For a long time, people believed the brain stops making new neurons after childhood. Scientists repeated this idea in books and lectures for years. They thought the brain had a deadline for growth, but they were wrong.



A new study has flipped this idea. Researchers from <a href="https://ki.se/en" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Karolinska Institutet</a> in Sweden found clear proof that the brain keeps making neurons well into old age.



This discovery changes everything. It suggests the brain stays flexible for much longer than we thought. And it brings hope for new treatments for <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/how-the-brain-decides-what-to-focus-on-and-what-to-ignore/">brain</a> disorders.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-adults-grow-new-neurons">Adults grow new neurons</h2>



The story begins with the hippocampus. This brain region helps you learn, remember, and handle emotions. It is always busy.



In 2013, Jonas Frisén and his team showed something surprising. Adults can grow new neurons in their hippocampus. They proved it by measuring carbon-14 in DNA from brain tissue.



This method showed exactly when <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/how-your-brain-makes-a-decision-before-you-know-it/">neurons</a> were born. Suddenly, the old belief about brain growth began to crumble.



Still, many scientists remained doubtful. They asked whether the <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/your-brain-literally-changes-based-on-daily-activities-and-lifestyle/">brain</a> really keeps growing neurons throughout life.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-origin-of-new-neurons-in-the-brain">Origin of new neurons in the brain</h2>



The biggest question focused on neural progenitor cells. These early cells later become neurons. Do they still exist and divide in adult brains? This new study answered that clearly.



“We have now been able to identify these cells of origin, which confirms that there is an ongoing formation of neurons in the hippocampus of the adult brain,” said Jonas Frisén. That was the missing piece.



The experts looked at brain tissue from people of all ages. They studied <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/brains-learn-new-skills-much-faster-than-expected/">brains</a> from newborns to people in their late seventies.



The researchers used a tool called single-nucleus RNA sequencing. This allowed them to read gene activity inside each brain cell nucleus. They also used flow cytometry, which looks at the properties of cells.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-neurons-keep-growing-in-adult-brains">Neurons keep growing in adult brains</h2>



With help from machine learning, the experts connected the dots. They traced the full process of neuron growth, starting with stem cells and ending with young neurons. Many of these cells were still dividing.



By mapping the process, the team revealed the full journey of neuron growth in the brain. They watched cells change step by step, from stem cells to fresh neurons.



The results left no doubt. Neurons do not just grow in childhood. The brain keeps producing them far into adulthood.



Some adults had many cells ready to become neurons, while others had fewer. The differences were clear.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-birthplace-of-new-neurons">Birthplace of new neurons</h2>



The researchers wanted to see where the new neurons were forming. They used RNAscope and Xenium to find out. These tools showed exactly where genes switched on during neuron growth.



The new neurons appeared inside a brain region called the dentate gyrus. This area sits inside the hippocampus. It plays a key role in memory, learning, and flexible thinking.



This finding shows the adult brain still has hidden pockets of growth.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-humans-and-animals-show-similar-neuron-growth">Humans and animals show similar neuron growth</h2>



The study also found some interesting connections. Neuron-making cells in humans look quite similar to those in mice, pigs, and monkeys.



But they are not exactly the same. Some genes behave differently in humans. This shows humans have their own special brain features.



The team also noticed something else. Some people had many neural progenitor cells, while others had very few.



“This gives us an important piece of the puzzle in understanding how the human brain works and changes during life,” explains Jonas Frisén.



He adds, “Our research may also have implications for the development of regenerative treatments that stimulate neurogenesis in neurodegenerative and psychiatric disorders.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-this-means-for-the-future">What this means for the future</h2>



This discovery opens a new chapter in brain science. It proves the brain is not as fixed as we once believed.



New neurons keep forming throughout life. The process does not stop after childhood. Now we know exactly where this happens and which cells drive it.



This knowledge could lead to treatments for memory loss and mental health conditions. It might even help repair brain injuries.



The human brain, with its billions of neurons, is more surprising and powerful than anyone imagined. And it still has secrets left to share.



Frisén collaborated with Ionut Dumitru, Marta Paterlini, and others at <a href="https://ki.se/en" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Karolinska Institutet</a>. Researchers from <a href="https://www.chalmers.se/en/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Chalmers University of Technology</a> in Sweden also contributed.



The project received support from several organizations including the <a href="https://www.vr.se/english.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Swedish Research Council</a> and the <a href="https://kaw.wallenberg.org/en" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation</a>.



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adu9575" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Science</a>.



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Our brain keeps making new neurons - even in old age

For a long time, people believed the brain stops making new neurons after childhood. Scientists repeated this idea in books and lectures for years. They thought the brain had a deadline for growth, but they were wrong. A new study has flipped this idea. Researchers from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden found clear proof that the brain keeps making neurons well into old age. This discovery changes everything. It suggests the brain stays flexible for much longer than we thought. And it brings hope for new treatments for...

Researchers are now getting a rare look into unexplored reef habitats deep below the ocean’s surface thanks to a new device that allows for the transport of marine species. 

The Submersible Chamber for Ascending Specimens (SubCAS) device is a pressurized chamber that allows deep sea divers to easily transport twilight zone coral reef fish to the surface for research and public display, 

SubCAS is bringing many new species to light, literally, as the twilight zone is a narrow deep stretch of the ocean 200 to 500 feet below the surface where sunlight is scarce and diving down to such extreme depths takes considerable effort. 

Because of how much work and coordination is required to safely dive and explore twilight zone reef habitats, scientists at the <a href="https://www.calacademy.org/">California Academy of Sciences </a>and the <a href="http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/">Monterey Bay Aquarium</a> created a device that made specimen collection easy and safe for both divers and the species being brought to the surface. 

A report discussing SubCAS and its implications for marine science and habitat conservation was recently published in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science.

“A rapid ascent can rupture a fish's swim bladder,” said Luiz Rocha, the paper’s co-author. “Using an adjustable pressure control valve, we ensure that the pressure inside the chamber is similar to the depth where the fishes were collected. Over the course of two to three days, we bring them to the surrounding surface pressure in a highly controlled manner.”

The SubCAS consists of an inner collecting jar and a larger chamber housing. The device is transparent so divers can monitor specimens while ascending to the surface. 

At a depth of 180 feet, the inner collecting jar is placed in the larger chamber and an air bubble is blown into the device which maintains air pressure in the SubCAS. 

When the divers reach 100 feet, all the while monitoring their own air pressure and making controlled decompression stops, the device is handed off to a support dive team that take the fish to a facility for decompression before being shipped to the Academy in San Francisco. 

The survival rate is nearly 100 percent which is impressive. and researchers found that the type of <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/technology-fishermen-conservationists/">fish</a> collected greatly dictated the likelihood of surviving the ascent. 

Thanks to SubCAS, both researchers and the public have access to a little explored part of the world hundreds of feet below the surface thanks to aquarium exhibits displaying the newly collected specimens. 

“The SubCAS is an important innovation,” said Hudson Pinheiro, a fellow co-author. “It allows for detailed study of new-to-science species while they're thriving outside of their natural habitat. We can gain important insights about fish biology and behavior that we couldn't obtain otherwise, helping us better understand what it takes to survive in a region as mysterious as the twilight zone.”

Exploring the twilight zone reefs will also help with reef conservation and management, particularly now when corals are dying off at an alarming rate. 

“These species are ambassadors of important environments that are rarely included in marine protected areas or sanctuaries,” said Bart Shepherd, the lead author of the paper. “Our goal is to remind the public of the ocean's vast and unexplored wonders and to inspire its conservation for future generations.”

--

By <a href="mailto:kayvandette@gmail.com">Kay Vandette</a>,<a href="https://www.earth.com/"> Earth.com</a> Staff Writer 

Image © 2015 California Academy of Sciences

New device offers rare glimpse into deep ocean fish

Researchers are now getting a rare look into unexplored reef...

As people get older, they often feel like Earth’s days are getting shorter. That’s an illusion. A new study has found that the moon has been bringing us longer days for more than a billion years now.

Dr. Stephen Meyers of the <a href="https://www.wisc.edu/">University of Wisconsin-Madison</a> and Alberto Malinverno of <a href="https://www.columbia.edu/">Columbia University</a> used statistical modeling, geological data and astronomical theory to track the moon’s movements back more than 1.4 billion years. They found that, back then, Earth’s satellite was much closer to the planet. 

They also discovered that days were much shorter – about 18 hours long, compared to today’s 24. 

"As the moon moves away, the Earth is like a spinning figure skater who slows down as they stretch their arms out," Meyers said in a press release.

Scientists have studied the passage of time on Earth for billions of years through the geologic record. Variations in the record – known as Milankovitch cycles – show the pattern of Earth’s seasons and climate and offer up clues to how the moon and other astronomical bodies affect the planet’s movement.

But even with the help of Milankovitch cycles, it’s been difficult to look back billions of years.

Enter Meyers and Malinverno, their work to see what Earth’s closest spatial neighbors were doing a billion years ago, and their discovery of the moon’s gift of longer days on Earth.

Meyers brought the problem to a presentation he gave at Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in 2016. 

"I was sitting there when I said to myself, 'I think I know how to do it! Let's get together!'" Malinverno said. "It was exciting because, in a way, you dream of this all the time; I was a solution looking for a problem."

The two combined their work on statistics and astronomical theory to create a method they call TimeOptMCMC. Then they tested it on two rock layers: the Xiamaling Formation in China that dates back 1.4 billion years, and the 55 million-year-old Walvis Ridge in the south Atlantic.

The new approach allowed them to detect the Earth’s rotation and axis tilt during those times, and from that, they could determine the moon’s location – and discovered that we enjoy longer days now than 1.4 billion years ago. 

Teams at Lamont-Doherty and in New Zealand have tested Meyers and Malinverno’s method on other geologic records.

"The geologic record is an astronomical observatory for the early solar system," Meyers said. "We are looking at its pulsing rhythm, preserved in the rock and the history of life."

Their study has been published in the journal <a href="http://www.pnas.org/">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</a>. It received funding from the <a href="https://www.nsf.gov/">National Science Foundation</a>.


—

By Kyla Cathey, <a href="http://www.earth.com">Earth.com</a> staff writer

Scientists: moon is responsible for longer days on Earth

As people get older, they often feel like Earth’s days...

Primatologists at <a href="https://www.kyoto-u.ac.jp/en/">Kyoto University</a> are looking to our closest cousins to solve a gut-churning mystery: how the concept of disgust evolved.

The researchers looked at how bonobos reacted to a wide variety of foods to see if they share this emotion with humanity, and perhaps get some clues into why it exists in the first place. Did the “ick factor” originate as a way to protect against germs, millennia before humans even knew what a germ was?

"Current studies suggest that animals evolved a system to protect against such threats, now known as the adaptive system of disgust," lead author Dr. Cecile Sarabian said in a news release. "For example, bodily fluids are universal disgust elicitors in humans, and recently, we published evidence that the same reaction exists in our primate cousins."

In the new study, published in the journal <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2017.0195">Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B</a>, the researchers wanted to see whether bonobos also showed disgust at food items that might spread illness.

To test this theory, they presented the primates with a variety of fruits. Some was fresh while other pieces were rotten. Some food items were “dirtied” with items like soil or feces and presented alongside clean, fresh fruit. In other sets, they slipped in fruits that the bonobos wouldn’t see in the wild, like apples, to see if disgust evolved among the primates toward new or unfamiliar foods – something that picky human eaters might be accused of.

The bonobos were happy to sample clean, fresh food, but avoided anything that seemed contaminated, even if it was just linked by smell. They ignored food close to a source of contamination, even if it was otherwise clean, but ate foods farther away. 

But unlike humans, bonobos were eager to try new foods, as long as they were clean and fresh.

"There's some evidence from humans and other animals – classically with rats – on what we call food neophobia, which is an inclination to stay away from or be cautious around new foods," senior author Andrew MacIntosh said. "This might also be related to our tendencies to avoid things that might make us sick, with different individuals being more or less conservative in both cases."

Bonobos don’t seem to have developed the same disgust toward new food items – but more research would be needed to confirm that adventurous spirit toward new flavors, the researchers said.

—

By Kyla Cathey, <a href="http://www.earth.com">Earth.com</a> staff writer

Image credit: Dr. Cecilie Sarabian, <a href="https://www.kyoto-u.ac.jp/en/">Kyoto University </a>

Bonobos offer clues into how human disgust evolved

Primatologists at Kyoto University are looking to our closest cousins...

Scientists have made a pair of discoveries that could leave one UK city feeling shaken. The two newly discovered fault lines are raising concerns over the potential that a London earthquake may be in store.

Researchers from <a href="http://www.imperial.ac.uk/">Imperial College London</a> discovered the fault lines using PSInSAR imagery and datasets of London collected from 1992 to 2000 and 2001 to 2010. The PSInSAR data – which stands for Persistent Scatterer Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar – revealed patterns of ground movement that pointed to the existence of two undiscovered fault lines.

The team determined that one fault line lies beneath central London, while another runs under Canary Wharf. Both faults move about 1 to 2 millimeters each year, the researchers found.

The discovery could help Londoners prepare for a moderate-intensity quake.

“London has a very overloaded infrastructure and is therefore very sensitive to damage that affects more than one point on the system – think of the effect of multiple signal failures delaying or closing two or three tube lines,” Dr. Richard Ghail, who led the research, told the <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html">Daily Mail</a>. “Apart from the small risk of an earthquake, it is the potential for cost overruns of difficult engineering and damage to old infrastructure (like tube lines) that is most economically significant.”

The researchers suspect that a London earthquake may be overdue, though the chances of a temblor larger than 5.0 magnitude are slim. 

London has seen moderate quakes before. In 1580, the city was shaken by a 5.5-magnitude tremor. Moderate quakes with magnitudes ranging from 5.5 to 6.0 can cause slight damage to structures, according to <a href="http://www.geo.mtu.edu/UPSeis/">Michigan Tech’s UPSeis</a> program. 

Even if a London earthquake strikes, however, it’s not likely to be as strong as the 1580 shakeup.

The possibility is “enough to be scary but not fundamentally a problem,” Ghail told the <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/">Telegraph</a>.

But the finding shows the importance of sharing information collected by government agencies, like the PSInSAR data sets. If those sets had been shared years ago, builders and property owners in London could already have begun retrofitting to deal with a potential future London earthquake.

“Until very recently (the last ten years or less), data have not been freely shared,” Ghail said.

—

By Kyla Cathey, <a href="http://www.earth.com">Earth.com</a> staff writer

Fault lines trigger worries about future London earthquake

Scientists have made a pair of discoveries that could leave...

In a new breakthrough study, researchers may have found a way to both reverse the aging process and also treat fatty liver disease.

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) affects about <a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/nonalcoholic-fatty-liver-disease/symptoms-causes/syc-20354567">80 to 100 million people</a> in the United States and occurs when there’s a buildup of fat cells in the liver. 

The disease can cause the liver to look like swiss cheese, and although there are rarely symptoms for NAFLD, if left to progress, the disease can cause serious damage to the liver. 

Researchers from the <a href="http://www.virginia.edu/">University of Virginia</a> were studying fatty liver disease and discovered that the build-up of fat cells is caused by an increase in wrinkles in the cells.

Wrinkles of a cell’s membrane increase as we age because of a protein deficiency and in turn these wrinkles can turn liver cells into fat cells. 

“We have the same DNA in every single cell but each cell is different,” Irina Bochkis, one of the study authors, told <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-5787211/Scientists-claim-turn-time-removing-wrinkles-INSIDE-cells.html">Daily Mail</a>. “So how does that work? Well, actually, certain genes need to be on in the liver and they have to be turned off in the brain, for example, and vice versa. When your nuclear membrane is no longer functioning properly, it can release the DNA that's supposed to be turned off, so then your little liver cell becomes a little fat cell.”

The study, published in the journal Aging Cell, suggests that adding protein to the membrane will smooth out the wrinkles and reverse the fat cells back to healthy liver cells. 

The researchers say that modifying a virus to transport proteins to the liver and the wrinkled cells could help smooth out the cell membranes and reduce NAFLD in the liver. 

What’s more, this process could potentially be applied to other aging factors to combat the <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/social-connections-slow-brain-aging/">aging process</a>. 

“You're going to have normal, healthy cells, and they will appropriately express the genes that should be expressed,” said Bochkis. “You're going to eradicate the stuff that shouldn't be there.

Every time I give this talk to colleagues, they say, ‘Do you think this is a universal mechanism?’ In my opinion, I think it is.”

--

By<a href="mailto:kayvandette@gmail.com"> Kay Vandette</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Scientists working to reverse wrinkles from the inside out

In a new breakthrough study, researchers may have found a...

A study from the <a href="https://www.umd.edu/">University of Maryland</a> (UMD) has revealed new clues about the energy conversion process that occurs when the Earth cuts a path through solar wind. The findings of the research are providing scientists with a better understanding of how the Earth's magnetic field protects our planet from harmful particles and radiation.

When the Earth encounters supersonic <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/solar-wind-collides-magnetic-field/">solar wind</a>, a shock wave forms just outside of the magnetosphere. This shock wave is called a bow shock, named after the bow-shaped wave that forms on water just ahead of a motorboat.

Scientists have not been able to fully explain how our planet’s magnetic field can plow through the stream of charged particles that make up solar wind without causing chaos. It has been previously established that the bow shock converts energy from solar wind to heat, and now researchers have observed this electron heating process for the first time.

Study lead author Li-Jen Chen is an associate research scientist in the UMD Department of Astronomy and a research scientist at <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/goddard">NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center</a>.

“If you were to stand on a mountaintop, you might get knocked over by a fast wind,” explained Chen. “Fortunately, as the solar wind crashes into Earth's magnetic field, the bow shock protects us by slowing down this wind and changing it to a nice, warm breeze. We now have a better idea how this happens.”

The researchers found that when the electrons in solar wind meet the bow shock, the electrons accelerate to such a high speed that their stream becomes unstable and breaks down. During this breakdown process, the electrons lose their high speeds and the energy is converted to heat.

The scientists used data from NASA's Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission, including hundreds of high-frequency measurements captured every 30 milliseconds within the bow shock layer.

Study co-author Thomas Moore is a senior project scientist at the Goddard Space Flight Center.

“The extremely fast measurements from MMS allowed us finally to see the electron heating process in the thin shock layer,” said Moore. “This is groundbreaking because now we have the ability to identify the mechanism at work, instead of just observing its consequences.”

The scientists were surprised by the fact that the bow shock is able to convert the energy in electrons to heat without any friction between the electrons.

“The new observations of electron acceleration at the bow shock rewrite the current understanding of electron heating,” said Chen. “For example, researchers didn't expect that the bow shock could accelerate the solar wind electron stream to the speeds that we observed.”

The researchers had a rare opportunity to observe the solar wind's electron stream before, during, and after its encounter with the bow shock. They found that the electron stream took just 90 milliseconds to destabilize and fully break down after being accelerated by the shock wave.

“The study of electron heating is important not just for understanding how the bow shock protects Earth, but potentially for satellites, space travel and maybe exploring other planets in the future,” said Chen.

The research is published in the journal <a href="https://journals.aps.org/prl/">Physical Review Letters</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: <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/goddard">NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center</a>

Earth’s magnetic field shields the planet from solar wind

A study from the University of Maryland (UMD) has revealed...

Researchers at the <a href="https://www.oist.jp/">Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University</a> (OIST) have investigated the relationship between serotonin levels and behavior in mice, with a particular focus on how serotonin may affect patience.

Serotonin is a chemical produced in nerve cells that influences how neurons function. Serotonin has been linked to a range of behaviors, such as mood, sleep, <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/brain-cravings-sweet-foods/">cravings</a>, and spontaneity. 

The chemical’s influence on human behavior has made it a focal point in the development of ways to treat mental health disorders. For example, selective serotonin receptor inhibitors (SSRIs) are the most common antidepressants, which are used to block the reabsorption of serotonin and make it more available in the brain.


Study co-author Dr. Katsuhiko Miyazaki explained: “Serotonin has had a lot of study in pharmacology, and serotonergic drugs are commonly prescribed, but the role that serotonin has over behavior isn't clear.”

The mice were trained to perform a task to receive a food reward, which involved placing their noses into a small hole and waiting. The team wanted to determine whether mice would wait for the reward regardless of the probability of it turning up or the length of time they had to wait.

The study revealed that an increase of serotonin did not always boost patience. When the mice had a 75 percent chance of a reward, they were willing to wait beyond the typical three-second period to receive a reward.

However, when the probability of reward delivery was cut down to 50 or 25 percent, an increase in serotonin had no effect on the amount of time the mice were willing to wait. “The patience effect only works when the mouse thinks there is a high probability of reward,” said Dr Miyazaki.

A boost of serotonin was also found to influence the mice to wait longer when the timing of a reward was harder to predict.

To better understand the results of the analysis, the team constructed a computational model to interpret the experimental data. 

The model showed that serotonin influenced how confident the mice felt that they would receive food when the reward was perceived as being more likely. For example, serotonin made the mice behave as if there was a 95 percent chance of reward in trials that had a 75 percent reward probability. 

According to the model, serotonin stimulation also increased the mice's confidence that they were in a reward trial versus a no-reward trial when the probability of receiving food was harder to predict, which delayed their decision to stop waiting.

The results show that the relationship between the activation of serotonin and subsequent behavior is highly dependent on the animals' perception of the circumstances, which may have implications for understanding how serotonin-boosting drugs affect humans.

 “This could help explain why combined treatment of depression with SSRIs and Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) is more effective than just SSRIs alone,” said Dr. Miyazaki. “The psychological boost of the therapy is enhanced by raised serotonin levels.”

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

Serotonin helps the brain stay patient, new study finds

Researchers at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate...

It has previously been thought that the first people to enter the Americas divided into two ancestral branches, one northern and one southern. The northern branch were the direct ancestors to many Native communities now living in the Canadian east. The southern branch is thought to have given rise to all the populations in Central and South America. However, for the first time, a new study has found that the majority – and potentially all – of the Indigenous peoples of the southern continent retain at least some DNA from the northern branch deep in their genetic history.

The study is published in the journal <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/">Science</a>, and shows that – while the two branches may have remained separate for thousands of years – they actually came back together either before or during the expansion of people into <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/endangered-south-american-forests/">South America</a>. Researchers analyzed 91 ancient genomes from sites in California and Canada, which show that after the first peoples separated into two populations between 18,000 and 15,000 years ago, the northern branch migrated east to the great lakes region. The researchers believe this population may have been following the retreating glacial edges of the thawing Ice Age. The southern branch is believed to have continued down the Pacific coast, inhabiting islands along the way.

But analysis of Central and South American genomes reveals that the two branches “reconverged” despite being separated for millennia. The study’s authors say that there must have been one or more “admixture” events between the two populations roughly 13,000 years ago. This blending of lineages occurred either in North America before they expanded south, or as people migrated even deeper into the southern continent.

“It was previously thought that South Americans, and indeed most Native Americans, derived from one ancestry related to the Clovis people,” says Dr. Toomas Kivisild, co-senior author of the study from the <a href="https://www.cam.ac.uk/">University of Cambridge</a>. The Clovis culture – named for the 13,000-year-old stone tools found near Clovis, New Mexico – were a prehistoric people once believed to be ancestral to all Native Americans. “We now find that all native populations in North, Central and South America also draw genetic ancestry from a northern branch most closely related to Indigenous peoples of eastern Canada. This cannot be explained by activity in the last few thousand years. It is something altogether more ancient,” Kivisild says.

Interestingly, when present day Central and South American populations were analyzed in this study, the highest proportion of northern branch genetics in South America was found very far south in southern Chile. “It’s certainly an intriguing finding, although currently circumstantial – we don’t have ancient DNA to corroborate how early this northern ancestral branch arrived,” explains Dr. Christiana Scheib, who conducted the work while at the <a href="https://www.cam.ac.uk/">University of Cambridge</a> and is first author of the study. “It could be evidence for a vanguard population from the northern branch deep in the southern continent that became isolated for a long time – preserving a genetic continuity.”

The researchers believe that more should be done to include Indigenous communities in ancient DNA studies in the Americas. Genetic analysis of ancient people may have an adverse effect for linked Indigenous communities, but engagement work can help mitigate harm to the community and give Indigenous peoples a voice in the research.

“The lab-based science should only be a part of the research. We need to work with Indigenous communities in a more holistic way," says Schieb. “From the analysis of a single tooth, paleogenomics research can now offer information on ancient diet and disease as well as migration. By developing partnerships that incorporate ideas from Native communities, we can potentially generate results that are of direct interest and use to the Indigenous peoples involved.”

--

By <a href="mailto:certz@earth.com">Connor Ertz</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

The first Americans separated in two groups before reconverging

It has previously been thought that the first people to...

A new tool could help fishermen increase their yields while still protecting at-risk species to the benefit of both the fishing industry and conservationists. 

No-fishing zones <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/no-fishing-zones-penguins/">proven successful in the protection</a> and restoration of endangered and threatened species, but they can present a hindrance to fishermen. 

Currently, protection zones are often static and don’t reflect the constant variations in ocean conditions, which means fishermen may not be able to meet their target quotas or end up catching protected species as bycatch anyway. 

Conservationists and fishers have long had difficulty finding common ground between protecting and making a profit. 

Now, a tool called EcoCast could be just the solution both the fishing industry and conservation scientists have been looking for. 

EcoCast was developed by researchers from <a href="https://www.sdsu.edu/">San Diego State University</a> in collaboration with the <a href="http://www.noaa.gov/">National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration</a> (NOAA) and provides computer-generated maps of zones that could meet fishing quotas while avoiding areas with protected species. 

“This is a really different way of approaching fisheries management," said Rebecca Lewison, a lead scientist on the project. “EcoCast pioneers a way of evaluating both conservation objectives and economic profitability. Instead of trying to shut down U.S. fisheries, EcoCast is trying to help U.S. fishermen fish smarter, allowing them to meet their set quota of target catch and avoid unwanted bycatch.”

A new report outlining EcoCast’s development and potential was recently published in the journal Science Advances. 

EcoCast collects data from the <a href="https://coastwatch.noaa.gov/">NOAA's CoastWatch program</a>, which monitors ocean conditions worldwide with satellites. Fishers will receive up to date reports daily noting where protected fish populations are likely to be located.  

The tool warns fishers of potential bycatch locations for leatherback sea turtles, blue sharks, and California sea lions but could be expanded to include more species and areas. 

“We're harnessing the field of big data so that information on ocean conditions can be of use to fishermen," said Elliott Hazen, the lead author of the new paper.

After demonstrating the way EcoCast could be used by fishermen, the researchers discovered that the tool could still protect species but reduce no-fishing zones, making them two to ten times smaller and giving fishers more pace to meet their quotas. 

“EcoCast represents a new approach to dynamically manage our ocean resources, which is an exciting advance in fisheries management,” said Lewison. “By working directly with fisheries, we can develop tools that can help US fleets to fish smarter.”

--

By <a href="mailto:kayvandette@gmail.com">Kay Vandett</a>e,<a href="https://www.earth.com/"> Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

New technology helps fishermen and conservationists both win

A new tool could help fishermen increase their yields while...

In the last million years, humans have gained remarkable cognitive abilities as our brains have grown considerably in size and complexity. Experts at the <a href="http://www.vib.be/Pages/default.aspx">Flanders Institute for Biotechnology</a> are investigating the underlying genetic changes that have promoted the evolution of the human brain.

It is known that ancestral genes are duplicated and the copies evolve into related genes that are referred to as “paralog” genes. In the current study, the researchers were particularly interested in duplicated genes that emerged in both humans and great apes.

“Developmental biologists usually look at changes in the regulation of genes to explain evolutionary differences, and not so much at genes themselves, since we share so many of our genes even with simple organisms such as worms,” explained study lead author Pierre Professor Vanderhaeghen. 

“But gene duplication can lead to novel genes in a species, which could contribute to the rapid emergence of human-specific traits, like the increased size of the brain's cortex.”


Dozens of genes that are “human-specific” have been identified in the human genome, yet their role remains somewhat of a mystery. Many of these genes are believed to be redundant, and are not even properly interpreted in genome databases.

Study co-author Ikuo Suzuki explained why the search for the human-specific genes involved in <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/social-connections-slow-brain-aging/">brain</a> development is complicated.

“One of the main difficulties is distinguishing the expression of ancestral genes (present in all species) and human-specific paralogs (present only in human DNA), as obviously they are extremely similar,” said Suzuki. 

“That is why we had to use a tailored RNAseq analysis for specific and sensitive detection of the human-specific genes of interest. In that way, we could identify a whole repertoire of duplicated genes that are involved in the development of the cerebral cortex in humans.”

The researchers focused on NOTCH2NL, a cluster of human-specific paralogs of the NOTCH2 receptor. This pathway is known to be critical in the development of the brain and other organs.

Brain enlargement is largely attributed to an increase in the number of neurons in the outer part of the brain, the cerebral cortex.

The scientists found that NOTCH2NL genes boosted the production of cortical stem cells, which subsequently generated more neurons.

“Given the paramount importance of the Notch pathway during neurogenesis, we hypothesized that NOTCH2NL genes could act as species-specific regulators of brain size,” said Vanderhaeghen. “It is fascinating to see that genes that arose very recently during evolution interact with probably the oldest signaling pathway among all animals: the Notch pathway.”

“Three human-specific NOTCH2NL genes are located on the first chromosome, in a region that had previously been linked to disease-related changes in brain size: genetic microdeletions in this region are associated with microcephaly and schizophrenia, while microduplications are associated with macrocephaly and autism spectrum disorders,” explained Suzuki. 

“So naturally, we wondered whether these effects could be linked to NOTCH2NL genes.”

An American team of scientists led by David Haussler at the <a href="https://www.hhmi.org/">Howard Hughes Medical Institute</a> analyzed DNA from patients with microcephaly or macrocephaly and found that the exact regions where genetic deletions and duplications originated also held two of the NOTCH2NL genes.

“Taken together, our study and that of our colleagues in the US point to a selective repertoire of human-specific gene duplications that may act as key controllers of human brain size and function: fewer copies of NOTCH2NL would lead to reduced brain size, while more copies would lead to an increase in brain size,” explained Professor Vanderhaeghen.

He also noted that this same region of DNA contains several other human-specific genes whose function is unknown. “It will be interesting to see if they control other aspects of human brain development.”

The research is published in the journal <a href="https://www.cell.com/">Cell</a>.

--

By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

How the human brain grew to be so big

In the last million years, humans have gained remarkable cognitive...

Researchers at <a href="http://www.manchester.ac.uk/">The University of Manchester</a> have developed technology that can recognize individuals by the way they walk. The <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/artificia-intelligence-socially-responsible/">artificial intelligence</a> (AI) system was found to accurately identify a person by their walk 99.3 percent of the time.

Fingerprints, facial recognition, and retinal scans are all physical biometrics that are commonly used for security screening. Behavioral biometrics, such as footstep recognition, can detect unique characteristics in a person's natural movement.

“Each human has approximately 24 different factors and movements when walking, resulting in every individual person having a unique, singular walking pattern,” said lead author Omar Costilla Reyes. “Therefore monitoring these movements can be used, like a fingerprint or retinal scan, to recognize and clearly identify or verify an individual.”

While study participants walked, 3D data was collected using floor sensors and high-resolution cameras. The team used this information to create the largest-ever footstep database that includes almost 20,000 footstep signals from 127 study participants.

The experts tested the AI system by using some of the participants and also “imposters” in real-world security scenarios at homes, airport security checkpoints, and in the workplace.

“Focusing on non-intrusive gait recognition by monitoring the force exerted on the floor during a footstep is very challenging,” said Reyes. “That’s because distinguishing between the subtle variations from person to person is extremely difficult to define manually, that is why we had to come up with a novel AI system to solve this challenge from a new perspective.”

The new technology will provide a non-intrusive way for security screening, as individuals will not even have to take off their shoes for the recognition process to work.


“The research is also being developed to address the healthcare problem of markers for cognitive decline and onset of mental illness, by using raw footstep data from a wide-area floor sensor deployable in smart dwellings,” said Reyes. “Human movement can be a novel biomarker of cognitive decline, which can be explored like never before with novel AI systems.”

The study is published in the journal <a href="https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/RecentIssue.jsp?punumber=34">IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence</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 can identify people by the way they walk

Researchers at The University of Manchester have developed technology that...

Archaeologists have found evidence to dispute the commonly accepted theory of how the first-ever Americans arrived. Scientists now believe that this migratory route may have occurred along Alaska's coast by sea, which is a far cry from the concept that a route was trekked from Siberia to Canada on foot.

At the end of the last ice age, a major passageway opened up between huge ice sheets, exposing land that connected North America to Asia across the Bering Sea. This was believed to be the way the first Americans arrived, by crossing the Bering land bridge.

But now, a research team led by the <a href="http://www.buffalo.edu/">University of Buffalo</a> has analyzed rock sediment that reveals a coastal <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/ancient-alaskan-hunters-advanced/">Alaskan</a> migration route had become accessible around 17,000 years ago. Recent studies suggest that new settlers may have traveled deeper into the Americas 16,000 years ago, which corroborates the new theory.

“People are fascinated by these questions of where they come from and how they got there,” said study lead author Dr. Jason Briner. “Our research contributes to the debate about how humans came to the Americas. It's potentially adding to what we know about our ancestry and how we colonized our planet.”

“Our study provides some of the first geologic evidence that a coastal migration route was available for early humans as they colonized the New World,” said study first author Alia Lesnek. “There was a coastal route available, and the appearance of this newly ice-free terrain may have spurred early humans to migrate southward.”


Ancient seal bones that date back approximately 17,000 years provide further evidence that the Alaskan coast could have supported human life at this time.

According to Dr. Briner, the path that had opened up in Canada did not develop enough biological diversity to support human life until about 13,000 years ago.

The new migration theory provides an alternative narrative, and may help to solve the mystery of how humans came to the Americas.

“Where we looked at it, the coastal route was not only open - it opened at just the right time,” said study co-author Dr. Charlotte Lindqvist. “The timing coincides almost exactly with the time in human history that the migration into the Americas is thought to have occurred.”

The study is published in the journal <a href="http://advances.sciencemag.org/">Science Advances</a>.

--

By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Human migration to the Americas may have taken a different route

Archaeologists have found evidence to dispute the commonly accepted theory...

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

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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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

The rapid retreat of the Columbia Glacier

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



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



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



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



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



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



Video &amp; Image Credit: ESA



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



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

The Pyrenees Mountains in southwest Europe

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



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



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



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



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



Video Credit: Stowers Institute for Medical Research&nbsp;



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



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

How the immune system responds to injury

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



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



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



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



Video/ Image Credit: NASA Goddard



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



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

2022 illustrated the consequences of a warming climate

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Earth,Like,Exoplanet,3d,Render

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



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



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



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



Video Credit: NASA Goddard



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



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



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

Two distant planets may be "water worlds"

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



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



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



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



Video Credit: NASA Goddard&nbsp;



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



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

Satellites reveal how Earth's systems are interconnected

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