You might sweat through a July afternoon, yet still feel drowsy right on schedule when evening falls. A new study shows that our internal clock stays on its 24-hour beat in the heat by subtly reshaping the daily rise and fall of gene activity.



The research was led by theoretical biophysicist <a href="https://ithems.riken.jp/en/members/gen-kurosawa">Gen Kurosawa</a> at the RIKEN Center for Interdisciplinary Theoretical and Mathematical Sciences (<a href="https://ithems.riken.jp/en">iTHEMS</a>) in Japan.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-why-temperature-speeds-reactions">Why temperature speeds reactions</h2>



Most chemical reactions run faster as the thermometer climbs. This is because heat lets molecules collide more often.



Left unchecked, the basic physics would cause every cellular process to speed up. Yet organisms show temperature compensation, keeping their <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/how-the-color-of-light-impacts-our-internal-clocks-and-circadian-rhythms/">circadian rhythm</a> nearly the same.



Biologists use something called a Q10 value to measure how temperature affects reactions. Even a small 10°F increase can double the speed of many biological processes, showing just how unlikely it is for a body clock to stay completely stable.



This mystery has intrigued scientists who study biological clocks for decades and drives ongoing research into what keeps them so precise.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-keeping-the-body-clock-steady">Keeping the body clock steady</h2>



The classic explanation comes from scientist Colin Pittendrigh. In 1954, he noticed that fruit flies kept emerging right on schedule, even when he changed the temperature in their chambers.



Pittendrigh's observation convinced researchers that the body clock carries built-in brakes to counteract the thermal push.



Subsequent models invoked competing chemical loops that lengthen or shorten the cycle so their temperature responses cancel out. 



These ideas work in theory yet do not fully capture the fine details of real gene-expression curves recorded in animals and plants.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-body-clock-changes-shape">The body clock changes shape</h2>



Kurosawa’s team found that the key isn’t adjusting the speed of the cycle. Instead, they discovered that changing the shape of the rhythm - something they call waveform distortion - makes the difference.



At higher temperatures, messenger RNA (<a href="https://www.genome.gov/genetics-glossary/Messenger-RNA-mRNA">mRNA</a>) levels climb sharply, linger, then glide down more slowly. This stretches one side of the wave and squeezes the other.



The total area under the curve - an indirect measure of how much protein is made - stays the same, which helps keep the overall cycle length steady.



Viewed on a graph, the once-smooth sine wave becomes a lopsided sawtooth. That geometry alone delivers the needed timekeeping fix.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-a-math-trick-explains-time-in-heat">A math trick explains time in heat</h2>



To explain how this imbalance keeps the cycle steady, the researchers used a math technique called the renormalization group method. This technique is usually applied to complex, chaotic systems like <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/scientific-surprise-as-turbulence-mixing-dynamics-captured-using-quantum-computing/">turbulence</a>.



The method teases out the slow backbone of a complicated set of equations, showing that only the downturn of the wave needs to relax to counteract universal speed-ups.



Because the analysis is analytical rather than purely simulated, it offers clear testable predictions about which part of the waveform should stretch when the thermostat rises. 



The predictions line up with time-lapse luciferase recordings of clock genes in cultured cells, lending extra weight to the math.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-animal-clocks-match-the-model">Animal clocks match the model</h2>



Fruit flies, mice, and even bread mold fungi show the predicted skew when they grow in warmer rooms, matching the model line for line. 



Heat-pulse <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9528772/">experiments</a> also shift PER and TIM proteins in the direction the theory foresees, confirming that proteins follow the mRNA wave.



In flies carrying the <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7481773/">perL mutation</a>, the distortion is exaggerated and the period actually lengthens, highlighting how a single genetic tweak can upset the balance. That mutant teaches researchers where the tipping points hide in the molecular wiring.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-wave-shape-affects-sleep-and-shiftwork">Wave shape affects sleep and shiftwork</h2>



A sturdier but less responsive clock sounds good until you cross several time zones or work overnight. 



Modeling work suggests that as the waveform grows more distorted, the range of light signals that can reset the clock narrows, making jet lag and shift-work fatigue harder to shake.&nbsp;



“The degree of waveform distortion in clock <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/tens-of-thousands-of-hidden-dark-genes-discovered-in-humans/">genes</a> could be a biomarker that helps us better understand sleep disorders,” Kurosawa said. 



Ignoring shape may explain why some experimental drugs that tweak reaction rates never made it to the clinic.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-heat-and-light-warp-rhythms">Heat and light warp rhythms</h2>



Changes in the shape of the body clock’s rhythm also affect how it responds to winter darkness and bright summer light - suggesting a possible molecular link between temperature changes and <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/sunlight-plays-a-critical-role-in-human-sleep/">seasonal mood shifts</a>.



Insects enduring broad temperature ranges show sluggish adjustments because a heavily distorted wave resists dawn cues - a possibility raised by field <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26120562/">studies</a> on temperature-trained flies.&nbsp;



A distorted wave in January may tell migratory birds when to head south or signal bees to forage later in the day. That knowledge could guide design of smart lighting systems that change spectrum and intensity as temperatures shift.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-from-shape-to-treatment-options">From shape to treatment options</h2>



Researchers now need to pin down the enzymes that slow the evening slide of clock mRNA and hunt for drugs that can nudge that process. 



The experts also want to learn whether age, diet, or genetic variation affects how easily the waveform bends. That could open paths to more tailored <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/circadian-medicine-light-therapy-could-help-millions-of-heart-patients/">chronotherapy</a>.



Answering these questions will also clarify whether waveform signatures can serve as early warning markers for metabolic disease.



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1013246">PLOS Computational Biology</a>.



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Human body clocks distort time to stay on schedule in the heat

You might sweat through a July afternoon, yet still feel drowsy right on schedule when evening falls. A new study shows that our internal clock stays on its 24-hour beat in the heat by subtly reshaping the daily rise and fall of gene activity. The research was led by theoretical biophysicist Gen Kurosawa at the RIKEN Center for Interdisciplinary Theoretical and Mathematical Sciences (iTHEMS) in Japan. Why temperature speeds reactions Most chemical reactions run faster as the thermometer climbs. This is because heat lets molecules collide more...

In a new study led by the <a href="https://www.leeds.ac.uk/">University of Leeds</a>, researchers have discovered key organic molecules in four out of five protoplanetary disks from our galaxy. They detected them by using the ALMA telescope, an extremely powerful telescope located in the Atacama Desert in Chile, that can pick up even the faintest signals from far away regions in outer <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/looking-at-blue-spaces-can-instantly-improve-body-image/">space</a>. These findings show that the chances of alien life in our galaxy are much more likely than we initially thought.



“The same ingredients needed for seeding life on our planet are also found around other stars,” said study co-author Dr. Catherine Walsh. These molecules - cyanoacetylene (HC3N), acetonitrile (CH3CN), and cyclopropenylidene (c-C3H2) – are stepping-stones between the simple carbon-based chemicals that are abundant in the universe and more complex substances that are known to be key ingredients for the development of life on Earth.&nbsp;



“Laboratory and theoretical studies suggest they are the 'raw ingredients' essential in biological chemistry on Earth. They create sugars, amino acids and even the components of ribonucleic acid (RNA) - under the right circumstances,” explained study lead author Dr. John Ilee from the <a href="https://eps.leeds.ac.uk/">Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences</a> at the University of Leeds.&nbsp;



Through observations with the powerful ALMA telescope, these molecules (together with 15 other substances thought to be connected to the origins of life) were discovered in protoplanetary disks of gas and dust that are surrounding the Milky Way’s youngest stars. According to the researchers, the ingredients of life could be present in 80 percent of the protoplanetary disks spinning throughout our galaxy.



“ALMA has allowed us to look for these molecules in the innermost regions of these disks, on size scales similar to our Solar System, for the first time,” Dr. Ilee reported. “Our analysis shows the molecules are primarily located in these inner regions with abundances between 10 and 100 times higher than models had predicted.”



Scientists believe that, in the past, the Earth was ‘seeded’ by meteorites, asteroids, and comets containing these types of molecules, ultimately giving birth to life as we know it. This new study, published in the <a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/2109.06319.pdf">Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series</a>, is the first to show that many other areas of our galaxy could be brimming with similar potential.



---



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

Alien life is more likely to exist in our galaxy than we thought

In a new study led by the University of Leeds,...

A team of experts at <a href="https://www.monash.edu/">Monash University</a> is investigating the responses of bats to SARS-CoV-2 to gain new insight into how to treat infection in humans. The study is a major review of how the <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/15000-year-old-viruses-found-in-tibetan-ice/">virus</a> ravages the human immune system.&nbsp;



In the months since SARS-CoV-2 was first identified in December of 2019, the virus has mutated. The variant strains Alpha, Beta and Delta are more infectious than the original strain.&nbsp;



In particular, the Delta strain is up to 79 percent more contagious than the Alpha mutant, and presumably more deadly, according to study co-author Professor Marcel Nold. He noted that there is an urgent need for effective therapies, at least in part because of the emergence of mutations.



"Preventing SARS-CoV-2 infection, or enabling patients to eradicate it, represents the ultimate goal in combating COVID-19: but it is uncertain when either will become reliably possible," wrote the researchers.



“Therefore, efforts at identifying safe and effective therapies to prevent COVID from progressing to the moderate and severe disease stages, are critical in the fight against the disease,” said Professor Nold.



When bats contract the virus, they exhibit a minimal response. For example, bats do not experience the same lung issues that often affect humans. 



"Preventing progression to severe disease, or effectively treating it - in other words emulating bats - would markedly relieve suffering and save lives," said the researchers.



According to Professor Nold, studying the way bats resist coronaviruses holds substantial promise not only for infections with SARS-CoV-2, but also to better prepare us for the next epidemic or pandemic.



The researchers noted that the common ancestor to the current coronavirus likely appeared in bats between 40 and 70 years ago, but the exact bat species or intermediate host involved in the 2019 outbreak remains elusive.



The study authors propose that some of the ways bats appear to resist COVID could be used in therapeutics to modify the human immune response to the virus, such as blocking inflammasomes in patients. Professor Nold said this could minimize the excessive inflammation, immune exhaustion, and the cytokine storms that are experienced in humans.



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.science.org/journal/sciimmunol">Science Immunology</a>.



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

How do bats resist COVID-19 infection?

A team of experts at Monash University is investigating the...

The pastoralist populations from the Eurasian steppe have long been a great source of fascination among scientists, due to their capacity to migrate over long distances. A new study published in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03798-4">Nature</a> has found that milk <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/mushroom-consumption-linked-to-45-percent-lower-cancer-risk/">consumption</a> might have played a fundamental role in the ability of the Bronze Age Yamnaya population to travel extensively and expand out of the Pontic-Caspian steppe over 5,000 years ago.



A research team from the <a href="https://www.shh.mpg.de/en">Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History</a> investigated concentrations of tartar (dental calculus) on the teeth of ancient preserved skeletons. By using advanced molecular methods to extract and analyze the proteins preserved within these materials, they succeeded in identifying which ancient individuals drank milk.



“The pattern was incredibly strong,” explained study leader Dr. Shevan Wilkin. “The majority of pre-Bronze Age Eneolithic individuals we tested - over 90% - showed absolutely no evidence of consuming dairy. In contrast, a remarkable 94% of the Early Bronze Age individuals had clearly been milk drinkers.”



The researchers argue that milk provided the additional nutrients, rich proteins, and concentration of fluids necessary to survive and thrive in the highly arid environment of the steppes. Thus, dairy consumption might have played a key role in the gene flows across vast areas, ultimately connecting pastoralist populations in Scandinavia with groups that expanded into Siberia.



A surprising finding was that, although most of the milk peptides they analyzed come from species such as cow, goat, or sheep, dental calculus from a number of individuals pointed to an unexpected species: horse.



“Our results won’t make everyone happy, but they are very clear,” said senior study author Nicole Boivin. “We see a major transition to dairying right at the point that pastoralists began expanding eastwards,” with domesticated horses probably playing an important role too.&nbsp;



“Steppe populations were no longer just using animals for meat, but exploiting their additional properties –milking them and using them for transport, for example.”



“What we see here is a form of cultural revolution,” concluded Dr. Wilkin, “Early Bronze Age herders clearly realized that dairy consumption offered some fundamental benefits and once they did, vast expansions of these groups across the steppe became possible.”



---



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

Milk played a crucial role in ancient migrations

The pastoralist populations from the Eurasian steppe have long been...

Microscopic, photosynthetic algae (phytoplankton) form the base of polar <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/mercury-levels-in-bluefin-tuna-reveal-patterns-of-ocean-pollution/">ocean</a> food webs - some of the largest and most complex in the world. On the other extreme of these polar food webs are top predators such as orcas and polar bears.&nbsp;



Phytoplankton populations vary throughout the world, but prokaryotic species (those with no nucleus) tend to favor warmer waters. Colder waters such as those in polar regions tend to be populated more with eukaryotic species (those containing a nucleus). A new study led by the <a href="https://www.lbl.gov/">Berkeley Lab</a> suggests that prokaryotic phytoplankton could possibly replace the eukaryotic species.&nbsp;



“A lot of our food comes from the North Atlantic, North Pacific and South Pacific fisheries, because of eukaryotic phytoplankton - not prokaryotes," explained study senior author Dr. Thomas Mock. "Prokaryotes are not capable of producing all the juicy proteins and lipids that eukaryotes are.”&nbsp;



For their investigation, the researchers travelled from pole to pole on massive scientific expeditions. Algae assemblages were captured by nets along four transects throughout the world’s oceans. The algae samples were analyzed by DNA sequences to determine the species and gene expression.&nbsp;



The research team discovered a variety of algae communities throughout the ocean, with different communities in distinct regions. Clear boundaries are drawn between different communities in waters with moderate temperatures.&nbsp;



“We can think about the ocean, naively, as a sort of homogeneous medium. In reality, it's not - there is variation of nutrients, temperatures, and other physico-chemical properties," said study co-author Igor Grigoriev. "But still, there are no boundaries in the ocean. Yet, what was found here is that there is this invisible partitioning of algal communities.”



There is a clear difference between microbiome communities, including algae, found in warm waters versus those found in cold waters. Unfortunately, this suggests that the communities are also vulnerable to changes in temperature.&nbsp;



Andy Allen from the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, who was not involved with the research, said that the findings also suggest a certain level of vulnerability we might not have been aware of. "If the system is perturbed, it could be very hard to return to baseline.”



The researchers noted that climate change is severely affecting sea ice and water temperature in polar regions, which endangers these algal communities that are so vital to polar food webs.



“We know so little about these algal communities; they could have beneficial findings, like antibiotics, pharmaceuticals, and novel enzymes that function at low temperature. But these ecosystems are literally melting away," said study co-lead author Katrin Schmidt.&nbsp;



The research is published in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/ncomms/">Nature Communications</a>.&nbsp;



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By <a href="mailto:zachfitzner@yahoo.com">Zach Fitzner</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Climate change threatens the base of polar food webs

Microscopic, photosynthetic algae (phytoplankton) form the base of polar ocean...

A research team from the Universities of <a href="https://uni-tuebingen.de/">Tübingen</a> and <a href="https://www.unizar.es/university-zaragoza">Zaragoza</a> has recently discovered the remains of an otter in the 11.4-million-year-old strata at the Hammerschmiede <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/one-in-five-premature-deaths-tied-to-fossil-fuel-pollution/">fossil</a> site in Germany. This particular otter species was previously thought to exist only in Asia and Africa. 



The surprising finding sheds new light on prehistoric geography and on animal migration patterns during the Late Miocene period.



The Hammerschmiede excavation site became world-famous with the <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1731-0">discovery</a> of the bipedal ape Danuvius guggenmosi in 2019. This research was led by Professor Madelaine Böhme in the <a href="https://www.senckenberg.de/en/institutes/shep/">Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment</a> at Tübingen.&nbsp;



Since then, Professor Böhme’s team has identified over 130 different species of extinct vertebrates from river deposits in the Allgäu region of Germany. Most recently, they detected the remains of the so-called Vishnu otter (Vishnuonix neptuni), a species that has never been found in Europe.&nbsp;



The Vishnu otters are mid-sized predators weighting between 10 and 15 kilograms that lived 14 to 12.5 million years ago in the rivers of Southern Asia. Their fossils were first discovered in sediments collected from the foothills of the Himalaya mountains.&nbsp;



Recent findings show that this species of otter also reached East Africa about 12 million years ago. However, its current discovery in Bavaria raises new questions about how prehistoric geography had shaped this species’ dispersal.



Like all otters, the Vishnu otter is a largely aquatic mammal and cannot travel long distances on land. Scientists believe that its massive dispersal across three continents was made possible by the geographic situation 12 million years ago.&nbsp;



During that period, the Paratethys Ocean was a large inland body of water stretching from the region north of the Alps, across Central Europe, and finally reaching the Aral Sea in Central Asia. It was connected to the Indian Ocean by the narrow Araks Strait, in the area of modern-day Armenia.&nbsp;



The researchers believe that the Vishnu otter started its migration from the Indian Ocean, passed through the Araks Strait, and traveled along the Paratethys until reaching the Ancient Guenz, where the Hammerschmiede site is currently placed. Such findings highlight the crucial importance of geography in structuring animals’ migration and dispersal patterns.&nbsp;



The study is published in the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/ujvp20/current">Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology</a>.



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

Prehistoric Asian otter discovered in Europe for the first time

A research team from the Universities of Tübingen and Zaragoza...

A new study led by <a href="https://www.stanford.edu/">Stanford University</a> has found that rather than evolving gradually, land plants evolved in two dramatic bursts which occurred over 250 million years apart. The first burst occurred early in plant evolution (420 million to 360 million years ago), giving rise to the development of <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/wine-grape-variety-traced/">seeds</a>. The second burst was characterized by the emergence of flowers, and started only about 100 million years ago.



“The most surprising thing is this kind of stasis, this plateau in complexity after the initial evolution of seeds and then the total change that happened when flowering plants started diversifying,” explained lead study author&nbsp;Andrew Leslie, an assistant professor of Geological Sciences in the <a href="https://earth.stanford.edu/">School of Earth, Energy &amp; Environmental Sciences</a> at Stanford. “The reproductive structures look different in all these plants, but they all have about the same number of parts during that stasis.”



Based solely on observation, Professor Leslie and his co-authors designed a system which classifies the number of different kinds of parts in plants’ reproductive structures. They scored each species according to how many types of parts it had and the degree to which they exhibited clustering of those parts. With this method, they managed to categorize about 1,300 land plant species from 420 million years ago until the present.



“This tells a pretty simple story about plant reproductive evolution in terms of form and function: The more functions the plants have and the more specific they are, the more parts they have,”&nbsp;said Professor Leslie. “It's a useful way of thinking about broad-scale changes encompassing the whole of plant history.”



Through this method, the team discovered an initial burst in complexity, with the evolution of seeds in the early Devonian period, when the Earth was warmer and devoid of trees and terrestrial vertebrate animals. Afterwards, although massive changes occurred in the animal kingdom with the emergence and diversification of land animals, plants did not see any major evolutionary burst until the development of flowers in the late Cretaceous period.



“Insect pollination and animal seed dispersal may have appeared as early as 300 million years ago, but it's not until the last 100 million years that these really intricate interactions with pollinators are driving this super high complexity in flowering plants. There was such a long period of time where plants could have interacted with insects in the way that flowering plants do now, but they didn't to the same degree of intricacy,” concluded Professor Leslie.&nbsp;



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.abi6984">Science</a>.&nbsp;&nbsp;



---



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

Plants evolved in two dramatic bursts 250 million years apart

A new study led by Stanford University has found that...

A new study published in the journal <a href="https://www.cell.com/iscience/home">iScience</a> describes over 60 <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/animals-use-tools/">tools</a> made of bone that a team of experts found in Morocco's Contrebandiers Cave in 2011. The scientists consider these findings as proof of the earliest use of bone tools to produce clothing over 120,000 years ago.



The invention of clothing and development of the tools necessary to produce clothes are considered crucial milestones in the history of humanity, marking breakthroughs in cognitive and cultural evolution. Moreover, archaeologists believe that these developments enabled early humans to expand their niche from Pleistocene Africa to new environments characterized by different, colder climates.



“The Contrebandiers assemblage now replaces Blombos as the oldest bone tool assemblage and industry,” said study co-author Curtis Marean, who is a paleoanthropologist at&nbsp;<a href="https://www.asu.edu/">Arizona State University</a>.&nbsp;



Dr. Emily Hallett, a postdoctoral fellow at the <a href="https://www.shh.mpg.de/en">Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History</a>, was studying the vertebrate remains from the Contrebandiers Cave dating from 120,000 to 90,000.&nbsp;



Among the 12,000 bone fragments that she investigated, Dr. Hallett discovered over 60 bones that had probably been shaped by humans for use as tools. She also identified patterns of cut marks on carnivore bones suggesting that the inhabitants of the Contrebandiers Cave were skinning them for fur rather than processing them for meat.



“The combination of carnivore bones with skinning marks and bone tools likely used for fur processing provide highly suggestive proxy evidence for the earliest clothing in the archaeological record, but given the level of specialization in this assemblage, these tools are likely part of a larger tradition with earlier examples that haven’t yet been found," explained Dr. Hallett.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



“The Contrebandiers Cave bone tools demonstrate that by roughly 120,000 years ago,&nbsp;Homo sapiens&nbsp;began to intensify the use of bone to make formal tools and use them for specific tasks, including leather and fur working. This versatility appears to be at the root of our species and not a characteristic that emerged after expansions into Eurasia.”



In her future research, Hallett plans to collaborate with other researchers to possibly identify similar skinning patterns in different archeological records, in order to shed more light on the origins and diffusion of this uniquely human behavior.&nbsp;



---



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

People were already making clothing 120,000 years ago

A new study published in the journal iScience describes over...

The balance between natural and sexual selection in evolutionary processes has intrigued scientists even since Darwin. These experts have pondered why some <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/animals-are-shapeshifting-to-survive-climate-change/">animals</a> such as the peacock, with its luxurious tail feathers, develop traits that make them more visible to predators and less able to flee.&nbsp;



A new study has found evidence of this old conundrum in a fossil bird from the early Cretaceous that had a pair of elaborate tail feathers 150 percent longer than its entire body. Scientists see this as clear proof that sometimes evolution is less about the “survival of the fittest” and more about the “survival of the sexiest.”



The fossil was discovered in northeastern China, in the 120-million-old deposits of the Jehol Biota. Researchers named the bird Yuanchuavis, after Yuanchu, a famous bird from Chinese mythology. Yuanchuavis was the size of a bluejay, but had a very unusual tail.



“We’ve never seen this combination of different kinds of tail feathers before in a fossil bird,” said co-author Jingmai O’Connor, a paleontologist at the <a href="https://www.fieldmuseum.org/">Field Museum</a> in Chicago. “It had a fan of short feathers at the base and then two extremely long plumes. The long feathers were dominated by the central spine, called the rachis, and then plumed at the end. The combination of a short tail fan with two long feathers is called a pintail, we see it in some modern birds like sunbirds and quetzals.”



According to O’Connor and his colleagues, this peculiar tail shows evidence of sexual selection processes at play in birds from a very old prehistorical period. As first author Wang Min, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, explained, "this new discovery vividly demonstrates how the interplay between natural and sexual selections shaped birds’ tails from their earliest history.”&nbsp;



Whereas the short tail fan was aerodynamically functional, helping the bird to fly properly, the elongated feathers were most likely used for display, with the sole function of attracting potential mates.



“Scientists call a trait like a big fancy tail an ‘honest signal,’ because it is detrimental, so if an animal with it is able to survive with that handicap, that’s a sign that it’s really fit,” explained O’Connor. “A female bird would look at a male with goofily burdensome tail feathers and think, ‘Dang, if he’s able to survive even with such a ridiculous tail, he must have really good genes.’”



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.cell.com/current-biology/home">Current Biology</a>.



---



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

Tail feathers show that sometimes, it's all about survival of the sexiest

The balance between natural and sexual selection in evolutionary processes...

New research has yielded results that could potentially lead to the development of volcano <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/volcanic-eruptions-will-lose-their-cooling-effects-on-a-warmer-planet/">eruption</a> warning systems. Previously, it was thought that lava from "hot spot" volcanoes was pristine lava, originating tens of kilometers deep in the mantle. Not so, explains Dr. Teresa Ubide, a volcanologist at the <a href="https://www.uq.edu.au/">University of Queensland</a>.



“This isn’t quite the case - we’ve been misled, geologically deceived. For decades, we have considered hot spot volcanoes to be messengers from the earth’s mantle, offering us a glimpse into what’s happening deep under our feet."



"But these volcanoes are extremely complex inside and filter a very different melt to the surface than what we’ve been expecting. This is due to the volcano’s intricate plumbing system that forces many minerals in the magma to crystallise.”



Instead, it appears that minerals within the magma are being recycled to make the lava appear pristine. This has important implications, said Dr. Ubide.



&nbsp;“We have discovered that hot spot volcanoes filter their melts to become highly eruptible at the base of the Earth’s crust, situated several kilometres below the volcano."



"The close monitoring of volcanoes can indicate when magma reaches the base of the crust, where this filtering processes reaches the ‘tipping point’ that leads to eruption."



"Our results support the notion that detection of magma at the crust-mantle boundary could indicate an upcoming eruption. This new information takes us one step closer to improving the monitoring of volcanic unrest, which aims to protect lives, infrastructure and crops.”



Hot spot volcanoes are part of the creation of some beautiful landscapes, such as the Hawaiian Islands. Dr Ubide noted that hot spot volcanoes are also found in Australia.



“South-east Queenslanders would be very familiar with the Glass House Mountains or the large Tweed shield volcano, which includes Wollumbin (Mount Warning) in New South Wales,” said Dr. Ubide.



“Hot spot volcanoes can pop up ‘anywhere’, as opposed to most other volcanoes that occur due to tectonic plates crashing into each other, like the Ring of Fire volcanoes in Japan or New Zealand, or tectonic plates moving away from each other, creating for example the Atlantic Ocean."



“South-east Queensland hot spot volcanoes were active millions of years ago. They produced enormous volumes of magma and make excellent laboratories to explore the roots of volcanism."



“There are even dormant volcanoes in South Australia, that could erupt with little warning, that would benefit from better geological markers for early detection.”



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By <a href="mailto:zachfitzner@yahoo.com">Zach Fitzner</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Secrets of hot spot volcanoes revealed

New research has yielded results that could potentially lead to...

Researchers at Colorado State University (CSU) recently analyzed 20 years of <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/how-an-elephant-uses-its-trunk-like-a-swiss-army-knife/">elephant</a> monitoring data supplied by the nonprofit organization <a href="https://www.savetheelephants.org/">Save the Elephants</a> (STE). The results are disturbing. The study reveals that poaching has a greater impact on African elephants than simply the death of the poached individuals.&nbsp;



The researchers found that poaching both directly and indirectly decreases population growth in elephants. Ultimately, poaching diminishes the entire population because orphaned elephants have a lower chance of survival.&nbsp;



“For social populations, poaching has a larger impact than originally thought, because you have to account for the orphans who are left behind who are surviving less because they don’t have a mother,” explained study lead author Jenna Parker.



Even orphans that were weaned showed a smaller chance of survival without their mothers. The death of elephant calves was found to exacerbate the population decline caused directly by poachers.



“The total impact of poaching is greater than was originally recognized," said Parker. "In populations that we think have undergone a lot of poaching, even as the poaching slows we still need to consider its residual effects.”



The results of this study were reinforced by a second study published by Save the Elephants. The STE research shows that the death of young elephants is much more devastating to overall population trends than expected.&nbsp;



In fact, young elephants seem to lead the overall population trend. When young elephants do well, the population tends to grow, when they fare poorly, so does the population.&nbsp;



“If you really want to get more targeted actions, you need to know who in the population is driving increases or decreases in the population," said George Wittemyer of CSU, lead author of the second study.



Helping young elephants survive is helping entire populations of elephants survive. Hopefully, this research yields workable solutions to the decline of African elephants.&nbsp;



According to Wittemyer's study, human impact is the single greatest factor affecting elephant survival and the subsequent decline or increase of elephant populations.



The research is published in the journal <a href="https://www.cell.com/current-biology/home">Current Biology</a>.



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By <a href="mailto:zachfitzner@yahoo.com">Zach Fitzner</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Poaching has long term impacts on elephants

Researchers at Colorado State University (CSU) recently analyzed 20 years...

Paleontology has underlying assumptions about how the past is imagined. Hypotheses about the behavior, locomotion, and ecology of extinct animals depend on scientists’ perception of modern animals along with their intuitive interpretation of <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/tiny-bones-and-teeth-reveal-remarkable-diversity-at-argentina-fossil-site/">fossil</a> specimens (and it is to some degree intuitive, whether they admit or not). In turn, those hypotheses, once published for other scientists and the public to digest, feed the collective imagination and discourse around paleontology.&nbsp;



Perhaps no other subject illustrates this principle more than the ongoing popular and academic controversy over dinosaur integument, or body coverings. In fact, we can go further and center that debate on one genus and species - Tyrannosaurus rex.&nbsp;



A favorite of fanatics and professors, T. rex, alongside it’s toothy relatives, draws intense scientific and media interest. This has been the case since the first mounted skeleton debuted in New York in the early twentieth century, and only escalated after that same skeleton’s silhouette graced the cover of Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park in the late 1980s. Just one Tyrannosaurus specimen (Stan) has been featured in over fifty scientific publications, and that same specimen sold for over thirty million to an undisclosed buyer in October of 2020. The scientific significance fed the public’s appetite for this real-life monster, and the allure of studying this toothy critter in turn fueled generations of researchers, fossil hunters, and paleo-artists.&nbsp;



What did T. rex look like when it was alive? One early discovery supposed the animal might have had crocodilian armored scutes, but it was later found the armor was from a different, herbivorous dinosaur. Regardless, up until the 2000s, illustrations ubiquitously painted the animal as generically scaly, with an integument that couldn’t be readily distinguished as anything other than vaguely reptilian. Other dinosaurs had yielded skin fossils, particularly the duck-billed hadrosaurs. In general, these specimens exhibited small, wrinkly scales, more like the skin seen on the feet of tortoises and birds than the overlapping scales of snakes and lizards.



The discovery of small meat-eating dinosaurs from China preserved with primitive, simple, feathers changed this paradigm. The gradation from dinosaur to bird became blurred, not just in the evolutionary sense, but also in the lens dinosaur devotees used to look at bygone Mesozoic era. This stream of discoveries culminated in the discovery of Yutyrannus, a two ton meat-eating cousin of Tyrannosaurus. Suddenly, a feathered T. rex wasn’t such a crazy idea. As the distribution of feathers in dinosauria became wider and wider, some proposed that the group was ancestrally fluffy and that the scales recovered previously were outliers, or at least weren’t telling the complete story.&nbsp;&nbsp;



In fact, to people invested in paleontology, the subject became something of shibboleth. Did you favor the old, scaly depictions that spoke of a primitive world on the savage path to modernity, ascending Aristotle’s “great chain of being?” Or were you committed to a much fuzzier breed of saurian, one that attested to a tightly interconnected, predictable world that easily slotted into the modern paleontological synthesis?&nbsp;



Since Yutyrannus, some direct fossil evidence has come to light. Small skin impressions from T. rex and other tyrant dinosaurs - described in detail by researcher Phil Bell and others in 2017 -&nbsp; have shown finely grained, pebbly skin - not quite feathers, but also not the rugged, draconian look that decades past have shown. Nor are these skin samples concrete evidence of T. rex’s fashion sense - the recovered skin only covers a small area, with the largest segment measuring only several square centimeters. Extant dinosaurs in the form of birds are covered in feathers, but they often have naked skin on the neck and head. Ostriches even have bare skin on their thigh and lower torso, and this epidermis sometimes resembles the pebbly texture seen in T. rex. And if the geologically older and related Yutyrannus possessed feathers, why not T. rex?&nbsp;



On the other hand, large animals often have trouble disposing of excess warmth. For the heaviest land animals today, overheating is a very real problem. This is why elephants, rhinos, hippos, and even water buffalo have only a sparse covering of fur, despite the likelihood that their smaller ancestors were shaggy like most other mammals. Because those animals live in hot climates, their high mass means that they retain more heat than they shed. From what we know, T. rex weighed up to eight and half tons and lived in a climate much like that of Holocene (our current Geological epoch) Florida, so it probably faced similar physiological challenges. It’s possible T. rex might have evolved from feathered ancestors but became secondarily naked to cope with the stresses of gigantism. Embryological studies have shown that the ‘scales’ on bird feet are actually developmentally stunted feathers, and there is no biological law preventing that process from occurring all over a theropod’s body.&nbsp;



All of this also glosses over the important fact of taphonomy - the processes and stresses an organism undergoes as it passes from the world of the living to the world of rock and stone. The fossil record already has a bias against soft-tissue, so any scales or feathers we find must not necessarily be taken at face value. After all, sixty six-plus million years in the ground can facilitate all kinds of distortion.&nbsp;



Perhaps, given the data accumulated so far, paleontologists and dinosaur enthusiasts should allow for a certain degree of flexibility in dinosaurs and their kin. The ‘scales’ some clearly possessed were not those of snakes, nor were they really like the armor of crocodilians. Instead, they were more often than not a kind of pebbly, cornified, epidermis, allowing for protection and flexibility like that of modern animals. On the&nbsp; other hand, as avian feathers evolved we should expect to see a variety of filamentous body coverings, some perhaps suspiciously similar to each other. The development of different integument across different lineages over nearly two hundred million years should give those angling for easy answers pause. Convergence and atavism exist, even and especially among closely related clades. This messiness is the rule in nature, and not the exception.&nbsp;



In the end, whether or not T. rex appeared reptilian or avian (or some combination of the two) is of little relevance to the big paleontological questions of evolution and extinction. It does not help us solve our climate crisis. There is nothing we could learn about thermoregulation in large animals from this fossil species that we could not learn from living ones. However, what it does shed light on are different visions of our shared natural history. If you’ve ever been concerned about the accuracy of dinosaurs in Jurassic World or complained that “Science ruined dinosaurs,” you’re a part of this imaginative landscape. Whether you’ve adopted a retrograde or progessive stance, you’ve invested energy in bringing prehistory to life. To paraphrase famed paleontologist Dr. Robert T. Bakker, "the best and only time machine we will ever have is the one between our ears."



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By <a href="mailto:rugerpaleo@gmail.com">Alex Ruger</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

What did T. rex really look like?

Paleontology has underlying assumptions about how the past is imagined....

Despite a growing demand for coconuts worldwide, the trees grow slowly and are challenging to clone. Coconut trees are also facing many different threats, including climate change, disease, and rising sea levels.



In a new study led by <a href="https://www.kuleuven.be/english/">KU Leuven</a>, researchers have developed a method to multiply coconut trees faster and store them more efficiently in gene banks.



The research was inspired by another fruit - the banana. Based on previous work with banana plants, study co-author Bart Panis predicted that a certain plant hormone could also be successful in coconut trees.&nbsp;



"Coconut plants do not form side shoots. They put all their energy into one shoot that has to grow as fast and as tall as possible. This makes it very difficult to clone and store the plants," said Panis.



First, the scientists extracted the coconut tree embryo from the coconut. Next, they applied the plant hormone to the meristem contained in the embryo. This caused the embryo to form not only one shoot, but several side shoots.&nbsp;



"Nobody thought we could do it. But we persevered with determination," said Panis. "There are other methods of vegetatively propagating coconut trees but we are confident that this is the first method that is also time- and cost-efficient."&nbsp;



The team's top priority is to safeguard the coconut tree's genetic diversity as efficiently as possible. The researchers explained that it is very crucial to preserve as many varieties of the coconut plant because each variety has specific characteristics - some are resistant to a particular disease, while others are more resistant to heat or drought.



"Currently, the coconut tree is kept as a tree in field collections. But some of these collections are threatened by Lethal Yellowing Disease," said study lead author Hannes Wilms.



"Our technique now also allows the shoots of the coconut plant to be preserved for eternity by cryopreservation, in liquid nitrogen at a temperature of -196°C."



"This is important for the future: if a new disease was to affect coconut production, there may be a variety in the gene bank that is resistant to this disease and can be planted out in the affected areas,” said Panis.



"There's a huge demand for coconut. The existing plantations are old and need to be replanted in the short term. So our technique meets the great demand for healthy plant material."



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/srep/">Scientific Reports</a>.



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

Scientists have had a breakthrough in cloning coconut trees

Despite a growing demand for coconuts worldwide, the trees grow...

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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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

Is chocolate the next nutritional powerhouse?

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

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



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



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



Video/ Image Credit: ESA



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

Nushagak Bay in southwest Alaska

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



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



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



Video/ Image Credit: American Chemical Society&nbsp;



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



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

Flu viruses are more flexible than expected

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



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



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



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



Video/Image Credit: ESA&nbsp;



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

Lake Trasimeno in Central Italy

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



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



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



Video Credit: American Chemical Society&nbsp;



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



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

Detecting mercury contamination with the tap of a finger

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features Kainji Lake, a reservoir on the Niger River.



In 1968, Kainji Lake was created by the construction of the Kainji Dam. The Niger River, the third longest in Africa, enters the lake in the north.&nbsp;



According to <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/rivers-in-the-american-west-are-a-lifesaving-resource-for-birds/">ESA</a>, the creation of the lake submerged Foge Island and the town of Bussa and permanently flooded other riverine settlements, leaving around 50,000 people displaced.&nbsp;



Large parts of Foge Island are temporarily exposed during low water tides, and the land is often used by migrating fishermen. Kainji Dam is a dam across the Niger River in Niger State of Central Nigeria. 



Wild mammals occur at relatively low densities due to illegal hunting. Lake Kainji has suffered a dramatic decline as a fishery due to the high numbers of artisanal and subsistence fisherfolk using the lake. It has been suggested that a period of closure, together with controlled fishing rights may help improve fish stocks.



Kainji Lake National Park is the oldest of its kind in Nigeria. The park contains three distinct areas: a part of the Kainji Lake, the Borgu Game Reserve to the west of the lake, and the Zugurma Game Reserve to the southeast. The park is home to around 65 mammal species, 350 bird species, and 30 species of reptiles and amphibians. 



Video/ Image Credit: European Space Agency&nbsp;



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



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

Kainji Lake in north central Nigeria

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Today’s Video of the Day from <a href="https://www.igb.illinois.edu/">Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology</a> reveals how scientists can modify common crops like soybean, rice, and wheat to protect them from heat stress.



“We need to double crop production by 2050 to feed a growing global population, and not only are we not on track to do that, but climate change is further complicating things,” said Amanda Cavanagh, a lecturer at the University of Essex. 



The study is part of Realizing Increased Photosynthetic Efficiency (RIPE), an international research project that aims to develop food crops that turn the sun’s energy into food more efficiently.



“Using an engineering approach we designed multiple alternative metabolic pathways to photorespiration. Testing them in the field showed increases in productivity which led Amanda to significantly move the project forward by showing our engineered plants can withstand pretty extreme temperature stress,” said study co-author and RIPE researcher Paul South.&nbsp;



“As the climate changes and temperature stresses increase the pressure on our global food supply, farmers will need every tool available including engineering approaches like the synthetic biology used here to maintain safe and productive harvests.”



The experts tested plants modified to have more efficient photorespiration to see if they were better adapted to warmer temperatures.&nbsp;



The team found that the engineered plants produced 26 percent more biomass than the wild-type plants exposed to the same temperatures, and had 15 percent less yield loss under the higher temperatures.



Video Credit: Amanda Nguyen/University of Illinois



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



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

Designing crops that can beat the heat

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



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



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



Video Credit: ACS Reactions



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



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

How does salt makes things taste better?

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



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



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



Video/ Image Credit: ESA



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



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

Santiago, Chile in South America

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



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



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



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



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



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



Video Credit: Johns Hopkins&nbsp;



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



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

Interactive map of the universe includes 200,000 galaxies

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

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Today's Video of the Day from <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/goddard">NASA Goddard</a> describes the first comprehensive estimate of carbon density in the Saharan, Sahel, and Sudanian zones of Africa. In an effort to measure the amount of carbon stored across these drylands, a team of scientists used high-resolution satellite images and artificial intelligence to map nearly 10 billion individual trees. 



"The high spatial resolution (50 cm) combined with AI and field measurements used in this study is key to improving tree inventories in drylands," said Pierre Hiernaux, a French researcher working for NASA. "The ever-increasing availability of very high-resolution satellite imagery will make it possible to assess carbon pools and their dynamics at the individual tree level on a global scale."



"This study is exceptional because it is pioneering a type of approach that will revolutionize the monitoring of trees and forests on a global scale: in the short term, it will be possible to map the world's trees from the centre of the Amazon to our schoolyards," said <a href="https://www.inrae.fr/en">INRAE</a> researcher Jean-Pierre Wigneron.



"Many fields of application will become much more efficient and accurate, such as tracking carbon stocks, biodiversity, monitoring logging and protection against illegal forest degradation, in near real time.”



Video Credit: NASA Goddard&nbsp;



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



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

Remote sensing will revolutionize the way we monitor trees

[sendtonews key="EjmSP20gQK-2593093-12187" type="single"] Today's Video of the Day from NASA...

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



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



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



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



Video Credit: ESA&nbsp;



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



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

The city of Dublin on Ireland's east coast

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



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



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



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



Video/ Image Credit: ESA



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



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

The province of Zaragoza in northeast Spain

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Today's Video of the Day from <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/goddard">NASA Goddard</a> features a visual dataset of.methane emissions from wetlands across the globe. Atmospheric methane levels have reached record highs in recent years, and wetlands are a major source of these emissions.&nbsp;



"Methane is an important greenhouse gas that contributes substantially to global warming. On a molecule by molecule basis, methane is much more efficient at trapping heat than carbon dioxide, the main driver of warming," says NASA.



"Though human activities, including agriculture, oil and natural gas production and use, and waste disposal, collectively contribute the majority of methane to the atmosphere, about a third of total methane emissions comes from wetlands."&nbsp;



According to NASA, understanding methane emissions from wetlands and other natural sources is critically important for scientists and policymakers who are working to combat climate change by reducing emissions from human activities.



Video Credit: NASA Goddard



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



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

Wetlands are a major source of methane emissions

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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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

The rapid retreat of the Columbia Glacier

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



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



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



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



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



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



Video &amp; Image Credit: ESA



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



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

The Pyrenees Mountains in southwest Europe

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Today’s Video of the Day from <a href="https://www.stowers.org/">Stowers Institute for Medical Research</a> describes why experts are studying zebrafish to gain a better understanding of how the immune system responds to injury. Zebrafish have the ability to repair and regenerate organs.



“Organ regeneration offers an exciting opportunity for studying the immune system and to inquire why some species can regenerate organs like the heart or missing limbs while others like humans cannot,” explained Dr. Tatjana Piotrowski.



Zebrafish sensory organ hair cells are an ideal system to investigate the pathways and cell types involved in regeneration since they are easily destroyed with antibiotics and begin regenerating within five hours. This enabled the researchers to identify the exact timing and genetic programs for each anti-inflammatory macrophage activation state.&nbsp;



“Our hypothesis is that human macrophages do not receive the proper chemical activation 'cocktail' to instruct pro-regenerative processes,” said Dr. Nicolas Denans. “Identifying the molecular recipe of macrophage activation in zebrafish may one day enable us to design regenerative immunotherapies in humans.”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



“The new evidence is a valuable resource for comparative studies on the genetic programs involved in macrophage-mediated repair and regeneration. In other words, different types of injuries may induce different kinds of inflammatory responses. We want to decipher whether this 'language' is universal or if there are a variety of dialects."



Video Credit: Stowers Institute for Medical Research&nbsp;



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



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

How the immune system responds to injury

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Today's Video of the Day from <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/goddard">NASA Goddard</a> describes how record-breaking heat expressed itself around the world in 2022.



Scientists have determined that 2022 was the 5th warmest year since 1880. Furthermore, the last nine consecutive years have been the warmest on record.



From devastating floods and wildfires to natural disasters like Hurricane Ian, 2022 showed us yet again how a warming climate affects people across the globe.&nbsp;



"As we look back at 20:22 and years past, we see that each year we better understand the challenges we face and how important it is to meet them," says NASA.



Video/ Image Credit: NASA Goddard



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



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

2022 illustrated the consequences of a warming climate

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Earth,Like,Exoplanet,3d,Render

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



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



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



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



Video Credit: NASA Goddard



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



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



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

Two distant planets may be "water worlds"

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Satellites reveal how Earth's systems are interconnected Today’s Video of the Day from <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/goddard">NASA Goddard</a> describes Earth’s interconnected systems, and how this network is affected by rising temperatures.&nbsp;



During 2020, average global temperatures matched the hottest year on record. The hurricane season was also record-breaking, with many of the storms intensifying at extraordinary speeds. Hot water in the ocean is fuel for hurricanes. The satellite data shows that it's all one interconnected system showing how Satellites reveal how Earth's systems are interconnected.



According to NASA, dust swept up from Northern Africa plays a major role in the formation of hurricanes, and is also a key source of fertilization in the Amazon rainforest. As a result of<a href="https://www.earth.com/news/seagrass-wasting-disease-is-fueled-by-climate-change/"> climate</a> change, dust plumes are expected to decline, which will have an effect on vegetation far away.&nbsp;



Images from Earth-observing satellites show how the world’s plant life is affected by natural disasters, fires, and deforestation. Satellites also reveal how widespread changes in vegetation impact waterways,&nbsp; the climate, air quality. Satellites communicate by using radio waves to send signals to the antennas on the Earth. "Earth From Space" is a groundbreaking two-hour special that reveals a spectacular new space-based vision of our planet. 



Video Credit: NASA Goddard&nbsp;



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



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

Satellites reveal how Earth's systems are interconnected

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