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 -...

It’s strange that cacao, the main ingredient in chocolate, is central to a great mystery. For centuries, humans have grown and eaten cacao but somehow, we never understood one of the central processes that gave us such delicious food - its <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/bird-pollination-can-be-advantageous-for-plants/">pollination</a>.



Cacao flowers are tiny and the insects that gather on the tree are also miniscule and diverse, so it may be excusable that no one’s looked close enough at the right time to find a pollinator for cacao. Now, new research published in the journal <a href="https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/26888319">Ecological Solutions and Evidence</a> examines the pollination of cacao.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



In northern Peruvian dry agroforests - that is, cacao plantations grown in the shade of other trees - glue was applied to the flowers of the plant to see what insect visited. A variety of insects were caught, with 38% being aphids, 13% were ants and 10% were thrips. In wet agroforests of southern Peru, thrips made up 65% of the insects caught, midges were 14%, and parasitic wasps were 10% of visitors.&nbsp;



There was also a difference in the behavior of insects in these different habitats. In dry agroforests, more insects were found in the shade. In the wetter agroforests, however, insects preferred to be in the sun - at least during the rainy season when the research was carried out.&nbsp;



Interestingly, the cacao set fruit at a rate of just 2%, hand pollination was only able to raise this number to 7%. This baffled the scientists who could only hypothesize. Perhaps there are no good pollinators for cacao in Peru. The scientists also noted that only an average of 30 pollen grains were found on cacao flowers, much less than expected for successful pollination.&nbsp;



There is still much to investigate in the pollination of cacao. "Among other things, it would be important to identify the main pollinators," said Justine Vansynghel, lead researcher and PhD student.



This information could help improve the yields of cacao in native regions like Peru, which lags behind the pollination rates of plantations in Asia and Africa, probably because these plants are high yielding clones. More research may finally discover the pollinator but for now, cacao remains a delicious mystery.&nbsp;



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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

Cacao tree pollination remains a mystery

It’s strange that cacao, the main ingredient in chocolate, is...

Empathy is by definition, trying to feel the experience of another. Researchers recently asked whether people empathize more with other people or with <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/experts-identify-100-cases-of-humans-passing-disease-to-animals/">animals</a>. The study was published in a special issue of the journal <a href="https://www.hogrefe.com/us/journal/social-psychology">Social Psychology</a>.



To investigate this question, scientists recruited 193 participants. The research subjects were then asked whether they wanted to empathize with a human or an animal. If the participants said human, they were shown a picture of a college age person and asked to put themselves in their situation. If they chose an animal, the participants were shown the image of a koala bear. In this study, the participants more often chose the human.&nbsp;



“Participants indicated that empathizing with animals felt more challenging, and that belief of empathy being more difficult drove them to choose animal empathy less," said study lead author Daryl Cameron of the <a href="https://rockethics.psu.edu/">Rock Ethics Institute</a>. "It’s possible that people felt empathizing with a mind that’s unlike our own was more challenging than imagining the experience of another human.”



Another study illuminated and complicated things a bit more. In a second study, two new groups of 192 and 197 participants were given two choices. First, researchers asked one group to either empathize with or just describe without empathizing a person. The second group was given the same choice but with a koala instead of a person. Interestingly, with the image of the human, people tended to avoid empathizing. With the image of the koala people didn’t avoid empathy but embraced it.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



“It’s possible that if people are seeing humans and animals in competition, it might lead to them preferring to empathize with other humans,” said Cameron. “But if you don’t see that competition, and the situation is just deciding whether to empathize with an animal one day and a human the other, it seems that people don’t want to engage in human empathy but they're a little bit more interested in animals.”



The researchers hope that this sort of psychology study might help better target conservation efforts and in the end help further the cause of wild animals.&nbsp;



---



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

Do humans empathize more with people or other animals?

Empathy is by definition, trying to feel the experience of...

A new study led by the <a href="https://www.bas.ac.uk/">British Antarctic Survey</a> (BAS) has found that rising greenhouse gas emissions have a long-term warming effect on the Amundsen Sea in West Antarctica, leading to significant <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/how-antarctic-sea-ice-has-fluctuated-over-the-past-century/">sea ice</a> melting. Although scientific observations of this region only began in 1994, the patterns of ice loss the scientists mapped suggest that the ocean may have been gradually warming over the past century, due to a combination of natural and anthropogenic factors.



Ice loss from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet in the Amundsen Sea is one of the main contributors to sea level rises worldwide. According to the researchers, if this massive ice sheet were to melt completely, global sea levels could rise by up to three meters.



By using advanced computer modelling to simulate the response of the Southern Ocean to changes in the atmosphere from 1920 to 2013, the scientists found that the Amundsen Sea became increasingly warmer during this period, due to changes in wind patterns that increased temperatures by driving warm water currents towards and beneath the ice. These changes in wind patterns are partly driven by rising greenhouse emissions.



“The main cause of the warming in our simulations is changes in the winds near the edge of the Amundsen Sea that pump more warm water from the deep ocean onto the shallower continental shelf. These wind trends are partly caused by greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels,” the study authors explained.



According to study lead author Kaitlin Naughten, an ocean-ice modeler at BAS, if greenhouse gas emissions increase, further rises in ocean temperatures, ice melt, and global sea levels are to be expected. However, the fact that these patterns are partly caused by human activity should also give us reason to hope: if emissions are sufficiently reduced and wind patterns in the area are stabilized, this trend could be curbed and perhaps even reversed.



“Changes in the Southern Hemisphere westerly winds are a well-established climate response to the effect of greenhouse gases. However, the Amundsen Sea is also subject to very strong natural climate variability. The simulations suggest that both natural and anthropogenic changes are responsible for the ocean-driven ice loss from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet,” said study co-author Paul Holland, an oceanographer at BAS. While the natural changes occurring in the area are most probably beyond our control, urgent measures should be taken to curb emissions in order to protect our planet from catastrophic sea level rises.&nbsp;



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2021GL094566">Geophysical Research Letters</a>.&nbsp;&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

Sea ice loss is directly affected by greenhouse gas emissions

A new study led by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS)...

The schooner Tara is a floating laboratory that journeys around the world’s oceans conducting scientific research. It has covered more than 450,000 kilometers since 2003, while carrying out 12 scientific expeditions in collaboration with the best international laboratories and academic organizations in the world. The research is carried out under the auspices of the Tara Ocean Foundation that aims to develop innovative and original open ocean science that will help predict, anticipate and understand future climate risks and their potential impacts on ocean biodiversity.



On a recent expedition, the crew and scientists on board the Tara collected more than 35,000 water samples from oceans around the world. They analyzed the living organisms present in the water samples for sequences of RNA that are indicative of the presence of RNA viruses. Whereas most living organisms carry their genetic information on molecules of DNA, these viruses have the molecule RNA (ribonucleic acid) as the genetic material within their bodies.&nbsp;



RNA viruses have been around for billions of years and scientists are familiar with those species that cause human diseases such as the common cold, influenza, SARS,&nbsp;MERS,&nbsp;Covid-19,&nbsp;dengue,&nbsp;hepatitis C and E,&nbsp;rabies,&nbsp;polio,&nbsp;mumps, and&nbsp;measles. However, the current study of ocean waters revealed at least 5,500 viral species that are brand new to science.&nbsp;



“RNA viruses are clearly important in our world, but we usually only study a tiny slice of them – the few hundred that harm humans, plants and animals,” said lead author&nbsp;<a href="https://microbiology.osu.edu/people/sullivan.948">Matthew Sullivan</a>, professor of&nbsp;<a href="https://microbiology.osu.edu/">microbiology at </a><a href="https://www.osu.edu/">The Ohio State University</a>. “We wanted to systematically study them on a very big scale and explore an environment no one had looked at deeply, and we got lucky because virtually every species was new, and many were really new.”



In their publication, available today in the journal <a href="https://www.science.org/">Science</a>, the researchers explain how they combined machine-learning analyses with traditional evolutionary trees in order to identify and classify the new viral species. They found that the 5,500 new species included representatives from all five currently accepted RNA virus phyla, but also suggested that thousands of the new species had characteristics that did not place them within any of the existing phyla. The researchers suggested that at least five new phyla needed to be established in order to classify the new viruses adequately.&nbsp;



The five phyla of viruses currently recognized within the biological kingdom <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Taxonomy/Browser/wwwtax.cgi?id=2732396">Orthornavirae</a> have recently been accepted by the <a href="https://talk.ictvonline.org/">International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses</a> (ICTV). However, following the analysis of the seawater samples collected from the Tara, the researchers have proposed the following five new phyla: Taraviricota, Pomiviricota, Paraxenoviricota, Wamoviricota and Arctiviricota. Species from some of these phyla are abundant and widely distributed in ocean waters around the world.&nbsp;



“There’s so much new diversity here – and an entire phylum, the&nbsp;Taraviricota,&nbsp;were found all over the oceans, which suggests they’re ecologically important,” said Sullivan.



Since evidence of the new RNA viruses came from the bodies of marine microbes present in the water samples, it is likely that these viruses use the different microbes as hosts. While microbes are essential contributors to all life on the planet, viruses that infect or interact with them have a variety of potential influences on microbial functions. These types of viruses are believed to have three main functions: killing cells, changing how infected cells manage energy, and transferring genes from one host to another.



The researchers hypothesize that knowing more about viral diversity and abundance in the world’s oceans will help explain the role of marine microbes in the ways that oceans adaptation to climate change. Marine microbes are important in the generation of oxygen and the absorption of over half of the&nbsp;human-generated carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Previous research by this group has also suggested that marine viruses are the “knob” on a biological pump that affects how carbon in the ocean is stored.



In previous research, Sullivan’s team has catalogued the diversity and abundance of DNA virus species in the oceans. They have identified more and more new species, increasing the number of ocean species from a few thousand in 2015 and 2016 to 200,000 in 2019.&nbsp;



For studies on DNA viruses, the scientists had access to individual viral particles and their DNA for the analysis. However, in the study of the RNA viruses there were no actual viral particles to study. Instead, researchers extracted sequences from genes expressed in organisms floating in the sea, and narrowed the analysis to RNA sequences that contained a signature gene, called RdRp. This ancient gene codes for the production of an enzyme that is important in the synthesis of RNA from an RNA template, and it is present in the genomes of most RNA-containing&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus">viruses</a>.



RdRp has evolved for billions of years in RNA viruses, and is absent from other viruses or cells. However, because its existence dates back to the earliest life on Earth, its position within the viral RNA has changed many times. This made it impossible to map out the viral relationships using a traditional phylogenetic tree. Instead, the team used machine learning to organize the 44,000 new genetic sequences they found, in a way that could handle the billions of years of sequence divergence. They validated their method by showing that the technique could classify sequences of known RNA viruses accurately.



“We had to benchmark the known to study the unknown,” said Sullivan, also a professor of&nbsp;<a href="https://ceg.osu.edu/">civil, environmental and geodetic engineering</a>, founding director of Ohio State’s&nbsp;<a href="https://u.osu.edu/coms/">Center of Microbiome Science</a>&nbsp;and a leadership team member in the&nbsp;<a href="https://emerge-bii.github.io/people/">EMERGE Biology Integration Institute</a>. “We’ve created a computationally reproducible way to align those sequences to where we can be more confident that we are aligning positions that accurately reflect evolution.”



The researchers also did analysis using 3D representations of sequence structures and alignment which revealed that the cluster of 5,500 new species didn’t fit into the five existing phyla of RNA viruses previously recognized in the&nbsp;Orthornavirae&nbsp;kingdom.



“We benchmarked our clusters against established, recognized phylogeny-based taxa, and that is how we found we have more clusters than those that existed,” said co-first author&nbsp;<a href="https://microbiology.osu.edu/people/zayed.10">Ahmed Zayed</a>, a research scientist in microbiology at Ohio State and a research lead in the EMERGE Institute.



These findings led the researchers to propose not only the five new phyla in viral taxonomy, but also at least 11 new orthornaviran classes of RNA viruses. The team is preparing a proposal to request formalization of the candidate phyla and classes by the ICTV.



Zayed said the extent of new data on the RdRp gene’s divergence over time leads to a better understanding about how early life may have evolved on the planet.



“RdRp is supposed to be one of the most ancient genes – it existed before there was a need for DNA,” he said. “So we’re not just tracing the origins of viruses, but also tracing the origins of life.”



---



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

Thousands of new RNA viruses identified in ocean waters

The schooner Tara is a floating laboratory that journeys around...

<a href="https://www.earth.com/news/as-oceans-warm-up-smaller-species-of-fish-will-dominate/">Oceans</a> are made up of multiple layers. Lighter, warmer waters sit at the top while denser, cooler waters can be found at the bottom. To move heat, ocean mixing is vital.&nbsp;



Ocean mixing also moves oxygen, nutrients and pollutants between different layers, playing a major role in how ecosystems sustain life. A new study has shown how fish can influence ocean ecosystems by circulating nutrients and oxygen around the waters when they spawn. Prior to this study, it was not previously understood how fish contribute to ocean mixing.



A team led by the <a href="https://www.southampton.ac.uk/">University of Southampton</a> spent fifteen days monitoring water turbulence in the Ría de Pontevedra, a bay in the northwest coast of the Iberian Peninsula. The experts measured variations in ocean current speed and temperature over very small distances.



It is known that turbulence and mixing increases during major storm events. The results of the study showed that increased levels of turbulence and mixing occurred every night, even without a storm.



The research team used acoustic data and samples collected with small fishing nets. This allowed the team to identify fish that were gathering in the area at night. The small nets were full of recently spawned eggs of European anchovy.&nbsp; The anchovies’ frantic behaviour during spawning had caused the turbulence. This is referred to as ‘biological mixing’.



“We believe that biological mixing was intense in our observations because the bay is highly stratified - the temperature and other properties vary significantly at different depths,” explained Dr. Bieito Fernández Castro, who led the study.&nbsp;



Previous studies suggested that biological turbulence causes minimal mixing because the circular motions fish generate while swimming are too small, especially in deeper ocean water. “However, we have shown that closer to land, where the layers change over a much shorter distance, the anchovies are able to mix them together,” said Dr. Castro.



While biological mixing may influence the open ocean, the study revealed that it can be significant in coastal ecosystems. This is because thriving marine life coexists with rapid changes in the make-up of the ocean.&nbsp;



The ocean mixing generated by fish could impact the redistribution of temperature, nutrients and oxygen, which play a fundamental role in the functioning of the ecosystem that fish rely on. The findings highlight the capacity of living organisms to influence the environment they live in.



“The observation of how our anchovies drove mixing was totally fortuitous. We were set to study how turbulence affects marine life and we end up showing, for the first time, that marine life can influence ocean turbulence, which in turn influences marine life!” concluded Dr Fernández Castro.



The research is published in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/ngeo/">Nature Geoscience</a>. To learn more, you can watch a short video of the study <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-fosxKyzQ8">here</a>.&nbsp;



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

Spawning fish generate ocean mixing, help sustain a healthy ecosystem

Oceans are made up of multiple layers. Lighter, warmer waters...

In arid Western states, the climate is becoming increasingly warmer and drier, leading to rises in the demand for water resources from humans and most ecosystems. According to a new study led by the <a href="https://www.dri.edu/">Desert Research Institute</a> (DRI), the atmosphere across most of the United States is also demanding a greater amount of water than it ⁰previously used to. These substantial increases in “atmospheric thirst” are leading causes of <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/flash-droughts-are-coming-on-faster-due-to-climate-change/">droughts</a>, wildfires, and reduced streamflows.



Evaporative demand – known colloquially as atmospheric thirst – is a measure of the loss of water from the earth’s surface to the atmosphere, calculated through variables such as temperature, humidity, wind speed, and solar radiation. By assessing trends in evaporative demand across the United States from 1980 to 2020, the researchers found massive increases in the Western states, particularly in the area centered around the Rio Grande and Lower Colorado rivers.



“This means that atmospheric thirst conditions in parts of the country are now verging outside of the range that was experienced 20 to 40 years ago, especially in some regions of the Southwest,” said lead author Christine Albano, an assistant professor of Ecohydrology at DRI. “This is really important to understand, because we know that atmospheric thirst is a persistent force in pushing Western landscapes and water supplies toward drought.”&nbsp;



Professor Albano and her colleagues have found that increases in temperature were responsible for 57 percent of the changes observed in these regions, while humidity, wind speed, and solar radiation played important yet lesser roles (26 percent, 10 percent, and 8 percent, respectively).



For farmers and other water users, increases in atmospheric thirst mean that more water will be required to meet existing needs.&nbsp;



“Our analysis suggests that crops now require more water than they did in the past and can be expected to require more water in the future,” said study co-author Justin Huntington, a research professor of Hydrology at DRI.&nbsp;



Other significant impacts of increased atmospheric thirst include droughts, rises in the frequency and extent of forest fires, and reduced streamflows.&nbsp;



“Our results indicate that, decade by decade, for every drop of precipitation that falls, less and less water is likely to drain into streams, wetlands, aquifers, or other water bodies,” said study co-author Michael Dettinger, a climate scientist at DRI. “Resource managers, policy makers, and the public need to be aware of these changes and plan for these impacts now and into the future.”



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/hydr/23/4/JHM-D-21-0163.1.xml">Hydrometeorology</a>.&nbsp;



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

Atmospheric thirst has increased in the US over the past decades

In arid Western states, the climate is becoming increasingly warmer...

An international team of researchers recently completed a study that confirmed a link between diet, habitat, and social behavior in weaver birds. This relationship is not a new idea; it was first hypothesized in 1964 by British ethologist, John Crook. Still, this is the first time a team has been able to support the hypothesis with statistical evidence.&nbsp;



Weaver birds are known for their elaborate nests. This family of songbirds are primarily found in sub-Saharan Africa. However, they live in various habitats. Some species live in the savannah, where they consume seeds. Other species live in the forest, and their preference is for insects.&nbsp;



After analyzing previous research, the scientists noticed several trends. They saw that birds on the savannah flocked together. Weavers living on the savannah also nested in colonies and were polygamous. However, birds living in the forest were solitary hunters, with no large nesting colonies, but monogamous pairing.&nbsp;



The study was led by Professor Tamás Székely from the <a href="https://www.bath.ac.uk/research-centres/milner-centre-for-evolution/">Milner Centre for Evolution</a> at the University of Bath. He explained why diet, habitat, and social behavior are affected by each other.



"For birds that feed on seeds in the open savannah, flocking together improves feeding efficiency because it makes it easier to locate patches where there are abundant seeds," said Professor Székely.



"Flocking also lowers the risk of predation out in the open by providing them safety in numbers."



"However, in open habitats such as the savannah there are limited nesting sites, meaning the birds live together in a colony and this often leads to polygamous breeding."



"On the other hand, forest-dwelling, insect-eating birds must search a wider area for food as insects are more widely distributed. The relatively safer, closed habitat of the forest provides lots of suitable nesting sites, so the birds don't need to live close together."



According to Professor Székely, this more solitary social system also means the birds are more likely to stick with the same mate during the breeding season."



Moreover, the researchers discovered details beyond Crook's hypothesis. They found that diet and habitat affect whether a species is dimorphic, meaning males and females have distinct differences in size or appearance. Polygamous species living on the savannah were more likely to be dimorphic, while forest-dwelling, monogamous species tend to have identical males and females.&nbsp;&nbsp;



The research team doesn't want to stop at weaver birds, and they look forward to testing Crook's theory on other bird species, mammals, fish, and insects.&nbsp;



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/toc/an/current">The American Naturalist</a>.&nbsp;



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

Diets of weaver birds are influenced by their social lives

An international team of researchers recently completed a study that...

Rising numbers of free-roaming stray <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/how-to-tell-whether-you-cat-is-a-psychopath/">cats</a> is a global problem. They are considered one of the world’s most invasive species, posing a health risk to humans and destroying large numbers of wildlife. Nevertheless, people are reluctant to cull them, as they usually do with pests such as rats or cockroaches. A new study led by the <a href="https://en.huji.ac.il/en">Hebrew University of Jerusalem</a> (HUJI) has now investigated the impact of different protocols to control stray cat populations over a period of 12 years.



At the moment, the most popular and widespread population-control method is TNR - in which street cats are Trapped, Neutered, and Returned to the location where they were initially found.&nbsp;



“Although this method has been implemented in various parts of the world, there was controversial evidence regarding its effectiveness for reducing cat populations and no hard evidence regarding its effectiveness in reducing cat-related nuisances or improving their welfare,” said study lead author Eyal Klement, an expert in Veterinary Epidemiology at HUJI.



Professor Klement and his colleagues focused on one Israeli city (Rishon LeZion) where they tried out different population-control measures during three four-year periods. While in the first period there was no intervention, in the second one the scientists organized an intensive program of neutering cats in half of the city, using the other half as a control group. Finally, in the third period, neutering was applied city-wide.



Surprisingly, neutering cats in only half of the city did not seem to reduce cat populations at all. According to the researchers, the migration of unneutered cats into the area can explain this unexpected finding. While in the third case, a seven percent annual reduction of cat population was achieved, a rebound increase in the number of kittens was later on noted, most probably due to an increase in their survival rates due to lack of competition with the neutered, less aggressive cats.&nbsp;



“Intact cats are more territorial than their neutered counterparts.&nbsp;Once they move into a neighborhood with neutered cats, they tend to thrive and take over,” explained Professor Klement.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



These results and further analysis suggest that, ideally, 70 percent of stray cat populations should be neutered on a continuous basis. Moreover, in order to avoid the rebound effect, cat food resources should be controlled in parallel to the TNR campaign.&nbsp;



“This can be achieved by setting up feeding stations in agreed-upon locations and by prohibiting feeding in other public areas,” said Professor Klement. Such a method would make sure that the cats are properly fed and the neutering procedures could be implemented efficiently, by catching the cats when they come to eat.



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2119000119">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</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

How can we control the growing issue of stray cats?

Rising numbers of free-roaming stray cats is a global problem....

People have a stronger connection to their dogs than previously thought, according to a recent survey conducted by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.onepoll.us/">OnePoll</a>&nbsp;in partnership with&nbsp;<a href="https://www.puppyspot.com/">PuppySpot</a>. Out of the 2,000 American dog owners surveyed, 69 percent considered their dog their best friend, 73 percent claimed that having a dog has improved their emotional well-being, and a staggering 83 percent of respondents who also had children strongly agreed that taking care of their dogs is as important as taking care of their children.



“As a community of dog lovers, we know firsthand about the various ways dog parents show love and affection to their fur baby, and how these moments build trust and create a life-long bond,” said Claire Komorowski, the CEO of PuppySpot. “Whether it’s through long walks, special treats, new toys or, simply some cuddles, every dog needs to be cared for in a way that shows them just how special and adored they are.”



Indeed, the survey results show that dog owners love pampering their pet companions with “treats and cuddles,” “new toys,” or “long walks.” Three quarters of the respondents claimed they spend over 300 hours per year looking for the best treats and toys available on the market, while 57 percent of the participants never failed to celebrate their dogs’ birthdays.



Dog “parents” also seem to have a tough time staying away from their pups. Many take their dogs with them when they have to run errands (51 percent) or when they are meeting their families and friends (40 percent). Moreover, two in five dog owners look for restaurants that allow pets, while 35 percent of the respondents prioritize pet-friendly vacation spots.



Most respondents recall bringing home their newly acquired dog as the happiest day of their lives (72 percent), and highly cherish other memories, such as when their dog first jumped or fell asleep on their lap. Finally, the fact more than 8 in 10 participants who also had children did not hesitate to declare that they consider their dogs as important as their children is further proof that, for most people, their relationship with their furry companions is highly significant, offering strong emotional rewards.



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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

People have deep emotional connections with their dogs

People have a stronger connection to their dogs than previously...

In a new study from the <a href="https://www.leeds.ac.uk/">University of Leeds</a>, researchers have assessed more than 17,000 privately protected areas (PPAs) across five continents. The study is the largest of its kind to investigate how PPAs help conserve highly threatened regions and underrepresented <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/shrinking-habitats-alien-species-threaten-native-trout/">habitats</a>.



Privately protected areas are privately managed portions of land set aside to preserve biodiversity and ecosystems. While these regions are increasing in number, the extent of their contribution to conservation has remained unknown.



The experts found that, when compared to state protected areas, privately protected areas are twice as likely to be exposed to human disturbances, such as farming or mining. In addition, the study shows that PPAs are three times more likely to be in biomes with almost no established conservation reserves.



“Our study shows that privately protected areas can make unique and very real contributions to the conservation estate. They deserve more attention, recognition and resources for better design and implementation," said study lead author Rachel Palfrey.



“By recognizing their role in conservation efforts, more can be done to coordinate the establishment of privately protected areas and maximise their benefits."



“State governed protected areas dominate conservation strategies in most countries but government action alone will be insufficient to reach global conservation targets and help safeguard against devastating biodiversity loss."



The researchers found that PPAs account for 3.4 percent of land under protection, and increase the connectivity between conserved areas by more than seven percent. According to the researchers, connectivity is incredibly important in supporting seed dispersal and animal migration.&nbsp;



“The current global network of protected areas underrepresents key species and ecosystems. It lacks connectivity and does not adequately protect areas of high wildlife and biodiversity importance," said Dr. Johan Oldekop of the University of Manchester.&nbsp;



“Privately protected areas are not the silver bullet for conservation efforts, but they are clearly an important part of the picture."



“This study highlights the importance of using all available resources and interests to establish vitally important protected portions of land. Greater legislative, technical and financial support for privately protected areas could help facilitate their establishment and also strengthen legal frameworks for other forms of conservation, including indigenous reserves and community conserved areas.”



Dr. George Holmes noted that further research is needed to examine the underlying factors and governance structures that influence the landscape choices of privately protected areas.



“Future analyses should include efforts to better understand the role of different stakeholders, such as private landowners and land trusts, and their motivations for the establishment of privately protected areas, as well as assessments of national policies and incentives that support privately protected areas.”



Conservation efforts will be a key topic at the upcoming UN biodiversity Conference in May 2022.&nbsp;



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/natecolevol/">Nature Ecology and Evolution</a>.



Image Credit: George Holmes, University of Leeds



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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

Private protected areas could help save threatened wildlife

In a new study from the University of Leeds, researchers...

Honey bees are pollinators of flowering <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/invisible-flower-colors-help-plants-survive/">plants</a> all over the world and are therefore critical for the production of food crops. In recent decades, honey bees have been subjected to numerous environmental and management stresses that have impacted their survival rates. Among these, the most devastating has been infection by the parasitic mite Varroa destructor.&nbsp;



Varroa is an external parasite of Asian and European honey bees. Not only does it attach to the bodies of adult and larval bees and suck out nutrients, but it also carries at least five viruses that are devastating to the bees. The parasite’s original host was Apis cerana, the Asian hive bee, but it was introduced to the European honey bee, Apis mellifera, in the mid-1800s. Since then it has spread to all continents and regions of the world, except Australia and Antarctica.&nbsp;



Interestingly, Asian honey bees show certain behavioral traits that help keep infestations of varroa mites under control. These behaviors include grooming mites off their own and other bees’ bodies, as well as getting rid of larvae that have been infected with mites. Such hygienic strategies have genetic components and are heritable. It is likely that, since the Asian honey bees have been exposed to varroa mite infestations over evolutionary time, natural selection has gradually favored the survival of colonies where bees practice these behaviors. As a result, Asian honey bees are largely resistant to the parasite.



In the U.S., scientists have spent 20 years breeding a line of European honey bees that also shows hygienic behavior towards infestations of varroa mites. Beekeepers in this country, as in many others, have resorted to using pesticides and other chemical agents to control varroa mites in bee colonies. This has meant that natural selection for more resistant bees has not been able to take place and apiculturists are faced with large losses in colony numbers each year.&nbsp;



In a new study, published today in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/srep/">Scientific Reports</a>, experts from the universities of Louisiana and Exeter, and from the Agricultural Research Service of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), tested the survival rates of these varroa resistant “Pol-line” bees in the field. The study took across three US states (Mississippi, California, and North Dakota), where commercial beekeepers move tens of thousands of colonies annually to provide pollination services for large-scale agriculture. The survival of colonies of varroa resistant bees was compared with the survival of standard bees that had not been selectively bred for hygienic behavior.



“The&nbsp;Varroa&nbsp;mite is the greatest threat to managed honey bee colonies globally,” said&nbsp;<a href="https://biosciences.exeter.ac.uk/staff/profile/index.php?web_id=Thomas_OShea-Wheller">Dr. Thomas O’Shea-Wheller</a> of the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.exeter.ac.uk/research/esi/">Environment and Sustainability Institute</a>&nbsp;at Exeter's Penryn Campus in Cornwall.



“So far, new methods to control the mites – and the diseases that they carry – have had limited success, and the mites are becoming increasingly resistant to chemical treatments. It’s a ticking time-bomb.”&nbsp;



The results of the study showed that the mite-resistant bee colonies were more than twice as likely to survive the winter (60% survival compared to 26% in standard honey bee colonies). The standard honey bees experienced high losses unless extensive chemical treatments were used. Colony survival over the winter is particularly important for beekeepers, because honey bees are needed in early spring to pollinate many valuable crops.&nbsp;



“By selectively breeding bees that identify and remove mites from their colonies, our study found a significant reduction in mite numbers, and crucially, a two-fold increase in colony survival,” explained Dr. O’Shea-Wheller. “While this is the first large-scale trial, continued breeding and use of these bees has shown consistently promising results.”



Although European honey bees are not naturally resistant to varroa mite infestations, they do show some of the specific hygienic behaviors that are common in Asian honey bees. The incidence of the cleaning behaviors is very low but it does indicate that the genes for these behaviors are present. By selectively breeding for these behavioral traits, colonies can been produced that automatically protect themselves from infestation, while maintaining large colony sizes and ample honey production.



“The great thing about this particular trait is that we’ve learned honey bees of all types express it at some level, so we know that with the right tools, it can be promoted and selected for in everyone’s bees,” said research molecular biologist Dr. Michael Simone-Finstrom, of the USDA Agricultural Research Service.



According to Dr. O’Shea-Wheller: “This kind of resistance provides a natural and sustainable solution to the threat posed by&nbsp;Varroa&nbsp;mites, and does not rely on chemicals or human intervention.”



The current study also monitored the levels of three debilitating viruses present in the varroa resistant colonies. These viruses (DWV-A, DWV-B and CVPV) are carried by the mites and transmitted to the bees. The results showed that the colonies bred for varroa resistant behavior also had significantly lower levels of these viruses. This is explained by the fact that cleaning behavior by the bees removes mites from the colonies and therefore also removes the viruses.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Interestingly however, when examined separately from levels of mite infestation, these viruses were not strong predictors of colony losses.



“A lot of research is focused on the viruses, with perhaps not enough focus on the mites themselves,” said Dr. O’Shea-Wheller.



“The viruses are clearly important, but we need to take a step back and be rigorous in delivering the best practical outcomes, because if you control the mites, you automatically control for the viruses that they transmit.”



Dr. O’Shea-Wheller said that breeding and testing is expensive and takes time, but that breeding mite-resistant bees is cost-effective in the long term, and is likely to be the only sustainable solution to deal with the&nbsp;Varroa&nbsp;pandemic.



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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

Breeding “cleaner” bees may stop varroa mites in their tracks

Honey bees are pollinators of flowering plants all over the...

A new study led by the <a href="https://www.tum.de/">Technical University of Munich</a> (TUM) has found that physical activity is highly beneficial for primary school <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/exposure-to-green-space-reduces-oxidative-stress-in-children/">children</a>. According to the researchers, there is a strong correlation between physical fitness, concentration, and health-related quality of life in young children. Moreover, these children were more likely to be later on admitted to higher-level grammar schools than those with less sporting abilities.



The researchers investigated the benefits of sport activities on a cohort of 3285 girls and 3248 boys from Bavaria's Berchtesgadener Land district. By internationally standardized test procedures, the scientists assessed the relationship between physical strength and endurance and the ability to concentrate.&nbsp;



They found that the higher the level of children’s physical fitness, the better they could concentrate and the higher their health-related quality of life. While the boys did better on fitness tests, the girls scored higher in terms of concentration and quality of life values. Overweight and obese children had significantly poorer scores for health-related quality of life, physical well-being, self-esteem, and well-being in friendships. Moreover, physically fit primary schoolers had higher chances to enroll in good secondary schools later on.



“Primary school pupils with good physical fitness and a good ability to concentrate are more likely to make it to secondary grammar schools,” said study co-author Renate Oberhoffer-Fritz, a professor of Preventive Pediatrics at TUM.



“This means it's all the more important to encourage motor development in children at an early stage, since this can also have a positive impact on the development of mental fitness. Collaboration among parents, schools, communities, and athletic clubs is very important when it comes to creating a comprehensive and appropriate range of possibilities.”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



An important outcome of this study is that, since 2019, the Berchtesgadener Land District Administration Office has been giving all first-grade pupils in the area a voucher for a one-year membership in a sports club. “This is a great example for how different stakeholders can work together and help motivate children to be more athletically active,” concluded study senior author Thorsten Schulz, a professor of Preventive Pediatrics at TUM.



The study is published in the <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0383/11/5/1326">Journal of Clinical Medicine</a>.&nbsp;



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

Sport improves children’s concentration and quality of life

A new study led by the Technical University of Munich...

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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

[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



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

[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



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

[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



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

[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



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

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

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



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



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



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



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



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



Video &amp; Image Credit: ESA



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



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

The Pyrenees Mountains in southwest Europe

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

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



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



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



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



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



Video Credit: Stowers Institute for Medical Research&nbsp;



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



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

How the immune system responds to injury

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

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



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



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



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



Video/ Image Credit: NASA Goddard



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



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

2022 illustrated the consequences of a warming climate

[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



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

Two distant planets may be "water worlds"

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

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



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



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



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



Video Credit: NASA Goddard&nbsp;



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



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

Satellites reveal how Earth's systems are interconnected

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

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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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

Tiger sharks are shifting poleward as temperatures rise

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