Today's Image of the Day from <a href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/">NASA Earth Observatory</a> features Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni, the largest salt flat in the world. The unique landscape draws many tourists who come to see the salty crust in the dry season and the lakes in the wet season.&nbsp;



"For much of the year, it stretches out in a seemingly endless expanse of white, with a salt crust covering 10,000 square kilometers," reports NASA.



"During the rainy season, water can fill part of the salt flat and give it a stunning, mirror-like appearance. In early 2022, that watery mirror grew larger and lingered longer than it has in several years."



In recent months, abundant rainfall filled the Salar de Uyuni to the point of nearly overflowing. In some areas, there were local reports of flooding.



“The extent of the filling of Salar de Uyuni this year is above normal. The rainy season started earlier than previous years, and rainfall was well above average over the southern Altiplano,” said hydrologist Jorge Molina Carpio of the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés. “This was probably related to the onset of a significant La Niña event. Strong La Niñas during the rainy season are related to positive rainfall anomalies in the southern Altiplano.”



“Along the Altiplano, but especially in its southwestern edge, precipitation is largely concentrated in austral summer, when transient periods of intense convection are fueled by moisture from the Bolivian lowlands and Amazon basin. The rest of the year is bone dry,” explained René Garreaud, a climate scientist at the University of Chile. “The stronger and more persistent the easterly wind, the more precipitation you get over the Altiplano.”



According to Garreaud, there was a strong easterly flow over the central Andes in December 2021 and early January 2022, leading to abundant rain in the Uyuni-Potosi region. 



“This area is a closed basin, so all of the precipitation - as rain at the valley floor and snow over the surrounding peaks - contributes to the filling of the Uyuni and Coipasa dry lakes."



Image Credit: NASA Earth Observatory&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

The stunning landscape of Salar de Uyuni

Today's Image of the Day from NASA Earth Observatory features...

Today's Image of the Day from <a href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/">NASA Earth Observatory</a> features an astronaut view of the bright rocks and deep canyons of the Mojave Desert in southern Nevada.

The Muddy and Virgin Rivers are visible in the photo, carrying water across the desert to Lake Mead reservoir.&nbsp;

The Muddy River, which flows through Moapa Valley, is bordered by agricultural fields and towns. By contrast, Virgin River, is bordered by dark vegetation.

Both of the rivers empty into the northern part of Lake Mead - known as the Overton Arm - which ultimately merges with the Colorado River to the south.

The reddish orange rocks near the center of the photo represent the Valley of Fire State Park, which is located approximately 40 miles northeast of Las Vegas.&nbsp;

At sunset, valley outcrops made of bright, rust-colored Aztec sandstone appear to be on fire. This sandstone formed from ancient sand dune fields dating back to the Jurassic Period.

According to NASA, significant archaeological artifacts have been found throughout Moapa Valley, with some dating back to 300 BCE. During that time, the region was occupied by Anasazi Native Americans, hunter-gatherers who built pueblo villages.&nbsp;

The southern part of the Moapa River Indian Reservation is also visible in this photograph, which was captured by an astronaut onboard the International Space Station.

Image Credit: NASA Earth Observatory&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

The Mojave Desert in southern Nevada

Today's Image of the Day from <a href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/">NASA Earth Observatory</a> features Hurricane Ian, which has tied the record for the strongest hurricane to make landfall on the west coast of the Florida peninsula. The storm made landfall on Wednesday near Cayo Costa with winds speeds of up to 155 miles per hour.



Even after Ian was downgraded to a tropical storm on Thursday, it was still dumping heavy rainfall across Florida. The threat of catastrophic flooding and dangerous storm surges will continue as Ian moves across the state and north toward South Carolina and Georgia.&nbsp;



More than 2.6 million people are without power today. Rescue efforts are underway in Fort Meyers, where the Florida National Guard is pulling people off roofs. Search and rescue teams are also active in many other areas along the western coast, including Tampa.&nbsp;



"Hurricane Ian grew substantially as it charged across the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico in late September 2022. After damaging parts of Cuba and leaving much of the country in the dark, forecasters expected more destruction as the storm reached Florida’s west coast on the afternoon of September 28," says NASA.



"In Cuba, about 11 million people were left without power, according to news reports. Winds and floodwaters destroyed buildings, farms, and left many roads impassable. As the storm approached Florida, the U.S. hurricane center warned of potentially catastrophic storm surges and wind damage along the southwest coastline and life-threatening flooding across some central parts of the state."



Image Credit: NASA Earth Observatory&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

Hurricane Ian unleashed catastrophic conditions in Florida

Today's Image of the Day from <a href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/">NASA Earth Observatory</a> features a map of sea surface temperatures (SSTs) on September 26 as Hurricane Ian moved through the Gulf of Mexico. The sea surface temperatures were measured by NASA scientists using a combination of satellite and ocean instruments.



"Though tropical cyclones are atmospheric phenomena, much of their fearsome power comes from the ocean. The seas are abundant sources of moisture to feed growing storm clouds. Just as critically, they are vast repositories of thermal energy that can move from the sea to the sky," says NASA.



"As Hurricane Ian lashed western Cuba and headed for the west coast of Florida on September 27, 2022, it moved over an abundant fuel source in the Gulf of Mexico. While sea surface temperatures are just one of the factors influencing hurricanes, they are a fair predictor of the readiness of the ocean to sustain them."



"Meteorologists generally agree that SSTs should be above 27.8° Celsius (82.04° Fahrenheit) to sustain and intensify hurricanes, cyclones, and typhoons. Surface waters above that threshold are represented in red on the map."



Ian is expected to make landfall in western Florida today as a Category 4 storm with winds of up to 155 mph. As of 10 a.m., the center of Ian was located about 60 miles west of Naples and 65 miles southwest of Punta Gorda and 180 miles south-southwest of Orlando, according to the National Hurricane Center.



Image Credit: NASA Earth Observatory&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

Hurricane Ian will hit the western coast of Florida today

Today's Image of the Day from <a href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/">NASA Earth Observatory</a> features Super Typhoon Noru, which made landfall in the Philippines on September 25 after reaching category 4 strength in less than 24 hours. Noru first hit the Polillo Islands before making a second landfall on the island of Luzon. At least six people were killed, and tens of thousands have evacuated their homes.



"The technical definition of 'rapid intensification' of a tropical cyclone is a storm with winds that increase by at least 55 kilometers (35 miles) per hour in a 24-hour period. In the Western Pacific, Super Typhoon Noru blew past that threshold," says NASA.



"The storm’s winds accelerated from 80 kilometers (50 miles) per hour on September 24 to 250 kilometers (155 miles) per hour the next day. Meteorologists have only recorded a handful of storms that have ever intensified so much so quickly."



"The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on Suomi NPP acquired this image of Noru on September 25, 2022, a few hours after landfall. Clouds are shown in infrared brightness temperature data, which is useful for distinguishing cooler cloud structures (purple) from warmer surfaces below (yellow). The coolest temperatures (white) are generally associated with the tallest clouds."



Noru is expected to make landfall in central Vietnam, where authorities are urging 400,000 people to evacuate before the storm arrives.



Image Credit: NASA Earth Observatory&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

Super Typhoon Noru intensified at a shocking pace

A new longitudinal study led by the <a href="https://wustl.edu/">Washington University in St. Louis</a> (WUSTL) has found evidence of lasting social relationships between chimpanzees and gorillas in the wild. Drawing from over two decades of observations of <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/primates-have-greater-diversity-on-indigenous-lands/">primates</a> at the Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park in the Republic of Congo, the experts have documented social ties between individual chimpanzees and gorillas that persisted over several years and across different contexts.



“There are few (if any) studies of interactions between primate species that have been able to take the identity of individuals into account,” said study lead author Crickette Sanz, a professor of Biological Anthropology at WUSTL. “It has long been known that these apes can recognize individual members of their own species and form long-term relationships, but we had not known that this extended to other species.”



“An example of what we found might be one individual traveling through a group of the other species to seek out another particular individual. We were also able to document such interactions over time and in different contexts in this study.”



Such long-lasting forms of inter-species collaboration have several possible benefits, including protection from predation, improved foraging options, and other social benefits from information sharing. “Rather than thinking about chimpanzees alone, we should be thinking about them within diverse and dynamic habitats where they are actively engaging with other species and play an integral role in the persistence of the unique ecosystems in which they exist,” explained study co-author David Morgan, a research fellow at the <a href="https://www.lpzoo.org/">Lincoln Park Zoo</a>.



While social interactions between members of different species have many benefits, they also increase the risk of transmission of various infectious diseases. For instance, the highly transmissible Ebola virus has already had a devastating impact on ape populations in Central Africa, wiping out one-third of the world’s chimpanzees and gorillas.



“No longer can we assume that an individual ape’s social landscape is entirely occupied by members of their own species,” said study co-author Jake Funkhouser, a doctoral student in Biological Anthropology at WUSTL. “The strength and persistence of social relationships that we observed between apes indicates a depth of social awareness and myriad social transmission pathways that had not previously been imagined. Such insights are critical given these interspecies social relationships have the potential to serve as transmission pathways for both beneficial socially learned cultural behaviors and harmful infectious disease.”



Studying co-existing primates may shed new light on interactions between early hominins. While scientists generally assumed that these hominins would competitively exclude each other from using the same resources, this study suggests that these interactions would have most likely occurred in more tolerant social contexts.



The study is published in the journal<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2022.105059"> iScience</a>.



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.



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By <a href="mailto:andrei.ionescu5891@gmail.com">Andrei Ionescu</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Chimpanzees and gorillas can form lasting relationships

A new longitudinal study led by the Washington University in...

Extreme,Magnification,-,Ant,Queen,Portrait.,Ant,Super,Macro,Picture.

A new study led by the <a href="https://www.tamu.edu/">Texas A&amp;M University</a> has found that a common <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/ants-show-signs-of-cognitive-sophistication/">ant</a> species - Tapinoma sessile, a relatively small type of ant commonly known as the house ant or sugar ant – undergoes physiological and behavioral changes in unnatural settings, such as urban areas.



“Urbanization is a growing habitat around the world, and it’s becoming more important for organisms to develop ways to live when their natural settings are disturbed,” said study senior author Edward Vargo, an expert in Urban and Structural Entomology at Texas A&amp;M. “Studies like this look at important questions regarding this change, ‘Can they adapt to urban environments and how?’”



In their natural environments, house ants create small, single-queen colonies usually found under leaf litter, rocks, and logs. However, in urban and suburban areas, these ants build large, ever-expanding multi-queen colonies around human-made structures such as sidewalks, plant containers, or landscape mulching.



By analyzing the ants’ chemistry (such as levels of hydrocarbons), the genetic make-up of colonies, and ant behavior (like aggression toward familial and outsider ants), the researchers found stark differences based on the environment. Their investigations revealed that, while house ant queens in their natural habitat typically leave the colony they were born in, fly to another suitable location, and attempt to establish a new colony, queens in urban colonies stay in their nest and expand their colony rather than leaving it. As a result, urban queens were closely related and less aggressive toward ants with which they were genetically related. Moreover, behavioral analyses showed that ants in super-colonies were aggressive toward ants with outside genetics.



In addition, polydomous colonies – ant colonies that are spatially separated but socially connected – were found only in urban habitats, suggesting that house ants only create super-colonies in developed areas. Since ants from different urban areas shared some genetic similarities, it seems they are adapting to features which are common in urban environments.



In future research, the scientists aim to compare stable isotopes in the ants to investigate dietary changes and how they relate to natural versus urban environments, while taking into account factors such as temperature and the urban heat island effect.



“The study highlights urbanization’s influence on the evolutionary course for species,” concluded lead author Alexander Blumfeld, who was a doctoral student in Vargo’s lab and is now a postdoctoral fellow at <a href="https://www.yale.edu/">Yale University</a>. “It’s important for us to answer questions related to adaptive evolution, whether it is an invasive species or a forest species adapting to city environments.”



The study is published in the journal <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/mec.16188">Molecular Ecology</a>.



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.



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By <a href="mailto:andrei.ionescu5891@gmail.com">Andrei Ionescu</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Ants can effectively adapt to urban environments

A new study led by the Texas A&amp;M University has...

While some <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/children-with-access-to-nature-are-mentally-and-physically-healthier/">children</a> are risk-takers, others choose to play it safe. Scientists have long pondered whether these differences are simply based on children’s personalities, or if their environments also shape their willingness to take a gamble.&nbsp;



Now, a research team led by <a href="https://www.bu.edu/">Boston University</a> has found that children from different socioeconomic backgrounds make different decisions when placed in the same risky situation. These findings provide experimental evidence that risky decisions in childhood do not always reflect poor judgment or lack of self-control. Instead, children may be rationally choosing risk when it makes sense in the context of their environment, and avoiding risk when it doesn’t.



The premise behind this study is known as the “developmental risk sensitivity theory,” which is drawn from observations of how animals behave in foraging situation, and argues that developing organisms learn to use different risk strategies based on the availability of resources and the extent of their needs. For example, a well-fed fox is unlikely to risk entering dangerous territories for a large meal, when a certain amount of food is already available. By contrast, a hungry fox may take more risks to get access to a big dinner.



To test whether this theory applies to humans too, the researchers created an experimental setup to investigate whether children’s risk preferences would vary according to their socioeconomic status and the size of the offered rewards. Dozens of children aged 4-10 were given the choice to either accept a set number of stickers or to spin a wheel for a 50/50 chance of getting more stickers - or nothing at all. Some of the tasks included a large reward option (keep four stickers or spin the wheel for a change of getting either eight or no stickers) and a small reward option (keep two stickers, or spin for the change or getting four stickers or none). While the children performed the experiments, their parents were asked about their socioeconomic status.



The experiments revealed that children from families with lower socioeconomic status were more likely to take risks in the large reward trial than those from richer families. In the small reward trial, socioeconomic status made no significant difference. Moreover, although boys were more likely than girls to make risky decisions, gender differences did not seem to significantly affect the socioeconomic patterns the researchers examined.



“The kids with lower socioeconomic status, they followed the pattern predicted by the theory,” said study senior author Peter Blake, an associate professor of Social Cognitive Development at Boston. “They acted like the hungry fox. They were more likely to take the risk to get the larger reward, and when it came to a lower value reward, they chose the certain option so that they would get something.”



Further research is needed to assess the role of additional factors in risk taking, including peer pressure and other types of social relations the children are involved in.



The study is published in the journal Proceedings of the <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2022.0712">Royal Society B: Biological Sciences</a>.



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.



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By <a href="mailto:andrei.ionescu5891@gmail.com">Andrei Ionescu</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Why do some children take bigger risks than others?

While some children are risk-takers, others choose to play it...

<div id="58e3ebce955a315103d39bd1" class="vdb_player vdb_58e3ebce955a315103d39bd158d96b98cd4fed198a0d2a49" data-placeholder="//img.vidible.tv/prod/2021-02/07/601f811ffe070f323f38c532/601f8148f7a4f6000134c0ad_1920x1080_FES_v1.jpg?w=1600&amp;h=900&amp;q=60"><script src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" type="text/javascript"></script></div>
 
How land subsidence contributes to sea level rise Today&#8217;s Video of the Day from <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/goddard">NASA Goddard</a> describes how land subsidence alters the shape of ocean basins and contributes to sea level rise. 
During the last ice age about 20,000 years ago, the northeastern region of the United States, <a href="https://www.earth.com/image/mistastin-lake-in-labrador-canada/">Canada,</a> and other regions were weighed down by ice sheets. When the ice melted and its weight was lifted, the land surface slowly rebounded. 
The resulting land movement, as well as subsidence related to human activities, play a significant role in sea level rise. For example, the Mississippi River Delta is essentially drowning as sinking ground is combined with higher sea levels, according to NASA. Also in substances can occur in various ways during an earthquake. Broad areas of land can subside drastically during an earthquake because of offset along fault lines. Land subsidence can also occur as a result of settling and compacting of unconsiderate sediment from the shaking of an earthquake. The blunder occur, absolute subsidence may occur in the hanging wall of normal faults. As the cumulative moisture deficit is reversed, which can last up to 25 years, the surface level around the tree will rise and expand laterally.
Video Credit: NASA Goddard 
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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