Niger is one of the driest countries in sub-Saharan Africa, being plagued by frequent <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/europe-will-face-more-frequent-and-extreme-droughts/">droughts</a> that are considerably hindering its farming business, leading to dying crops and widespread famine. In an attempt to find cheap and sustainable solutions for reviving this country’s agriculture, a team of researchers from Niger, the United Kingdom, and Germany has assessed the benefits of using a mineral-rich, low-cost, and easily accessible fertilizer: sanitized human urine, which they renamed “Oga” (meaning “the boss” in the Igbo language) in order to avoid the negative connotations of the term “urine.”



For thousands of years, humans have known that urine is an excellent fertilizer for crops, since it contains many of the ingredients found in commercial fertilizers, such as phosphorous, nitrogen, and potassium. However, due to the squeamishness associated with utilizing urine to grow crops, its use has always been limited.&nbsp;



To test its effectiveness on large-scale farming, the researchers conducted a total of 159, 288, and 234 on-farm trials between 2014 and 2016. The farmers were divided into two groups - the first continued to use their traditional farming methods to grow their pearl millet grains (a common type of crops in the region), while the second group applied Oga (with or without animal manure) to their experimental plots, after being trained on how to safely use it. The results revealed that, over a period of three years, those who used Oga experienced an average 30 percent increase in their crop yields.&nbsp;



“Oga is a low risk, low financial input fertilizer option ready for dissemination on sandy Sahelian sites with low pearl millet yield level,” the study author wrote. Two years after these experiments, the scientists found that this method has significantly increased in popularity, with over one thousand farmers regularly using it to fertilize their crops.&nbsp;



Further research is needed to assess the benefits of using urine as a fertilizer in industrialized countries too. According to several scientists, switching from commercial fertilizers to urine could not only increase crop yields and reduce fossil fuel intensive resources needed to grow them, but also make our sanitation systems more sustainable.



“Millions and millions of dollars a year are spent trying to treat our waste before it goes into receiving waters for acceptable nitrogen and phosphorus criteria,” said Cara Beal, a researcher in Environmental Health at <a href="https://www.griffith.edu.au/">Griffith University</a> in Australia. “But if we can close that nutrient loop it’d be very sensible in terms of sustainability, the circular economy, and looking after our planet a little bit better,” she concluded.



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13593-021-00675-2#Abs1">Agronomy for Sustainable Development</a>.



---



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

Human urine can effectively fertilize crops

Niger is one of the driest countries in sub-Saharan Africa, being plagued by frequent droughts that are considerably hindering its farming business, leading to dying crops and widespread famine. In an attempt to find cheap and sustainable solutions for reviving this country’s agriculture, a team of researchers from Niger, the United Kingdom, and Germany has assessed the benefits of using a mineral-rich, low-cost, and easily accessible fertilizer: sanitized human urine, which they renamed “Oga” (meaning “the boss” in the Igbo language) in order to avoid the negative...

War! What is it good for? Nothing.

That’s what the song says, and it’s right. But trenches dug at the Austrian-Italian border during World War I have at revealed the existence of a rare 425-million-year-old fossil.

Fossils of juvenile crinoids, an ancient ancestor of modern-day sea lilies, were found in the Cardiola Formation by a research team that involved scientists from <a href="https://www.osu.edu/">Ohio State University</a>, two universities in Italy and the <a href="http://www.oeaw.ac.at/en/austrian-academy-of-sciences/">Austrian Academy of Sciences</a>.

What makes the discovery so unusual is that the crinoids were found unattached to rock fossils. This is behavior that’s different than sea lilies, which attach to rocks with “holdfast” grips at the larval stage and rarely move. This ancient ancestor, however, apparently settled on objects that moved them far from their ocean homes and weren’t fossilized along with the crinoids. This mode of transportation might have been free-floating algae beds or swimming cephalopods, neither of which would have been immortalized in fossilization.

“The fossils indicate that they were either attached to objects floating in the water at the time, or attached to another bottom dweller that lacked preservable hard parts,” said William Ausich, a professor of earth sciences at <a href="https://www.osu.edu/">Ohio State</a>.

The <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/bacteria-extraterrestrial-life/">fossils</a> found by the international team were in rocks already discovered in the Cardiola Formation, but the <a href="https://www.osu.edu/">Ohio State</a> team discovered the juvenile crinoids after dissolving the limestone from iron oxide samples. What they found was only the holdfasts, since that’s all that remained. In order to be fossilized at all, the organisms had to have been buried alive and crushed into fossilization. The soft connective tissue of the crinoids couldn’t be fossilized because they decompose soon after death. This means that bits and pieces of the calcite plates are all that researchers can hope to find.

“We now have important information about the behavior of these ancient organisms, and a clue as to why they had such a wide geographic distribution,” Ausich said.

The team’s findings were published in the journal <a href="http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/GEOACTA/">Geologica Acta</a>.

[caption id="attachment_202161" align="aligncenter" width="620"]<a href="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/170403123309_1_900x600.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-202161" src="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/170403123309_1_900x600.jpg" alt="" width="620" height="400" /></a> Credit: Photo courtesy of Annalisa Ferretti, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_202162" align="aligncenter" width="547"]<a href="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Screen-Shot-2017-04-04-at-11.15.12-AM.png"><img class="size-full wp-image-202162" src="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Screen-Shot-2017-04-04-at-11.15.12-AM.png" alt="" width="547" height="442" /></a> Credit: Ohio State University[/caption]

-- 

Written by <a href="mailto:dsearls@earth.com">David Searls</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Source:<a href="https://news.osu.edu/news/2017/04/03/babycrinoid/"> The Ohio State University</a>

Scientists find fascinating fossils in World War I trenches

War! What is it good for? Nothing. That’s what the...

One longstanding theory involving biodiversity related to mountain formation is that the new terrains serve as biological hotspots, boosting species diversification. The idea, which is known as the uplift-driven diversification hypothesis, suggests that the new ecosystem triggers the need for species to diversify to meet changing conditions.

Now, study coauthors Rick Ree, the associate curator of botany at <a href="https://www.fieldmuseum.org/">Field Museum in Chicago</a> and Yaowu Xing, a Chinese paleoclimactic patterns scientist associated with the <a href="http://english.cas.cn/">Chinese Academy of Sciences</a> have found evidence that supports that hypothesis. South Korea’s <a href="http://www.nie.re.kr/contents/siteMain.do?mu_lang=ENG">National Institute of Ecology</a> was also involved.

The researchers studied and compared species biodiversity in two nearby mountain ranges in China, the Hengduan Mountain and the Himalayas. The reason they selected the two regions is because the Hengduan, at eight million years of age, is much newer than the other range, making a striking contrast between ecosystems.

They conducted DNA sequencing of thousands of plants in both regions to show family relationships between the different species. They also examined <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/fossilized-damselflies-mating-rituals/">fossil</a> plants to determine the timeline in which different botanical species appeared and branched into new species.

The conclusion they reached is that new species were formed at a faster rate in the younger mountain range than in the older micro-habitat within the Himalayas and Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau.

 As Ree explained it, “As mountains form, you get different elevations, different substrates exposed, different soil chemistries, different climates. They create lots of little micro-habitats along which species can adapt to local conditions. These changes mean more opportunities for species to diversify and fill new niches.”

The research team’s paper, which was published today in <a href="http://www.pnas.org/">Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences</a>, will give added credence to the uplift-driven diversification hypothesis and provide a mechanism for researchers to study other biodiversity hotspots, and animals as well as plant life.

-- 

Written by David Searls, Earth.com staff writer

Source:<a href="http://www.pnas.org/"> Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</a>

Study shows mountain formation spurs biodiversity

One longstanding theory involving biodiversity related to mountain formation is...

IMG_0811.JPG

Weedy rice – once-domestic rice that has stretched roots toward its wild ancestry – infiltrates fields and poses a problem for rice farmers.

In some areas of the world, the unpalatable rice varieties can ruin a crop. Weedy rice varieties can take over as much as 90 percent of a field, said Dr. Kenneth Olsen of <a href="https://wustl.edu/">Washington University in St. Louis</a>. Olsen is the lead author of a <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ng.3825">new study</a> measuring the impact that the grain gone wild has on global rice production.

In the U.S., strawhull and blackhull awned rice is estimated to grow in a third of the nation’s rice paddies. The two rogue rices are estimated to cost farmers about $50 million per year.

Weedy rice can be a real challenge for rice farmers because it’s not technically wild. Instead, it’s descended from domestic rice, and it grows in farmer’s fields rather than on undeveloped land. Unlike domestic rice, though, weedy rice is not easy to harvest, and the grains it produces are not likely to win any flavor awards.

The team led by Olsen, and made up of scientists from the U.S. and China, sequenced the genomes of the two U.S. weedy rice varieties, which evolved independently from one another. They compared 18 strawhull and 20 blackhull awned samples to 145 previously published rice genomes for both domestic and wild varieties.

What they found was that the two strains evolved at different stages in the evolution of domestic rice, but that neither needed many changes to go from crop to weed. 

“It’s easy to evolve weediness, and it has happened repeatedly,” Olsen said in a press release about the study. “The evolution of weedy crop relatives is an under-recognized part of the domestication process. Until recently, few of those studying domestication had given much thought to these weedy doppelgangers that were just kind of persisting on the margins of fields.”

Part of the problem has been the mechanization of agriculture itself. Rice was once hand-planted, and farmers could remove weedy varieties from their paddies, Olsen said.

But without that hand tending of the rice crop as it grows, weedy varieties can infiltrate a field. They look similar enough to their domestic cousins that farmers who don’t regularly inspect their plants up close can miss them until they’ve infested an entire crop.

Another problem is that weedy rice tends to revert back to seed shattering, a trait domestic rice once had in the wild. As it was domesticated, humans selected against seed shattering, which makes rice more difficult to harvest. A return to that trait means weedy rice can quickly sow its seeds throughout a field. 

Weedy rice can also remain dormant for longer, meaning seeds continue to crop up even after a farmer weeds her fields.

By studying the genomes and which “human-friendly” traits the two U.S. weed varieties shared, scientists were able to determine that the blackhull awned variety became a weed after rice went through the initial stage of domestication, when humans made the crop more farmable. Strawhull branched off after farmers began selecting for traits like better flavor and other improvements, the second phase of domestication.

While both weeds have gone wild, they crop up in domestic fields because they’re better suited to that environment than truly wild locales.

“What I find fascinating about these weeds is the way they’ve co-opted the agricultural system,” Olsen said. “They take advantage of this wonderful environment we're creating by tilling and providing nutrients, and way outcompete the plants that have desirable traits.”

The study has been published in the journal <a href="http://www.nature.com/ng/">Nature Genetics</a>. 

—

By <a href="mailto:kcathey@earth.com">Kyla Cathey</a>, <a href="http://earth.com/staff">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Image Credit: Dr. Kenneth Olsen, Washington University

'Feral' weedy rice hides in agricultural fields

Weedy rice – once-domestic rice that has stretched roots toward...

The agricultural revolutions of the past – such as mechanized farming and fertilizer – have allowed the human population to grow exponentially. But we’re currently reaching a point where we may not have enough land and resources to feed our growing population, which could increase by 2 billion people by 2050, according to the <a href="http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/news/population/2015-report.html">U.N</a>. This is where the bionic leaf comes in. 

To help initiate the next agricultural revolution, researchers have invented a bionic leaf that uses bacteria, sunlight, water, and air to make fertilizer in the exact same soil where crops are being grown. This device could potentially serve to increase crop yields, requiring less land to be used for farming.

In wealthier countries with developed infrastructure, making and delivering fertilizer isn’t much of a problem. But Daniel Nocera, a professor of energy at <a href="http://www.harvard.edu/">Harvard University</a>, explains, “Poorer countries in the emerging world don't always have the resources to do this. We should be thinking of a distributed system because that's where it's really needed.”

Nocera first tackled this issue by designing the “artificial leaf,” a device that mimics a natural leaf by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen using energy from <a href="https://www.earth.com/video/solar-smart-windows-sunlight/">sunlight</a>. He further developed the technology into the “bionic leaf,” which pairs this water-splitting mechanism with bacteria that consume hydrogen and uses carbon dioxide from the air to make liquid fuel.

Although nature’s photosynthesis is the gold standard of what Nocera is trying to replicate, this bionic leaf system actually produces biomass and liquid fuel yields that exceed that of natural photosynthesis. 

In an even more complicated process, the bionic leaf can also pull nitrogen from the air and use its stored hydrogen to create ammonia for fertilizing crops. 

Nocera’s lab has already used this process to grow five crop cycles of radishes. In a convincing display of efficiency, the radishes receiving the bionic-leaf-derived fertilizer weighed 150 percent more than the control crops. The researchers believe that the next step is to increase the scale of this project.

If the bionic leaf is able to be as efficient and effective as these early studies suggest, someday soon it might be in the hands of farmers in underdeveloped countries, allowing them to grow more food and better nourish their communities.

--

By Connor Ertz, <a href="http://earth.com">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Source: <a href="https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en.html">American Chemical Society</a>, Nocera Lab at <a href="http://www.harvard.edu/">Harvard University</a>

The bionic leaf could be the next agricultural revolution

The agricultural revolutions of the past – such as mechanized...

In order to get to the Red Planet with everyone aboard safe and healthy, astronauts on the first manned mission to Mars will need to be space farmers, too.

Both government-funded space agencies like <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/">NASA</a> and their private colleagues such as <a href="http://www.spacex.com/">SpaceX</a> are planning a return to the Moon. The last time humans went to the Moon – or, in fact, beyond low-Earth orbit – was 1972.

NASA is also working toward an eventual manned mission to our planetary neighbor, Mars. A new bill passed last month authorizes $19.5 billion in U.S. space exploration in 2017.

Some of that exploration and research will focus on growing crops in space – a necessity for the months-long voyage to Mars. 

Agriculture in space isn’t a new idea. A staple of science fiction stories, it’s also been a focus of research since the 1950s and 1960s. It’s also yielded plenty of new techniques and technology for Earth-based agriculture.

“As a result of these studies for space agriculture, novel technologies and findings have been produced; this includes the first use of light emitting diodes for growing crops, one of the first demonstrations of vertical agriculture, use of hydroponic approaches for subterranean crops like potato and sweetpotato, crop yields that surpassed reported record field yields, the ability to quantify volatile organic compound production (e.g., ethylene) from whole crop stands, innovative approaches for controlling water delivery, approaches for processing and recycling wastes back to crop production systems, and more,” Dr. Raymond M. Wheeler, a plant physiologist for NASA, wrote in a new article reviewing past studies into growing plants in space.

Wheeler’s thorough history covers many of the techniques that astronauts cum space farmers will likely need to survive and thrive on the months-long journey to the Red Planet, or even to colonize the Moon.

For example, a 1980s NASA experiment grew wheat, soybeans, potatoes, sweet potatoes and lettuce in a controlled environment similar to a space station. Those first tests led to a second round where researchers grew plants in a closed atmosphere – with no outside oxygen allowed in – similar to those astronauts live in when on the space station or in the space shuttle.

Scientists in Japan and China have taken the research even further, creating closed environments where plants can support two to three humans (or two humans and two goats).

The experiments could make a journey to Mars much more feasible. Although the International Space Station uses a solar-powered process called electrolysis to convert carbon dioxide into breathable oxygen, a thriving plant community on the trip to Mars can produce the same results, providing a second source of air supply for the astronauts.

The plants can also provide much-needed nutrients and supplement their diets. 

And, as Wheeler’s article shows, the new discoveries and innovations made while conducting Mars research with plants can boost Earth-based agricultural production.

“Dr. Ray Wheeler has written a compelling and complete history of the people that have committed their careers to enabling the colonization of space,” Dr. Gary W. Stutte, a fellow NASA researcher, said in a press release. “Drawing upon his deep understanding of the programs developed, people involved, and progress achieved to highlight the accomplishments and contributions of scientist and engineers around the world to bring the vision of space exploration to fruition, he details the problems, challenges, results and contributions from the programs, and reveals how they benefited Earth, as well as space.”

Wheeler’s article has been published in the journal <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/opag.2017.2.issue-1/opag-2017-0002/opag-2017-0002.xml">Open Agriculture</a>.

—

By <a href="mailto:kcathey@earth.com">Kyla Cathey</a>, <a href="http://earth.com/staff">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

First astronauts to Mars could moonlight as space farmers

In order to get to the Red Planet with everyone...

As the legalization of recreational marijuana use continues to expand across the U.S. state by state, cannabis enthusiasts have a new reason to celebrate. A team of researchers from the <a href="https://www.ubc.ca/">University of British Columbia</a> (UBC) have identified 30 genes that give each cannabis strain its specific flavor. 

The research was led by UBC professor Dr. Jörg Bohlmann, adjunct professor Dr. Jonathan Page, and graduate student Judith Booth, and published in the journal <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0173911">Plos One</a>.

“The goal is to develop well-defined and highly-reproducible cannabis varieties,” said Dr Bohlmann. “This is similar to the wine industry, which depends on defined varieties such as chardonnay or merlot for high value products. Our genomics work can inform breeders of commercial varieties which genes to pay attention to for specific flavor qualities.”

The team observed terpene genes, which are responsible for the different scents and flavors of the cannabis plant. A similar type of gene is in charge of the type of grapevine <a href="https://www.earth.com/video/sriracha-sauce-taste/">flavor</a> in wine. In cannabis plants, terpene genes produce natural terpenes such as myrcene, limonene, and pinene.

“The limonene compound produces a lemon-like flavor and myrcene produces the dank, earthy flavor characteristic of purple kush,” said Booth.

The research adds a great deal of potential economic value to a regulated cannabis industry. The ability to curate and control the production of different cannabis strains would make them available to the public on a much broader level.

'There is a need for high-quality and consistent products made from well defined varieties,” said Dr. Bohlmann.

--

By Rory Arnold, Earth.com Staff Writer

Source: <a href="https://www.ubc.ca/">University of British Columbia</a>

Scientists identify genes that determine cannabis strain flavors

As the legalization of recreational marijuana use continues to expand...

Need more proof spinach is good for your heart? Scientists may have figured out a way to “hack” one of the toughest issues in repairing damaged organs. Researchers have used spinach leaves to provide a framework to grow new heart tissue.

“Despite significant advances in the fabrication of bioengineered scaffolds for tissue engineering, delivery of nutrients in complex engineered human tissues remains a challenge,” the research team wrote in the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28222326">new study</a>. “By taking advantage of the similarities in the vascular structure of plant and animal tissues, we developed decellularized plant tissue as a prevascularized scaffold for tissue engineering applications.”

In layman’s terms, the veins in a spinach leaf has provided a sort of template for human heart tissue.

While scientists were able to create human tissue with 3-D printing and other technologies already, organ tissue has presented a larger challenge. Namely, scientists’ are unable to create the delicate vascular network needed to support it, said graduate student Joshua Gershlak, lead author of the paper. 

“Techniques can’t fabricate microvasculature the way that the body needs it,” Gershlak said in a <a href="https://youtu.be/6iUrxGo9gZs">video</a> that the <a href="https://www.wpi.edu/">Worcester Polytechnic Institute</a> research team released to share their work. “Without that microvasculature, you lose that oxygen transport. So as you build a bigger and bigger graft, say for like a heart attack on a human, you’re going to need something fairly large. So without that vascular network, you get a lot of tissue death.”

That’s where the spinach leaves come in.

According to Dr. Glenn Gaudette, who also worked on the research project, the scientists take the spinach leaves and use a detergent to remove all of the plant material while leaving the vascular structure intact.

Then, they seed the structure with human cells, he said. As the human cells grow into cardiac muscle, they can be stacked, and the veins can, in theory, be attached to existing veins in the heart, Gaudette said. 

The heart tissue they’ve created on spinach leaves looks and acts like normal cardiac cells, Gershlak said.

“These data demonstrate the potential of decellularized plants as scaffolds for tissue engineering, which could ultimately provide a cost-efficient, ‘green’ technology for regenerating large volume vascularized tissue mass,” the researchers wrote.

The full study will be published in the May issue of the journal <a href="https://www.journals.elsevier.com/biomaterials">Biomaterials</a>.

—

By <a href="mailto:kcathey@earth.com">Kyla Cathey</a>, <a href="http://earth.com/staff">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Scientists build working heart tissue using spinach leaves

Need more proof spinach is good for your heart? Scientists...

Did relatively complex life on Earth begin hundreds of million years earlier than we thought? That’s what’s suggested by the discovery of a red algae-like plant fossil that, at 1.6 billion years old, is evidence of the earliest plant known.

The first single-cell organism is known to be a couple billion year older than this discovery, but the red algae plant fossil is evidence of a more complex form of life, known as eukaryotes. This form, which includes humans and other animals, plants and even fungi, are indicated by the presence of a cell with a nucleus and other structures in a membrane.

Before this finding, the earliest evidence of red algae was some 400 million years more recent.

Researchers from the <a href="http://www.nrm.se/en/16.html">Swedish Museum of Natural History</a> made their find in <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/air-pollution-crisis-india/">India</a>, in what would have been shallow water when the plant lived, and published their findings in PLOS Biology. They stressed that their identification of the fossil as red algae could not be conclusive.

“You cannot be 100 percent sure about material this ancient, as there is no DNA remaining, but the characters agree quite well with the morphology and structure of red algae,” the museum’s Professor Stefan Bengtsontold explained to <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39267153">BBC News</a>.

In addition to the unanswered questions due to the lack of DNA, some scientist question whether red algae should even be called plant life or if it would more accurately fall into a class of its own.

[caption id="attachment_131547" align="aligncenter" width="996"]<a href="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5saXZlc2NpZW5jZS5jb20vaW1hZ2VzL2kvMDAwLzA5MC8zMjgvb3JpZ2luYWwvb2xkZXN0LXBsYW50LWxpa2UtZm9zc2lsLmpwZw.jpg"><img class="wp-image-131547 size-large" src="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5saXZlc2NpZW5jZS5jb20vaW1hZ2VzL2kvMDAwLzA5MC8zMjgvb3JpZ2luYWwvb2xkZXN0LXBsYW50LWxpa2UtZm9zc2lsLmpwZw-1024x369.jpg" width="996" height="359" /></a> Image Credit: Stefan Bengtson[/caption]

--

By <a href="http://earth.com">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer David Searls

Source:<a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/"> PLOS Biology</a>

Plant fossil dates complex life back another 400 million years

Did relatively complex life on Earth begin hundreds of million...

Forests are an important, as well as aesthetically pleasing, tool for mitigating the effects of climate change and meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. But what can we realistically expect in terms of mitigation potential?

In a paper published in Nature Climate Change titled “Key role of forests in meeting climate targets but science needed for credible mitigation,” scientists voiced the challenge in assigning realistic metrics for forests toward hitting the Paris goal of restraining global temperature rise. 

In an interview with <a href="http://earth.com">Earth.com</a>, study co-author Dr. Joanna House of the University of Bristol's Cabot Institute said, “Our paper highlights the urgent need for better transparency in accounting for emissions from the Land Use Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) sector.  It shows that you get very different answers for CO2 mitigation in the land sector depending on the methods used by countries to do their accounting.”

House added, “It was also somewhat eye opening to realize how different historical emissions estimates were when reported by countries to UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) using IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) Good Practice Guidance methods, compared to the independent scientific global estimates we rely on, summarized in the IPCC Assessment Reports.”

 In other words, world governments tend to be more optimistic in their metrics assignments for forestry than the scientific community.

 “Countries consider the land sector, primarily forests, to be really critical in climate mitigation up to 2030, providing a quarter of mitigation potential,” said House. “Given the issues around competition for land, but the many co-benefits of forestry (protected or enhanced biodiversity, flood and erosion control, rainfall recycling), this is a clear signal to prioritize sustainable forestry.”

 House added in the <a href="http://earth.com">Earth.com</a> interview that world <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/super-yield-wheat-trial/">governments</a> must refrain from overpromising.

 “Forests play an important role, not least because of the co-benefits of biodiversity, rainfall recycling, and protection from flooding and erosion. However, our land resource is limited, so there is no getting away from the need to also switch to low carbon energy as many countries are doing with great success while their economies continue to flourish.”

 After all, she noted, fossil fuels are responsible for 90 percent of greenhouse gas emissions.

--

By David Searls, Earth.com Staff Writer

Source:<a href="http://www.nature.com/nclimate/index.html"> Nature Climate Change</a>, Earth.com

Forests reduce greenhouse gases, but don't overpromise

Forests are an important, as well as aesthetically pleasing, tool for...

In Greenland, nature's clock has gone haywire. Some plants are sprouting or emerging from winter dormancy far earlier than they should. Others are showing up later than usual.

According to biologists and polar ecologists from the <a href="https://www.ucdavis.edu/">University of California, Davis</a>, the early spring that is speeding up or short-circuiting plants’ biological clocks seems to be connected to Earth’s changing climate.

“Monthly Arctic-wide sea ice extent was a significant predictor of emergence timing in 10 of 14 species,” the <a href="http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/12/12/20160332">new study</a> found.

It’s not just affecting plants, but also the species that depend on them for food, the scientists said.

Caribou in Greenland head into the low Arctic at the same time each year, in early spring, to forage for food. They rely on new growth, which is more nutritious, for the vitamins and energy they need to birth healthy calves.

When they eat plants that have been green for longer, they’re not as healthy, the Davis researchers said. Fewer calves are born, and fewer calves survive to adulthood, they said.

The timing of plant growth and flower budding has disrupted nature's clock in Greenland for dozens of species, said the Davis researchers, who have been studying plant growth in Greenland for 12 years now. They study plant growth enclosed plots near the Russell Glacier in western Greenland every spring.

Over the past several years, which have seen record high temperatures and rapid loss of sea ice in the Arctic, the researchers have documented plants emerging much earlier or later than usual. For example, one sedge species begins its spring growth nearly a month earlier than it did a decade ago, the scientists said.

"When we started studying this, I never would have imagined we'd be talking about a 26-day per decade rate of advance," lead author Dr. Eric Post said in a press release. Post has studied the Arctic for more than 25 years. "That's almost an entire growing season. That's an eye-opening rate of change."

Not every plant has been affected. One willow species still buds at about the same time each year, and a dwarf birch species has only shifted by a few days.

However, the shifting of nature's clock for some species is a trend scientists can’t ignore.

“Think of it as going from something like a Picasso painting that blurs before your eyes and reorganizes into some kind of Dali landscape,” Post said. “You can see the pieces are still there, but the way they’re organized in relation to each other doesn’t look like what it used to be, and you wonder, ‘What am I looking at now and what does that mean for how it all works together?’”

The Davis researchers are working with colleagues to study how else warmer temperatures and ice loss may be affecting Arctic species.

The study was published in the journal <a href="http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/">Biology Letters</a>. It was funded by the <a href="https://www.nsf.gov/">National Science Foundation</a> and the <a href="http://www.nationalgeographic.org/grants/">National Geographic Committee for Research and Exploration</a>.

— 

By Kyla Cathey, Earth.com staff writer

Climate change plays havoc with nature's clock in Greenland

In Greenland, nature's clock has gone haywire. Some plants are...

Imagine: you’re deep within the Brazilian <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/gibbon-new-species-found/">rainforest</a> when you discover huge, geometric trenches. Some of the huge shapes – squares and circles – measure as large as a city block. The trenches themselves are up to 13 feet deep and as much as 12 yards wide. These earthworks are a reality, and archaeologists believe they were built by ancient people around 2,000 years ago. They also found broken ceramics near the entrance to the shapes, but are unsure why the materials were left there. 

The discovery of the ancient geometric earthworks has unearthed a stunning realization: rainforest areas that were previously thought to be undisturbed by humans until 15th century explorers arrived from Europe were actually subject to manipulation by the ancient people who built these glyphs – as well as those who came before them. 

“A lot of people have the idea that the Amazon forests are pristine forests, never touched by humans, and that’s obviously not the case,” said Jennifer Watling, an archaeologist the <a href="http://www5.usp.br/english/?lang=en">University of São Paulo</a>, Brazil, told the<a href="http://www.nytimes.com"> New York Times</a>. 

Researchers have found evidence of sustainable farming practices carried out thousands of years before the trenches were constructed.

They did this by carefully examining the environmental history of two of the areas in the Amazon rain forest in which glyphs are located. By analyzing soil samples, scientists were able to put together a story of ancient vegetation, as well as burnings that took place to make openings in the forest. Researchers believe that ancient forest dwellers may have planted maize or squash. 

Somewhat like methods now known as agroforestry, the ancient people of the Amazon took care not to burn or clear-cut large swaths of land. Instead, they used sustainable farming at its best. Watling says that the biodiversity that exists in the Amazon today is due to the practices that were started all those many years ago and continued by indigenous groups even today.

--
By Dawn Henderson,<a href="http://earth.com"> Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

How ancient people changed the face of the rainforest

Imagine: you’re deep within the Brazilian rainforest when you discover...

Roses are red and violets are blue, but have you every wondered why? We know why flowers have colors – it helps them attract bees and other pollinators. They also help humans attract mates, surprising them with a heartfelt bouquet (or at least averting disaster by picking up one as a last-minute gift). But how exactly do <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/gene-network-controls-flowers/">flowers</a> develop such a variety of vibrant hues?

Scientists have, and that’s why the <a href="https://www.nsf.gov">National Science Foundation</a> (NSF) is funding research into the genetics behind flower colors and how those colors change over time. 

Stacy Smith of the <a href="http://www.colorado.edu">University of Colorado Boulder</a> is one of the members of the research team. She says that flower color is due to the “biochemical composition of petal cells.” 

What is the biochemical composition, though? According to scientists, it’s pigment compounds such as flavonoids, carotenoids, and betalains. 

If your ears perk up because you’ve heard of the health benefits of flavonoids, you’re on the right track. These hue-inducing compounds also have “antioxidant and other medicinal properties, including anti-cancer, anti-bacterial, and anti-inflammatory activity,” according to NSF Program Director Simon Malcomber. 

Changes in the chemistry of these pigment compounds create different flower colors. Much of Smith’s work has focused on the tomato family of plants – one that includes species that range from tomatoes and eggplants to, surprisingly, tobacco and even potatoes. Her team is focusing on studying the wild species of these plants because they have a wider range of colors than their domesticated counterparts. 

They’re currently working to determine when and how red flowers appeared in the tomato family of plants. In a species of nearly 2,800 plants, the tomato family only features 34 that have red flowers. 

"With such a small number, we can take samples of every one of these species to find out whether it represents an independent origin, and to determine the biochemistry of how it makes red flowers," Smith said.

The petunia – also a member of the tomato family – is of particular interest in sorting out this mystery, as it has a huge variation in colors.

Researchers hope that discovering how plants synthesize pigment compounds might provide clues for future drug discovery research. It will also satisfy scientists’ burning curiosity about how roses became red and violet became blue – a curiosity that is sparked anew every time they hear someone recite the classic poem. 

--

By Dawn Henderson,<a href="http://earth.com"> Earth.com</a> Staff Writer 

Source: Stacy Smith, <a href="http://www.colorado.edu">University of Colorado Boulder</a>

<a href="https://www.nsf.gov">National Science Foundation</a>

&nbsp;

Roses are red and violets are blue – but why?

Roses are red and violets are blue, but have you...

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features Tenerife, the largest of the Canary Islands. The archipelago consists of eight main islands including Gran Canaria, Lanzarote and La Palma, as well as many small islands and islets. The Canary Islands are the southernmost region of Spain in the Atlantic Ocean.&nbsp;



Tenerife is dominated by Mount Teide, the third largest volcano in the world. Teide National Park (a UNESCO World Heritage Site) is located in the center of the island. Tourists flock to the beaches of Tenerife, which have sand that ranges in color from golden yellow to black.&nbsp;



"Owing to the island’s diverse topography and unique climatic factors, Tenerife has multiple microclimates, which means that the weather can vary drastically from one part of the island to the other," says ESA.



"Weather and climate are heavily influenced by the trade winds blowing from the northeast for most of the year, bringing humidity and precipitation to the north of the island, as well as to the northern slopes of Mount Teide."&nbsp;



Video Credit: European Space Agency



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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

Tenerife in the Canary Islands

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.nsf.gov/">National Science Foundation</a> explores how rising sea levels and increasing levels of salinity are impacting coastal wetlands.



The salinity of ocean water is 400 times that of fresh water, and the salt water that is left behind after an ocean intrusion can lead to intolerable salt levels for the plants and animals in a wetland ecosystem.&nbsp;



The Discovery Files video focuses on the work of Dr. Sparkle Malone, a professor in the Department of Biological Science at Florida International University.&nbsp;



In the Florida Everglades, Dr. Malone is taking measurements to assess how plants and animals are responding to changes in salt levels. High salt levels reduce vegetation cover and have a negative effect on productivity throughout the entire wetland ecosystem.&nbsp;



Video &amp; Image Credit: National Science Foundation/Florida International University



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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

Coastal wetlands are threatened by salt water intrusion

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features a time lapse of the Northern lights, also known as aurora borealis, captured from space. The images were acquired in November of 2021 during ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet’s second mission to the International Space Station, the Alpha mission.&nbsp;



According to ESA, the camera was set up to take pictures at intervals of two per second, and the time lapse video plays 25 pictures a second.&nbsp;



The fascinating light show, which can be viewed at both the north and south poles, is produced when energized particles from the sun slam into Earth's upper atmosphere at speeds of up to 45 million miles per hour. Earth's magnetic field redirects the particles toward the poles, creating the fascinating waves of light.&nbsp;



The earliest known record of the northern lights is in a cave painting in France that dates back 30,000 years.&nbsp; In 1619, Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei named the northern lights "aurora borealis" after the Roman goddess of dawn (Aurora) and the Greek god of the north wind (Boreas).



When Pesquet shared the stunning Alpha mission video on social media, he noted that the pictures were taken from the docked Crew Dragon spacecraft windows. Pesquet said it was the strongest aurora the crew had seen during their six months in space.



Video 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

Spectacular astronaut view of the northern lights

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features Patagonia, which includes Argentina and Chile at the southern tip of South America. The region is known for its rugged beauty, with an abundance of glaciers and dramatic mountain peaks.&nbsp;



"Covering an area of around 673,000 square kilometers, Patagonia is split by Argentina and Chile," reports ESA. "The region comprises the southern section of the Andes Mountains, with lakes, fjords, rainforests and glaciers in the west and deserts and tablelands to the east."



"The island archipelago of Tierra del Fuego, located at the southern tip of Patagonia, is shared by Argentina and Chile, with the eastern part of the main island belonging to Argentina and the southern point of the archipelago, which forms Cape Horn, belonging to Chile. The Strait of Magellan, named after the discoverer, lies between Tierra del Fuego and mainland Argentina."



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

Patagonia: the southernmost region of South America

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> describes the complex relationship between ocean and climate. ESA's Climate Change Initiative will help us understand how oceans influence the climate and how climate change is impacting the oceans.&nbsp;



"Earth’s oceans are huge heat stores, soaking up 93% of the excess heat from human activity over the past 70 years. Ocean currents redistribute heat around the planet, from the Equator to the poles. Where this ocean heat goes influences weather patterns and regional climate," explains ESA.



"As well as absorbing heat, oceans are a natural carbon sink, absorbing a quarter of carbon dioxide emissions from human activity. This has led to the acidification of ocean water, threating marine life.



The amount of heat and carbon dioxide absorbed depends on a number of ocean variables, all of which can be measured from space."



The amount of heat and carbon dioxide soaked up by the ocean depends on specific variables, including phytoplankton, temperatures, waves, salinity, and ice cover. Satellites can be used to measure these variables from space.



"From their unique vantage point, satellites provide key information for understanding the complexities of our planet and monitoring environmental issues," says ESA.



Video 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

How the ocean and climate influence each other

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features Singapore, a city-island-nation with a total of 64 offshore islands. The port of Singapore is the largest in Southeast Asia, and is one of the busiest in the world - connecting to more than 600 ports in 123 countries.



"The Republic of Singapore is located just off the southern tip of the Malayan Peninsula, between Malaysia and Indonesia, around 135 km north of the equator. It consists of the 710 sq km Singapore Island, visible in the top-centre of the image, as well as some 60 small islets," reports ESA.



"Nearly two-thirds of the Singapore Island is less than 15 m above sea level. The highest summit, Timah Hill, has an elevation of only 160 m. Changi Airport, one of the largest transportation hubs in Asia, can be seen at the eastern end of the island."



Singapore Island is separated from Peninsular Malaysia to the north by the Johore Strait, while the southern end faces the Singapore Strait. The city is among the most densely populated places in the world, and is known for its clean streets and modern buildings.



Video/ Image Credit: European Space Agency&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

The modern city-island-nation of Singapore

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> reveals a fascinating discovery from Gaia, a space observatory launched in 2013. The researchers have discovered that Gaia is capable of detecting starquakes – tiny motions on the surface of stars that change their shape. This is unexpected, considering that detecting starquakes is not something that Gaia was built for.  



"Previously, Gaia already found radial oscillations that cause stars to swell and shrink periodically, while keeping their spherical shape. But Gaia has now also spotted other vibrations that are more like large-scale tsunamis. These nonradial oscillations change the global shape of a star and are therefore harder to detect," says ESA.



"Nonradial oscillation modes cause a star's surface to move while it rotates, as shown in the animation. Dark patches are slightly cooler than bright patches, giving rise to periodic changes in the brightness of the star. The frequency of the rotating and pulsating stars was increased 8.6 million times to shift them into the audible range of humans."



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

Gaia spacecraft is capable of detecting starquakes

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features Lake Balkhash in east-central Kazakhstan. It is the largest lake in Central Asia, with a length of 605 kilometers from east to west and a maximum depth of 25 meters.&nbsp;



"Jutting out into the lake is the Sarymsek Peninsula which divides Balkhash into two separate hydraulic parts. The west part is wide and shallow with its water on this side particularly fresh and suitable for drinking," reports ESA.



"The east part, on the other hand, is narrow and relatively deep, with its waters on this side of the basin brackish and salty. The two parts of the lake are united by a narrow strait, the Uzynaral visible in the centre of the image, with a depth of around 6 m."



A sediment plume is visible passing through the Uzynaral Strait. According to ESA, it is most likely due to waves stirring up sediments from the bottom of the lake. Near the southern coastline, an abundance of sea ice appears in bright blue-green colors. Balkhash itself is usually frozen from the end of November to the beginning of April.



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

Lake Balkhash in east-central Kazakhstan

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> describes a new data release from the Gaia observatory, which was launched in 2013. The observatory has been mapping our galaxy from Lagrange point 2, creating the most accurate and complete multi-dimensional map of the Milky Way.



"By now two full sets of data have been released, the first set in 2016 and a second one in 2018. These data contained stellar positions, distances, motions across the sky, and colour information, among others," says ESA.



"Now on 13 June 2022 a third and new full data set will be released. This data release will contain even more and improved information about almost 2 billion stars, Solar System objects and extragalactic sources. It also includes radial velocities for 33 million stars, a five-time increase compared to data release 2."



"Another novelty in this data set is the largest catalog yet of binary stars in the Milky Way, which is crucial to understand stellar evolution."



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

Gaia has captured the largest catalog of stars in the Milky Way

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Batura Glacier in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features the Batura Glacier, which is located in the upper Hunza Valley in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan. Batura is one of the largest and longest glaciers in the world outside of the polar regions.



According to ESA, the glacier flows from west to east and feeds the Hunza River in north Pakistan, then joins the Gilgit and Naltar Rivers before it flows into the Indus River.



Batura Glacier is just north of the Batura Muztagh, a sub-range of the Karakoram mountain range. Unlike many glaciers around the world, the glaciers in the mountain ranges of Karakoram are not shrinking in response to climate change. Some are retreating less than the global average, while others are even growing in size. This exceptional behavior is referred to as the "Karakoram Anomaly."



Located in the upper Hunza Valley, in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan, the Batura Glacier is visible in the centre of the image and is approximately 57 km long. It flows from west to east and feeds the Hunza River in north Pakistan, then joins the Gilgit and Naltar Rivers before it flows into the Indus River. 



Video 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

Batura Glacier in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features part of the Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve on the coast of southeast Alaska. This region has a diverse group of animals, such as humpback whales, orcas, sea otters, bears, moose, wolves and mountain goats. The landscape of Glacier Bay includes rugged mountains, freshwater lakes, glaciers and deep fjords.



"The bay contains some of the world’s most impressive glaciers that descend from the ice-covered St. Elias Range in the east and the Fairweather Range in the west, with a few notable tidewater glaciers extending all the way to the sea," reports NASA.



"Glacier Bay is just one of the many areas suffering from the effects of global warming. The bay is expected to become warmer and drier over the next century, with widespread effects including the further shrinking glaciers, reduced sea ice and shoreline erosion."



The remoteness of the area makes it challenging to monitor, but satellite images provide an opportunity for scientists to observe and study Glacier Bay with great detail. In 2021, experts with ESA’s CryoSat mission used radar altimeter data to determine how much ice has been lost from mountain glaciers in the region.&nbsp;



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

Glacier Bay National Park in southeast Alaska

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features the Italian city of Carrara, which is known around the world for its prestigious marble. Carrara is located on the Carrione River in northern Tuscany about 130 kilometers from Florence.&nbsp;



"The city is famous for its white or blue-grey marble, called Carrara, taken from nearby quarries in the Apuan Alps, a mountain range that stretches for approximately 55 kilometers and reaching around 2,000 meters high," reports ESA. "What appears as snow cover on the rugged mountains is actually bright white marble, contrasting with Tuscany’s lush green vegetation."



According to ESA, Carrara marble is one of the most prestigious marbles in the world, and its quarries produce more marble than any other place on Earth. The famous stone was formed by calcite-rich shells that were left behind by marine organisms after they died.&nbsp;



"When water bodies evaporate, the deposited remains form limestone, and when buried under multi-tonne layers of rock, the intense heat and pressure cause the limestone to metamorphose into marble," explains ESA.



"The special quality of the Carrara marble has made it a popular resource for many famous sculptures, including Michelangelo’s Pietà, and has been used for some of the most remarkable buildings in Ancient Rome, including the Pantheon and Trajan’s Column."



Video/ Image Credit: European Space Agency&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

Carrara, Italy and its world famous marble

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Today’s Video of the Day from <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/goddard">NASA Goddard</a> describes the sighting of a giant comet that is hurtling toward the Earth. Fortunately, the closest the comet will come is one billion miles away from the <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/sunlight-helps-green-sea-turtles-with-tumors-recover/">Sun</a> in the year 2031.



The comet is the largest ever spotted, with an estimated diameter of 80 miles across, and is approximately 50 times larger than typical comets. The mass is estimated at 500 trillion tons, which is one hundred thousand times greater than usual.&nbsp;



Scientists at UCLA used radio observations and photos captured by the Hubble space telescope to study the giant comet. “This is an amazing object, given how active it is when it’s still so far from the sun,” said study lead author Man-To Hui, who earned his doctorate from UCLA in 2019 and is now with the Macau University of Science and Technology. “We guessed the comet might be pretty big, but we needed the best data to confirm this.”



“This comet is literally the tip of the iceberg for many thousands of comets that are too faint to see in the more distant parts of the solar system,”said study co-author and UCLA PR David Jewitt. “We’ve always suspected this comet had to be big because it is so bright at such a large distance. Now we confirm it is.”



Image/ Video 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

Hubble confirms that giant comet is the largest ever spotted

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/goddard">NASA Goddard Space Flight Center</a> describes the first observation of a white dwarf star ripping apart the rocky and icy material of its planetary system. A white dwarf is a remnant of a dead star that has burned through all of the hydrogen that it once used as nuclear fuel.&nbsp;



When a star like the sun begins to die it expands into a "red giant" and then begins to lose mass as it sheds its outer layers. This alters the gravitational pull that the star has on its planetary system.&nbsp;



Scientists have determined that our sun will reach the end of its life in approximately ten billion years. In about five billion years, the sun will become a red giant. This expansion is expected to completely vaporize Mars, Venus, and Earth.



According to NASA, the star’s death throes have so violently disrupted its planetary system that the dead star is siphoning off debris from both the system’s inner and outer reaches. The agency says that data from the Hubble Space Telescope and other NASA observatories were essential in identifying this "cosmic cannibalism."&nbsp;



"The findings help describe the violent nature of evolved planetary systems and can tell astronomers about the makeup of newly forming systems," reports NASA.



Video/ Image Credit: NASA Goddard



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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

Scientists observe a violent dead star

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Aerial,View,Of,Amazon,Rainforest,In,Brazil,,South,America.,Green

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency </a>&nbsp;features a satellite view of the Amazon River in the rainforest of South America.



The Amazon River flows more than 4,000 miles from the Andes to the Atlantic Ocean on the northeast coast of Brazil, passing through six countries along the way.



With its source high in the Peruvian Andes, the river runs through Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana.&nbsp;



The Amazon is considered the widest river in the world. It also has the largest drainage system, with more than 1,100 tributaries. These rivers provide a range of habitats for various types of wildlife, including swamps, marshes and streams.



According to WWF, it is estimated that approximately one-sixth of all the freshwater that drains into the world’s oceans goes through the Amazon delta, where the river meets the Atlantic Ocean.&nbsp; During what many archaeologists called the formative stage, Amazonian societies were deeply involved in the emergence of South America’s highland agrarian systems.



The trade with Andean civilizations in the terrains of the headwaters in the Andes formed an essential contribution to the social and religious development of higher-altitude civilizations like the Muisca and Incas.



Video 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

The Amazon River in South America

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features Lake Nasser, a vast reservoir located in southern Egypt and northern Sudan. Nasser is one of the largest artificial lakes in the world.



"The lake was created as a result of the construction of the Aswan High Dam across the waters of the Nile in the late-1960s. This ambitious project was designed to provide irrigation to new agricultural developments and attract people to the region," reports ESA.



"The dam impounds floodwaters from the Nile, releasing them when needed to maximise their utility on irrigated land, to water hundreds of thousands of hectares of land downstream, but also in the nearby area. The dam also helps improve navigation through Aswān and generates an enormous amount of hydroelectric power."



The Toshka Lakes are natural depressions that are filled by overflow from Lake Nasser. They were created in the 1980s and 1990s by the diversion of water from Lake Nasser through a man made canal.



"The rise and fall of the lakes depend on multi-year fluctuations in water flow from the Nile," explains ESA. "From 2012 to 2018, the lakes had shrunk significantly, leaving only small remnants of water in the basins."&nbsp;



"Summer rainfall in Sudan in 2019 and record-breaking floods in 2020, resulted in the rapid filling of the lake’s waters. The lakes are relatively salty, with visible signs of eutrophication and algae formation."



Video 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

Lake Nasser in southern Egypt

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency </a>&nbsp;features the Kangerlussuaq Glacier, one of the largest tidewater outlet glaciers in Greenland. The glacier is located on the east coast of the Greenland ice sheet.



As human-induced climate change continues to drive up temperatures, global ice loss is accelerating at an alarming rate. ESA reports that, over the past decade alone, 3.5 trillion tons of ice have melted from the Greenland ice sheet. This is enough to cover the UK with meltwater 15 meters deep.



Based on satellite imagery, researchers determined that Kangerlussuaq entered a new phase of rapid retreat and acceleration in 2017. In their study, published in <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feart.2019.00123/full">Frontiers in Earth Science</a>,&nbsp; the experts report that the glacier's ice front is now at its most retreated position since the early 20th century.



"Given Kangerlussuaq’s previous impacts on both the magnitude and pattern of ice sheet wide mass loss, we predict that its new phase of retreat, acceleration and thinning will markedly enhance the south-east region’s contribution to increasing discharge from the ice sheet," wrote the study authors.&nbsp;&nbsp;



"More broadly, accurate forecasting of the ice sheet’s contribution to sea level rise will require a deeper understanding of, and responses to, these non-linear ice dynamic processes."



Video 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

Kangerlussuaq Glacier on the Greenland ice sheet

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> describes why satellite images and measurements of our planet have become "essential to our survival, offering a new outlook of our world." 



Rising sea levels pose one of the biggest societal threats associated with climate change. According to ESA, satellite altimeter missions such as Copernicus Sentinel-6 are essential in monitoring global and regional changes in sea level.



"Unbeknown to many, the island of Crete, Greece, plays an important role in the Copernicus satellite altimetry constellation and on an international stage," reports ESA.



"Satellite altimetry data have to be continuously monitored at the ESA’s Permanent Facility for Altimetry Calibration where different techniques have pioneered the use of transponders to provide the best measurements to validate satellite altimeters in space soon after launch."



Dr. Craig Donlon explains that, by understanding planet Earth through satellite measurements, we are able to find evidence of change.&nbsp;



Video Credit: European Space Agency&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

Satellites have become essential to our survival

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features the Gulf of Morbihan, a natural harbor with numerous islands and islets in northwest France. 



In this region, Brittany is an important cultural center that is divided into four departments: Ille-et-Vilaine, Côtes d'Armor, Finistère, and Morbihan.



According to ESA, Brittany is known for its rich and varied agriculture including meats and dairy products and a variety of high quality fruit and vegetables.&nbsp;&nbsp;



The Gulf of Morbihan opens onto the Bay of Quiberon by a narrow passage between Locmariaquer and Port-Navalo.



Morbihan is known for its Alignements de Carnac, which consists of around 3,000 standing stones and megalithic tombs. The stones were erected during the Neolithic period, around 4500 BC.&nbsp;&nbsp; 



The towns and villages around the edges of the Morbihan Gulf are a popular destination with visitors and the bay itself contains numerous small islands, some of which can be visited, and is a haven for wildlife, especially birds. 



The most important towns around the coast of the Morbihan Gulf are Vannes to the north-east and Auray to the north-west. The Morbihan Gulf is an area of sea that extends 20 kilometres inland from the Bay of Quiberon.



Video 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

The Gulf of Morbihan in northwest France

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



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



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



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



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



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



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

Tiger sharks are shifting poleward as temperatures rise

[sendtonews key="qnLyB4nNr7-1783681-12187" type="single"] Tiger sharks are shifting poleward as temperatures...