A recent study has revealed a startling fact: an unidentified chemical byproduct could be present in the tap water in approximately one-third of U.S. homes.



Now, before you put down your glass of <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/forever-chemicals-found-in-tap-and-bottled-water-worldwide/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">water</a>, let's emphasize that scientists are not yet sure whether this byproduct is harmful. However, they are worried that it could be, due to the characteristics of the molecules.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-chemical-byproduct-in-water">Chemical byproduct in water</h2>



This mysterious substance, dubbed "chloronitramide anion," is the offspring of chloramine - a chemical that, ironically, is used to treat water to make it safe for human consumption. 



Chloramine is a concoction of chlorine and ammonia that kills viruses and bacteria in <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/over-4-4-billion-people-lack-access-to-safe-drinking-water/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">water</a> treatment systems, and the newly-identified substance is produced when chloramine breaks down.



"It has similarity to other toxic molecules," said David Wahman, one of the study's authors and a research environmental engineer at the Environmental Protection Agency. 



"We looked for it in 40 samples in 10 U.S. chlorinated drinking water systems located in seven states. We did find it in all the samples."



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-methods-of-water-treatment">Methods of water treatment</h2>



Chloramine has been trusted for about a hundred years to keep our <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/too-much-fluoride-in-tap-water-supply-might-lower-kids-iq-by-few-points/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">water</a> free of pathogens. It's often used to maintain the water that stays in our pipes for several days after leaving a water treatment plant.



In fact, chloramine has become the preferred water warrior. Chlorine, the alternative disinfectant, also produces byproducts – some of which are linked to the incidence of bladder cancer and are patrolled by the EPA.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-gauging-the-safety-of-chemicals-in-water">Gauging the safety of chemicals in water</h2>



David Reckhow, a research professor in civil and environmental engineering at the <a href="https://www.umass.edu" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">University of Massachusetts, Amherst</a>, who wasn't part of the study, thinks the discovery is significant. His major concern is understanding whether this newfound substance is hazardous.



“It’s a pretty small molecule and it can probably for that reason enter into biological systems and into cells. And it is still a reactive molecule. Those are the kinds of things you worry about,” explained Reckhow.



“We can go about the hard work of trying to figure out what its toxicological relevance is in our water systems,” said Julian Fairey, the study's lead author and an associate professor at the University of Arkansas.



While this ongoing investigation may cause controversy, past studies have alluded to a connection between disinfected drinking water and higher rates of certain cancers.



Whether these risks are associated with the newly-identified compound is yet to be determined.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-regulation-of-water-byproducts">Regulation of water byproducts</h2>



Drawing conclusions about the potential toxicity of chloronitramide anion and establishing regulations based on those findings is more likely to be a marathon than a sprint.



"It’s a lot (of time) - probably a decade of research once a funding source is found," said Alan Roberson, executive director of the Association of State Drinking Water Administrators.



In the meantime, water utilities should take the ongoing research into account and try to limit public exposure. “You do what you can to minimize. You make the best judgment you can on the toxicity and you run with incomplete information,” said Reckhow.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-new-questions-about-chloramine">New questions about chloramine </h2>



This study has also cast doubt on whether, from a health perspective, chloramine is indeed a safer disinfection process than chlorine.



“This study really calls into question whether or not this disinfection process is safer from a health perspective,” said David Andrews, a senior scientist at the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy organization that pushes for more scrutiny of <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/collecting-water-from-the-air-to-tackle-a-global-crisis/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">chemicals</a>.&nbsp;



He noted that there are several disinfection byproducts found in water systems but that this one deserves scrutiny.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-health-risks-of-water-byproducts">Health risks of water byproducts</h2>



Any treatment of drinking water involves some level of health risk. 



While disinfection processes have largely eradicated waterborne diseases like cholera and typhoid, research suggests that some byproducts may pose cancer risks and increase the chances of miscarriage or low birth-weight babies.



Yet, these processes are crucial to neutralize real bacterial and viral threats. Thankfully, many U.S. water utilities provide information on their websites about whether the supplied water is treated with chlorine or chloramine.



There is also some evidence that activated carbon filters, like those used in home water purification devices or fridge filters, can rid water of disinfectant byproducts. However, more research is needed.



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adk6749" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Science</a>.



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Mysterious chemical found in U.S. tap water has been identified

A recent study has revealed a startling fact: an unidentified chemical byproduct could be present in the tap water in approximately one-third of U.S. homes. Now, before you put down your glass of water, let's emphasize that scientists are not yet sure whether this byproduct is harmful. However, they are worried that it could be, due to the characteristics of the molecules. Chemical byproduct in water This mysterious substance, dubbed "chloronitramide anion," is the offspring of chloramine - a chemical that, ironically, is used to treat water...

Every summer in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, male fireflies put on a spectacular synchronized light show to capture the attention of potential <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/humpback-whales-sing/">mates</a>. But how do thousands of fireflies manage to flash their lights simultaneously? 

In a new study, researchers at <a href="https://www.colorado.edu/">UC Boulder</a> have found that firefly synchronization seems to be driven by social cues rather than by a hardwired biological response.

For about two weeks early in the month of June, male fireflies of the species Photinus carolinus flash their lights in synchrony for a few hours at a time.

According to Professor Orit Peleg, the firefly display is over almost as soon as it begins, so studying it in detail "is a constant race against time."

During the incredible display, swarms of males fly low to the ground to show off for females hiding in the leaves below. The fireflies flash with a distinct rhythm: a few quick bursts of light followed by a several-second pause, then more bursts. 

"This is the most beautiful biological phenomenon that I've ever witnessed," said Professor Peleg.

Despite the attention that it draws, however, scientists have struggled to explain how this synchronization works. Study lead author Raphaël Sarfati is a postdoctoral researcher at CU Boulder.

"Is it something hardwired in fireflies that makes them want to synchronize? Or is it something more context dependent, maybe based on their environment?"

To investigate, the researchers set up a field experiment in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in June of 2019. They set up two 360-degree cameras in a wooded area to map out the locations of bugs flashing in their vicinity. 

The experts also assembled a pop up tent on their site and introduced some fireflies to this isolated environment. "It was, basically, like we were one of the fireflies in the swarm," said Sarfati.

The study revealed that male P. carolinus fireflies do not behave the same when they are alone as they behave in the swarm. 

For example, when a single male was placed in the tent all on his own, the bug flashed without a good sense of rhythm and displayed spontaneous bursts of light. 

"When you start putting 20 fireflies together, that's when you start observing what you see in the wild," said Sarfati. "You've got regular bursts of flashes, and they're all synchronized."

The results suggest that the light shows are more complicated and less predictable than scientists had previously expected. The fireflies seem to observe what their neighbors are doing, and then adjust their behavior to match, rather than flashing in rhythms that are preprogrammed or innate.

Professor Peleg noted that the findings may ultimately help experts understand more about a range of other synchronous behaviors in nature.

"This kind of synchrony occurs in many natural systems. The cells in our hearts all flex and contract at the same time. Neurons in our brains also synchronize," said Professor Peleg.

The researchers also hope that their work will inspire citizen scientists to help protect fireflies, who are increasingly competing with human sources of light to attract light. 

"So many people have had positive experiences with fireflies," said Sarfati. "They're also very fragile. Many species are on the decline around the world because there is more and more light pollution."

The study is published in the <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/journal/rsif">Journal of The Royal Society Interfac</a>.

---

By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Fireflies use social cues to synchronize their lights

Every summer in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, male...

The measures taken to manage beaches in Hawaii will not sufficiently protect them from rising sea levels and coastal erosion. According to a new study from the <a href="https://manoa.hawaii.edu/">University of Hawaii at Mānoa</a>, up to 40 percent of Oahu's beaches could be lost in the next three decades if policies are not changed. 

The study was led by graduate researcher Kammie Tavares from the Coastal Geology Group in the UH Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST).

"By assessing computer models of the beach migration caused by 9.8 inches (0.25 meters) of sea level rise, an amount with a high probability of occurring before mid-century, we found that emergency permit applications for shoreline hardening to protect beachfront property will substantially increase," said Tavares.

As sea levels rise, beaches must migrate toward land so that they are not inundated. This beach migration, also known as shoreline retreat, causes coastal erosion of private and public beachfront property. 

When the shoreline is modified or "hardened" by barriers such as seawalls, this interferes with the beach's natural ability to migrate. Coastal erosion is then accelerated on neighboring properties, and the beach will gradually drown under the rising sea. 

"In another study published in 2018, we showed that accelerated erosion on neighboring properties, called flanking, usually leads to additional shoreline hardening, and condemns entire beaches," said co-author Dr. Chip Fletcher.

"It is clear that management decisions made today, and during the careers of most of today's natural resource managers, will be critical in determining if future generations will inherent a healthy shoreline, or one that has been ruined by seawalls, and other types of shoreline hardening."

The researchers set out to identify areas of Oahu's shoreline that would be most vulnerable to erosion under three scenarios of sea level rise, all of which are predicted to occur before or shortly after mid-century.

For each location, the team assessed the risk of shoreline hardening and beach loss, and created a potential timeline for the increase in erosion. 

The most threatened properties fall into an "administrative erosion hazard zone," an area likely to experience erosion hazards and qualify for the emergency permitting process to harden the shoreline.

"We determined that almost 30 percent of all present-day sandy shoreline on Oahu is already hardened, with another 3.5 percent found to be so threatened that those areas qualify for an emergency permit today," said study co-author Dr. Tiffany Anderson.

"Our modeling indicates that, as sea level rises about 10 inches by mid-century, an additional nearly eight percent of sandy shoreline will be at risk of hardening - meaning at that point, nearly 40% of Oahu's sandy beaches could be lost in favor of hardened shorelines."

The global mean sea level has been rising for decades and is accelerating, which means that further coastal erosion is inevitable. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has projected continued sea level rise for many centuries, even if greenhouse gas emissions are completely eliminated. 

"Despite these facts, we continue to see shoreline hardening as the preferred policy choice, largely because management agencies have failed to develop assisted transition plans for beachfront landowners who are caught in a tightening vice because of accelerating sea level rise," said Dr. Fletcher. "In fact, directly to the contrary, beachfront lands continue to be sold to unwitting buyers with no appreciation for the expensive and frustrating situation they are entering into."

"Because coastal zone management laws continue to allow hardship variances in this era of rising sea level, despite widespread knowledge that seawalls kill beaches under these conditions, the same legal system designed to protect public trust lands, is responsible for destroying them."

"Government agencies must develop creative and socially equitable programs to rescue beachfront owners and free the sandy ecosystem so that it can migrate landward as it must in an era of rising seas. It is urgent that options are developed soon for beachfront landowners and resource managers to avoid further destructive management decisions."

The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/srep">Scientific Reports</a>.

---

By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Oahu could lose 40 percent of its beaches to coastal erosion

The measures taken to manage beaches in Hawaii will not...

Playing video games as a child leads to long-lasting <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/mediterranean-diet-protects-cognitive-function/">cognitive</a> benefits, according to new research from the <a href="https://www.uoc.edu/portal/en/index.html">Universitat Oberta de Catalunya</a> (UOC). The study suggests that gaming improves working memory and concentration. 

Previous studies have shown that gaming improves attention, enhances visual-spatial skills, and causes structural changes in the brain - even increasing the size of some regions. The current study is the first to show that video games promote positive cognitive changes that can take place years after people stop playing them.Playing video games in childhood improves working memory years later

"People who were avid gamers before adolescence, despite no longer playing, performed better with the working memory tasks, which require mentally holding and manipulating information to get a result," said study lead author Dr. Marc Palaus.

The research was focused on 27 people between the ages of 18 and 40 with and without any kind of video gaming experience.

The experts analyzed cognitive skills, including working memory, at three points during the study period: before training the volunteers to play Nintendo's Super Mario 64, at the end of the training, and fifteen days later. 

The findings revealed that participants who had not played video games in childhood did not benefit from improvements in processing and inhibiting irrelevant stimuli. As expected, these individuals were initially slower than those who had played games as children.

"People who played regularly as children performed better from the outset in processing 3D objects, although these differences were mitigated after the period of training in video gaming, when both groups showed similar levels," said Dr. Palaus.

The experts also performed 10 sessions of a non-invasive brain stimulation known as transcranial <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/bacteria-may-give-sea-turtles-their-magnetic-sixth-sense/">magnetic</a> stimulation on the individuals. 

"It uses magnetic waves which, when applied to the surface of the skull, are able to produce electrical currents in underlying neural populations and modify their activity," explained Palaus.

The researchers theorized that combining video gaming with this type of stimulation could improve cognitive performance, but that was not the case. Playing video games in childhood improves working memory years later

"We aimed to achieve lasting changes. Under normal circumstances, the effects of this stimulation can last from milliseconds to tens of minutes. We wanted to achieve improved performance of certain brain functions that lasted longer than this."

The game used in the study had a 3D platform, but there are many types of video games that can influence cognitive functions. According to Dr. Palaus, what most video games have in common is that they involve elements that make people want to continue playing, and that they gradually get harder and present a constant challenge. 

"These two things are enough to make it an attractive and motivating activity, which, in turn, requires constant and intense use of our brain's resources," said Dr. Palaus. "Video games are a perfect recipe for strengthening our cognitive skills, almost without our noticing." 

The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/human-neuroscience">Frontiers in Human Neuroscience</a>.

---

By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Playing video games in childhood improves working memory years later

Playing video games as a child leads to long-lasting cognitive...

Experts have identified "hotspots" in the United States where social distancing levels have been low during the <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/covid-19-will-be-a-seasonal-virus-after-herd-immunity-is-reached/">COVID-19</a> pandemic. A team of researchers led by Professor Rajesh Narayanan at <a href="https://www.lsu.edu/">Louisiana State University</a> used cellphone data to track how various populations changed their social behaviors according to governmental restrictions or various demographic factors, such as population density or having children in the home. 

The analysis revealed that the influence of demographics and government regulations on social distancing are strongly intertwined, but that guidance from authorities has the lesser influence.

The spread of COVID-19 can be dramatically slowed through social distancing. Some people have voluntarily chosen to maintain a physical distance from others during the pandemic, some have kept their distance as a result of government restrictions, and others have practiced social distancing due to a combination of both. 

Understanding the interplay of demographics and government decisions - the two most relevant factors affecting social distancing - could help inform strategies to reduce the spread of diseases.

To investigate, Professor Narayanan and colleagues created a computational model to represent social distancing behavior across the U.S. The model incorporated tracking data to indicate the amount of time that cellphone users spent at home in counties throughout the country.

Using this model, the researchers explored how stay-at-home behaviors evolved over the first 21 weeks of the spread of COVID-19 in the United States from late January to June, 2020. 

The study examined how these behaviors changed in relation to government restrictions, and also in relation to various demographic factors that could influence decisions to stay at home, such as population density, the presence of children in households, education, race, and income.

The analysis revealed that stay-at-home behavior increased by more than nine times from late January to late March, and then decreased by about half through mid-June. These behavioral changes appear to have been driven by demographic factors to a substantially greater degree than government policies. The researchers found there was also a tendency for behaviors to cluster, creating hotspots of counties with low social distancing.

The findings indicate that promoting voluntary social distancing has the potential to be an effective alternative to governmental restrictions. By encouraging nonmandatory distancing practices, people may feel more willing to accept restrictions and comply with social guidelines, resulting in an even greater degree of distancing.

"Cell phone location and mobility data reveal that social distancing in the U.S. during the Covid-19 pandemic was initially voluntary rather than a response to governmental jurisdictional restrictions," said Professor Naryanan. "As the pandemic progressed, both effects reinforced each other, increasing social distancing far more than what could be explained by the sum of the individual effects." 

The study is published in the journal <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/">PLOS ONE</a>.

---

By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Cellphone data reveals hotspots where social distancing was lacking in the U.S.

Experts have identified "hotspots" in the United States where social...

Tree-planting projects have the potential to offset harmful carbon emissions in the United States, according to a new study from the <a href="https://www.fs.usda.gov/">USDA Forest Service</a>. The findings suggest that planting <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/invasive-beetle-turns-its-attention-to-guams-endangered-cycad-trees/">trees</a> on understocked forest land could substantially increase the country's overall carbon sequestration capacity. 

The researchers found that the carbon sequestration capacity of U.S. forests would be increased by as much as 20 percent by fully stocking trees in both non-stocked and partially forests. The areas of particular interest include Florida, the Northeast, and western states.

Study lead author Grant Domke is an expert at the USDA Forest Service's Northern Research Station.

"Targeted tree planting on existing productive forestland has the potential to enhance the capacity of forests to provide a multitude of ecosystem services," said Domke. 

"Our analysis suggests that concentrating plantings on productive areas with the fewest trees has greater potential for enhanced carbon sequestration capacity than distributing the same number of trees over larger areas." 

The researchers analyzed data from more than 130,000 forested plots in the Forest Inventory &amp; Analysis Program. They determined that planting trees to fully stock damaged forests could drastically boost the overall amount of carbon sequestered by forests in the U.S.

Each year, forests and harvested wood products offset the equivalent of more than 14 percent of economy-wide carbon dioxide emissions. However, almost 33 million hectares of productive forestland are now understocked due to many different factors, including harvesting and natural disturbances.

"It is always worthwhile to plant a tree, they have a myriad of benefits wherever they are, but this study delivers sound science on which we can base tree planting efforts on forestland," said Domke.

The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.pnas.org/">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</a>.

---

By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Fully stocking U.S. forests could reduce carbon emissions by 20 percent

Tree-planting projects have the potential to offset harmful carbon emissions...

Taking hot baths on a regular basis helps to modify some of the risks associated with type 2 <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/weight-loss-can-prevent-or-reverse-diabetes/">diabetes</a> (T2D), according to a new study from the <a href="https://www.easd.org/">European Association for the Study of Diabetes</a> (EASD).  

The experts found that the heat from hot tubs and saunas has a therapeutic effect on various T2D risk factors such as higher body mass index and glycated haemoglobin |(HbA1c), a measure of blood sugar control. 

Previous studies have suggested that some forms of heat therapy, including hot-tub bathing, can improve blood sugar control and body fat percentage. A research team led by Dr. Hisayuki Katsuyama of Kohnodai Hospital in Japan set out to investigate how heat may help T2D patients on a daily basis. 

The study is the first of its kind to examine the effects of sauna or hot tub use on metabolic parameters across a large number of individuals with T2D in a real-world setting.

The study was focused on patients with T2D living in Japan, where it is a common part of everyday life to take hot baths. The researchers surveyed nearly 1,300 patients that regularly visited the outpatient unit of Kohnodai Hospital between October 2018 and March 2019.

The experts compared the frequency of hot bathing with specific beauty markers and blood test results. 

The patients were divided into three groups according to the frequency of bathing. After detailed analysis of the data, the researchers established that the mean frequency of bathing was 4.2 times a week and the mean duration of bathing was 16 minutes. 

The study revealed that increased bathing frequency was linked to decreases in body weight, body mass index (BMI), waist circumference, diastolic blood pressure, and glycated haemoglobin.

The frequency of hot-tub bathing could independently predict glycated haemoglobin and body mass index. After adjusting for age, sex, and the number of blood pressure drugs, reductions in diastolic blood pressure were also associated with increased bathing frequency.

"Our results indicate that daily heat exposure through hot-tub bathing has beneficial influences on cardiovascular risk factors in patients with type 2 diabetes," wrote the study authors.

The research was presented at the <a href="https://www.easd.org/">European Association for the Study of Diabetes</a> (EASD) Annual Meeting.

---

By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Hot baths help lower risk factors associated with type 2 diabetes

Taking hot baths on a regular basis helps to modify...

Taking the time to appreciate <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/killer-bees-are-aggressive-by-nurture-not-just-by-nature/">nature</a>, and to feel amazed and inspired by it, has extraordinary mental health benefits. Researchers at <a href="https://www.ucsf.edu/">UC San Francisco</a> (UCSF) made the simple suggestion to a group of volunteers to experience "awe" as they took 15-minute walks, and the advice paid off. 

During eight weeks of awe walks, individuals reported having improved emotional well-being and less stress in their daily lives. 

A series of selfies taken by the participants on their weekly walks revealed a noticeable shift in their perspective as they increasingly focused on their surroundings rather than themselves. This transformation was reflected in the images - the smiles on the volunteers' faces grew measurably broader as the nature walks progressed.

According to the experts, a regular dose of awe is a simple way to boost healthy emotions such as compassion and gratitude.

The research was a collaborative effort by experts at the UCSF Global Brain Health Institute (GBHI) and the Memory and Aging Center (MAC), which is directed by Dr. Virginia Sturm.

"Negative emotions, particularly loneliness, have well-documented negative effects on the health of older adults, particularly those over age 75," said Dr. Sturm. "What we show here is that a very simple intervention - essentially a reminder to occasionally shift our energy and attention outward instead of inward - can lead to significant improvements in emotional well-being."

The study was initiated by a call from GBHI for research proposals to identify low-cost interventions to improve brain health. Dr. Sturm said she immediately began to think about how to improve emotional well-being in older adults, and partnered with UC Berkeley psychologist Dr. Dacher Keltner to develop a simple intervention.

"Awe is a positive emotion triggered by awareness of something vastly larger than the self and not immediately understandable - such as nature, art, music, or being caught up in a collective act such as a ceremony, concert or political march," said Dr. Keltner. "Experiencing awe can contribute to a host of benefits including an expanded sense of time and enhanced feelings of generosity, well-being, and humility."

The research was focused on 52 older adults who were asked to take at least one 15-minute walk each week for eight weeks. Half of the participants also received a brief intervention, during which the experts described awe and suggested trying to experience this emotion during the weekly walks.

The volunteers completed surveys after each walk. The analysis of the surveys showed that people in the "awe group" increasingly experienced awe as the study period progressed, indicating some benefit of practice.

The responses to open-ended survey questions revealed a growing sense of wonder and appreciation for nature among individuals in the awe group. One participant reflected on "the beautiful fall colors and the absence of them amidst the evergreen forest... how the leaves were no longer crunchy underfoot because of the rain and how the walk was more spongy now... the wonder that a small child feels as they explore their expanding world." 

By contrast, participants in the control group were more inwardly focused, with one individual writing: "I thought about our vacation in Hawaii coming up this next Thursday. Thought about all the things I had to do before we leave." 

The volunteers were instructed to take selfies at the beginning, middle, and end of each walk. When the team analyzed these photos, they discovered a parallel, visible shift in how participants portrayed themselves over the course of the study. Individuals in the awe group increasingly made themselves smaller in their photos to focus more on the landscapes around them. At the same time, the smiles on their faces grew noticeably more intense.

"One of the key features of awe is that it promotes what we call 'small self,' a healthy sense of proportion between your own self and the bigger picture of the world around you," said Dr. Sturm. "To be honest, we had decided to do this particular analysis of participants' selfies on a lark - I never really expected we'd be able to document awe's ability to create an emotionally healthy small self literally on camera!"

Throughout the eight-week study, the participants reported on their emotional state daily. This portion of the experiment revealed that those in the awe group experienced significantly more positive, prosocial emotions such as compassion and gratitude.

"I find it remarkable that the simplest intervention in the world - just a three-minute conversation at the beginning of the study suggesting that participants practice feeling awe on their weekly walks - was able to drive significant shifts in their daily emotional experience," said Dr. Sturm. "This suggests promoting the experience of awe could be an extremely low-cost tool for improving the emotional health of older adults through a simple shift in mindset."

"Experiencing awe is such a simple practice - just taking a moment to look out the window or pausing to consider the technological marvels that surround us - and we now show it can have measurable effects on our emotional well-being. A little more joy and a little more connectedness with the world around us is something all of us could use these days."

The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/emo">Emotion</a>.

---

By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Experiencing awe in nature has a powerful effect on emotional well-being

Taking the time to appreciate nature, and to feel amazed...

A new study from <a href="http://oregonstate.edu/">Oregon State University</a> suggests that vitamin E is crucial for proper nervous system development. The researchers found that vitamin E deficiency among pregnant zebrafish leads to embryos with deformed <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/people-with-brains-that-learn-implicitly-have-stronger-religious-beliefs/">brains</a> and nervous systems.

"This is totally amazing - the brain is absolutely physically distorted by not having enough vitamin E," said study lead author Professor Maret Traber.

Zebrafish grow from a fertilized egg to a swimming fish in about five days. On a cellular and genetic level, zebrafish share a remarkable similarity to humans, which means that scientific research focused on zebrafish often translates to humans as well. 

"Why does an embryo need vitamin E? We've been chasing that for a long time," said Professor Traber, who has been studying vitamin E for three decades. "With this newest study we actually started taking pictures so we could visualize: Where is the brain? Where is the brain forming? How does vitamin E fit into this picture?"

In an embryo, a brain primordium and the neural tube appear early to form the nervous system, supplying all organs and body structures with nerves. The zebrafish embryos that were deprived of vitamin E showed neural tube and brain defects.

"They were kind of like folic acid deficient neural tube defects, and now we have pictures to show the neural tube defects and brain defects and that vitamin E is right on the closing edges of the cells that are forming the brain," said Professor Traber.

"Acting as stem cells, the crest cells are important for the brain and spinal cord and also go on to be the cells of about 10 different organ systems including the heart and liver. By having those cells get into trouble with vitamin E deficiency, basically the entire embryo formation is dysregulated. It is no wonder we see embryo death with vitamin E deficiency."

Vitamin E is known scientifically as alpha-tocopherol. It has many biologic roles, such as helping to protect cells from the damage caused by free radicals. Humans consume vitamin E in olive oil, hazelnuts, sunflower seeds, and avocados.

"Now we're at the point where we're so close being able to say exactly what's wrong when there isn't enough vitamin E but at the same time we're very far away because we haven't found what are the genes that are changing," said Professor Traber. 

"What we know is the vitamin E-deficient embryos lived to 24 hours and then started dying off. At six hours there was no difference, by 12 hours you see the differences but they weren't killing the animals, and at 24 hours there were dramatic changes that were about to cause the tipping point of total catastrophe."

The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/srep">Scientific Reports</a>.

---

By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Vitamin E plays a critical role in nervous system development

A new study from Oregon State University suggests that vitamin...

A new study from the <a href="https://www.uq.edu.au/">University of Queensland</a> suggests that <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/study-reveals-the-nutritional-appeal-of-moon-jellyfish/">jellyfish</a> or sardines could replace fish and chips in an effort to make commercial fishing more sustainable and to protect threatened species. The experts said that when it comes to seafood, you don't always know what you are actually eating.

After analyzing global industrial fishing records, the researchers found that 92 endangered species are caught for seafood, 11 of which are critically endangered.

Study lead author Leslie Roberson is a PhD candidate in the UQ Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science. She noted that it is legal to fish for species that are threatened with extinction, and that seafood does not have to be labeled according to its species.

"This means that the 'fish,' 'flake' or 'cod' that Australians typically order at the fish and chip shop could be critically endangered," said Roberson.

"Australian seafood is not as sustainable as consumers would like to think, and it's definitely not in line with many of the large international conservation agreements that Australia has signed to protect threatened species and ecosystems."

"We would never consider eating mountain gorillas or elephants, both of which are endangered."

Study co-author Dr. Carissa Klein was recently awarded an ARC Future Fellowship to research the nation's seafood consumption and find ways to make the industry more sustainable. Her team will investigate the costs and benefits of embracing different types of seafood that can be caught more sustainably within Australian waters, such as abalone and wild-caught sardines.

Dr. Klein said Australia was just one of many wealthy countries importing and catching threatened seafood species while maintaining its international marine conservation reputation.

"Australia imports around 75 percent of the seafood we consume and is internationally regarded as having effective conservation and fisheries management policies," said Dr. Klein.

"When importing seafood from other places, we are displacing any social or environmental problems associated with fishing to that place, which is likely to have less capacity to sustainably manage its ocean."

According to the study authors, the number of threatened species they recorded was a very conservative estimate.

"The seafood industry is difficult to manage from a conservation perspective because it has supply chains that span multiple international waters, without a governing body," said Roberson.

"A typical situation might look something like - a fishing boat operating in Australian waters, owned by a Chinese company, with a crew of fishermen from the Philippines. Then one part of the fish might get processed in China, and the other can go to Europe."

"We don't know what we're eating, it's really hard to trace seafood back to its origin and species because the industry is such a mess."

"Improving the sustainability of Australia's seafood trade policies could significantly benefit the ocean worldwide, as well as the billions of people that depend on a healthy ocean for their health and livelihoods," said Dr. Klein.

"It should be illegal to eat something that is threatened by extinction, especially species that are critically endangered - if we can better coordinate fisheries and conservation policies, we can prevent it from happening."

The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/ncomms">Nature Communications</a>.

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By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Experts work to take threatened species off the seafood menu

A new study from the University of Queensland suggests that...

Experts at the <a href="https://www.pik-potsdam.de/">Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research</a> (PIK) have found that large volcanic eruptions can help predict seasonal <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/not-enough-is-known-about-how-rainfall-affects-tropical-animals/">rainfall</a> in India. While volcanic activity and monsoon season may seem to be completely unrelated, the team reports that there is a strong coupling between the monsoon over large parts of South and Southeast Asia and El Niño events triggered by eruptions.

Rainfall during the summer monsoon season is critically important for India's agricultural industry, which supports about one billion people.

The study was focused on data from meteorological observations, climate records, computer model simulations, and geological archives such as tree-rings and ice cores representing thousands of years of Earth's history.

The experts discovered that when the natural climate variability of El Niño coincides with the monsoon season, it is easier to anticipate the strength of seasonal rainfall across southern India. 

Study co-author Dr. R. Krishnan is the executive director of the Center for Climate Change Research at Indian Institute for Tropical Meteorology.

"The tiny particles and gases that a large volcano blasts into the air enter into the stratosphere and remain there for a few years. While the volcanic matter in the stratosphere to some extent blocks sunshine from reaching the Earth's surface, the reduced solar forcing increases the probability of an El Niño event in the next year," explained Dr. Krishnan. 

"This is because less sunshine means less warmth and hence a change of temperature differences between the Northern and Southern hemisphere, which in turn affects the atmospheric large-scale circulation and precipitation dynamics." 

"Advanced data analysis now reveals that large volcanic eruptions are more likely to promote the coincidence of warm El Niño events over the Pacific and Indian monsoon droughts - or, in contrast, cool La Niña events over the Pacific and Indian monsoon excess."

Study co-author Norbert Marwan said that the synchronization between the tropical Pacific Ocean and Indian monsoon is changing over time, which is partially driven by global warming - making monsoon predictions even less accurate.

"This in fact confirms a hypothesis that our colleagues Maraun and Kurths launched 15 years ago. The new findings now suggest a novel, additional path for monsoon predictions that are crucial for agricultural planning in India," said Marwan.

The study is published in the journal <a href="https://advances.sciencemag.org/">Science Advances</a>.

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By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

How volcanic activity helps predict the Indian monsoon

Experts at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)...

A new study that tracked the development of whale sharks over ten years has produced the first evidence that males and females of this <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/mediterranean-and-tropical-species-may-vanish-at-alarming-rates/">species</a> develop differently. The investigation revealed that even though the male sharks grow at a faster rate, the females ultimately outgrow them. 

The research, published by <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/">Frontiers</a>, shows that male whale sharks grow at a faster rate, but their body development plateaus around the time they reach 8 or 9 meters. The female sharks develop more slowly, gradually reaching an average length of about 14 meters to overtake the males.

Study lead author Dr. Mark Meekan is a fish biologist at the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS). He noted that whale sharks have been reported up to 18 meters long.

"That's absolutely huge - about the size of a bendy bus on a city street. But even though they're big, they're growing very, very slowly. It's only about 20cm or 30cm a year."

The research was conducted along Western Australia's Ningaloo Reef during 11 seasons from 2009 to 2019. The experts tracked the growth of 54 whale sharks based on the unique "fingerprint" of spots that can be used to identify individuals.

According to AIMS marine scientist Dr.  Brett Taylor, the team recorded more than 1, 000 whale shark measurements using stereo-video cameras.

"It's basically two cameras set up on a frame that you push along when you're underwater," explained Dr. Taylor. "It works the same way our eyes do - so you can calibrate the two video recordings and get a very accurate measurement of the shark."

For the females, there are huge advantages to being big, said Dr. Meekan. "Only one pregnant whale shark had ever been found, and she had 300 young inside her. That's a remarkable number, most sharks would only have somewhere between two and a dozen."

Dr. Meekan suggested the massive females are probably getting big because of the need to carry a whole lot of pups.

Ningaloo Reef in Western Australia is one of the only places in the world where whale sharks appear regularly near the shore. Swimming with the sharks at Ningaloo Reef boosts the local economy by $24 million a year. However, the iconic fish were listed as endangered in 2016.

Dr Meekan said the new findings have huge implications for conservation, with whale sharks threatened by targeted fishing and ships strikes.

"If you're a very slow-growing animal and it takes you 30 years or more to get to maturity, the chances of disaster striking before you get a chance to breed is probably quite high, and that's a real worry for whale sharks."

Dr Meekan said the findings also explains why groups of whale sharks that gather in tropical regions are made up almost entirely of young males. "They gather to exploit an abundance of food so they can maintain their fast growth rates."

According to Dr. Taylor, the discovery that whale sharks plateau in their growth goes against everything scientists previously thought."This paper has really re-written what we know about whale shark growth."

The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/marine-science">Frontiers in Marine Science</a>.

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By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Female whale sharks grow slower yet larger than males

A new study that tracked the development of whale sharks...

New model predicts economically important traits in crops. Experts at <a href="https://english.spbstu.ru/">Peter the Great St.Petersburg Polytechnic University</a> (SPbPU) have developed a new mathematical model to predict economically important traits in crops. The technique will help breeders obtain <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/arctic-plants-face-more-competition-for-pollinators-as-temperatures-rise/">plants</a> with the best possible quality and performance. 

Study lead author Maria Samsonova is the head of the Laboratory of Mathematical Biology and Bioinformatics at SPbPU.

"We have developed a new mathematical model for predicting crop phenotypic traits as a function genotype," said Samsonova. She noted that such models in agriculture are called genomic selection models. 

Creating a new variety of plants is challenging and the process is very time-consuming, taking up to 12 years. However, this process can be sped up exponentially by using genomic selection models.

"Understanding how genetic variation translates into phenotypic effects is one of the central challenges facing fundamental biology, agriculture, and medicine. Solutions of this problem fall into two main classes: association studies and trait prediction studies," wrote the researchers.

"Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) are designed to identify genetic variants associated with a trait. Initially, GWAS was conducted for each trait separately testing SNPs one by one. However, single-locus approaches may lead to biased estimates due to multiple testing correction, and they are not suitable in the common case of genetically correlated traits."

Samsonova explained that the new mathematical model is based on machine learning methods and performs better than modern analogs as it contains a significantly smaller number of parameters.

The research team applied the model to predict phenotypic traits of soybean, including plant height, number of seeds per plant, yield, protein, as well as oil content in seeds.

"For breeders, it is very important to select parental plants able to produce offspring of high quality," said study co-author Anna Igolkina. "Due to the small number of parameters in our model, we can rank breeding pairs according to offspring quality and selected advanced parental pairs representing new potentially interesting donors of desired traits."

The study is published in the journal <a href="https://bmcgenet.biomedcentral.com/">BMC Genetics</a>.

---

By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

New model predicts economically important traits in crops

New model predicts economically important traits in crops. Experts at...

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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

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

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



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



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



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



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



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



Video Credit: Johns Hopkins&nbsp;



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



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

Interactive map of the universe includes 200,000 galaxies

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



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



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



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



Video Credit: NASA Goddard&nbsp;



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



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

Remote sensing will revolutionize the way we monitor trees

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Today's Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features Dublin, the capital and largest city of Ireland. Beyond its pub culture, Dublin is known as a modern culinary destination and a UNESCO City of Literature.



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



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



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



Video Credit: ESA&nbsp;



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



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

The city of Dublin on Ireland's east coast

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



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



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



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



Video/ Image Credit: ESA



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



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

The province of Zaragoza in northeast Spain

[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

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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"

[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...