Your heart does more than pump blood. It also broadcasts tiny timing shifts that doctors read as heart rate variability (HRV), a window into the balance of your autonomic nervous system (ANS).



A five‑month field study now suggests those shifts rise and fall with patterns in space weather.&nbsp;



"The study makes a striking correlation between people’s HRV and energetic environmental phenomena such as the electromagnetic energy from the sun, the <a href="https://www.heartmath.org/gci/gcms/live-data/gcms-magnetometer/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Schumann resonance power</a>, and energy influxes coming from outside our solar system," said Rollin McCraty of the <a href="https://www.heartmath.org/">HeartMath Institute</a>.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-solar-storms-spikes-heart-rate">Solar storms spikes heart rate</h2>



Dr. Abdullah Alabdulgader of the <a href="https://www.hziegler.com/employers/prince-sultan-cardiac-center.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Prince Sultan Cardiac Center</a> in Saudi Arabia led weekly 72‑hour ECG sessions for sixteen healthy volunteers. 



The researchers matched each session against hourly logs of solar wind speed, sunspot counts, cosmic ray flux, and local geomagnetic indices collected by NASA and <a href="https://www.sgo.fi/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Finland’s Sodankylä Observatory</a>.



"Increase in <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/silent-storms-experts-identify-the-mysterious-source-of-solar-wind/">solar wind</a> intensity was correlated with increases in heart rate, which we interpret as a biological stress response," said Dr. Alabdulgader. 



When the wind strengthened, inter‑beat intervals shortened, hinting at a sympathetic spike even on calm clinical days.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-heart-variability-during-solar-storms">Heart variability during solar storms</h2>



Heart rate variability is commonly split into high‑frequency, low‑frequency, and very‑low‑frequency bands. The Saudi team saw all three bands climb when cosmic ray counts, solar radio flux, and local Schumann resonance power went up.



Cosmic rays seemed especially potent. Total HRV power rose for almost 40 hours after particle counts peaked. A European <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17338964/">study</a> echoed this effect, linking higher cosmic rays to lower C-reactive protein, a marker of inflammation.



Geomagnetic quiet was not always benign. A U.S. analysis of 263 cities found that disturbed fields, measured by Kp and Ap indices, coincided with increased cardiovascular deaths on the same day.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-electromagnetic-fields-and-the-heart">Electromagnetic fields and the heart</h2>



Why would charged particles millions of miles away nudge heart rhythms? One possibility is that they tweak the ionosphere, altering the ultra‑low‑frequency waves that bathe Earth’s surface.



Neuroscientists first noticed in the 1950s that the <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26785376/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">primary Schumann</a> peak near 7.83 Hz matches <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3507158/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">alpha brain oscillations</a>. Modern EEG research shows brief real‑time coherence between Schumann power and cortical activity during geomagnetic spikes.



These same frequencies overlap with <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7560965/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">vagal signaling</a> that drives the high‑frequency band of HRV. The Saudi dataset supports the idea that the heart, like the brain, can phase‑lock to natural electromagnetic cues.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-calm-waves-calmer-beats">Calm waves, calmer beats</h2>



Schumann power rose during thunderstorms and quiet solar intervals alike. When this occurred, participants’ heart rates slowed and parasympathetic tone strengthened. 



These results mirrored a smaller trial in Japan that recorded lower blood pressure on strong Schumann days.



Laboratory studies show that mammals and birds align circadian genes with weak radio‑frequency fields, though precise receptors remain debated.



Magnetite nanoparticles in cardiac and neural tissue may act as primary sensors, while <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10966452/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">retinal cryptochromes</a> could relay secondary signals.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-solar-storms-impact-heart-health">Solar storms impact heart health</h2>



For most people, the effects are subtle, but population data suggest they are still significant. A global review conducted in 2023 showed that stronger overall geomagnetic fields were linked to slight increases in cardiovascular deaths. 



However, the horizontal part of the field appeared to have a protective effect - highlighting how geomagnetic exposure may influence health in complex ways.



Clinicians already use heart rate variability to flag autonomic imbalance in diabetes, <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/meditation-can-rapidly-reduce-ptsd-without-revisiting-trauma/">PTSD</a>, and post‑infection fatigue. If space weather can tip that balance, wearable monitors might one day combine cardiology and heliophysics to time workouts, surgeries, or even trading floors.



Not every scientist is convinced. A National Institutes of Health panel recently referred to the current evidence as intriguing yet inconclusive, noting that lab replications with shielded chambers are still scarce.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-emergency-planning-for-space-weather">Emergency planning for space weather</h2>



If <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/massive-geomagnetic-storm-reveals-earths-technological-vulnerabilities/">geomagnetic</a> factors affect heart and nervous system activity - even subtly - then hospitals and emergency services may need to adjust staffing or readiness protocols during peak solar events.



Historical data already confirm that ER visits and psychiatric admissions spike during geomagnetic disturbances. People who are at risk from arrhythmia, hypertension, or mental illness may experience the strongest effects.



Weather forecasts increasingly include space weather alerts, but medical infrastructure hasn't caught up. 



Doctors, paramedics, and health agencies could benefit from predictive models that track these environmental stressors and inform care delivery for vulnerable groups.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-research-is-needed">Further research is needed</h2>



The Saudi volunteers were young, healthy, and living at low geomagnetic latitude. We do not yet know whether patients with arrhythmias, hypertension, or pacemakers react the same way at polar latitudes where field swings are stronger.



Dose matters too. Satellites warn of major solar storms days in advance, but subtle changes within the “quiet” range may fly below meteorological forecasts while still nudging sensitive physiology.



Finally, correlation is not causation. Although animal studies shows pulsed fields can shift heart‑rate timing, the precise chain from ionospheric disturbance to vagus nerve firing remains only partially mapped.



Future studies may include networks that monitor heart rate variability across multiple locations, along with magnetometers and possibly even <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/brain-mapping-research-mouse-neurons-revolutionary-advance/">genetic screening</a> for traits linked to magnetic sensitivity. 



In the meantime, the evidence suggests we should consider space weather as one more environmental factor that may influence heart health.



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323016904_Long-Term_Study_of_Heart_Rate_Variability_Responses_to_Changes_in_the_Solar_and_Geomagnetic_Environment" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Scientific Reports</a>.



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Solar storms may be messing with your heart

Your heart does more than pump blood. It also broadcasts tiny timing shifts that doctors read as heart rate variability (HRV), a window into the balance of your autonomic nervous system (ANS). A five‑month field study now suggests those shifts rise and fall with patterns in space weather.&nbsp; "The study makes a striking correlation between people’s HRV and energetic environmental phenomena such as the electromagnetic energy from the sun, the Schumann resonance power, and energy influxes coming from outside our solar system," said Rollin McCraty of the...

The earth’s core is cooling. We know that much. It occurs as a result of the very gradual movement of liquid metal, transferring heat from the <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/earth-internal-jet-stream-core/">core</a> to the surface. But how much cooling has occurred over geological time?

The answer that Kei Hirose, now Director of the Earth-Life Science Institute (ELSI) at the Tokyo Institute of Technology came up with in 2013 – a heat reduction of 1000 degrees Centimeter over the 4.5 billion-year life of the planet – startled earth scientists. That was a lot of heat loss! But it’s what the numbers had to add up to in order to sustain the geomagnetic field – unless there was another energy source.

Hirose and his team think they’ve found that alternate source along with gaining greater understanding of the chemical composition of the core.

“The core is mostly iron and some nickel, but also contains about ten percent of light alloys such as silicon, oxygen, sulfur, carbon, hydrogen, and other compounds,” said Hirose, lead author of the new study, to be published in <a href="http://www.nature.com/">Nature</a>. “We think that many alloys are simultaneously present, but we don't know the proportion of each candidate element.”

The team used precision-cut diamonds and lasers to replicate pressure and heat conditions that exist at the earth’s core on various combinations of iron and alloys. In the past, researchers conducting similar experiments only mixed iron with one alloy.

“But in these experiments we decided to combine two different alloys containing silicon and oxygen, which we strongly believe exist in the core,” said Hirose.

The process formed dust-size silicon dioxide crystals – which do appear, as the mineral quartz, on the earth’s surface.

“We were excited because our calculations showed that crystallization of silicon dioxide crystals from the core could provide an immense new energy source for powering the earth's magnetic field,” said John Hernlund of ELSI and a co-author of the study.

In other words, while the earth’s core is indeed steadily cooling, the findings point to it happening at a much less dramatic rate than previously calculated.

<a href="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/133691.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-131166" src="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/133691.jpg" alt="" width="385" height="461" /></a>

--

By David Searls, <a href="http://earth.com">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Source – <a href="http://www.titech.ac.jp/english/">Tokyo Institute of Technology</a>

The earth may be cooling slower than we thought

The earth’s core is cooling. We know that much. It...

While medical researchers are closing in on a Zika vaccine, challenges remain even while another wave of infections threatens as the calendar draws closer to Spring. That’s according to a review paper published on February 21 in the journal Immunity.

While the mosquito-transmitted virus poses little health risk to most individuals, it has been associated with Guillain-Barre syndrome in some adults. More dramatically, Zika has been in the news for the last two years for its devastating effect on to the fetuses of infected pregnant women, resulting in severe birth defects. That’s why researchers are racing the clock to come up with a safe and effective vaccine as warmer temperatures invite another outbreak in North and South America and the Caribbean islands.

Animal clinical trials that began last autumn are going well, with three different vaccine candidates proving effective against mice and rhesus monkeys.

“The pace of preclinical and early clinical development for Zika vaccines is unprecedented,” said Dan H. Barouch, MD, PhD and director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and one of the co-authors of the paper. “In less than a year, our group and others have demonstrated that multiple vaccine platforms can provide robust protection against Zika virus challenge in animal models. However, unique challenges will need to be addressed in the clinical development of a Zika vaccine.”

While human trials are ongoing, researchers are still in the dark on many aspects of the virus while the stakes are incredibly high, especially for men and women of childbearing age. Another stumbling block is that some potential vaccines could cross-react with vaccines for other diseases within the same family of viruses, which includes dengue fever, West Nile fever and other potentially deadly infections. If that’s the case, a virus that protects against Zika could result in serious health risks from other causes to those in developing nations.

The bottom line is that the race to a vaccine continues. We’re getting closer to an effective prevention, but for now the disease is still winning.

--

By David Searls, <a href="http://earth.com">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Source: <a href="http://www.bidmc.org">Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center</a>

Progress made, but much to be done before Zika vaccine success

While medical researchers are closing in on a Zika vaccine,...

This past weekend, a lot of people who are much more comfortable in a laboratory, holding a microscope, found themselves at a protest, holding picket signs. This is because statements made by President Donald Trump, as well as executive orders that he’s passed, have made it impossible for some scientists to sit on the sidelines. For many of them, speaking out has become a necessity. 

That’s why Brittany Goods took to Copley Square in Boston during the Rally To Stand Up For Science. A postdoctoral student in biomedical sciences at<a href="http://web.mit.edu"> Massachusetts Institute of Technology</a>, she told the<a href="http://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/index.html"> Scientific American</a>, “It’s uncomfortable for me as a scientist, but it’s necessary.” 

Other <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/womens-march-speak-trump/">protesters</a> cited Trump’s reliance on “alternative facts,” skepticism about climate change expressed by him and his appointees, as well as his recent travel ban that focused on several Muslim-majority nations as a reason why they felt the need to stand up and speak out. The travel ban affected hundreds of scientists and doctors in the Boston area, sparking outrage in the scientific and medical community. 

Naomi Oreskes, a professor at Harvard University, spoke at the protest. “It is not political to defend the integrity of facts,” she said. “We did not politicize our science. We were politicized by people who don’t like our facts.”

Commentary and signs at the rally included statements such as “Science is not a liberal conspiracy” and “Climate change is NOT a controversy.” Goods carried a sign simply emblazoned with the single word “FACTS.” 

The Rally To Stand Up For Science was held at the same time as this year’s five-day meeting of the <a href="http://www.aaas.org/">American Association for the Advancement of Science</a> (AAAS). While some people (such as Oreskes) attended and even spoke at both events, others in the scientific community were critical of the protest. The latter say that such rallies are a waste of time.

The AAAS refused to explicitly take a side but said in a statement, “It is exciting to see people enthusiastic about science and the use of evidence in policymaking, and we are inspired by the grassroots nature of this movement.”

--

By Dawn Henderson,<a href="http://earth.com"> Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Scientists are fed up – and are leaving their labs to speak out

This past weekend, a lot of people who are much...

Frankenstein’s monster, the Loch Ness monster, and the Tully monster. Only one of these has a basis that goes beyond fiction and conspiracy theory. The Tully monster – or thousands of them, actually – were fossilized specimens first discovered in 1958. 

Scientists studied and studied the specimens, but they couldn’t decide what sort of creatures they had found. They couldn’t even pin down the Tully monster’s phylum, a major group in the classification of animals.   

In 2016, all of that changed. A slew of scientific and news outlets published reports that the Tully monster mystery was no more. The creature was a vertebrate, and not only that – it was a kind of fish known as a lamprey. 

Not so fast, says a new report by paleobiologists with the<a href="http://www.upenn.edu"> University of Pennsylvania</a>. They’re insisting that the mystery is still on. 

Lauren Sallan, the leader of the research team, explains why the previous classification attempts were faulty. 

“This animal doesn't fit easy classification because it's so weird," she said. “It has these eyes that are on stalks and it has this pincer at the end of a long proboscis and there's even disagreement about which way is up. But the last thing that the Tully monster could be is a fish.”

The report, published in the journal<a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1475-4983"> Paleontology</a>, argues that when all of the appropriate lines of evidence are applied to the Tully monster, its current classification simply doesn’t hold up. If this is true, the creature should rightly remain unclassified. However, the current team is offering lots of different options for what the creature may be. 

"Initially it was published as a worm," Sallan said. "There is a well-constructed argument that it is some kind of mollusc, like a sea cucumber. And there's another very strong argument that it's some kind of arthropod, similar to a lobster.”
Lamprey, <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/even-teenage-worms-angsty/">worm</a>, sea cucumber, lobster: the Tully monster debate rages on. 
--

By Dawn Henderson,<a href="http://earth.com"> Earth.com</a> Staff Writer 

Source: Lauren Sallan,<a href="http://www.apple.com"> University of Pennsylvania</a>

&nbsp;

Think the Tully monster mystery is over? Think again!

Frankenstein’s monster, the Loch Ness monster, and the Tully monster....

Soon <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/fact-family-farmers-grants/">farmers </a>will have an app to help them save the bees! It can be a laborious process for a farmer to encourage bees to pollinate their <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/global-warming-happening-quickly-food-crops-adapt/">crops.</a> They would have to walk through her fields, assess possible locations, take measurements, crunch numbers and still, they could only guess a number of plants bees would pollinate. But soon farmers will have an app to help them calculate the crop productivity and pollination benefits of supporting endangered bees.

Bee expert Taylor Rickett from the University of Vermont is co-leading the app's development and introduced the new interactive technology at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting panel, <a href="https://aaas.confex.com/aaas/2017/webprogram/Session14937.html">Plan Bee: Pollinators, Food Production and U.S. Policy</a>, on Feb. 19.

The currently nameless app which will be launching later this year, allows users to explore land management scenarios, and virtually test how bee-friendly decisions would improve their business.

Pre-loaded with aerial images of North America, the app allows users to calculate their best practices for boosting pollination once their enter their address details. According to Ricketts. "You simply draw different options - from wind breaks to planting flowers or bringing in honey bees. The app will do a pollination, productivity, and eventually, a cost-benefit analysis. Farmers can then determine which choices bring the best return on investment."

The app uses the first <a href="http://www.uvm.edu/giee/?Page=news&amp;storyID=22053&amp;category=gund">national map of U.S. wild bees</a> as a base which found the key insects are disappearing in the country's most important farmlands - including California's Central Valley, the Midwest's corn belt and the Mississippi River valley.

That study, led by UVM bee researchers, showed that with further bee losses, farmers could face higher costs and the nation's food production could experience "destabilization" due to climate change, pesticides, habitat loss and disease.

Ricketts added "Farmers are a natural partner to protect bees because pollinators are essential for growing many foods,"

The hope is that the app will make the best available science and bee-friendly practices accessible to users - which can help making real steps to reverse bee losses.

"Government action is key, but saving bees requires more than that," says Ricketts. "Leadership from the private sector, especially farmers and agricultural businesses, is crucial. Their choices will have a huge impact on whether pollinators fail or flourish. This gives farmers a chance to help with an issue that directly impacts their businesses". What we all know is that it's going to take a lot of work from everyone to save the bees.

–

Source: <a href="http://www.uvm.edu/giee/?Page=news&amp;storyID=22530&amp;category=gund">UVM</a>

By: Frances Levine Editor-in-Chief

Save the bees with an app!

Soon farmers will have an app to help them save...

You’d think that the terrifying <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107290/">Jurassic Park</a> movies would have warned scientists not to bring dinosaurs back from the dead, but no – they never learn, do they? And now a team of scientists from Harvard University is plotting to bring woolly mammoths back from extinction. Not just a regular woolly mammoth, either: a mammoth-elephant hybrid. 

Woolly mammoths became extinct thousands of years ago, but if everything goes according to plan, they could be roaming around (hopefully not loose) again within the next two years. 

Researchers say that they can take DNA extracted from frozen mammoth carcasses and program those genes into an Asian elephant, creating the crazy hybrid creature they’re proposing. Imagine an elephant with mammoth-like features such as thick, protective layers of fat and the characteristic long, shaggy hair. 

The head of the scientific team, Professor George Church, explained, “We're working on ways to evaluate the impact of all these edits and are basically trying to establish embryogenesis in the lab. The list of edits affects things that contribute to the success of elephants in cold environments.”

“We already know about ones to do with small ears, subcutaneous fat, hair and blood, but there are others that seem to be positively selected,” he said to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/">The Guardian</a>.

The technique that will be used to create the new creature is known as CRISPR/Cas9. First demonstrated in 2012, it allows scientists to “cut and paste” strands of DNA from one animal into another one. After being sliced, spliced, and edited, the mammoth embryo will be created in an artificial womb.

Scientists refer to these kinds of experiments as “de-extincting,” which sounds much more tame than “unleashing long-dead creatures from our nightmares upon us once more,” dontchathink? It’s not that the woolly mammoth is so bad; it’s just that the <a href="https://www.earth.com/image/hatzegopteryx-ancient-t-rex/">T-Rex</a> could be next! 

--
By Dawn Henderson,<a href="http://earth.com"> Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Could woolly mammoths be coming back from the dead – and SOON?

You’d think that the terrifying Jurassic Park movies would have...

When science meets agriculture, it’s an amazing thing. The development of genetically modified plants has given us drought-resistant wheat and pest-resistant corn. Could gene manipulation help animal breeders the same way it’s benefitted farmers? In <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/new-device-will-hunt-gmos-that-escape-into-the-environment/">biotechnology</a>, the field is known as gene editing, and researchers say that they are able to make beneficial changes to an animal’s genetics without causing unwanted changes. 

What kind of changes? Thanks to gene editing, cows that would normally need to be dehorned no longer have to go through that process. Scientists also hope that gene editing will be helpful to enhance the health and welfare of food animals.

Advancements in gene editing were made possible in part because of lessons learned from the dairy industry. Selective breeding among dairy cows has reduced greenhouse gas emissions related to that industry. Scientists accomplished this by breeding cows with improved productivity in mind. Thanks to this, despite their being a 1.6-fold increase in milk production, there are only around 9 million milk cows in the U.S. today, compared to 25.6 million in 1944.

Gene editing is accomplished through a variety of means. Van Eenennaam, a cooperative extension biotechnology specialist at the <a href="https://www.ucdavis.edu/">University of California Davis</a> explained how scientists expanded the limits of this field.

“A number of breeding methods, including artificial insemination, embryo transfer, crossbreeding and, more recently, genomic selection, have been used to achieve these improvements,” she said. “Now, genome editing promises to complement traditional breeding programs by precisely introducing desirable genetic variations into livestock breeding programs.”

Like genetically modified food, gene-edited food animals are sure to stir controversy and will possibly face regulation. 

“The resulting DNA sequence may be identical to existing, naturally-occurring DNA sequences,” Eenennaam explained. 

“The prospect that gene-edited animals would be subject to the same type of regulations that apply to an animal drug -- even though their genetic modifications might be indistinguishable from those obtained through conventional breeding -- is a concern for animal breeders who are eager to employ genome editing to complement traditional genetic improvement programs.”

--

By Dawn Henderson,<a href="http://earth.com"> Earth.com</a> Staff Writer 

Source: Van Eenennaam, <a href="https://www.ucdavis.edu/">University of California Davis</a>

GMO burgers? Gene editing meets agriculture

When science meets agriculture, it’s an amazing thing. The development...

<a href="https://www.nasa.gov/">NASA</a> technology gives us a bird’s – or rather, a star’s-eye view – of our planet from space. Using satellite imaging technology, scientists are able to view the Earth as a whole in order to understand how all of its systems work together. Of particular interest are the regions that spend large chunks of time buried underneath snowfall. As temperatures warm in those areas, melting snow provides water to those areas. Because of this, snowfall levels can affect how much water is available for drinking water, agricultural purposes, and hydropower programs. 

However, it’s tough to measure exactly how much <a href="https://www.earth.com/image/kamchatka-peninsula-captured/">snow</a> exists in a given area using traditional imaging technology. This led NASA to create SnowEx, a program that uses remote sensing measurements to tell not only how much snow is on the ground in an area, but also how much water is contained within that snow. 

Edward Kim, a NASA scientist who specializes in remote sensing, explained the purpose of the program. 

“"This is the most comprehensive campaign we have ever done on snow,” he said. “An army of nearly 100 scientists from universities and agencies across the U.S., Europe and Canada are participating. Our goal is to find and refine the best snow-measuring techniques.”

The program will utilize five aircraft that will carry a total of 10 remote sensors in order to take measurements. Jets will take off from Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colorado, NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, Armstrong Flight Research Center in Palmdale, California, as well as from Grand Junction, Colorado. Meanwhile, teams of 50 researchers will collect data on the ground that will be used to validate the measurements taken from the air.

Scientists hope that if the program, beginning later this month in Colorado, is a success, it will be used to upgrade existing satellites so that they can take measurements. 

--

By Dawn Henderson,<a href="http://earth.com"> Earth.com</a> Staff Writer 

Source: <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/">NASA</a>

Check out NASA’s cool new method for measuring snowfall

NASA technology gives us a bird’s – or rather, a...

Scientists are always working on ways to build faster <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/robots-replace-uk-jobs/">robots</a>, and helping them in their evil scheme are the researchers at <a href="https://www.epfl.ch/">École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne</a> (EPFL) and the <a href="https://www.unil.ch/central/en/home.html">University of Lausanne</a> (UNIL). They recently experimented on a concept out of any robotophobe’s worst nightmares: do six-legged robots run faster when they use a tripod gate or when they run with just two legs on the ground? 

To find out, researchers first looked at different styles of running. Vertebrates run with their legs exhibiting minimal contact with the ground. Meanwhile, insects – having a few extra legs – run differently. They used a “tripod” gait in which they have three legs on the ground at all times (two touching the ground on one side and one on the other). 

Which way is faster? Engineers have long assumed that the tripod gait was best, using it as inspiration for their six-legged robot designs. To find out the speedier gait once and for all, scientists used computer models, robotic tests, and observation of the insect Drosophila melanogaster to sort through the different scenarios. 

They found that while insects are fantastic at moving quickly and effectively using the tripod gait when they’re walking up a wall or ceiling using the adhesive pads on their feet, this wasn’t the most effective way for them to travel on the ground. To test the best means of ground-travel, scientists used a substance to cover the adhesive pads on the flies’ feet and found that the tiny creatures immediately dropped the “tripod” gait in favor of the two-leg method.

“Our findings support the idea that insects use a tripod gait to most effectively walk on surfaces in three dimensions, and because their legs have adhesive properties. This confirms a long-standing biological hypothesis," said Pavan Ramdya, co-lead and corresponding author of the study. "Ground robots should therefore break free from only using the tripod gait.”

The team’s findings were published in <a href="http://www.nature.com/ncomms/">Nature Communications</a>.

--

By Dawn Henderson,<a href="http://earth.com"> Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Source: Pavan Ramdya, <a href="https://www.epfl.ch">EPFL</a>

&nbsp;

Four legs or six? This weird test proves who runs faster

Scientists are always working on ways to build faster robots,...

Studying wild <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/ring-tailed-lemurs-big-trouble/">lemurs</a> is like – well, it’s like chasing a bunch of monkeys, because that’s exactly what scientists must do. In order to learn anything about individual lemurs, researchers need to capture and tag them. As you can imagine, this is an unpleasant process for everyone involved. Now, scientists (and lemurs alike) are breathing a sigh of relief, as a team of researchers has developed a technology that will make the lemur chase moot. The new system is called LemurFaceID and as its name implies, it uses facial recognition technology to digitally “tag” wild lemurs. 

The facial recognition system consists of a database full of photographs of individual lemurs. Researchers say that scientists will be able to use the database for things such as conservation efforts and conducting evolutionary studies. The latter requires researchers to collect data over the lifespan of individual animals. This helps them learn more about a species’ population growth, reproduction, and overall survival. 

Rachel Jacobs is a biological anthropologist at <a href="https://www.gwu.edu/">George Washington University</a> and is a co-author of the paper. She explained why she and the other team members worked to create the system. 

 "We are excited about the results of this truly cross-disciplinary collaboration," she said. "The ability to consistently study individuals over long periods of time, as well as integrate data across different studies, are some of the challenges we face when studying wild animal populations. Senior author, Stacey Tecot (<a href="http://www.arizona.edu/">University of Arizona</a>), and I weren't particularly satisfied with the common approaches used in lemur research, so we aimed to do something different with red-bellied lemurs, and we sought the expertise of our computer science collaborators.”

Hopefully, the system will be useful for more than just lemurs. Jacobs says that she thinks the technology could be used for animals such as red pandas and certain bears – ones that have variations in hair and skin patterns that are similar to the ones seen in lemurs. The results of their study were published in BioMed Central. 

--

By Dawn Henderson, <a href="http://earth.com">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Source: Rachel Jacobs, <a href="https://www.gwu.edu/">George Washington University</a>

Stacey Tecot, <a href="http://www.arizona.edu/">University of Arizona</a>

Facial recognition technology has officially gone monkeys, folks

Studying wild lemurs is like – well, it’s like chasing...

Cluck, cluck, cluck – chickens lay eggs. It’s bizarre to think of a <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/chicken-psychology-birds-smart-complex/">chicken</a> going into labor and giving live-birth to a baby. Although that’s never happened with one of our fine feathered friends, scientists do believe they’ve discovered evidence of a prehistoric egg-layer that did manage to give birth. 

Researchers found a fossilized specimen of the dinocephalosaurus – a creature that lived in the South China seas during the Middle Triassic era between 251 million and 199 million years ago. 

Dinocephalosaurus was a reptile, and like all reptiles such as snakes and turtles, it was known to lay eggs. In fact, the ancient species evolved into modern day egg-layers like crocodile and birds. These critters all historically nest and lay their brood, rather than settling down to give birth to a litter. 

However, a team of scientists from China found something startling inside the fossilized dinocephalosaurus; a tiny embryo hiding inside the mother’s rib cage. But was the smaller creature actually an embryo, or was it merely the remains of an undigested prehistoric lunch? 

In a statement, Professor Jun Liu of <a href="http://www.hfut.edu.cn/">Hefei University of Technology</a> in China said, “We were so excited when we first saw this embryonic specimen several years ago but we were not sure whether the embryonic specimen [was] the last lunch of the mother or its unborn baby.”

They determined that the discovery was, in fact, an embryo and not something the mother had eaten due to the fact that the embryo the same species as the mother. The smaller creature was also facing forwards inside the mother. 

“Upon further preparation and closer inspection, we realized that something unusual has been discovered,” Liu said. 

With this discovery, scientists realize that live birth reproduction first started a full 50 million years earlier than they previously thought. The team’s findings were published in the journal Nature Communications. 

--

By Dawn Henderson, <a href="http://www.earth.com">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer 
Source: Jun Liu of <a href="http://www.hfut.edu.cn/">Hefei University of Technology</a>

This prehistoric egg-layer’s secret totally stunned scientists

Cluck, cluck, cluck – chickens lay eggs. It’s bizarre to...

If someone has amazing vision, we nickname them Eagle Eye. High-flying predators such as the <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/bald-eagle-leg-trap/">eagle</a> have become synonymous with sharp eyesight that allows them to center in on prey before they swoop in for the kill. For the eagle, killer vision is a matter of survival.

What if we were able to create a camera with eagle-eye imaging – and one that’s as small as a penny, to boot? It’s no longer a “what if,” as scientists have already done it.

Introducing the amazingly tiny 3-D printed camera! It’s so tiny, in fact, that it’s actually printed onto a minuscule chip.  It’s the first time 3-D printing has been used to create a complex imaging system on a chip. The camera, which could fit on a fingertip, has a 3-D printed lens.

How would anyone use such a teensy camera? Well, yes, you could probably ask to have it surgically implanted in your eyeball and go around recording everyone like some kind of android James Bond, but realistically, it was created for less creepy purposes. Designers of the camera intend for it to be used for endoscopy procedures, optical sensors, and surveillance drones. 

(Yes, the last one is a bit James Bond-y. However, it’s not as creepy as the bionic eye camera suggestion.)

The thing that makes this eagle eye camera better than those currently available is (in addition to its awesomely tiny size) is that it uses “forveated imaging.” This is named after the fovea area inside the eye. It allows us to focus on details in a central area when we look at around, as we don’t typically need equal focus across our entire field of vision.

The camera created by Simon Thiele and his team at the<a href="https://www.uni-stuttgart.de/en/"> University of Stuttgart</a> has four different printed lenses that have focal lengths ranging from 20 degrees to 70 degrees. When images taken by the lenses are combined, they create a “foveated image” with high-resolution detail in the center. An article describing the new camera was published in the journal<a href="http://advances.sciencemag.org"> Science Advances</a>. 

While this technology won’t change the way we take selfies anytime soon, it will be a real help in the medical and security communities.

<a href="http://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/camera-2.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-131021" src="http://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/camera-2-225x300.jpg" alt="" width="225" height="300" /></a>

--

By Dawn Henderson, <a href="http://earth.com">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer 

Source: Simon Theile et al., <a href="https://www.uni-stuttgart.de/en/">University of Stuttgart</a>

&nbsp;

This amazing eagle eye camera will blow your mind

If someone has amazing vision, we nickname them Eagle Eye....

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

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

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



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



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



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



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



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



Video &amp; Image Credit: ESA



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



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

The Pyrenees Mountains in southwest Europe

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

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



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



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



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



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



Video Credit: Stowers Institute for Medical Research&nbsp;



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



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

How the immune system responds to injury

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

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



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



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



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



Video/ Image Credit: NASA Goddard



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



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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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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