Sargassum seaweed is piling up on Florida’s beaches, and it’s making a dangerous journey for sea turtle hatchlings even riskier.



Every summer, the sand becomes a highway as thousands of tiny turtles burst from their nests and scramble toward the ocean. For most of them, this short sprint is the difference between life and death.



They’ve already beaten the odds just by hatching. Now, they must avoid predators, stay cool under the rising sun, and find the water before their strength runs out.



But this growing <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/sargassum-seaweed-a-growing-problem-could-become-a-sustainable-solution/">seaweed problem</a> is more than just beach clutter - it’s a new threat that’s slowing them down at a time when every second counts.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-more-than-just-smelly-beach-junk">More than just smelly beach junk</h2>



Sargassum seaweed often washes up along Florida’s coast. It’s that brown, leafy stuff that starts to smell after a while. Out in the Atlantic, it floats in huge mats that provide habitat for marine life.



But when too much piles up on shore, sargassum seaweed creates a thick, tangled mess that’s hard for anything small to get through - including baby sea turtles.



Over the past few years, sargassum levels have exploded. Summer beachgoers aren’t the only ones frustrated. 



Sea turtle <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/rainfall-impacts-the-size-of-sea-turtle-hatchlings/">hatchlings</a> are now struggling to cross these growing piles to reach the ocean. It’s not just an inconvenience. It’s a survival threat.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-testing-how-turtles-navigate-the-sargassum">Testing how turtles navigate the sargassum</h2>



Until recently, no one had looked closely at how sargassum affects sea turtle hatchlings. Researchers from Florida Atlantic University (<a href="https://www.fau.edu/science/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">FAU</a>) set out to investigate.



The team tested three species common in Florida: <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/leatherback-sea-turtles-where-the-worlds-largest-turtles-go-to-eat/">leatherbacks</a>, loggerheads, and green turtles. These are the same turtles that nest on beaches from Boca Raton to Juno Beach.



The researchers built 50-foot (15 meter) crawlways in the sand and placed mats of loose sargassum up to 7.5 inches (19 centimeters) high - roughly the height of a large shoebox on end - at the finish line.



A dim light at the far end mimicked the natural glow over the ocean that hatchlings instinctively head towards. Then the team observed how the turtles responded.



The team measured how long it took for the turtles to reach the water, tracked whether they got flipped over while crawling through the seaweed, and even checked their blood sugar levels to see how much energy they were burning.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-sargassum-slows-turtles-down">Sargassum slows turtles down </h2>



The results were clear. All three species took much longer to reach the ocean when sargassum was in the way. Leatherbacks were slowed by 54% with lighter sargassum, and 158% with heavier coverage.



<a href="https://www.earth.com/news/loggerhead-turtles-migrate-using-a-secret-thermal-corridor/">Loggerheads</a> saw a 91% delay in light coverage and 175% in heavy seaweed. <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/reintroduction-of-green-turtles-has-been-a-success-in-the-cayman-islands/">Green turtles</a> slowed by 75% and 159%, respectively.



Some turtles couldn’t even finish the crawl in time. The biggest delay came when hatchlings had to climb over the thick seaweed, which slowed them down to a crawl - literally.



“The longer a hatchling stays on the beach, the more at risk it becomes - not just from predators like birds and <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/why-did-billions-of-crabs-vanish-from-the-bering-sea/">crabs</a>, but also from overheating and dehydration, especially after sunrise,” said Dr. Sarah Milton of the FAU Department of Biological Sciences.



<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-full"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/shorts/7xqe2C6RR6I?feature=share"><img src="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/leatherback-hatchling_sargassum-seaweed-obstacles_FAU_1s.webp" alt="A leatherback hatchling navigates over sargassum on Juno Beach in July 2021. Credit: Abbey M. Appelt, Florida Atlantic University" class="wp-image-1986078"/></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">A leatherback hatchling navigates over sargassum on Juno Beach in July 2021. Click image for video. Credit: Abbey M. Appelt, Florida Atlantic University</figcaption></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-getting-stuck-and-flipped">Getting stuck and flipped</h2>



The sargassum didn’t just slow the turtles down. It threw them off balance. Hatchlings kept flipping over while trying to climb the mats. In some cases, it happened over and over.



One unlucky turtle flipped more than 20 times in a single trial. Every time that happened, it wasted time and energy, and made hatchlings easy targets for predators.



These juveniles only have a small window to make it to the water before heat and dehydration kick in.



“When sargassum piles are higher - some can be over a meter high on South Florida beaches in the summer and extend for hundreds of meters down the beach - we can expect more failed attempts, particularly when hatchlings have to cross multiple bands of <a href="https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/news/sargassum/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">seaweed</a> just to reach the ocean,” said Milton.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-no-sign-of-burnout-yet">No sign of burnout - yet</h2>



Even with all that effort, the turtles didn’t show signs of physical exhaustion - at least not in their blood sugar levels. Glucose remained in normal ranges for all three species, no matter how much seaweed they faced. 



Only leatherbacks in the no-crawl control group had noticeably higher glucose, which researchers say shows that crawling itself is demanding - but the sargassum didn’t drain them any faster, at least in the short term.



Still, that doesn’t mean it’s harmless.



“For sea turtle hatchlings, reaching the ocean is already a race against time – and survival. Now, increasingly large mats of sargassum are adding new challenges to this critical journey,” said Milton.



“As these <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/robot-discovers-surprising-food-source-sargassum-for-deep-ocean-creatures/">seaweed accumulations</a> grow taller and more widespread, they risk blocking hatchlings entirely, draining their limited energy or leaving them stranded. Beyond impeding movement, sargassum may also reduce nesting space and alter incubation conditions.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-sargassum-management-and-turtles">Sargassum management and turtles</h2>



Sargassum isn’t going away anytime soon. <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/ocean-warming-broke-records-for-450-straight-days/">Warmer oceans</a> and nutrient runoff are fueling massive blooms across the Atlantic, and more of it is expected to hit Florida’s shores every year.



This growing issue isn’t just about beach aesthetics. It's quietly making a tough journey even tougher for baby turtles trying to survive their first few minutes of life.



Without changes in how beaches are maintained, these seaweed mats could keep getting in the way - and turtle populations may suffer down the line.



The full study was published in the journal <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.2112/JCOASTRES-D-24-00092.1" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Journal of Coastal Research</a>.



-----



Like what you read? <a href="https://www.earth.com/subscribe/">Subscribe to our newsletter</a> for engaging articles, exclusive content, and the latest updates.&nbsp;



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



-----

Sargassum seaweed is a deadly obstacle course for baby sea turtles

Sargassum seaweed is piling up on Florida’s beaches, and it’s making a dangerous journey for sea turtle hatchlings even riskier. Every summer, the sand becomes a highway as thousands of tiny turtles burst from their nests and scramble toward the ocean. For most of them, this short sprint is the difference between life and death. They’ve already beaten the odds just by hatching. Now, they must avoid predators, stay cool under the rising sun, and find the water before their strength runs out. But this growing seaweed...

When we think of important resources, especially natural resources, we usually think of things like oil and natural gas. Less likely to garner as much attention are plants like sugar beets or the rubber tree but these indeed are resources, agricultural and natural.  

These resources are important ones too.  Imagine a world without rubber. No tires, no rubber bands.  What would we use to make gaskets or hair bands? Imagine likewise a diet without <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/that-sugar-film-sugar-consumption/">sugar</a>.  No soda, no desert. No sweet and sour pork. Both rubber trees and sugar whether from cane or beets make up important parts of modern life.  Latex rubber especially ties us to the tropical regions of the world. 

In his book One River, Wade Davis discusses the importance of latex, especially around the time of World War II.  Rubber was absolutely essential to the Allies’ war effort. Rubber made up tires on trucks and planes.  

Rubber is more important than commonly thought to everyday life as well as war.  Consider that the US created <a href="https://www.explainthatstuff.com/rubber.html">270 million tons</a> of rubber waste from tires in 2011.  Rain gear, insulation for wires and the soles of boots all use rubber.  One River explores the omnipresence in rubber on vehicles used during World War II:

“Each one of the battleships sunk at Pearl had more than twenty thousand rubber parts, more than one hundred sixty thousand pounds all told.  Every hose on every ship, every valve and seal, every tire on every truck and plane we ship to the Russians…”

The rubber tree (Hevea brasiliensis) has a unique natural history, making it difficult to grow in plantations.  The Olmec used rubber to make things like balls as long as 3,600 years ago, but it was the discovery of vulcanization, a process which makes rubber more durable, that kicked off a rubber boom in South America.  

The rubber tree is native only to the tropics of the Americas and succumbs to blight if too many trees are grown in close proximity of each other in Latin America.  This quirk dictated the realities of much of the early rubber industry. Rubber tappers took to the rainforest, hiking trails to each tree in succession to tap several in turn.  Because the trees were spaced far apart in the forest, long hours were required to obtain raw latex. 

Labor costs cut into the profit margins of rubber businesses and many of the so called ‘rubber barons’ turned to the natives for slave labor, creating a hell that left scars to this day on the cultural landscape of South America.  Places like Manaus Brazil and Iquitos Peru became extravagantly wealthy with many luxuries contrasting their place as remote jungle towns. Soon, agents of the British empire illegally smuggled rubber tree seeds out of South America and plantations were started in British India, breaking South America’s rubber monopoly.  

For a time rubber plantations in Asia out-competed wild rubber tapping in South America and the rubber businesses died, leaving behind the ghosts of their horrible practice.  With the start of World War II, Japan made rubber supplies from Asia increasingly unreliable to the Allies. Rubber was once again taken from South America for a short time. The US started experimental rubber plantations in Costa Rica with blight resistant tree stock.  Eventually the plantations were shut down largely due to political bickering. 

Today, the vast majority of the world’s rubber still comes from southeast Asia.  The top four rubber producing countries in the world are Thailand, Indonesia, China and India.  Rubber is not the only plant to play an important role in international relationships and war, though.  Sugar is more important than it first seems as well. 

Until relatively recently, Cuba dominated the international sugar industry.  According to <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Cuba/Sugarcane-and-the-growth-of-slavery">Britannica</a>, by 1850, sugar made up four-fifths of Cuba’s global exports, and in 1860 the island produced almost one third of the world’s sugar.  As with the rubber trade in South America and the cotton plantations of the US south, sugar in Cuba fueled the slave trade and huge amounts of inequality among Cubans.  Cuba’s economy also became increasingly dependent upon sugar and tied to its global market. 

In his book, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=XPFzV9VRFuEC&amp;q=sugar#v=snippet&amp;q=Cuba%20sugar&amp;f=false">Open Veins of Latin America</a>, Eduardo Galeano tells how the US utilized the weakness of Cuba and its dependence on one crop for wealth.  In 1921, the price of sugar dropped radically from $.22 per pound to $.04 a pound. The drop in prices was a tragedy for Cuba but the US came to their aid with credit of $50 million, though the economy of Cuba has never quite recovered.  

The place of the US in Cuba was cemented for a time with this loan but interference stretched back to the US involvement in Cuba’s fight for independence and the following US military occupation of the newly independent Cuba.  In essence, the sugar industry of Cuba was created to fuel Spain and by being allied with the US, Cuba became entrapped in a sort of dependence on the US, a nation addicted to sugar. Galeano goes on to note that by 1948, Cuba supplied one third of the US’ sugar but received much lower prices than US sugar growers.  Sugar grown outside the tropics was only possible through new technology.

The development of another type of sugar has allowed the United States (and other countries) to dictate the terms of trade with Cuba, leaving the island nation mired in poverty.  Traditionally sugar comes from sugar cane, a large grass in the genus Saccharum; a treat that many who’ve visited the tropics may have bought on the street to munch raw and sticky making the eater look like a panda with bamboo.  In 2009, sugar from beets accounted for 20% of the world’s sugar, with United States, Europe and Turkey being the top global producers of sugar, according to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_beet">Wikipedia</a>.  In 1747, Andreas Marggraf, a German chemist demonstrated that sugar could be extracted from beets, a discovery coming after sugar cane plantations were already established in Cuba.

<a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/191975/sugarcane-production-in-the-us-by-state/">Statista</a> reports that between 2016 and 2017, the US produced 8.5 million metric tons of sugar.  The USDA reports that sugar cane accounts for 40 to 45% of US sugar production and sugar beets supply 55 to 60% of US sugar production.  Clearly beets are important. 

Beets and US sugar cane allowed the US to treat Cuba as their plantation colony and then cast them off when they became politically hard to deal with.  The wealth produced by sugar growers in Cuba also ended up in US pockets often enough. Open Veins of Latin America reports that at one point, 13 US sugar producers owned as much as 47% of the land planted with Cuban sugar cane.  Plantations of rubber in Asia allowed Europe and North America to accumulate their own wealth at the cost of rubber barons in South America.  

The story is the same as with any resource, controlling the resource means gathering the wealth.  The chemistry of sugar from beets, the clandestine planting of rubber trees in Asia and the eventual invention of synthetic rubber are all tied to the wealth of nations.  There’s talk about wealth from oil and the empires built on it but plants can be the basis of wealth just as easily. 

--

By <a href="mailto:zachfitzner@yahoo.com">Zach Fitzner</a>, <a href="http://earth.com">Earth.com</a> Contributing Writer

Plants and power: The importance of rubber and sugar

When we think of important resources, especially natural resources, we...

Few trees inhabit the human imagination quite as the baobabs do. Simultaneously majestic and comically Seussian in form, the eight species of baobab have been attributed to the work of gods, devils, and even hyenas in the mythos of Africa. 

Objects of reverence and superstition as well as prosaic providers of food, shelter, and water, these bizarre trees of the family Malvaceae have captivated human observers for millennia. Related to hibiscus, cotton, and the familiar garden hollyhocks, they tower over their herbaceous cousins and are the tallest living angiosperms. 

Some specimens of the African mainland species Adansonia digitata approach heights of 100 feet. Their bulbous, water-storing trunks, adapted to the harsh, arid climates to which they are native, may exceed 100 feet in circumference in some ancient individuals. Individual trees are estimated to have lived <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41477-018-0170-5.epdf?referrer_access_token=HYk_WHVC0gT-RFHTf5UEItRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0PfCb0fwHOSvF60fdB_TECZFartUn3hwa9iRPi5T4HR_Z7SjQWQ4lKaB64vZhh1qC5N2TFnF2czFdo1NNown7crKjT5FAvL4XT_8RfVTrcAxG3dXd9aNXmC65UFK0oqYeC6En43TZpyOa_bwzWd9uTFSJk-kVIdkofLTH2T26rOgitQRLhQOgJebK7ZylvjdBVRrTsg-PpaIWUOVN_RA8hIvvUvP5gAueuYNNQG-1Chi3OW8DK6qgkY5vx8Mr14yvLyGPGa0Doh4tTW3f0QOzpn&amp;tracking_referrer=www.npr.org">for more than 2,450 years</a> per radiocarbon dating studies; even more conservative estimates place specimens at up to 800 years old. 

These “wooden elephants” have long provided succor to the people sharing their range. Their fruits, which are encased in a woody shell, provide a powdery pulp that is a dietary staple for many Africans. This pulp is highly nutritious and contains appreciable amounts of vitamin C, calcium, iron, and magnesium. It may be eaten plain or, more commonly, is mixed into a drink or added to other dishes. The large, hard seeds can be either roasted or fermented and are used as a food or flavoring, or rendered into an oil that has cosmetic applications. 

Humans aren’t the only primates to enjoy baobab fruits; their consumption by <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/wild-baboons-different-immune-systems/">baboons</a> has led to the moniker “monkey bread.” The leaves, also laden with nutrients, are consumed in salads or dried and mixed with grains. Their salutary properties may in fact lend credence to the myth that women who live near baobab trees are more fertile. The tuberous ends of the roots and even the bark and flowers can be eaten as well.

[caption id="attachment_1861405" align="aligncenter" width="700"]<a href="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/baobab.jpg"><img class="wp-image-1861405" src="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/baobab-1024x695.jpg" alt="" width="700" height="475" /></a> Image Credit: By Dennis van de Water[/caption]

Baobab bark fiber is used in the manufacture of rope and baskets and the spongy, porous wood is burned for fuel. On the basis of this remarkable versatility, recent research has proposed the baobab as a candidate for <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2028.2011.01257.x">formal domestication and agriculture</a>. Wild specimens have long-sustained African peoples and the tree has been informally cultivated for centuries. The so-called “superfood” qualities of its fruit and leaves, assigned due to their high concentrations of nutrients, have also attracted <a href="https://www.nation.co.ke/lifestyle/health/Demand-for-Africa-s-baobab-fruit-increases-in-UK-/1954202-4369434-4keslkz/index.html">interest in exporting them</a>.

Humans are hardly the only species to benefit from the baobab. The flowers nourish bats and insects, the fruits feed birds, monkeys, and other creatures, and the bark and leaves are enjoyed by elephants, which may strip the trees, which usually nonetheless rebound. Numerous species make their homes in baobabs as well; in the oft-barren savannahs, they are oases, providing food, shelter, and ever-valuable water. 

Indeed, the hollow trunks of some aged specimens were historically used by traders and other travelers as water reservoirs. <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/39426731/Duvall_2007.pdf">Patterns of human settlement</a> have been mapped to baobab distribution, suggesting either that humans gravitated to these towering sources of sustenance or that they actively transported the seeds or young plants as they dispersed. 

These unique trees are thought to have originated in Madagascar, home to six of the eight known species, including A. grandidieri, A. madagascariensis, A. perrieri, A. rubrostipa, A. suarezensis, and A. za. A. digitata of mainland Africa and the single Australian species, A. gibbosa, are believed to have evolved from the Malagasy species. (<a href="https://www.fabinet.up.ac.za/src.fabinet.up.ac.za/cthb/pdf/The_only_one_African_baobab_species.pdf">It has been argued</a> that a putative ninth species identified in 2012 and native to mainland African highlands, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/plant/Adansonia-kilima">A. kilima</a>, is simply a variant of A. digitata.) 

While at one time they were thought to have diverged with the breakup of the supercontinent Gondwanaland some 180 million years ago, current genetic analysis suggests that in fact they radiated from Madagascar more recently. Had they been present when Gondwana broke up, it would be expected that baobab species would be evident in the flora of Asia as well as Africa and Australia. Yet, they are largely absent from Asia, except where they were planted by humans. In fact, the places that they occur in India can be <a href="http://rsos.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/2/9/150370">mapped to ancient Arab trading routes</a>.  

So, too, their presence in the Caribbean correlates strongly to the African slave trade. Though some have proposed that the species native to Australia originated from fruits that floated from Madagascar, this 6,000 mile journey would likely have degraded the shells. <a href="http://www.uq.edu.au/nuq/jack/BoabOrigins.html">Another theory</a> posits that a no-longer-extant group of African peoples journeyed by sea to Australia some 70,000 years ago and were responsible for transplanting the baobabs, which are relatively genetically similar to the African species. This explanation is bolstered by the existence of the <a href="https://www.bradshawfoundation.com/bradshaws/introduction.php">Bradshaw rock art</a> in Australia, which is different from typical Aboriginal art and depicts large, sea-faring boats which may have been constructed from baobab fibers. 

However they dispersed, their later associations with humans are well-documented. It is thought that their name derives from the Arabic bu hibab, which translates to “many-seeded.” Medieval Moroccan scholar Ibn Battuta mentions them as early as 1353. And Portuguese explorer Gomes Eanes de Zurara noted them while in Guinea-Bissau in 1448, marking the first European observation of the species. It did not come to wider attention until Michel Adanson, a French researcher working in Senegal, sent word of the strange trees to Europe, where Carl Linnaeus catalogued it, as Adansonia, in his Species plantarum (1753). 

More recent <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&amp;lr=&amp;id=lQ1bDwAAQBAJ&amp;oi=fnd&amp;pg=PT11&amp;dq=baobab&amp;ots=MjJ9wo6wPe&amp;sig=2_NocOYi99kMA70T6bhYnUYO8bw#v=onepage&amp;q=baobab&amp;f=false">ethnographic research</a> has recorded some of the numerous myths surrounding the tree. Many of them are versions of an origin story in which the tree was turned upside down by a deity, so that its roots faced the sky. In one, the baobab’s overweening pride in its height and grandeur caused the gods to invert it. In another, the Giriama of Kenya tell of a devil who, infuriated by the tree’s lack of shade, uprooted it and stuck its branches into the earth. And the Bushmen claim that it was a hyena who did so, after being assigned the baobab as its signature tree by an omnipotent deity. With its strangely stunted branches, it is easy to see why these might have been appealing explanations to early observers. 

The narrator of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince memorably says, “Beware of baobabs!” after the title character relates to him that baobabs threaten to overtake the tiny asteroid he calls home. Baobabs, however, would do well to beware of humans. 

Recent research has shown that global warming is taking its toll on these magnificent trees. Many of the <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41477-018-0170-5.epdf?referrer_access_token=HYk_WHVC0gT-RFHTf5UEItRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0PfCb0fwHOSvF60fdB_TECZFartUn3hwa9iRPi5T4HR_Z7SjQWQ4lKaB64vZhh1qC5N2TFnF2czFdo1NNown7crKjT5FAvL4XT_8RfVTrcAxG3dXd9aNXmC65UFK0oqYeC6En43TZpyOa_bwzWd9uTFSJk-kVIdkofLTH2T26rOgitQRLhQOgJebK7ZylvjdBVRrTsg-PpaIWUOVN_RA8hIvvUvP5gAueuYNNQG-1Chi3OW8DK6qgkY5vx8Mr14yvLyGPGa0Doh4tTW3f0QOzpn&amp;tracking_referrer=www.npr.org">oldest specimens are dying</a> and, in an exit fitting for a tree so steeped in mythological significance, disappearing. Baobab wood is so light and fibrous that, without living tissue to hold it together, it decays and blows away like dandelion fluff.

--

By <a href="mailto:rtpallardy@gmail.com">Richard Pallardy</a>, <a href="http://earth.com">Earth.com</a> Contributing Writer

What is it about baobab trees that makes them so captivating?

Few trees inhabit the human imagination quite as the baobabs...

Aquatic <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/kelp-antarctica-traveled/">kelp</a> forests are considered to be some of the most productive ecosystems on the planet. These giant pillars of seaweed, commonly found along the Pacific coast of North America, provide food and shelter for thousands of marine species.

Study co-author Bob Miller is a biologist from the Marine Science Institute (MSI) at the <a href="https://www.ucsb.edu/">University of California, Santa Barbara</a>.

“Giant kelp's complex physical structure that extends throughout the water column and its very high productivity are unique,” said Miller. “No other species in the kelp forest can replace giant kelp's high capacity to physically modify the environment and produce habitat and food for a myriad of other species.”

For this reason, giant kelp are known as a “foundation species,” which is an organism that plays a major role in the structure of a community.

Giant kelp are typically able to endure strong ocean currents, and can even replenish themselves after storms at an impressive rate that is the equivalent of about three percent of their weight per day. However, according to MSI research biologist Dan Reed, the violent disturbances that are expected to result from climate change could devastate kelp forests across the globe.

“One of the expectations of climate change is that many types of disturbances - for example fire, hurricanes and floods - will occur more often or become more severe in their intensity,” said Reed. “Ecologists have long recognized the important role of disturbance in structuring natural communities, however, they have yet to resolve how natural communities respond to increases in the frequency of disturbance versus increases in the severity of disturbance.”

Max Castorani is a professor of Environmental Sciences at the <a href="http://www.virginia.edu/">University of Virginia</a> and the study's lead researcher.

“We found that the frequency of disturbance was the most important factor influencing kelp forest biodiversity, whereas the severity of disturbance in a given year played a minor role,” said Professor Castorani.

Over the course of nine years, the researchers counted and measured more than 200 species of fish, plants, and invertebrates every three months in large experimental kelp forests off the Santa Barbara coast.

By simulating annual disturbances where kelp forests were experimentally reduced each year, the team discovered that the number of smaller plants and invertebrates attached to the seafloor such as algae, corals, and sponges doubled in number. At the same time, the numbers of shellfish, such as clams, starfish, lobsters, and crabs, were reduced by 30 to 61 percent.

“Our findings surprised us because we expected that a single severe winter storm would result in big changes to kelp forest biodiversity,” said Castorani. “Instead, the number of disturbances over time had the greatest impact because frequent disturbances suppress the recovery of giant kelp, with large consequences for the surrounding sea life.”

An ecosystem supported by an unhealthy kelp forest has less protection and becomes less complex and productive overall.

David Garrison is a director of the <a href="https://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=7671">National Science Foundation's Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER)</a> program, which funded the study.

“It's a significant finding that the severity and frequency of disturbances influence kelp bed communities in different ways,” said Garrison. “We need this kind of research to predict what future kelp bed communities will look like, and what ecosystem services they will provide.”

The study is published in the journal <a href="https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/19399170/">Ecology</a>.

--

By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Paid for by <a href="http://earth.com">Earth.com</a>

Climate change could devastate most productive kelp ecosystems

Aquatic kelp forests are considered to be some of the...

Researchers at <a href="https://wsu.edu/">Washington State University</a> recently made a discovery that debunks the longstanding theory that European traders introduced tobacco to Pacific Northwest Native Americans in the late 18th century. After studying the remains of pipes and pipe fragments used by the Nez Perce Indians, archaeologists now know the <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/first-native-americans/">indigenous people</a> were smoking tobacco at least 1,200 years ago.

"Usually in archaeology we just find little pieces of artifacts, things that you might not think much of," Shannon Tushingham, a WSU assistant professor and director of its Museum of Anthropology, said. "But the information that we can extract from them on a molecular level is phenomenal."

Tushingham and her partner in the study, David Gang, a professor in the <a href="https://ibc.wsu.edu/">Institute of Biological Chemistry</a>, published their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. They wrote that their newfound data is "the longest continuous biomolecular record of ancient tobacco smoking from a single region anywhere in the world."

It has been previously thought that the Nez Perce Indians and other indigenous groups in the Pacific Northwest only smoked kinnikinnik and bearberry until traders brought tobacco to them in 1790. Naturally occurring tobacco in the region was fairly hard to come by due to the cool climate. However, Tushingham and Gang believe the native peoples were cultivating and growing their own tobacco well before the influence of traders.

Their findings show that the indigenous tribes were not as passive and reliant on nature as some like to believe. Not only did they most likely grow their own tobacco crops, but they also grew their own clams on the coast.

[caption id="attachment_1861382" align="aligncenter" width="643"]<a href="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/native-americans-tobacco.jpeg"><img class="size-large wp-image-1861382" src="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/native-americans-tobacco-643x1024.jpeg" alt="" width="643" height="1024" /></a> Nez Perce Chief Lawyer holds an elbow pipe. Image Credit: University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, NA 627[/caption]

“This is just another sign of the sophistication of cultures in this area and how they managed plants and animals,” Tushingham said.

Tushingham and Gang hope that this realization will help in regards to native smoking-cessation programs. Since tobacco is much more ingrained into native society than originally thought, treatment could potentially be approached from a different, more effective standpoint.

--

By <a href="mailto:oliviagharvey24@gmail.com">Olivia Harvey</a>, <a href="http://earth.com">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Tobacco was part of Native American culture long before Europeans

Researchers at Washington State University recently made a discovery that...

A new discovery at the Department of Energy's <a href="https://www.lbl.gov/">Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory</a> has revealed that climate scientists should be paying more attention to what happens among plants at night. The experts have found that, in the absence of photosynthesis, plant nutrient uptake is having an effect on <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/meat-dairy-production-emissions/">greenhouse gas emissions</a> that is not being accounted for in climate models.


Using a land model that they developed and integrated into the DOE's Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM), the researchers discovered that plants can absorb more carbon dioxide than previously realized. The study also demonstrated that soils lose less nitrous oxide than what has been estimated. 

“This is goodish news, with respect to what is currently in the climate models,” said study lead author William Riley, a scientist in Berkeley Lab's Earth &amp; Environmental Sciences Area. “But it's not good news in general - it's not going to solve the problem. No matter what, plants will not keep up with anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions; it's just that they might do better than current models suggest.”

Over the past decade, humans have emitted an unprecedented amount of carbon dioxide, averaging 34 gigatons per year. Around half of that CO2 lingers in the atmosphere, while the rest is absorbed by oceans and land. The amount of carbon captured by land varies from year to year depending on factors such as land use, fires, drought, and weather.


The Berkeley Lab findings suggest that, by not accurately accounting for what plants do at night and during the non-growing season, climate models may be substantially underestimating the terrestrial carbon sink and overestimating nitrous oxide release.

To test the new model, study co-author Qing Zhu conducted a meta-analysis of 120 experiments that were focused on the short-term nitrogen uptake by plants.

“We also compared observations of nutrient uptake at nighttime versus daytime and across non-growing seasons,” said Riley. “We're pretty confident that the basic mechanisms in the model are correct and this meta-analysis and individual site observations back that up.”

The research team determined that a substantial amount of nutrient uptake occurs in the absence of photosynthesis as plants and microbes compete for nutrients. 

“The amounts vary a lot by latitude, but in the higher latitudes, such as the Arctic, roughly 20 percent of plants' annual nitrogen uptake occurs outside the growing season. That goes up to 55 percent for nighttime uptake in the tropics,” said Riley. 

“That's a huge deal for plants and will facilitate atmospheric carbon uptake, and it's currently completely ignored in most climate models. This type of model improvement will help us better understand implications of future CO2 emissions.”

The study is published in the journal <a href="http://www.nature.com/nclimate/">Nature Climate Change</a>.

--

By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Plants are storing more carbon thanks to nighttime activity

A new discovery at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley...

The ancient residents of Central America knew how to prioritize. Geneticists have found that they first domesticated the cacao tree about 3,600 years ago.

The discovery doesn’t just show that ancient farmers knew what was important. It can also help geneticists and anthropologists trace human migrations throughout the two continents that make up the Americas.

"This evidence increases our understanding of how humans moved and established in America," lead author Dr. Omar Cornejo of <a href="https://wsu.edu/">Washington State University</a> said in a press release. "It is important in itself because it gives us a timeframe for asking questions that are perhaps trickier: How long did it take to make a good cacao? How strong was the process of domestication? How many plants were necessary to domesticate a tree?"

Cornejo led a team of 18 scientists from 11 different institutions, including <a href="https://www.stanford.edu/">Stanford University</a>, <a href="https://www.indiana.edu/">Indiana University</a>, <a href="http://www.mars.com/global">Mars, Inc.</a> and the <a href="https://www.usda.gov/">U.S. Department of Agriculture</a>.

The researchers sequenced 200 plants, to spot variations in the genome that could indicate where and when the cacao tree was first domesticated.

They found that the “prince of cocoas,” a variety of Theobroma cacao known as Criollo, originated in the Amazon, near the border of Colombia and Ecuador. However, it was domesticated in Central America, where seeds were probably brought by traders.

The farmers who domesticated the cacao tree selected for flavor, disease resistance, and theobromine, a stimulant, but this meant that the plant kept genes linked to smaller crops.

These insights may be able to help researchers increase cacao tree production without sacrificing flavor, the researchers said.

"What we would like to have is a way to combine plants from populations with high productivity – like Iquitos – with plants of Criollo origin, while retaining all these desirable traits that make Criollo cacao be the best in the world," Cornejo said.

The study has been published in the open source journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-018-0168-6">Communications Biology</a>. Funding for the study came from chocolate company Mars, Inc., which is backing efforts to study the cacao tree genome.

--

By <a href="mailto:kcathey@earth.com">Kyla Cathey</a>, <a href="http://earth.com">Earth.com</a> Contributing Writer

Farmers first grew cacao tree 3,600 years ago

The ancient residents of Central America knew how to prioritize....

Microdosing, the concept of taking a small amount of a psychedelic, has been growing in popularity and garnering a great deal of interest in the scientific community. 

In Silicon Valley, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/sep/01/first-ever-trials-on-the-effects-of-microdosing-lsd-set-to-begin">LSD microdosing</a> is the latest trend in productivity, and the habit is said to help sharpen thinking skills and boost creativity at work. 

More and more researchers are studying the <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/microdosing-lsd-study/">impacts of microdosing</a>, especially because of the reported effects that psychedelics have on depression and anxiety. 

Researchers from <a href="https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en">Leiden University</a> in the Netherlands recently conducted a study, the first of its kind, to better understand how microdosing mushrooms helps with problem-solving skills. 

The results showed that taking a small amount of magic mushrooms helped study participants come up with more original ideas and tackle solutions more effectively. 

36 participants took part in the study, and the researchers gave them a microdose, 0.37 grams, of dried truffles. 

The participants were asked to complete three tasks designed to assess problem-solving and fluid intelligence before and after taking the truffles. 

Specifically, the researchers measured the participants’ convergent and divergent thinking skills which involves finding either one or several solutions to a problem, according to the <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-6316307/Tiny-doses-magic-mushrooms-improve-problem-solving-skills-study-claims.html">Daily Mail. 
</a>

The participants were better at coming up with many different solutions and were more creative in their solutions after taking the microdose. 

“Taken together, our results suggest that consuming a microdose of truffles allowed participants to create more out-of-the-box alternative solutions for a problem, thus providing preliminary support for the assumption that microdosing improves divergent thinking,” Luisa Prochazkova, the leader of the study, told the Daily Mail. 

The results are limited due to the small number of participants, but the study is yet another in a growing field investigating the impacts of microdosing psychedelics and the benefits for cognition, focus, creativity, and as a treatment for some forms of mental health disorders. 

“Apart from its benefits as a potential cognitive enhancement technique, microdosing could be further investigated for its therapeutic efficacy to help individuals who suffer from rigid thought patterns or behavior such as individuals with depression or obsessive-compulsive disorder,” said Prochazkova. 

--

By <a href="mailto:kayvandette@gmail.com">Kay Vandette</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Study: Microdosing mushrooms boosts problem-solving and creativity

Microdosing, the concept of taking a small amount of a...

Certain moss produces anti-inflammatory chemical similar to THC. The healing properties of cannabinoids are a topic of much debate around the world and within the medical community. 

There have been many studies showing the benefits of the cannabinoids <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/cannabis-compound-psychosis/">THC (tetrahydrocannabinol)</a> and CBD. THC produces the psychoactive high in the brain and as such is considered an illegal narcotic.

THC has been shown to help with nausea and inflammation which is why researchers are keen to explore its potential medicinal value. It was thought that the only plant that produces THC is cannabis. Certain moss produces anti-inflammatory chemical 

However, a new study conducted by researchers from the <a href="http://www.ibmm.unibe.ch/">Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine at the University of Bern</a> shows that a type of moss called Radula perrottetii contains a substance called perrottetinene which is related to THC. 

The study was recently published in the journal Science Advances. 

First discovered in 1994 by a Japanese phytochemist, perrottetinene’s atoms are linked in a similar way to THC and the plant, commonly known as liverwort, was even advertised as a legal high. 

The researchers set out to investigate the pharmacological effects of liverwort to see if it could be a substitute for THC and if it had similar health benefits. 

For the study, the researchers analyzed and compared THC and perrottetinene. Animal models also allowed the researchers to examine how perrottetinene affected the brain and the researchers found that the substance easily reached the brain and activated the same cannabinoid receptors that THC does.

Large amounts of the substance were needed for the study, and the plant only grows in a few areas of the globe. The research took a monumental collaborative effort to isolate perrottetinene and create a way to control its <a href="https://www.bing.com/search?q=neurotoxin&amp;cvid=6276f24e21734049bd798be2a26e0cea&amp;FORM=ANAB01&amp;PC=HCTS">atomic</a> structure at a molecular level. 

Perrottetinene also appeared to have a stronger anti-inflammatory effect on the brain compared to THC and has weaker psychoactive properties. This makes liverwort a promising plant to study as a replacement for THC. 

“It's astonishing that only two species of plants, separated by 300 million years of evolution, produce psychoactive cannabinoids,” said Jürg Gertsch, the leader of the study. 

--

By <a href="mailto:kayvandette@gmail.com">Kay Vandette</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer 

Image Credit: University of Bern/Stefan Fischer

Certain moss produces anti-inflammatory chemical

Certain moss produces anti-inflammatory chemical similar to THC. The healing...

A new study has identified the pathways that a plant’s genes use to direct to nitrogen to different parts based on need and the amount of nitrogen in the soil. 

Nitrogen is a key part of the growth process for plants, and when the amount of nitrogen in the soil is limited, plants can direct nitrogen to its roots, flowers, and seed heads depending on who needs what. 

Around 200 million tons of fertilizer is used every year by farmers to help increase yields, but nitrogen fertilizer can be extremely costly and poses a risk to the environment when fertilizer runoff <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/nitrogen-pollution-open-ocean/">leaches into waterways. </a>

The <a href="https://www.noaa.gov/media-release/gulf-of-mexico-dead-zone-is-largest-ever-measured">massive dead zone </a>in the Gulf of Mexico, for example, is the direct result of nutrient pollution from fertilizer runoff into the Mississippi River watershed. 

While researchers know that plants can actively direct nitrogen taken up from the soil, the specifics of the plant nitrogen network has remained a mystery until now. 

Researchers from the <a href="https://www.ars.usda.gov/northeast-area/ithaca-ny/robert-w-holley-center-for-agriculture-health/plant-soil-and-nutrition-research/">Agricultural Research Service Plant, Soil, and Nutrition Research Laboratory</a> recently identified the network of genes and gene regulators responsible for nitrogen allocation. 

The study, published in the journal Nature, could help with breeding new plant varieties that can more effectively use nitrogen which would reduce demand for nitrogen fertilizer for farmers. 

For the study, the researchers used computational and molecular biological methods to identify 23 proteins called “transcription factors.” These proteins have specific roles in sending nitrogen to different parts of the plant. 

Molecular biologist Doreen Ware, a member of the research team, then traced the proteins back the genes that control them and forward to the genes that they regulate. 

“What my team and our collaborators at the<a href="https://www.ucdavis.edu/"> University of California-Davis (UC-Davis)</a> have identified are plant gene networks that direct nitrogen to those places where the plant benefits the most when nitrogen is in limited availability,” said Ware. 

The researchers also identified transcription factors that influenced other processes of plant growth. 

Understanding how plants allocate nitrogen could help researchers with plant breeding, and uncovering the network of genes and gene regulators is a vital part of this process. 

“One day we may be able to precisely breed for specific plant types since a plant breeder could know exactly which genes need to be present so that a root vegetable will direct nitrogen to its roots first in times of limited availability or temperature change,” said Ware. “Or, with crops where the important yield is in the seed head such as with wheat or oats, breeders would select plants with genes to direct nitrogen to seed heads first.” 

--

By <a href="mailto:kayvandette@gmail.com">Kay Vandette</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer 

Image Credit: DuPont Pioneer

How plants regulate their own nitrogen use

A new study has identified the pathways that a plant’s...

Col-0 and jazD Arabidopsis plants

Plants have a finite amount of energy that must be properly allocated to ensure growth and survival.

It’s been theorized that a plant under attack from leaf-eating insects will spend more of its fixed energy budget <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/plants-battle-deadly-fungus/">on defense</a>, but as a result, growth is hindered and slows down. 

Researchers from <a href="https://msu.edu/">Michigan State University</a> genetically modified a plant so that its defense systems were in constant overdrive and observed how this impacted growth. 

A study detailing the new research was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 

The growth-defense trade-off paradigm states that a plant will allocate resources where they are most needed despite the costs. 

“Our study provides evidence that large investments in defense necessarily reduce the amount of resources that otherwise would be available for growth and reproductive fitness,” said Qiang Guo, a graduate student who was part of the study. 

Plants under stress from herbivores will produce toxins to ward off plant-eating insects, but when those defenses are no longer needed, a plant will use repressor proteins called JAZ to shut down defense systems and preserve energy. 

The researchers genetically bred a plant so that it was missing a large majority of its repressor JAZ proteins which caused the plant to be in constant defense mode. 

“It kept producing defense compounds, even in the absence of threats. As expected, it showed high resistance to insects,” said Guo. “Unleashing this defense arsenal also provided protection against fungi that target plant tissues.”

Without the JAZ proteins, the researchers noticed that growth in the genetically bred plant slowed down drastically to compensate for the energy trade-off. 

“They have a much slower growth rate compared to their wild type counterparts. We can literally see and measure the deficit in growth rate per day,” said Guo. 

The plants in the study also produced one-third fewer seeds which germinated later than usual. The seeds were smaller and had less nutritional value than wild plant seeds, and the researchers discovered that photosynthesis didn’t play a part in the slowed growth rate. 

“The mutated plant gets the same amount of energy compounds from photosynthesis as its wild, natural counterpart,” said Ian Major, a member of the research team. “However, it consumes more energy than usual. We think the plant is fueling the massive and constant production of defense compounds, which draws resources away from growth.”

Now, thanks to this study which took ten years in the making, researchers have a better understanding of how plants allocate resources and defend against different threats. 

“Our conclusion is that JAZ proteins help plants grow and reproduce by taming their defenses when the threat of attack is low, which conserves energy,” said Major. “Depending on the severity of the threat, the JAZ proteins will dial up the defenses as needed, perhaps like a dimmable light switch.” 

--

By <a href="mailto:kayvandette@gmail.com">Kay Vandette</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer 

Image Credit: MSU-DOE Plant Research Laboratory

Plant growth suffers when defense takes priority

Plants have a finite amount of energy that must be...

On October 17, Canada became the second country in the world to legalize the recreational use of <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/medical-marijuana-ms/">marijuana</a>. Experts are warning that despite the fact the drug is now legal, more research is needed to investigate the long-term health effects of smoking cannabis, which are relatively unknown. 

Aside from its active ingredient, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), marijuana is very similar to tobacco. Dr. Wan Tan and Dr. Don Sin of the Centre for Heart Lung Innovation at the <a href="https://www.ubc.ca/">University of British Columbia</a> report that the negative impacts of marijuana may be underestimated in the same way that the dangers of cigarettes were once unknown.

The authors write: “Whereas many view marijuana as a relatively safe drug, and the numerous health benefits and safety of marijuana, especially when used for medicinal purposes, are touted in various media, others have expressed concern that the overall health benefits of ‘medical’ marijuana have been overstated and the drug's harms understated, as was the case for tobacco cigarettes before 1964.”


For the most part, existing evidence of the effects of marijuana on lung health is conflicting. Some research has found that smoking marijuana causes respiratory symptoms and an increased risk of chronic bronchitis, yet other long-term clinical studies have had unclear results.

The authors of the commentary are calling for more research into the effects of marijuana on lung health and the risk of lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD).

They conclude: “It is essential that, with the legalization of marijuana, well-designed preclinical in vitro, animal and clinical human studies are conducted to address pressing gaps in knowledge. With further research, the mysteries and myths behind marijuana can be resolved.”

The report is published in the <a href="http://www.cmaj.ca/">Canadian Medical Association Journal</a>.

--

By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

How long-term marijuana use affects lung health remains unknown

On October 17, Canada became the second country in the...

Carrot extract could be the key to creating environmentally friendly cement, according to a new study by British researchers.

The team at <a href="http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/">Lancaster University</a> used a surprisingly low-tech method to test their theory that carrot extract could make cement stronger while cutting carbon dioxide emissions: a common household blender.

The scientists blended nano platelets extracted from carrots and ordinary cement to create a crack-resistant material up to 80 percent stronger than traditional cement.

“The composites are not only superior to current cement products in terms of mechanical and microstructure properties, but also use smaller amounts of cement,” Dr. Mohamed Saai told the <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html">Daily Mail</a>. “This significantly reduces both the energy consumption and [carbon dioxide] emissions associated with cement manufacturing.”

The key is in the cellulose.

The fibrous material is what makes carrots so rigid and crunchy, even though the root vegetables are mostly water, Christian Kemp-Griffin, CEO of Scotland-based CelluComp, the company that provided the carrot extract.

“Those fibers have strength characteristics in them. It’s the building blocks of the strength of a vegetable,” he told <a href="https://www.reuters.com/">Reuters</a>.

It can be extracted from other plant material, but vegetables are easiest, Kemp-Griffin said. 

Adding the carrot extract saved about 88 pounds of cement per cubic square meter of concrete, and about the same amount in carbon dioxide emissions, the Lancaster researchers discovered during proof-of-concept studies.

“Our preliminary results show that adding about half a kilogram of carrot nanomaterial will reduce about 10 kilograms of cement per one cubic meter of concrete,” Saafi told the Mail.

The news could be big for the construction industry, not just because the resulting material seems stronger and less likely to crack. According to the <a href="https://www.iea.org/">International Energy Agency</a>, cement produces about seven percent of global carbon dioxide emissions.

Carrot extract isn’t the only solution, either. The British researchers are also experimenting with cellulose extracted from sugar beets.

Carrot extract could make cement stronger, more eco-friendly

Carrot extract could be the key to creating environmentally friendly...

<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.



—–



Like what you saw and read?&nbsp;<a href="https://www.earth.com/subscribe/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Subscribe to our newsletter</a>&nbsp;for engaging articles, exclusive content, and the latest updates.



—–



Check us out on&nbsp;<a href="https://www.earth.com/earthsnap/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">EarthSnap</a>, a free app brought to you by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.earth.com/author/eralls/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Eric Ralls</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.earth.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Earth.com</a>.



—–

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.



-----



Like what you read? <a href="https://www.earth.com/subscribe/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Subscribe to our newsletter</a> for engaging articles, exclusive content, and the latest updates.



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



-----

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.



-----



Like what you read? <a href="https://www.earth.com/subscribe/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Subscribe to our newsletter</a> for engaging articles, exclusive content, and the latest updates.



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



-----

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>



-----



Like what you read? <a href="https://www.earth.com/subscribe/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Subscribe to our newsletter</a> for engaging articles, exclusive content, and the latest updates.



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



-----

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.



-----



Like what you read? <a href="https://www.earth.com/subscribe/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Subscribe to our newsletter</a> for engaging articles, exclusive content, and the latest updates.



Check us out on <a href="https://www.earth.com/earthsnap/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">EarthSnap</a>, a free app brought to you by <a href="https://www.earth.com/author/eralls/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Eric Ralls</a> and Earth.com.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



-----

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">
https://youtu.be/XYgiPzmNBTU?si=eFYY7gPHU1JznLvU
</div></figure>



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>.



-----



Like what you read? <a href="https://www.earth.com/subscribe/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Subscribe to our newsletter</a> for engaging articles, exclusive content, and the latest updates.



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



-----

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.



<figure class="wp-block-embed aligncenter 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/Ug657J67iEo?si=w96YjGMsg939LD_3
</div></figure>



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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

Is chocolate the next nutritional powerhouse?

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

<div class="wp-block-sendtonews-playerselector">[sendtonews key="0ynNMYkMKa-2340414-12187" type="single"]</div>



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



---



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

Nushagak Bay in southwest Alaska

[sendtonews key="0ynNMYkMKa-2340414-12187" type="single"] Today’s Video of the Day from the...

<div class="wp-block-sendtonews-playerselector">[sendtonews key="G9bUoxcjr4-2511624-12187" type="single"]</div>



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;



---



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



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

Flu viruses are more flexible than expected

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

<div class="wp-block-sendtonews-playerselector">[sendtonews key="3upvlAaHgO-2256633-12187" type="single"]</div>



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;



---



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

Lake Trasimeno in Central Italy

[sendtonews key="3upvlAaHgO-2256633-12187" type="single"] Today’s Video of the Day from the...

<div class="wp-block-sendtonews-playerselector">[sendtonews key="LvS8v8bp9z-2564889-12187" type="single"]</div>



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;



---



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



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

Detecting mercury contamination with the tap of a finger

[sendtonews key="LvS8v8bp9z-2564889-12187" type="single"] Today's Video of the Day from the...

<div class="wp-block-sendtonews-playerselector">[sendtonews key="X0f6OHYoI4-2310561-12187" type="single"]</div>



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



---



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...

<div class="wp-block-sendtonews-playerselector">[sendtonews key="JRaP49ISmm-2357509-12187" type="single"]</div>



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



---



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



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

Santiago, Chile in South America

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

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

<div class="wp-block-sendtonews-playerselector">[sendtonews key="e4ZG0Jawp3-2374785-12187" type="single"]</div>



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;



---



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



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

Interactive map of the universe includes 200,000 galaxies

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

<div class="wp-block-sendtonews-playerselector">[sendtonews key="uV9Lh2fQbV-1760058-12187" type="single"]</div>



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;



---



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



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

Lesotho: Africa's "Kingdom in the Sky"

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

<div class="wp-block-sendtonews-playerselector">[sendtonews key="qjvhBOBnY8-2426650-12187" type="single"]</div>



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;



---



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



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

The city of Dublin on Ireland's east coast

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

<div class="wp-block-sendtonews-playerselector">[sendtonews key="oL4FnPTGCV-2384527-12187" type="single"]</div>



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



---



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...

<div class="wp-block-sendtonews-playerselector">[sendtonews key="0879czfG3k-1785905-12187" type="single"]</div>



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



---



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



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

The rapid retreat of the Columbia Glacier

[sendtonews key="0879czfG3k-1785905-12187" type="single"] Today’s Video of the Day from NASA...

<div class="wp-block-sendtonews-playerselector">[sendtonews key="6HyfrAJTBI-1831843-12187" type="single"]</div>



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



---



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

<div class="wp-block-sendtonews-playerselector">[sendtonews key="QIoVYJqRBi-2434608-12187" type="single"]</div>



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)



---



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



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

Two distant planets may be "water worlds"

[sendtonews key="QIoVYJqRBi-2434608-12187" type="single"] Today's Video of the Day from NASA...

News coming your way