A team in central China has done something simple and bold, they directly dated dinosaur eggs instead of the rocks around them. The eggshell calcite from the Qinglongshan site yielded an age of 85.91 ± 1.74 million years.



This matters because it turns eggs from interesting <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/where-did-dinosaurs-come-from-missing-fossils-hold-the-secret/">fossils</a> into reliable timestamps for life on land during the Late Cretaceous, a time of shifting climates and ecosystems.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-dinosaur-eggshells-dated">Dinosaur eggshells dated</h2>



The fossils come from Qinglongshan in the Yunyang Basin of Hubei Province, where thousands of intact eggs rest in stacked layers with little distortion.&nbsp;



“We show that these dinosaur eggs were deposited roughly 85 million years ago, in the Late Cretaceous period,” said <a href="https://loop.frontiersin.org/people/3140051/overview" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Dr. Bi Zhao</a>, from the Hubei Institute of Geosciences (<a href="https://en.cug.edu.cn/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">HIG</a>).



The group used carbonate <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/zircon-u-pb-dating" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">U-Pb dating</a> on eggshell material, measuring uranium and lead atoms to calculate time since the shell formed. 



In their tests, the radiogenic signal sits in biogenic calcite, the carbonate built by the egg-laying animal, which behaved as a semi-closed system for uranium uptake after burial.



The <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/earth-science/articles/10.3389/feart.2025.1638838/full" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">analysis</a> relied on <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/materials-science/laser-ablation" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">laser ablation</a>, a micro laser that vaporizes pinpoint spots of carbonate which are then analyzed by a mass spectrometer for uranium and lead ratios.&nbsp;



The resulting age is not from ash fall or nearby minerals, it is from the eggshell itself, which frees researchers from indirect age constraints that can mislead if volcanic layers formed earlier or later than the nest horizon.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-how-carbonate-u-pb-works">How carbonate U-Pb works</h2>



Uranium isotopes in carbonates decay into lead at known, constant rates, and the proportion of parent to daughter isotopes reveals elapsed time. 



Cross checks, like repeated spots in different shell areas and agreement between fragments, keep the numbers honest, and the reported uncertainty of ± 1.74 million years reflects instrument precision and sample scatter, not guesswork.



Indirect <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1367912012005019" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">approaches</a> have anchored many Asian egg sites by dating interbedded tuffs, for example zircon based SIMS ages from the Tiantai Basin that bracket egg layers in the Laijia and Chichengshan formations at roughly 96 to 99 million years and 91 to 94 million years. 



That prior dating set a framework that eggshell ages can now refine where ash is missing.



Carbonate geochronology has matured fast, with careful comparisons between uranium thorium and U-Pb techniques on the same samples showing strong consistency over wide timescales. 



That broader look at geochronology <a href="https://gchron.copernicus.org/articles/7/335/2025/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">methods</a> helps explain why a tiny eggshell can carry a credible age.



The study team also separated signals, finding consistent ages from biogenic carbonates, and noisy or unusable signals from late pore filling calcite, a reminder that not all carbonates are equal for keeping time.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-dinosaur-eggshell-site">Dinosaur eggshell site</h2>



The Qinglongshan reserve preserves egg clutches in red siltstones and sandstones, with many eggs still three dimensional and minimally deformed, a rare condition that helps both taphonomy and dating. 



The sampled clutch belonged to an oblate style of egg typical of the family <a href="https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Dendrobatidae/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Dendroolithidae</a>, which is known for highly porous shells.



Those Yunyang eggs have been assigned to Placoolithus tumiaolingensis by <a href="https://www.app.pan.pl/archive/published/app63/app005232018.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">work</a> that cleaned up the taxonomy and emphasized the diagnostic shell microstructure. That classification anchors the site in a broader Chinese record of dendroolithid eggs.



Porous eggshell architecture affects gas exchange and incubation, and the microstructure varies in ways that may reflect nesting style in a semi arid fluvial landscape. 



The new age puts those choices in a tight slice of time, late Coniacian to early Santonian, rather than a vague Late Cretaceous window.



Thousands of eggs across stacked horizons also open the door to building a basin scale timeline where shell ages from different levels track local ecological change, sedimentation rates, and any shifts in the nesting fauna.



<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-full"><a href="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/dinosaur-eggs_dating-method_china_credit-Bi-Zhao_1m.jpg"><img src="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/dinosaur-eggs_dating-method_china_credit-Bi-Zhao_1s.webp" alt="Egg clutch sampled for chronological studies. Credit Dr. Bi Zhao" class="wp-image-1985991"/></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Egg clutch sampled for chronological studies. Click image to enlarge. Credit Dr. Bi Zhao</figcaption></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-dinosaur-climate-context">Dinosaur climate context</h2>



Marine records indicate the Late Cretaceous did not stay uniformly hot. 



One North Atlantic sea surface temperature <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24937202/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">record</a> shows a drop of about 7 degrees Celsius (12.6 degrees Fahrenheit), from around 35 degrees to below 28 degrees, between the earliest Campanian and the Maastrichtian.



Independent <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18187651/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">evidence</a> from oxygen isotopes suggests brief glaciation episodes punctuated parts of the mid Cretaceous greenhouse, showing that climate could swing even when the world was generally warm. 



Inland Asia would have felt those shifts in precipitation, seasonality, and vegetation.



Pinned ages on terrestrial <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/dinosaur-extinction-theories-are-challenged-by-new-research/">fossils</a> let scientists ask tighter questions about whether nesting density changed across cooler intervals or whether certain egg types rose or fell with climate. 



The eggshell ages at Qinglongshan now give one fixed point for such tests, and more layers can add the sequence needed to see patterns.



Cause and effect claims are premature at a single site, but a direct eggshell chronology makes it practical to compare neighboring basins and see whether bird and non avian <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/dog-sized-baby-dinosaur-unearthed-after-166-million-years/">dinosaur</a> nesting moved, paused, or persisted during regional climate transitions.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-comes-next">What comes next</h2>



The team plans to sample eggs from additional horizons at Qinglongshan, then from basins to the north and south, to build a regional timeline that can be compared with dated marine and volcanic records. 



That will clarify which changes are local quirks and which ones reflect broader environmental forcing across East Asia.



Applying the same protocol to eggs in the Xixia, Jiaolai, and Nanxiong basins would close large age gaps where ash beds are absent. 



Those basins have different egg assemblages, so a uniform clock could test migration ideas and turnover hypotheses without assuming rock ages transfer cleanly between sites.



Direct dinosaur eggshell dating also complements existing zircon frameworks rather than replacing them, since both tools answer different parts of the age question. 



Zircons pin eruptive or depositional moments for ash, while eggshells date the biological event of nesting, and together they can resolve the tempo of life on land.



With better <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/mammals-ground-dwellers-survived-the-asteroid-impact-that-killed-the-dinosaurs/">timescales</a>, small details like pore geometry, clutch spacing, and shell thickness will be tied to environmental context, not guesswork. 



That is how a few careful ages can turn a crowded egg hillside into a precise chronicle of Late Cretaceous life in central China.



The study is published in <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/earth-science/articles/10.3389/feart.2025.1638838/full" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Frontiers in Earth Science</a>.



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These dinosaur eggs tell an incredible story from 85 million years ago

A team in central China has done something simple and bold, they directly dated dinosaur eggs instead of the rocks around them. The eggshell calcite from the Qinglongshan site yielded an age of 85.91 ± 1.74 million years. This matters because it turns eggs from interesting fossils into reliable timestamps for life on land during the Late Cretaceous, a time of shifting climates and ecosystems. Dinosaur eggshells dated The fossils come from Qinglongshan in the Yunyang Basin of Hubei Province, where thousands of intact eggs rest in...

<a href="https://www.earth.com/news/dogs-understand-humans-in-ways-that-wolves-never-will/">Dogs</a> can be easily distinguished by variations in the patterns of their coat colors, which most commonly include black, brown, yellow, and white. In a new study from <a href="https://www.ucdavis.edu/">UC Davis</a>, experts have had a breakthrough while studying a subset of dog color patterns. 

The research suggests that one particular dog color pattern emerged two million years ago, long before dogs were domesticated. 

The study pinpointed five distinctive dog color patterns that are produced by the agouti signaling protein (ASIP) gene. These five patterns can be found in hundreds of dog breeds and hundreds of millions of dogs around the world.

The international team of researchers discovered that the genetic combination which produces the coat pattern "dominant yellow," or DY, is shared with Arctic white wolves. A genetic analysis revealed that DY originated in an extinct canid that diverged from gray wolves more than two million years ago.

Study co-first author Professor Danika Bannasch is the Maxine Adler Endowed Chair in Genetics at the University of California Davis School of Veterinary Medicine.

“While we think about all this variation in coat color among dogs, some of it happened long before ‘dogs’ were dogs,” said Professor Bannasch. “The genetics turn out to be a lot more interesting because they tell us something about canid evolution.”

The experts speculate that lighter coat colors would have been advantageous to a canid living in an Arctic environment. Natural selection would have allowed the coat pattern to persist in the population that eventually gave rise to dogs and wolves, explained the researchers.

“We were initially surprised to discover that white wolves and yellow dogs have an almost identical ASIP DNA configuration,” said study co-first author Chris Kaelin of the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology.

“But we were even more surprised when it turned out that a specific DNA configuration is more than two million years old, prior to the emergence of modern wolves as a species.”

Wolves and dogs make two different types of pigments - a black one called eumelanin and a yellow one called pheomelanin. The precisely regulated production of these two pigments leads to different dog color patterns. Yellow is controlled by the agouti signaling protein, which is produced by the ASIP gene.

The experts found that no single genetic mutation was responsible for the five major color patterns. The mutations occur in two areas of the ASIP gene to produce the various patterns. 

Professor Bannasch and colleagues named the phenotypes: dominant yellow, shaded yellow, agouti, black saddle, and black back. 

Based on genetics, the team set out to identify the origin of the dog color patterns. While the dominant yellow haplotype has been around for two million years, the black back pattern was identified in a dog sample that was 9,500 years old.

The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/natecolevol/">Nature Ecology &amp; Evolution</a>.

---

By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Some dog color patterns existed long before dogs themselves

Dogs can be easily distinguished by variations in the patterns...

A new study from <a href="https://www.harvard.edu/">Harvard</a> has revealed that a tree’s carbohydrate reserves are crucial to surviving <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/pesticides-have-become-increasingly-toxic-to-insects/">insect</a> outbreaks. According to the researchers, the biology of oak trees makes them resilient to even the most severe stressors. 

“Oak trees are planners, in a way,” explained study co-author Meghan Blumstein of MIT. “Some of the food they make during the growing season is used immediately for energy and some is stored in the stems and roots for a rainy day. With stored carbs, they are able to immediately create a new flush of leaves after an insect outbreak.”

In southern New England, a recent multi-year outbreak of an invasive moth killed thousands of acres of oak trees. For the investigation, the researchers focused on the trees that didn't die. 

The experts pinpointed the exact threshold of reserves that were needed for survival : 1.5 percent carbohydrates in their dried wood, or about 20 to 25 percent of their normal storage capacity. 

The researchers found that back-to-back insect invasions from 2016 to 2018 challenged the resilience of the oak trees by defoliating them year after year.

“The trees that died were the trees that were out of reserves,” said study lead author Audrey Barker Plotkin, a Senior Scientist at the Harvard Forest. 

The location of the trees influenced survival as well. The research team found that trees growing along forest edges tended to have more reserves, even at the same level of defoliation, making them more resilient than interior forest trees. 

The Harvard study has produced some of the first direct evidence which confirms that trees can starve to death when insects invade. As new pests emerge and climate change continues, the findings from this research will help improve forest resilience models.

The study is published in the journal <a href="https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/13652435">Functional Ecology</a>.

---

By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Oak trees use carbohydrate reserves to survive insect invasions

A new study from Harvard has revealed that a tree’s...

There comes a point in everyone's life when it becomes harder to burn <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/calories-burn-fluctuates/">calories</a> and keep off extra pounds. A new study from <a href="https://duke.edu/">Duke University</a> reveals that bottlenose dolphins have the same age-related struggle with weight as humans. 

The experts report that, as bottlenose dolphins age, they experience a drop in metabolism and an increase in fat mass. The research represents the first time that scientists have measured an age-related metabolic slowdown in another large-bodied species besides humans, explained study first author Rebecca Rimbach.

As a postdoctoral associate in Evolutionary Anthropology at Duke, Rimbach has studied energy expenditure and other aspects of physiology in animals ranging from mice to monkeys. She noted that data on the inner workings of marine mammals such as dolphins and whales have been scant. This is because it is so challenging to obtain repeat measurements on sea creatures.

“It can be very tricky to get the animal back when you need it,” said Rimbach.

The study was focused on 10 bottlenose dolphins between the ages of 10 and 45 living at the Dolphin Research Center in Florida and the Dolphin Quest in Hawaii.

At these facilities, the dolphins voluntarily raise their tail fins out of the water so their caregivers can collect blood or urine as part of their regular checkups. The experts analyzed levels of heavy hydrogen and oxygen atoms in the blood and urine, which allowed them to calculate how much carbon dioxide the dolphins produced each day. This information was used to calculate how many calories the dolphins were burning during their daily activities. 

The researchers were surprised with the results of their analysis. They expected dolphins to have speedy metabolisms considering that they are warm-blooded, and keeping warm in the water requires more energy.

However, the study showed that bottlenose dolphins burn 17 percent less energy per day than what is expected for a marine mammal of their size. The researchers also found some of the signs of metabolic aging that are common in people. 

The oldest dolphins - both in their 40s - used 22 to 49 percent fewer calories each day than predicted for their body weight. Similar to humans, more of those calories ended up as fat rather than muscle, said the researchers.

The study also revealed that the body fat percentages of dolphins in their 40s were 2.5 times higher than that of dolphins in their 20s. This wasn't due to a lack of exercise, noted Rimbach.

Even in their 40s, the dolphins in the study were very active - doing flips and spins, jumping clear out of the water, and swimming fast enough to leave a wake as often as six to 18 times an hour. Regardless of their activity levels, the age-related metabolic pattern persisted. 

“And it’s not because they’re eating too much,” said Rimbach. The experts found that the older, fatter dolphins actually ate fewer calories.

According to the researchers, their work could shed light on factors besides diet and lifestyle that underlie age-related weight gain in people.

“Further studies into this commonality we share with dolphins may help us understand why human metabolism slows as we age,” said study co-author Hannah Salomons.

“We need more data, especially for younger dolphins, since we only looked at 10 individuals,” said Rimbach. “But I think it's an exciting first study.”

The study is published in the <a href="https://journals.biologists.com/jeb">Journal of Experimental Biology</a>.

---

By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Bottlenose dolphins struggle with weight in their 40s

There comes a point in everyone's life when it becomes...

When offered a choice between free <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/colorful-foods-can-prevent-cognitive-decline/">food</a> or food that requires some effort to obtain, most animals prefer to work for their meal. However, a new study from <a href="https://www.ucdavis.edu/">UC Davis</a> reveals that this is not the case for domestic cats, who are more than willing to eat without putting in any effort. 

The researchers noted that foraging is a natural behavior: most animals in the wild must forage in some way to survive.

"Contrafreeloading is the willingness of animals to work for food when equivalent food is freely available. This behavior is observed in laboratory, domesticated, and captive animals," explained the study authors.

"However, previous research found that six laboratory cats failed to contrafreeload. We hypothesized that cats would contrafreeload in the home environment when given a choice between a food puzzle and a tray of similar size and shape. We also hypothesized that more active cats would be more likely to contrafreeload."

To investigate, the researchers analyzed the behavior of 17 neutered, indoor domestic cats, who were presented with a food puzzle and a tray during 30- minute trials. The experiments revealed that the animals would rather eat from a tray of easily available food than work out a simple puzzle to earn their food.

“It wasn’t that cats never used the food puzzle, but cats ate more food from the tray, spent more time at the tray and made more first choices to approach and eat from the tray rather than the puzzle,” explained study lead author Mikel Delgado, a cat behaviorist and research affiliate at UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine.

“There is an entire body of research that shows that most species including birds, rodents, wolves, primates - even giraffes - prefer to work for their food." 

“What’s surprising is out of all these species cats seem to be the only ones that showed no strong tendency to contrafreeload.”

The cats were monitored with activity trackers over the course of the research. The results show that the study subjects were not simply being lazy - even those that were more active still chose the freely available food. 

"Cats who consumed more food from the puzzle, consumed more food in general, suggesting a relationship between hunger and effort," noted the study authors.

"Further research is required to understand why domestic cats, unlike other tested species, do not show a strong preference to work for food."

The study is published in the journal journal <a href="https://www.springer.com/journal/10071">Animal Cognition</a>.

---

By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Most animals prefer to work for their food, but not cats

When offered a choice between free food or food that...

Scientists have discovered a new species of marmoset hidden away in the forests of the Brazilian Amazon, and the monkeys are already highly threatened by habitat loss, according to a study from the <a href="https://www.wcs.org/">Wildlife Conservation Society</a>. 

The small monkey, which is now known as Schneider’s marmoset, has been found in the "arc of deforestation." This is a region along the southern edge of the Amazon that is rapidly being deforested and converted for agriculture. The experts report that this particular area accounts for half of the global land use change in the past 30 years.

The discovery of Schneider’s marmoset was made by a team of researchers led by Rodrigo Costa Araújo, who is currently a researcher at Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi. 

The marmoset has been named after Professor Horacio Schneider, a pioneer and major contributor to the research of diversity and evolution of monkeys.

The Amazon marmosets - which belong to the genus Mico - are among the more diverse groups of monkeys. This group is found only in the threatened forests of the arc of deforestation. 

There is currently no conservation response to address the habitat losses that threaten the future of Mico monkeys, mainly because they are poorly studied, and the total number of Amazon marmoset species remains unknown. 

According to the experts, further research is needed to assess the conservation status of M. schneideri and to investigate the southern portion of its geographical distribution. The first step toward protecting the endangered monkeys of the Amazon is a better understanding of exactly how many species exist. 

"There are 146 primate species and subspecies in Amazonia, representing 20 percent of the global primate diversity and comprising the most diverse primate fauna in the world," wrote the study authors.

"Nonetheless, primate diversity remains understudied in Amazonia, as manifested by regular discoveries of new species. This incomplete taxonomic knowledge and the scarcity of basic ecological and distributional data for even well-known species is a major impediment to the design and implementation of effective conservation actions."

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

Highly threatened species of marmoset discovered in the Amazon

Scientists have discovered a new species of marmoset hidden away...

Black howler monkeys navigate the forests of Mexico, Belize and Guatemala while visiting trees in search of fruit and other food. They move in a complex environment and need to adapt their route maps depending on which trees are fruiting as well as to cope with unforeseen changes in the <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/forests-create-cloud-cover-that-cools-the-climate/">forest</a>.

Humans are understood to navigate using internal maps that lay out the routes between frequently visited locations. These simple, mental maps focus on specific routes and carry little information about where each route lies in relation to others. However, humans are able to use their knowledge of distance and direction in order to link up their mental maps and take short cuts, thus adapting their maps to their navigational needs. 

In a new study published by the <a href="https://www.biologists.com/">Company of Biologists</a>, scientists Miguel de Guinea (Oxford Brookes University, UK), Sarie Van Belle (University of Texas at Austin, USA) and colleagues investigated whether howler monkeys were also able to modify their mental-based route maps in the way that humans do.

The researchers followed groups of monkeys in the forests covering the Mayan ruins in Palenque National Park, Mexico. The groups were easy to locate because they called loudly at dawn. 

"We’d arrive at the study area where our focal group was expected to be found before sunrise," said de Guinea. The team then followed the monkeys as they moved through the 50-hectare area. 

The trek was often very challenging for the researchers on foot, as the monkeys traversed the canopy, visiting their favorite fruit trees on high hills and in valleys. 

After a year of following five troops of monkeys, de Guinea and Van Belle analyzed 91 kilometers of route information and compared this with the simulated routes of randomly moving virtual primates. 

The experts found that the howler monkeys regularly travelled through the same sequence of trees and visited their favorite trees often, approaching these trees from a select few directions only. They clearly used mental maps to navigate along familiar routes through their environment. By contrast, the virtual primates seldom repeated a route. 

The howler monkeys were also able to adapt their route in the face of unforeseen changes. On one occasion, the monkeys encountered a 5m gap in one of their regular routes.

"A tree had fallen overnight," explained Van Belle. "They stopped for half an hour and then travelled along the edge to reconnect with the second half of their travel path … as if they knew this was a new obstacle and they needed to consider their options on what to do next."

Furthermore, when the researchers compared the distances traveled by monkey troops with the distances traveled by simulated primates, it was clear that the howlers used their knowledge of direction and distance to link familiar routes together in order to take short cuts and travel efficiently between locations. 

According to the researchers, the data from the study shows that howler monkeys can supplement their mental maps with knowledge of distance and direction, just as humans do. This is the first evidence which demonstrates that animals use the same cognitive skills as humans when navigating through their environment.  

The study is published in the <a href="https://journals.biologists.com/jeb">Journal of Experimental Biology</a>.

---

By <a href="http://bosman@truewan.co.za">Alison Bosman</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Howler monkeys use mental maps for route navigation

Black howler monkeys navigate the forests of Mexico, Belize and Guatemala...

Humans are to blame for the extinction of many hundreds of bird species over the last 20,000 to 50,000 years, according to a new study from <a href="https://english.tau.ac.il/">Tel Aviv University</a>.

In collaboration with researchers at the Weizmann Institute, the team has investigated a major extinction event that ultimately led to the disappearance of about 10 to 20 percent of all avian species.

The experts report that the vast majority of the extinct bird species shared several features: they were large, lived on islands, and many of them were flightless.

Study lead author Shai Meiri is a professor in the School of Zoology at the George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences and the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History at Tel Aviv University.

"We conducted a comprehensive review of scientific literature, and for the first time collected quantitative data on the numbers and traits of extinct species of birds worldwide. Those that became extinct in the last 300 years or so are relatively well known, while earlier species are known to science from remains found in archaeological and paleontological sites worldwide," explained Professor Meiri.

"Altogether we were able to list 469 avian species that became extinct over the last 50,000 years, but we believe that the real number is much higher."

The researchers believe the widespread extinction of birds was primarily driven by humans, who hunted the birds for food. Humans also introduced new animals to islands - such as pigs, rats, monkeys, and cats - that preyed on the birds and their eggs. 

The experts' theory is based on two main facts - the majority of the bird remains were found on human sites, and most of the extinctions occurred a short time after the arrival of humans.

Furthermore, the extinctions were not random, as most of the victims had three major features in common. Approximately 90 percent of the extinct birds lived on islands where they were hunted. 

In addition, most of the lost bird species were large, making them an ideal target for hunters. According to the researchers, the body mass of extinct birds was up to 10 times larger than that of surviving birds.  

Furthermore, a large portion of the extinct bird species were flightless, which means they would have struggled to evade hunters. The experts found that the number of flightless bird species that became extinct is double the number of flightless species still existing today. 

Overall, 68 percent of all known flightless bird species became extinct. The moa bird in New Zealand is one of the best known examples. Within 300 years, 11 moa species fell victim to hunting by humans. 

"Our study indicates that before the major extinction event of the past millennia, many more large, even giant, as well as flightless avian lived on our globe, and the diversity of birds living on islands was much greater than today," said Professor Meiri.

"We hope that our findings can serve as warning signals regarding bird species currently threatened with extinction, and it is therefore important to check whether they have similar features. It must be noted, however, that conditions have changed considerably, and today the main cause for extinction of species by humans is not hunting but rather the destruction of natural habitats."

The study is published in the <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/13652699">Journal of Biogeography</a>.

---

By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Humans have wiped out hundreds of bird species

Humans are to blame for the extinction of many hundreds...

Hermit crabs may become sexually “excited” by an additive that is released from <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/baby-sea-turtles-are-swallowing-plastic-trash/">plastics</a> in the ocean, according to a new study from the <a href="https://www.hull.ac.uk/">University of Hull</a>.

The plastic additive oleamide is known to act as a pheromone that affects the behavior of certain marine animals, such as shrimp. 

The researchers, including PhD candidate Paula Schirrmacher, have been studying the compounding effects of marine plastic pollution and climate change on hermit crabs.

The experts found that oleamide increases the respiration rate of hermit crabs, signifying attraction and excitement. The substance can easily be mistaken for food. This means that hermit crabs may travel over a long distance in pursuit of a meal, only for the energy to be wasted on plastic. 

“Our study shows that oleamide attracts hermit crabs. Respiration rate increases significantly in response to low concentrations of oleamide, and hermit crabs show a behavioural attraction comparable to their response to a feeding stimulant," said Schirrmacher.

“Oleamide also has a striking resemblance to oleic acid, a chemical released by arthropods during decomposition. As scavengers, hermit crabs may misidentify oleamide as a food source, creating a trap."

“This research demonstrates that additive leaching may play a significant role in the attraction of marine life to plastic.”

Study co-author Luana Fiorella Mincarelli said that it is important to understand how plastic additives work on molecular levels, especially on reproductive success. “We have found that their toxic effect can be amplified in a climate change scenario.”

The research shows that male blue mussels were the most adversely affected by increased temperature, but females were more sensitive to DEHP, a toxic chemical found in many plastics.

The study authors concluded that rising ocean temperatures, combined with rising levels of plastic pollution, disrupt the breeding cycles of blue mussels and has a negative impact on their reproduction rates.

In another experiment, the team found evidence which confirms the theory that ocean acidification impairs the sense of smell of hermit crabs and other creatures, limiting their ability to communicate.

“Whether or not marine animals can smell plastics is a topic that previously attracted a lot of scientific controversy, but there was not much actual data," said study co-author Dr. Jorg Hardege.

But now, Schirrmacher's study on hermit crabs in Robin Hood’s Bay has revealed that the creatures are actually attracted to a chemical cue known as PEA (2-phenylethylamine). PEA is known to warn sea creatures of predators.

“To receive smell-related information correctly, the odor molecule needs to properly fit and bind to the receptor," said Dr. Christina Roggatz.

“Our results show how lower environmental pH causes small changes in the chemical properties of the odour molecules, which in turn facilitate this crucial binding step. In short: pH can make or break successful communication in the ocean.”

---

By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Hermit crabs are actually attracted to plastic additives

Hermit crabs may become sexually “excited” by an additive that...

By uncovering the secrets of how fish swim so efficiently at various speeds, scientists are getting ideas for the next generation of underwater drones. 

Typically, underwater vehicles are designed for one cruising speed - and fall short at other speeds. The technology is very limited compared to the impressive skills of fish, which swim well at various speeds by adjusting their tail stiffness. It would be very useful for underwater drones to move both quickly and slowly. 

Professor Dan Quinn at the <a href="https://engineering.virginia.edu/">University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science</a>, in collaboration with postdoctoral researcher Qiang Zhong, developed a key strategy for enabling multi speed missions in underwater vehicles. The experts have demonstrated a simple way to implement their strategy in robots.

When scientists design swimming robots, it is challenging to determine the ideal stiffness of the piece that propels the robots through the water. This difficult because different levels of stiffness are needed for various conditions. 

“Having one tail stiffness is like having one gear ratio on a bike,” said Professor Quinn. “You’d only be efficient at one speed. It would be like biking through San Francisco with a fixed-gear bike; you’d be exhausted after just a few blocks.”

Most likely, fish solve this problem by adjusting their tail stiffness in real-time, tuning into different levels of stiffness depending on the situation.

While there is no known way to measure the stiffness of a swimming fish, Quinn have combined fluid dynamics and biomechanics to create a model for how and why tail stiffness should be tuned.

“Surprisingly, a simple result came out of all the math: Stiffness should increase with swimming speed squared," said Professor Quinn.

“To test our theory, we built a fishlike robot that uses a programmable artificial tendon to tune its own tail stiffness while swimming in a water channel. What happened is that suddenly our robot could swim over a wider range of speeds while using almost half as much energy as the same robot with a fixed-stiffness tail. The improvement was really quite remarkable.”

“Our work is the first that combines biomechanics, fluid dynamics, and robotics to comprehensively study tail stiffness, which helps to uncover the long-existing mystery about how tail stiffness affects swimming performance,” said Zhong. 

“What is even more fantastic is that we are not just focused on theory analysis, but also on proposing a practical guide for tunable stiffness. Our proposed tunable stiffness strategy has proved effective in realistic swimming missions, where a robot fish achieved high speed and high efficiency swimming simultaneously.”

The study is published in the journal <a href="https://robotics.sciencemag.org/">Science Robotics</a>.

---

By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Secrets of fish tails will help design underwater drones

By uncovering the secrets of how fish swim so efficiently...

Apes use signals to start and finish their social interactions, much like people say hello and goodbye, according to a new study published by <a href="https://www.cell.com/">Cell Press</a>. This behavior has never been documented in any species other than humans. 

The researchers discovered that dynamics such as social status influence the communication efforts that apes use during their interactions - a pattern that is similar to human politeness.

“We were able to launch rockets and land on the moon because we have the ability to share our intentions, which allows us to achieve things so much bigger than a single individual can achieve alone. This ability has been suggested to be at the heart of human nature,” said Raphaela Heesen, a postdoctoral researcher at Durham University in the United Kingdom. 

Humans work together to achieve common goals, and this mutual sense of obligation is known as joint commitment. Through observations of great apes, Heesen and her team have uncovered evidence which suggests that joint commitment is not unique to humans.

In previous studies of joint commitment, children protested when an adult abruptly stopped playing with them. By offering toys and using vocalizations, the children tried to re-engage the adult in playtime. 

The researchers noticed a similar exchange between two bonobos. When the animals were interrupted during a grooming session, they used gestures to resume the grooming. 

The experts set out to investigate when joint commitment first appeared in the human lineage. They propose that joint commitment is not solely based on the feeling of obligation to fulfill a shared promise, but also involves the process of setting up the agreement and mutually deciding when the agreement has been fulfilled. 

This could be something as simple as initiating an interaction by saying “hello,” and wrapping it up with "goodbye." If great apes have a similar entry and exit process in their social interactions, this would demonstrate the process of joint commitment, according to the researchers.

The study was focused on 1,242 interactions within groups of bonobos and chimpanzees. The experts found that the apes did, in fact, frequently gaze at and communicate with each other to initiate and finalize social interactions. 

Bonobos exchanged entry signals and mutual gaze prior to playing 90 percent of the time, while chimps used these signals 69 percent of the time. 

Exit signals were found to be even more common - they were used during 92 percent of bonobo and 86 percent of chimpanzee interactions. The entry and exit signals included touching each other, holding hands or butting heads, or gazing at each other before and after grooming or playing. 

Interestingly, the observations revealed that the closer bonobos were to each other, the shorter the duration of their entry and exit phases, if they even used signals at all. This is similar to how we, as humans, communicate with others, explained the study authors.

“When you’re interacting with a good friend, you’re less likely to put in a lot of effort in communicating politely,” said Heesen. She noted that while this study is a step forward, further research is still needed to understand the origin and evolution of joint commitment.

“Behavior doesn’t fossilize. You can’t dig up bones to look at how behavior has evolved. But you can study our closest living relatives: great apes like chimpanzees and bonobos,” said Heesen. “Whether this type of communication is present in other species will also be interesting to study in the future.”

The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.cell.com/iscience/home">iScience</a>.

---

By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Great apes politely end their social interactions

Apes use signals to start and finish their social interactions,...

The,Fangs,Of,A,Venomous,Bush,Viper,Snake

The secret of how snakes got their deadly fangs may be linked to microscopic features of their <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/fibers-inspired-by-spider-silk-are-stronger-than-steel/">teeth</a>, according to a new study from <a href="https://www.flinders.edu.au/">Flinders University</a>.

"It's always been a mystery why fangs have evolved so many times in snakes, but rarely in other reptiles. Our study answers this, showing how easy it is for normal snake teeth to turn into hypodermic needles," said lead author Dr. Alessandro Palci.

Among the nearly 4,000 species of snakes that are living today, about 600 are considered "medically significant," meaning that a bite would likely require treatment at the nearest hospital.

Snake fangs are modified teeth that are grooved and larger than other teeth, explained the researchers. These modifications can be located at the back or the front of the mouth.

"Snake fangs are an iconic exemplar of a complex adaptation, but despite striking developmental and morphological similarities, they probably evolved independently in several lineages of venomous snakes," wrote the study authors.

"How snakes could, uniquely among vertebrates, repeatedly evolve their complex venom delivery apparatus is an intriguing question."

For the investigation, the researchers used high-tech modeling, fossil evidence, and hours of microscope observations. They found that snakes possess tiny infoldings, or wrinkles, at the base of their teeth. Most likely, these infoldings help teeth attach more firmly to the jaw.

The study revealed that in venomous snakes, one of these folds gets deeper and extends all the way to the tip of the tooth - producing a venom groove and a fang.

"Our examination of venomous and non-venomous species reveals that most snakes have dentine infoldings at the bases of their teeth, known as plicidentine, and that in venomous species, one of these infoldings was repurposed to form a longitudinal groove for venom delivery," explained the researchers. 

According to study co-author Professor Michael Lee, the research highlights the opportunism and efficiency of evolution. "Wrinkles which helped attach teeth to the jaw were repurposed to help inject venom."

The study is published in the journal <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/journal/rspb">Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences</a>.

---

By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Scientists discover the secrets of snake fangs

The secret of how snakes got their deadly fangs may...

At the end of the Cretaceous Period, <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/dinosaurs-were-already-in-trouble-before-extinction/">dinosaurs</a> (besides birds) and many large marine reptiles suffered a cataclysmic end. Everyone knows about this mass extinction event, yet few consider the survivors of it. A new study has analyzed shark diversity before and after the mass die off. 

Sharks are ancient creatures, and the oldest known form of vertebrate on the planet. Fossil records suggest that at one point in history, there were more than 3,000 types of sharks and their relatives. Sharks managed to survive during extinction events when the ocean lost its oxygen - including the die off during the Cretaceous period, when many other large species were wiped out. 

Researchers from <a href="https://www.uu.se/en">Uppsala University</a> led by Mohamad Bazzi looked closely at the easiest shark remains to find - teeth. Examining the diversity of 1,239 fossil shark teeth, the team found that shark diversity had been declining before the extinction event. 

The extinction, roughly 66 million years ago, happened at the boundary of the Cretaceous and Paleogene, the so-called K-Pg boundary. Even though shark diversity was diminished before the extinction, it stayed steady over the course of the event itself. 

There were some exceptions to the overall rule - apex predator sharks with large triangular shaped teeth, did suffer some loss of species during the extinction. Possibly these extinctions were related to the extinction of prey species. 

Other sharks, such as those from the family Odontaspididae, flourished after the K-Pg boundary and rapidly diversified. This family of sharks evolved narrow teeth for preying on fish.

The scientists speculate that the selective extinction in sharks may indicate an overall change in diet from more specialized predators to one of fish generalists. Ultimately, sharks proved to be more resilient in the face of extinction than most vertebrate groups.           

The research is published in the journal <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/">PLOS Biology</a>.

Shark diversity survived the dinosaur extinction

At the end of the Cretaceous Period, dinosaurs (besides birds)...

<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2E0mn5mTvhQ
</div><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">'Death Star' moon Mimas conceals a 15-million-year-old ocean that scientists never expected.</figcaption></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-hidden-waters-beneath-ancient-craters">Hidden waters beneath ancient craters</h2>



Scientists have made a startling discovery that challenges everything we thought we knew about <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/saturn-moon-mimas-has-remarkably-young-ocean/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Saturn's moon Mimas</a>. Beneath the heavily cratered surface that earned it the nickname "Death Star" lies a global ocean that formed just 5 to 15 million years ago—a remarkably young age by cosmic standards.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-cassini-data-reveals-orbital-secrets">Cassini data reveals orbital secrets</h2>



The discovery, led by Dr. Valéry Lainey of the <a href="https://observatoiredeparis.psl.eu/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Observatoire de Paris</a>, emerged from careful analysis of <a href="https://www.nasa.gov" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">NASA</a>'s Cassini spacecraft data. By studying subtle irregularities in Mimas's orbit around Saturn, researchers detected the gravitational signature of liquid water hidden 20 to 30 kilometers beneath the moon's icy shell.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-an-unlikely-ocean-world">An unlikely ocean world</h2>



At only 400 kilometers in diameter, Mimas seemed like the least likely candidate to harbor a subsurface ocean. Unlike other ocean moons such as Europa and Enceladus, which show clear surface signs of internal activity, Mimas displays no obvious hints of the liquid water beneath its ancient, crater-scarred exterior.



"Mimas is a small moon, and its heavily cratered surface gave no hint of the hidden ocean beneath," explained Dr. Nick Cooper from <a href="https://www.qmul.ac.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Queen Mary University of London</a>, a study co-author.



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



The ocean's recent formation makes Mimas a prime target for studying how oceans develop and potentially support life. This discovery adds another member to the exclusive club of ocean worlds in our solar system, each offering unique insights into the conditions necessary for habitability.



The research, published in <a href="https://www.nature.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Nature</a> journal, demonstrates how advanced orbital analysis can reveal hidden features of celestial bodies, opening new possibilities for understanding ocean formation throughout the cosmos.



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Scientists discover unexpected young ocean on Saturn's cratered moon Mimas

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2E0mn5mTvhQ 'Death Star' moon Mimas conceals a 15-million-year-old ocean that...

<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y4eLFNYrKE
</div></figure>



On the unforgiving landscape of North Greenland, temperatures drop and sunlight barely penetrates through the polar winter. It was here, however, that an international team of scientists found <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/predatory-worms-were-terror-beasts-half-a-billion-years-ago/#google_vignette" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">evidence of sea monsters</a> that would change our understanding of ocean life in the past.



This video captures the discovery of Timorebestia fossils that had been hidden for more than 500 million years in the Sirius Passet formation. The "terror beasts," as they are called, are a hidden chapter in the evolutionary history of <a href="https://www.earth.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Earth</a>, showing that sophisticated predator-prey interactions occurred much earlier than previously envisioned.



Dr. Jakob Vinther and his research team at the <a href="https://www.bristol.ac.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">University of Bristol</a>, in collaboration with researchers at the <a href="https://eng.kopri.re.kr/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Korean Polar Research Institute</a>, braved extreme weather conditions at 82.5 north latitude to locate these giant creatures. Using sophisticated electron microprobe analysis, they revealed the detailed anatomy of the animals, including their muscle and nerve tissues.



The find upsets the traditional timeline of sea predators. Although we've long appreciated that Cambrian oceans were at one time ruled by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWI3-UgA3_o&amp;list=PL1QLQMW9MWDwpkFOnvgAmu7wT6rZmYqdJ&amp;index=19" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">arthropods</a>, these discoveries indicate that relatives of arrow worms were first to dominate the seas. These worms were building sophisticated food webs several million years before other predator groups arose.



Each fossil is a story of ancient hunger, with fossil stomach contents revealing these meter-long beasts dined on heavily armored arthropods regularly, cementing their place as the ocean's first apex predators.



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Worms dominated seas before dinosaurs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y4eLFNYrKE On the unforgiving landscape of North Greenland, temperatures drop...

<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ow3JH03PqEQ
</div><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">New York is the site of the world's oldest forest.</figcaption></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-385-million-year-old-trees-discovered">385-million-year-old trees discovered</h2>



Scientists have uncovered something extraordinary just two hours north of New York City. The <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/worlds-oldest-forest-discovered-close-to-new-york-city/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">world's oldest forest</a>, dating back 385 million years, offers a window into how Earth's first complex forests shaped our planet's atmosphere.



Located near <a href="https://townofcairo.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Cairo, New York</a>, in Greene County, these weren't merely primitive plants struggling to survive. These were sophisticated trees with root systems remarkably similar to modern forests. This ancient woodland predates dinosaurs by 140 million years.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-cairo-forest-discovery">The Cairo forest discovery</h2>



385 million years ago, upstate New York was a tropical paradise near the equator. Thanks to continental drift, this ancient forest has traveled thousands of miles to its current location.



The fossil forest sits in an abandoned quarry, roughly half the size of a football field. This represents just a slice of what was likely a massive forest system stretching from New York into Pennsylvania.



Charles Ver Straeten, curator of sedimentary rocks at the <a href="https://www.nysm.nysed.gov/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">New York State Museum</a>, made the discovery in 2009. While scouting the former highway department property, his trained eye spotted wandering patterns in the stone that looked like marine features.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-revolutionary-age-and-preservation">Revolutionary age and preservation</h2>



The site contains 385-million-year-old rocks with fossilized woody roots forming horizontal patterns up to 18 feet (5.5 meters) wide. As Christopher Berry, a paleobotanist at Cardiff University, explains: "You are walking through the roots of ancient trees."



This discovery pushes back advanced tree evolution by millions of years. The research, published in <a href="https://www.cell.com/current-biology/home" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Current Biology</a> in December 2019, fundamentally changes our understanding of when complex forests first emerged.



Researchers believe a massive flood buried the forest floor, creating perfect fossilization conditions. Over millions of years, sediment hardened into rock, preserving these root patterns like nature's time capsule.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-meet-archaeopteris-the-first-modern-tree">Meet Archaeopteris: the first modern tree</h2>



The star of this ancient forest is Archaeopteris – not to be confused with the feathered dinosaur Archaeopteryx. This tree was far older and more revolutionary.



William Stein from <a href="https://www.binghamton.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Binghamton University</a> describes the roots as "strikingly modern, essentially what you'd see outside in my yard right now." These weren't simple root systems you'd expect from ancient plants.



Some fossilized roots are six inches (15 centimeters) in diameter, forming 36-foot-wide (11-meter) patterns. These giants grew up to 65 feet (20 meters) tall with five-foot-diameter (1.5-meter) trunks.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-climate-changing-impact">Climate-changing impact</h2>



These trees fundamentally changed Earth's environment. Kevin Boyce, a Stanford University geoscientist, explains how their deep roots triggered "weathering," chemical reactions that pulled carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.



This process dropped atmospheric CO2 levels from 10-15 times higher than today to roughly modern concentrations. These ancient trees helped create atmospheric conditions that made complex life possible.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-ancient-forest-ecosystem">Ancient forest ecosystem</h2>



The forest was remarkably diverse. Scientists identified Eospermatopteris, palm tree-like plants with short roots that reached 30 feet (9 meters) tall but lacked woody structure. The forest also housed cladoxylopsids and a mysterious third species still being studied.



All reproduced through spores rather than seeds – millions of years before seeds evolved. This tropical environment had no grass, flowers, or flying insects, just towering trees creating Earth's first complex forest canopy.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-scientific-significance">Scientific significance</h2>



Before this finding, the Gilboa forest, located 25 miles (40 kilometers) away, held the "oldest forest" title. Cairo's trees are 2-3 million years older, showing that complex forest ecosystems developed much faster than scientists believed possible.



Patricia Gensel, a <a href="https://www.unc.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">University of North Carolina</a> paleobotanist, notes: "The size of those root systems is really changing the picture. Even 20 years ago, researchers assumed trees with such complex root systems didn't evolve so early."



The Cairo site presents three unique root systems, suggesting Devonian period forests were diverse ecosystems with different trees occupying different environmental niches, much like today's forests.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-modern-preservation-efforts">Modern preservation efforts</h2>



In 2022, New York State Senator Michelle Hinchey secured a $170,000 grant for the town of Cairo to construct specialized fencing around the fossil forest site. The town plans to conduct a feasibility study exploring the possibility of creating an educational center and working lab on-site.



Joe Hasenkopf, chair of the Cairo Planning Board, hopes to partner with educational institutions to create a research facility serving scientists, students, and the public.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-lessons-for-today-s-climate">Lessons for today's climate</h2>



Why does a 385-million-year-old forest matter today? It shows how dramatically forests can change Earth's climate. These ancient woodlands created the atmospheric conditions supporting complex life.



Understanding how prehistoric forests transformed the planet helps us appreciate modern forests' critical role in addressing climate change. Forests remain Earth's most effective carbon capture systems.



These prehistoric trees changed Earth's atmosphere by pulling massive amounts of carbon dioxide from the air. As we face modern climate challenges, this ancient forest reminds us of trees' incredible power to transform our planet's environment.



The next time you walk through a forest, remember you're experiencing an ecosystem whose blueprint was established 385 million years ago in upstate New York. These ancient pioneers didn't just survive – they thrived and changed the world forever.



The full study was published in the journal Current Biology.



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Earth's oldest forest found in the United States

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ow3JH03PqEQ New York is the site of the world's oldest...

<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prrq8Ql81zk
</div><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Acid rain and a crisis solved.</figcaption></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-why-don-t-we-ever-hear-about-acid-rain-anymore-the-environmental-crisis-that-was-solved">Why don't we ever hear about "acid rain" anymore? The environmental crisis that was solved</h2>



Remember the 1980s when acid rain dominated headlines? Dire warnings about rain eating buildings, killing fish, and destroying forests filled every news cycle. Then, almost like magic, acid rain vanished from public discourse. What happened? Did we actually solve one of the late 20th century's most pressing environmental challenges?



The answer might surprise you. Unlike many environmental issues that drag on indefinitely, acid rain represents one of modern history's most successful ecological recovery stories. It's a tale of science, politics, and technology working together to tackle what seemed impossible.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">What was acid rain?</h2>



Acid rain isn't regular rain having a bad day – it's precipitation that became significantly more acidic due to air pollution. When power plants, factories, and vehicles burn fossil fuels, they release sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) into the atmosphere.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">The science behind it</h2>



Think of acid rain as nature's chemistry experiment gone wrong. These compounds react with water, oxygen, and other chemicals to form sulfuric and nitric acids. When mixed with water vapor in clouds, they create precipitation with dangerously low pH levels.



While clean rain has a pH of about 5.6, acid rain could drop as low as 4.2 to 4.4 – roughly as acidic as tomato juice or coffee. According to US Geological Survey documentation, Scottish chemist Angus Smith first coined "acid rain" in 1872, but it didn't become a household phrase until the 1960s and 1970s when Swedish scientist Svante Odén documented its devastating effects on Scandinavian lakes and European forests.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">The crisis at its peak</h2>



During the height of public concern, environmental damage was both widespread and visible. This wasn't some abstract future threat – people could see destruction happening in real-time.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Environmental devastation</h2>



The most dramatic impacts were impossible to ignore. Research documented by the Adirondack Lakes Survey Corporation and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation shows that in the Adirondack Mountains, more than 200 lakes became so acidic they couldn't support fish life. The Adirondack Council reports that 409 lakes once supported brook trout, but many lost their fish populations due to acid rain.



By 1976, when scientists cataloged all acidified lakes in the Adirondack Park, researchers found that half of the lakes over 2,000 feet above sea level had no fish, according to studies published in environmental journals. The acidification process worked like a slow-motion disaster. As acid rain fell into watersheds, it gradually lowered pH levels. Fish couldn't survive in acidic water, and their food sources died off too.



Trees at high elevations showed stress directly linked to acid rain. It weakened them by leaching nutrients and making them susceptible to disease. Historical records show Germany's Black Forest saw nearly half its trees damaged by the mid-1980s.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Economic impact</h2>



Acid rain wasn't just environmental – it was expensive. Acidic precipitation corroded infrastructure, buildings, and monuments. Historic stone structures deteriorated at accelerated rates. Tourism suffered as lakes became fishless and forests declined. EPA economic analyses from the period documented repair costs mounting into billions annually.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">The solution: government action and technology</h2>



Transformation from crisis to success required unprecedented cooperation between governments, industries, and environmental groups.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">The Clean Air Act of 1990</h2>



The turning point came with the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, signed by President George H.W. Bush. This represented a fundamentally new approach to environmental regulation, as documented in EPA historical records.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Cap-and-trade success</h2>



Instead of mandating specific technologies, the 1990 amendments introduced something revolutionary: a cap-and-trade system for sulfur dioxide emissions. EPA program documentation shows this market-based approach set overall limits but allowed companies to trade emission allowances.



The genius was harnessing market forces to find cost-effective pollution reduction. Companies reducing emissions cheaply could sell excess allowances to those facing higher costs. Research published in environmental economics journals and EPA progress reports shows this resulted in dramatic SO2 reduction at a fraction of projected costs.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Technology advances</h2>



Policy provided the framework, but technology made reductions possible. Studies in atmospheric science journals document the widespread adoption of flue gas desulfurization systems ("scrubbers") that removed sulfur dioxide before it reached the atmosphere. By the 2000s, new installations could remove over 95% of SO2 emissions, according to EPA technical reports.



The push coincided with cleaner energy development. Natural gas produces fewer sulfur compounds than coal. Wind and solar, emerging in the 1990s, captured growing market share, reducing reliance on high-sulfur coal.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-why-we-don-t-hear-about-it-today">Why we don't hear about it today</h2>



Why did acid rain disappear from headlines? Simple: the problem was largely solved.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Success doesn't make news</h2>



There's an old journalism saying: "If it bleeds, it leads." Environmental success stories don't generate urgency like crisis reporting. Media attention shifted to other challenges: climate change, plastic pollution, and biodiversity loss. There's only so much environmental anxiety the public can absorb, and newer concerns replaced acid rain.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Mission accomplished</h2>



The primary reason is beautifully simple: interventions worked. EPA monitoring data shows sulfur dioxide emissions dropped over 90% since 1990. Academic research published in environmental science journals confirms pH levels in formerly affected areas returned closer to normal. This represents one of history's most dramatic environmental recoveries. Studies by the Adirondack Lakes Survey Corporation show fishless lakes now support healthy populations. Forests recovered, and building damage slowed dramatically.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-is-it-really-gone">Is it really gone?</h2>



The crisis is largely resolved, but monitoring data shows the problem isn't completely eliminated – it's managed to acceptable levels. Some areas still experience occasional events during high pollution periods. International environmental research indicates that rapidly industrializing Asian countries face similar problems to what we experienced decades ago, though they're implementing successful strategies.



EPA research shows nitrogen oxide emissions proved more challenging than sulfur dioxide, coming from vehicles and mobile sources. Climate science studies suggest changing weather patterns add complexity to how acid rain forms and falls.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">What this teaches us</h2>



The acid rain experience proves that seemingly intractable environmental problems can be solved with scientific understanding, political will, and technological innovation. Environmental monitoring data shows recovery speed was remarkable – within a decade, measurable improvements appeared in air quality and ecosystem health.



Success came from bipartisan support across party lines. Policy analysis studies show the market-based approach appealed to those preferring economic incentives while achieving environmental goals. This support created lasting policy surviving political changes.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Conclusion</h2>



Acid rain's disappearance from public consciousness represents environmental science's greatest success stories. Through effective regulation, technological innovation, and international cooperation, we transformed an overwhelming crisis into a manageable challenge.



Today's silence isn't because we forgot – it's because we solved it. The 1990 Clean Air Act, combined with technology and energy market changes, reduced acid rain emissions over 90%, according to comprehensive EPA data analysis.



This success offers hope for current challenges. It proves complex problems can be solved when science, policy, and technology work together. As we face climate change and plastic pollution, acid rain reminds us that dramatic positive change is possible.



Next time someone asks whether environmental regulations work, remember acid rain. It's proof that sometimes, we get it right.



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



Sources: This article draws from EPA official documentation and progress reports, peer-reviewed research published in environmental and atmospheric science journals, historical data from the Adirondack Lakes Survey Corporation, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation records, US Geological Survey publications, policy analysis studies, and environmental monitoring data collected over three decades.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Frequently Asked Questions</h2>



1. Is acid rain completely gone? No, but EPA monitoring shows it's reduced to manageable levels. US sulfur dioxide emissions dropped over 90% since 1990, making acid rain much less severe than the 1980s crisis.



2. How long did solving take? Environmental monitoring data shows significant improvements began within 5-10 years of 1990s emission controls. Full ecosystem recovery took longer – some areas need 20-30 years for complete recovery.



3. What made the solution successful? Clear scientific understanding, visible damage motivating action, bipartisan support, available technology, and innovative market-based policies like cap-and-trade.



4. Do other countries have acid rain problems? Yes, particularly rapidly industrializing Asian countries. However, international environmental research shows many implement similar successful control strategies.



5. Could acid rain return? Potentially, if regulations weaken or we return to high-sulfur coal without controls, though effects would take years to become severe according to environmental projections.



6. Can you recommend any teaching tools on the subject of "acid rain"? The United States Environmental Protection Agency produced a wonderful teacher's guide for ages 14 and under that you can find on the EPA website here: <a href="https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2017-03/documents/teachersguide.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2017-03/documents/teachersguide.pdf</a>



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The environmental problem we actually solved

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prrq8Ql81zk Acid rain and a crisis solved. Why don't we...

Fresh,Radish,Harvest,On,Soil,In,Garden.

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Mid-July is an opportune time to kick-start a thriving fall garden, and this guide lays out the best vegetables and herbs to plant now for a fruitful autumn harvest. 



Fast-growing leafy greens such as spinach, lettuce, kale, and arugula perform especially well in the waning summer heat, with harvests beginning as soon as 30 days. 



These cool-season crops relish the transition into fall, offering repeated yields with cut-and-come-again methods.



Root vegetables like radishes, carrots, and beets also excel during this period. Radishes deliver satisfaction in under a month, while carrots and beets mature in about two months. Employing succession planting ensures a continuous stream of produce deep into the cooler months. 



For a boost of fresh flavor, herbs like cilantro, basil, dill, and chervil are excellent picks. These heat-loving varieties flourish in July’s warmth and are harvest-ready in about 30 days, especially when sown continuously.



Gardeners in zones 6 through 9 can benefit from planting bush beans and snap peas, which don’t require trellising and are ideal for compact plots. 



Maturing in 50–60 days, they’re a smart choice for quick, protein-rich harvests. For those in hotter regions, heat-tolerant crops such as okra and southern peas provide reliable yields and thrive in scorching conditions.



This guide emphasizes more than crop selection—it highlights the importance of timing, soil preparation, and ongoing sowing techniques. 



With thoughtful planning and attention to regional climate needs, even late-summer gardeners can enjoy fresh salads, hearty stews, and the satisfaction of a robust, homegrown harvest well into fall.



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What to plant in your garden in mid-July

https://youtu.be/Fi2OeEwuzRM?si=vTyd2m9FMmtyWkex Mid-July is an opportune time to kick-start a thriving...

Green,Ecoduct,Over,An,Empty,Highway,During,Sunset.

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A new long-term study in Monkton, Vermont, reveals that wildlife tunnels significantly reduce amphibian road mortality during seasonal migrations. 



Frogs and salamanders often cross roads to reach breeding ponds each spring, but many are killed by vehicles. 



Researchers from the <a href="https://www.uvm.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">University of Vermont</a>, in collaboration with local citizens and the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, installed two underpass tunnels in 2015. 



Over a 12-year monitoring period, they observed an 80.2% reduction in amphibian deaths, and up to 94% for non-climbing species like salamanders. 



The study used a before-after-control-impact design and documented more than 5,200 amphibians, highlighting the tunnels’ effectiveness even in nearby buffer zones.



Funded at $342,397 - far cheaper than wildlife crossings for large mammals - the project showcased the power of community-led conservation.



Local groups initiated the effort after observing mass amphibian deaths. Wildlife cameras later captured over 2,200 amphibians using a tunnel in just one spring, along with other species like raccoons and bobcats, indicating wider ecosystem benefits.



This marks the first peer-reviewed, long-term data set in the northeastern U.S. confirming amphibian-specific underpasses work. 



The study urges transportation departments to incorporate these designs into road planning and highlights how community action, thoughtful infrastructure, and persistence can make a real difference for biodiversity.



The full study was published in the <a href="https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1617138125000780" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Journal for Nature Conservation</a>.



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Wildlife tunnels save millions of amphibians

https://youtu.be/XYgiPzmNBTU?si=eFYY7gPHU1JznLvU A new long-term study in Monkton, Vermont, reveals that...

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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https://youtu.be/Ug657J67iEo?si=w96YjGMsg939LD_3
</div></figure>



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

[sendtonews key="0ynNMYkMKa-2340414-12187" 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.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

[sendtonews key="3upvlAaHgO-2256633-12187" 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.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.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?

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

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



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



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



Video/ Image Credit: ESA



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



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

Santiago, Chile in South America

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

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

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



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



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



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



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



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



Video Credit: Johns Hopkins&nbsp;



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



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

Interactive map of the universe includes 200,000 galaxies

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

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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"

[sendtonews key="uV9Lh2fQbV-1760058-12187" type="single"] Lesotho: Africa's "Kingdom in the Sky" Today’s...

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



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



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



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



Video Credit: ESA&nbsp;



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



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

The city of Dublin on Ireland's east coast

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

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



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



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



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



Video/ Image Credit: ESA



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



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

The province of Zaragoza in northeast Spain

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

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