Young aspen trees in Yellowstone are doing something they have not done in almost 100 years. Rather than sprouting and being eaten back to nubs by elk and bison, they're actually growing into tall, adult forest trees rising up towards the canopy.



This matters more than it might seem, because it shows what happens when a missing piece of an ecosystem returns.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-yellowstone-aspens-and-elk">Yellowstone, aspens, and elk</h2>



In the 1920s, people <a href="https://www.yellowstone.org/wolf-project/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">eliminated wolves in Yellowstone</a>. At the time, with limited scientific knowledge, managers believed it was the right thing to do.



<a href="https://www.earth.com/news/from-wolves-to-dogs-did-domestication-begin-without-human-help/">Without wolves</a>, elk herds grew very large. Elk love to eat aspen shoots - the tender young growth is highly palatable to them.



For roughly 70 years, elk browsed aspen sprouts down to stub height, and the trees couldn't grow. 



If you had walked through Yellowstone in the 1980s, you would have seen many tiny aspen shoots covering the ground, but almost no young trees gaining height. 



The forest's regeneration was stalled. Old trees died, and no new ones replaced them.



In 1995 and 1996, park managers reintroduced wolves into the <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/yellowstone-supervolcano-eruption-study-sparks-new-debate-on-where-and-when-it-will-erupt/">Yellowstone Park ecosystem</a>. Scientists hoped and wondered whether this would change anything for the trees.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-why-aspen-matter-to-yellowstone">Why aspen matter to Yellowstone</h2>



Aspen groves provide habitat for many species. Birds nest in them. Beavers eat the bark and use the wood for dams. Butterflies and moths lay eggs on the leaves. 



Their canopy admits enough light for wildflowers and shrubs to grow beneath. When it rains, aspen groves hold water in the soil better than some other forest types.



In short, when aspen return, dozens of other species benefit. More trees support more insects, which in turn support more birds, enriching the ecosystem.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-checking-the-trees-three-decades-later">Checking the trees three decades later</h2>



<a href="https://fwcs.oregonstate.edu/users/luke-painter" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Luke Painter</a>, an ecologist at <a href="https://oregonstate.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Oregon State University</a>, sought clear answers. His team returned to 87 aspen stands across Yellowstone that scientists had previously surveyed. 



They measured thousands of young trees, looked for bite marks, and counted how many stems were tall enough that elk could no longer reach the tips.



About a third of these stands now have many tall young aspens pushing toward the canopy. 



"About 26 of the 87 aspen stands we examined had large numbers of tall saplings throughout, a remarkable change from the 1990s when surveys found none at all," Painter said.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-why-wolves-matter-to-yellowstone-aspens">Why wolves matter to Yellowstone aspens</h2>



Breaking it all down, the conclusions of this study are pretty simple. 



<a href="https://www.earth.com/news/wolves-move-pups-across-mountains-to-adapt-to-climate-pressure/">Wolves hunt elk</a>. When wolves came back, two things happened. First, elk numbers declined from unusually high levels. Second, elk changed their behavior. They spent less time in the same areas feeding.



With fewer elk and shorter feeding bouts, more aspen shoots survived long enough to exceed the browsing zone - about six to seven feet high. 



Once a sapling reaches that height, elk cannot easily reach the growing tip. The tree continues to grow.



"The reintroduction of large carnivores has initiated a recovery process that had been shut down for decades," Painter explained.



Scientists call this a <a href="https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/trophic-cascades-across-diverse-plant-ecosystems-80060347/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">trophic cascade</a> - when adding or removing one species causes changes that ripple through the whole system.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-some-places-recover-others-don-t">Some places recover, others don't</h2>



Unfortunately, not every aspen stand has recovered yet. Some valleys still have many short, heavily browsed shoots, because it's not only elk eating them anymore. 



<a href="https://www.earth.com/news/yellowstones-iconic-bison-have-merged-into-a-single-herd/">Bison herds have grown</a>, and bison browse on aspen as well. They are strong enough to break young trees. 



"Increasing numbers of bison may be emerging as a new constraint to aspen in some areas," Painter confirmed.



Additionally, winter snow depth varies; droughts stress trees; bears and mountain lions also hunt elk; and hunting outside the park influences elk distribution. 



All of these factors interact, which is why some sites show strong recovery, others show moderate recovery, and a few have changed very little.



The key pattern is that places with many tall saplings experience little browsing, and aspen groves that remain popular eating grounds today stay short. 



This fact is the strongest indication that tree recovery is linked directly to wolf presence, not solely to weather or soil conditions.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-proof-in-the-measurements">Proof in the measurements</h2>



Painter's team did not rely on casual observation. They used the same methods as earlier researchers, measuring the same plots. 



They counted recruitment - when young trees surpass browsing height and begin progressing toward maturity. This measure is crucial. Sprouts are insufficient if they never grow; without recruitment, the forest cannot replace itself.



The results are robust. After being stalled for most of a century, Yellowstone's aspens are increasing in height. In recovering stands today, you will see saplings - six, eight, or ten feet tall - that were not present in the 1990s.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-future-of-yellowstone-s-aspens">The future of Yellowstone's aspens</h2>



"This is a remarkable case of <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/giant-viruses-found-in-yellowstones-hot-springs-may-be-near-the-root-of-all-life-on-earth/">ecological restoration</a>," Painter concluded. "Wolf reintroduction is yielding long-term ecological changes contributing to increased biodiversity and habitat diversity."



Trees grow slowly, so even with wolves restored, it will take decades for these young aspens to form a full-grown forest. 



Some areas might never fully recover if bison numbers continue to rise or if the climate becomes too hot and dry.



Thanks to the work of Painter and his team, scientists are now certain that restoring the Yellowstone predator has restarted aspen forest regeneration. Not everywhere and not perfectly, but enough to be measured, creating hope for the future.



The full study was published in the journal <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378112725004499?via%3Dihub" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Forest Ecology and Management</a>.



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Yellowstone's aspen trees are growing again thanks to the reintroduction of wolves

Young aspen trees in Yellowstone are doing something they have not done in almost 100 years. Rather than sprouting and being eaten back to nubs by elk and bison, they're actually growing into tall, adult forest trees rising up towards the canopy. This matters more than it might seem, because it shows what happens when a missing piece of an ecosystem returns. Yellowstone, aspens, and elk In the 1920s, people eliminated wolves in Yellowstone. At the time, with limited scientific knowledge, managers believed it was the right...

Most of us think empathy is either something you have or do not. A new study from the University of Southern California shows that this social glue can be taught through simple emotional rewards.



After just a few minutes of watching a cartoon stranger enjoy small victories, volunteers started to feel happy for the character and even gave up money to keep that happiness going. 



Psychologist Yi Zhang of <a href="https://dornsife.usc.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">USC Dornsife</a>, who led the project, says the brain learns to link another person’s good mood to its own internal payoff.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-rewards-can-train-empathy-faster">Rewards can train empathy faster</h2>



The study reports that empathy can grow when positive feelings are consistently paired with personal gains. This finding challenges the idea that empathy only comes from shared experience or moral instruction.



Instead, the brain appears to treat another person like a favorite object whenever their smile predicts a benefit. That habit stays intact even when the benefit disappears.



In previous decades, empathy training focused on perspective taking workshops. The new data suggest that pairing emotion with reward may work faster and reach people who resist verbal lessons.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-cartoons-helped-people-care">Cartoons helped people care</h2>



Researchers asked 1,500 adults to view short clips of a stick figure hero who sometimes played with a dog and other times fell off a bike. After each scene, a counter on the screen rose or fell, telling viewers they had won or lost cents.



People whose counters rose during the happy scenes later rated the hero’s feelings as more important and even pressed keyboard keys longer to see new happy clips. Their extra effort showed that the emotional link was now a small but real motivational push.



Importantly, the hero had no voice or facial features, so participants could not read expressions or mirror emotions. That design choice helped isolate learning from automatic mimicry.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-smiles-taught-empathy-like-pavlov-s-bell">Smiles taught empathy like Pavlov’s bell</h2>



“It’s a social twist on Pavlov’s classic experiment,” said Professor Leon Hackel, the study’s senior author. By swapping food for smiles, the team demonstrated a form of Pavlovian conditioning that applies to mental states rather than bells and steaks.



Earlier work on associative learning in social settings found that humans and animals easily connect gestures and voices with reward, but this project is among the first to show that abstract <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/acts-of-kindness-social-brains-are-wired-to-help/">emotions</a> can serve the same role. 



The research opens the door to training compassion without relying on shared background or ideology.



Because the effect survived a delay period and new scenarios, the authors argue that the brain builds a flexible template rather than a narrow stimulus response chain. In practical terms, caring can expand beyond the original situation.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-empathy-led-to-kind-actions">Empathy led to kind actions</h2>



In a later task, participants picked digital gift cards for the cartoon hero, knowing exactly which cards the hero liked. Selecting the preferred card sometimes drained their own point balance.



Those who had learned the happiness reward link were more willing to lose points or at least hesitated before being selfish. The behavior matched their self reported feelings, suggesting that empathy and prosocial behavior can spring from the same learning rule.



The finding matters because many real world prosocial acts, from tipping to blood donation, involve small personal costs. Building the reward link could tip the scales toward generosity in those moments.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-cooperation-competition-and-classrooms">Cooperation, competition, and classrooms</h2>



The findings help explain why empathy thrives in groups where one person’s win lifts everyone. Studies of cooperative learning in schools show that children who share grades and goals also show sharper gains in caring for peers.



Competitive arenas do the opposite, because a rival’s success predicts personal loss, making the empathic pathway harder to condition. Workplace reward <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/how-customer-courtesy-kindness-transforms-service-quality-and-job-satisfaction/">systems</a> could unknowingly shape compassion by choosing between winner-takes-all bonuses and team incentives.



Sports teams and military units, which bond players through shared wins and losses, might naturally leverage the same circuit. Recognizing that link could inspire training programs that cultivate empathy alongside skill.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-empathy-training-can-help-therapy">Empathy training can help therapy</h2>



“Understanding how people form emotional <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/little-benjamina-the-oldest-evidence-of-social-empathy-in-humans/">bonds</a> could help us design AI that responds in more human-like ways,” said Yi Zhang. Engineers could teach chatbots to value user joy by aligning system rewards with human smiles, rather than relying on canned politeness.



Therapists might also use reward-based exercises to help clients with social anxiety practice noticing and valuing other people’s positive emotions. Because the intervention is brief and game like, it could slot into digital mental health tools.



Parents might reinforce caring by celebrating siblings who cheer each other on. Small rewards paired with shared happiness could be stronger than many lectures on kindness.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-real-world-tests-are-needed">Real world tests are needed</h2>



The experiments ran online with small monetary stakes, so scientists still need to check whether the same pattern appears in face to face settings. They also want to know how long the effect lasts when real time passes instead of computer rounds.



Brain imaging could reveal whether the reward circuits light up in sync with empathic <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/bonobos-and-chimps-express-empathy-much-like-humans/">feelings</a>, or if new networks come online. That work may point toward therapies for disorders marked by low empathy, such as psychopathy.



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09567976251351304" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Psychological Science</a>.



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Empathy can be taught through simple reward training

Most of us think empathy is either something you have...

The ocean is slowly losing its breath, and fish that spend their days in the twilight depths are starting to pay the price. 



A new study tracking 10,000 years of fossil ear bones shows that some of the most numerous vertebrates on Earth vanished whenever deep water oxygen fell below a critical threshold.



Lanternfish expert Sven Pallacks of the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (<a href="https://portalrecerca.uab.cat/en/organisations/institut-de-ci%C3%A8ncia-i-tecnologia-ambientals-icta-uab" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">UAB</a>) says the pattern is a clear warning for today’s warming seas. 



The disappearance of a group with such enormous biomass would likely put many other marine <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/ancient-fish-bones-reveal-clues-about-the-evolution-of-eating/">species</a> at risk as well.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-lanternfish-need-deep-sea-oxygen">Lanternfish need deep sea oxygen</h2>



Oxygen dissolves into seawater at the surface and is carried downward by currents and mixing. In parts of the mid water column, consumptive microbes form an oxygen minimum zone that can drop to just a few micromoles per liter.



Since the 1960s, the global ocean has already lost roughly two percent of its oxygen inventory, an amount equivalent to the volume needed to supply every person on the planet for a year. Less mixing and warmer water both make it harder for fresh oxygen to reach depth.



When that deficit climbs, the low oxygen layer expands upward, squeezing habitat for <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/ancient-fish-had-flexible-joints-like-humans/">organisms</a> caught between breathless water below and surface predators above. Fish that once sheltered hundreds of feet deep end up in plain sight, exposed and stressed.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-why-lanternfish-are-important">Why lanternfish are important</h2>



The slim, glowing lanternfish make nightly ascents of up to 2,600 ft to feed, then retreat to 660 ft or deeper before sunrise. Their combined weight may reach six hundred million tons.



Because they commute between surface and depth, lanternfish shuttle carbon in their bodies into long term storage - a service called the biological pump. 



A 2019 <a href="https://kids.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frym.2023.926063" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">synthesis</a> estimated that their nightly rise moves roughly four gigatons of carbon downward each year. That is more than the annual carbon emissions of the European Union, highlighting why the loss of lanternfish would weaken a key climate stabilizer. 



Lanternfish also feed whales, tuna, and many squid, so their absence would ripple through commercial fisheries.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-fossils-reveal-what-happened">Fossils reveal what happened</h2>



Pallacks and colleagues recovered a sediment core from 1,835 feet down in the Aegean Sea. They sorted more than 3,200 fossil otoliths - the tiny calcified ear stones that record a <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/living-fossil-reveals-clues-about-how-animals-learned-to-breathe/">fish</a>’s identity like fingerprints.



Each layer of mud offered a snapshot of who was living above at the time it settled. Because the Aegean toggled between well oxygenated and suffocating states over the past ten millennia, it served as a natural experiment.



During the most severe low oxygen phase, called Sapropel S1, lanternfish counts plummeted to near zero. Anchovies and other surface dwellers filled some of the gap, but overall fish abundance stayed low until oxygen crept back.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-past-loss-warns-the-present">Past loss warns the present</h2>



Archaeological <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-025-02568-8" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">evidence</a> shows that early coastal cultures around the Mediterranean suffered reduced fish catches during the same sapropel interval, hinting at cascading effects on human food security. 



Historical records suggest that once oxygen levels recovered, <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/worlds-oldest-fish-coelacanth-presumed-extinct-for-60-million-years-before-rediscovery/">fish</a> markets rebounded within a few generations.



The core indicates that oxygen rebounded about 6,000 years ago, and lanternfish stormed back, tripling total fish abundance within a few centuries.&nbsp;



"Our findings corroborate expectations that future expansion of midwater deoxygenation could severely deplete mesopelagic fish communities," noted the study authors.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-when-lanternfish-vanish">When lanternfish vanish</h2>



Lanternfish sit at a crucial hinge in food webs. Many whales, seabirds, and predators such as swordfish depend on them for calories.



Lose the commuters, and both seafood supply and natural carbon sequestration take a hit. Models show that removing lanternfish from global ecology would cut twilight zone carbon export by at least twenty five percent.



Such a reduction would accelerate atmospheric warming, creating a feedback loop that drives oxygen even lower. The biological pump is not a luxury. It is planetary life support.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-climate-models-point-to-steeper-declines">Climate models point to steeper declines</h2>



Earth system simulations that include projected emissions paths suggest oxygen minimum zones could grow by up to seven percent by 2100. 



The upper boundary of low oxygen water could climb from roughly 1,300 feet today to less than 650 feet in some basins.



That shift would erase the safe daytime refuge for many mid-water species, forcing them closer to nets and predators. Warmer water also speeds fish metabolism, so they need more oxygen just as it becomes scarce.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-we-can-do-now">What we can do now</h2>



Cutting greenhouse gas emissions remains the fastest lever for stabilizing ocean oxygen. Local steps, like reducing nutrient runoff that fuels coastal dead zones, protect regional fisheries while the planet decarbonizes.



Monitoring programs that deploy autonomous sensors into the <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24509953/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">mesopelagic zone</a> now give managers early warning when oxygen starts to fall. Data from these floats already help reroute fishing effort away from emerging hypoxic patches



Scientists are also testing marine protected areas designed around depth bands rather than coastlines, preserving critical migration corridors. Protecting the pathways lanternfish use may buy time while global actions take hold.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-we-don-t-know-about-lanternfish">What we don’t know about lanternfish</h2>



Lanternfish biomass estimates still span an order of magnitude, and only a handful of regions have been sampled with modern acoustics. Expanding surveys will refine how much organic carbon these fish ferry to depth.



Meanwhile, paleo records such as the Aegean core offer rare, long term baselines against which future change can be measured. More sediment cores from other basins will reveal whether regional oxygen thresholds line up globally.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-s-coming-next">What’s coming next</h2>



Technology that tracks individual fish with miniaturized tags is beginning to map their vertical routes in three dimensions. Combining that data with oxygen sensors will reveal tipping points beyond which migration breaks down.



Policy makers armed with such thresholds can set clearer targets for climate mitigation and fishery protection. The past cannot predict every detail, but it shows how sharply deep sea life responds when the ocean runs short of air.



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-025-02568-8" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Communications Earth &amp; Environment</a>.



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Lanternfish fossils warn of looming ocean oxygen crisis

The ocean is slowly losing its breath, and fish that...

Picture the entire food system as an intricate relay race, except the baton is invisible. Trillions of microbes - bacteria, fungi, and viruses - pass nutrients, flavor compounds, and disease-fighting molecules down the line.



These microscopic transfers move from soil to crops, from animals to processing plants, and finally to our own digestive tracts.



A sweeping review has now drawn the first full map of these “agri-food microbiomes,” revealing both the magnitude of their quiet labor and the growing cracks that threaten to slow the handoff.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-microbes-mirror-earth-s-decline">Microbes mirror Earth’s decline</h2>



Lead author Paula Fernández-Gómez of Ireland’s <a href="https://teagasc.ie/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Teagasc Food Research Center</a> has spent years tracing microbes through cheese vats and barley fields.



What she sees lately is disturbing. Soils are losing their bacterial richness, rivers are overloaded with fertilizer-fed <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/green-algae-in-lake-erie-may-be-hiding-toxic-deadly-compounds/">algal blooms</a>, antibiotic-resistant genes are spreading from feedlots, and people are developing chronic gut disorders fed by ultra-processed diets.



“Declining microbial health is mirrored in the health of people and the planet,” said Fernández-Gómez.



The team’s survey of more than 250 “omics” studies confirms that climate stress, chemical overuse, and a taste for sterile convenience foods are unraveling microbial diversity at nearly every stop along the chain.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-a-subway-of-hidden-microbes">A subway of hidden microbes</h2>



To make sense of the tangle, Fernández-Gómez and study senior author Paul Cotter stitched together data from horticulture, <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/aquaculture-impacts-wild-fish-much-more-than-we-thought/">aquaculture</a>, livestock operations, and global food-distribution hubs.



Imagine a subway diagram in which one line begins beneath a wheat field, ducks under a flour mill, loops through a bakery, and ends in your gut. Another starts in a mangrove, hops into shrimp ponds, weaves through a freezing facility and surfaces in a seafood soup.



Overlaid on those tracks are warning signs where microbial “stations” are shutting down. These range from pesticide-scorched root zones to refrigerated warehouses that select for spoilage organisms.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-restoring-the-microbe-food-chain">Restoring the microbe food chain</h2>



The map also points to success stories. A yeast spray trimmed post-harvest loss in strawberries by crowding out decay fungi. 



Drought-tolerant bacteria boosted yields in desert test plots without extra water. Probiotic feed reduced infections in poultry flocks, letting farmers cut <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/bacteria-in-livestock-are-major-drivers-of-antibiotic-resistance/">antibiotics</a>.



Each example shows how fostering friendly microbes can save money, slash waste, and keep pathogens in check. 



“Just as microbes work together, so must we - at every point in the food system - to make microbe-friendly choices,” Cotter said.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-simple-swaps-with-outsized-impact"><a></a>Simple swaps with outsized impact</h2>



What does that collaboration look like? Consumers can favor fresh, minimally <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/breaking-free-from-ultra-processed-foods-the-surprising-health-benefits/">processed foods</a> and support local growers who nourish soil life instead of drenching fields in chemicals.



Food companies can scale up living biofertilizers, smart packaging that suppresses spoilage, and fermentation processes that add beneficial cultures to everyday staples.



Regulators can build clear safety pathways for microbial products so innovators can move faster. Educators can demystify microbes, shifting public perception from “germs to kill” toward “partners to cultivate.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-two-threats-one-microbial-crisis">Two threats, one microbial crisis</h2>



The stakes stretch beyond taste and shelf life. Heavy fertilizer runoff rewires aquatic microbial communities until oxygen-starved “dead zones” form. 



Antibiotics used in aquaculture breed resistance genes that later show up in human hospitals. Heat waves and droughts favor plant pathogens just when crops are already stressed.



The researchers noted that protecting microbial diversity is a double win: it cushions agriculture against climate shocks while also curbing the spread of antimicrobial resistance.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-mapping-microbe-roles-in-detail">Mapping microbe roles in detail</h2>



Despite high-powered DNA sequencing, many microbes remain strangers; scientists know their names but not their jobs. 



The authors call for pairing genetic surveys with old-school culturing, synthetic biology experiments, and high-throughput screening to tease out who does what.



By isolating a desert-soil bacterium that fixes <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/nitrogen-was-plentiful-for-early-life-on-earth/">nitrogen</a> or a lactic acid strain that prolongs cucumber freshness, researchers can design “microbial consortia” tailored to specific challenges.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-profit-meets-planetary-health">Profit meets planetary health</h2>



Investors are noticing the trend. Markets for biofertilizers and <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/beer-vs-probiotics-how-drinking-a-pint-is-great-for-gut-health/">probiotics</a> are expanding as governments restrict chemical inputs.



A farm that inoculates seeds with growth-promoting microbes spends less on synthetic nitrogen. A retailer that uses bacteriophage sprays loses fewer heads of lettuce to rot.



"Healthy microbial networks underpin our existence. They drive nutrient cycling, disease resistance, and environmental resilience," explained study co-author Tanja Kostic of the <a href="https://www.ait.ac.at/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Austrian Institute of Technology</a>.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-future-depends-on-microbes">The future depends on microbes</h2>



The new map is both a cautionary tale and a hopeful blueprint. We can continue eroding the webs of microbes that keep foods nutritious, ecosystems resilient, and our bodies in balance - or we can choose to ally with the unseen workforce that has sustained life for millennia.



A slice of sourdough made with wild cultures, a policy that rewards farmers for planting nitrogen-fixing clover, a wastewater standard that curbs antibiotic discharge - each small decision helps retie the threads. Each one contributes to restoring balance in the microbial web.



In the end, embracing our microbial partners may be the surest way to nourish nine billion people while healing the planet we all share.



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/science/articles/10.3389/fsci.2025.1575468/full" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Frontiers in Science</a>.



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Hidden microbes powering our entire food system are under threat

Picture the entire food system as an intricate relay race,...

A massive pocket of unusually hot rock buried deep under the Appalachian Mountains might be a lingering echo of ancient tectonic shifts that split Greenland from North America 80 million years ago.



This strange heat zone - known as the Northern Appalachian Anomaly (NAA) - sits about 200 kilometers beneath New England.



For a long time, scientists thought it was a remnant from when North America tore away from Northwest Africa around 180 million years ago. 



But new research from scientists at the <a href="https://www.southampton.ac.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">University of Southampton</a>, the Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences in Germany, and the University of Florence in Italy points to a different story.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-appalachian-mountains-are-still-rising">Appalachian Mountains are still rising</h2>



The Northern Appalachian Anomaly spans about 350 kilometers and is hotter than the surrounding mantle. But it likely didn’t form where it is today.



According to the researchers, this zone of heat may have originated over 1,800 kilometers away, near the <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/oxygen-flow-from-the-labrador-sea-sustains-life-globally/">Labrador Sea</a> - between Greenland and Canada - when those landmasses began to split apart between 90 and 80 million years ago.



Since then, the anomaly has likely crept southwest across the base of the North American continent, traveling at roughly 20 kilometers per million years.



“This thermal upwelling has long been a puzzling feature of North American geology,” said Professor Tom Gernon from the University of Southampton. 



“It lies beneath part of the continent that’s been tectonically quiet for 180 million years, so the idea it was just a leftover from when the landmass broke apart never quite stacked up."



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-heat-helps-the-appalachians-rise">Heat helps the Appalachians rise</h2>



According to Professor Gernon, the team's research suggests the heat zone is part of a much larger, slow-moving process deep underground that could potentially help explain why <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/hidden-mountain-range-under-antarctica-is-older-than-dinosaurs/">mountain ranges</a> like the Appalachians are still standing. 



"Heat at the base of a continent can weaken and remove part of its dense root, making the continent lighter and more buoyant, like a hot air balloon rising after dropping its ballast." 



"This would have caused the ancient mountains to be further uplifted over the past few million years.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-how-heat-moves-under-continents">How heat moves under continents</h2>



The researchers used seismic imaging, geodynamic simulations, and tectonic plate reconstructions to understand how the anomaly formed and where it came from. 



The team's work leans on a recent theory they’ve proposed, known as “mantle wave” theory. It describes how pieces of hot, dense rock peel away from the base of <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/life-earth-tectonic-plates/">tectonic plates</a> and migrate slowly under <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/earth-only-has-six-continents-not-seven-tectonic-plates-under-iceland-study/">continents</a> - similar to blobs floating in a lava lamp.



The slow, deep movements can have surprising effects at the surface, from creating areas of uplift to triggering rare volcanic activity.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-heat-beneath-the-appalachians-is-moving">Heat beneath the Appalachians is moving</h2>



“These convective instabilities cause chunks of rock, several tens of kilometers thick, to slowly sink from the base of the Earth’s outer layer known as the lithosphere,” said Professor Sascha Brune of the Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences. 



“As the lithosphere thins, hotter mantle material rises to take its place, creating a warm region known as a thermal anomaly."



“Our earlier research shows that these ‘drips’ of rock can form in series, like domino stones when they fall one after the other, and sequentially migrate over time. The feature we see beneath New England is very likely one of these drips, which originated far from where it now sits.”



If their model is correct, the Northern Appalachian Anomaly will likely continue its slow southwestward journey. In about 15 million years, it may sit directly beneath the New York region. Its current size and depth match what models predict for these types of migrating thermal zones.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-a-mirror-beneath-greenland">A mirror beneath Greenland</h2>



Interestingly, the team believes a similar heat anomaly exists beneath north-central Greenland - likely formed at the same time, on the opposite side of the Labrador Sea, when the landmasses split.



Beneath Greenland, this heat zone affects how the ice sheet above moves and melts. "Ancient heat anomalies continue to play a key role in shaping the dynamics of continental <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/antarctic-ice-sheet-patterns-point-to-rapid-melting-risks/">ice sheets</a> from below,” said Professor Gernon.



According to Dr. Derek Keir, a co-author from the University of Southampton, the idea that rifting of continents can cause drips and cells of circulating hot rock at depth that spread thousands of kilometers inland makes us rethink what we know about the edges of continents both today and in Earth’s deep past.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-deep-earth-forces-remain-active">Deep Earth forces remain active</h2>



The findings add to a growing body of evidence showing that deep Earth processes can stay active long after surface plate movements have stopped. 



Even places like the Appalachians -geologically quiet for millions of years - are still shaped by what’s happening far below.



“Even though the surface shows little sign of ongoing tectonics, deep below, the consequences of ancient rifting are still playing out,” said Professor Gernon. “The legacy of continental breakup on other parts of the Earth system may well be far more pervasive and long-lived than we previously realised.”



The full study was published in the journal <a href="https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geology/article/doi/10.1130/G53588.1/659899/A-viable-Labrador-Sea-rifting-origin-of-the">Geology</a>.



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Deep heat zone may be lifting the Appalachian Mountains

A massive pocket of unusually hot rock buried deep under...

Earth is unusually lucky: its global magnetic field deflects harmful charged particles from the Sun and deep space, shielding the atmosphere and life at the surface. 



By contrast, cosmic radiation constantly batters worlds like Mars, which lack a comparable shield.



For decades, geophysicists have explained Earth’s <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/magnetism-at-earths-core-simulations-offer-breakthrough-insights/">magnetism</a> with the dynamo theory. As the planet slowly cools, molten iron-nickel in the outer core circulates in vast convection currents. 



Earth’s rotation twists these flows into helical, screw-like patterns. Moving metal generates electric currents, and those currents, in turn, generate the magnetic field.



There has been a nagging problem, though. Early in Earth’s history, before the <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/earths-inner-core-proven-to-be-rapidly-changing-and-now-rotating-backwards/">inner core</a> crystallized (roughly a billion years ago), the core was entirely liquid. Could the geodynamo have operated back then without the extra energy sources and structure provided by a solid inner core?



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-magnetism-without-a-solid-core">Magnetism without a solid core</h2>



A team of three geophysicists from <a href="https://ethz.ch/en.html">ETH Zurich</a> and the <a href="https://www.sustech.edu.cn/en/">Southern University of Science and Technology</a> (SUSTech) in China, built a new computer model of the core that shows a completely liquid core could have generated a stable magnetic field in much the same way it does today.



To get there, the researchers tackled a long-standing modeling hurdle: the influence of viscosity - the internal “thickness” or resistance to flow - on the simulated core.



In the real core, viscosity is believed to be extremely small. Yet most numerical models must exaggerate it for computational stability, potentially skewing the physics.



Using high-performance computing (including runs on the Piz Daint supercomputer at the <a href="https://www.cscs.ch/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Swiss National Supercomputing Center</a> in Lugano), the team simulated the correct physical regime where viscosity becomes negligible for the dynamo.



The result: a robust, self-sustaining magnetic field can emerge even when the core is fully molten. “Until now, no one has ever managed to perform such calculations under these correct physical conditions,” said lead author Yufeng Lin.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-magnetic-field-no-inner-core">Magnetic field, no inner core</h2>



In the model, the same core ingredients that drive today’s dynamo - buoyancy-driven convection and the twisting effect of rotation - were sufficient to organize flows and magnetic fields even in the absence of a solid inner core.



By minimizing viscosity to effectively “get out of the way” of the physics, the team reproduced a realistic dynamo regime. In this regime, microscopic fluid resistance doesn’t control the outcome - large-scale convection and rotation do the heavy lifting.



That means the early Earth could plausibly have sustained a magnetic shield long before inner-core growth added extra energy from crystallization.



This advances a key idea: the geodynamo is surprisingly resilient. A solid core isn’t required - just the right heat loss, composition, and rotation to drive and organize metal flows.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-rethinking-early-earth-s-defenses">Rethinking early Earth’s defenses</h2>



“This finding helps us to better understand the history of the Earth’s magnetic field and is useful in interpreting data from the geological past,” said co-author Andy Jackson, a professor of geophysics at ETH Zurich.



If magnetism arose with a liquid core, Earth’s protective shield may have formed earlier and lasted longer than thought. That, in turn, reframes how we think about early habitability.



A magnetic umbrella blocking high-energy radiation would have helped preserve the atmosphere and supported the conditions under which life could emerge and evolve.



Because the approach captures the essential physics of a low-viscosity dynamo, it could help scientists probe magnetic fields elsewhere. These include the Sun’s sprawling magnetism and the intense fields of Jupiter and <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/saturns-rings-beautiful-iconic-will-disappear-this-weekend-ring-plane-crossing/">Saturn</a>. 



Lower-viscosity models let scientists test how composition, rotation, and cooling shape magnetism across the solar system.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-magnetism-protects-technology">Magnetism protects technology</h2>



Modern civilization quietly depends on Earth’s magnetic field. It safeguards satellites and power grids from space weather, stabilizes navigation, and underpins countless technologies.



“It is therefore important to understand how the magnetic field is generated, how it changes over time, and what mechanisms maintain it,” Jackson noted. “If we understand how the magnetic field is generated, we can predict its future development.”



Earth’s field has flipped polarity thousands of times, and in recent decades the magnetic north pole has migrated rapidly toward geographic north. Understanding the dynamo’s resilience helps scientists predict future magnetic shifts, from gradual drifts to full reversals.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-a-tougher-shield-than-expected">A tougher shield than expected</h2>



By refining core simulations, scientists show Earth’s magnetic shield could ignite without a solid inner core. A fully molten, vigorously convecting, rapidly rotating core would have done the job.



That insight tightens our picture of early Earth, strengthens links between biodiversity and a protective <a href="https://www.earth.com/earthpedia-articles/earths-magnetic-field-origin-structure-and-impact-on-humanity/">magnetosphere</a>, and equips researchers to explore magnetic lifecycles on other worlds. 



It also offers a firmer foundation for anticipating how our planet’s magnetic shield might evolve in the centuries to come.



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09334-y" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Nature</a>.



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How Earth’s ancient magnetic shield may have sparked life

Earth is unusually lucky: its global magnetic field deflects harmful...

When clinicians talk to patients about preventing heart disease, they typically describe risk in dry percentages such as “eight out of 100 people like you may have a heart attack in the next decade.” Many Americans find that hard to grasp - and the numbers do not always move them to action.



A research team at Northwestern University <a href="https://www.feinberg.northwestern.edu/index.html">Feinberg School of Medicine</a> thinks there is a clearer, more motivating way to translate cardiovascular danger: tell people the age of their heart.



In a new study, epidemiologist Dr. Sadiya Khan and colleagues introduce an online calculator that converts standard health information - blood pressure, cholesterol, smoking status, and diabetes - into a single “heart age.” 



The metric is anchored to the American Heart Association’s new <a href="https://professional.heart.org/en/guidelines-and-statements/prevent-calculator%C3%B9" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">PREVENT equations</a>, which Khan also helped develop.



“We hope this tool helps doctors and patients discuss risk for heart disease more effectively so we can better inform what therapies can prevent <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/subtle-warning-signs-what-a-heart-attack-really-feels-like/">heart attacks</a>, stroke, or heart-failure events from ever happening,” Khan said.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-testing-heart-age-globally">Testing "heart age" globally</h2>



The premise is intuitive: if laboratory results and lifestyle factors give you the cardiovascular profile of an older person, you probably need to rethink prevention. Conversely, if your heart age matches or beats your birth certificate, you might be on track.



To validate their calculator, Khan’s team mined data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhanes/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">NHANES</a>), a rolling study that measures the health of the U.S. population.



They focused on 14,000 adults aged 30 to 79 who had never been diagnosed with heart disease. For each person, they calculated chronological age and heart age, then compared the two.



The patterns were sobering. Across the board, Americans carried older hearts than their birthdays would suggest. Women averaged a heart age of 55.4 despite being only 51.3 years old. 



The gap was wider for men: an average heart age of 56.7 versus an actual age of 49.7 - roughly seven extra “cardiac birthdays.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-race-and-income-age-hearts">Race and income age hearts</h2>



The researchers drilled deeper into the data to see how these gaps varied by education, income, and race or ethnicity. These factors are known to track with <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/heart-disease-remains-the-leading-cause-of-death-worldwide/">cardiovascular outcomes</a>.



Men with no more than a high-school education showed the greatest disconnect: almost one-third possessed hearts at least a decade older than their bodies.



Racial and ethnic contrasts were stark as well. Among men, Black participants had a heart age 8.5 years older than their chronological age. Hispanic men trailed at 7.9 years, followed by Asian men at 6.7 and white men at 6.4.



Women showed similar but smaller gaps. Black women had the oldest hearts relative to their age (a 6.2-year difference), while Asian women had the youngest (2.8 years).



These numbers, the authors argue, reveal how structural forces - access to health care, exposure to <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/chronic-stress-disrupts-gut-bacteria-and-fuels-cancer-progression/">chronic stress</a>, the cost of nutritious food - literally age the heart faster in some communities than others.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-risk-that-feels-personal">Risk that feels personal</h2>



<a href="https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/21493-cardiovascular-disease" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Cardiovascular disease</a> has remained the nation’s leading cause of death for more than a century, even in the face of better medications and public-health campaigns against <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/smoking-related-deaths-will-surge-by-2030/">smoking</a>.



A key reason, Khan said, is that millions of people who would benefit from preventive therapies never start them - or start too late. She believes the new heart-age tool can turn abstract percentages into something people feel viscerally.



“Many people who should be on medicine to lower their risk for heart attack, <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/stroke-risk-is-elevated-by-air-pollution-and-traffic-noise/">stroke</a>, or heart failure are not on these medications,” Khan explained.



“We hope this new heart-age calculator will help support discussions about prevention and ultimately improve health for all people.”



The idea draws on behavioral research showing that vivid, easily understood messages spur action. 



A person who hears their heart is “ten years older” may grasp the urgency of lowering <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/scientists-identify-minimum-amount-of-physical-activity-needed-to-prevent-high-blood-pressure/">blood pressure</a>, quitting cigarettes, or beginning statin therapy. They may respond more readily than someone handed a 10 percent risk score.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-heart-aging-tool-with-limits">Heart aging tool, with limits</h2>



The online tool, available for free, asks for five inputs: age, sex, total cholesterol, <a href="https://medlineplus.gov/hdlthegoodcholesterol.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">HDL</a> (“good”) cholesterol, systolic blood pressure, and whether the user smokes or has diabetes. With one click it produces a heart age and a brief explanation.



Khan’s team is quick to add caveats. The calculator is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Its equations are built on large-population averages, but individual factors - such as family history, kidney disease, or inflammatory conditions - can raise or lower risk outside the scope of the tool. 



Users should discuss results with a clinician before changing medications.



To ensure clinicians embrace the approach, the researchers are planning follow-up studies that track whether framing risk as age improves adherence to <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/scientists-identify-minimum-amount-of-physical-activity-needed-to-prevent-high-blood-pressure/">blood-pressure</a> drugs, statins, or lifestyle programs. They also aim to see whether it reduces heart attacks and strokes over time.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-getting-through-to-young-adults">Getting through to young adults</h2>



One finding leapt out of the NHANES analysis: people in their thirties and forties often carried heart ages ten or more years beyond their chronological age. 



Yet they rarely meet intensity thresholds for preventive medications under current guidelines. Khan hopes the metric will spotlight hidden risk among younger adults who still feel invincible.



“The important thing is that we have very good options available in our toolbox to help slow that aging down if we can identify it,” she said. “This may be even more important in younger people who don’t often think about their risk for heart disease.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-why-heart-age-stats-matter">Why "heart age" stats matter</h2>



The heart-age calculator could also equip public-health agencies and employers to tailor interventions. 



Communities where the average heart age dwarfs chronological age might benefit from subsidized blood-pressure screenings, mobile clinics, or healthier food outlets.



Public health campaigns and community-based programs can emphasize the importance and availability of fast walking to improve health outcomes. 



They can also provide resources and support to facilitate increased fast walking within all communities.



Khan echoes that spirit for heart-age awareness. By translating risk into an easy-to-grasp figure, the team hopes to close gaps in prevention and push heart disease - long the country’s top killer - down the leaderboard at last.



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamacardiology/article-abstract/2836740">JAMA Cardio</a><a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamacardiology/article-abstract/2836740" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">l</a><a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamacardiology/article-abstract/2836740">ogy</a>.



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Scientists invent new tool that determines your 'heart age' as compared to your actual age

When clinicians talk to patients about preventing heart disease, they...

For many people online gaming is a harmless escape – a chance to unwind with friends, trade tips on strategy, and watch favorite streamers test new releases.



Yet a new study suggests that the same vibrant, hyper-connected space has become fertile ground for extremist recruiters. They see voice chat, livestreams, and in-game banter as open doors to fresh audiences.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-gaming-platforms-fly-under-the-radar">Gaming platforms fly under the radar</h2>



Over the past decade, legislators have poured energy into policing <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/social-media-pressure-is-straining-teen-friendships/">social media</a> platforms like Facebook, X, TikTok, and YouTube. 



By comparison, gaming-adjacent platforms such as Discord, Steam communities, or Twitch “have largely flown under the radar, while at the same time becoming digital playgrounds for extremists to exploit,” said lead author William Allchorn from Anglia Ruskin University’s <a href="https://www.aru.ac.uk/international-policing-and-public-protection-research-institute" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">International Policing and Public Protection Research Institute</a>.



These services enable real-time chat, meme sharing, and private voice channels - making moderation especially difficult. The research team – Allchorn and senior fellow Elisa Orofino – spoke with content moderators, tech-industry specialists, and practitioners who work on preventing violent extremism.



Interviewees repeatedly described a funneling process: a user first encounters edgy jokes or borderline rhetoric on mainstream services, then an extremist invites them to a more lightly policed space tied to gaming culture.



“That’s where you have matchmaking. It’s where you can build quick rapport with people,” one participant said. “But that’s the stuff that very quickly moves to adjacent platforms, where there’s sort of less monitoring.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-extremist-messages-flood-gaming-platforms">Extremist messages flood gaming platforms</h2>



According to the study, the most common <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/why-people-believe-they-are-right-even-when-theyre-wrong/">ideology</a> circulating in these spaces is far-right extremism – white-supremacist propaganda, neo-Nazi symbols, Holocaust denial, and an undercurrent of misogyny and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric.



Islamist material appears too, though less frequently, and moderators also reported “extremist-adjacent” content that glorifies school shootings or promotes conspiracy theories such as QAnon. 



All of it violates platform terms of service, yet often evades detection because the language is coded or hidden behind memes.



Hyper-masculine titles – first-person shooters or combat games that prize aggression, quick reflexes, and leaderboards – offer particularly welcoming environments.



Newcomers can slip into a team channel with strangers, bond over shared tactics, then encounter racist or antisemitic slurs delivered as “jokes.” If a young player laughs along, recruiters test deeper waters. They may share links to fringe forums or private Discord servers where rhetoric becomes more explicit.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-moderation-systems-overwhelmed">Moderation systems overwhelmed</h2>



Most gaming companies rely on a mix of automated filters and volunteer or lightly paid moderators. Interviewees told Allchorn and Orofino they feel overwhelmed.



In-game voice chat lacks moderation, while text channels flood with slang and sarcasm that overwhelm AI filters. 



A phrase like “I’m going to kill you” can be normal trash talk during a match but a genuine threat in a different context. Many users don’t know how to report extremist content, and those who do often feel their reports are ignored.



Moderators themselves expressed frustration at “inconsistent enforcement policies” and the heavy burden of deciding when to escalate a user to law enforcement.



Meanwhile, extremists exchange tips on how to dodge bans. These include using numbers or symbols in slurs and encoding messages with historical references or Nordic runes.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-younger-gamers-in-the-crosshairs">Younger gamers in the crosshairs</h2>



A recurrent anxiety among professionals interviewed was the vulnerability of minors. Livestreamers who weave extremist talking points into entertaining gameplay accrue followers in the thousands; teenage viewers may tune in daily, forming parasocial bonds. 



Once the streamer invites them to a private server, those young fans are isolated from counter-speech.



Yet parents and teachers rarely recognize gaming platforms as potential vectors of radicalization. The authors argue that digital literacy campaigns must expand beyond traditional social media to cover the unique cultures of gaming.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-solutions-span-tech-and-parenting">Solutions span tech and parenting</h2>



Allchorn believes decisive action is possible. “Strengthening moderation systems, both <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/ai-is-taking-scientific-discovery-from-decades-to-minutes/">AI</a> and human, is essential,” he said, but technologies must be paired with clearer platform rules that target content that is harmful but technically lawful.



The paper urges companies to invest in symbol libraries that evolve as extremist language shifts, to give moderators rapid-response channels to local police, and to provide transparent feedback loops when users report violations.



Law enforcement agencies also need to learn how <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/disaster-subculture-helps-people-cope-on-the-frontline-of-the-climate-crisis/">gaming subcultures</a> operate so they don’t dismiss genuine threats as mere smack talk. Educators and parents can play a role by discussing with children why hateful messages spread and by encouraging reporting mechanisms within games.



Ultimately, the study paints gaming platforms as a double-edged sword. They build global community, yet also allow fringe movements to thrive unnoticed.



“These gaming-adjacent platforms offer extremists direct access to large, often young and impressionable audiences,” Allchorn warned. 



Recognizing the phenomenon and naming its tactics is the first step toward keeping virtual playgrounds safe for play rather than propaganda.



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1537460/full" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Frontiers in Psychology</a>.



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Extremists are using gaming platforms to recruit young followers

For many people online gaming is a harmless escape –...

The ocean has long seemed too vast to manage, too deep to control, and too distant to monitor. But this perception is changing fast. With satellites, machine learning, and global cooperation, the idea of protecting the marine life is no longer theoretical. It’s real, measurable, and effective.



That message is at the heart of Marine Protected Areas Day (MPA Day), celebrated every year on August 1st. Since its launch in 2021, MPA Day has grown from a national campaign in South Africa into a global movement.



The 2025 edition, themed “Ocean Protection Needs Human Connection,” brought together scientists, activists, educators, artists, and everyday <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/earths-oceans-are-rapidly-changing-colors-matching-climate-predictions/">ocean</a> lovers across 12 countries and online platforms. From kayak tours to beach cleanups and global running challenges, people showed up for the sea.



This year’s celebration coincides with recent scientific evidence. A massive new global study shows that&nbsp;MPAs are working - not just in principle, but in practice.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-why-marine-protected-areas-matter">Why marine protected areas matter</h2>



Marine Protected Areas are zones where human activities are regulated or banned to protect ecosystems. Some allow sustainable fishing or tourism. Others, the most effective ones,&nbsp;ban industrial fishing altogether. These stricter MPAs are known as “fully” or “highly protected” zones.



Their benefits are enormous. They preserve biodiversity, protect <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/world-oceans-day-2025-sustaining-what-sustains-us/">coral</a> reefs, restore fish stocks, and create safe zones for breeding and migration. 



MPAs also support coastal communities through tourism and eco-friendly jobs. They absorb carbon, helping to fight climate change. Despite this, only 8% of the world’s oceans are protected. The goal, set by international agreements, is 30% by 2030.



For years, critics have questioned their effectiveness. Many believe these zones are just lines on a map - unenforced and ignored by illegal fishers. But thanks to new technology and a powerful new dataset, we now know the truth.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-marine-protected-areas-are-working">Marine protected areas are working</h2>



A large-scale global study recently examined 1,380 MPAs that strictly prohibit industrial fishing. 



The researchers used data from Automatic Identification Systems (AIS), which track ship signals, and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), which detects vessels even when they try to hide. These technologies helped scientists monitor fishing activity with remarkable accuracy.



The team found that <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/world-nature-conservation-day-2025-a-healthy-future-for-all/">fishing</a> vessels appeared, on average, only once per 20,000 square kilometers in protected areas. That’s nine times fewer than in surrounding unprotected zones. This means most MPAs are indeed doing their job.



SAR was especially useful in places like Southeast Asia. It detected ships in MPAs where AIS showed nothing. 



The radar confirmed no industrial fishing in 91 MPAs. In fact, 25% of all MPAs recorded zero vessels. In areas where activity was detected, it appeared on only 3% of the observed days. This is a monumental shift in our understanding. 



“The ocean is no longer too big to watch. With cutting-edge satellites and AI, we’re making illegal fishing visible and proving that strong marine protections work,” said Juan Mayorga, co-author and scientist at <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.org/society/our-programs/pristine-seas/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Pristine Seas</a>.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-where-fishing-still-happens">Where fishing still happens</h2>



The study also examined where some <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/darkening-oceans-are-shrinking-vital-marine-habitats/">fishing</a> continues despite protections. A few areas, like the Chagos Archipelago, recorded up to 2,700 hours of fishing per year. 



Others like the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, South Georgia, and the South Sandwich Islands saw about 900 hours annually.



But these are outliers. Over&nbsp;1,000 MPAs&nbsp;had no detected activity. Around&nbsp;78.5%&nbsp;of them saw fishing on less than one day per year. The global average fishing effort in MPAs came out to just&nbsp;0.0004 hours per day per 100 square kilometers.



Some of the apparent “high-density” fishing zones turned out to be small MPAs, where even a few boats skewed the data. For example, Marado Island in Korea had the highest density, but it’s only 2 km² and had just 6 to 18 vessels.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-how-we-see-marine-protected-areas">How we see marine protected areas</h2>



Many believe MPAs are weak because of two reasons: weak legal rules and poor enforcement. Some MPAs only exist on paper or allow industrial fishing under loopholes. Others are hard to patrol due to their location or lack of resources.



This study challenges those doubts. It focused only on MPAs with clear bans and accounted for when the laws came into effect. This removed confusion caused by phase-out periods, like in&nbsp;Palau, where a five-year transition affected fishing data.



In fact,&nbsp;Palau&nbsp;serves as a strong example of success. After full protection, its fishing hours dropped from&nbsp;51,000&nbsp;to just&nbsp;215&nbsp;per year. That is not symbolic change - it is real impact.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-tech-helps-stop-illegal-fishing">Tech helps stop illegal fishing</h2>



The combination of AIS, SAR, and&nbsp;machine learning&nbsp;processed&nbsp;over five billion signals&nbsp;and thousands of radar images. This allowed scientists to detect hidden fishing vessels, even those trying to stay invisible.



In 163 MPAs, SAR found ships where AIS saw nothing. In many others, radar confirmed that no boats were present. 



“By using satellites to track fishing vessels, countries can predict the locations of illegal activities and target patrol efforts, saving both manpower and money,” said Jennifer Raynor, lead author from the <a href="https://www.wisc.edu" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">University of Wisconsin-Madison</a>.



MPAs are not perfect. Some small-scale legal fishing may go undetected, especially if boats are under 15 meters long. Some zones also allow certain activities under sunset clauses or temporary permits. But the broader message is clear:&nbsp;strong enforcement deters illegal fishing.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-people-make-ocean-protection-work">People make ocean protection work</h2>



The 2025 MPA Day theme,&nbsp;“Making Connections,”&nbsp;goes beyond science and policy. It reminds us that protecting the ocean isn’t just about rules - it’s about relationships. Communities, scientists, artists, students, and citizens must come together. When people feel connected to the sea, they’re more likely to protect it.



Celebrations this year reflected that spirit. Events took place in South Africa, Sweden, Peru, Egypt, Brazil, and more. 



Artists shared ocean-themed work. Kids learned how MPAs help fish and dolphins thrive. Online, people ran for the sea, posted about marine biodiversity, and joined virtual sessions about ocean science.



The ocean is no longer too vast to protect. With global cooperation, cutting-edge technology, and strong local engagement, MPAs are showing real results. The world has the tools and the proof. Now it needs the will.



Marine Protected Areas Day 2025 reminded us of something powerful: oceans are not just ecosystems - they are lifelines. To protect them, we must stay connected, informed, and engaged.



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Marine Protected Areas Day: Ocean protection needs human connection

The ocean has long seemed too vast to manage, too...

Hibernating animals stretch the limits of biology, surviving for months without food or water. Their muscles stay strong, their body temperature drops to near freezing, and their brain and metabolism slow dramatically. 



Despite these changes, the animals emerge healthy. They recover from conditions that resemble human diseases like Alzheimer’s, stroke, or diabetes.



Now, researchers think we might carry this resilience too. Studies published in the journal Science suggest that the genes powering hibernation might exist in human DNA. These genetic traits, once thought unique to hibernators, may lie dormant within us. 



Understanding and unlocking these <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/hibernation-allows-lemurs-to-slow-down-their-aging/">genes</a> could lead to treatments for metabolic and neurodegenerative diseases.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-how-hibernators-use-special-genes">How hibernators use special genes</h2>



Scientists focused on a gene cluster called the fat mass and obesity-associated (FTO) locus. Hibernating animals use it to control fat storage and energy during winter. 



“What’s striking about this region is that it is the strongest genetic risk factor for human obesity,” said Dr. Chris Gregg from the University of Utah (<a href="https://www.utah.edu" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">U of U</a>).



The team found nearby DNA regions that <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/climate-change-is-waking-bats-up-too-early-from-hibernation/">hibernators</a> use to switch the activity of genes on or off. These controls don’t change the genes themselves. Instead, they regulate gene behavior, like adjusting volume in an orchestra. 



These non-coding regions help hibernators gain weight before winter and burn fat efficiently while asleep.



Researchers inserted these DNA regions into mice. The results were clear. Some mice gained or lost weight depending on diet. Others had changes in body temperature recovery or overall metabolism. 



“When you knock out one of these elements - this one tiny, seemingly insignificant DNA region - the activity of hundreds of genes changes,” explained Susan Steinwand, a scientist at U of U Health.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-hibernation-genes-control-fat-and-energy">Hibernation genes control fat and energy</h2>



These DNA regulators don’t create new <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/how-squirrels-survive-winter-without-food-or-water/">genes</a>. Instead, they remove blocks that limit flexibility in metabolism. Hibernators may have evolved to lose certain constraints. That allows them to shift between active and dormant states easily. 



“If we could regulate our genes a bit more like hibernators, maybe we could overcome type 2 diabetes the same way that a hibernator returns from hibernation back to a normal metabolic state,” said Elliott Ferris, MS.



The key difference between us and hibernators may be in how we regulate the same set of genes. This insight raises the possibility that humans could someday adjust their metabolism in similar ways.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-hibernation-changed-genes-over-time">Hibernation changed genes over time</h2>



To find these genetic <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/hedgehogs-have-flexible-hibernation-habits-that-help-them-survive/">clues</a>, researchers used several advanced methods. They first searched for DNA regions that remained stable across most mammals for over 100 million years but showed recent and dramatic changes in hibernating species. 



Such sudden shifts in long-conserved DNA strongly suggest adaptations specific to hibernation behavior.



Next, the researchers studied fasting mice. Fasting mirrors certain biological conditions seen in hibernation, including reduced energy intake and slowed metabolism. It triggers a complex cascade of gene activity. 



The team tracked which genes turned on or off during this period and identified “hub” genes that regulate broader gene networks.



Interestingly, many altered regions in hibernators were located near these hub genes. These overlaps imply that evolutionary changes may have modified gene control switches to support hibernation. 



The switches appear crucial for the coordination of metabolic and neurological functions. Scientists now consider these regulatory elements key targets for future genetic and medical research.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-how-this-could-help-humans">How this could help humans</h2>



Rather than inventing new traits, evolution in hibernators may have broken metabolic locks. Humans still have those locks in place. But our genes hold the same basic tools. 



“Humans already have the genetic framework,” said Steinwand. “We just need to identify the control switches for these hibernator traits.”



The findings hint at future medical possibilities. If we identify and harness these regulatory switches, we may help humans survive extreme metabolic stress, reverse age-related decline, or treat chronic disease.



“There’s potentially an opportunity - by understanding these hibernation-linked mechanisms in the genome - to find strategies to intervene and help with age-related diseases,” noted Dr. Gregg. 



“If that’s hidden in the genome that we’ve already got, we could learn from hibernators to improve our own health.”



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adp4701" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Science</a>.



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Humans carry hidden hibernation genes that could treat diseases

Hibernating animals stretch the limits of biology, surviving for months...

We hear a lot about how climate change affects animals - but what if the reverse is also true?



New research suggests that when animals disappear from forests, the forests lose one of their key tools for fighting climate change. That connection between animals and climate may be even stronger than we thought.



Scientists at the <a href="https://www.mit.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Massachusetts Institute of Technology</a> have found that tropical forests regrow much more effectively when they still have healthy populations of <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/some-plants-wont-survive-the-loss-of-seed-dispersing-animals/">seed-dispersing animals</a>. 



In fact, they can absorb up to four times more carbon than similar forests where those animals are missing or declining.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-forests-need-wildlife-to-function">Forests need wildlife to function</h2>



Tropical forests are the planet’s biggest land-based carbon sinks. That means they absorb and store more carbon than any other type of ecosystem. 



So, understanding what keeps those forests functioning isn’t just an ecological question - it’s a climate question.



Evan Fricke, a research scientist in the MIT Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, is the lead author of the new study.



“The results underscore the importance of animals in maintaining healthy, carbon-rich tropical forests,” said Fricke. “When seed-dispersing animals decline, we risk weakening the climate-mitigating power of <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/tropical-forests-are-struggling-to-keep-pace-with-climate-change/">tropical forests</a>.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-animals-are-nature-s-forest-planters">Animals are nature’s forest planters</h2>



If you’ve ever watched a monkey munch on fruit or a bird fly off with a berry, you’ve seen nature’s version of forest management in action.



When these animals eat fruit and later defecate the seeds elsewhere, they help forests regenerate. In tropical regions, over 75 percent of tree species depend on animals to disperse their seeds.



Without those animals, seeds don’t travel far, germinate less often, and forests grow back more slowly - if at all.



Fricke has spent nearly 15 years studying this process. He’s shown in past work that animal seed dispersal helps <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/trees-have-unique-fungi-partnerships-that-help-them-survive/">trees survive</a> and adapt. Now, his team is thinking more broadly about what that means for the planet.



“We’re now thinking more about the roles that animals might play in affecting the climate through seed dispersal,” Fricke said. 



“We know that in tropical forests, where more than three-quarters of trees rely on animals for seed dispersal, the decline of seed dispersal could affect not just the biodiversity of forests, but how they bounce back from <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/global-deforestation-crisis-how-can-we-stop-massive-forest-losses/">deforestation</a>. We also know that all around the world, animal populations are declining.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-impact-of-missing-animals">The impact of missing animals</h2>



To find out just how big an impact this has, the MIT researchers pulled together massive datasets - on biodiversity, animal movement, seed dispersal, and carbon storage. They studied 17,000 plots, tracking animals’ locations, movements, and the seeds they dispersed.



The team also factored in human pressures. In areas with heavy human activity, animals didn’t travel as far or scatter seeds as widely. The team built an index to measure how much <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/insects-play-a-much-bigger-role-in-seed-dispersal-than-we-thought/">seed dispersal</a> had been disrupted and compared that to how much carbon forests in those areas could store.



“It was a big task to bring data from thousands of field studies together into a map of the disruption of seed dispersal,” Fricke said. “But it lets us go beyond just asking what animals are there to actually quantifying the ecological roles those animals are playing and understanding how human pressures affect them.”



What they found was striking. Forests lost 1.8 metric tons of carbon per hectare yearly where seed-dispersing animals had declined. That’s a 57 percent drop in regrowth potential.



The finding that disrupted seed dispersal leads to a fourfold drop in carbon absorption highlights seed dispersers as a key driver of tropical forest carbon.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-animals-make-climate-solutions-work">Animals make climate solutions work</h2>



Not all forests are equally positioned for regrowth. The team found that some landscapes are more promising than others - especially those near intact forests or with lots of tree cover. 



In these places, animal populations are more stable, which helps forests bounce back naturally.



“In the discussion around planting trees versus allowing trees to regrow naturally, regrowth is basically free, whereas planting trees costs money, and it also leads to less diverse forests,” said Professor César Terrer.



“With these results… we can understand where natural regrowth can happen effectively because there are animals planting the seeds for free.”



This research adds a new layer to climate modeling. If seed-dispersing animals are missing, regrowth estimates may be too optimistic. If animals are thriving, some areas may have more regrowth potential than previously thought.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-saving-forests-means-saving-animals">Saving forests means saving animals</h2>



The researchers suggest several ways to support seed-dispersing animals. These include restoring habitats, building wildlife corridors, and limiting activities like wildlife trade. 



In some cases, reintroducing missing species or planting trees that attract them could help restore these lost relationships.



It’s also about getting the science right. Future studies may examine whether the decline in tropical forests’ carbon-absorbing power is linked more to extreme weather or to the loss of these animal-plant partnerships.



“Forests provide a huge climate subsidy by sequestering about a third of all <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/earth-faces-hidden-mechanical-stress-from-carbon-emissions/">human carbon emissions</a>,” Terrer said. “Tropical forests are by far the most important carbon sink globally, but in the last few decades, their ability to sequester carbon has been declining."



The team will next investigate whether the decline is driven more by extreme droughts and fires or by reduced animal seed dispersal.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-losing-wildlife-worsens-warming">Losing wildlife worsens warming</h2>



Ultimately, the findings point to a deeper truth. Climate and <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/diverse-forests-are-more-resilient-and-productive/">biodiversity</a> aren't separate problems - they're intertwined.



“It’s been clear that climate change threatens biodiversity, and now this study shows how biodiversity losses can exacerbate climate change,” said Fricke. “These are challenges we need to tackle in tandem."



“When we lose our animals, we’re losing the ecological infrastructure that keeps our tropical forests healthy and resilient."



The full study was published in the journal <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2500951122" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</a>.



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Forests rely on animals to help fight climate change

We hear a lot about how climate change affects animals...

In a lab at ETH Zurich, muscle biologist Ori Bar-Nur is growing beef without the cow. His team cultivates meat from bovine cells using advanced tissue engineering techniques - but regulatory approval is still needed before anyone can take a bite. 



While Bar-Nur hasn’t sampled it himself, some of his colleagues have taken part in official tastings of lab-grown beef under approved conditions. They describe its taste and texture as similar to real meat. After all, it is beef. 



Instead of relying on entire animals, Bar-Nur’s team starts with a small biopsy from a living cow, isolating precursor cells called myoblasts. 



These cells, which naturally develop into muscle fibers, are cultured in the lab to grow tissue from familiar cuts like filet, sirloin, cheek, and flank.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-turning-cells-into-steak">Turning cells into steak</h2>



Scientists had previously managed to generate <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/how-fat-hidden-in-muscles-weakens-strength-and-healing/">muscle fibers</a> from bovine myoblasts in the lab, but these fibers were thin. The <a href="https://ethz.ch/en.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">ETH</a> team has now created three-dimensional muscle tissue with thick fibers from myoblasts.



This tissue more closely resembles natural bovine muscle tissue both molecularly and functionally. It contains the same active genes and proteins as natural muscle and contracts in the same way. 



Older methods failed to produce such qualities because the <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/blood-stem-cells-grown-in-the-lab-for-first-time-ever-leukemia-treatment/">lab-grown cells</a> lacked some key proteins. This advancement builds on a better understanding of myogenesis, the process by which muscle precursor cells differentiate into muscle fibers. 



In natural systems, satellite cells activate, become myoblasts, and fuse into myotubes, a process regulated by transcription factors such as MyoD and Myogenin.



Conventional methods often used high-serum growth conditions followed by serum reduction, which led to a loss of myogenic potential and heterogeneous cell populations. 



The ETH team improved on this by applying a refined medium and using molecules that support both progenitor maintenance and robust differentiation.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-lab-meat-is-spreading-worldwide">Lab meat is spreading worldwide</h2>



Bar-Nur’s research could influence a field poised to change global meat production. Dozens of start-ups worldwide are racing to make lab-grown meat affordable, reducing the need for cow sheds, livestock transport, and slaughterhouses. 



This production method also requires less land. Although its climate impact is still debated, many believe it could be more sustainable.



Singapore has already approved commercially available lab-grown chicken produced from <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/frankenfood-beef-grown-inside-rice-cells-that-is-tasty-healthy-and-affordable/">cultured animal cells</a>. Lab-grown beef, however, is still in development. The recent ETH advances could push progress forward in this area.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-new-recipe-for-lab-meat">New recipe for lab meat</h2>



To create thick, functional muscle fibers, ETH Zurich researchers added a combination of three molecules to the nutrient-rich cell culture medium. These molecules drive cell differentiation, enabling better muscle formation.



Bar-Nur developed this cocktail seven years ago during his postdoctoral work at Harvard University. The same combination - Forskolin, RepSox, and CHIR99021 - was shown in recent studies to encourage the formation of larger, more contractile muscle fibers while maintaining a pool of progenitor-like cells.



At the time, he was working primarily with mice to study muscle cells for treating hereditary muscle diseases. 



Research into muscular dystrophy remains a central focus for Bar-Nur at ETH Zurich. He later discovered that the same method works well for creating higher-quality bovine muscle cells.



Transcriptomic and proteomic studies further confirmed that these improved conditions increase the expression of muscle-specific genes and <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/sushi-of-the-future-the-first-ever-lab-grown-eel-is-a-success/">proteins</a> linked to contraction and metabolic maturity. They also promote fibre diversity, mimicking slow- and fast-twitch muscle types found in natural beef.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-making-lab-beef-ready-for-everyone">Making lab beef ready for everyone</h2>



The three molecules are necessary only in the early stages of muscle fiber development. They can be removed later, ensuring that any future commercial products will not contain them. Still, more work is needed before lab-grown beef reaches consumers.



“The cell culture medium requires further optimization to make it more affordable and safe for consumption," said Christine Trautmann, a doctoral student and a lead author of the study. "Additionally, we need to explore ways to produce these muscle fibers in larger quantities.” 



At present, the team has only produced a few grams of muscle and is now exploring scale-up strategies. Enhanced media and advanced 3D scaffold technologies could be critical in achieving this, as they allow tissue constructs to form with improved organization and nutritional relevance.



“These innovative new <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/food-products-need-environmental-impact-labels/">food products</a> will have to undergo a prolonged and complex authorization procedure before they reach shop shelves and, ultimately, our plates,” said Adhideb Ghosh, the other lead author in Bar-Nur's group.



To advance this technology and bring it to market, Bar-Nur is considering launching a start-up. His goal is to make ethically sound burgers that are both safe and affordable.



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/advs.202413998" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Advanced Science</a>.



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Burgers without the cow? Lab-grown beef is closer to reality

In a lab at ETH Zurich, muscle biologist Ori Bar-Nur...

Treehoppers are tiny insects with wildly diverse shapes. Some resemble thorns, while others look like spinning tops or spikes. Over 3,000 treehopper species exist, yet the purpose behind their extreme body forms remains unclear. 



A new study presents a surprising explanation. The body shapes of treehoppers might help them detect <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/mystery-of-static-electricity-has-finally-been-solved/">static electricity</a>.



This fresh idea comes from Dr. Sam England and Professor Daniel Robert at the <a href="https://www.bristol.ac.uk" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">University of Bristol</a>. The experts suggest that treehopper morphology evolved in part to sense electrical signals.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-insects-can-sense-electric-fields">Insects can sense electric fields</h2>



Electric fields in air were once thought irrelevant to land <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/insects-are-still-disappearing-and-there-are-hundreds-of-reasons-why/">animals</a>. Water conducts electricity well. Air does not. But several recent discoveries changed this idea. 



Bees, caterpillars, hoverflies, and even spiders can detect electric fields without touching the source.



This ability comes from hair-like sensory structures that deflect when electric forces act on them. These structures are usually setae or antennae. Treehoppers have plenty of them, especially on their dramatic pronotum.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-how-treehoppers-detect-electric-signals">How treehoppers detect electric signals</h2>



The pronotum is the shield-like extension on a <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/how-many-ants-live-on-earth-at-any-point-in-time-total-number-is-astounding/">treehopper</a>’s back. Researchers found that it is covered with tiny, articulated setae that are likely mechanosensory. 



These hairs could respond to electric fields, especially when placed at ridges and tips where the electric field is strongest.



The placement of the hair isn’t random. Shorter hairs (pit-type) sit near the base. Taller hairs (erect-type) appear at the outer tips. These positions make them well suited to catch electric signals from nearby insects.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-weird-shapes-make-sensing-easier">Weird shapes make sensing easier</h2>



Using 3D computer modeling, the team found that the strange shapes of treehoppers enhance electric field detection. Sharp edges and protrusions increase the field strength near the sensory hairs. 



Treehoppers with spiked or horned pronota experience electric fields up to 100 kV/m. This is far higher than those with flat shapes.



This increased exposure means they can detect other insects more effectively. Predators or mutualists approaching with a charge will create electrical signals that trigger responses.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-treehoppers-react-to-electric-signals">Treehoppers react to electric signals</h2>



To test this theory, the researchers exposed treehoppers to artificial electric fields. They placed the insects on a pole and turned on a voltage source when the insect reached the top. Many treehoppers turned back, indicating they sensed something unusual.



Those that experienced an electric field were more likely to retreat than those in the control group. This behavior supports the idea that treehoppers use electroreception to detect threats.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-enemies-and-friends-have-different-charges">Enemies and friends have different charges</h2>



The study compared electrostatic charges of <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/paleontologists-found-the-oldest-ant-species-on-earth-113-million-years-old-with-scythe-like-jaws/">predators</a> and allies. Predatory wasps often carried strong, negative charges. In contrast, stingless bees known to protect treehoppers carried weaker, mostly positive charges.



This difference might let treehoppers tell allies from enemies using charge polarity and strength. 



The erect-type and pit-type setae even respond differently. Pit-type hairs, for example, can detect charge polarity more reliably and from more angles.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-body-shapes-for-electric-sensing">Body shapes for electric sensing</h2>



The researchers propose that these extreme morphologies may act as electrostatic lenses. Like antennas, they draw in electric signals and improve the insect's ability to sense its environment.



The shapes extend sensory range, increase receptor surface area, and direct electric signals more effectively to sensitive spots. This might explain why certain shapes appear more often in predator-rich environments.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-other-animals-may-do-this-too">Other animals may do this too</h2>



This idea may apply to other animals. Many species across insects and spiders have exaggerated shapes. If those structures also enhance electroreception, it could reshape our understanding of evolution.



“We think our study provides a really exciting launch pad for investigating static electricity as a driver of organismal morphology more generally," said Dr. England.



"There’s plenty of other insects, spiders, and other animals and plants that also have really extreme shapes, which in many cases are currently without explanation."



"Our study provides the first evidence of the electrostatic sense potentially driving morphological evolution, but we can’t prove this just yet."



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-treehoppers-may-adapt-to-electric-cues">Treehoppers may adapt to electric cues</h2>



The next step is linking specific treehopper shapes to local electric environments. Researchers want to know if certain structures evolved to detect predators from particular angles or distances.



“If we can link treehopper shapes to certain aspects of their electrical ecology, like specific predators which approach from certain angles with particular static charges, this would really begin to strongly support our ideas around static electricity as an evolutionary driver,” noted Dr. England.



This research opens new paths. It pushes scientists to rethink why evolution created strange shapes and what hidden senses they might serve.



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2505253122" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</a>.



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Treehoppers evolved weird bodies to sense electric predators

Treehoppers are tiny insects with wildly diverse shapes. Some resemble...

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On the unforgiving landscape of North Greenland, temperatures drop and sunlight barely penetrates through the polar winter. It was here, however, that an international team of scientists found <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/predatory-worms-were-terror-beasts-half-a-billion-years-ago/#google_vignette" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">evidence of sea monsters</a> that would change our understanding of ocean life in the past.



This video captures the discovery of Timorebestia fossils that had been hidden for more than 500 million years in the Sirius Passet formation. The "terror beasts," as they are called, are a hidden chapter in the evolutionary history of <a href="https://www.earth.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Earth</a>, showing that sophisticated predator-prey interactions occurred much earlier than previously envisioned.



Dr. Jakob Vinther and his research team at the <a href="https://www.bristol.ac.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">University of Bristol</a>, in collaboration with researchers at the <a href="https://eng.kopri.re.kr/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Korean Polar Research Institute</a>, braved extreme weather conditions at 82.5 north latitude to locate these giant creatures. Using sophisticated electron microprobe analysis, they revealed the detailed anatomy of the animals, including their muscle and nerve tissues.



The find upsets the traditional timeline of sea predators. Although we've long appreciated that Cambrian oceans were at one time ruled by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWI3-UgA3_o&amp;list=PL1QLQMW9MWDwpkFOnvgAmu7wT6rZmYqdJ&amp;index=19" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">arthropods</a>, these discoveries indicate that relatives of arrow worms were first to dominate the seas. These worms were building sophisticated food webs several million years before other predator groups arose.



Each fossil is a story of ancient hunger, with fossil stomach contents revealing these meter-long beasts dined on heavily armored arthropods regularly, cementing their place as the ocean's first apex predators.



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Worms dominated seas before dinosaurs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y4eLFNYrKE On the unforgiving landscape of North Greenland, temperatures drop...

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</div><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">New York is the site of the world's oldest forest.</figcaption></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-385-million-year-old-trees-discovered">385-million-year-old trees discovered</h2>



Scientists have uncovered something extraordinary just two hours north of New York City. The <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/worlds-oldest-forest-discovered-close-to-new-york-city/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">world's oldest forest</a>, dating back 385 million years, offers a window into how Earth's first complex forests shaped our planet's atmosphere.



Located near <a href="https://townofcairo.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Cairo, New York</a>, in Greene County, these weren't merely primitive plants struggling to survive. These were sophisticated trees with root systems remarkably similar to modern forests. This ancient woodland predates dinosaurs by 140 million years.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-cairo-forest-discovery">The Cairo forest discovery</h2>



385 million years ago, upstate New York was a tropical paradise near the equator. Thanks to continental drift, this ancient forest has traveled thousands of miles to its current location.



The fossil forest sits in an abandoned quarry, roughly half the size of a football field. This represents just a slice of what was likely a massive forest system stretching from New York into Pennsylvania.



Charles Ver Straeten, curator of sedimentary rocks at the <a href="https://www.nysm.nysed.gov/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">New York State Museum</a>, made the discovery in 2009. While scouting the former highway department property, his trained eye spotted wandering patterns in the stone that looked like marine features.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-revolutionary-age-and-preservation">Revolutionary age and preservation</h2>



The site contains 385-million-year-old rocks with fossilized woody roots forming horizontal patterns up to 18 feet (5.5 meters) wide. As Christopher Berry, a paleobotanist at Cardiff University, explains: "You are walking through the roots of ancient trees."



This discovery pushes back advanced tree evolution by millions of years. The research, published in <a href="https://www.cell.com/current-biology/home" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Current Biology</a> in December 2019, fundamentally changes our understanding of when complex forests first emerged.



Researchers believe a massive flood buried the forest floor, creating perfect fossilization conditions. Over millions of years, sediment hardened into rock, preserving these root patterns like nature's time capsule.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-meet-archaeopteris-the-first-modern-tree">Meet Archaeopteris: the first modern tree</h2>



The star of this ancient forest is Archaeopteris – not to be confused with the feathered dinosaur Archaeopteryx. This tree was far older and more revolutionary.



William Stein from <a href="https://www.binghamton.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Binghamton University</a> describes the roots as "strikingly modern, essentially what you'd see outside in my yard right now." These weren't simple root systems you'd expect from ancient plants.



Some fossilized roots are six inches (15 centimeters) in diameter, forming 36-foot-wide (11-meter) patterns. These giants grew up to 65 feet (20 meters) tall with five-foot-diameter (1.5-meter) trunks.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-climate-changing-impact">Climate-changing impact</h2>



These trees fundamentally changed Earth's environment. Kevin Boyce, a Stanford University geoscientist, explains how their deep roots triggered "weathering," chemical reactions that pulled carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.



This process dropped atmospheric CO2 levels from 10-15 times higher than today to roughly modern concentrations. These ancient trees helped create atmospheric conditions that made complex life possible.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-ancient-forest-ecosystem">Ancient forest ecosystem</h2>



The forest was remarkably diverse. Scientists identified Eospermatopteris, palm tree-like plants with short roots that reached 30 feet (9 meters) tall but lacked woody structure. The forest also housed cladoxylopsids and a mysterious third species still being studied.



All reproduced through spores rather than seeds – millions of years before seeds evolved. This tropical environment had no grass, flowers, or flying insects, just towering trees creating Earth's first complex forest canopy.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-scientific-significance">Scientific significance</h2>



Before this finding, the Gilboa forest, located 25 miles (40 kilometers) away, held the "oldest forest" title. Cairo's trees are 2-3 million years older, showing that complex forest ecosystems developed much faster than scientists believed possible.



Patricia Gensel, a <a href="https://www.unc.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">University of North Carolina</a> paleobotanist, notes: "The size of those root systems is really changing the picture. Even 20 years ago, researchers assumed trees with such complex root systems didn't evolve so early."



The Cairo site presents three unique root systems, suggesting Devonian period forests were diverse ecosystems with different trees occupying different environmental niches, much like today's forests.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-modern-preservation-efforts">Modern preservation efforts</h2>



In 2022, New York State Senator Michelle Hinchey secured a $170,000 grant for the town of Cairo to construct specialized fencing around the fossil forest site. The town plans to conduct a feasibility study exploring the possibility of creating an educational center and working lab on-site.



Joe Hasenkopf, chair of the Cairo Planning Board, hopes to partner with educational institutions to create a research facility serving scientists, students, and the public.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-lessons-for-today-s-climate">Lessons for today's climate</h2>



Why does a 385-million-year-old forest matter today? It shows how dramatically forests can change Earth's climate. These ancient woodlands created the atmospheric conditions supporting complex life.



Understanding how prehistoric forests transformed the planet helps us appreciate modern forests' critical role in addressing climate change. Forests remain Earth's most effective carbon capture systems.



These prehistoric trees changed Earth's atmosphere by pulling massive amounts of carbon dioxide from the air. As we face modern climate challenges, this ancient forest reminds us of trees' incredible power to transform our planet's environment.



The next time you walk through a forest, remember you're experiencing an ecosystem whose blueprint was established 385 million years ago in upstate New York. These ancient pioneers didn't just survive – they thrived and changed the world forever.



The full study was published in the journal Current Biology.



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Earth's oldest forest found in the United States

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ow3JH03PqEQ New York is the site of the world's oldest...

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</div><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Acid rain and a crisis solved.</figcaption></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-why-don-t-we-ever-hear-about-acid-rain-anymore-the-environmental-crisis-that-was-solved">Why don't we ever hear about "acid rain" anymore? The environmental crisis that was solved</h2>



Remember the 1980s when acid rain dominated headlines? Dire warnings about rain eating buildings, killing fish, and destroying forests filled every news cycle. Then, almost like magic, acid rain vanished from public discourse. What happened? Did we actually solve one of the late 20th century's most pressing environmental challenges?



The answer might surprise you. Unlike many environmental issues that drag on indefinitely, acid rain represents one of modern history's most successful ecological recovery stories. It's a tale of science, politics, and technology working together to tackle what seemed impossible.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">What was acid rain?</h2>



Acid rain isn't regular rain having a bad day – it's precipitation that became significantly more acidic due to air pollution. When power plants, factories, and vehicles burn fossil fuels, they release sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) into the atmosphere.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">The science behind it</h2>



Think of acid rain as nature's chemistry experiment gone wrong. These compounds react with water, oxygen, and other chemicals to form sulfuric and nitric acids. When mixed with water vapor in clouds, they create precipitation with dangerously low pH levels.



While clean rain has a pH of about 5.6, acid rain could drop as low as 4.2 to 4.4 – roughly as acidic as tomato juice or coffee. According to US Geological Survey documentation, Scottish chemist Angus Smith first coined "acid rain" in 1872, but it didn't become a household phrase until the 1960s and 1970s when Swedish scientist Svante Odén documented its devastating effects on Scandinavian lakes and European forests.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">The crisis at its peak</h2>



During the height of public concern, environmental damage was both widespread and visible. This wasn't some abstract future threat – people could see destruction happening in real-time.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Environmental devastation</h2>



The most dramatic impacts were impossible to ignore. Research documented by the Adirondack Lakes Survey Corporation and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation shows that in the Adirondack Mountains, more than 200 lakes became so acidic they couldn't support fish life. The Adirondack Council reports that 409 lakes once supported brook trout, but many lost their fish populations due to acid rain.



By 1976, when scientists cataloged all acidified lakes in the Adirondack Park, researchers found that half of the lakes over 2,000 feet above sea level had no fish, according to studies published in environmental journals. The acidification process worked like a slow-motion disaster. As acid rain fell into watersheds, it gradually lowered pH levels. Fish couldn't survive in acidic water, and their food sources died off too.



Trees at high elevations showed stress directly linked to acid rain. It weakened them by leaching nutrients and making them susceptible to disease. Historical records show Germany's Black Forest saw nearly half its trees damaged by the mid-1980s.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Economic impact</h2>



Acid rain wasn't just environmental – it was expensive. Acidic precipitation corroded infrastructure, buildings, and monuments. Historic stone structures deteriorated at accelerated rates. Tourism suffered as lakes became fishless and forests declined. EPA economic analyses from the period documented repair costs mounting into billions annually.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">The solution: government action and technology</h2>



Transformation from crisis to success required unprecedented cooperation between governments, industries, and environmental groups.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">The Clean Air Act of 1990</h2>



The turning point came with the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, signed by President George H.W. Bush. This represented a fundamentally new approach to environmental regulation, as documented in EPA historical records.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Cap-and-trade success</h2>



Instead of mandating specific technologies, the 1990 amendments introduced something revolutionary: a cap-and-trade system for sulfur dioxide emissions. EPA program documentation shows this market-based approach set overall limits but allowed companies to trade emission allowances.



The genius was harnessing market forces to find cost-effective pollution reduction. Companies reducing emissions cheaply could sell excess allowances to those facing higher costs. Research published in environmental economics journals and EPA progress reports shows this resulted in dramatic SO2 reduction at a fraction of projected costs.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Technology advances</h2>



Policy provided the framework, but technology made reductions possible. Studies in atmospheric science journals document the widespread adoption of flue gas desulfurization systems ("scrubbers") that removed sulfur dioxide before it reached the atmosphere. By the 2000s, new installations could remove over 95% of SO2 emissions, according to EPA technical reports.



The push coincided with cleaner energy development. Natural gas produces fewer sulfur compounds than coal. Wind and solar, emerging in the 1990s, captured growing market share, reducing reliance on high-sulfur coal.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-why-we-don-t-hear-about-it-today">Why we don't hear about it today</h2>



Why did acid rain disappear from headlines? Simple: the problem was largely solved.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Success doesn't make news</h2>



There's an old journalism saying: "If it bleeds, it leads." Environmental success stories don't generate urgency like crisis reporting. Media attention shifted to other challenges: climate change, plastic pollution, and biodiversity loss. There's only so much environmental anxiety the public can absorb, and newer concerns replaced acid rain.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Mission accomplished</h2>



The primary reason is beautifully simple: interventions worked. EPA monitoring data shows sulfur dioxide emissions dropped over 90% since 1990. Academic research published in environmental science journals confirms pH levels in formerly affected areas returned closer to normal. This represents one of history's most dramatic environmental recoveries. Studies by the Adirondack Lakes Survey Corporation show fishless lakes now support healthy populations. Forests recovered, and building damage slowed dramatically.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-is-it-really-gone">Is it really gone?</h2>



The crisis is largely resolved, but monitoring data shows the problem isn't completely eliminated – it's managed to acceptable levels. Some areas still experience occasional events during high pollution periods. International environmental research indicates that rapidly industrializing Asian countries face similar problems to what we experienced decades ago, though they're implementing successful strategies.



EPA research shows nitrogen oxide emissions proved more challenging than sulfur dioxide, coming from vehicles and mobile sources. Climate science studies suggest changing weather patterns add complexity to how acid rain forms and falls.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">What this teaches us</h2>



The acid rain experience proves that seemingly intractable environmental problems can be solved with scientific understanding, political will, and technological innovation. Environmental monitoring data shows recovery speed was remarkable – within a decade, measurable improvements appeared in air quality and ecosystem health.



Success came from bipartisan support across party lines. Policy analysis studies show the market-based approach appealed to those preferring economic incentives while achieving environmental goals. This support created lasting policy surviving political changes.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Conclusion</h2>



Acid rain's disappearance from public consciousness represents environmental science's greatest success stories. Through effective regulation, technological innovation, and international cooperation, we transformed an overwhelming crisis into a manageable challenge.



Today's silence isn't because we forgot – it's because we solved it. The 1990 Clean Air Act, combined with technology and energy market changes, reduced acid rain emissions over 90%, according to comprehensive EPA data analysis.



This success offers hope for current challenges. It proves complex problems can be solved when science, policy, and technology work together. As we face climate change and plastic pollution, acid rain reminds us that dramatic positive change is possible.



Next time someone asks whether environmental regulations work, remember acid rain. It's proof that sometimes, we get it right.



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



Sources: This article draws from EPA official documentation and progress reports, peer-reviewed research published in environmental and atmospheric science journals, historical data from the Adirondack Lakes Survey Corporation, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation records, US Geological Survey publications, policy analysis studies, and environmental monitoring data collected over three decades.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Frequently Asked Questions</h2>



1. Is acid rain completely gone? No, but EPA monitoring shows it's reduced to manageable levels. US sulfur dioxide emissions dropped over 90% since 1990, making acid rain much less severe than the 1980s crisis.



2. How long did solving take? Environmental monitoring data shows significant improvements began within 5-10 years of 1990s emission controls. Full ecosystem recovery took longer – some areas need 20-30 years for complete recovery.



3. What made the solution successful? Clear scientific understanding, visible damage motivating action, bipartisan support, available technology, and innovative market-based policies like cap-and-trade.



4. Do other countries have acid rain problems? Yes, particularly rapidly industrializing Asian countries. However, international environmental research shows many implement similar successful control strategies.



5. Could acid rain return? Potentially, if regulations weaken or we return to high-sulfur coal without controls, though effects would take years to become severe according to environmental projections.



6. Can you recommend any teaching tools on the subject of "acid rain"? The United States Environmental Protection Agency produced a wonderful teacher's guide for ages 14 and under that you can find on the EPA website here: <a href="https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2017-03/documents/teachersguide.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2017-03/documents/teachersguide.pdf</a>



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The environmental problem we actually solved

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prrq8Ql81zk Acid rain and a crisis solved. Why don't we...

Fresh,Radish,Harvest,On,Soil,In,Garden.

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Mid-July is an opportune time to kick-start a thriving fall garden, and this guide lays out the best vegetables and herbs to plant now for a fruitful autumn harvest. 



Fast-growing leafy greens such as spinach, lettuce, kale, and arugula perform especially well in the waning summer heat, with harvests beginning as soon as 30 days. 



These cool-season crops relish the transition into fall, offering repeated yields with cut-and-come-again methods.



Root vegetables like radishes, carrots, and beets also excel during this period. Radishes deliver satisfaction in under a month, while carrots and beets mature in about two months. Employing succession planting ensures a continuous stream of produce deep into the cooler months. 



For a boost of fresh flavor, herbs like cilantro, basil, dill, and chervil are excellent picks. These heat-loving varieties flourish in July’s warmth and are harvest-ready in about 30 days, especially when sown continuously.



Gardeners in zones 6 through 9 can benefit from planting bush beans and snap peas, which don’t require trellising and are ideal for compact plots. 



Maturing in 50–60 days, they’re a smart choice for quick, protein-rich harvests. For those in hotter regions, heat-tolerant crops such as okra and southern peas provide reliable yields and thrive in scorching conditions.



This guide emphasizes more than crop selection—it highlights the importance of timing, soil preparation, and ongoing sowing techniques. 



With thoughtful planning and attention to regional climate needs, even late-summer gardeners can enjoy fresh salads, hearty stews, and the satisfaction of a robust, homegrown harvest well into fall.



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What to plant in your garden in mid-July

https://youtu.be/Fi2OeEwuzRM?si=vTyd2m9FMmtyWkex Mid-July is an opportune time to kick-start a thriving...

Green,Ecoduct,Over,An,Empty,Highway,During,Sunset.

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A new long-term study in Monkton, Vermont, reveals that wildlife tunnels significantly reduce amphibian road mortality during seasonal migrations. 



Frogs and salamanders often cross roads to reach breeding ponds each spring, but many are killed by vehicles. 



Researchers from the <a href="https://www.uvm.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">University of Vermont</a>, in collaboration with local citizens and the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, installed two underpass tunnels in 2015. 



Over a 12-year monitoring period, they observed an 80.2% reduction in amphibian deaths, and up to 94% for non-climbing species like salamanders. 



The study used a before-after-control-impact design and documented more than 5,200 amphibians, highlighting the tunnels’ effectiveness even in nearby buffer zones.



Funded at $342,397 - far cheaper than wildlife crossings for large mammals - the project showcased the power of community-led conservation.



Local groups initiated the effort after observing mass amphibian deaths. Wildlife cameras later captured over 2,200 amphibians using a tunnel in just one spring, along with other species like raccoons and bobcats, indicating wider ecosystem benefits.



This marks the first peer-reviewed, long-term data set in the northeastern U.S. confirming amphibian-specific underpasses work. 



The study urges transportation departments to incorporate these designs into road planning and highlights how community action, thoughtful infrastructure, and persistence can make a real difference for biodiversity.



The full study was published in the <a href="https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1617138125000780" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Journal for Nature Conservation</a>.



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Wildlife tunnels save millions of amphibians

https://youtu.be/XYgiPzmNBTU?si=eFYY7gPHU1JznLvU A new long-term study in Monkton, Vermont, reveals that...

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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https://youtu.be/Ug657J67iEo?si=w96YjGMsg939LD_3
</div></figure>



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

[sendtonews key="0ynNMYkMKa-2340414-12187" type="single"] Today’s Video of the Day from the...

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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



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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

[sendtonews key="LvS8v8bp9z-2564889-12187" type="single"] Today's Video of the Day from the...

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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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Lesotho: Africa's "Kingdom in the Sky" Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features northwest Lesotho in South Africa.



According to ESA, Lesotho is the only nation in the world that lies completely above 1,000 m in elevation. The country is famous for its tall mountains and narrow valleys, and is known as Africa's "Kingdom in the Sky."



Out of a population of around two million people, about 80 percent live in rural areas. More than 75 percent of these people are engaged in <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/climate-change-will-have-a-global-impact-on-agriculture/">agriculture</a>, including rainfed cereal production and animal grazing.&nbsp;



ESA reports that the country’s agricultural system faces a growing number of issues, with climate-related vulnerabilities such as drought, floods and extreme temperatures occurring more frequently. 



Diamonds are amongst the minerals found in the mountains. Indeed, Lesotho can truly be called the Kingdom in the Sky. Beautiful, culturally rich, safe, affordable, and easily accessible from Durban and Johannesburg, mountainous Lesotho is a vastly underrated travel destination. the Kingdom of Lesotho (Sotho: 'Muso oa Lesotho) is an enclaved country in southern Africa. It is just over 30,000 km2 (11,583 sq mi) in size and has a population of around 2 million.



Video Credit: ESA&nbsp;&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> Staff Writer 



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.

Lesotho: Africa's "Kingdom in the Sky"

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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://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

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Earth,Like,Exoplanet,3d,Render

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



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



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



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



Video Credit: NASA Goddard



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



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



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

Two distant planets may be "water worlds"

[sendtonews key="QIoVYJqRBi-2434608-12187" type="single"] Today's Video of the Day from NASA...

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



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



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



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



Video Credit: NASA Goddard&nbsp;



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



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

Satellites reveal how Earth's systems are interconnected

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