Virginia faces a stubborn enemy: the spotted lanternfly (SLF). These invasive insects damage trees, crops, and gardens by feeding on plant sap and leaving behind sticky honeydew. A research team led by Assistant Professor Scotty Yang at Virginia Tech has discovered an unexpected helper in the battle against this pest: ants.



Yang and his team found that ants, drawn to honeydew, can carry traces of lanternfly DNA in their bodies. By analyzing the ants, scientists can now detect whether the <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/fish-swim-in-schools-by-stacking-like-ladder-rungs/">pest</a> has reached an area, even without spotting the insect directly.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-ants-collect-lanternfly-dna-through-waste">Ants collect lanternfly DNA through waste</h2>



The research is based on environmental DNA, or eDNA. This approach collects genetic material that organisms leave behind in their surroundings. 



Spotted lanternflies leave DNA in their sugary waste, which ants readily consume. Scientists then apply a lab technique called polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, to identify SLF DNA inside the ants.



“Ants are nature’s sugar seekers,” Yang said. “If there’s even a tiny drop of honeydew left behind by a spotted lanternfly, ants are likely to find it.”



Yang’s team named the method “antDNA.” Even a single meal of honeydew lets <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/swarm-intelligence-ants-can-anticipate-obstacles-and-plan-ahead/">ants</a> retain the lanternfly's DNA for up to five days. Because ants roam widely, this method can detect SLF activity from as far as 100 meters from the infestation.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-field-tests-across-virginia">Field tests across Virginia</h2>



Researchers tested the method at three Virginia sites: Salem, Lynchburg Site 1, and Lynchburg Site 2. These locations represented low, medium, and high lanternfly densities. 



At each site, they placed honey-baited lure stations along transects, attracting ants with cotton balls soaked in honey.



The Salem site showed a 46.7 percent positive rate for SLF DNA. Lynchburg Site 1 and Site 2 showed 62.1 percent and 62.5 percent, respectively. Most stations attracted ants within 30 minutes, proving the method’s ease of use.



The study also tested ants from nine species. SLF DNA was found even in ants that had not directly fed on honeydew, likely due to food sharing within <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/selfish-dna-in-a-few-ants-can-change-the-behavior-of-the-entire-colony/">colonies</a>. This behavior, known as trophallaxis, helps spread the DNA signal among nestmates.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-ants-outperform-other-lanternfly-detectors">Ants outperform other lanternfly detectors</h2>



The antDNA technique works across landscapes and does not depend on the pest being visible. Unlike other methods, it does not require water, filtration, or special storage. Ants can be preserved in ethanol without refrigeration, reducing the burden on field teams.



Ants are present in nearly every habitat, from forests to cities. The collection setup is simple and inexpensive. The ants’ ability to hold liquid in their crop allows the DNA to stay detectable longer than in typical surface samples. 



The study confirmed that DNA from honeydew lasts longer than DNA from insect tissue, making honeydew a more stable source.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-importance-of-early-detection">Importance of early detection</h2>



Spotted lanternflies harm many plants, including grapevines, hardwoods, and hops. As they feed, they weaken plants and coat them in honeydew. This sticky substance promotes sooty mold, which further harms plant health. 



Early detection is critical because removing the pest becomes harder once it spreads. Current surveillance efforts rely on human sightings of the insect or its egg masses. These sightings often occur only when the population has already grown. 



The ant surveillance method allows early detection of lanternfly species even in low-density zones and inaccessible areas.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-scaling-up-and-looking-forward">Scaling up and looking forward</h2>



Yang and his team are now working on a portable test kit for use in the field. This will allow real-time molecular testing without needing a full lab. Faster results mean quicker action against the pest.



“One of the biggest advantages of using ants is that they live almost everywhere, such as forests, farms, cities - you name it,” Yang said. “Their constant search for food makes them ideal frontline samplers for spotted lanternfly DNA.”



This approach offers a new way to watch for invasive species like lanternflies using ants, without depending on visual surveys. It opens up possibilities for surveillance that is fast, flexible, and low-cost.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-ants-may-detect-other-pests-like-lanternflies">Ants may detect other pests like lanternflies</h2>



The method could be expanded to track other pests. Many <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/how-many-ants-live-on-earth-at-any-point-in-time-total-number-is-astounding/">insects</a> excrete honeydew, and ants can pick up their DNA too. This opens the door for broader pest detection strategies using the same principle.



Ants, in their natural role as sugar hunters, may become an essential part of protecting crops, forests, and native ecosystems. With antDNA, researchers are tapping into nature’s own behaviors to find smarter ways of monitoring invasive threats.



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://scijournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ps.8814" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">NeoBiota</a>.



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How ants could help stop the tree-killing lanternfly

Virginia faces a stubborn enemy: the spotted lanternfly (SLF). These invasive insects damage trees, crops, and gardens by feeding on plant sap and leaving behind sticky honeydew. A research team led by Assistant Professor Scotty Yang at Virginia Tech has discovered an unexpected helper in the battle against this pest: ants. Yang and his team found that ants, drawn to honeydew, can carry traces of lanternfly DNA in their bodies. By analyzing the ants, scientists can now detect whether the pest has reached an area, even without...

An international team of researchers led by the <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/icmcsic">Institut de Ciències del Mar</a> (ICM-CSIC) has found evidence that <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/human-activities-are-fueling-more-extreme-heatwaves/">heatwaves</a> in the Mediterranean Sea between 2015 and 2019 were the cause of recurring mass mortality events. The experts warn that these extreme conditions could become the norm, impacting all regions of the Mediterranean Basin.



The researchers discovered that populations of dozens of species - including sponges and corals - were affected by hotter water temperatures along thousands of kilometers of Mediterranean coastline.&nbsp;



"Specifically, the impacts of mortalities were observed between the surface and 45 meters’ depth, where the recorded marine heat waves were exceptional, affecting more than 90% of the Mediterranean surface and reaching temperatures of more than 26ºC," explained study co-author Joaquim Garrabou.



The experts found that some of the populations that were most affected by the heatwaves were keystone species, which are organisms that are central to the functioning of their ecosystems. The Mediterranean heatwaves were particularly damaging to Posidonia oceanica meadows and coral reefs.



According to the experts, this is the first study to assess the effects of mass mortalities on a Mediterranean scale over five consecutive years. The massive project involved more than 30 research groups from 11 countries. This made it possible to examine the impacts of extreme warming on marine organisms throughout the entire basin.&nbsp;



"Unfortunately, the results of the work show that the Mediterranean Sea is experiencing an acceleration of ecological impacts associated with climate change, posing an unprecedented threat to the health and functioning of its ecosystems," said study co-authors Cristina Linares and Bernat Hereu.



According to Professor Alfonso Ramos, mass mortality events in the Mediterranean are equivalent to the bleaching events also observed consecutively in the Great Barrier Reef, suggesting that these episodes are already the norm rather than the exception.



In order to reach more effective management decisions during the ongoing climate crisis, the researchers are urging for stronger coordination and cooperation at regional, national and international levels.



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/13652486">Global Change Biology</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

Heat is driving mortality events in the Mediterranean

An international team of researchers led by the Institut de...

<a href="https://www.earth.com/news/greater-temperature-changes-linked-to-worse-extinction-events/">Temperature</a> affects almost every part of an organism’s daily experience. Biologists have already studied at length how animals can survive in the climates in which they live, and the strategies they employ to keep themselves from overheating or freezing to death. However, not much research has been done on how temperature affects animals beyond mere survival. A research team led by the <a href="https://wustl.edu/">Washington University in St. Louis</a> has now explored the myriad ways in which thermal biology co-adapts with traits favored by sexual selection, including courtship displays, ornamental coloring, or enlarged weapons such as claws or horns.



“Now that we’ve studied a huge number of traits that animals have evolved in order to survive the temperatures they face, we’re starting to realize that these traits also have consequences for where and how animals reproduce,” said study lead author Michael Moore, a postdoctoral fellow in Evolutionary Ecology at the University of Washington. “But as we thought about the ways in which an animal’s thermal traits influence how it tries to attract mates, we also couldn’t shake the feeling that this was a very survival-centric view of the adaptation.”



“It supposes that the ways that animals reproduce in their climate is entirely beholden to how they’ve evolved in order to survive in that climate. However, we know from decades of behavioral ecology research that animals will often put themselves at risk of getting eaten or parasitized if it means they could potentially attract a mate. We were curious then why the threat of overheating should be any different.”



The study revealed that, in fact, animals would often put their lives in danger in order to reproduce, and managed to evolve mechanisms which allow them to tolerate the dangerous temperatures they often encounter during mating. In some animal populations, increased heat tolerance has evolved to accommodate the heat absorbed or retained by traits used for mating, giving them adaptive advantages to warming temperatures – which may turn out to have major benefits in a warming world such as ours.



“In some cases, sexual traits are even directly beneficial for dissipating heat, like antelope horns and fiddler crab claws,” explained study co-author Noah Leith, a doctoral student in thermal ecology and sexual selection at <a href="https://www.slu.edu/">Saint Louis University</a>. “Sexual selection on horns or claws may therefore work in concert with natural selection and accelerate adaptation to warmer temperatures. Beyond increasing reproductive success in altered climates, there are a variety of unexplored ways that sexual selection can directly enhance an organism’s non-mating performance during climate change.”



Further research is needed to clarify the consequences of global warming for sexual interaction and other reproductive processes. “What’s really novel about our work is that we show that reproduction can sometimes actually be the leading reason for many of the adaptations that animals have for dealing with their local climate,” Dr. Moore concluded.



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.14072">Ecology Letters</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&nbsp;&nbsp;

Temperature tolerance has co-evolved with sexual selection

Temperature affects almost every part of an organism’s daily experience....

The first&nbsp;fossilized skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus rex&nbsp;was discovered in 1902, in Montana’s Hell Creek Formation. Subsequently, similar finds were few and far between, with only another three specimens being excavated by 1980. However, since then, more than two dozen additional specimens have been uncovered. As the sample has grown, scientists have identified some variation between specimens that has become the subject of discussion and further investigation.&nbsp;



Some scientists have asserted that the variations in tooth and femur measurements of 38 Tyrannosaurus specimens are distinct enough to represent three separate species. These experts proposed naming the two new species T. regina and T. imperator. However, in a rebuttal of this provocative hypothesis, paleontologists from the <a href="https://www.amnh.org/">American Museum of Natural History</a> and Carthage College reanalyze the fossil specimens and find that the variations fall well within what can be expected from different individuals in a single species, that of T. rex.&nbsp;



“Recently, a bold theory was announced, to much fanfare: what we call&nbsp;T. rex&nbsp;was actually multiple species,” explained Steve Brusatte, co-author of the paper refuting these claims. “It is true that the fossils we have are somewhat variable in size and shape, but as we show in our new study, that variation is minor and cannot be used to neatly separate the fossils into easily defined clusters.”&nbsp;



“Based on all the fossil evidence we currently have,&nbsp;T. rex&nbsp;stands alone as the single giant apex predator from the end of the Age of Dinosaurs in North America,” said Brusatte, who is currently a paleontologist at the University of Edinburgh but conducted his Ph.D. work at the Museum. “Tyrannosaurus rex&nbsp;remains the one true king of the dinosaurs,” he said.



The original paper, published in the journal Evolutionary Biology in March 2022, asserted that variation in the size of the second tooth in the lower jaw, and in the robustness of the femur in T. rex specimens, indicated the presence of multiple species. The authors of the rebuttal paper, published today in the same journal, took their own measurements of the same specimens and found different results. They also analyzed data on variation from 112 species of birds – which are all descended from theropod dinosaurs – in addition to data from four non-avian theropod dinosaurs.



“Their study claimed that the variation in&nbsp;T. rex&nbsp;specimens was so high that they were probably from multiple closely related species of giant meat-eating dinosaur,” said James Napoli, co-lead author of the rebuttal study and a graduating doctoral student in the Museum’s Richard Gilder Graduate School. “But this claim was based on a very small comparative sample. When compared to data from hundreds of living birds, we actually found that&nbsp;T. rex&nbsp;is&nbsp;less&nbsp;variable than most living theropod dinosaurs. This line of evidence for proposed multiple species doesn’t hold up.”



The authors of the new study also took issue with how the different groupings for the three putative species were determined statistically, using the tooth and femur measurements. In the original study, the statistical analysis defined the number of putative groups before the test was run, which is not an acceptable method for testing the hypothesis, according to the authors of the new study. In their new analysis, they used a different statistical technique to determine how many clusters exist within the data, and did not start out with any advanced assumptions. They found that the measurement data are best considered as a single group, representing only one species – T. rex.



“The boundaries of even living species are very hard to define: for instance, zoologists disagree over the number of living species of giraffe,” said co-author Thomas Holtz, from the University of Maryland and the National Museum of Natural History. “It becomes much more difficult when the species involved are ancient and only known from a fairly small number of specimens. Other sources of variation –changes with growth, with region, with sex, and with good old-fashioned individual differences – have to be rejected before one accepts the hypothesis that two sets of specimens are in fact separate species. In our view, that hypothesis is not yet the best explanation.”



“T. rex&nbsp;is an iconic species and an incredibly important one for both paleontological research and communicating to the public about science, so it’s important that we get this right,” said co-author David Hone from Queen Mary University of London. “There is still a good chance that there is more than one species of Tyranosaurus out there, but we need strong evidence to make that kind of decision.”



According to Brusatte, the results of the new study confirm that “Tyrannosaurus rex&nbsp;remains the one true king of the dinosaurs.”&nbsp;



---



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

New study refutes the claim that T. rex was multiple species

The first&nbsp;fossilized skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus rex&nbsp;was discovered in 1902,...

Declining <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/early-animals-evolved-oxygen/">oxygen</a> levels – due to rising water temperatures caused by climate change and pollution – represent significant problems for fish and other aquatic organisms. A new study led by <a href="https://www.ru.nl/en">Radboud University</a> has found that larger fishes are more likely to experience oxygen deficiency in warming water than smaller fishes. Moreover, marine fishes appear to be less tolerant of oxygen-depleted water than freshwater fishes. These findings will help scientists predict which aquatic species are at risk due to habitat changes caused by human activities and global warming.



Biologists have long debated the role of oxygen in the sensitivity of fish to warming water. “Many oxygen hypotheses are being fiercely debated. The problem is that the various effects are lumped together. For example, some studies look at how fish respond to oxygen levels in the water but do not account for the temperature of the water or the size of the fish. As a result, the reported patterns are variable,” said study lead author Wilco Verberk, an expert in Aquatic Ecology at Radboud University.



By systematically separating the various effects and compiling data on tolerance to oxygen deficiency from 195 fishes, Professor Verberk and his colleagues discovered that larger fishes are more sensitive to oxygen stress, but only in warmer water. Surprisingly, when the water is cold, the effect seems to be reversed. Moreover, a similar effect was observed in fishes with relatively large cells.



“Many people think that all animal species have the same cell size, but some animals have large cells, and some have small cells, even within the same species. There are many advantages to having small cells, especially in warm water. For example, small cells have relatively more membrane area, which is needed to absorb oxygen from their surrounding environment,” Professor Verberk explained.



“The explanation probably involves different selection pressures on freshwater fish during their evolutionary history,” Verberk said. “In the ocean, the temperature is relatively stable, but in fresh water the fish are more often confronted with higher temperatures. Fluctuations in oxygen levels are also larger in rivers and especially in lakes, for example, due to the presence of algae.”



Further research is needed to clarify whether these findings apply to different fish species in order to reliably map the effect of climate change on marine and freshwater ecosystems.



The study is published in the journal <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/GCB.16319">Global Change Biology</a>.&nbsp;&nbsp;&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&nbsp;&nbsp;

Which types of fish suffer from oxygen starvation?

Declining oxygen levels – due to rising water temperatures caused...

<a href="https://www.earth.com/news/birds-could-rapidly-lose-the-traits-that-make-them-unique/">Birds</a> have additional cones in their retina which allow them to see ultraviolet colors that are invisible to humans. A new study from <a href="https://www.yale.edu/">Yale University</a> has revealed that, when it comes to colors that are visible to birds, hummingbirds have a plumage diversity that exceeds the known colors of all other bird species combined. The experts report that their discovery increases the total of known bird-visible plumage colors by 56 percent.



Professor Richard Prum is an ornithologist who has spent years studying the nanostructures that give birds their colorful plumage. He was surprised by what he found in hummingbirds.



“We knew that hummingbirds were colorful, but we never imagined that they would rival all the rest of the birds combined,” said Professor Prum.&nbsp;



For the investigation, study lead author Gabriela Venable collected data on the wavelengths of light reflected by feathers from 114 species of hummingbirds. This data was compared with colors found in 111 other bird species, including parrots and penguins.



Based on what they know about the visual abilities of birds, the researchers were able to identify plumage colors as seen by the birds themselves.



"Coloration has many functions in the lives of animals, including sexual and social communication, crypsis, aposematism, thermoregulation, and more. The phenomenon of animal coloration involves a cascade of physical and biological events beginning with the transmission of ambient light through an animal’s habitat and incident on its body, interacting with pigments and optical nanostructures in the animal integument, and reflecting back into the environment," wrote the study authors.&nbsp;&nbsp;



"The sensory component occurs when this light is transmitted through another individual’s eye and is absorbed by ocular pigments, leading finally to a perception of color. The field of sensory ecology encompasses research on all aspects of this cascade of phenomena."



The colors found in hummingbirds include saturated blues, blue-greens, and deep purples that are most variable on the animals’ crowns and throats. These parts of the body play a key role in mating displays and social interactions.



“Watching a single hummingbird is pretty extraordinary,” said Professor Prum. “But the combination of versatile optical structures and complex sexual displays make hummingbirds the most colorful bird family of all.”



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/commsbio/">Communications Biology</a>.



---



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

Hummingbirds have more colors than all other birds combined

Birds have additional cones in their retina which allow them...

Online videos of shark attacks are highly popular, attracting millions of views. However, their violent nature usually gives rise in viewers to highly negative attitudes towards sharks. Now, a research team led by the <a href="https://www.ncsu.edu/">North Carolina State University</a> (NC State) has found that positive videos of <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/sharks-important-deserve-protections/">sharks</a> could be a useful tool for shark conservation, by contributing to changing people’s attitudes in these predators’ favor, and hopefully helping to reverse the massive decline (71 percent) in shark populations since the 1970s.



“We need to find ways to protect these important species – they help regulate oceanic food webs and influence prey dynamics,” said study lead author Justin Beall, a doctoral student at NC State. “Popular representations of sharks are that they are dangerous animals that seek out opportunities to harm humans. Think of the movie ‘Jaws,’ for example. We need to explore ways to foster human tolerance of sharks, a key component of their conservation.”



Since previous studies have shown that online videos can help build support for other predators such as wolves, Beall and his colleagues wanted to assess whether shark videos could have a similar effect too. By surveying 325 people before and after they watched a series of shark videos on YouTube – some of them positive, showing non-aggressive shark behavior, and some negative, depicting shark attacks and bites - the researchers found that the type of video the participants wants strongly influenced their attitudes, acceptance, and intentions towards sharks.



In contrast to those who watched negative clips, participants who watched positive ones showed greater acceptance and more positive attitudes towards these creatures, and reported greater intentions to help them: their average attitude score increased by 70 percent, their acceptance score by 130 percent, and their intentions to support shark conservation by 46 percent.



“Wildlife agencies and other organizations communicating about wildlife should investigate using YouTube for the conservation of multiple species, and especially for large, carnivorous species that often struggle to gain public support,” Beall said.



Unfortunately, despite the potential benefit of positive videos, many of the negative ones had significantly more views. “How do we get people to look at the good clips?” asked study co-author M. Nils Peterson, a professor in the State Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology program at NC State. “Many people are into the entertainment value of ‘Shark Week,’ but not many people go to the beach and say, ‘I wish we could see more sharks.’ How do we leverage people’s enthusiasm for shark conservation?” Further research is needed to answer these questions.



The study is published in the journal <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/acv.12808">Animal Conservation</a>.



---



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

Shark videos could contribute to conservation efforts

Online videos of shark attacks are highly popular, attracting millions...

A new study led by the <a href="https://english.cas.cn/">Chinese Academy of Sciences</a> in Beijing has found that <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/dogs-can-be-prompted-to-repeat-their-recent-actions/">dogs</a> tend to wag their tails to the right when they are in the proximity of people they are familiar with. According to the experts, this phenomenon is caused by the fact that the left side of the brain, which controls the right side of the body, is the place where positive emotions – such as those triggered by meeting a beloved person – are processed.



By using a 3D motion tracking system, the scientists studied how ten beagles wagged their tails when they were with humans for one five-minutes session per day over a period of three days. In total, the researchers analyzed more than 21,000 wagging bouts, including the distance and speed with which their tails moved. The results revealed that, as the dogs get to know a person, they start wagging their tails more frequently to the right and less frequently to the left.



“The switch to right-sided wagging suggests the dogs are perceiving the stranger in a more positive light given the passage of time,” said Deborah Wells, an expert in dog behavior at <a href="https://www.qub.ac.uk/">Queen’s University Belfast</a>, who was not involved in the study.



“Positive and negative emotional states have been associated with left- and right-sided activation of the prefrontal cortex in humans,” explained study senior author Yong Zhang, a professor of Genetics and Developmental Biology at the Chinese University of Sciences.&nbsp;



“We speculate that tail wagging toward the left might be accompanied by right brain activation, while tail wagging toward the right side may be accompanied by left brain activation in the prefrontal cortex.”



According to the study authors, these findings reveal the sophisticated features and organization of dogs’ tail-wagging behavior during interactions with humans, providing a useful paradigm for analyzing dogs’ social behaviors and their underlying neural mechanisms.



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589004222010197">iScience</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&nbsp;&nbsp;

Dogs wag their tails to the right for people they love

A new study led by the Chinese Academy of Sciences...

When temperatures are rising, ant colonies need to make collective <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/red-pandas-face-shrinking-habitats-and-tough-decisions/">decisions</a>. While each ant feels the heat rising beneath its feet, they carry along as usual, until they suddenly reverse course, with the whole group evacuating their nest. A team of researchers from the <a href="https://www.rockefeller.edu/">Rockefeller University</a> has found that, in such situations, ants as a group behave similar to networks of neurons in the brain.&nbsp;



By developing a new experimental setup to rigorously analyze decision-making in ant colonies, the researchers discovered that when a colony evacuates its nest due to rising temperatures, its decision is a function of both the magnitude of the heat increase and the size of the colony. Thus, ants combine sensory information with the parameters of their group in order to arrive at a collective response – a process similar to how neural networks in the brain give rise to decisions.



“We pioneered an approach to understand the ant colony as a cognitive-like system that perceives inputs and then translates them into behavioral outputs,” said study senior author Daniel Kronauer, an expert in Social Evolution and Behavior at Rockefeller. “This is one of the first steps toward really understanding how insect societies engage in collective computation.”&nbsp;&nbsp;



Decision-making consists of a series of computations meant to minimize costs and maximize benefits. For example, in a type of decision-making called sensory response thresholding, an animal has to detect sensory input such as heat exceeding a certain level to produce a costly behavior, like moving away.



The scientists exposed ant colonies of 36 workers and 18 larvae to rising temperatures, and found that, when the temperature exceeded 34 degrees Celsius, the ants evacuated their nest. Surprisingly though, if the size of the colony was larger - about 200 individuals – the ants only evacuated the nest when temperatures rose to 36. “It seems that the threshold isn’t fixed. Rather, it’s an emergent property that changes depending on the group size,” said Professor Kronauer.



According to the scientists, pheromones – the invisible chemical messengers that pass information among ants – play a crucial role in structuring this collective behavior. It is not yet clear though why larger colonies would require higher temperatures to pack up shop. A hypothesis is that the larger the colony size, the more onerous it is to relocate.



In future studies, the researchers aim to refine their theoretical model by interfering with more parameters - such as tempering the level of pheromones in the ants’ enclosures or creating genetically altered ants with different abilities to detect temperature changes - and observing how the insects respond.&nbsp;&nbsp;



“What we’ve been able to do so far is to perturb the system and measure the output precisely. In the long term, the idea is to reverse engineer the system to deduce its inner workings in more and more detail,” Kronauer concluded.



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2123076119">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</a>.&nbsp;&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&nbsp;&nbsp;

Ant colonies behave like neural networks when making decisions

When temperatures are rising, ant colonies need to make collective...

Trap-jaw ants (Odontomachus brunneus) are predatory insects with exceptional jaws. They open their jaws by 180o and lock them there until they need to snap them shut. A snap, when it happens, takes mere microseconds and involves considerable force. In fact, this ant’s jaws are among the fastest moving appendages in the animal kingdom. 



The ants use these jaws to stun or kill <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/rattlesnakes-diversify-their-venom-for-evolving-prey/">prey</a> mostly, but can also release the snap close to the ground surface. This action ends up propelling the ant into the air, either as a sort of “leap” to aid locomotion, or to get the ant out of a sticky situation.&nbsp;&nbsp;



When not used for killing prey or leaping to safety, the ant’s jaws can be used extremely delicately to greet other ants or to manipulate small pieces of food. Impressed by the way in which trap-jaw ants use their jaws for both delicate maneuvers and savage blows, a team led by Sheila Patek at Duke University set out to investigate just how these jaws work. The fascinating results of the study are published in the <a href="https://journals.biologists.com/jeb">Journal of Experimental Biology</a>.



The species is native to the southern parts of the U.S., Central America and the West Indies. Patek and her colleagues collected specimens from a colony they found in the scrubland near Lake Placid, Florida. They dissected some of the ants and took detailed measurements and micro-CT scans of the heads and jaws. The experts used these measurements to model the ant’s movements and understand what enables them to release their jaws with such force and speed.



Study co-author Chi-Yun Kuo gently secured ants in front of a high-speed camera and filmed their jaw movements at 300,000 frames per second to capture the lightning-fast maneuver as the insects crashed their mandibles together.&nbsp;



After release, each mandible swung in a perfect arc through the first 65o before it decelerated and came to rest. “When we played back the videos in slow-motion, their strikes were spectacularly precise,” said Patek.&nbsp;



The researchers found that the ants used two separate spring mechanisms to accomplish their powerful jaw snaps. Firstly, muscles stretch the jaws apart so that there is a 180o angle between them. In doing this, they deform the sides of the ant’s head somewhat, making it slightly shorter (3.2 percent) and narrower (6 percent) in the middle. As the exoskeleton deforms inwards, it stores elastic potential energy that can be used when the jaws are released.&nbsp;



Secondly, enormous muscles attach to each jaw by means of springy elastic tendons. Thus torque is developed by having stored elastic energy in two different sites on each mandible. When the jaws are released, the head capsule pops back into normal shape and this pushes part of the mandible forwards, away from the body. At the same time, the elastic tendons pulls the internal edge of each jaw towards the body. This causes the jaws to swing out in a perfect arc, and to achieve a maximum speed of around 120 mph (195 km/h). The movement is equivalent to spinning at an eye-watering 470,000 rpm. The researchers term this system a “dual spring force couple,” because two springs deliver energy at two different locations at the same time, on each mandible.



Calculating the amount of energy released as the insects unleashed their smashing mandibles, the team discovered that the energy stored as the head exoskeleton deformed was sufficient to drive the mandibles through 33o of perfect rotation. The energy stored in the springy tendon attaching the mandible to the enormous adductor muscle inside the head (comprising 14 percent of the ant’s body mass) powered the remaining 32o of the arc.



The researchers puzzled over how this spring system could work without generating excessive friction, which would slow the jaw movements and result in wear-and-tear on the joints. Using dynamic modeling, they found that dual spring force couples reduce the need for joint constraints and that the ants had a far less rigid joint structure than they expected. This system reduces friction, which is essential if the ant is to snap its jaws shut repeatedly.&nbsp;



Trap-jaw ants thus make use of a mechanism that allows them to coordinate the opposing forces driving the perfect mandible rotation. Since no strain is placed on the fragile joint about which the mandible pivots, there is no damage to the ant itself, regardless of how often it snaps its jaws closed.&nbsp;



Patek suspects that other spring-loaded creatures also use the strategy, and she, Sarah Bergbreiter (Carnegie Mellon University, USA) and Suzanne Cox (Duke University) suggest that the revolutionary design could be embraced by engineers.&nbsp;



“The principles can be incorporated into microrobotics to improve multifunctionality, precision and longevity of ultrafast systems,” they say.&nbsp;



More details of the study can be found at: <a href="https://journals.biologists.com/jeb/article-lookup/doi/10.1242/jeb.244077">https://journals.biologists.com/jeb/article-lookup/doi/10.1242/jeb.244077</a>



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

How do trap-jaw ants keep from blowing their heads off?

Trap-jaw ants (Odontomachus brunneus) are predatory insects with exceptional jaws....

A new report from the <a href="https://mote.org/">Mote Marine Laboratory</a> has revealed that over 70 percent of species in the global <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/the-worlds-fastest-shark-spotted-near-barcelona/">shark</a> fin trade are threatened with extinction. 



An international team of scientists analyzed 9,820 fin trimmings from markets in Hong Kong, one of the largest shark fin trade hubs in the world. Overall, 86 different shark species were found, as well as rays and chimeras. More than two-thirds of the species identified in the analysis are at risk of extinction.&nbsp;



“Overfishing is most likely the immediate cause of the declining trends we are seeing in shark and ray populations around the world. The fact that we are finding so many species threatened with extinction in the global shark fin trade is a warning sign telling us that international trade might be a main driver of unsustainable fishing,” said study lead author Diego Cardeñosa.



In 2021, The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species revealed that about one third of all shark species are threatened. Sadly, the current study indicates that species in the fin trade are much more likely to be endangered.



For nearly a decade, Dr. Demian Chapman has led a project to track and monitor the global shark fin trade. The researchers have conducted DNA testing on about 10,000 small scraps taken from processed imported fins, sold in markets in Hong Kong and South China.&nbsp;



The experts aimed to better understand what species are in the trade and how common they are. By tracking this over time, the information can be shared with decision-makers to consider how well various management measures are working.



The most common species found to end up in the fin trade are open-ocean, or pelagic sharks, such as blue and silky sharks. In addition, the greatest number of species in the fin trade live in coastal areas, including blacktip, dusky, spinner, and sandbar sharks. Without sufficient management, many coastal species could vanish.&nbsp;&nbsp;



“A few nations are protecting or sustainably fishing sharks and their relatives, but the majority are not for a variety of reasons,” said Chapman. “Quite a few of the coastal sharks we found in the trade - such as smalltail, broadfin, whitecheek and various hound shark, river shark and small hammerhead species - are listed as Endangered or Critically Endangered and yet there are no regulations protecting them anywhere in their range."&nbsp;



"Unless the relevant governments respond with management soon, we are likely to experience a wave of extinctions among coastal sharks and rays.”



In nations that do not regulate shark fishing, three coastal species are already thought to be extinct. To encourage better management, species should be listed under the <a href="https://cites.org/eng">Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES)</a> — an international agreement seeking to protect species from overexploitation driven by international trade.&nbsp;



The 19th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (CoP19) to CITES will take place in November. This study will provide key evidence, bringing the plight of coastal sharks to the attention of governments. The findings will also show that only a small percentage of the overall trade in shark fins is currently regulated under the Convention.



“The upcoming CITES CoP19 Governments have tabled proposals that would bring the vast majority of sharks traded for their fins under the Convention’s sustainability controls, action that has been informed by this study’s findings. We’re encouraged to see CITES Governments match their level of ambition to the level of threat seen for sharks and rays globally, with CITES listings a strong driver for better domestic management of shark fisheries,” said Luke Warwick, director of shark and ray conservation at the Wildlife Conservation Society.



There are many actions that can be taken to better manage coastal shark fishing and avert the threat of extinction. These strategies include changing fishing gear, creating protected areas and limiting catch.&nbsp;



“Since our Founding Director, Dr. Eugenie Clark - the Shark Lady - began her work documenting shark populations in southwest Florida and around the world over 65 years ago, the core of Mote has been to push the frontiers of science in support of evidence-based, sustainable use of our shared ocean resources,” said Mote President &amp; CEO Dr. Michael P. Crosby.&nbsp;



The research team plans to continue their work in monitoring shark species found in the trade. The international team will continue to collaborate through innovative science, community-engagement and resource management to prevent the extinction of these species.



“Our results highlight high levels of international trade and clear management gaps for coastal species. Many are in the highest extinction risk categories," said Cardeñosa. "The next category is extinction. We can’t allow this to happen."



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/1755263x">Conservation Letters</a>.



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

Sharks in the fin trade have a high risk of extinction

A new report from the Mote Marine Laboratory has revealed...

The North American <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/monarch-butterflies-may-not-be-threatened-as-previously-thought/">monarch butterflies</a> (Danaus plexippus plexippus), a species famous for its multigenerational, cross-continental migration patterns, have recently been classified as endangered by the <a href="https://www.iucn.org/">International Union for Conservation of Nature</a> (IUCN), the world’s leading scientific authority on the status of species. This decision comes after decades of steady decline in monarch populations driven by losses of the plants they need as caterpillars, combined with the impact of climate change.



“It’s been so sad to watch their numbers decline so much, so anything that might help them makes me happy, and I think that this designation might help them,” said Karen Oberhauser, a conservation biologist at the <a href="https://www.wisc.edu/">University of Wisconsin-Madison</a> who contributed to the assessment. “Although it’s sad that they need that help, that they’ve reached the point where this designation is warranted.”



According to Dr. Oberhauser and her colleagues, the number of Western Monarchs, which live west of the Rocky Mountains, has plummeted by 99.9 percent between 1980 and 2021. Although they rebounded slightly in 2022, they still remain in great danger. Eastern monarchs – which make up most of the monarch butterfly population in North America – also dropped by an estimated 84 percent from 1996 to 2014.



Monarch butterflies depend on milkweed, the only plant that they can consume. After departing from their overwintering grounds in the forests of central Mexico, females deposit eggs on milkweed plants from Texas to Canada, during a multigenerational journey. While habitat destruction in the Mexican forests was an early threat to the butterflies, the fact that American farmers turned to crops genetically modified to withstand glyphosate, a widely used herbicide, created significant problems for the monarchs.&nbsp;



“Glyphosate was suddenly sprayed over vast acreage of farm in the Midwest,” said Anna Walker, an entomologist at the <a href="https://www.bioparksociety.org/main/">New Mexico BioPark Society</a> who led the assessment. “That took out a lot of the milkweed plants that the monarch caterpillars rely on.”



Besides these problems, climate change has also significantly contributed to the steep decline of monarch populations, by disrupting their ancient cycles through increases in storms, droughts, and other similar events, which can be catastrophic for already vulnerable populations. “We’re starting to see this kind of mismatch between when insects are ready to start the spring and when plants are ready,” Walker explained. “There are a ton of unknowns.”



According to the experts, a viable solution for saving monarchs from extinction is by planting milkweed native to each specific region in the U.S. and Canada. For instance, swamp milkweed is a good, easy-to-grow variety native to most of the western regions of the U.S., which could help migrating butterflies along their journey. Unless such measures are implemented rapidly, we are at risk of losing one of the most fascinating species of insects on our planet.&nbsp;



More details regarding this new assessment of the status of monarch butterflies can be found on IUCN’s <a href="https://www.iucn.org/press-release/202207/migratory-monarch-butterfly-now-endangered-iucn-red-list">website</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&nbsp;&nbsp;

Monarch butterflies are officially listed as endangered

The North American monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus plexippus), a species...

According to a new study led by the <a href="https://www.ubc.ca/">University of British Columbia</a> (UBC) that investigated 31 mountain regions across the globe, competition with other species, not climate, drives the distribution of bird biodiversity in tropical mountains, one of our planet’s main <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/can-land-conservation-stop-the-biodiversity-crisis/">biodiversity</a> hotspots. The findings suggest that species interactions have played a much larger role in shaping tropical mountain biodiversity than previously thought, while providing novel insights into how tropical mountain species are responding to climate change.



Tropical mountains are some of the most biodiverse regions on our planet, frequently with entirely different sets of species which live only within narrow elevational ranges. This pattern is significantly different from that characterizing species from temperate mountains, which tend to have significantly broader elevation ranges.&nbsp;



Many scientists argue that this pattern is most likely due to adaptation to the low-temperature seasonality of tropical climates. Although temperatures in the tropical mountains range from hot in the lowlands to cold in the highlands, they remain relatively stable at any elevation throughout the entire year, thus creating various climatic niches along mountain slopes. Physiological adaptations to these myriad niches are generally thought to result in the accumulation of high number of species in these mountains.



However, by performing a comparative analysis of forest bird species’ elevational ranges across 31 tropical mountain areas all over the world – using 4.4 million fine-scale locality records from <a href="https://ebird.org/home">eBird</a>, a global online scientific database of bird abundance and distribution – the UBC scientists have argued that, rather than climate effects, interspecific competition is the main factor limiting tropical mountain species’ elevational ranges.



The analysis revealed that species richness is a much better predictor of smaller elevational ranges than temperature seasonality, suggesting that the narrow elevational ranges of tropical mountain birds are in fact driven more by interspecies competition than climatic factors.



“We find strong support that competition, not climate, is the leading driver of narrow elevational ranges. These results highlight the importance of species interactions in shaping species’ ranges in tropical mountains, Earth’s hottest biodiversity hotspots,” the study authors conclude.



Further research is needed to find out whether these patterns could be generalized to other, non-aviary taxa, in order to disentangle the complex interplay between climate and other factors in the distribution and abundance of various animal species on tropical mountains.



The study is published in the journal <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.abl7242">Science</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&nbsp;&nbsp;

Competition limits the ranges of tropical mountain birds

According to a new study led by the University of...

Scientists are transforming chocolate into a functional food by infusing it with probiotics and prebiotics, aiming to create a treat that satisfies cravings while supporting gut health. 



The challenge lies in maintaining chocolate's beloved texture and flavor while adding health benefits.



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Probiotics - beneficial microbes that balance gut bacteria and aid digestion - are typically fragile and can be destroyed by stomach acid or processing. 



Prebiotics act as food for these microbes, helping them thrive. Together, they form "synbiotics," a powerful health combination.



Researchers Smriti Gaur and Shubhi Singh from India's Jaypee Institute of Information Technology took an innovative approach, using natural prebiotics like corn and honey instead of complex processing methods. 



They created five chocolate varieties: a control and four synbiotic versions containing different combinations of prebiotics, probiotics (Lactobacillus strains), and flavor enhancers (cinnamon or orange).



Laboratory simulations of human digestion showed the probiotics remained viable for over five hours, suggesting they could survive long enough to benefit gut health.



Taste tests were positive, with researchers particularly enjoying the orange-flavored variety, describing it as having "vibrant citrus notes" complementing the "rich cocoa" with a "luxurious" texture.



This research represents just the beginning. With further refinement of strains, textures, and flavors, chocolate could evolve beyond mere indulgence to become a functional food that nourishes while it delights.



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsfoodscitech.4c00741" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">ACS Food Science &amp; Technology</a>.

Is chocolate the next nutritional powerhouse?

Scientists are transforming chocolate into a functional food by infusing...

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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

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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

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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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Lesotho: Africa's "Kingdom in the Sky" Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features northwest Lesotho in South Africa.



According to ESA, Lesotho is the only nation in the world that lies completely above 1,000 m in elevation. The country is famous for its tall mountains and narrow valleys, and is known as Africa's "Kingdom in the Sky."



Out of a population of around two million people, about 80 percent live in rural areas. More than 75 percent of these people are engaged in <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/climate-change-will-have-a-global-impact-on-agriculture/">agriculture</a>, including rainfed cereal production and animal grazing.&nbsp;



ESA reports that the country’s agricultural system faces a growing number of issues, with climate-related vulnerabilities such as drought, floods and extreme temperatures occurring more frequently. 



Diamonds are amongst the minerals found in the mountains. Indeed, Lesotho can truly be called the Kingdom in the Sky. Beautiful, culturally rich, safe, affordable, and easily accessible from Durban and Johannesburg, mountainous Lesotho is a vastly underrated travel destination. the Kingdom of Lesotho (Sotho: 'Muso oa Lesotho) is an enclaved country in southern Africa. It is just over 30,000 km2 (11,583 sq mi) in size and has a population of around 2 million.



Video Credit: ESA&nbsp;&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> Staff Writer 



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.

Lesotho: Africa's "Kingdom in the Sky"

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



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



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



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



Video Credit: ESA&nbsp;



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



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

The city of Dublin on Ireland's east coast

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



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



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



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



Video/ Image Credit: ESA



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



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

The province of Zaragoza in northeast Spain

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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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

The rapid retreat of the Columbia Glacier

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



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



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



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



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



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



Video &amp; Image Credit: ESA



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



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

The Pyrenees Mountains in southwest Europe

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

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

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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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

Tiger sharks are shifting poleward as temperatures rise

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

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> is focused on the melt ponds that emerge during the spring and summer on the Greenland Ice Sheet, which is the largest ice mass in the northern hemisphere.



"Melt ponds are vast pools of open water that form on both sea ice and ice sheets and are visible as turquoise-blue pools of water in this Copernicus Sentinel-2 image," says ESA.



"When snow and ice melts atop glaciers, water flows in channels and streams and collects in depressions on the surface. These melt ponds can speed up the melting of the surrounding ice since they greatly reduce the ice’s ability to reflect sunlight."



"This can create a positive feedback where an increasing number of melt ponds absorb more heat which causes ice cover to melt even faster."



According to ESA, Greenland has been hit with a late-season heatwave that began in early September. This caused the type of melt event that usually occurs in the middle of summer.



"In a recent paper published in Nature Climate Change, scientists found that major sea-level rise from the melting of the Greenland ice cap is now ‘inevitable’ even if the burning of fossil fuels were to halt overnight," says ESA. "Using satellite observations of Greenland ice loss and ice cap from 2000 to 2019, the team found the losses will lead to a minimum rise of 27 cm regardless of climate change."



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.

Melt ponds on the Greenland Ice Sheet

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> describes a new map of Mars that is providing insight into the planet’s watery past. The map also reveals where future missions could safely land on Mars.&nbsp;



The map has been created over the last decade using observations of water-rich rocks and mineral deposits. The images were captured by ESA’s Mars Express and NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.



"A big surprise is the prevalence of these minerals, with the map revealing hundreds of thousands of water-affected locations in the oldest parts of the planet," says ESA. "The new data will help answer exciting questions about Mars’ climate history, whether water was globally persistent or confined to short, intense episodes, and whether the conditions were ever suitable for life."



"Specifically, the map shows the locations and abundances of aqueous minerals. These are from rocks that have been chemically altered by the action of water in the past, and have typically been transformed into clays and salts."



According to John Carter of the Institut d’Astrophysique Spatiale (IAS), our collective understanding of Mars has been oversimplified. He explained that planetary scientists have tended to think that only a few types of clay minerals on Mars were created during its wet period, then as the water gradually dried up, salts were produced across the planet.



The new map shows that the composition of Mars is much more complicated than what we thought. For example, while many salts formed after Martian clays, there are some salts that are presumed to be older than some of the clays.&nbsp;



“The evolution from lots of water to no water is not as clear cut as we thought, the water didn’t just stop overnight. We see a huge diversity of geological contexts, so that no one process or simple timeline can explain the evolution of the mineralogy of Mars. That’s the first result of our study. The second is that if you exclude life processes on Earth, Mars exhibits a diversity of mineralogy in geological settings just as Earth does,” said Carter.



Video 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 history of Mars is much more complex than we thought

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Today's Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.stowers.org/">Stowers Institute for Medical Research</a> describes how cavefish adapted to a sedentary lifestyle over tens of thousands of years. 



The experts found that the muscle metabolism of cavefish has been genetically reprogrammed over time. As a result, the animals have experienced major changes in their morphology and behavior. Despite these changes, however, the cavefish remain healthy and fit.



The research may provide new clues about the evolutionary consequences of prolonged physical inactivity in humans.&nbsp;



“It’s no surprise that people are moving less and less as technology has advanced,” said Rohner. “With cavefish, we have a unique system where we can study what might happen if people remained couch potatoes over very, very long periods of time.”



Video Credit: Stowers Institute for Medical Research



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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.

Cavefish are healthy despite their sedentary lifestyle

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Today’s Video of the Day from <a href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/">NASA Earth Observatory</a> some of the most incredible waves in the world, as seen by Landsat satellites.



"With more than 370,000 miles of coastline on Earth, there are plenty of places where epic waves build up, curl over, and hurtle toward the shore.- much to the thrill of surfers," says NASA. "There are some places where these waves are so magnificent that they can be seen from space."



"With the broad perspective of satellites, we can see how these iconic waves develop into the world’s tallest, longest, fastest, and heaviest."



Video Credit: NASA Earth Observatory&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 capture the world's biggest and fastest waves

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