Young aspen trees in Yellowstone are doing something they have not done in almost 100 years. Rather than sprouting and being eaten back to nubs by elk and bison, they're actually growing into tall, adult forest trees rising up towards the canopy.



This matters more than it might seem, because it shows what happens when a missing piece of an ecosystem returns.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-yellowstone-aspens-and-elk">Yellowstone, aspens, and elk</h2>



In the 1920s, people <a href="https://www.yellowstone.org/wolf-project/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">eliminated wolves in Yellowstone</a>. At the time, with limited scientific knowledge, managers believed it was the right thing to do.



<a href="https://www.earth.com/news/from-wolves-to-dogs-did-domestication-begin-without-human-help/">Without wolves</a>, elk herds grew very large. Elk love to eat aspen shoots - the tender young growth is highly palatable to them.



For roughly 70 years, elk browsed aspen sprouts down to stub height, and the trees couldn't grow. 



If you had walked through Yellowstone in the 1980s, you would have seen many tiny aspen shoots covering the ground, but almost no young trees gaining height. 



The forest's regeneration was stalled. Old trees died, and no new ones replaced them.



In 1995 and 1996, park managers reintroduced wolves into the <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/yellowstone-supervolcano-eruption-study-sparks-new-debate-on-where-and-when-it-will-erupt/">Yellowstone Park ecosystem</a>. Scientists hoped and wondered whether this would change anything for the trees.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-why-aspen-matter-to-yellowstone">Why aspen matter to Yellowstone</h2>



Aspen groves provide habitat for many species. Birds nest in them. Beavers eat the bark and use the wood for dams. Butterflies and moths lay eggs on the leaves. 



Their canopy admits enough light for wildflowers and shrubs to grow beneath. When it rains, aspen groves hold water in the soil better than some other forest types.



In short, when aspen return, dozens of other species benefit. More trees support more insects, which in turn support more birds, enriching the ecosystem.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-checking-the-trees-three-decades-later">Checking the trees three decades later</h2>



<a href="https://fwcs.oregonstate.edu/users/luke-painter" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Luke Painter</a>, an ecologist at <a href="https://oregonstate.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Oregon State University</a>, sought clear answers. His team returned to 87 aspen stands across Yellowstone that scientists had previously surveyed. 



They measured thousands of young trees, looked for bite marks, and counted how many stems were tall enough that elk could no longer reach the tips.



About a third of these stands now have many tall young aspens pushing toward the canopy. 



"About 26 of the 87 aspen stands we examined had large numbers of tall saplings throughout, a remarkable change from the 1990s when surveys found none at all," Painter said.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-why-wolves-matter-to-yellowstone-aspens">Why wolves matter to Yellowstone aspens</h2>



Breaking it all down, the conclusions of this study are pretty simple. 



<a href="https://www.earth.com/news/wolves-move-pups-across-mountains-to-adapt-to-climate-pressure/">Wolves hunt elk</a>. When wolves came back, two things happened. First, elk numbers declined from unusually high levels. Second, elk changed their behavior. They spent less time in the same areas feeding.



With fewer elk and shorter feeding bouts, more aspen shoots survived long enough to exceed the browsing zone - about six to seven feet high. 



Once a sapling reaches that height, elk cannot easily reach the growing tip. The tree continues to grow.



"The reintroduction of large carnivores has initiated a recovery process that had been shut down for decades," Painter explained.



Scientists call this a <a href="https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/trophic-cascades-across-diverse-plant-ecosystems-80060347/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">trophic cascade</a> - when adding or removing one species causes changes that ripple through the whole system.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-some-places-recover-others-don-t">Some places recover, others don't</h2>



Unfortunately, not every aspen stand has recovered yet. Some valleys still have many short, heavily browsed shoots, because it's not only elk eating them anymore. 



<a href="https://www.earth.com/news/yellowstones-iconic-bison-have-merged-into-a-single-herd/">Bison herds have grown</a>, and bison browse on aspen as well. They are strong enough to break young trees. 



"Increasing numbers of bison may be emerging as a new constraint to aspen in some areas," Painter confirmed.



Additionally, winter snow depth varies; droughts stress trees; bears and mountain lions also hunt elk; and hunting outside the park influences elk distribution. 



All of these factors interact, which is why some sites show strong recovery, others show moderate recovery, and a few have changed very little.



The key pattern is that places with many tall saplings experience little browsing, and aspen groves that remain popular eating grounds today stay short. 



This fact is the strongest indication that tree recovery is linked directly to wolf presence, not solely to weather or soil conditions.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-proof-in-the-measurements">Proof in the measurements</h2>



Painter's team did not rely on casual observation. They used the same methods as earlier researchers, measuring the same plots. 



They counted recruitment - when young trees surpass browsing height and begin progressing toward maturity. This measure is crucial. Sprouts are insufficient if they never grow; without recruitment, the forest cannot replace itself.



The results are robust. After being stalled for most of a century, Yellowstone's aspens are increasing in height. In recovering stands today, you will see saplings - six, eight, or ten feet tall - that were not present in the 1990s.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-future-of-yellowstone-s-aspens">The future of Yellowstone's aspens</h2>



"This is a remarkable case of <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/giant-viruses-found-in-yellowstones-hot-springs-may-be-near-the-root-of-all-life-on-earth/">ecological restoration</a>," Painter concluded. "Wolf reintroduction is yielding long-term ecological changes contributing to increased biodiversity and habitat diversity."



Trees grow slowly, so even with wolves restored, it will take decades for these young aspens to form a full-grown forest. 



Some areas might never fully recover if bison numbers continue to rise or if the climate becomes too hot and dry.



Thanks to the work of Painter and his team, scientists are now certain that restoring the Yellowstone predator has restarted aspen forest regeneration. Not everywhere and not perfectly, but enough to be measured, creating hope for the future.



The full study was published in the journal <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378112725004499?via%3Dihub" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Forest Ecology and Management</a>.



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Yellowstone's aspen trees are growing again thanks to the reintroduction of wolves

Young aspen trees in Yellowstone are doing something they have not done in almost 100 years. Rather than sprouting and being eaten back to nubs by elk and bison, they're actually growing into tall, adult forest trees rising up towards the canopy. This matters more than it might seem, because it shows what happens when a missing piece of an ecosystem returns. Yellowstone, aspens, and elk In the 1920s, people eliminated wolves in Yellowstone. At the time, with limited scientific knowledge, managers believed it was the right...

Dragonflies outlasted the dinosaurs and even endured asteroid strikes. But now they face a survival threat unlike any before. Rising heat and wildfires are reshaping the very traits they depend on to attract mates.



A study from the <a href="https://www.ucdenver.edu" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">University of Colorado Denver</a> shows how this shift could push some species toward local extinction. Traits that once drew partners are now putting dragonflies at risk.



“Dragonflies have survived asteroids, but now climate change and wildfires are threatening them in ways evolution can’t keep up with,” said lead author Sarah Nalley, a PhD student in CU Denver’s Integrative Biology program. 



“Our findings suggest that adaptation alone may not be fast enough to protect <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/dragonfly-larvae-expose-climates-hidden-influence-on-biology/">species</a> in a rapidly changing climate.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-when-ornaments-backfire">When ornaments backfire</h2>



Many dragonflies have dark spots on their wings. These patterns attract <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/dragonflies-hunt-perfectly-even-in-extreme-temperatures/">mates</a>. They also absorb heat. In hotter regions and burned habitats, that heat builds too quickly. Males tire, rest, and lose chances to compete for females.



Thermal imaging confirmed the problem. Dark spots made wings hotter, faster. Unlike the peppered moth, where wing color affected survival through camouflage, dragonflies face a different pressure. Here, color weakens reproductive success. Survival is not enough if mating fails.



This twist highlights a blind spot in conservation. Scientists usually check if species survive hotter, drier habitats. But if mating collapses, the population vanishes regardless of survival, leaving ecosystems weaker and biodiversity loss far greater.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-dragonfly-survival-amid-wildfires">Dragonfly survival amid wildfires</h2>



“This changes how we think about vulnerability,” said Professor Michael Moore. “It’s not just about whether animals can survive after wildfire - it’s about whether they can reproduce in those modified environments. That’s the key to long-term survival.”



If reproduction falters, decline accelerates. And dragonflies matter. They eat mosquitoes, keeping insect numbers in check. They also feed birds, fish, and amphibians. Lose them, and entire food webs shift, unraveling in unpredictable ways.



Dragonflies have always seemed resilient. But this study suggests they may not keep pace with today’s rapid <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/dragonflies-developed-dark-wing-spots-for-survival/">changes</a>, showing how climate and fire pressures can overwhelm even long-lasting species once thought secure.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-wildfire-data-reveal-worrying-trends">Wildfire data reveal worrying trends</h2>



The project began as a class assignment in Professor Moore’s course. Students worked with open datasets: wildfire maps from the U.S. Geological Survey, climate records, and citizen science observations spanning 40 years. No external funding backed the research.



Despite the simple beginnings, the analysis uncovered a serious trend. Dragonflies with ornamental wings are disappearing from fire-damaged and hotter regions. The data gave a broad view of how climate and wildfires interact with reproductive traits.



Nalley brought personal motivation. She lost her home in Superior, Colorado, during the 2021 Marshall Fire. That experience shaped her focus.



“I knew I wanted to study animals - and after the fire, I knew I wanted to study wildfires too,” said Nalley. “That experience pushed me to ask how animals are affected not just by surviving a fire, but by whether they can still reproduce and carry on the species afterward.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-lessons-for-conservation">Lessons for conservation</h2>



The findings stretch beyond dragonflies. If ancient predators that once ruled the skies falter, what about other species? The research shows conservationists must look past survival rates. Reproduction matters just as much.



“Working with Sarah pushed me to think about my own research in a new way,” said Moore. “She came in with great questions about wildfires and reproduction that made me reconsider how I approach these big ecological issues.”



The study’s message is clear: ecosystems don’t just need species to live, they need them to breed. Dragonflies warn us of what happens when natural signals of attraction turn into liabilities, threatening stability, biodiversity, and long-term ecological resilience everywhere.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-dragonfly-decline-from-wildfires">Dragonfly decline from wildfires</h2>



Dragonflies have been here for hundreds of millions of years. Their decline would mark a profound loss. More than that, it would unsettle the balance of ecosystems that depend on them.



The CU Denver research shows how quickly environmental pressures reach into the smallest details of life - courtship displays, wing patterns, mating chances. Those details decide whether a species thrives or disappears, shaping both present ecosystems and future biodiversity.



Dragonflies are not just survivors from deep time. They are indicators of how even the most resilient animals can stumble in a warming, fire-prone world.



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-025-02417-8" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Nature Climate Change</a>.



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Dragonflies lived with dinosaurs, now they face their toughest fight for survival

Dragonflies outlasted the dinosaurs and even endured asteroid strikes. But...

For a century, Western water forecasts have leaned on a simple idea: more mountain snow means more water in rivers in the spring. But where you measure that snow matters as much as how much you measure.



A new analysis of more than two decades of data across 390 snow-fed <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/planning-for-an-uncertain-future-in-the-colorado-river-basin/">river basins</a> in 11 Western states shows that placing new instruments at strategically chosen “hotspots” consistently delivers better water supply forecasts than trying to blanket an entire basin with broad surveys.



In those basins, adding hotspot sites improved forecast skill by about 11–14 percent on average. By comparison, doing comprehensive basin-wide snow mapping nudged forecasts up by only about 4 percent on average. 



The takeaway is surprisingly straightforward: measuring snow in the right places can help far more than measuring snow everywhere.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-where-snow-matters-most">Where snow matters most</h2>



Hotspots are small areas within a watershed where snow conditions punch above their weight in predicting how much water will actually reach streams months later. 



Think of ridgelines, aspects, or elevations where snow tends to persist or melt in patterns that strongly control downstream flow.



Because most existing ground stations sample a tiny fraction of a basin, there’s room to improve forecasts by adding just a few stations - if they’re placed where the snow signal matters most for runoff.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-putting-snow-sites-to-the-test">Putting snow sites to the test</h2>



Researchers sifted through more than 20 years of snow estimates and streamflow records, comparing two expansion strategies for monitoring: adding targeted hotspot gauges, or rely on basin-wide mapping (from aircraft or satellites) to capture total snow volume. 



They tested both approaches against the current network of ground stations that operational forecasters use today. 



The team treated streamflow forecasting the way a water manager would, asking how much each strategy improved the year-to-year predictive power for seasonal <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/how-global-greening-could-drain-earths-water-supply/">water supply</a>.



Because different basins respond differently, they repeated the analysis for hundreds of watersheds, from the Cascades and Sierra Nevada to the Rockies and the Great Basin. 



Across that breadth of climates and terrains, the pattern held - focused hotspot measurements typically outperformed broad coverage.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-airborne-snow-measuring-has-tradeoffs">Airborne snow measuring has tradeoffs</h2>



Basin-wide surveys are undeniably powerful. Airborne campaigns can directly estimate a basin’s total snow volume, and satellites help paint the big picture over vast, remote areas. The catch is cost and cadence.



Airborne surveys are expensive and can’t fly everywhere all the time. Satellite products are improving quickly but still struggle with forests, clouds, and complex terrain, and they need ground truth to keep forecasts anchored in reality.



By contrast, a handful of well-placed ground sensors can run all season, in all weather, at a fraction of the price. 



The new study shows those stations can deliver similar - and often better - forecast gains precisely because they target the parts of a basin that control when and how snowmelt becomes streamflow.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-snowmelt-and-a-warming-west">Snowmelt and a warming West</h2>



On average, about half of the water in Western U.S. streams comes from <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/alpine-spring-begins-earlier-speeding-up-plant-growth/">snowmelt</a>. Cities plan reservoir releases and farmers schedule irrigation based on spring forecasts issued months ahead of peak demand.



But warming winters are shrinking mountain snowpacks and making melt timing jumpier, which raises the stakes for every improvement in prediction.



With budgets tightening, the findings offer a practical roadmap: expand monitoring, yes - but do it surgically. In many basins, adding a few instruments at hotspot locations will deliver more value than trying to map the whole watershed every time snow falls.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-water-managers-can-do-now"><a></a>What water managers can do now</h2>



One of the most useful outcomes of the study is a framework for identifying where new measurements will help the most. 



Rather than guessing, agencies can now screen a basin to find untapped areas whose snow signals are especially predictive of downstream flow and focus new stations there.



The same framework highlights where basin-wide mapping will add value - for example, in large, highly variable basins where total snow volume swings widely from year to year.



In short, there isn’t a single “best” strategy for every watershed. But there is a smarter sequence: start by asking where a new measurement would most improve the forecast, then pick the tool - a ground station, an aircraft flight, or satellite data - that fits the need and the budget.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-adapting-as-snowlines-shift">Adapting as snowlines shift</h2>



Hotspot monitoring isn’t a magic wand. Some basins still benefit from periodic aerial surveys to capture the full snow picture, especially after major <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/how-soil-moisture-can-predict-severe-storms/">storms</a> or in places with complex rain-snow transitions.



Satellites remain essential for regional situational awareness. As climate change pushes snowlines higher, the locations of the most informative hotspots may shift, requiring the network to adapt.



The encouraging news is that the ingredients for better forecasts already exist: decades of streamflow records, a century of snow-station data, rapidly improving remote sensing, and now a tested way to combine them so that each new measurement counts.



The study also shows that many forecasters are closer than they might think to an optimally balanced network - one that blends a few carefully placed new stations with occasional basin-wide snapshots to keep tabs on the big swings.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-measuring-what-matters-most">Measuring what matters most</h2>



Snowmelt will remain the West’s water engine, even as <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/climate-change-earth-energy-imbalance-temperature-rise/">climate change</a> makes it less predictable. This work suggests a practical, budget-savvy way to squeeze more certainty out of the same mountains: measure the snow where it matters most.



When every acre-foot counts, a handful of well-chosen hotspots can do more for tomorrow’s water plan than trying to see everything everywhere all at once.



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-025-02660-z" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Nature Communications: Earth and Environment</a>.



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Measuring snow in the right places can greatly improve water forecasts

For a century, Western water forecasts have leaned on a...

The James Webb Space Telescope has started to peel back the layers of a small, rocky planet 40 light years away, and while the case isn’t closed, the clues are piling up.



TRAPPIST-1 e, one of seven Earth-sized planets circling a cool red dwarf, sits in that just-right orbital zone where liquid water could exist - if the planet has the right kind of atmosphere. 



Early Webb data suggest what it doesn’t have, hints at what it might have, and lays out a clever plan to find out for sure.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-why-this-planet-matters">Why this planet matters</h2>



Among the <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/trappist-1-has-seven-earth-like-planets-that-may-support-life/">TRAPPIST-1</a> septet, planet e has always been the headliner. It receives roughly Earth-like starlight and, on paper, could keep surface water stable.



But “could” does a lot of work there. Without an atmosphere to trap heat, a world at this distance would be a frozen cue ball. 



With the wrong atmosphere - too thick, too thin, or made of the wrong stuff - it could be hostile in other ways. That’s where <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/exoplanet-k2-18b-strongest-evidence-yet-of-extraterrestrial-life-discovered-webb/">Webb</a> comes in.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-faint-signals-from-trappist-1-e">Faint signals from TRAPPIST-1 e</h2>



Using the telescope’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec), researchers watch TRAPPIST-1 e as it passes in front of its star. 



If the planet has air, starlight filters through that thin shell and certain wavelengths are absorbed by atmospheric molecules.



Those missing wavelengths show up as telltale dips in the spectrum - chemical fingerprints of whatever’s floating above the surface. Each transit adds another layer of signal, gradually turning a faint hint into a readable signature.



“Webb’s infrared instruments are giving us more detail than we’ve ever had access to before,” said Néstor Espinoza from the <a href="https://www.stsci.edu/home" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Space Telescope Science Institute</a>.



“The initial four observations we’ve been able to make of planet e are showing us what we will have to work with when the rest of the information comes in.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-an-atmosphere-on-trappist-1-e">An atmosphere on TRAPPIST-1 e</h2>



Even with just four transits in hand, scientists feel confident ruling out a bloated, hydrogen-helium “primary atmosphere,” the kind many planets are born with. 



TRAPPIST-1 is a feisty star; frequent flares and high-energy <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/black-hole-radiation-may-actually-be-a-catalyst-for-life/">radiation</a> would have stripped that lightweight envelope long ago.



That leaves two broad possibilities: TRAPPIST-1 e either rebuilt a heavier “secondary” atmosphere - like Earth’s - or it never managed to, and the planet is a bare rock.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-hints-of-liquid-water-persist">Hints of liquid water persist</h2>



What about a carbon dioxide-dominated blanket like <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/venus-secret-past-may-have-implications-for-earths-future/">Venus’s</a> thick haze or Mars’s thin veil? The team’s initial analysis suggests that’s unlikely, at least in the simple, solar-system-style versions of those atmospheres.



“TRAPPIST-1 is a very different star from our Sun, and so the planetary system around it is also very different, which challenges both our observational and theoretical assumptions,” said Nikole Lewis, a astronomer at <a href="https://www.cornell.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Cornell University</a>. In other words, don’t expect one-to-one analogies - but do expect surprises.



One of those surprises could be water. If TRAPPIST-1 e retains some carbon dioxide along with a mix of other greenhouse gases, even modest amounts might keep parts of the surface warm enough for <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/wave-ripples-discovered-mars-surface-indicate-liquid-water-present-4-billion-years-ago/">liquid water</a>.



“A little greenhouse effect goes a long way,” Lewis noted. TRAPPIST-1 e almost certainly keeps one face perpetually turned toward its star through tidal locking. In that setup, water could collect in a permanent dayside ocean.



It might also form a smaller band of liquid around the substellar point, with ice covering the rest. For now, all of those scenarios remain on the table with the current data.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-webb-cancels-stellar-noise">Webb cancels stellar noise</h2>



Red dwarfs are notorious for their “mood swings,” and stellar variability can masquerade as planetary signals. 



To cut through that noise, Espinoza and co-principal investigator Natalie Allen devised an observing sequence that grabs back-to-back transits of two planets: b and e.



Planet b, the innermost world, looks like a bare rock without an atmosphere based on earlier Webb results. 



That makes b an excellent “stellar baseline” - any spectral wiggles seen during b’s transit are chalked up to the star, not the planet.



With e’s transit following immediately after, the team can subtract the star’s characteristics in nearly real time. What’s left over - features that appear only during e’s transit - would be the long-sought fingerprints of e’s air.



The ongoing program will collect 15 more observations using this tandem approach, dramatically boosting sensitivity to faint atmospheric signals.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-we-can-and-can-t-say-yet"><a></a>What we can (and can’t) say yet</h2>



With four transits analyzed, the team can exclude some scenarios and keep others in contention. A light, primordial hydrogen-helium envelope is out. A simple, Venus- or <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/mars-captured-in-true-color-like-youve-never-seen-the-red-planet-before/">Mars</a>-style carbon dioxide-dominated atmosphere looks unlikely.



Several flavors of secondary atmospheres - richer, heavier, and potentially capable of supporting surface water - remain viable. The next wave of data will be crucial for distinguishing between them.



“We are really still in the early stages of learning what kind of amazing science we can do with Webb,” said Ana Glidden of <a href="https://www.space.mit.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">MIT’s Kavli Institute</a>, who led the analysis of potential atmospheres for planet e.



“It’s incredible to measure the details of starlight around Earth-sized planets 40 light years away and learn what it might be like there, if life could be possible there. We’re in a new age of exploration that’s very exciting to be a part of.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-trappist-1-e-lessons-learned">TRAPPIST-1 e lessons learned</h2>



TRAPPIST-1 e is a proving ground for studying small, rocky planets around active <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/can-red-dwarf-planets-support-life-webb-investigates-trappist-1/">red dwarfs</a> - by far the most common type of star in the galaxy.



The techniques honed here, especially the back-to-back transit method, will carry over to other systems. 



And every atmosphere (or lack thereof) we find reshapes our understanding of where habitable environments can survive in the face of stellar tantrums.



The study is published in the <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/adf42e" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Astrophysics Journal Letters</a>.



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TRAPPIST-1 e has an atmosphere like Venus, is just 40 light years away, and may be home to life

The James Webb Space Telescope has started to peel back...

Sockeye,Salmon,Spawning,In,River,,British,Columbia,,Canada

In northern California, rivers feed people, wildlife, and culture. But what fuels these river waters? Scientists found that a partnership between microscopic algae and specialized bacteria feeds the food web from the ground up. It is not fertilizer, not runoff, but life itself that is keeping rivers alive.



Along the Eel river, this unexpected algae partnership benefits the health of the ecosystem and supports the salmon populations. 



Salmon are at the center of it all - they are food, heritage and a sign of healthy <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/discovery-about-earths-bending-rivers-could-help-us-find-water-on-other-planets/">waters</a>. When salmon run strong, rivers thrive. When they struggle, entire communities feel the loss.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-algae-and-bacteria-work-together">Algae and bacteria work together</h2>



The study shows how tiny algae and bacteria work as one. Together they create a clean nitrogen <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/why-rivers-split-a-century-old-mystery-has-finally-been-solved/">source</a> that acts as a natural engine, powering the food chain without pollution. 



The key player is a diatom named&nbsp;Epithemia, that carries inside it bacterial partners called <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37066385/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">diazoplasts</a>.



“This is nature’s version of a clean nutrient pipeline, from sunlight to fish, without the runoff that creates harmful algal blooms,” said Jane Marks, biology professor at <a href="https://nau.edu" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Northern Arizona University</a>, and lead author of the study.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-how-epithemia-works">How Epithemia works</h2>



The diatom captures sunlight and turns it into sugar. The diazoplast eats that sugar and uses the energy to pull nitrogen from the air. In return, it hands nitrogen back to the diatom. 



The diatom then keeps making more sugar. The loop is tight, efficient, and endlessly productive.



“It’s like a handshake deal: both sides benefit, and the entire river thrives,” said Mike Zampini, a postdoctoral researcher at NAU and isotope tracing lead.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-salmon-thrive-on-epithemia">Salmon thrive on Epithemia</h2>



In spring, Cladophora algae grow long and green, using runoff <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/meandering-rivers-shaped-early-landscapes-before-plants-arrived/">nutrients</a>. By summer, nutrients run low. Epithemia takes over. 



It covers Cladophora until the mats turn rusty red. At this stage, almost 90 percent of new nitrogen in the food web comes from Epithemia.



“Healthy rivers don’t just happen - they’re maintained by ecological interactions, like this partnership,” said Mary Power, co-author of the study and faculty director of <a href="https://www.berkeley.edu" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">UC Berkeley</a>’s Angelo Coast Range Reserve.



Insects such as caddisflies feed on the mats. Young salmon eat the insects. A chain begins with invisible microbes and ends with one of the most important fish in the region.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-algae-feed-river-insects">Algae feed river insects</h2>



Caddisflies grazing on algae thick with Epithemia&nbsp;gain far more energy than those feeding on plain green algae. They take in ten times more carbon. Nitrogen transfer reaches over half of what the diatoms fix. 



Insects also prefer diatoms because they are easier to digest. Their thin silica shells crack open more easily than the walls of green algae.



Diatoms are richer too. They carry fatty acids, carotenoids, and even thiamine. This last nutrient matters for salmon. 



Without enough thiamine, hatchlings often fail. By supplying insects with thiamine-rich cells, Epithemia helps salmon indirectly, but crucially.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-changing-roles-in-summer">Changing roles in summer</h2>



Cladophora&nbsp;begins the season as the main producer. But as&nbsp;Epithemia&nbsp;spreads, the green algae fade. They stop making much food themselves. Instead, they serve as scaffolding, a support structure for diatom growth. 



Even in this weakened state, Cladophora matters. Its filaments stretch across rocks, providing space for billions of microbes to attach.



This switch shows how ecosystems adapt. One species starts the chain. Another takes over when conditions change. Together they keep the food web running, even during lean months.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-epithemia-dominate-healthy-rivers">Epithemia dominate healthy rivers</h2>



Not all microbes fix nitrogen equally. Many free-living bacteria can do it, but diazoplasts dominate in the Eel River. By late summer, they fix nearly 90 percent of all new nitrogen. 



Their close tie with&nbsp;Epithemia&nbsp;gives diazoplasts the edge. While free-living bacteria must split their effort between different jobs, diazoplasts specialize in one: fixing nitrogen.



That specialization makes them fast, efficient, and critical to the <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/rivers-are-releasing-a-massive-amount-of-carbon-dioxide-into-the-air/">ecosystem</a>. Their size also matters. Even when they are few, they make up most of the biomass of nitrogen fixers.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-fuel-for-nitrogen-production">Fuel for nitrogen production </h2>



This is not a small-scale effect. Field surveys show that mats of red&nbsp;Cladophora&nbsp;cover nearly a quarter of some streambeds. Despite covering less ground than other algae, they produce over half the nitrogen in the system. 



When scaled across the river network, the contribution is huge. Scientists estimate that about 90 percent of midsummer nitrogen comes from&nbsp;Epithemia&nbsp;and its diazoplasts.



That rivals the productivity of massive cyanobacteria blooms seen elsewhere. Yet here, the same force is carried by a diatom the size of a hair’s width.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-algae-partnerships-are-found-worldwide">Algae partnerships are found worldwide</h2>



Diatom-bacteria partnerships like this are not unique to the Eel River. They appear in lakes, rivers, and oceans around the world, especially in places where nitrogen is scarce. They may quietly boost food webs far more than scientists realized.



This has human implications too. If crops or biofuels could mimic the same process, farmers might cut costs and reduce pollution. Instead of spreading chemical fertilizers, plants could feed themselves using microbial help.



"When nature engineers solutions this elegant, it reminds us what’s possible when people, places and discovery come together," said Professor Marks. 



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-epithemia-and-future-salmon-survival">Epithemia and future salmon survival</h2>



The lesson is clear. Salmon survival depends on far more than the obvious. It rests on unseen alliances between algae and bacteria, locked in a trade of sugar and nitrogen. 



By following these links, we see how even the smallest Epithemia cells can shape an entire river ecosystem.



Using stable isotope tracing and advanced imaging, the researchers followed carbon and nitrogen from single cells to entire watersheds. 



They showed how invisible interactions scale up into forces that sustain fish, rivers, and even human culture.



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2503108122" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</a>.



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Salmon have their own 'secret superfood' in rivers that helps them survive and thrive

In northern California, rivers feed people, wildlife, and culture. But...

Color showed up in human history long before paintbrushes, fabric, or even writing. Thousands of years before ancient Egypt, in what is now Georgia, someone picked up a stone and crushed a blue plant that couldn’t be eaten. 



From that act, we now have one of the earliest signs of the color blue - intentionally made by human hands.



Researchers have just confirmed that small pebbles found in Dzudzuana Cave, about 50 miles east of the <a href="https://www.earth.com/image/vibrant-colors-brighten-the-black-sea/">Black Sea</a>, were used 34,000 years ago to grind the leaves of a plant that produces indigo blue dye.



That’s long before we thought people were doing anything that complex with color. Turns out, they weren’t just hunting animals and gathering berries - they were already experimenting with plants in ways that go beyond survival.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-early-humans-knew-plant-power">Early humans knew plant power</h2>



For a long time, scientists assumed that Paleolithic people mainly used plants as food. But this discovery tells a different story. 



A nonedible plant called Isatis tinctoria, or woad, left behind a signature chemical on ancient stone tools: indigotin. That’s the same compound that gives denim jeans their famous blue color.



Woad isn’t the easiest plant to work with. It doesn’t just ooze blue <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/one-in-five-packaged-foods-in-the-u-s-contains-synthetic-dyes/">dye</a>. You have to crush its leaves and expose them to air to start a chemical reaction. Only then does the indigo color appear. 



The process involves knowing what part of the plant to use, how to treat it, and why. That implies that early humans already recognized this plant’s special qualities - and knew exactly how to release them.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-unexpected-color-in-stone-tools">Unexpected color in stone tools</h2>



The tools that revealed this were plain, rounded pebbles - unshaped by people. They were discovered in the 2000s, but it wasn’t until recently that archaeologists re-examined them.



They weren’t looking for color at first and wanted to figure out how the <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/stone-tool-discovery-challenges-entire-theory-of-human-evolution/">tools</a> were used. Were they for food? Leather? Plants? But under powerful microscopes, something unexpected showed up - tiny blue traces stuck in worn-down grooves of the stones. 



These residues even looked fibrous in some spots, and they sat alongside starch grains - proof that plant material had been ground or rubbed.



To figure out exactly what the blue color substance was, researchers used Raman and FTIR spectroscopy - high-tech tools that can identify chemical compounds by how they interact with light.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-pores-preserved-plant-remains">Pores preserved plant remains</h2>



Finding color was only part of the puzzle. The next question was: how did the residue survive all this time? That’s where things got even more interesting.



The stones themselves had tiny pores - small enough to trap microscopic plant remains. Using synchrotron radiation (a super-powerful X-ray beam) and micro-CT scans, scientists could look inside the stones without breaking them open. 



And yes, those pores had exactly the kind of shape and volume needed to hold the traces that were found. 



Once they confirmed the tools could preserve those residues, the team tried to recreate what happened in that distant era.



<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-full"><a href="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/blue-indigo_Paleolithic-plant-use_microfragments_PLOS-One_1m.jpg"><img src="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/blue-indigo_Paleolithic-plant-use_microfragments_PLOS-One_1s.webp" alt="Archaeological elongated blue micro-fragments extracted from the innermost second mold plant. Credit: PLOS One (2025)" class="wp-image-1985452"/></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Archaeological elongated blue micro-fragments extracted from the innermost second mold plant. Click image to enlarge. Credit: PLOS One (2025)</figcaption></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-blue-color-on-stones-was-made-from-plants">Blue color on stones was made from plants</h2>



The team ran experiments using fresh woad grown and harvested in Italy. They crushed leaves on river pebbles collected near the cave and watched what happened. 



The same kinds of blue residues formed on the stones. Some residues stuck in pores. Others left clear wear marks. And certain samples matched what researchers found in the original tools.



This wasn’t a random accident. It was a repeating process. Someone in the Upper Paleolithic knew how to create and use plant-based materials - even if they left no writing or instructions behind.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-color-medicine-or-both">Color, medicine, or both?</h2>



No one can say for sure why they processed this plant. It might have been for color - maybe to stain animal hides, decorate tools, or mark territory. Or maybe it was for healing. Woad has a long history as a <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/medicinal-plant-has-great-potential-to-fight-colorectal-cancer/">medicinal plant</a>, used to treat wounds and infections.



Archaeologist Laura Longo of <a href="https://www.unive.it/web/en/497/home" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Ca' Foscari University of Venice</a> noted that plants are often viewed solely as food resources.



“This study highlights their role in complex operations, likely involving the transformation of perishable materials for use in different phases of daily life among <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/prehistoric-homo-sapiens-stone-tools-preserved-volcanic-ash-grotta-di-castelcivita/">Homo sapiens</a> 34,000 years ago," said Longo.



“While research continues to improve the identification of elusive plant-derived residues, typically absent from conventional studies, our multi-analytical approach opens new perspectives on the technological and cultural sophistication of Upper Paleolithic populations.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-echoes-of-color-in-time">Echoes of color in time</h2>



This discovery changes the way we think about our distant <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/our-hunter-gatherer-ancestors-did-much-more-gathering-than-hunting/">ancestors</a>. They weren’t just trying to survive, they were thinking, testing, creating. 



They were observing the natural world and determining how to use it in innovative ways - even using leaves to create lasting color.



We know that the motivation to build something beautiful or useful has been around for tens of thousands of years. And all it may take to validate that is a worn stone and a few spots of blue color dust.



The full study was published in the journal <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0321262" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">PLOS One</a>.



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Earliest evidence found of humans using the color blue for decoration

Color showed up in human history long before paintbrushes, fabric,...

Color feels personal, but your brain may be using a code that other brains share. A new study asks whether patterns of activity for different colors are similar enough across people to make useful predictions.



Instead of treating each person as a one-off case, the researchers tested whether one person’s <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/new-brain-fastball-test-spots-alzheimers-disease-signs-in-just-minutes/">brain activity</a> could help identify the color another person was viewing. 



The research was led by Michael M. Bannert from the <a href="https://uni-tuebingen.de/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">University of Tübingen</a>, and leans on simple ideas, careful mapping, and a healthy respect for what we still do not know.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-color-responses-in-brain">Color responses in brain</h2>



The team used Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (<a href="https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diagnostics/25034-functional-mri-fmri" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">fMRI</a>) to record how oxygenated blood changes in visual areas while people viewed colored rings that moved across the screen. The signal is slow and indirect, but it captures consistent patterns that vary for different kinds of visual input.



For each individual, the researchers first built a detailed retinotopic map - a chart of which patch of cortex responds to which location in the visual field. The maps made it possible to align brains across people in a common frame tied to space on the retina.



With brains lined up this way, the team trained a linear classifier on color <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/new-blood-test-can-track-the-progression-of-alzheimers/">responses</a> from one group of observers. They then tested whether that classifier could identify the hue and luminance that a new person was seeing using only the new person’s spatially aligned pattern of activity.



Earlier work showed that color could be decoded within a single individual’s brain. One influential <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2799419/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">study</a> used patterns across many voxels to reconstruct which color a person was viewing from activity in the visual cortex.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-why-brain-maps-matter">Why brain maps matter</h2>



The visual cortex is organized in maps, and nearby points in the scene activate nearby points on the cortical sheet. These maps let the brain keep track of where things are while it analyzes what they are.



Decades of work have charted areas in humans. A landmark <a href="https://www.cns.nyu.edu/~david/courses/sm12/Readings/Wandell-Neuron2007.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">review</a> summarized how these maps tile the cortex and how researchers measure them with moving rings and wedges.



Because these maps are stable within and across people, they are ideal anchors for comparing functional responses. Aligning by visual <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/this-simple-nighttime-sleep-habit-could-delay-or-prevent-alzheimers-in-all-adults/">space</a> keeps the most meaningful relationships intact while avoiding crude anatomical matching.



This structure is also a practical bridge for machine learning. It enables a model trained on one group of people to operate on another without re-learning everything from scratch.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-how-brains-share-color-patterns">How brains share color patterns</h2>



Even when two brains share information, the fine details of their response patterns differ. Methods that find a shared representational space across people can capture common structure while respecting individual quirks.



A leading framework known as hyperalignment aligns brains within an abstract information space instead of relying solely on anatomy. By capturing how shared content is represented across different cortical layouts, it improves decoding between subjects.



Building on that framework, the new work uses the spatial code from retinotopic mapping as its scaffold. This choice anchors the alignment in a property that can be measured with high reliability.



This approach reduces the amount of personal calibration needed for useful decoders. With less setup, the tools become faster and more affordable for research - and potentially for clinical use.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-the-results-show">What the results show</h2>



“We can’t say that one person’s red looks the same as another person’s red. But to see that some sensory aspects of a subjective experience are conserved across people’s brains is new,” said Bannert



Beyond identifying colors from other people’s data, the authors report large scale spatial biases for different hues that vary by area yet stay consistent across individuals. That pattern suggests each area carries its own flavor of color coding that generalizes well.



The team also decoded brightness without measuring a person’s color <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/scientists-developed-blood-test-that-identifies-alzheimers-disease-amyloid-in-minutes/">responses</a> beforehand. That is a clean test of whether shared codes are strong enough to carry over.



Together, these findings point to a shared backbone for color information in early and ventral visual cortex. They also hint at functional pressures that shaped these codes over development and evolution.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-noting-individual-differences">Noting individual differences</h2>



If decoders can be trained on a few people and then used with many, color sensitive brain computer interfaces become easier to build. Such tools could help evaluate visual function when a person cannot give reliable behavioral responses.



Researchers can also study individual differences more precisely. When you have a common template, deviations become easier to spot and interpret.



These ideas reach beyond color. The same alignment logic can help compare brain patterns for faces, places, words, or sounds when tasks and scanners differ.



As models improve, they could help connect lab findings to real world vision. That bridge is where the next breakthroughs will likely happen.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-important-study-limits">Important study limits</h2>



The method works with group level statistics and carefully controlled stimuli. Real world scenes are messier, and fMRI is slow and noisy.



Shared neural codes do not settle the question of subjective experience. The authors are clear that similar patterns in cortex do not prove that two people’s qualia match.



Color signals interact with memory, attention, and context, which can shift responses in subtle ways. Future work will need to test how robust the shared code is under those pressures.



Ethical care is also required when building decoders for perception. Reading out mental content must respect privacy and consent.



The research is published by the Society for Neuroscience in the journal <a href="https://www.jneurosci.org/content/early/2025/08/29/JNEUROSCI.2717-20.2025" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">JNeurosci</a>.



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Colors from brain activity are shared across different people

Color feels personal, but your brain may be using a...

Caenorhabditis,Elegans,,A,Free-living,,Transparent,Nematode,(roundworm),,About,1,Mm

In Arctic-scale dramas played out under a microscope, the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans sometimes loses to a crafty hunter: the nematode-trapping fungus Arthrobotrys oligospora. 



At first, it thrashes to escape the fungus’s lasso-like rings. Then, just as abruptly, the worm goes completely still - no crawling, no feeding, as if it has slipped into a deep sleep.



“We saw the worms initially struggling relentlessly for 15 to 20 minutes after being trapped, then suddenly stopping, as if they ‘gave up," said Yen-Ping Hsueh, senior author of a recent study from <a href="https://www.sinica.edu.tw/en/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Academia Sinica</a>.



That striking switch set researchers at Academia Sinica (Taiwan) and the <a href="https://www.mpg.de/151769/biology-tuebingen" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Max Planck Institute for Biology</a> (Tübingen) on a hunt of their own: what in the worm’s nervous system flips that off switch?



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-worms-have-a-sleep-survival-switch">Worms have a sleep survival switch</h2>



Few animals are as perfectly suited to this kind of sleuthing as C. elegans. It’s transparent, its 302 <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/first-complete-map-of-every-neuron-in-the-brain-revealed/">neurons</a> are mapped like a subway, its genetics are exquisitely tractable, and its life cycle is fast. 



Those advantages let the team probe predator-prey behavior at single-neuron resolution and pinpoint the circuitry behind the freeze.



The answer turned out to be a sleep circuit repurposed for survival. Physical capture makes the worm’s touch-sensing neurons light up. These signals relay the bad news to two sleep-promoting hubs in the brain - the ALA and RIS neurons.



Once engaged, those cells drive a quiescent, sleep-like state - motion and feeding shut down, energy use drops, and the worm waits.



“It’s a unique trigger of a <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/bees-sleep-like-humans-with-similar-brain-patterns/">sleep-like state</a> caused by physically being caught by a predator,” explained first author Tzu-Hsiang Lin. 



"The worm uses the same EGFR alarm system for other dangers, like being wounded or overheated. It’s activated by being physically caught.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-an-ancient-alarm-system-redeployed"><a></a>An ancient alarm system, redeployed</h2>



The “EGFR alarm system” Lin mentions is the epidermal growth factor receptor pathway, a stress-response signaling cascade conserved across animals. In C. elegans, EGFR links diverse stressors to the ALA/RIS sleep circuit.



Here, the team shows that tactile stress - being squeezed in a fungal noose - joins heat and injury to flip that switch. 



Mechanosensation and EGFR work together as a two-key system. The worm has to sense the trap and send a distress signal before the shutdown begins.



That redundancy makes evolutionary sense. In a world without second chances, false alarms are costly. So is failing to power down when escape is impossible.



“Mechanosensation and EGFR signaling acting together reveal how animals carefully detect and respond to predators with complex behaviors,” Hsueh said. 



The upshot is a picture of a highly versatile module: a sleep program that doubles as a last-ditch survival response.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-stillness-as-survival-strategy">Stillness as survival strategy</h2>



Why freeze at all? In mammals, freezing can lower detection by <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/well-built-fences-keep-predators-from-harming-livestock/">predators</a> and buy time. For a worm glued in place, stillness might conserve energy, reduce further injury, or change the chemistry at the capture site. It might even interfere with the fungus’s next move. 



The truth is, scientists don’t know yet whether quiescence helps the worm or the fungus. Lin is eager to find out. 



“Who does freezing help? We need to figure out if this behavior actually helps the worm survive or if it just helps the fungus get its meal,” he said.



He and his colleagues also want to identify additional chemical signals that prime or sustain immobilization. 



They also plan to test whether freezing is common across other nematodes and predatory <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/scientists-all-fungi-matter-not-just-mushrooms/">fungi</a> - clues to how widespread this strategy is in nature.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-genetics-unlock-predator-prey-secrets">Genetics unlock predator-prey secrets</h2>



The idea that stress can induce sleep-like quiescence in worms has been around since the 1960s. But researchers didn’t yet have the tools to dissect both sides of this predator–prey interaction.



“The real opportunity came when both the worm and the fungus became easy to study with genetics, so we could finally dig into both sides of this predator-prey story,” Lin noted.



By combining precise neuronal manipulations in the worm with controlled encounters with Arthrobotrys, the team could separate cause from effect. 



They showed that the touch input and EGFR pathway converge on ALA and RIS to produce the behavioral switch.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-worms-reveal-ancient-predator-strategy">Worms reveal ancient predator strategy</h2>



This work reaches beyond nematodes and fungi. It underscores how evolution reuses core circuits - like sleep and stress pathways - for new purposes, including predator evasion. 



It also adds detail to the growing view of sleep as an active, regulated state. Organisms can use it when needed, not just drift into it as a passive downtime.



“This opens a new window into how brains integrate external threats with internal states like sleep,” Hsueh said.



For neuroscientists, it’s a rare, cell-by-cell look at how a sensory cue becomes a decisive action. For ecologists, it’s a reminder that even simple animals carry sophisticated playbooks for <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/scents-of-survival-how-plant-aromas-shape-insect-diets/">survival</a>. 



And for the rest of us, it’s a bracing example of how much drama - and biology - lives at very small scales.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
https://youtu.be/gRmU2Ws-FiM?si=CxQfditysajwYvTr
</div></figure>



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.cell.com/iscience/fulltext/S2589-0042(25)01053-3?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS2589004225010533%3Fshowall%3Dtrue" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">iScience</a>.



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Worms activate an ancient sleep circuit when trapped by predators

In Arctic-scale dramas played out under a microscope, the nematode...

Malnutrition affects millions of young children. Nearly 150 million children under the age of five suffer from stunted growth due to poor nutrition. Poor food quality is not the only cause.



More than ten years ago, scientists at <a href="https://washu.edu">Washington University</a> School of Medicine in St. Louis revealed another hidden factor: the gut microbiome. 



When gut microbial communities become dysfunctional, they can worsen the effects of malnutrition. New research, in partnership with the Salk Institute and <a href="https://ucsd.edu" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">UC San Diego</a>, builds on this understanding.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-gut-microbes-linked-to-stunted-growth">Gut microbes linked to stunted growth</h2>



Toddlers in Malawi, one of the hardest-hit regions, revealed critical insights. Those with unstable gut microbes showed poorer growth compared to those with stable communities. 



All of the children studied already faced a high risk of stunting and acute malnutrition.



“We know gut microbes are important mediators of malnutrition,” said Dr. Mark Manary, a professor of Pediatrics at WashU. 



“By contributing to our understanding of how changes in gut microbes directly contribute to the condition, we pave the way for new methods to diagnose and treat millions of affected <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/ai-system-can-predict-child-malnutrition-before-it-strikes/">children</a> worldwide.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-stable-microbes-aid-children">Stable microbes aid children</h2>



The findings led to the creation of a pediatric microbial genome library. This resource contains complete genetic profiles of 986 microbes from fecal samples of Malawian children. 



The data will help researchers predict, prevent, and treat malnutrition more effectively.



Manary has long worked on nutritional solutions in Malawi. Over 20 years ago, he played a key role in developing a peanut butter-based therapeutic paste.



This high-calorie, nutrient-rich food transformed care for severe malnutrition and has saved countless lives. Yet food alone is not always enough. Survivors often face challenges in growth, immunity, and cognitive <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/new-type-of-diabetes-type-5-is-now-officially-recognized-linked-to-nutritional-deficiencies/">development</a>.



Malnutrition disrupts the delicate microbial balance inside the intestines. Harmful species multiply while beneficial ones diminish. This microbial instability may explain why nutritional recovery remains incomplete for many children.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-gut-balance-impacts-nutrition">Gut balance impacts nutrition</h2>



The new study builds on decades of work showing how the gut ecosystem interacts with nutrition. Malnourished children often display delayed microbial maturation, where their microbiome resembles that of younger children. 



This immaturity may hinder <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/billions-of-people-cant-afford-healthy-food-despite-not-being-poor/">nutrient</a> absorption, metabolic signaling, and immune development. Theoretical models suggest that gut microbes directly shape energy harvest and growth by interacting with host pathways. 



For example, certain bacteria regulate short-chain fatty acid production, which influences intestinal health and immune regulation. Disruption of these functions may worsen the cycle of malnutrition, even if dietary intake improves.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-microbes-predict-child-growth">Microbes predict child growth</h2>



To investigate, the researchers analyzed 47 stool samples from eight Malawian toddlers over 11 months. These children were previously enrolled in a trial testing legume-based foods for intestinal health and growth.



The team focused on length-for-age scores (LAZ), a measure comparing a child’s height with expected averages. Children with stable microbial genomes tended to grow better. 



Those with fluctuating microbial populations showed poorer outcomes. Stability in the microbiome, the study suggests, may serve as a crucial marker of growth potential.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-sequencing-deepens-gut-research">Sequencing deepens gut research</h2>



The study employed long-read sequencing, a cutting-edge method that reconstructs entire microbial pangenomes. Unlike traditional techniques, this method captures far more genetic information, offering a clearer view of microbial ecosystems linked to child malnutrition.



“Stunting and acute undernutrition are defined by easily measured, physical measurements, which result from complex and diverse underlying processes,” said co-senior author Dr. Kevin Stephenson, an assistant professor of medicine at WashU.



“Improved resolution and accuracy in identifying microbial <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/micronutrient-deficiency-rates-are-soaring-worldwide/">communities</a> - how they change, and what they are doing - may shed light on otherwise unmeasurable facets of undernutrition as well as the role the gut microbiome plays in causing it.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-creating-microbial-databases">Creating microbial databases</h2>



The sequencing work enabled researchers to construct the novel microbial genome library. This public health resource may serve as a foundation for future studies.



Importantly, the optimized workflow is adaptable to remote laboratories, including those in low-resource regions where malnutrition is most severe.



“When applied in remote, field-based molecular laboratories, the genome-sequencing and pangenomic approaches we developed can deliver real-time insights,” said Dr. Todd Michael, a research professor at <a href="https://www.salk.edu" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Salk</a>.



“It’s a powerful technological advance that expands the reach of genomics and sets a new standard for scientific research in the field.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-global-impact-of-child-malnutrition">Global impact of child malnutrition</h2>



Beyond its practical applications, the research deepens understanding of how microbiomes and human biology coevolve.



Theoretical work highlights that restoring microbial maturity may be as critical as food delivery in combating undernutrition. 



Stability of microbial communities could serve as a therapeutic target, guiding interventions that go beyond calories to include <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/beer-may-be-better-for-your-gut-than-probiotics/">probiotics</a>, prebiotics, and microbial transplants.



Malnutrition remains one of humanity’s oldest battles. But with science turning its lens on the gut, there is new hope for children at risk today and for generations to come.



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867425009754?via%3Dihub" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Cell</a>.



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Unstable gut microbes can worsen child malnutrition

Malnutrition affects millions of young children. Nearly 150 million children...

Natural,Environment,Climate-neutral,Long-term,Emissions,Strategy,Net,Zero,2050,Carbon

Balancing cleaner air with rising incomes is not a luxury question for developing countries. It is a real-world, and real-life, policy problem that shapes health, jobs, and the future of their cities.



A new <a href="https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/10.1142/S0217590825500304" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">study</a> lays out when zero emissions can go hand in hand with steady <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/rising-temperatures-will-cut-world-gdp-by-a-staggering-40-percent-if-nothing-changes/">growth</a>, even when governments rely on foreign aid.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-zero-emissions-and-economic-growth">Zero emissions and economic growth</h2>



The work comes from <a href="https://tus.elsevierpure.com/en/persons/hideo-noda" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Hideo Noda</a> at the Tokyo University of Science (<a href="https://www.tus.ac.jp/en/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">TUS</a>) with coauthor Fengqi Fang, a Ph.D. candidate in Business Administration from the Graduate School of Business Administration at TUS. 



The team builds a simple but testable way to check if a country can hit zero net <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/global-trade-is-fueling-a-dangerous-rise-in-methane-emissions/">emissions</a> while its economy keeps expanding.



They also verify the model numerically using real world style parameters so it is not just a chalkboard exercise. 



The paper connects theory to a specific United Nations target on decoupling growth from <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/limiting-global-warming-to-1-5c-is-almost-certainly-out-of-reach/">environmental damage</a>.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-zero-emissions-models">Zero emissions models</h2>



First, the authors define a zero-emissions <a href="https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/net-zero-coalition" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">policy</a> as keeping net pollution at zero at every point in time, by matching abatement to emissions. That requires money, technology, and clear rules to assign who pays.



They run two versions of the economy. 



One is a public goods <a href="https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/stantcheva/files/lecture8.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">model</a> where government services like roads or schools lift private production for everyone at once, a standard growth <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/261726" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">model</a> introduced by Robert Barro in 1990. 



The second adds <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/where-will-climate-change-hit-hardest-global-index-reveals-vulnerability/">congestion</a>, where more people share the same public services so the boost per person shrinks.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-minimum-income-rule">Minimum income rule</h2>



The key test is whether gross domestic product (<a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">GDP</a>) per capita rises above a minimum income threshold so a country can fully clean what it emits. 



The authors call this the kindergarten rule level of abatement, as in: “clean-up what you make dirty.”



"Following the Kindergarten rule means implementing zero emission technologies in either finite time or asymptotically," noted M. Scott Taylor and William Brock in their related <a href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w9597" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">study</a>. 



This frame anchors the new threshold concept for developing countries.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-aid-supports-clean-income-growth">Aid supports clean income growth</h2>



Many low income governments fund services with official development assistance (<a href="https://www.oecd.org/en/topics/policy-issues/official-development-assistance-oda.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">ODA</a>), so the model lets outside aid pay for both cleaning and public services. 



That design reflects classic work showing how aid aimed at productive public services can shift long run growth.



In related <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0304387806000290" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">theory</a>, flexible labor and aid tied to public capital influence the path of output and welfare. The new paper extends this logic to pollution control that must be paid for every year.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-changing-income-threshold">Changing income threshold</h2>



The threshold depends on clean technology, population size, and how much aid is fixed to environmental <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/expanding-oil-and-gas-fields-threaten-global-climate-goals/">uses</a>. Better abatement technology lowers the income bar because each dollar of cleanup removes more pollution.



Population matters differently across the two models. In the public goods case, a larger labor force can raise growth because services scale with the economy, while in the congestion case that scale effect drops out as services get diluted.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-taxes-and-zero-emissions-targets">Taxes and zero emissions targets</h2>



The model also looks at tax policy, focusing on a labor income tax that finances services. 



There is a tax rate that maximizes the growth of income per person, and under both models governments can reach the needed income threshold in finite time if they choose that growth maximizing rate.



Public services that complement private capital are the link. When governments tax and spend on those services efficiently, private firms produce more and the <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/climate-action-economies-can-grow-while-cutting-emissions/">economy climbs</a> to the income level that makes full abatement feasible.



"Both models indicate that implementing the zero-emissions policy is compatible with sustainable economic growth," wrote Noda. 



They also show the kindergarten rule threshold is higher with congestion than without it, so crowding of public services slows the crossing.



"We call this threshold the kindergarten rule level of pollution abatement in terms of GDP per capita," wrote Noda. The result gives policymakers a clear income target, not just a slogan about decoupling.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-income-growth-and-sdgs">Income growth and SDGs</h2>



Target 8.4 of the Sustainable Development Goals (<a href="https://www.undp.org/sustainable-development-goals" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">SDGs</a>) asks countries to decouple growth from environmental degradation. 



The authors argue their framework helps explain when that is possible in practice, and how policy levers change the timing.



The UN defines the <a href="https://metadata.un.org/sdg/8.4" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">target</a> as improving resource efficiency and decoupling growth from environmental harm through 2030. The paper’s threshold view fits that mandate with a concrete yardstick.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-why-results-still-matter">Why results still matter</h2>



Earlier <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0959652621009112" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">work</a> in the same research stream focused on developed, innovation-driven economies and showed that zero emissions could be achieved alongside continued growth. 



That study examined whether sustained economic expansion could occur while also maintaining <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/a-net-zero-world-will-require-75-trillion-of-investment-and-1-billion-electric-cars/">zero net pollution emissions</a>.



The new paper shows the same compatibility can hold in aid dependent settings where innovation is not the main growth engine. 



That extension fills a real gap, because many low income countries face tighter fiscal and technological limits.



Build or buy cleaner technology so the threshold falls. Treat tied aid for environmental programs as a growth tool and not just a cost center.



Set tax policy to raise the growth rate of income per person, then sustain it long enough to pass the threshold. Guard against congestion by scaling services with population, so gains are not diluted.



The study is published in <a href="https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/10.1142/S0217590825500304" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The Singapore Economic Review</a>.



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Net-zero emissions and rising income levels can both be achieved simultaneously

Balancing cleaner air with rising incomes is not a luxury...

Astronomers have caught a nearby stellar duo in a dramatic act. A super-dense white dwarf star is siphoning material from its larger companion at a pace never seen before.



The system, known as V Sagittae (V Sge), sits about 10,000 light-years away and orbits so tightly that the two stars whirl around each other every 12.3 hours. 



As the white dwarf feeds, the pair blazes far brighter than similar systems - a century-old mystery that a new study says it has finally cracked.



Led by Pasi Hakala from the <a href="https://www.utu.fi/en" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">University of Turku</a> in Finland, the team used the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile to probe V Sge’s extreme behavior. The results point to a runaway case of “stellar cannibalism.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-white-dwarf-in-a-feeding-frenzy">White dwarf in a feeding frenzy</h2>



White dwarfs are the ultra-compact embers left behind when <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/planet-forming-disks-surrounding-stars-often-last-much-longer-than-expected/">sun-like stars</a> exhaust their fuel. On their own, they glow faintly. Paired with a close companion, they can become voracious, as gravity from the white dwarf pulls gas - mostly hydrogen - off the neighboring star.



As that gas piles up, it heats to extraordinary temperatures and ignites thermonuclear burning on the dwarf’s surface. 



The study concludes that V Sge’s famous overbrightness comes from this very process operating at ferocious rates. It turns the white dwarf’s outer layers into a sustained, nuclear-powered beacon.



The V Sge system has baffled astronomers since its discovery in 1902 because it outshines its peers so dramatically. The study argues the system is in a “feeding frenzy,” with mass transfer exceeding what the white dwarf can absorb.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-luminous-halo-signals-instability">Luminous halo signals instability </h2>



One of the team’s most striking finds is a broad ring of gas - a luminous <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/breathtaking-photo-shows-an-ice-halo-forming-around-the-sun/">halo</a> encircling both stars. That ring appears to be the overflow. 



The system rips material from the companion that the white dwarf can’t accrete and flings it outward to form a circumbinary shroud.



The sheer energy released in the process, the researchers say, is also jostling the system, contributing to the erratic, “wild” motion seen in monitoring data.



That halo isn’t just window dressing. It’s a clue that V Sge is being pushed toward instability. When the inflow of fuel momentarily overwhelms the white dwarf’s ability to burn it steadily, pressure can build until the surface layers detonate in a thermonuclear flash.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-a-rare-outburst-on-the-horizon">A rare outburst on the horizon</h2>



The team warns that V Sge is primed for a classic <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/t-coronae-borealis-nova-explosion-nearby-star-light-up-earths-skies/">nova</a> - a powerful, but non-destructive outburst triggered when accumulated hydrogen ignites on the white dwarf’s surface. 



If that happens in the coming years, the system could brighten enough to be visible to the naked eye. It would be a rare treat for skywatchers.



Farther down the line, the endgame could be even more spectacular. As the stars spiral inward and the white dwarf gains mass, they may collide or reach a catastrophic limit.



In that scenario, V Sge would explode as a <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/supernovae-explosions-seem-to-have-altered-earths-climate-in-the-past-and-could-do-so-again-at-any-time/">supernova</a> - an event so luminous it would be visible even in daylight. That fate isn’t guaranteed, and it may be centuries away. But the current feeding rate and the presence of the gas ring suggest this binary is on a dangerous trajectory.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-a-star-system-in-real-time">A star system in real time</h2>



For decades, astronomers struggled to explain why V Sge was the brightest system of its kind. 



By tying its glare to sustained thermonuclear burning driven by extreme mass transfer - and by revealing the telltale, system-wide gas ring - the new study provides a coherent picture of how this oddball works.



It also offers a living laboratory where scientists can study how close binaries evolve and how novae trigger. It may even explain how some white dwarfs cross the threshold into supernovae.



Most of the time, <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/massive-star-redefines-our-understanding-of-stellar-evolution/">stellar evolution</a> plays out slowly, across eons. V Sagittae is a rare exception: a nearby, rapidly changing system writing its next chapter in real time. Keep an eye on the southern sky. The next burst from this hungry white dwarf could be bright enough for all of us to see.



The research is published in the journal <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.22637" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society</a>. 



Image Credit: University of Southampton



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White dwarf star devours its companion in record feeding frenzy

Astronomers have caught a nearby stellar duo in a dramatic...

Eels move in ways that seem to ignore the rules most vertebrates live by. They swim with flowing body waves, they can scoot across wet ground, and they often keep going even when the spinal cord is cut. 



According to a new paper, two simple body signals, stretch and pressure, help explain how that is possible.



Those signals are not fancy. Stretch tells the body how much each segment bends, and pressure reports forces on the skin from water or from <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/scientists-discover-a-new-eel-species-with-fang-like-teeth/">objects</a>. 



When these signals are fed into the spinal circuits that set a basic rhythm for movement, the eel’s whole body keeps time without micromanagement from the brain.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-secrets-of-eel-movement">Secrets of eel movement</h2>



Kotaro Yasui is an assistant professor at Tohoku University’s Frontier Research Institute for Interdisciplinary Science (<a href="https://www.fris.tohoku.ac.jp/en/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">FRIS</a>) and lead author of the study



“Our findings will help design highly adaptive robots capable of navigating complex and unpredictable environments,” noted Professor Yasui.



Most vertebrates walk or swim thanks to networks in the spinal cord called central pattern generator <a href="https://openbooks.lib.msu.edu/introneuroscience1/chapter/central-pattern-generators/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">circuits</a>. 



These circuits can produce rhythmic muscle commands on their own, then shape that rhythm using feedback from the body. That is why the same overall plan can show up in animals as different as fish, salamanders, and mice.



Eels add a twist by leaning hard on two kinds of sensory input. Proprioception is internal sensing of stretch that tells a segment where it is in the cycle. Exteroception is sensing from outside the body, including water pressure on the sides of the fish or contact with a surface. 



Stretch sensitive neurons like the classic lamprey edge cells have long shown how such bending <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/earth-day-2025-our-power-our-planet/">signals</a> can tune the spinal rhythm.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-flexible-robot-mimics-eel-movement">Flexible robot mimics eel movement </h2>



Yasui’s team built a mathematical model in which each body segment has a small local oscillator that produces a timing signal. They wired in two feedback loops, one for stretch and one for pressure, so the oscillators would be tugged into step by what the body feels.



The researchers tested the controller in two settings. First, they used computer simulations that generated body movements and force patterns. Then, they tried it on a physical eel-like robot made of flexible segments and equipped with skin-level sensors.



The same controller worked in both settings, and it produced stable swimming quickly, without central commands to lock the segments together.



The stretch loop had a special job. It sped up the time it took for a smooth traveling wave to appear from random starting positions. It also helped the body hold a strong stride once the pattern settled, even though that gain could cost a little <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/earth-day-2025-what-were-really-fighting-for/">energy</a> because the joints work harder during sharper turns.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-spinal-rhythm-and-sensory-feedback">Spinal rhythm and sensory feedback</h2>



The team asked a simple question. If the controller swims well, can it also crawl on land when the ground is dotted with obstacles? They ran the robot through a peg field where pushing and bracing matter more than glide.



Stretch feedback made the difference. With stretch only, the robot found traction on the pegs and made steady headway. 



Pressure alone did not help in that setting, which fits earlier <a href="https://jan.ucc.nau.edu/acg/publications/Pace_%26_Gibb_2011.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">research</a> showing that elongated fishes such as ropefish change their kinematics across water and land in specific ways, with long, slow, high amplitude body waves on land.



The results suggest continuity rather than a clean break between swimming and crawling in these fishes. 



The same spinal rhythm and sensory feedback can drive both swimming and crawling, as long as the environment provides the right reaction forces. The fish doesn’t need a separate land-based neural controller to move



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-spinal-injuries-teach-us">What spinal injuries teach us</h2>



The most striking tests involved spinal cord transection. The group measured swimming in live American eels before and after a complete cut around the middle of the body, then matched those tests with simulation and robot runs using the same controller.&nbsp;



The movement behind the injury kept a similar frequency and phase as the movement in front of it, which echoes decades old <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11744256/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">evidence</a> that eels can recover coordinated swimming after transection as regrowth advances.



In the model, that coordination did not need signals from the brain. It emerged when the local oscillators had some built-in tendency to tick on their own, and when stretch and pressure loops were strong enough. 



The body above the cut tugged the <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/animals-secretly-reshape-landscapes-in-powerful-ways/">body</a> below the cut into the same rhythm through passive motion and local sensing.



That simple recipe explains why eels can move immediately after injury while many amphibians and mammals cannot. If the posterior spinal cord cannot oscillate on its own, or if the feedback pathways are too weak, the two halves fall out of step and the body stalls.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-eel-movement-robots-and-evolution">Eel movement, robots, and evolution</h2>



Robots that move without legs need to live with uncertainty. Water currents change, floors are cluttered, and obstacles shift. Prior <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scirobotics.abf6354" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">work</a> has shown that proprioceptive feedback can entrain undulatory robots into reliable patterns despite turbulence and noise.



This study adds pressure sensing on the skin to that recipe and shows how a simple stretch rule helps robots use clutter for propulsion. That means eel-like machines could search pipes, navigate earthquake rubble, or inspect tanks without complex top down control.



There is also a story about evolution here. If a swimming controller can produce useful crawling when the environment offers something to push against, early vertebrates may have needed adjustments more than a full rewrite to move onto land. Flexible circuits and strong local feedback could have carried a lot of that load.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-future-research-directions">Future research directions </h2>



Biologists can now test specific predictions in the lab. For example, they can look for descending stretch pathways that echo the model’s anterior to posterior copy rule, and they can probe how pressure sensors along the skin tune rhythm in moving fish.



Engineers can search for energy savings by blending stretch rules that boost stride with rules that prevent excessive bending. They can also explore how to route around damaged links in a robot by letting neighboring segments pull each other back into rhythm.



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2422248122" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</a>.



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Spinal secrets: What eels reveal about the origins of movement

Eels move in ways that seem to ignore the rules...

The night sky often dazzles with brief explosions of unimaginable power. Gamma-ray bursts are among the most intense, usually marking the catastrophic end of stars. These bursts vanish within seconds or minutes, leaving astronomers with little more than fleeting traces.



But a recent observation broke every rule. One gamma-ray burst not only lasted far longer than usual but also repeated in a pattern that has never been recorded before.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-astronomers-stunned-by-burst">Astronomers stunned by burst</h2>



The burst, labeled GRB 250702B, was reported in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Dr. Antonio Martin-Carrillo and colleagues used the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope to study the phenomenon.



“This event is unlike any other seen in 50 years of GRB observations,” said Dr. Martin-Carrillo of the <a href="http://www.ucd.ie" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">University College Dublin</a>. “GRBs are catastrophic events, so they are expected to go off just once because the source that produced them does not survive the dramatic explosion."



"This event baffled us not only because it showed repeated powerful activity but also because it seemed to be periodic, which has never seen before.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-star-collapse-or-black-hole">Star collapse or black hole?</h2>



Theories about its origin vary. One possibility involves the collapse of a star many times more massive than the Sun. In such a case, some material could have continued feeding the central engine, extending its activity.



Another explanation suggests a <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/ancient-cosmic-explosion-changes-what-we-know-about-space/">tidal disruption event</a>, where a star is torn apart by a black hole. 



For this burst, the data hint that a white dwarf might have been shredded by an intermediate-mass black hole - a long-hypothesized but rarely seen type.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-a-burst-that-wouldn-t-end">A burst that wouldn’t end</h2>



Most gamma-ray bursts last milliseconds to minutes. This one endured about a day - hundreds of times longer than the norm. 



Professor Andrew Levan of <a href="https://www.ru.nl/en" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Radboud University</a> noted that it was 100 to 1,000 times longer than most GRBs.



The unusual length led astronomers to compare it with ultralong bursts and even with rare tidal disruption events. 



However, GRB 250702B showed distinct bursts at intervals that seemed close to integer multiples, hinting at possible periodic behavior.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-pinpointing-the-source">Pinpointing the source</h2>



Initial detections came from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and the <a href="https://english.cas.cn" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Chinese Academy of Sciences</a>’ Einstein Probe. 



Both caught early signals but could not locate the source precisely. The Very Large Telescope provided sharper data, showing the event was located outside of our galaxy.



“The event seemed to have originated from within our <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/new-clues-about-the-brightest-gamma-ray-burst-of-all-time/">galaxy</a> due to its proximity to the galactic plane. The VLT fundamentally changed that paradigm,” Professor Levan noted.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-host-galaxy-revealed">Host galaxy revealed</h2>



The HAWK-I camera on the VLT revealed an extremely red infrared counterpart, suggesting a heavily dust-obscured source. 



Follow-up imaging with the <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/35-years-of-hubble-the-telescope-that-changed-our-view-of-the-universe/">Hubble Space Telescope</a> confirmed the host galaxy’s structure. Observations showed the galaxy had a complex, asymmetric shape, possibly with dust lanes. Such dust could explain the unusually red afterglow.



“What we found was considerably more exciting - the fact that this object is extragalactic means that it is considerably more powerful,” said Dr. Martin-Carrillo.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-collision-explains-the-glow">Collision explains the glow</h2>



The afterglow in X-ray, infrared, and radio wavelengths appeared consistent with models in which relativistic jets collide with surrounding material.



Yet the details pointed to an unusually narrow jet angle and significant dust extinction, unlike most known bursts.



Despite these differences, the afterglow fit within the broader family of <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/recent-gamma-ray-burst-was-70-times-brighter-than-any-cosmic-explosion/">GRB</a> models, strengthening the case for either a rare stellar collapse or a tidal disruption event involving a black hole.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-mystery-sparks-new-theories">Mystery sparks new theories</h2>



The researchers outlined four possible scenarios. First, it may have been a relativistic tidal disruption event, most likely a white dwarf consumed by an intermediate-mass black hole.



The second possibility is a nonstandard stellar collapse involving unusual progenitors or environments. Third, the event may have been echoes caused by the scattering of gamma rays through dense dust shells.



A fourth possibility is that the burst came from a very distant, high-redshift source and was brightened by gravitational lensing. Each theory presents challenges, but the first two currently align best with the data.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-clarifying-the-gamma-ray-burst">Clarifying the gamma-ray burst</h2>



“We are still not sure what produced this or if we can ever really find out but, with this research, we have made a huge step forward towards understanding this extremely unusual and exciting object,” said Dr. Martin-Carrillo.



Future monitoring with instruments like the <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/james-webb-detects-signs-of-life-on-exoplanet-k2-18b/">James Webb Space Telescope</a> may offer more clues. Continued X-ray and radio tracking could reveal whether the burst’s jet shuts down like those in tidal disruption events or follows the path of an unusual star’s collapse.



Either way, GRB 250702B has already reshaped what astronomers thought they knew about cosmic explosions.



The study is published in <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/adf8e1" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The Astrophysical Journal Letters</a>.



Image Credit: NASA, ESA and M. Kornmesser



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Gamma-ray burst explodes in an unusual pattern never seen before

The night sky often dazzles with brief explosions of unimaginable...

<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.

<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://youtu.be/Fi2OeEwuzRM?si=vTyd2m9FMmtyWkex
</div></figure>







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.

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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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

Is chocolate the next nutritional powerhouse?

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

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



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



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



Video/ Image Credit: ESA



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

Nushagak Bay in southwest Alaska

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



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



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



Video/ Image Credit: American Chemical Society&nbsp;



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



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Flu viruses are more flexible than expected

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

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



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



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



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



Video/Image Credit: ESA&nbsp;



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

Lake Trasimeno in Central Italy

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



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



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



Video Credit: American Chemical Society&nbsp;



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



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Detecting mercury contamination with the tap of a finger

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



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



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



Video Credit: ACS Reactions



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



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

How does salt makes things taste better?

[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

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



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



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



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



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



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



Video Credit: Johns Hopkins&nbsp;



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



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

Interactive map of the universe includes 200,000 galaxies

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



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



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



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



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



Video Credit: ESA&nbsp;&nbsp;



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



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

Lesotho: Africa's "Kingdom in the Sky"

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



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



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



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



Video Credit: ESA&nbsp;



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



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

The city of Dublin on Ireland's east coast

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



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



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



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



Video/ Image Credit: ESA



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



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

The province of Zaragoza in northeast Spain

[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



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The rapid retreat of the Columbia Glacier

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



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



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



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



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



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



Video &amp; Image Credit: ESA



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



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

The Pyrenees Mountains in southwest Europe

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

Earth,Like,Exoplanet,3d,Render

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



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



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



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



Video Credit: NASA Goddard



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



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



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

Two distant planets may be "water worlds"

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