Happy,Young,Woman,Choosing,Meat,From,Glass,Cabinet,In,Grocery

In the bustling world of consumer food choices, the factors that influence our purchasing decisions are as diverse as they are complex. 



Recent research dives into the intricate web of considerations that shape our selections when it comes to <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/12-of-americans-are-responsible-for-over-half-of-all-u-s-beef-consumption/">meat and d</a><a href="https://www.earth.com/news/12-of-americans-are-responsible-for-over-half-of-all-u-s-beef-consumption/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">a</a><a href="https://www.earth.com/news/12-of-americans-are-responsible-for-over-half-of-all-u-s-beef-consumption/">iry products</a>, revealing a thought-provoking hierarchy of priorities.



The study was conducted across five countries -- Czechia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK. It was led by Dr Andy Jin from the <a href="https://www.port.ac.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">University of Portsmouth</a>. Jin, along with his colleagues, sought to identify the attributes that hold the most sway over consumers as they navigate the grocery aisles.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-hierarchy-of-importance">Hierarchy of importance</h2>



In an online survey, 3,192 participants were asked to rate the importance of 18 different factors on a scale from 1 (not at all important) to 5 (extremely important). 



These factors encompassed a wide range of attributes, including freshness, quality/taste, healthy eating, nutrition, price, processing, special offers, convenience of use/preparation, and familiarity of brand.



Interestingly, the study found that across all surveyed countries, consumers consistently prioritized freshness, quality/taste, and <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/animal-welfare-concerns-more-people-than-climate-change/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">animal welfare</a> as the most important attributes. 



"Our study highlights the complex interplay of factors that influence consumer behavior when buying meat and dairy products," Dr. Jin explained. 



"Consumers indicated that information related to animal welfare, food safety, and health and nutrition was considered more important than environmental sustainability when making food choices," he continued.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-food-choices-and-the-sustainability-conundrum">Food choices and the sustainability conundrum</h2>



While environmental factors such as food miles, <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/mixed-diets-offer-health-benefits-and-lower-carbon-footprint/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">carbon footprint</a>, and organic production were deemed less important in influencing purchasing decisions, sustainability labels were still perceived as helpful among consumers. 



This finding suggests that while consumers may not prioritize sustainability as highly as other factors, they still value the information provided by these labels.



The implications of this research extend beyond the realm of consumer behavior. Policymakers, producers, and retailers in the <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/global-food-system-must-change-if-nations-hope-to-reduce-greenhouse-gas-emissions/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">food industry</a>, who are striving to meet evolving consumer demands for more sustainable products, can glean valuable insights from these findings.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-importance-of-environmental-sustainability">Importance of environmental sustainability</h2>



When it comes to food, consumers play a crucial role in promoting sustainability through their purchasing decisions and eating habits. By making informed choices, individuals can support environmentally friendly practices, reduce waste, and contribute to a more <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/global-food-system-is-unsustainable-and-must-be-transformed/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">sustainable food system</a>.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Making eco-friendly food choices</h3>



Consumers can opt for products that have a lower <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/new-meat-and-dairy-alternatives-will-dramatically-transform-the-global-food-system/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">environmental impact</a>, such as:



<ul>
<li>Organic produce: Organic farming methods avoid the use of synthetic pesticides and <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/nitrogen-pollution-from-food-production-could-be-halved/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">fertilizers</a>, promoting healthier soil and ecosystems.</li>



<li>Sustainably sourced seafood: Choosing seafood from well-managed fisheries or responsible aquaculture farms helps prevent overfishing and protect marine habitats.</li>



<li>Products with minimal packaging: Selecting items with reduced or eco-friendly packaging minimizes waste and reduces the demand for single-use plastics.</li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Local and seasonal food choices</h3>



Buying <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/home-food-production-helped-combat-hunger-during-the-pandemic/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">local and seasonal</a> produce offers several sustainability benefits:



<ul>
<li>Reduced transportation emissions: Local food travels shorter distances, cutting down on greenhouse gas emissions from transportation.</li>



<li>Supporting local economies: Purchasing from local farmers and producers helps maintain a thriving local economy and preserves agricultural land.</li>



<li>Minimizing food waste: Seasonal produce is more likely to be consumed before spoiling, reducing <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/reducing-food-waste-greater-food-security-less-environmental-benefits/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">food waste</a>.</li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Adopting plant-based diets</h3>



Shifting towards a more <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/increasing-plant-based-food-production-would-have-extremely-positive-impact/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">plant-based diet</a> can significantly reduce an individual's environmental footprint:



<ul>
<li>Lower greenhouse gas emissions: Plant-based foods generally require less land, water, and energy to produce compared to animal-based products.</li>



<li>Reduced deforestation: Animal agriculture is a major driver of deforestation, habitat destruction, and biodiversity loss.</li>



<li>Improved resource efficiency: Plant-based diets use resources more efficiently, as crops are directly consumed rather than being used as animal feed.</li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Minimizing waste through food choices</h3>



Consumers can adopt practices that minimize food waste, such as:



<ul>
<li>Proper meal planning: Planning meals in advance and buying only what is needed helps reduce food waste at home.</li>



<li>Storing food correctly: Proper storage techniques extend the shelf life of food, reducing the likelihood of spoilage.</li>



<li>Composting: Composting food scraps and other organic waste diverts waste from landfills and creates nutrient-rich soil for gardening.</li>
</ul>



By making sustainable food choices, consumers send a powerful message to producers, retailers, and policymakers. As more people prioritize <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/agricultural-technologies-can-reverse-climate-change/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">sustainability</a> in their purchasing decisions, it creates a demand for more environmentally friendly products and practices, ultimately driving positive change throughout the <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/seed-systems-will-play-a-key-role-in-future-food-security/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">food system</a>.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-bridging-the-gap-from-attitudes-to-behavior">Bridging the gap: From attitudes to behavior</h2>



Dr Jin emphasizes that labels alone are not sufficient to change behavior, particularly for consumers who have low or no behavioral intention to buy sustainable meat or dairy products. 



He suggests, "These results should be translated into additional policy measures, such as nudges or behavioral interventions, helping individuals translate their attitudes into behavior and facilitating the choice of sustainably produced products."



The study underscores the need for a multi-faceted approach to promoting sustainable food choices. 



While labels play a crucial role in providing information, they must be accompanied by targeted marketing strategies and policy initiatives that address the complex interplay of factors influencing <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/modern-human-diets-pose-many-risks-health-environment/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">consumer decisions</a>.



As we navigate the ever-evolving landscape of food choices, it is clear that the path to sustainability is not a straightforward one. 



By understanding the hierarchy of priorities that guide consumer behavior, we can work towards developing more effective strategies to encourage the adoption of sustainable practices in the meat and dairy industry.



The full study was published in the journal <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0950329324000818?via%3Dihub" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Food Quality and Preference</a>.



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Animal welfare is the biggest concern for people when making food choices

In the bustling world of consumer food choices, the factors that influence our purchasing decisions are as diverse as they are complex. Recent research dives into the intricate web of considerations that shape our selections when it comes to meat and dairy products, revealing a thought-provoking hierarchy of priorities. The study was conducted across five countries -- Czechia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK. It was led by Dr Andy Jin from the University of Portsmouth. Jin, along with his colleagues, sought to identify the attributes that...

Poll: 76 Percent Of Americans Believe Climate Change Is Happening. The latest results reveal the largest consensus since political scientists at Texas started polling on the subject in 2012.

Slowly but surely, attitudes about global warming among the American public are beginning to more closely reflect those held by scientists.

The latest results from the <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/manatees-may-have-been-permanent-texas-residents-during-the-last-ice-age/">University of Texas</a>, Austin Energy Poll show that more than three out of every four Americans think "climate change is happening" -- 76 percent of respondents. Even the majority of Republicans now acknowledge global warming, with 59 percent saying the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change">climate</a> is changing. Poll: 76 Percent Of Americans Believe Climate Change Is Happening

The latest results reveal the largest consensus since political scientists at Texas started polling on the subject in 2012 -- and a 68 percent increase since last year.

"This groundbreaking public opinion poll measures and reports biannually (October and April) on consumer opinions and attitudes toward energy consumption, pricing, development and regulation," researchers write on the homepage explaining the Energy Poll.

Among the drivers of climate change implicated by believers, deforestation, coal, oil and natural gas beat out natural forces (not man made), indicating that the majority of respondents acknowledge climate change as at least partially anthropogenic.

The percentage of Americans who deny climate change flat out also dropped in the latest findings, from 22 percent in 2012 to 14 percent.

---

Credit: UPI

Poll: 76 Percent Of Americans Believe Climate Change Is Happening

Poll: 76 Percent Of Americans Believe Climate Change Is Happening....

Study: Global Warming Hurts The World Economy. With each upward degree, global warming will singe the economies of three-quarters of the world's nations and widen the north-south gap between rich and poor countries, according to a new economic and science study.
Compared to what it would be without more global warming, the average global income will shrivel 23 percent at the end of the century if heat-trapping carbon dioxide pollution continues to grow at its current trajectory, according to a study published Wednesday in the scientific journal Nature.
Some countries, like Russia, Mongolia and <a href="http://www.earth.com/image/the-fall-rhapsody-in-ottawa/">Canada</a>, would see large economic benefits from global warming, the study projects. Most of Europe would do slightly better, the United States and China slightly worse. Essentially all of Africa, Asia, South America and the Middle East would be hurt dramatically, the economists found.
"What climate change is doing is basically devaluing all the real estate south of the United States and making the whole planet less productive," said study co-author Solomon Hsiang, an economist and public policy professor at the University of California Berkeley. "Climate change is essentially a massive transfer of value from the hot parts of the world to the cooler parts of the world."
"This is like taking from the poor and giving to the rich," Hsiang said.
Lead author Marshall Burke of Stanford and Hsiang examined 50 years of economic data in 160 countries and even county-by-county data in the United States and found what Burke called "the goldilocks zone in global temperature at which humans are good at producing stuff" - an annual temperature of around 13 degrees Celsius or 55.4 degrees Fahrenheit, give or take a degree.
For countries colder than that economic sweet spot, every degree of warming heats up the economy and benefits. For the United States and other countries already at or above that temperature, every degree slows productivity, Burke and Hsiang said.
The 20th-century global average annual temperature is 57 degrees, or 13.9 degrees Celsius, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Last year - the hottest on record - was 58.24 degrees and this year is almost certain to break that record, according to NOAA. Burke and Hsiang use different population-weighted temperature figures than NOAA calculates.
But the U.S. economy is humming despite the heat. When asked how that can be so, Burke said there were many factors important for growth beyond just temperature. He said one year's temperature and economic growth in one nation isn't telling. Instead, he and Hsiang looked at more than 6,000 "country-years" to get a bigger picture.
Burke compared the effect of global warming on economies to a head wind on a cross-country airplane flight. The effects at any given moment are small and seemingly unnoticeable but they add up and slow you down.
While it is fairly obvious that unusual high temperatures hurt agriculture, past studies show hot days even reduce car production at U.S. factories, Burke said.
"The U.S. is really close to the global optimum," Burke said, adding that as it warms, the U.S. will fall off that peak. The authors calculate a warmer U.S. in 2100 will have a gross domestic product per person that's 36 percent lower than it would be if warming stopped about now.
But because the U.S. is now at that ultimate peak, there's greater uncertainty in the study's calculations than in places like India, Pakistan, Vietnam, Nigeria and Venezuela where it's already hot and there's more certainty about dramatic economic harm, Hsiang said.
The authors' main figures are based on the premise that carbon dioxide emissions will continue to rise at the current trajectory. But countries across the world are pledging to control if not cut carbon pollution as international leaders prepare for a summit on climate change in Paris later this year. If the current pledges are kept, the warming cost in 2100 will drop from 23 percent to 15 percent, Burke said.
Gary Yohe, an environmental economist at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, praised the study as significant and thorough, saying Burke and Hsiang "use the most modern socio-economic scenarios." But Richard Tol, an economist at the University of Sussex in England, dismissed the study as unworthy to be published in an economics journal, saying "the hypothesized relationship is without foundation."
Other experts found good and bad points, with MIT's John Reilly saying it will spark quite a debate among economists.
---
Online:
Nature: <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">http://www.nature.com/nature</a>
Stanford website on the study: <a href="http://web.stanford.edu/~mburke/climate/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">http://web.stanford.edu/~mburke/climate/</a>
---
Seth Borenstein can be followed at <a href="http://twitter.com/borenbears" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">http://twitter.com/borenbears</a>
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Study: Global Warming Hurts The World Economy

Study: Global Warming Hurts The World Economy. With each upward...

MIT Will Fight Climate Change But Won't Dump Fossil Fuel Investments. The <a href="https://www.bing.com/search?q=Massachusetts&amp;cvid=02d2027c388848c493256ddb7c74fcaf&amp;FORM=ANAB01&amp;PC=HCTS">Massachusetts</a> Institute of Technology announced a five-year plan Wednesday to combat climate change but said it won't divest its $12.4 billion endowment from fossil fuels, despite pressure from students and a campus committee.
Senior officials at the elite science and engineering research school crafted the "action plan" after a yearlong effort to gauge campus opinions on climate change. The university hosted a debate on the topic and assembled a committee that ultimately urged MIT to divest from the most damaging fossil fuel industries, including coal and tar sand companies. MIT Will Fight <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/great-tits-can-adapt-to-climate-change-but-only-to-a-point/">Climate</a> Change But Won't Dump Fossil Fuel Investments
The MIT report warns of "catastrophic outcomes" linked to current energy use, but said the school can help by maintaining ties with fossil fuel companies.
"We choose not to divest from fossil fuel companies because we think engagement stands the greatest chance of success," MIT President L. Rafael Reif said in a conference call with reporters. "MIT seeks to convene key players with the goal of helping drive significant progress for the world. There is a great deal to do and we are eager to get started."
At MIT and campuses across the United States, students have pushed universities to pull their investments in fossil fuels. They argue that coal and oil companies are driving climate change, with the support of heavy college investments. Leaders at MIT took up the issue after student group Fossil Free MIT called for divestment last year.
The student group did not immediately respond Wednesday to an email seeking comment.
While deciding against divestment, MIT announced a sweeping effort to research climate change and develop technology combating it. Its plan calls for eight new "low-carbon energy centers" that will work with companies to develop technologies focusing on solar energy, nuclear fusion, energy storage and other initiatives. Each center will seek about $8 million in annual funding over five years, totaling more than $300 million.
In the past, research has been done through individual projects between companies and researchers, said Maria Zuber, vice president for research.
"But both we are realizing and the companies are realizing that these kinds of questions are sufficiently complex that just simple individual research projects are not going to be able to address them," Zuber said.
MIT also is trying to cut down its use of fossil fuels on campus, with plans to pursue more efficient energy technology in its buildings. Among other goals, the college would reduce campus emissions by at least 32 percent by 2030 and would eliminate the use of fuel oil by 2019.
"Climate change is a problem so big it can be difficult to face," Reif said. "But we know the scientific evidence is overwhelming and we must face it and take action together."
Research has been mixed on whether divesting from fossil fuels would hurt a university's endowment. The MIT panel that studied climate change reported that the impact wouldn't likely be great.
Zuber said university leaders didn't seek the endowment president's opinion on that question while crafting the plan. "We never asked him what his opinion was, and he never offered an opinion," she said.
The MIT committee of faculty and students called for divestment from some industries, in part to take a strong stance on climate change, but said full divestment would have a negligible effect on energy companies and would remove the possibility of working together on improvement.
Reif echoed that argument Wednesday.
"Engagement is the only way to get there," he said. "I'm most concerned that we might be held back not by the difficulty of the work, but by division."
© 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

MIT Will Fight Climate Change But Won't Dump Fossil Fuel Investments

MIT Will Fight Climate Change But Won't Dump Fossil Fuel...

Apple Using More Renewable Energy In China. Apple is cleaning up its manufacturing operations in China to reduce the air pollution caused by the factories that have assembled hundreds of millions of iPhones and iPads during the past eight years.
The world's most valuable company is working with its <a href="https://www.bing.com/search?q=chinese&amp;cvid=b13b7598823e46018da0ef7ff34094b3&amp;FORM=ANAB01&amp;PC=HCTS">Chinese</a> suppliers to produce 2.2 gigawatts of solar power and other renewable energy by 2020.
The commitment announced Wednesday represents Apple's latest attempt to prevent the popularity of its devices and digital services from increasing the carbon emissions that are widely believed to changing the Earth's climate.
Apple Inc. estimates 20 million metric tons of greenhouse gas pollution will be avoided in China between now and the time all the projects are completed. That's like having four million fewer cars on the road for a year.
Panels capable of generating about 200 megawatts of solar power will be financed by Apple in the northern, southern and eastern regions of China, where many of its suppliers are located. The Cupertino, California, company is teaming up with its Chinese suppliers to build the capacity for the remaining 2 gigawatts of renewable energy, which will be a mix of solar, wind and hydroelectric power.
Foxconn, which runs the factory where the most iPhones are assembled, is pledging to contribute 400 megawatts of solar power as part of the 2-gigabyte commitment. The solar panels to be built by 2018 in China's Henan Province are supposed to produce as much renewable energy as Foxconn's Zhengzhou factory consumes while making iPhones.
Apple has made protecting the environment a higher priority since Tim Cook replaced the late Steve Jobs as the company's CEO four years ago.
"Climate change is one of the great challenges of our time, and the time for action is now," Cook said in a statement. "The transition to a new green economy requires innovation, ambition and purpose."
Apple just completed projects in China that generate 40 megawatts of solar energy to offset the power required by its 24 stores and 19 offices in the country. All of Apple's data centers, offices and stores in the U.S. already have been running on renewable energy.
"When you look at all the air pollution in China, all the manufacturing that is done there has a lot to do with it, so this is a significant step in the right direction," said Gary Cook, a senior analyst for Greenpeace, a group devoted to protecting the environment.
Apple also has a financial incentive to help make China a better place to live. The greater China region is Apple's second biggest market behind the U.S. and its CEO has made it clear that he wants Apple want make even more inroads as rising incomes enable more of China's population to buy smartphones and other gadgets.
Google, Facebook and other technology companies also have been investing heavily in renewable energy in an effort to cut the pollution caused by power needed to run the data centers that process and store information for the users of the digital services.
By some estimates, technology products and services account for as much of the world's carbon emissions as the airline industry.
Apple can easily afford to go green. The company had $203 billion in cash at the end of June.
© 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

Apple Using More Renewable Energy In China

Apple Using More Renewable Energy In China. Apple is cleaning...

Apple Using More Renewable Energy In China. Apple is cleaning up its manufacturing operations in China to reduce the air pollution caused by the factories that have assembled hundreds of millions of iPhones and iPads during the past eight years.
The world's most valuable company is working with its <a href="https://www.earth.com/image/clouds-trace-mountain-ridges-in-the-chinese-province-of-yunnan/">Chinese</a> suppliers to produce 2.2 gigawatts of solar power and other renewable energy by 2020.
The commitment announced Wednesday represents Apple's latest attempt to prevent the popularity of its devices and digital services from increasing the <a href="https://www.bing.com/search?q=carbon&amp;cvid=7d433e9cb3eb4ef19d6623dba053855c&amp;FORM=ANAB01&amp;PC=HCTS">carbon</a> emissions that are widely believed to changing the Earth's climate.
Apple Inc. estimates 20 million metric tons of greenhouse gas pollution will be avoided in China between now and the time all the projects are completed. That's like having four million fewer cars on the road for a year.
Panels capable of generating about 200 megawatts of solar power will be financed by Apple in the northern, southern and eastern regions of China, where many of its suppliers are located. The Cupertino, California, company is teaming up with its Chinese suppliers to build the capacity for the remaining 2 gigawatts of renewable energy, which will be a mix of solar, wind and hydroelectric power.
Foxconn, which runs the factory where the most iPhones are assembled, is pledging to contribute 400 megawatts of solar power as part of the 2-gigabyte commitment. The solar panels to be built by 2018 in China's Henan Province are supposed to produce as much renewable energy as Foxconn's Zhengzhou factory consumes while making iPhones.
Apple has made protecting the environment a higher priority since Tim Cook replaced the late Steve Jobs as the company's CEO four years ago.
"Climate change is one of the great challenges of our time, and the time for action is now," Cook said in a statement. "The transition to a new green economy requires innovation, ambition and purpose."
Apple just completed projects in China that generate 40 megawatts of solar energy to offset the power required by its 24 stores and 19 offices in the country. All of Apple's data centers, offices and stores in the U.S. already have been running on renewable energy.
"When you look at all the air pollution in China, all the manufacturing that is done there has a lot to do with it, so this is a significant step in the right direction," said Gary Cook, a senior analyst for Greenpeace, a group devoted to protecting the environment.
Apple also has a financial incentive to help make China a better place to live. The greater China region is Apple's second biggest market behind the U.S. and its CEO has made it clear that he wants Apple want make even more inroads as rising incomes enable more of China's population to buy smartphones and other gadgets.
Google, Facebook and other technology companies also have been investing heavily in renewable energy in an effort to cut the pollution caused by power needed to run the data centers that process and store information for the users of the digital services.
By some estimates, technology products and services account for as much of the world's carbon emissions as the airline industry.
Apple can easily afford to go green. The company had $203 billion in cash at the end of June.
© 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

Plastic Litter Found In The Arctic Ocean. In a new study, researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) show for the first time that marine plastic litter can even be found at the sea surface of Arctic waters. Though it remains unclear how the litter made it so far north, it is likely to pose new problems for local marine life, the authors report on the online portal of the scientific journal Polar Biology. Plastic has already been reported from stomachs of resident seabirds and Greenland sharks.

Plastic waste finds its way into the ocean, and from there to the farthest reaches of the planet - even as far as the Arctic. This was confirmed in one of the first litter surveys conducted north of the Arctic Circle, carried out by an international research team from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) and Belgium's Laboratory for Polar Ecology. The researchers presented their results in an article released yesterday on the online portal of the journal Polar Biology.

In order to gauge the level of pollution, the researchers took advantage of an expedition that brought the research icebreaker Polarstern to the Fram Strait, the area between East Greenland and Svalbard. In July 2012, AWI biologist Dr Melanie Bergmann and her team searched for litter floating on the sea surface from the ship's bridge and by helicopter, maintaining a "litter watch" for a combined distance of 5,600 kilometres. "We found a total of 31 pieces of litter," reports Bergmann.

Although this number may sound low, it confirms that there is indeed litter floating in the remote Arctic Ocean. "Since we conducted our surveys from the bridge, 18 metres above sea level, and from a helicopter, we were only able to spot the larger pieces of litter. Therefore, our numbers are probably an underestimate," the marine biologist explains. It is well-known that, with time, plastic breaks down into small fragments at sea, which can only be detected properly by analysis of net tows.

The plastic litter reported from the Fram Strait could be leaking from a sixth garbage patch, which may be forming in the Barents Sea according to computer models. Such accumulation zones are created when large amounts of floating plastic debris are caught by ocean currents and concentrate in the centre of gyre systems.

We currently know of five garbage patches worldwide; the sixth patch in the Barents Sea is most likely in the early stages of formation. Bergmann believes it may be fed by the densely populated coastal regions of Northern Europe. "It is conceivable that part of that litter then drifts even farther to the north and northwest, and reaches the Fram Strait," states the AWI biologist, adding, "Another cause for litter in the Arctic could be the retreat of the Arctic sea ice. As a result more and more cruise liners and fish trawlers are operating further north, following the cod. Most likely, litter from the ships intentionally or accidentally ends up in the waters of the Arctic. We expect this trend to continue."

In a previous study, Melanie Bergmann analysed photographs from the deep Arctic seafloor for signs of plastic, glass and other types of litter. Her conclusion: in the time frame of ten years the amount of litter in the deep sea has doubled with densities in a similar range to those from southern <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/eastern-europe-had-a-stunning-collection-of-animals-two-million-years-ago/">Europe</a>. In fact, the litter density on the deep seafloor of the Fram Strait is 10 to 100 times higher than at the sea surface. "On the deep Arctic seafloor, we found an average of 2.2 to 18.4 pieces of litter per kilometre of our route. This indicates that the deep seafloor may be the ultimate sink for marine litter," Bergmann suggests.

The litter floating in the Arctic is particularly detrimental to seabirds, which feed at the sea surface. A recent study from the nearby Isfjorden fjord on Spitsbergen showed that 88 percent of the northern fulmars examined had swallowed plastic. These birds spend their entire life at sea. Even Greenland sharks are swallowing plastic litter: researchers found plastic litter in the stomachs of up to eight percent of the sharks caught south of Greenland.

Bergmann notes that the litter data for her latest study were collected in the course of a study on marine mammals and seabirds on board of RV Polarstern: "We just took advantage of these surveys to count marine litter." Scientists refer to chances such as this one, where valuable scientific data is gathered during expeditions of a different purpose, as "ships of opportunity". "Since it's reasonably easy to count litter from a ship in motion, it makes sense to use 'ships of opportunity' more often in the future to help us to learn more about the global distribution of floating litter, especially in remote areas. This could be done during patrol flights and voyages with research ships, cruise ships, coast guard, merchant and fishing vessels," adds Bergmann.

---

<a href="http://www.awi-bremerhaven.de/index-e.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Alfred Wegener Institute</a>

&nbsp;

Plastic Litter Found In The Arctic Ocean

Plastic Litter Found In The Arctic Ocean. In a new...

Feds: EPA Caused Colorado Gold Mine Spill. Government investigators squarely blamed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Thursday for a 3 million gallon wastewater spill from a <a href="https://www.bing.com/search?q=colorado&amp;cvid=807f0a17b83d4c58ba963edba226bbb5&amp;FORM=ANAB01&amp;PC=HCTS">Colorado</a> gold mine, saying an EPA cleanup crew rushed its work and failed to consider the complex engineering involved, triggering the very blowout it hoped to avoid.
The spill that fouled rivers in three states would have been avoided had the <a href="http://www.earth.com/video/gentoo-penguins-are-not-one-species-but-four/">EPA</a> team checked on water levels inside the Gold King Mine before digging into a collapsed and leaking mine entrance, Interior Department investigators concluded. Feds: EPA Caused Colorado Gold Mine Spill
The technical report on the causes of the Aug. 5 spill has implications across the United States, where similar disasters could lurk among the hundreds of thousands of abandoned mines that have yet to be cleaned up. Some estimates put the total cost of containing this mining industry mess at more than $50 billion.
The report says the root causes of the Colorado accident began decades earlier, when mining companies altered the flow of water through a series of interconnected tunnels in the extensively mined Upper Animas River watershed.
EPA documents show its officials knew of the potential for a major blowout from the Gold King Mine near Silverton as early as June 2014. After the spill, EPA officials described the blowout as "likely inevitable" because millions of gallons of pressurized water had been bottling up inside the mine.
The Interior report directly refutes that assertion. It says the cleanup team could have used a drill rig to bore into the shaft from above, safely gauging the danger of a blowout and planning the excavation accordingly. Instead, the EPA crew, with the agreement of Colorado mining officials, assumed the shaft was only partially inundated.
"This error resulted in development of a plan to open the mine in a manner that appeared to guard against blowout, but instead led directly to the failure," according to engineers from Interior's Bureau of Reclamation, who spent two months evaluating the technical circumstances.
The blowout fouled rivers in Colorado, Utah and New Mexico, temporarily shutting down drinking water supplies and cropland irrigation.
The report stops short of assigning fault to any individuals, despite prior claims from EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy that it would determine fault and any negligence.
A U.S. Army Corps of Engineers official whose review of the conclusions was included in the report expressed "serious reservations" over the EPA's failure to explain exactly how its communications broke down and why its officials were so insistent on starting work without more information about the complexities involved.
Richard Olsen, a senior geotechnical engineer with the Corps, also questioned why a change in the EPA field coordinator for Gold King led to an "urgency to start digging" even though another EPA official had expressed some uncertainty about the potential risks.
That second EPA official in July asked for an outside review of the agency's plans by one of the Bureau of Reclamation engineers involved in Thursday's report. A meeting between the EPA and the engineer had been scheduled for Aug. 14 - nine days after the blowout.
EPA officials pointed out that the mine plug already was leaking and could have eventually blown out anyway, and the Interior report acknowledged that this was possible.
EPA spokeswoman Nancy Grantham said the report "will help inform EPA's ongoing efforts to work safely and effectively at mine sites as we carry out our mission to protect human health and the environment."
A separate investigation into the spill is pending from the EPA Inspector General's Office.
Guidelines for cleaning up abandoned focus on details such as water sampling and treatment. Yet they have "little appreciation for the engineering complexity," and require but don't receive significant expertise, the Interior Department's 132-page report concluded.
Plugging abandoned or inactive mines has been common industry practice for more than a century. The report lists 31 mines across the U.S. where so-called bulkheads were installed since the 1950s to stem the flow of water into or out of a mine.
With coal mines, monitoring and cleanups are funded in part by a fee companies pay, and costs are passed on to utility customers. No such arrangements exist for inoperative hard-rock mines, and that's a national problem, the report noted.
Given industry opposition to efforts to hold mine owners accountable, the cleanup has been left to a scattering of federal and state agencies, without common standards or even lists of the most problematic mines. The EPA has been left to prioritize cleanups with insufficient information and funding, the report said.
In the wake of the Gold King spill, EPA temporarily halted some work at 10 polluted mining complexes in Montana, California, Colorado and Missouri because of similar conditions.
Abandoned hard-rock underground mines are not subject to the same federal and state safety requirements other mining operations must follow, and "experience indicates that they should be," the report concluded.
"A collapsed flooded mine is in effect a dam, and failure must be prevented by routine monitoring, maintenance, and in some cases remediation. However, there appears to be a general absence of knowledge of the risks associated with these facilities. A comprehensive identification of sites, evaluation of the potential to fail, and estimation of the likely downstream consequences should failure occur, are good first steps in such an endeavor."
© 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

Feds: EPA Caused Colorado Gold Mine Spill

Feds: EPA Caused Colorado Gold Mine Spill. Government investigators squarely...

New Ocean Heat Map Reveals Migratory Patterns Of Fish. Study uses hurricane forecasting tool to show fishes affinity for ocean fronts and eddies

Researchers at the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science developed a new method to estimate fish movements using ocean heat content images, a dataset commonly used in hurricane intensity forecasting. With <a href="https://www.bing.com/search?q=atlantic&amp;cvid=8c8ba2ec74e44c0dac1efe15b63b2520&amp;FORM=ANAB01&amp;PC=HCTS">Atlantic</a> tarpon as the messenger, this is the first study to quantitatively show that large migratory fishes, such as yellowfin and bluefin tunas, blue and white marlin, and sailfish have affinities for ocean fronts and eddies.New Ocean Heat Map Reveals Migratory Patterns Of Fish

"Ocean heat content data revealed detailed movements of fishes that were not readily apparent using surface temperature data," said Jerald S. Ault, UM Rosenstiel School professor of marine biology and ecology. "This offers a powerful new approach to study how fish interact with dynamic water features relatively common in the ocean."

Ocean heat content (OHC) relative to the 26°C isotherm, a measure of heat stored in the upper surface layers of the ocean, has been used for more than four decades by scientists to help predict hurricane intensity. Over the past two decades, <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/biodiversity-loss-human-rights-issue/">OHC</a> has been monitored daily using satellite fields and in-situ data that provide basin-scale variability for both weather and climate studies. In addition to providing the OHC for forecasting, these previous studies showed OHC images reveal dynamic ocean features, such as fronts and eddies, in the ocean better than just using standard techniques (e.g., sea surface temperature), especially during the summer months.

The researchers compared data on fish movements obtained from pop-up satellite tags affixed to the highly migratory fish alongside maps of the heat stored in the upper ocean. "Using an advanced optimization algorithm and OHC maps, we developed a method to greatly improve geolocation accuracy and refine fish movement tracks derived from satellite tags," said Jiangang Luo, lead author and UM scientist at the Tarpon and Bonefish Research Center. The analysis revealed that fish commonly swim along the boundaries of water features in the ocean, such as fronts, like the Florida and Loop Current and their complex eddy fields.

"Using the OHC approach in a new way offers an unprecedented view of how these animals move with currents and eddies in the ocean," said Nick Shay, UM Rosenstiel School professor of ocean sciences. "Our study provides a more detailed picture of the ocean ecosystem as an entity."

In one 109-day analysis, the researchers documented a yellowfin tuna move along a weak front off the Mississippi River before reaching an eddy centered in the Gulf of Mexico. In separate analysis, a yellowfin tuna swam around the periphery of the same eddy many times over a 20-day period, rarely passing over it.

Eddies are swirling masses of water that have been shed from strong ocean current fronts, and pump nutrient-rich water to the surface. Fronts are a type of current created at a boundary between two distinct water masses with differing physical properties, such as different temperatures, salinities. In the Gulf of Mexico, warm eddies are often shed from the Loop Current in the summer months causing a rapid intensification of hurricanes (e.g., Katrina) as they pass over it.

"Our new method shows that hurricanes and highly migratory fish share at least one common oceanographic interest - warm swirling ocean eddies," said Ault.

---

<a href="http://www.rsmas.miami.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">University of Miami RSMAS</a>

New Ocean Heat Map Reveals Migratory Patterns Of Fish

New Ocean Heat Map Reveals Migratory Patterns Of Fish. Study...

Several States Suing Feds Over Clean Power Plan. States and industry groups dependent on fossil fuels began filing court challenges Friday to President Barack Obama's Clean Power Plan, which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Opponents of the plan were expected to file a flurry of lawsuits at the U.S. Court of Appeals as the Environmental Protection Agency published its final version of the new regulations. All but two of the 24 states filing challenges are led by Republicans. They deride the plan as an "unlawful power grab by Washington bureaucrats" that will kill coal mining jobs and drive up electricity costs.

"The Clean Power Plan is one of the most far-reaching energy regulations in this nation's history," said West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, among those leading the challenges. "I have a responsibility to protect the lives of millions of working families, the elderly and the poor, from such illegal and unconscionable federal government actions."

The Obama administration and environmental groups counter that the rules are needed to cut carbon emissions while curbing the worst impacts of climate change and sea-level rise. They also say the plan will spur new clean-energy jobs.

The new rules would require states to cut carbon emissions by 30 percent by 2030. Each state has a customized target and is responsible for drawing up an effective plan to meet its goal.

"We expect polluters and their allies to throw everything they've got at the Clean Power Plan, and we expect them to fail," said Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune, among those defending the law. "The Clean Power Plan is based on a law passed by Congress, upheld by the Supreme Court, and demanded by the American people."

The EPA says it has authority to enact the plan under the Clean Air Act. At issue are dueling provisions added to the law by the House and Senate in 1990. The EPA's interpretation relies on the Senate language, but opponents argue that the House version should win out.

"We are confident we will again prevail against these challenges and will be able to work with states to successfully implement these first-ever national standards to limit carbon pollution, the largest source of carbon emissions in the United States," said EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy.

EPA already regulates other power-plant pollutants under a different section of the Clean Air Act, and the opponents claim the law prohibits "double regulation."

Morrisey said he will seek a stay barring the plan from taking effect while the court challenges proceed, a question that will likely be up to the Supreme Court.Several States Suing Feds Over Clean Power Plan

The states challenging the plan in court are Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, Wyoming and Wisconsin.

There is some political variation within the list. Governors in Colorado, Michigan and New Mexico will comply with the new EPA rules even as attorneys general from their states joined the lawsuit. In North Carolina, the state environmental agency controlled by the Republican governor joined the opposition after the Democratic attorney general declined.

Members of Congress from coal-mining states also said Friday they will introduce new legislation aimed at blocking the EPA from enforcing the plan.

On the other side, 15 states and the District of Columbia say they are backing the Obama administration and will begin working to comply with the new rules.

Under the Clean Air Act, certain challenges to agency rules skip the federal district court and go directly to the appeals court in Washington, D.C.

---

Follow Biesecker at <a href="http://Twitter.com/mbieseck" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">http://Twitter.com/mbieseck</a>

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Several States Suing Feds Over Clean Power Plan

Several States Suing Feds Over Clean Power Plan. States and...

Feds: EPA Caused Colorado Gold Mine Spill. Feds: EPA Caused Colorado Gold Mine Spill. Government investigators squarely blamed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Thursday for a 3 million gallon wastewater spill from a Colorado gold mine, saying an EPA cleanup crew rushed its work and failed to consider the complex engineering involved, triggering the very blowout it hoped to avoid.
The spill that fouled rivers in three states would have been avoided had the <a href="http://www.earth.com/video/gentoo-penguins-are-not-one-species-but-four/">EPA</a> team checked on water levels inside the Gold King Mine before digging into a collapsed and leaking mine entrance, Interior Department investigators concluded.
The technical report on the causes of the Aug. 5 spill has implications across the United States, where similar disasters could lurk among the hundreds of thousands of abandoned mines that have yet to be cleaned up. Some estimates put the total cost of containing this mining industry mess at more than $50 billion. Feds: EPA Caused Colorado Gold Mine Spill
The report says the root causes of the Colorado accident began decades earlier, when mining companies altered the flow of water through a series of interconnected tunnels in the extensively mined Upper <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/animus-river-in-colorado-reopens-as-toxic-spill-moves-to-lake-powell-3/">Animas River</a> watershed.
EPA documents show its officials knew of the potential for a major blowout from the Gold King Mine near Silverton as early as June 2014. After the spill, EPA officials described the blowout as "likely inevitable" because millions of gallons of pressurized water had been bottling up inside the mine.
The Interior report directly refutes that assertion. It says the cleanup team could have used a drill rig to bore into the shaft from above, safely gauging the danger of a blowout and planning the excavation accordingly. Instead, the EPA crew, with the agreement of Colorado mining officials, assumed the shaft was only partially inundated.
"This error resulted in development of a plan to open the mine in a manner that appeared to guard against blowout, but instead led directly to the failure," according to engineers from Interior's Bureau of Reclamation, who spent two months evaluating the technical circumstances.
The blowout fouled rivers in Colorado, Utah and <a href="https://www.bing.com/search?q=New+Mexico&amp;cvid=549c6db7d0594007a0a6e9322bd79d5a&amp;FORM=ANAB01&amp;PC=HCTS">New Mexico</a>, temporarily shutting down drinking water supplies and cropland irrigation.
The report stops short of assigning fault to any individuals, despite prior claims from EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy that it would determine fault and any negligence.
A U.S. Army Corps of Engineers official whose review of the conclusions was included in the report expressed "serious reservations" over the EPA's failure to explain exactly how its communications broke down and why its officials were so insistent on starting work without more information about the complexities involved.
Richard Olsen, a senior geotechnical engineer with the Corps, also questioned why a change in the EPA field coordinator for Gold King led to an "urgency to start digging" even though another EPA official had expressed some uncertainty about the potential risks.
That second EPA official in July asked for an outside review of the agency's plans by one of the Bureau of Reclamation engineers involved in Thursday's report. A meeting between the EPA and the engineer had been scheduled for Aug. 14 - nine days after the blowout.
EPA officials pointed out that the mine plug already was leaking and could have eventually blown out anyway, and the Interior report acknowledged that this was possible.
EPA spokeswoman Nancy Grantham said the report "will help inform EPA's ongoing efforts to work safely and effectively at mine sites as we carry out our mission to protect human health and the environment."
A separate investigation into the spill is pending from the EPA Inspector General's Office.
Guidelines for cleaning up abandoned focus on details such as water sampling and treatment. Yet they have "little appreciation for the engineering complexity," and require but don't receive significant expertise, the Interior Department's 132-page report concluded.
Plugging abandoned or inactive mines has been common industry practice for more than a century. The report lists 31 mines across the U.S. where so-called bulkheads were installed since the 1950s to stem the flow of water into or out of a mine.
With coal mines, monitoring and cleanups are funded in part by a fee companies pay, and costs are passed on to utility customers. No such arrangements exist for inoperative hard-rock mines, and that's a national problem, the report noted.
Given industry opposition to efforts to hold mine owners accountable, the cleanup has been left to a scattering of federal and state agencies, without common standards or even lists of the most problematic mines. The EPA has been left to prioritize cleanups with insufficient information and funding, the report said.
In the wake of the Gold King spill, EPA temporarily halted some work at 10 polluted mining complexes in Montana, California, Colorado and Missouri because of similar conditions.
Abandoned hard-rock underground mines are not subject to the same federal and state safety requirements other mining operations must follow, and "experience indicates that they should be," the report concluded.
"A collapsed flooded mine is in effect a dam, and failure must be prevented by routine monitoring, maintenance, and in some cases remediation. However, there appears to be a general absence of knowledge of the risks associated with these facilities. A comprehensive identification of sites, evaluation of the potential to fail, and estimation of the likely downstream consequences should failure occur, are good first steps in such an endeavor."
© 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

Feds: EPA Caused Colorado Gold Mine Spill. Feds: EPA Caused...

Feds: EPA Caused Colorado Gold Mine Spill. Government investigators squarely blamed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Thursday for a 3 million gallon wastewater spill from a Colorado gold mine, saying an EPA cleanup crew rushed its work and failed to consider the complex engineering involved, triggering the very blowout it hoped to avoid.
The spill that fouled rivers in three states would have been avoided had the EPA team checked on water levels inside the Gold King Mine before digging into a collapsed and leaking mine entrance, Interior Department investigators concluded. Feds: EPA Caused <a href="https://www.bing.com/search?q=colorado&amp;cvid=cd3aea73d6534c48a86fadb3f320e862&amp;FORM=ANAB01&amp;PC=HCTS">Colorado</a> Gold Mine Spill
The technical report on the causes of the Aug. 5 spill has implications across the<a href="https://www.earth.com/image/severe-fire-threat-continues-in-the-western-united-states/"> United States</a>, where similar disasters could lurk among the hundreds of thousands of abandoned mines that have yet to be cleaned up. Some estimates put the total cost of containing this mining industry mess at more than $50 billion.
The report says the root causes of the Colorado accident began decades earlier, when mining companies altered the flow of water through a series of interconnected tunnels in the extensively mined Upper Animas River watershed.
EPA documents show its officials knew of the potential for a major blowout from the Gold King Mine near Silverton as early as June 2014. After the spill, EPA officials described the blowout as "likely inevitable" because millions of gallons of pressurized water had been bottling up inside the mine.
The Interior report directly refutes that assertion. It says the cleanup team could have used a drill rig to bore into the shaft from above, safely gauging the danger of a blowout and planning the excavation accordingly. Instead, the EPA crew, with the agreement of Colorado mining officials, assumed the shaft was only partially inundated.
"This error resulted in development of a plan to open the mine in a manner that appeared to guard against blowout, but instead led directly to the failure," according to engineers from Interior's Bureau of Reclamation, who spent two months evaluating the technical circumstances.
The blowout fouled rivers in Colorado, Utah and New Mexico, temporarily shutting down drinking water supplies and cropland irrigation.
The report stops short of assigning fault to any individuals, despite prior claims from EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy that it would determine fault and any negligence.
A U.S. Army Corps of Engineers official whose review of the conclusions was included in the report expressed "serious reservations" over the EPA's failure to explain exactly how its communications broke down and why its officials were so insistent on starting work without more information about the complexities involved.
Richard Olsen, a senior geotechnical engineer with the Corps, also questioned why a change in the EPA field coordinator for Gold King led to an "urgency to start digging" even though another EPA official had expressed some uncertainty about the potential risks.
That second EPA official in July asked for an outside review of the agency's plans by one of the Bureau of Reclamation engineers involved in Thursday's report. A meeting between the EPA and the engineer had been scheduled for Aug. 14 - nine days after the blowout.
EPA officials pointed out that the mine plug already was leaking and could have eventually blown out anyway, and the Interior report acknowledged that this was possible.
EPA spokeswoman Nancy Grantham said the report "will help inform EPA's ongoing efforts to work safely and effectively at mine sites as we carry out our mission to protect human health and the environment."
A separate investigation into the spill is pending from the EPA Inspector General's Office.
Guidelines for cleaning up abandoned focus on details such as water sampling and treatment. Yet they have "little appreciation for the engineering complexity," and require but don't receive significant expertise, the Interior Department's 132-page report concluded.
Plugging abandoned or inactive mines has been common industry practice for more than a century. The report lists 31 mines across the U.S. where so-called bulkheads were installed since the 1950s to stem the flow of water into or out of a mine.
With coal mines, monitoring and cleanups are funded in part by a fee companies pay, and costs are passed on to utility customers. No such arrangements exist for inoperative hard-rock mines, and that's a national problem, the report noted.
Given industry opposition to efforts to hold mine owners accountable, the cleanup has been left to a scattering of federal and state agencies, without common standards or even lists of the most problematic mines. The EPA has been left to prioritize cleanups with insufficient information and funding, the report said.
In the wake of the Gold King spill, EPA temporarily halted some work at 10 polluted mining complexes in Montana, California, Colorado and Missouri because of similar conditions.
Abandoned hard-rock underground mines are not subject to the same federal and state safety requirements other mining operations must follow, and "experience indicates that they should be," the report concluded.
"A collapsed flooded mine is in effect a dam, and failure must be prevented by routine monitoring, maintenance, and in some cases remediation. However, there appears to be a general absence of knowledge of the risks associated with these facilities. A comprehensive identification of sites, evaluation of the potential to fail, and estimation of the likely downstream consequences should failure occur, are good first steps in such an endeavor."
© 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

Feds: EPA Caused Colorado Gold Mine

Feds: Buy Flood Insurance If You Live In California With a strong El Nino in place, the
FEMA deputy associate administrator Roy WrighFederal Emergency Management Agency is urging Californians in flood prone places to buy flood insurance before it's too late.t said Friday buying flood insurance is the most powerful action residents can take with the <a href="https://www.bing.com/search?q=el+nino&amp;cvid=d4152f4f0abf45219d35b4a21f9408f8&amp;FORM=ANAB01&amp;PC=HCTS">El Nino</a>, which brings heavy winter rains to California.
Between 50 to 70 percent of Californians who live in high risk flood areas don't have federal flood insurance. People can check at <a href="http://www.floodsmart.gov/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">www.floodsmart.gov</a> . Wright said flood insurance has to be purchased 30 days before a flood hits.
Wright said if you buy flood insurance for just one year this is the year because more than one-third of <a href="https://www.earth.com/image/tule-fog-across-californias-central-valley/">California</a> flood insurance claims in the past 27 years came in just four El Nino years. Feds: Buy Flood Insurance If You Live In California. California is a state in the Pacific Region of the United States. With over 39.3 million residents across a total area of approximately 163,696 square miles, it is the most populous U.S. state and the third-largest by area
© 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

Feds: Buy Flood Insurance If You Live In California

Feds: Buy Flood Insurance If You Live In California With...

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



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



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



Video/ Image Credit: ESA



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

Nushagak Bay in southwest Alaska

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

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



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



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



Video/ Image Credit: American Chemical Society&nbsp;



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



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

Flu viruses are more flexible than expected

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

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



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



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



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



Video/Image Credit: ESA&nbsp;



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

Lake Trasimeno in Central Italy

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



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



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



Video Credit: American Chemical Society&nbsp;



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



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

Detecting mercury contamination with the tap of a finger

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

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



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Kainji Lake in north central Nigeria

[sendtonews key="iuA5mpp3jv-1641775-12187" type="single"] Today’s Video of the Day from the...

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

[sendtonews key="QGPzYnXEtN-1712599-12187" type="single"] Today’s Video of the Day from Carl...

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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



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How does salt makes things taste better?

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

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



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



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



Video/ Image Credit: ESA



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



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Santiago, Chile in South America

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

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

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



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



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



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



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



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



Video Credit: Johns Hopkins&nbsp;



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



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

Interactive map of the universe includes 200,000 galaxies

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

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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



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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



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The province of Zaragoza in northeast Spain

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

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



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Wetlands are a major source of methane emissions

[sendtonews key="f8fukm28Vz-2491833-12187" type="single"] Today's Video of the Day from NASA...

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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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The rapid retreat of the Columbia Glacier

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

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



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



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



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



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



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



Video &amp; Image Credit: ESA



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



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The Pyrenees Mountains in southwest Europe

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

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



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How the immune system responds to injury

[sendtonews key="0dEcERCq61-2283382-12187" type="single"] Today’s Video of the Day from Stowers...

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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



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2022 illustrated the consequences of a warming climate

[sendtonews key="3UUsNkFOuS-2487333-12187" type="single"] Today's Video of the Day from NASA...

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



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Two distant planets may be "water worlds"

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

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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



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Satellites reveal how Earth's systems are interconnected

[sendtonews key="JbW4VsY53O-1632195-12187" type="single"] Satellites reveal how Earth's systems are interconnected...

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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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Tiger sharks are shifting poleward as temperatures rise

Today’s Video of the Day from the University of Miami...