Aging doesn’t look the same for everyone. Most people know someone who seems to age faster or slower than others. One person may still run marathons in their 70s, while another starts struggling with memory and energy in their 50s. 



This aging discrepancy raises a basic question: Is there a way to actually measure how fast someone is aging?



Scientists from <a href="https://duke.edu/">Duke University</a>, Harvard University, and the University of Otago in New Zealand have created a tool that uses a single brain scan to estimate how quickly your body and mind are aging. And it does this while you’re still in midlife, before major health problems show up.



“The way we age as we get older is quite distinct from how many times we’ve traveled around the sun,” said Ahmad Hariri, professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-aging-clues-hidden-in-a-single-scan">Aging clues hidden in a single scan</h2>



The new tool, called DunedinPACE Neuroimaging or DunedinPACNI, can be used with a standard MRI brain scan. It gives doctors and researchers a read on your aging pace and potential risk for <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/fitness-focused-medicine-physical-activity-reduces-chronic-disease-risk/">chronic diseases</a> long before symptoms appear. 



This kind of early warning system could give people a chance to make changes that might actually slow or prevent serious health problems.



“What’s really cool about this is that we’ve captured how fast people are aging using data collected in midlife,” Hariri said. “And it’s helping us predict diagnosis of dementia among people who are much older.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-why-most-aging-clocks-get-it-wrong">Why most aging clocks get it wrong</h2>



Many "aging clocks" already exist, but they mostly rely on things like blood tests or genetic markers collected from people of various ages at one point in time. That approach can be misleading.



According to Hariri, things that look like faster aging may simply be because of differences in exposure to things such as leaded gasoline or cigarette smoke that are specific to their generation. "We need to figure out how we can <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/new-technology-uses-eye-scanner-to-measure-biological-aging/">monitor aging</a> in an accurate way."



The new model avoids that problem by using data from a rare and detailed dataset: the Dunedin Study. This long-term project has followed more than 1,000 people born in Dunedin, New Zealand, between 1972 and 1973. 



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-brain-scans-predict-rates-of-aging">Brain scans predict rates of aging</h2>



Researchers have been tracking the participants' physical and mental health for over 50 years. Every few years, the study measured things like blood pressure, cholesterol, glucose, body mass index, kidney and lung function - even gum health. 



By analyzing how these markers changed over time, the researchers created a personalized aging rate for each participant.



The team trained DunedinPACNI to predict that rate of aging based only on brain scans taken when the participants were 45. Once the model was trained, it was tested on other datasets from the U.S., U.K., Canada, and Latin America.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-your-brain-keeps-the-score">Your brain keeps the score</h2>



The results held up across different groups. People who were aging faster, according to the tool, performed worse on cognitive tests, experienced faster shrinkage of the hippocampus - the brain’s memory center - and faced a higher risk of <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/speech-pattern-wfd-that-is-a-clear-indication-a-person-is-in-cognitive-decline/">cognitive decline</a>.



In one sample of 624 older adults, those who were aging the fastest had a 60% higher chance of developing <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/risk-of-dementia-is-much-higher-than-previously-thought/">dementia</a> and started showing symptoms earlier than their slower-aging peers.



When the team first saw the results, they were amazed. "Our jaws just dropped to the floor,” Hariri said.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-more-than-just-the-brain">More than just the brain</h2>



The tool also revealed a strong link between brain aging and overall physical decline. People with high aging scores were more likely to suffer from <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/sugary-drinks-linked-to-millions-of-diabetes-and-heart-disease-cases/">heart disease</a>, lung issues, strokes, and other chronic illnesses. 



These individuals were 18% more likely to be diagnosed with a major disease and 40% more likely to die in the next few years compared with people aging at an average pace.



“The link between aging of the brain and body are pretty compelling,” Hariri said.



The model worked just as well across different racial and socioeconomic groups, including low-income and non-white participants in the U.K. and people in Latin America. "It seems to be capturing something that is reflected in all brains,” Hariri said.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-aging-populations-growing-problems">Aging populations, growing problems</h2>



Globally, the number of people over 65 is expected to double by 2050. That means more people will deal with diseases like <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/exercise-benefits-alzheimers/">Alzheimer’s</a>, which already cost the world $1.33 trillion in 2020 and could climb to $9.12 trillion by mid-century.



“But because we live longer lives, more people are unfortunately going to experience chronic age-related diseases, including dementia,” Hariri said.



Current Alzheimer’s drugs don’t stop or reverse the disease - they mostly manage symptoms. One reason they may not work well is that they’re given too late. "Drugs can't resurrect a dying brain,” Hariri said.



That’s where a tool like DunedinPACNI could change things. If doctors can spot who’s at higher risk earlier, they could try new treatments while there’s still time to protect the brain.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-scans-may-identify-causes-of-faster-aging">Scans may identify causes of faster aging</h2>



Besides tracking dementia risk, the tool could help explain why certain factors - like poor sleep or mental health problems - seem to make people age faster.



“We really think of it as hopefully being a key new tool in forecasting and predicting risk for diseases, especially Alzheimer's and related dementias, and also perhaps gaining a better foothold on progression of disease,” Hariri said.



“More research is needed to advance DunedinPACNI from a research tool to something that has practical applications in healthcare,” said Ethan Whitman, a Ph.D. student in clinical psychology at Duke and the study’s first author.



In the meantime, the researchers hope others will use the tool in studies that already have brain scan data but lack long-term health tracking. It could open a new window into how we age - and how we might slow the process down.



The full study was published in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s43587-025-00897-z">Nature Aging</a>.



Image Credit: Ethan Whitman, Duke University



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How fast are you aging? Brain scans reveal hidden clues

Aging doesn’t look the same for everyone. Most people know someone who seems to age faster or slower than others. One person may still run marathons in their 70s, while another starts struggling with memory and energy in their 50s. This aging discrepancy raises a basic question: Is there a way to actually measure how fast someone is aging? Scientists from Duke University, Harvard University, and the University of Otago in New Zealand have created a tool that uses a single brain scan to estimate how quickly...

Citizen scientists may be able to provide crucial data to help map the distribution of species like black widow spiders in the wild. 

Citizen scientists are people that may or may not have the credentials of professional research experts but who devote some of their time to the world of science and its many fields in whatever capacity they can. 

A new study conducted by researchers from <a href="https://www.mcgill.ca/">McGill University</a> proves that data collected from citizen scientists’ observations can help improve biologists’ understanding of a species in regards to its ecology, range, and how it will be <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/warming-waters-marine-life/">impacted by climate change</a>. 

This is particularly important because there simply aren't enough professional field biologists to map the distribution of the world's rare species. 

If a species like the black widow spider is at risk of decline, the researchers found that citizen scientists could help provide data that jumpstarts conservation and management strategies. 

The results of the study were published in the journal <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0201094">PLOS ONE. </a>

For the study, the researchers focused on the distribution of two spiders, the Northern Black widow, and the Black purse-web spider. 

“Distributions of spiders are relatively poorly known, and range maps are often based just on where scientists have found the species,” said Yifu Wang, the study’s lead author. “Using Northern black widow spider and Black purse-web spider as examples, this paper illustrates that we can (and should!) incorporate citizen science data and distribution modeling techniques to help bridge the knowledge gaps of less-studied species.”

The researchers reviewed information from online databases containing observations by citizen scientists as well and museum collections for the two spiders and created distribution maps. 

A range of statistical tests and modeling tools were used to model the distribution of the species and exclude any unreliable observations or data. 

The spiders’ current range was then compared to its historical range to see if the spiders had expanded their habitats over time. 

The new distribution maps showed that Black purse-web spiders shifted and expanded from the Southwestern corner of the United States up to the northern edge of Canada. 

Black widows also increased their ranger over time and temperature was the main predictor of the two species’ shift in distribution. 

“Our models show the first reliable distribution maps of these two species,” the researchers said of the findings. “The logical next step is to conduct sampling efforts in typical habitats associated with these species in our predicted range to further validate the models. We propose to call on citizen scientists by launching a monitoring project through a platform such as Bugguide and iNaturalist to produce a large-scale sampling effort.” 

--

By <a href="mailto:kayvandette@gmail.com">Kay Vandette</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer 

Image Credit: Sean McCann

Citizen scientists can help map the distribution of rare species

Citizen scientists may be able to provide crucial data to...

Scientists are always looking for new and improved ways to make industry practices greener, and industry executives feel the same way about making these practices more affordable. Luckily for both groups, a team of international scientists led by the <a href="http://www.exeter.ac.uk/">University of Exeter</a> have found a new innovative way to incorporate ecological processes to allow “green” water treatment facilities – and save money in the process.

This new technique is based around creating a unique water system that utilizes both artificial and natural systems within the treatment pipeline. This groundbreaking innovation could transform potentially harmful elements such as carbon, phosphorus, and nitrogen from wastewater into <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/farm-manure-renewable-energy/">renewable energy</a> and materials.

The scientists’ system is called REPURE, and could possible revolutionize wastewater systems used in agriculture and energy production. Their results are published in the journal <a href="http://advances.sciencemag.org/">Science Advances</a>. 

“Existing design schemes for wastewater systems focus merely on the technologies. If the system design could benefit from the abilities of nature, it could ensure infrastructure development within ecological constraints and could maximize other benefits,” says Xu Wang, a professor at Exeter University and coauthor on the paper. “Therefore, our REPURE design includes the carbon capture and nutrient retention services provided by soils, as they were found to help reduce adverse environmental effects during the land use of the biosolids and reclaimed water. More importantly, this new design can be promoted in many places, as soil is a major component of the planet and exists in nearly every country.”

More sustainable wastewater treatment methods are in dire need throughout the world, as populations increase and thus pressure on wastewater facilities increase as well. Pollutant removal from water takes a large amount of energy – about 3.4 percent of the total energy consumption in the U.S. alone, enough to make it the third largest energy consumer in the country. Additionally, it’s possible that roughly 20 percent of the global demand for phosphate could be assuaged by recovering phosphorus from waste.

The researchers state that this REPURE design would make it so wastewater can be treated without the need for any energy, and greatly reduce the carbon footprint of these systems.

“Restoring and improving harmony between human activities and nature is essential to human well-being and survival, and the role of wastewater infrastructure is evolving towards resource recovery to address this challenge,” says David Butler, professor at University of Exeter and a co-author on the paper. “This integrative study advances our understanding and approaches of how to regain the balance between satisfying human demands and maintaining ecosystems.”

--

By <a href="mailto:certz@earth.com">Connor Ertz</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

New system makes water treatment a much greener process

Scientists are always looking for new and improved ways to...

Researchers from <a href="http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/">Lancaster University</a> could potentially help solve one of the biggest roadblocks for meeting the world’s energy demands with renewables. 

Concrete blocks in your home’s foundation could store energy and be used to power homes when peak demand is high, according to a study published in the journal Composite Structures. 

As it stands now, energy storage is one of the biggest barriers for renewables on a wide scale. 

While there are a wide range of innovations in renewable energy through solar and wind power, sufficiently storing energy stores for later use is proving a complex issue. 

Now, with this new research, the solution may lie in concrete blocks working as a capacitor.

“The idea is to store electricity in the structure itself and release it at times of peak demand,” said Mohamed Saafi, the developer of the new concrete. “We have a lot of buildings. If you could convert them into batteries it would pretty much solve a lot of our energy problems.”

Saafi and his colleagues realized that charged ion particles can flow through concrete and that the concrete traps the energy stores on one side, similar to a battery. 

The concrete could store excess energy for long periods of time and when demand for energy is high, the energy stored in the concrete could provide power to a house or building. 

Technically the concrete would work as a capacitor, not a battery and as such store less energy than a battery could, but the researchers say that because the concrete could be used in such high quantities as a building material, it would make up any energy storage deficiencies. 

Energy storage really is key to expanding the use of renewables as relying solely on alternative energy isn’t sustainable for meeting a country’s energy needs.  

This summer in the UK, the amount of energy produced by wind turbines drastically decreased because of a <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/uk-wind-drought-turbine-energy/">long-lasting wind drought</a>. 

As of now, there is a ten-year plan in place to bring the new energy-storing concrete to the masses. 

--

By <a href="mailto:kayvandette@gmail.com">Kay Vandette</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Concrete could soon store energy and power your home

Researchers from Lancaster University could potentially help solve one of...

A meteorite that dates back to the beginnings of the solar system 4.56 billion years ago is providing crucial insight into how the planets were formed after the Big Bang. 

It's widely agreed that the solar system first formed around 4.6 billion years ago following a massive explosion that brought the <a href="https://authors.library.caltech.edu/25038/134/Chapter%203.%20The%20building%20blocks%20of%20planets.pdf">right building blocks together</a> for Earth and the other planets to form. 

At this time, the Sun was surrounded by a spinning disk of debris and gas. As gravity took its course, debris and objects started colliding into one another around the sun until eventually the planets were born. 

What has not been clear, though, is how exactly the planets collided together and what processes were at work during the solar system’s first years.

Now, a meteorite called Northwest Africa (NWA) 11119 could help solve some of the universe’s biggest mysteries. Researchers say it’s around 4.56 billion years old, making it the oldest meteorite ever found. 

Meteorites can serve as time-capsules, and researchers study the chemical composition of meteorites in hopes that it will shed light on the what chemical processes drove the formation of the solar system. 

Researchers from <a href="https://meteorites.asu.edu/">Arizona State University’s Center for Meteorite Studies </a>and the <a href="https://www.unm.edu/">University of New Mexico</a> studied the meteorite which was like nothing they had ever examined before. 

The results of the study were published in the journal Nature Communications.  

For the first time, there exists evidence that silica-rich rocks formed on the colliding objects pulled together by gravity which would later become planets during the solar system’s formation.  

“It has the highest abundance of silica and the most ancient age (4.565 billion years old) of any known igneous meteorite,” said Daniel Dunlap, the study’s co-author. “Meteorites like this were the precursors to planet formation and represent a critical step in the evolution of rocky bodies in our solar system.”

The researchers used an electron microprobe and a CT scan to identify the chemical composition and mineralogy of the meteorite. 

The researchers found that the rock was 30 percent comprised of the mineral tridymite. The only comparable rocks on Earth with similar levels of tridymite are found in some volcanic rocks. As a result, the meteorite provides the evidence of some of the first volcanic activity on Earth. 

“This is basically a missing part of the puzzle that we've now found that tells us these igneous processes act like little blast furnaces that are melting rock and processing all of the solar system solids,” said Carl Agee, another co-author of the study. “Ultimately, this is how planets are forged.”

--

By <a href="mailto:kayvandette@gmail.com">Kay Vandette</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer 

Image Credit: ASU

Oldest meteorite ever found helps show how the solar system began

A meteorite that dates back to the beginnings of the...

A city in Australia successfully wiped out dengue fever by infecting mosquitoes with a bacteria that stops the virus from spreading. 

Dengue fever is the leading cause of illness and death in the subtropics and tropics, and according to the <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/dengue/index.html">Centers for Disease Control and Prevention</a>, more than one-third of the world’s population is at risk of <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/global-warming-dengue-fever/">contracting dengue</a>. Mosquitoes spread the virus and symptoms can mirror those of the flu. 

In 2014, researchers from the <a href="https://www.monash.edu/">Monash University of Melbourne</a>, led by Scott O'Neil, a Monash professor and director of the dengue mosquito program, infected Aedes aegypti mosquitoes with a bacteria called Wolbachia. 

Wolbachia stops mosquitoes from passing on dengue fever to humans and over the next two years, four million anti-virus mosquitos were released in Townsville, Australia. 

Eventually, the infected mosquitoes bred with wild mosquitos and the virus inhibiting bacteria spread to the offspring, continuing to keep dengue at bay. 

Today, the city of Townsville has not had a single case of dengue in the four years since the Wolbachia mosquitoes were first introduced, according to the <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-6022713/Deadly-dengue-fever-wiped-entire-city-anti-virus-mosquitoes.html">Daily Mail</a>. 

The trial run of using modified mosquitoes to combat dengue was so successful that there are already plans to introduce Wolbachia infected mosquitoes into eleven other countries where dengue can be contracted. 

“At a cost of around $15 per person, the Townsville trial demonstrates the approach can be rolled out quickly, efficiently and cost-effectively to help provide communities ongoing protection from mosquito-borne diseases,” said Scott O'Neill.

Eventually, O’Neil and his program colleagues hope to reduce the cost of introducing Wolbachia mosquitoes to one dollar per person. 

The Wolbachia mosquito program has a lot of potential, but there are concerns that introducing the mosquitoes to regions where Dengue fever cases are more numerous than in Townsville will hinder the mosquitoes from successfully eradicating the virus. 

--

By <a href="mailto:kayvandette@gmail.com">Kay Vandette</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Australian city wipes out dengue fever using modified mosquitoes

A city in Australia successfully wiped out dengue fever by...

The first-ever publication of the fox genome will help scientists to understand the genetic basis of tame and aggressive behaviors, which may shed light on human behavior as well.

Study lead author Anna Kukekova is an assistant professor in the Department of Animal Sciences at the <a href="http://illinois.edu/">University of Illinois</a>.

“We've been waiting for this tool for a very, very long time,” said Professor Kukekova. “In our previous work, we tried to identify regions of the fox genome responsible for tame and aggressive behavior, but these studies required a reference genome and all we could use was the dog genome. For us, the fox genome provides a much better resource for genetic analysis of behavior.”


Foxes at the <a href="http://www.bionet.nsc.ru/en">Russian Institute of Cytology and Genetics</a> have been selected for tameness or aggression, in a long-term effort to recreate the process of domestication from wolves to modern <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/dogs-helped-humans-exclude/">dogs</a>.

After sequencing and assembling the fox genome, the team focused on these Russian foxes to look for genetic regions which distinguish the tame, aggressive, and conventional farm-raised foxes.

The researchers sequenced the genomes of 10 individuals from each population, then compared them to the full fox genome and each other. Differences were found across the three populations in 103 genomic regions, some of which have turned out to be responsible for tame and aggressive behaviors.

“Finding genomic regions at such resolution was beyond any expectations with our previous tools. Now, for the first time, we could not only pinpoint part of a chromosome which makes foxes more tame or aggressive, but we could identify specific genes responsible for it,” said Professor Kukekova.

When the team compared the 103 genomic regions to those of other sequenced mammals, they found some intriguing results. 

For example, they identified similarities between behavior regions in foxes, areas critical to domestic behavior in dogs, and a region associated with Williams-Beuren syndrome in humans. This genetic disorder is characterized by extremely outgoing and friendly behavior.

“Oddly enough, we found the Williams-Beuren region in aggressive foxes, not tame ones. We thought it would be the opposite,” explained Professor Kukekova.

The mysterious finding highlights how much more research is needed before the complex behavior of both animals and humans can be fully understood.

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: Darya Shepeleva, scientist at the Russian Institute of Cytology and Genetics in Novosibirsk

Unraveling the behavior of foxes sheds light on human behavior

The first-ever publication of the fox genome will help scientists...

Researchers at <a href="https://www.columbia.edu/">Columbia University</a> have developed a remarkable new tool that can closely examine changes within living cells. The technology may ultimately provide a more precise way to remove tumors, or could lead to an easier method of detecting <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/soccer-heading-brain-damage/">head injuries</a> and developmental disorders.

“We can use this technology to visualize metabolic activities in a wide range of animals,” said senior author Professor Wei Min. “By tracking where and when new proteins, lipids and DNA molecules are made, we can learn more about how animals develop and age, and what goes wrong in the case of injury and disease.”

The tool combines the use of heavy water (D2O) as a chemical tracer with an advanced laser-imaging method called stimulated Raman scattering (SRS). Heavy water is incorporated into newly-made proteins once it is metabolized by cells, and the deuterium forms chemical bonds with carbon.


The team discovered that these carbon-deuterium bonds vibrate at different frequencies when the light hits them, which allows each macromolecule to be identified. The experts found that they can track the growth of new proteins, lipids, and DNA in organs based on these unique frequency signatures.

In other words, the new method makes it possible to observe subcellular changes in real time. 

“We get a continuous picture of what's happening inside living animal cells. Previously, we had only a snapshot,” said study co-lead author Lingyan Shi, a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia.


To test the technology, the researchers diluted regular water with D2O and fed it to roundworms, mice, and zebrafish embryos. Over the course of hours and days, the team observed the buildup of new proteins, lipids, and DNA in a variety of tissues using the SRS laser.

In one experiment, the experts were able to witness a bright line that appeared around fast-growing brain and colon tumors in mice. As the cancerous cells divided, more deuterium was incorporated into their newly-made proteins and lipids. 

“This method creates a sharp line between healthy and cancerous tissue, making it much easier to remove the tumor,” said Shi.

The research has also provided new insight into cell development and aging. For example, the scientists watched fat production rise and fall in the roundworm’s reproductive system as it aged. Clumps of new protein could be seen forming in the older worm's body, suggesting that deuterium-labeled SRS imaging could be used to track age-related disease.

[caption id="attachment_1217137" align="alignleft" width="834"]<a href="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/cells.png"><img class="wp-image-1217137 size-full" src="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/cells.png" alt="" width="834" height="386" /></a> Image Credit: Min lab/Columbia[/caption]

Through various other trials, the experts found that the technology could also be used to determine whether a child's brain is developing properly, or if a patient is suffering from multiple sclerosis.


Eric Potma is a Chemistry professor at the <a href="https://uci.edu/">University of California at Irvine</a> who was not involved in the study.


“The beauty of this mapping method is its simplicity,” said Professor Potma. “It produces vivid images of metabolic activity in tissues with seemingly minimal effort. As the SRS microscope continues to get smaller, deuterium-labeled SRS imaging may help to catch tumors at much earlier stages.”

The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/ncomms/">Nature Communications</a>.

--

By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

New technology reveals changes within individual living cells

Researchers at Columbia University have developed a remarkable new tool...

Could some Asian mushrooms help doctors fight cancer? Four species have shown natural chemical compounds that may have anti-tumor properties, researchers say, and they want to study them further.

"In ancient China, mushrooms were considered as the most effective treatment for the various types of tumors. Contemporary fungotherapy represents a promising field for scientific research,” Dr. Vladimir Katanaev, head of <a href="https://www.dvfu.ru/en/">Far East Federal University</a>’s natural pharmacology program, said in a news release.

An international team from FEFU, the <a href="https://www.unil.ch/central/en/home.html">University of Lausanne</a> and the <a href="http://old.febras.ru/institutes_.html">Russian Academy of Sciences’ Far Eastern Branch</a> analyzed four species of Asian mushroom, listing the potential tumors that could be treated by natural compounds, including sarcoma, stomach and liver cancers, and leukemia. The goal is to guide future research of the mushrooms to determine whether they can be used to treat these cancers.

The four Asian mushrooms they selected have been used in folk medicine for centuries, the researchers said. Because of their long use, their chemical properties have been studied and described in existing research, the scientists said, giving new research a base to work from.

About 90 percent of fungi have never been studied to see if they have anti-tumor or antibacterial properties, co-author Dr. Alexander Kagansky of FEFU said.

“Over the past 60 years, the rate of studies focusing on fungi increased exponentially, but in many areas of research mushrooms as potential source for beneficial products are still ignored,” the team wrote in their study.

Some of the studies that have focused on Asian mushrooms and their anti-cancer properties have ignored the effects chemical compounds might have on healthy cells, they added.

“In general, there has been a strong progress in the field of medicinal mushroom research in terms of anticancer drug development, but this work continues and much more progress still awaits us, especially in the fields of molecular targets of the medicinal mushrooms and the complex synergistic interplay of their different components,” they wrote.

The study has been published in the journal <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.18632/oncotarget.25660">Oncotarget</a>. 

—

By Kyla Cathey, <a href="http://www.earth.com">Earth.com</a> staff writer

Image credit: Eugenia M. Bulakh

Asian mushrooms may have anti-cancer properties

Could some Asian mushrooms help doctors fight cancer? Four species...

Researchers at <a href="https://www.princeton.edu/">Princeton University</a> set out to investigate if the modern pygmies of Indonesia’s Flores Island are genetically linked to a pygmy population that previously existed on the island tens of thousands of years ago. 

Scientists have never been able to recover <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/secret-success-dna/">DNA</a> from the fossils of Homo floresiensis, also known as the “hobbit,” so the experts had to develop a tool for finding the ancient genetic sequences using modern DNA. The team created a new technique in the lab of Joshua Akey, a professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton.

“In your genome - and in mine - there are genes that we inherited from Neanderthals," said study first author Serena Tucci. “Some modern humans inherited genes from Denisovans (another extinct species of humans), which we can check for because we have genetic information from Denisovans.”

“But if you want to look for another species, like Floresiensis, we have nothing to compare, so we had to develop another method: We ‘paint’ chunks of the genome based on the source. We scan the genome and look for chunks that come from different species - Neanderthal, Denisovans, or something unknown.”


This approach was used to analyze the genomes of 32 modern Flores pygmies living in a village near the Liang Bua cave, where fossilized remains of H. floresiensis had been discovered in 2004.

“They definitely have a lot of Neanderthal,” said Tucci. “They have a little bit of Denisovan. We expected that, because we knew there was some migration that went from Oceania to Flores, so there was some shared ancestry of these populations.”


However, no chromosomal regions were found that had unknown origins.

Study co-author Richard “Ed” Green is an associate professor of Biomolecular Engineering at the <a href="https://www.ucsc.edu/">University of California-Santa Cruz</a> (UCSC).

“If there was any chance to know the hobbit genetically from the genomes of extant humans, this would have been it,” said Professor Green. “But we don't see it. There is no indication of gene flow from the hobbit into people living today.”

The researchers did manage to identify evolutionary changes associated with diet as well as a high frequency of genetic variants associated with short stature.

“It sounds like a boring result, but it's actually quite meaningful,” said Professor Green. “It means that these gene variants were present in a common ancestor of Europeans and the Flores pygmies. They became short by selection acting on this standing variation already present in the population, so there's little need for genes from an archaic hominin to explain their small stature.”

Fossil evidence indicates that H. floresiensis was significantly smaller than the Flores pygmies, standing about 3.5 feet tall, which is 15 inches shorter than the average modern pygmy. Floresiensis also had different wrists and feet, which Tucci explained was likely due to the need to climb trees to evade Komodo dragons.


“Islands are very special places for evolution,” said Tucci. “This process, insular dwarfism, resulted in smaller mammals, like hippopotamus and elephants, and smaller humans.”

The study indicates that insular dwarfism evolved independently at least twice on Flores Island - first in H. floresiensis and again in the modern pygmies.

“This is really intriguing, because it means that evolutionarily, we are not that special. Humans are like other mammals; we are subject to the same processes.”


The research is published in the journal <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/">Science</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: Illustration by Matilda Luk, Office of Communications, <a href="https://www.princeton.edu/">Princeton University</a>

Are modern pygmies on Flores Island related to hobbits?

Researchers at Princeton University set out to investigate if the...

A new and exciting dinosaur discovery was just made in Britain; 140-million-year old dinosaur footprints uncovered in a stone quarry. These 30 footprints – measuring almost three feet in diameter each – were uncovered by workmen in the Purbeck quarry in Swanage on Britain’s aptly-named Jurassic coast.

Interestingly, 52 similar footprints were discovered over 20 years ago just a few hundred yards away from the new prints. Scientists believe both sets of prints were made by the same herd of gigantic Sauropods, which was the largest animal to ever walk the Earth.

[caption id="attachment_1217052" align="aligncenter" width="514"]<a href="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Dino-prints-1.png"><img class="size-full wp-image-1217052" src="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Dino-prints-1.png" alt="" width="514" height="484" /></a> Image Credit: David Moodie/BNPS[/caption]

Sauropods could live up to 120 years, and were the first successful group of herbivorous <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/teeth-fossils-dinosaurs-ate/">dinosaurs</a>. They are known for their long necks and tails, and dominated most terrestrial ecosystems for over 140 million years – from the Late Triassic to the Late Cretaceous. These animals weighed as much as 80 tons, which is 14 times the weight of an African elephant.

Lewis Quarries in Langton Matravers was shut down for 10 days while paleontologists extracted the footprints.

“The footprints are like giant saucer-shaped depressions which are up to three foot in diameter but only half an inch deep,” says Professor Michael Bennett of <a href="https://www1.bournemouth.ac.uk/">Bournemouth University</a>, who oversaw the extraction of the prints. “They belonged to the Sauropods which were very large dinosaurs the size of double decker buses and very gregarious, travelling in groups. The challenge for us was to extract the footprints without damaging them and now that has been achieved the intention is to put them on display at a museum, possibly the Etches collection in Kimmeridge.”

The dinosaur tracks have been captured in three-dimensions so the footprints can be digitally analyzed and possibly even printed in the future. So it’s likely that roughly 140 million years after these footprints were first created by dinosaurs, they will be created again – but this time by a 3D printer.

[caption id="attachment_1217054" align="aligncenter" width="300"]<a href="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Dino-prints-2.png"><img class="size-medium wp-image-1217054" src="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Dino-prints-2-300x202.png" alt="" width="300" height="202" /></a> Image Credit: David Moodie/BNPS[/caption]

--

By <a href="mailto:certz@earth.com">Connor Ertz</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Image Credit: David Moodie/BNPS

Giant dinosaur footprints discovered in Britain stone quarry

A new and exciting dinosaur discovery was just made in...

A new study using locusts could help provide insight into sensory experiences and how the brain processes smells and recognizes them later on. 

Tackling sensory experience with science is not new, but previous studies do not account for the variability that we experience in our everyday lives.

For example, we know what a rose <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/study-reveals-that-people-can-be-blind-to-smells-when-distracted/">smells like</a> in a rose garden, on its own, in a flower shop and on a busy street. Simply studying a person’s neural activity while smelling a single rose doesn’t explain how we can recognize the scent of a rose amidst other sensory distractions. 

To better understand this, researchers from the <a href="https://engineering.wustl.edu/">School of Engineering &amp; Applied Science and Washington University</a> in St. Louis conducted a study that examined how locusts responded to sensory input in a dynamic environment with other scents. 

The results were published in the journal Nature Communications. 

First, the researchers had to condition locusts to respond to a certain scent and they did this using the popular Pavlov's dog model. The locusts were exposed to a puff of hexanol followed by grass to eat. 

Eventually, the locusts learned to associate the scent with eating. When they smelled hexanol the locusts would open up their palps, organs outside of their mouths that functions like lips because they knew that they would soon get to eat grass. 

After the locusts were trained, the researchers performed a series of tests where the locusts were exposed to the hexanol either on its own or after a “distractor” scent. 

When the locusts were exposed to the hexanol on its own, the researchers saw no change in the locusts’ neural activity. However, when the locusts smelled a distractor smell first, different combinations of neurons fired off after smelling the hexanol. 

This explains the variability of sensory experience based on what’s happening in the current environment, but this also doesn’t realistically mirror how we experience smells on a day to day basis. 

The researchers compared variability to smelling a chocolate chip cookie at a coffee shop and a tea shop.

If we were to process sensory input based on context alone, then the coffee shop cookie and tea shop cookie would have two very different smells, even though they are the same food with the same ingredients. 

The locusts were able to recognize the hexanol in a range of settings which suggests that there is more than variability and context to sensory experience. 

The researchers discovered through further analysis that the locusts used something called the “An OR-of-ANDs” logical operation to recognize the hexanol.  

The “An OR-of-ANDs” logical operation explains how we can generalize and classify things based on certain traits and features.

There were some similarities in the locusts’ brain activity when smelling the hexanol on its own and when presented with a distractor scent first which shows that there are certain fixed patterns in regards to different sensory input even amongst other distractions.

The researchers next hope to test their findings with locusts and sensory experience on fruit flies to see if brain activity across the different insect species is the same. 

--

By<a href="mailto:kayvandette@gmail.com"> Kay Vandette</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/">Earth.com </a>Staff Writer

Locusts help reveal how the brain processes different smells

A new study using locusts could help provide insight into...

It’s common knowledge that darker colors attract more sunlight. It’s why athletes wear eye black under their eyes and why purchasing a car with dark leather seats in Arizona is always a bad idea. So it’s clear that we humans are aware of this connection, but a new study published in <a href="https://www.cell.com/current-biology/home">Current Biology</a> has found that microorganisms may be as well. 

A study from scientists at <a href="https://www.jhsph.edu/">Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health</a> has found that microorganisms in colder climates darken themselves to capture more heat from the sun and enhance their ability to survive. 

Researchers examined yeasts collected from different latitudes, and discovered that dark-pigmented ones were frequently found away from the tropics. They determined that dark-pigmented microbes also maintained higher temperatures under a given amount of light, and had a significant growth advantage in cold conditions when compared to unpigmented microbes.

Because many pigmented fungi, bacteria, and other microbes exist at cold latitudes, it’s possible that this passive solar heating ability they’ve developed has an impact on climate. In some polar regions, microbes noticeably darken the terrain. Furthermore, there is evidence that colonies of microorganisms bloom in the meltwater of melting glaciers. 

“Our results suggest that pigmentation is an ancient adaptation mechanism for obtaining heat from solar radiation and could be an important variable in modeling climate change," says senior author Dr. Arturo Casadevall, a professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Through studying 20 differently pigmented variants of the yeasts Candida and Cryptococcus neoformans, Casadevall and his team found that darker variants heated up faster and reached higher temperatures under ordinary sunlight, as well as infrared and ultraviolet radiation. Additional experiments showed that this heat-capture strategy might provide an advantage in polar climates, enhancing a microbe’s chance of survival. 

The research team’s findings contribute helpful information in the study of microbial ecology, especially related to <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/climate-change-fungal-diseases/">climate change</a>. Their results could potentially help scientists predict the survivability of microorganisms at certain latitudes as the climate warms. 

“As these dark microbes grow, they may set up a positive reinforcing loop in which the area where they grow becomes warmer, speeding the glacial melt so that more dark microbes grow, and they warm things up further, and so on.” Knowing this, scientists will likely keep a close eye on microorganism growth – particularly in the polar regions.

--

By <a href="mailto:certz@earth.com">Connor Ertz</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Microbes adapt to cooler climate by darkening their pigmentation

It’s common knowledge that darker colors attract more sunlight. It’s...

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

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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

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



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



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



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



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



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



Video &amp; Image Credit: ESA



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



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

The Pyrenees Mountains in southwest Europe

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



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



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



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



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



Video Credit: Stowers Institute for Medical Research&nbsp;



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



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

How the immune system responds to injury

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



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



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



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



Video/ Image Credit: NASA Goddard



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



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

2022 illustrated the consequences of a warming climate

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Earth,Like,Exoplanet,3d,Render

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



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



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



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



Video Credit: NASA Goddard



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



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



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

Two distant planets may be "water worlds"

[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

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