How did life on Earth begin? People have been asking that for ages. The answers remain scattered across rocks, oceans, and ancient landscapes. One clue hides in an essential ingredient for life - phosphorus.



Phosphorus is everywhere in living things. It holds together DNA and RNA. It forms the framework of cell membranes. No life can grow or function without it. 



Yet, phosphorus mostly stays trapped in rocks. It hides inside phosphate minerals, which barely dissolve in water. That raises an old and puzzling question: how did early Earth get enough phosphorus to <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/scientists-discover-one-simple-rule-that-explains-all-life-on-earth-bioregions/">spark</a> life?



Yuya Tsukamoto and Takeshi Kakegawa from <a href="https://www.tohoku.ac.jp/en/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Tohoku University</a> took that question seriously. They decided to look where most people wouldn’t - deep under the sea, in rocks that are billions of years old.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-element-for-life-on-earth">Key element for life on Earth</h2>



The researchers focused on the Pilbara Craton in Western Australia, which holds some of the oldest known seafloor rocks. 



The rocks are an astonishing 3.455 billion years old. The team's discovery wasn’t subtle. It jumped out from the data.



"We analyzed 3.455-billion-year-old basaltic seafloor rocks in drill core samples recovered from the Pilbara Craton, Western Australia, discovering that P was significantly leached from the hydrothermally altered rocks compared to the least altered rocks," explained Tsukamoto.



He noted that further mineralogical analyses indicated that phosphate minerals had undergone dissolution in rocks where P was depleted. 



Simply put, hot fluids moved through these rocks and pulled phosphorus out. That phosphorus didn’t just disappear. It entered the surrounding seawater, turning parts of the ocean into phosphorus-rich zones.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-tracking-the-source-of-phosphorus">Tracking the source of phosphorus </h2>



The rocks alone didn’t tell the whole story. The team wanted to understand what made this phosphorus release possible. They uncovered two kinds of hydrothermal fluids that shaped this <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/third-state-of-existence-beyond-life-and-death-confirmed-by-scientists/">process</a>.



One type was hot, rich in sulfur, and capable of breaking down minerals quickly. The other was more surprising - mildly acidic to alkaline fluids at lower temperatures. 



These fluids were common in the Archean era because Earth’s atmosphere back then was filled with carbon dioxide. That unique atmosphere made these fluids react in unexpected ways with the rocks.



The result? Massive amounts of dissolved phosphate in the water. The numbers were shocking. These fluids could carry up to 2 millimolar phosphate - nearly 1,000 times higher than what’s found in modern seawater.



Suddenly, early <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/luca-last-universal-common-ancestor-progenitor-all-life-on-earth/">Earth</a> wasn’t a barren place. Its oceans were filled with phosphorus.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-earth-s-oceans-held-elements-for-life">Earth’s oceans held elements for life</h2>



This wasn’t just a chemistry experiment. The results changed how scientists think about early Earth. The researchers calculated how much phosphorus these underwater systems could release. 



The findings were stunning. The amount of phosphorus released into the oceans by these hydrothermal systems could match, or even exceed, the amount entering modern oceans through rivers and weathering of land rocks.



"Importantly, this study provides direct evidence that submarine hydrothermal activity leached P from seafloor basaltic rocks and quantifies the potential P flux from these hydrothermal systems to the early ocean," adds Tsukamoto.



Imagine ancient oceans filled with nutrients. These phosphorus-rich waters may have supported some of Earth’s earliest microbial life. 



The ancient communities didn’t need a vast, lush <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/rocks-reveal-the-turning-point-when-oxygen-changed-earth-forever/">planet</a>. It only needed these hidden underwater environments to get started.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-hot-springs-and-hidden-worlds-on-land">Hot springs and hidden worlds on land</h2>



The study also pointed to something beyond the oceans - hot springs on land. Hydrothermal systems aren’t just found under the sea. They exist on land too, in places like hot springs.



These environments might have also released phosphorus on early Earth. That means life’s building blocks weren’t limited to deep-sea vents. They could have existed in steaming pools on land.



This opens the door for more discoveries. Scientists now plan to study how phosphate behaves in rocks across different periods of Earth’s history. By tracing phosphorus through time, they hope to unlock new chapters of Earth’s story.



The message is clear: Life’s ingredients may have come from places on Earth we’ve only just begun to explore. Deep beneath the waves, within rocks touched by ancient fluids, the story of life may have quietly begun.



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0016703725003266?via%3Dihub" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta</a>.



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Earth may have always held the key ingredients for life

How did life on Earth begin? People have been asking that for ages. The answers remain scattered across rocks, oceans, and ancient landscapes. One clue hides in an essential ingredient for life - phosphorus. Phosphorus is everywhere in living things. It holds together DNA and RNA. It forms the framework of cell membranes. No life can grow or function without it. Yet, phosphorus mostly stays trapped in rocks. It hides inside phosphate minerals, which barely dissolve in water. That raises an old and puzzling question: how did...

According to a new report put forth by the <a href="https://www.aaas.org/">American Association for the Advancement of Science</a>, archaeologists have discovered plant fossils in present-day Jordan in the Middle East that date back to before the <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/permian-mass-extinction/">Permian Extinction</a> — about 250 million years ago. 

The new fossils push back the age of previously discovered and studied seed lineages and suggest that these lineages actually survived the mass extinction. 

Furthermore, researchers are now calling this Permian-age tropical habitat a “hidden cradle” of plant evolution — a cradle that housed ancestors of many of our modern plants, such as Podocarpaceae, the second-largest family of modern conifers.

Patrick Blomenkemper, from the <a href="https://www.uni-muenster.de/en/">University of Münster</a>, and his colleagues state in their report that the plant fossils found within this hidden cradle are all early ancestors of seed lineages that would become the dominant plant species in the Mesozoic period. 

Their findings prove that ancient equatorial ecosystems were, in fact, “evolutionary cradles” with lush biodiversity, thus leading to the evolution of modern biodiverse tropical regions. The existence of evolutionary cradles was simply a hypothesis, but now with the presence of these new Permian-era fossils, experts can now confirm that drought-prone tropical habitats were evolutionary cradles for plant life.

And, armed with the knowledge that these seed lineages survived the Permian Extinction, researchers believe that these species are much more resilient than previously thought.

--

By <a href="mailto:oliviagharvey24@gmail.com">Olivia Harvey</a>, <a href="http://earth.com">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

“Hidden cradle” of early plant evolution found in present-day Jordan

According to a new report put forth by the American...

Around one million years ago, during the <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/drop-co2-levels-ancient/">Mid-Pleistocene Transition</a> (MPT), the planet underwent a major climate shift, and temperatures dropped. Cycles of extreme cold were the norm during the MPT, but researchers have long looked for answers as to what caused the global cooling. 

Over the past 600,000 years, the Earth has been teetering between warm and cool periods. Often these periods are due to the Earth’s orbital position in relation to the Sun and the tilt of the Earth’s axis, but during the MPT there were no known changes in the Earth’s orbit around the sun which just further adds to the mystery behind the cause.

Now, researchers from the <a href="https://www.exeter.ac.uk/">University of Exeter</a> have uncovered a key piece of the MPT puzzle in a new study. 

The results of the study, published in the journal Nature Communication, show that the freezing over of the Bering Strait during the MPT and the stratification of the North Pacific likely drove down temperatures.

“The subarctic North Pacific is composed of some of the oldest water on Earth, which has been separated from the atmosphere for such a long time that a high concentration of dissolved CO2 has built up at depth,” said Sev Kender, a co-author of the study. “When this water upwells to the surface, some of the CO2 is released. This is thought to be an important process in geological time, causing some of the global warming that followed past glaciations.” 

When the Bering Strait closed due to glaciation, it disrupted this natural upwelling of CO2, and instead, the oceans absorbed more CO2 from the atmosphere which perpetuated global cooling. 

“We discovered that the Bering Sea region became more stratified during the MPT with an expanded intermediate-depth watermass, such that one of the important contributors to global warming - the upwelling of the subarctic North Pacific - was effectively curtailed,” said Kender. 

The researchers collected sediment cores from deep below the Bering Sea and analyzed the chemical composition of the sediments and fossils within the samples. 

The researchers were then able to reconstruct water masses and plankton productivity during the MPT period of glaciation and found that many the changes in global climate happening at that time were related to changes happening in the Bering Strait, including the stratification of the Subarctic North Pacific. 

“As glaciers grew and sea levels fell around 1 million years ago, the Bering Strait would have closed, retaining colder water within the Bering Sea,” said Kender. “This expanded watermass appears to have stifled the upwelling of deep CO2-rich water and allowed the ocean to sequester more CO2 out of the atmosphere.”

--

By <a href="mailto:kayvandette@gmail.com">Kay Vandette</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Paid for by <a href="http://earth.com">Earth.com</a>

Bering Sea sediments hold clues to what caused past climate shift

Around one million years ago, during the Mid-Pleistocene Transition (MPT),...

Scientists at <a href="https://www.stanford.edu/">Stanford University</a> have trained a machine learning program, called DeepSolar, to identify almost every single solar panel within the United States. After analyzing over a billion images via the machine, the team found about 1.47 million <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/solar-energy-valuable-land/">solar panel</a> installations, which is a higher count than previously estimated.

The benefit of knowing how many Americans are currently using solar panels and why is pertinent information necessary for managing the changing U.S. electricity system and understanding pushback against renewable resources.

“We can use recent advances in machine learning to know where all these assets are, which has been a huge question, and generate insights about where the grid is going and how we can help get it to a more beneficial place," said study co-supervisor and associate professor of civil and environmental engineering Ram Rajagopal.

DeepSolar was fed about 370,000 satellite images that covered about 100 ft. by 100 ft. patches of land, each labelled as having a solar panel present or not. From these images, DeepSolar learned how to recognize solar panels by color, texture, and size, and could correctly identify images as having solar panels 93% of the time. The machine was able to filter through the billion satellite images available in about a month.

From their findings, published December 19th in <a href="https://www.journals.elsevier.com/joule">Joule,</a> the team gathered that household income plays a huge role in the decision to go solar. Low- and medium-income households do not usually opt for solar, which is most likely due to the upfront cost of making the switch.

“We found some insights, but it's just the tip of the iceberg of what we think other researchers, utilities, solar developers and policymakers can further uncover," said Arun Majumdar, professor of mechanical engineering and the study’s second supervisor. "We are making this public so that others find solar deployment patterns, and build economic and behavioral models."

The hope is that DeepSolar’s imaging can help optimize regional U.S. electricity systems and help local governments and solar panel marketers target certain areas to bolster the use of renewable resources.

--

By <a href="mailto:oliviagharvey24@gmail.com">Olivia Harvey</a>, <a href="http://earth.com">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Machine learning algorithm can locate every solar panel in the US

Scientists at Stanford University have trained a machine learning program,...

The <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/">National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)</a> has announced plans to launch another <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-to-return-humans-to-the-moon">human-crewed lunar mission</a> as well as several other ambitious deep space explorations sometime in the future. 

While the hazards of space travel and the risks of space itself have been the subject of much research, less focus has been paid to the dangers of interplanetary exploration. 

A new study has found that dust on the surface of the <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/frozen-water-discovered-moon/">moon</a> is so toxic it can damage cells and is extremely hazardous when inhaled. 

The Apollo Astronauts encountered “lunar dust” and found that the electrostatically charged soil particles that are bombarded daily by solar radiation clung to space suits and, if inhaled, caused eye, nose, and throat irritation. 

But now, researchers from <a href="https://www.stonybrook.edu/">Stony Brook University</a> have discovered that compounds in lunar soil react with human cells and can generate extremely toxic hydroxyl radicals which are known to increase the risk of lung cancer, according to <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2188164-breathing-in-moon-dust-could-release-toxins-in-astronauts-lungs/">New Scientist</a> which reported on the study. 

The researchers presented their findings at the <a href="https://sites.agu.org/">American Geophysical Union</a> meeting in Washington D.C.

“Lunar dust represents one of the many hazards that humans will have to contend with when conducting missions on its surface,” the researchers wrote.

The team set out to determine how many hydroxyl radicals were produced in someone inhaled lunar dust. 

For the study, the researchers analyzed lunar dust samples and submerged two-iron based compounds, olivine and augite (both found in the moon in abundance), in a liquid meant to simulate the fluid found in human lungs. 

After just 15 minutes, the olivine and augite generated nine times more hydroxyl radicals per liter of the simulated lung fluid than quartz, which is also a highly toxic compound. 

“The fine metallic iron is extremely hazardous to human health,” Donald Hendrix, a member of the research team, told New Scientist.   

The results of the research indicate that there could be long-term health implications for 
astronauts exposed to lunar dust because inhaled particles can stay in the lungs for a long time.

If a human-crewed lunar mission is to become a reality, studies like this will be crucial for understanding how long-term exploration and exposure to harsh conditions on the surface of the moon will impact astronauts.  

“It is important to understand what effects lunar dust may have on astronauts if dust mitigation methods prove to be inadequate on future missions,” the researchers concluded. “Our work furthers understanding of the chemical properties of lunar dust reactivity, which could lead to medical advancements in treating those exposed to lunar dust.”

--

By <a href="mailto:kayvandette@gmail.com">Kay Vandette</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Moon dust is extremely toxic and poses health hazards for astronauts

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has announced plans...

Stewart Strand and Lab assistant Long do work to genetically modify house plants to remove airborne pollutants from the air space

Researchers at the <a href="https://www.washington.edu/">University of Washington</a> have genetically modified a common houseplant to remove chloroform and benzene from the surrounding air. The plants have been engineered to express a protein that is capable of transforming these hazardous compounds into molecules that the plants can use to support their own growth.

Chloroform and benzene are potentially harmful substances that are commonly found in homes, and these molecules are too small to trap with air filters. 

“People haven't really been talking about these hazardous organic compounds in homes, and I think that's because we couldn't do anything about them,” said senior author Professor Stuart Strand. “Now we've engineered houseplants to remove these pollutants for us.”

The team wanted to test a protein called cytochrome P450 2E1, which is present in the human liver and in all other mammals.  Inside of our bodies, 2E1 converts benzene into a chemical called phenol and turns chloroform into carbon dioxide and chloride ions.

“We decided we should have this reaction occur outside of the body in a plant, an example of the ‘green liver’ concept,” said Professor Strand. “And 2E1 can be beneficial for the plant, too. Plants use carbon dioxide and chloride ions to make their food, and they use phenol to help make components of their cell walls.”

The researchers developed a synthetic version of the gene that regulates the form of 2E1 found in rabbits. They distributed it throughout the common houseplant pothos ivy so that each cell in the plant expressed the protein.

“This whole process took more than two years,” said study lead author Long Zhang, who is a research scientist in the UW Civil and Environmental Engineering Department. “That is a long time, compared to other lab plants, which might only take a few months. But we wanted to do this in pothos because it's a robust houseplant that grows well under all sort of conditions.”

To test the detoxifying capacity of their modified plants, the team put the plants alongside regular pothos ivy in test tubes and then added either benzene or chloroform gas to each tube. The researchers then monitored the concentration of the pollutants in the tubes for 11 days.

Among the regular plants, the concentrations of benzene and chloroform did not change over time. For the modified plants, however, the concentration of chloroform dropped by 82 percent after three days, and it was almost undetectable after six days. By day eight, the benzene concentration had dropped by around 75 percent.

According to Professor Strand, the purifying plants will work best in the <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/toxic-chemical-lurking-homes/">home</a> if they are paired with something to move the air around like a fan. 

“If you had a plant growing in the corner of a room, it will have some effect in that room,” he said. “But without air flow, it will take a long time for a molecule on the other end of the house to reach the plant.”

The team is now enhancing the plants' capabilities by adding a protein that can break down formaldehyde, which is another hazardous molecule found in the home.

“These are all stable compounds, so it's really hard to get rid of them,” said Professor Strand. “Without proteins to break down these molecules, we'd have to use high-energy processes to do it. It's so much simpler and more sustainable to put these proteins all together in a houseplant.”

The study is published in the journal <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/journal/esthag">Environmental Science and Technology</a>. 

--

By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer 

Image Credit: Mark Stone/University of Washington

Scientists have created a plant that can detoxify your home’s air

Researchers at the University of Washington have genetically modified a...

Past research has claimed that the Earth went through a “global warming hiatus,” where for a period of time in the early 2000s, there was a slowdown in warming temperatures. By the end of 2017, over 200 published articles and studies revolved around this “pause.” 

However, two new studies published in the journal Environmental Research Letters disprove all evidence of a pause in <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/island-nations-global-warming/">warming</a> and show that temperatures have in fact been steadily on the rise. 

“Many studies over the past decade have claimed to find a pause or slowdown in global warming and have typically posited this as evidence that is inconsistent with our understanding of global warming,” said James Risby, a lead author of one of the studies. “Global warming did not pause, but we need to understand how and why scientists came to believe it had, to avoid future episodes like this.”

Risby, part of the <a href="https://www.csiro.au/">Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation</a> (CSIRO Australia), and a team of researchers reassessed the pause studies to help put the data and claims into a historical context. 

The researchers made a note of how a “pause” had been identified and what methods were used in the studies while testing out different past and present datasets of global mean surface temperature (GMST). 

“Our findings show there is little or no statistical evidence for a ‘pause’ in GMST rise,” said Risby. “Neither the current data nor the historical data support it. Moreover, updates to the GMST data through the period of 'pause' research have made this conclusion stronger. But, there was never enough evidence to reasonably draw any other conclusion.”

For the second study, a team of researchers reviewed climate models and observations to identify mismatches of global warming rates that would help explain why past studies came to the conclusions they did. 

The researchers compared temperatures and projections of GMST of past climate models that were used in the pause studies and found that errors and misinterpretations of the predictions and data were made because of biases.

“We found the impression of a divergence - i.e. a divergence between the rate of actual global warming and the model projections - was caused by various biases in the model interpretation and in the observations. It was unsupported by robust statistics,” said Stephan Lewandowsky, the lead author of the second study and a professor from the <a href="http://www.bristol.ac.uk/">University of Bristol.</a>

Once the researchers accounted for these biases and reviewed the data again, there was no evidence of a pause to be found. 

The two studies also provide some explanations for why so many past studies found evidence of a pause when in reality this was not the case, and the researchers note that perhaps data providers were not able to express the limitations of their data.

Another possible explanation could be that it takes time for researchers to correct a bias or inaccuracy in a study. 

“A final point to consider is why scientists put such emphasis on the ‘pause’ when the evidence for it was so scant,”  said Naomi Oreskes, a co-author of one of the studies from <a href="https://www.harvard.edu/">Harvard University</a>. “An explanation lies in the constant public and political pressure from climate contrarians. This may have caused scientists to feel the need to explain what was occurring, which led them inadvertently to accept and reinforce the contrarian framework.”

--

By <a href="mailto:kayvandette@gmail.com">Kay Vandette</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/">Earth.com </a>Staff Writer 

Paid for by <a href="http://earth.com">Earth.com</a>

There was never a “pause” in global warming, scientists confirm

Past research has claimed that the Earth went through a...

For most animals including humans, females <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/women-age-slowly-men/">live longer than males</a>, and researchers from the <a href="https://www.ucsf.edu/">University of California (UC), San Francisco</a> may have found an explanation for why this is. 

The answer has to do with the second X chromosome. 

Present in all female mammals, the second X chromosome contains genes that are critical for survival, and all mammals have at least one X chromosome. 

Males have one X chromosome and one Y chromosome, but the Y chromosome has little influence over anything but creating secondary sex characteristics like facial hair. 

An animal can’t survive without at least one X chromosome which led researchers from the UC-California to question if maybe the secondary X chromosome played a role in female longevity. 

“We've long wondered what causes female longevity,” said Dena Dubal, the senior author of the study. “One can imagine nature has driven females to evolve this way. When you're living longer, you can really ensure the well-being of your offspring, and maybe even their offspring.”

The researchers conducted a long-term study monitoring the lifespans of mice that were given different combinations of X and Y chromosome pairings and gonads which produce either testes or ovaries. 

The pairings were XX with ovaries, XY with testes, and XX with testes and XY with ovaries.

All mice used in the study were genetically identical, and the researchers made sure that the mice were raised in the same environment to rule out any possible external factors that would influence aging. 

According to the results, published in the journal Aging Cell, the mice with ovaries and two X chromosomes lived the longest of any of the other combinations. 

The study is the first of its kind to identify the underlying genetic mechanisms that could help drive longevity. 

“This suggests that the hormones produced by female gonads increase lifespan in mice with two X chromosomes, either by influencing how the mouse develops or by activating certain biological pathways during their lives,” said Dubal. 

The researchers are not sure exactly why a second X chromosome seems to give such an advantage in lifespans, but Dubal suggests that it may have something to do with the fact that the second X chromosome is silenced but is still able to express itself. 

“When things go wrong in aging, having more of the X chromosome, along with its diversity of expression, could be really beneficial,” said Dubal.

--

By <a href="mailto:kayvandette@gmail.com">Kay Vandette</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Sex chromosome may explain why women generally outlive men

For most animals including humans, females live longer than males,...

Infectious diseases are commonly passed along from humans to animals, but a new study is the first to document human-linked pathogens on the isolated continent of <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/adelie-penguins-antarctica/">Antarctica</a>. The researchers discovered antibiotic resistant microbes and other bacterial strains in bird poop, raising new concerns about the health of Antarctic bird colonies.

“It's reasonable to think that the rapid increase of tourism has increased the risk of pathogen invasion,” said study co-author Professor Jacob González-Solís of the <a href="https://www.ub.edu/web/ub/en/">University of Barcelona</a>. “Sooner or later the transmission of one of these pathogens is going to destroy a local population of birds.”

The investigation was focused on the droppings of hundreds of birds from 24 different species, such as rockhopper penguins and Atlantic yellow-nosed albatrosses. Between 2008 and 2011, the poop samples were collected at four sites across the Antarctic Ocean, including Livingston, Marion Island, Gough Island, and the Falkland Islands. These are all areas along bird migration routes that are frequented by tourists.

Within the fecal matter, the research team found traces of the bacteria Campylobacter jejuni, which is one of the most common sources of food poisoning in the United States and Europe. They also detected a strain of Salmonella that is typically associated with birds in urban areas, as well as an antibiotic-resistant strain of a gastrointestinal bug called Campylobacter lari.

Professor González-Solís predicts that, even though Salmonella and Campylobacter are not necessarily fatal, the pathogens could have “devastating consequences” to Antarctic bird colonies because they have never been exposed to these strains. According to the researchers, the bacteria could have originated from domestic poultry, tourist cruises, or from research centers.  

Kyle Elliott is an ornithologist and ecologist at McGill University, who was not involved in the research. He told <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/">Science magazine</a>, “We often think of polar environments as being too cold and that disease transmission is not a huge threat, but the authors have clear evidence that bacteria can spread widely in polar environments.”

The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.journals.elsevier.com/science-of-the-total-environment">Science of the Total Environment</a>.  

--

By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Human-linked pathogens found across Antarctica for the first time

Infectious diseases are commonly passed along from humans to animals,...

Researchers at the <a href="https://www.embl.de/">European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL)</a> may have found a new, less damaging way to scratch <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/scratching-itch-even-more/">that itch</a>. A new light treatment has proved effective on mice, and could therefore offer relief to humans with chronic skin diseases, such as eczema.

The study, published December 17th in <a href="https://www.nature.com/natbiomedeng/">Nature Biomedical Engineering</a>, and led by Linda Nocchi and Paul Heppenstall of EMBL Rome, tested a newly developed light-sensitive chemical that binds the specialized nerve cells that trigger itch in the upper layers of the skin. The researchers injected the chemical into affected mice and then exposed them to near-infrared light. The light caused the nerves to withdraw from the skin, thus eliminating the itch.

Mice and humans share the same target molecule for itch therapy — a protein called Interleukin 31 (IL-31). Because of this, the team believes their light therapy, the anti-itch effects of which last for several months, could be a successful treatment for human skin ailments and plan to test it on human skin cells as soon as possible.

“For me, the most exciting part of this project was seeing the improvements in the animals' health,” Nocchi, a postdoctoral researcher in the <a href="https://www.embl.it/research/unit/heppenstall/members/">EMBL Heppenstall group</a>. "Their skin looked much better after treatment and they scratched less." 

“We hope that one day, our method will be able to help humans suffering from a disease like eczema, which causes chronic itching,” Heppenstall added.

The group believes their light therapy, which they’ve also previously tailored to manage chronic pain, could be used for several different types of skin issues. “Our goal now is to take these therapies further,” Heppenstall said. “We want to collaborate with industry partners to develop therapies for humans, but also for veterinary medicine, as itch is a major problem in dogs as well."

--

By <a href="mailto:oliviagharvey24@gmail.com">Olivia Harvey</a>, <a href="http://earth.com">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Light treatment could relieve itchy skin

Researchers at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) may have...

A new study has extended the history of <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/birds-shiny-feathers-trees/">feathers</a> by 70 million years. A team of palaeontologists led by the <a href="http://www.bristol.ac.uk/">University of Bristol</a> has discovered that flying reptiles known as pterosaurs had four different kinds of feathers.

Pterosaurs lived alongside the dinosaurs around 230 to 66 million years ago. While it was known that pterosaurs had a type of furry covering called “pycnofiber,” it was assumed to be fundamentally different to bird feathers.


The international team, which included experts from Nanjing, Bristol, Cork, Beijing, Dublin, and Hong Kong, has now demonstrated that pterosaurs had at least four types of feathers. These included simple filaments, bundles of filaments, down feathers, and filaments with a tuft halfway down.

The same types of feathers are now also associated with two major groups of dinosaurs: the ornithischians, which were plant-eaters, and the theropods, which include the ancestors of birds.

“We went to Inner Mongolia to do fieldwork in the Daohugou Formation,” said study lead author Baoyu Jiang of Nanjing University. “We already knew that the sites had produced excellent specimens of pterosaurs with their pycnofibres preserved and I was sure we could learn more by careful study.”

Study co-author Maria McNamara of University College Cork said, “Some critics have suggested that actually there is only one simple type of pycnofibre, but our studies show the different feather types are real.”

“We focused on clear areas where the feathers did not overlap and where we could see their structure clearly. They even show fine details of melanosomes, which may have given the fluffy feathers a ginger color.”

Professor Mike Benton from the University of Bristol's School of Earth Sciences added, "We ran some evolutionary analyses and they showed clearly that the pterosaur pycnofibres are feathers, just like those seen in modern birds and across various dinosaur groups.”

"Despite careful searching, we couldn't find any anatomical evidence that the four pycnofibre types are in any way different from the feathers of birds and dinosaurs. Therefore, because they are the same, they must share an evolutionary origin, and that was about 250 million years ago, long before the origin of birds."

Professor Benton said that the discovery has amazing implications for our understanding of the origin of feathers, and also for a revolution of life on land.

“When feathers arose, about 250 million years ago, life was recovering from the devastating end-Permian mass extinction,” he  explained. ‘Independent evidence shows that land vertebrates, including the ancestors of mammals and dinosaurs, had switched gait from sprawling to upright, had acquired different degrees of warm-bloodedness, and were generally living life at a faster pace.”

‘The mammal ancestors by then had hair, so likely the pterosaurs, dinosaurs and relatives had also acquired feathers to help insulate them.”

“The hunt for feathers in fossils is heating up and finding their functions in such early forms is imperative. It can rewrite our understanding of a major revolution in life on Earth during the Triassic, and also our understanding of the genomic regulation of feathers, scales, and hairs in the skin.”

The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/natecolevol">Nature Ecology &amp; Evolution</a>.

--

By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer 
Image Credit: by Yuan Zhang

Feathers emerged 70 million years earlier than previously thought

A new study has extended the history of feathers by...

Phone battery running low? Don’t worry – just dock it in a special pocket in your clothing, then spend a little time in the sun, and it will be recharged in no time. Such a scenario isn’t possible now, but it could be thanks to tiny photodiodes woven into your clothing.

Researchers at <a href="https://www.ntu.ac.uk/">Nottingham Trent University</a> say that “e-textiles” containing a network of minuscule photodiodes, just 3 millimeters long, could cut carbon emissions and prevent battery panic at the same time. 

“It could do away with the need to plug items into sockets and reduce the demand on the grid while cutting carbon emissions,” co-author Dr. Tilak Dias told the <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ushome/index.html">Daily Mail</a>. “The electrical power demand for smart e-textiles has always been its Achilles heel and this technology will allow people to use smart textiles while on the move.”

The research team created a prototype to see how feasible the potential power solution would actually be. 

The tiny photodiodes are so small that they are nearly invisible to the naked eye, and can’t be felt by the clothing’s wearer. Researchers encapsulated each tiny solar cell in resin, so that garments made with them can be laundered like normal.

“Wash tests confirmed that the yarns could survive multiple machine wash and drying cycles without deterioration in performance,” they wrote in their study, published in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-34483-8">Scientific Reports</a>.

However, weaving the cells into fabric and coating them with resin did have an effect on how much power they could generate, the researchers said. 

About 2,000 of the tiny photodiodes are needed to charge a smartphone, they said. The prototype, a 5-by-5-centimeter piece of fabric, contained about 200 solar cells – enough to power a Fitbit or old-fashioned mobile phone. 

The researchers believe the prototype shows promise that e-textiles containing photodiodes could be very useful in today’s digital age.

“With the demonstration of a (photodiode)-embedded E-yarn using this technique, there is no doubt that the integration of various types of optical sensors inside of textile yarns is a viable proposition,” they wrote.

--

By <a href="mailto:kcathey@earth.com">Kyla Cathey</a>, <a href="http://earth.com">Earth.com</a> Contributing Writer

Image credit: <a href="https://www.ntu.ac.uk/research/groups-and-centres/groups/advanced-textiles">Advanced Textiles, Nottingham Trent University</a>

Tiny photodiodes could turn clothing into a phone charger

Phone battery running low? Don’t worry – just dock it...

Australian geneticists have discovered that a baby’s biological sex goes beyond an XX or XY chromosome. A gene that acts as a “regulator” may also determine whether a baby is born with male or female characteristics.

"The sex of a baby is determined by its chromosome makeup at conception. An embryo with two X chromosomes will become a girl, while an embryo with an XY combination results in a boy," <a href="https://www.unimelb.edu.au/">University of Melbourne</a> doctoral student Brittany Croft said in a press release.

Or at least, that’s how it usually works. But whether an embryo has male or female characteristics may be a lot more complex than one chromosome combination.

A gene on the Y chromosome, SRY, triggers another gene called SOX9, which in turn starts the development of testes in the embryo, Croft said. Not just an XY chromosome but also high levels of SOX9 are needed for normal development of male testes, she said.

"However, if there is some disruption to SOX9 activity and only low levels are present, a testis will not develop resulting in a baby with a disorder of sex development,” she said.

According to Dr. Andrew Sinclair, the study’s lead author, up to 90 percent of human DNA is devoted to “junk DNA” that regulates other genes and their activity. These are known as enhancers, and if they don’t behave as they should, it can change how an embryo develops – meaning that with high levels of SOX9, someone with an XX chromosome may appear to be biologically male. With low levels, someone with an XY chromosome may develop female organs.

"We discovered three enhancers that, together, ensure the SOX9 gene is turned on to a high level in an XY embryo, leading to normal testis and male development," Sinclair said. "Importantly, we identified XX patients who would normally have ovaries and be female but carried extra copies of these enhancers, and instead developed testes. In addition, we found XY patients who had lost these SOX9 enhancers, and developed ovaries instead of testes."

Throughout the human genome are about a million enhancers that affect 22,000 genes, Sinclair said.

"These enhancers lie on the DNA but outside genes, in regions previously referred to as junk DNA or dark matter," he said. "The key to diagnosing many disorders may be found in these enhancers which hide in the poorly understood dark matter of our DNA."

The study has been published in the journal <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-07784-9">Nature Communications</a>. Funding was provided by the <a href="https://nhmrc.gov.au/">National Health and Medical Research Council</a> and <a href="https://www.arc.gov.au/">Australia Research Council</a>.

--

By <a href="mailto:kcathey@earth.com">Kyla Cathey</a>, <a href="http://earth.com">Earth.com</a> Contributing Writer

Geneticists: sex depends on more than XX or XY chromosome

Australian geneticists have discovered that a baby’s biological sex goes...

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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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

Is chocolate the next nutritional powerhouse?

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

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



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



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



Video/ Image Credit: ESA



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

Nushagak Bay in southwest Alaska

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



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



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



Video/ Image Credit: American Chemical Society&nbsp;



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



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

Flu viruses are more flexible than expected

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



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



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



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



Video/Image Credit: ESA&nbsp;



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

Lake Trasimeno in Central Italy

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



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



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



Video Credit: American Chemical Society&nbsp;



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



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

Detecting mercury contamination with the tap of a finger

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



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



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



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



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



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



Video/ Image Credit: European Space Agency&nbsp;



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



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

Kainji Lake in north central Nigeria

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



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



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



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



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



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



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



Video Credit: Amanda Nguyen/University of Illinois



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



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

Designing crops that can beat the heat

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



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



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



Video Credit: ACS Reactions



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



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

How does salt makes things taste better?

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



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



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



Video/ Image Credit: ESA



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



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

Santiago, Chile in South America

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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

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



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



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



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



Video Credit: ESA&nbsp;



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



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

The city of Dublin on Ireland's east coast

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



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



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



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



Video/ Image Credit: ESA



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



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

The province of Zaragoza in northeast Spain

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



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



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



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



Video Credit: NASA Goddard



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



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

Wetlands are a major source of methane emissions

[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



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

The rapid retreat of the Columbia Glacier

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

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



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



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



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



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



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



Video &amp; Image Credit: ESA



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



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

The Pyrenees Mountains in southwest Europe

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

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



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



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



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



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



Video Credit: Stowers Institute for Medical Research&nbsp;



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



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

How the immune system responds to injury

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



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



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



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



Video/ Image Credit: NASA Goddard



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



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

2022 illustrated the consequences of a warming climate

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Earth,Like,Exoplanet,3d,Render

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



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



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



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



Video Credit: NASA Goddard



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



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



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

Two distant planets may be "water worlds"

[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



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

Satellites reveal how Earth's systems are interconnected

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

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