subject to heavy storms created by winds, especially from the north and west. There are three islets in the lake: Maggiore, Minore and Polvese (the largest). The lake’s shores are sparsely inhabited with only two popular villages: Castiglione del Lago and Passignano sul Trasimeno."



"Italy is experiencing its worst drought in 70 years which has affected drinking water supplies, hydroelectric power and agricultural production. High temperatures, hot winds and lack of rainfall are the main causes of drought in the Umbrian region which saw Lake Trasimeno’s drop 1.3 m, reaching the limit of the hydrometric zero in July 2022."



Video/Image Credit: ESA&nbsp;



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

Lake Trasimeno in Central Italy

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Today's Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.acs.org/">American Chemical Society</a> describes a new self-powered nanosensor that can instantly detect mercury contamination with the tap of a finger.&nbsp;



The oxidized form of mercury can be harmful when it is ingested through contaminated water or food. This makes it necessary for experts to develop sensors that can quickly and accurately detect the presence of mercury.&nbsp;



Zong-Hong Lin and colleagues have now created a triboelectric nanosensor (TENS) that can detect mercury by simply by touching a sample. According to the researchers, their TENS could serve as the basis for similar devices to safely and remotely monitor other pollutants.



Video Credit: American Chemical Society&nbsp;



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



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

Detecting mercury contamination with the tap of a finger

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

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



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



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



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



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



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



Video/ Image Credit: European Space Agency&nbsp;



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



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

Kainji Lake in north central Nigeria

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



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



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



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



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



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



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



Video Credit: Amanda Nguyen/University of Illinois



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



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

Designing crops that can beat the heat

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.acs.org/">American Chemical Society</a> explores the ability of salt to transform the way that foods and beverages taste. Salt is known to cover up undesirable flavors, such as bitterness in coffee or beer, but how exactly does sodium chloride change the taste of other compounds?



One previous study showed that, not only does salt suppress bitterness, but also enhances sweetness and sourness. Another study revealed that bitterness reduction by salt seems to be happening at the tongue receptor level as well as in the brain.&nbsp;



While it is known that salt taste is mediated by the presence of sodium channels in the form of taste buds, experts believe that there is also an unknown receptor responsible for how we taste salt that has not yet been identified.&nbsp;



Video Credit: ACS Reactions



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



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

How does salt makes things taste better?

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



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



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



Video/ Image Credit: ESA



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



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

Santiago, Chile in South America

[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

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



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



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



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



Video Credit: NASA Goddard&nbsp;



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



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

Remote sensing will revolutionize the way we monitor trees

[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

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



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



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



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



Video/ Image Credit: ESA



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



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

The province of Zaragoza in northeast Spain

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



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



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



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



Video Credit: NASA Goddard



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



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

Wetlands are a major source of methane emissions

[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



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

The rapid retreat of the Columbia Glacier

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



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



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



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



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



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



Video &amp; Image Credit: ESA



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



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

The Pyrenees Mountains in southwest Europe

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



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



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



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



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



Video Credit: Stowers Institute for Medical Research&nbsp;



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



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

How the immune system responds to injury

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

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



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



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



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



Video/ Image Credit: NASA Goddard



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



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

2022 illustrated the consequences of a warming climate

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Earth,Like,Exoplanet,3d,Render

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



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



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



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



Video Credit: NASA Goddard



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



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



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

Two distant planets may be "water worlds"

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



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



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



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



Video Credit: NASA Goddard&nbsp;



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



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

Satellites reveal how Earth's systems are interconnected

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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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

Tiger sharks are shifting poleward as temperatures rise

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