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Aqua moth 13, Kyiv (2025)

12/09/2024

Meet the snot otter, the US's ancient and unique salamander
Scuba diving scientists are scouring riverbeds for the elusive, endangered hellbender – also known as the snot otter, or lasagne lizard – to give them a fighting chance of survival.
The dark, rushing, bracingly cold waters of North Carolina's Watauga River don't make life easy for the conservationists trying to locate rare and endangered Eastern hellbenders.
Earlier this summer, a team of scientists decked out in scuba gear and scoured the riverbed up to 18ft (5.5m) below the surface. Working mainly in the hours around midnight, their work required powerful dive lights and a little animal psychology.
"Hellbenders are difficult to find," says Andy Hill of the conservation organisation MountainTrue, where he is High Country regional director and Watauga riverkeeper, the key protector, watchdog and spokesperson for the Watauga River watershed. "They're perfectly camouflaged. We try to get into the mind of a hellbender – we identify quality habitat and look for clear, cold-running water. We look under every rock and crevice. You train your eye to look for movement – a blinking eye, a flash. You're elated every time you find one."

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04/09/2024

Iconic American movie star Marilyn Monroe once famously sang, "Diamonds are a girl's best friend". Scientists from the University of Liege in Belgium believe they have unearthed a gargantuan amount of these precious stones. There could be an 18-km wide layer of the gems beneath the crust of the planet Mercury. Our nearest planetary neighbour could quite literally be a celestial jewel. Researchers tested how Mercury formed, approximately 4.5 billion years ago. The planet evolved from a gyrating cloud of cosmic dust and gas. Over millions of years, the dust was compressed into graphite, which is chemically identical to diamond. Both are solid forms of the element carbon. It is unlikely Mercury's diamonds could ever be mined as they are about 500 km below the surface.

Researchers used a machine called an anvil press to simulate the conditions under which Mercury was formed. The press is used to make synthetic diamonds. Researchers mixed elements inside a graphite capsule. These included silicon, magnesium and aluminium. The capsule was subjected to pressure 70,000 times greater than that on Earth. It was heated to temperatures of 2,000 degrees Celsius. The lead researcher speculated about the diamonds on Mercury. He said: "Diamonds are made of carbon only, so they should be similar to what we know on Earth…They would [resemble] pure diamonds." Scientists believe there are a quadrillion tons of diamonds beneath the Earth's surface. Experts say the value of these hidden gems is pretty much incalculable.

23/08/2024

How Was Popcorn Discovered?

Figuring out when people started making popcorn is harder. There are several types of maize, most of which will pop if heated, but one variety, actually called “popcorn,” makes the best popcorn. Scientists have discovered phytoliths from Peru, as well as burned kernels, of this type of “poppable” maize from as early as 6,700 years ago.
You can imagine that popping maize kernels was first discovered by accident. Some maize probably fell into a cooking fire, and whoever was nearby figured out that this was a handy new way of preparing the food. Popped maize would last a long time and was easy to make.
Ancient popcorn was probably not much like the snack you might munch at the movie theater today. There was probably no salt and definitely no butter, since there were no cows to milk in the Americas yet. It probably wasn’t served hot and was likely pretty chewy compared with the version you’re used to today.
It’s impossible to know exactly why or how popcorn was invented, but I would guess it was a clever way to preserve the edible starch in corn by getting rid of the little bit of water inside each kernel that would make it more susceptible to spoiling. It’s the heated water in the kernel escaping as steam that makes popcorn pop. The popped corn could then last a long time. What you may consider a tasty snack today probably started as a useful way of preserving and storing food.

09/07/2024

Extreme Deserts with Peter Coskun

How do you survive when the desert is your 9-5? Multi-award-winning photographer Peter Coskun shares his story.
Born in Philadelphia, fine art landscape and nature photographer Peter Coskun specialises in showcasing the beauty and the fragility of desert ecosystems. His images present a stark contrast between the pristine beauty of wild places and the reality of threatened environments, and he uses his art to raise awareness for their protection.
We speak about a close shave involving lightning strikes, the devastating effects of wildfires on deserts, and the challenges of working in extreme heat.
How did you find your passion for photography?
As a teenager, I loved riding BMX bikes in the desert behind my home. I had taken a photography class at school and used to take the school's film camera out with me on my bike rides so that I could practise. One afternoon, during a large BMX contest, I wandered up to a high ridge, and was stunned to see the desert looking unusually green, and it was a scene that I immediately wanted to capture. Over time, I acquired professional equipment and turned my lens towards the local wildlife. Bird and wildlife photography fascinated me, but I found my stride in landscape photography, which allows me to explore my surroundings and see things in the environment that I might otherwise overlook.
What inspired your focus on arid landscapes?
When my family relocated from Pennsylvania to Arizona at the start of high school, I found myself in the midst of a desert landscape. Despite my initial assumptions – from watching movies I had thought that the desert was only made up of sand dunes, dirt, cacti and snakes – I began to discover that the desert is one of the most incredible and diverse environments on the planet. Although I sometimes get the itch to explore mountains and forests, the desert feels like home. I've been drawn more towards capturing its arid beauty in recent years. When people look at these images and say, “Wow, I had no idea this would be found in the desert,” I smile and feel like I have done my job.
What inspired your focus on arid landscapes?
When my family relocated from Pennsylvania to Arizona at the start of high school, I found myself in the midst of a desert landscape. Despite my initial assumptions – from watching movies I had thought that the desert was only made up of sand dunes, dirt, cacti and snakes – I began to discover that the desert is one of the most incredible and diverse environments on the planet. Although I sometimes get the itch to explore mountains and forests, the desert feels like home. I've been drawn more towards capturing its arid beauty in recent years. When people look at these images and say, “Wow, I had no idea this would be found in the desert,” I smile and feel like I have done my job.
What is your favourite BBC Earth moment?
One moment that caught my attention was Sir David Attenborough handling a teddy bear cholla, as when I'm in the desert, I'm always trying to avoid them at all costs. What struck me was how calm he was, even knowing that the needles of this vicious cacti could go right through his glove (they did in fact pierce his skin). He also did a wonderful job explaining why these needles can be so painful as the ends of each needle have tiny hooks that make it difficult to pull them out of the skin. Even though he endured a little pain, he still seemed eager and excited to be there, which made me admire him all the more.

10/06/2024

Our oceans and the fight against climate change

John F. Kennedy said, “We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch – we are going back from whence we came.”
And this quote is more poignant than you might think. We are inexorably linked to the ocean: all life on Earth originates from its depths – and it is crucial for our future, too.
Regulating the climate
The vast ocean is divided into five “basins” – Arctic, Atlantic, Indian, Pacific, and Southern. Collectively, it covers about 71% of our world and is instrumental in the processes that keep us alive.
Firstly, whilst the rainforests may be referred to as “the lungs of the planet”, scientists say it’s actually the ocean that provides 50-80% of the oxygen3we breathe. Then, through a “conveyor belt” action, it helps regulate Earth’s climate by transporting heat away from the equator, towards the poles to cool.
But the ocean also proves itself essential in the fight against climate change too. It absorbs 50 times more carbon dioxide5 than our atmosphere – or rather, it’s not the ocean itself… but what lives in it.
Many forms of aquatic life naturally absorb and hold carbon,6 which is taken down to the seabed – and kept there – when they die. From microscopic phytoplankton to gigantic whales, life of all shapes and sizes play a part in feeding these “carbon sinks” (areas that absorb more carbon dioxide than they release).
And perhaps one of the most incredible forms is the humble seagrass.
Seagrass
Across the globe, there are more than 70 species of seagrass, growing in shallow and sheltered coastal areas. It grows in the vast underwater meadows of 159 countries on six continents, covering 300,000 square kilometres (115,000 square miles).
Now, that may be an area the size of Italy, but it’s barely 0.2% of the seafloor. And this is where the super seagrass comes into its own because it absorbs 10% of the ocean’s carbon each year and captures carbon up to 35 times faster than tropical rainforests.
Seagrass builds its leaves and roots using carbon, which it extracts from water through the process of photosynthesis – and it holds on to it, even after death. Dead plant material decomposes slowly on the ocean floor, and this means that the carbon stored within is eventually buried under the seabed.
It’s ironic that such an effective natural solution to climate change is itself under threat from climate change, as temperatures rise and more violent storms ravage seagrass beds. Pollution, the long-term development of coastlines, and unregulated fishing have all played additional roles in its decline.
According to the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP), a seagrass area the size of a football pitch is destroyed every 30 minutes, around the world. Globally, it is declining at a rate of about 7% a year – and the UK has lost over 90 per cent of its seagrass in the last century.
Seagrass is critically endangered and appears on the EU Red List of habitats. Unless action is taken, it is predicted that some seagrasses will go extinct by 2050.
Posidonia Oceanica
One of the most important species of seagrass is Posidonia oceanica. It’s one of the longest-living organisms on the planet and can be found all over the Mediterranean. It’s also especially resistant to microbial degradation, which means when it dies and falls to the sea floor the carbon it has trapped inside is not released again.
Two decades ago, an area of 55,000 hectares of seagrass between Mallorca and Formentera was designated a world heritage site by UNESCO. Posidonia can cope in temperatures of up to 28C,15 but due to climate change, half of the summers since 2000 have exceeded this “thermal limit”. Posidonia is also being destroyed by boats when they drop anchor. This has resulted in a 44% reduction in the meadows of Formentera in just four years, between 2008 and 2012.
Unfortunately, the plant grows very slowly; the damage of just one anchor in a single day could take up to 1,000 years to restore.
What can be done?
Experts say that reversing the decline of seagrass will take an international effort. Fortunately, restoration missions are already underway, in places as far afield as Kenya, Mozambique, and the UK.
In the last century, Denmark lost 95 per cent of its seagrasses from its estuaries and inlets. Restoration projects have been undertaken there, re-planting in one metre squares in a grid pattern – more than 40,000 shoots in total.
During 2020, the Seagrass Ocean Rescue team at Swansea University, Wales, also took decisive action. A team of volunteers, staff, and members of the local community planted one millions seeds across a two-hectare site in Dale Bay, off the coast of Pembrokeshire.
Elsewhere in the UK, the Ocean Conservation Trust (OCT) has opened a seagrass cultivation lab. Here, seagrass is grown in batches, using seed-bearing shoots that have been hand-picked by divers. This was no small task: 17,500 shoots needed to be collected to reach the target of 700,000 seeds required for the operation.1 In late April 2021, 2,200 bags of these seedlings were planted on the sea bed of Plymouth Sound, England. The hope is that they will flourish into a vast meadow – or the size of six football pitches - and mariners have been asked to stay away, to protect the young plants from damage. It’s the start of a four-year project – and next in line is a stretch of sea between the south coast of England and the Isle of Wight.
Meanwhile, in the sunnier climes of the Balearics, the “Posidonia Festival” was been held regularly since 2008, to raise awareness about the wonders of this vivid green plant. Government action to protect Posidonia has intensified in recent years, too. But researchers suggest that adding a financial value to the carbon locked inside the Posidonia could help to encourage funding that could be used to protect and restore it.
This has already proven effective in Gazi Bay, Kenya, where their seagrass project has been partially funded through the selling of these so-called “carbon credits”. This is an especially important site because one scientific study has shown that these seagrasses lock in 50% more carbon than is typical for seagrass meadows elsewhere, making them super-efficient.
Measures such as these are all highly significant, as it’s estimated that just one hectare of restored seagrass will capture as much carbon as ten hectares of forest on land. But rising temperatures remain a twofold threat: an increase in storms that tear the shallow-rooted seagrass from its beds, and rising sea-levels that block out the sunlight.
However, seagrass is known to adapt to survive – and gene sequencing of the Zostera marina seagrass has shown it has done so on three separate occasions already. Could it be one of Earth’s great survivors that will save us all? As with most things, only time will tell.

14/05/2024

Hundreds feared dead in Afghanistan flash flooding

Hundreds of people are feared dead after flash flooding hit northern Afghanistan, with warnings the toll could rise after further storms across the region.
Taliban officials say at least 150 have been killed, while the World Food Programme says more than 300 have died, after heavy rainfall hit five districts in Baghlan province on Friday night.
Pictures on social media showed torrents of water sweeping through houses in several villages, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake.
The country has been hit by unusually heavy rainfall over the last few weeks, with floods killing scores of people since mid-April.
Abdul Mateen Qani, a spokesman for Afghanistan's interior ministry, told the BBC that at least 131 people had died in Baghlan province and 20 in Takhar.
Meanwhile, Rana Deraz, from the UN's World Food Programme, told the AFP news agency there had been 311 deaths in Baghlan.
Ms Deraz said 2,011 houses had been destroyed and an additional 2,800 damaged.
Three mosques, and four schools were also affected.
Many of those who had died came from the province's Borka district where more than 200 people had been trapped inside their homes.
There are also reports of severe damage in the provinces of Badakhshan, Ghor and western Herat.
Local official Hedayatullah Hamdard told AFP news agency emergency personnel including the army were "searching for any possible victims under the mud and rubble".
Tents, blankets and food were provided to some families who had lost their homes, the official added.
The main road connecting Kabul to northern Afghanistan is closed.
It comes after flooding last month in the west of the country killed dozens of people, leaving thousands requiring humanitarian aid.
Flash flooding happens when rain falls so heavily that normal drainage cannot cope.
Experts say a relatively dry winter has made it more difficult for the soil to absorb rainfall. Vast areas of farmland have also been submerged.
Torrential rain and flooding kill people every year in Afghanistan, where badly built houses in isolated rural areas are particularly vulnerable.
Afghanistan is among the globe's most at risk nations from the effects of climate change, according to experts.
The nation is one of the poorest in the world, having been ravaged by decades of war which culminated in the withdrawal of a US-led coalition and the Taliban retaking control in 2021.
Many factors contribute to flooding, but a warming atmosphere caused by climate change makes extreme rainfall more likely.
The world has already warmed by about 1.1C since the industrial era began and temperatures will keep rising unless governments around the world make steep cuts to emissions.

24/04/2024

The Moon brings a wild but precarious fish o**y to California's beaches

Millions of small fish fling themselves on Californian beaches to have s*x – strictly under the full or new Moon. This incredible mating ritual is threatened, but citizen scientists are diligently working to save it.
On a Southern Californian beach in the middle of the night, a citizen scientist stood observing thousands of fish having s*x. "Unruly thousands, all making noise," they duly jotted down. "Looked like some post-apocalyptic marine Mad Max."
This unique mating ritual is known as the grunion run. Unlike most other fish, the small silvery grunions actually spawn onshore, flinging themselves from the ocean onto the sand. In addition, they only spawn during full or new moons – because they need a high tide.
Since 2002, the rituals have been observed by "grunion greeters" – citizen scientists who volunteer to observe the fish at 50 California beaches. They report their observations back to Karen Martin, a scientist at Malibu's Pepperdine University, who has been studying grunion for decades. To date, more than 5,000 people have contributed to Martin's project. "We couldn't do it without them," says Martin. "There is no other way for us to get this kind of data. It's pretty remarkable, actually."
The fish are near-impossible to count. They are smart enough to avoid nets, and they don't take bait on a hook. "The 'normal' methods for stock assessment do not work for these species," Martin explains.

As a result, there's no formal statistic for how many there are – and so they don't have a conservation status either, although Martin says they are certainly under threat and numbers have declined significantly in the past decade according to her research.
The fish are only found along the Pacific Coast, primarily between Punta Abreojos in Mexico's Baja California, up to Point Conception, in central California. Scientists believe the fish, which grow to around five inches (13cm) long, have declined in numbers over the past century. Beach erosion, light pollution and development along coastlines are the main threats to the fish, as well as overfishing and habitat destruction.
The grunion's mating behaviour is unique, to say the least. Females swim as far up as they can and then fling themselves out of the water onto the sand, wiggling their tails to dig a hole, into which they release their eggs. Males follow behind and fertilise the eggs. The eggs remain buried in the sand until the next tide that is high enough to reach the them, usually around 10 days. Then they hatch.
This behaviour puts the grunion at risk, though – and not only because they are easy prey when they're spawning on the sand. The beaches the fish use happen to be some of the most popular tourist destinations in California, which are groomed almost daily with heavy machinery, meaning the eggs are often destroyed. "Everything that people do on those beaches is going to impact the environment," Martin says.

Although gathering data on the fish has been challenging, there have been some successes with implementing regulations to protect grunion.
In 1927, the first regulations to protect grunion were put in place by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife after scientists observed the fish being caught in enormous amounts when they came ashore – people would use nets made from bedsheets to catch grunion en masse. Gear restrictions were introduced during closed season – April until June – meaning locals could only use their bare hands. In the 1940s, marine biologist Boyd Walker observed every grunion run in La Jolla, California, for three years. His dissertation mapped the grunion's range, mating habits, and developed a method to count grunion, now known as the Walker Scale.
This is what Martin's grunion greeters use to compile their reports. The scale ranges from W0 meaning "no fish or only a few individuals", to W5 meaning "fish covering the length of the beach, several individuals deep, impossible to see sand between fish". The latter is a rare event, making up only around 1-3% of observations in a year. The citizen scientists assess the number of fish on shore, the duration of the spawning event, and the extent of the shoreline the fish cover.
Data gathered from the most popular grunion beaches gathered shows an overall decline in the fish. Martin's study, which she published in 2019 using citizen science data, found from 2002 to 2010 the median average ranking on the Walker scale was W2, indicating 100-500 fish at the peak of a run. From 2010 to 2018 this ranking dropped to a median of W1 – fewer than 100 fish at the peak. Furthermore, a median of W0 – "no run" with little or no spawning – was recorded in both 2014 and 2016.
"Despite local concentrations, California grunion are not abundant," says Dianna Porzio, senior environmental scientist at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. "Although [the grunion greeters] data has limitations, the findings show a decrease in the number of spawning California grunion across much of their southern California range over the past decade."

The citizen scientists' data has led to further protections for the fish. "The data has been useful for a number of reasons," says Martin. "Knowing where the grunions are running has been helpful for finding eggs and tracking the human impacts on them. We found beach raking was happening where the grunion nests are."
In 2020, California Fish and Wildlife increased restrictions on the take of grunion, which are typically harvested for individual consumption. The restrictions directly cited the data obtained by Martin's grunion greeters as evidence of a declining population. The department added another month to the no-take season – April until June – and in 2022, imposed a limit on how many grunion people could take outside of the no-take season.
On several beaches in southern California, grunion-friendly beach raking protocols have been introduced, helping protect the eggs.
The data has also led to the discovery that grunions are expanding further north. "We've been able to identify their range," says Martin. "Now we know they're found north of San Francisco, not just in central California."

Moreover, the programme has created an army of defenders for the grunion. "People get very protective over the grunion," she laughs. "Some of them even approach other people who are disturbing the fish, or taking too many, and will explain the importance of following the regulations."
It's a prime example of how the public can be trained as citizen scientists and make a marked impact, says Martin. "In the past scientists frowned upon using them," Martin adds. Even Walker warned against relying on the public to gather data, saying their reports were typically unreliable and inconsistent.
But Martin insists that public participation is valuable. "People are excited to know that they've made this sighting, and that their knowledge is useful – that somebody cares about what they've seen," she says. "And it leads to people appreciating what's in their environment, being aware that this wonderful wildlife exists."

08/04/2024

Hydroelectricity is a hidden source of methane emissions. These people want to solve that

Dams and reservoirs around the world are an underappreciated source of methane. Now start-ups want to capture that gas as a source of power.
It takes just one second for four Olympic-sized swimming pools-worth of water to charge through the turbines at the Tucuruí dam in northern Brazil. The rush of water here at one of the largest hydroelectric reservoirs in the Amazon region is deafening, but it's what makes the dam the fifth largest power plant in the world.
As the water churns through a series of 25 turbines and spillways of the dam, however, something else is happening – it's emitting greenhouse gases.
Often regarded as one of the oldest forms of renewable energy, hydroelectric dams and their reservoirs are responsible for the release of almost one billion tonnes of methane into the atmosphere as water approaches and then tumbles its way through the turbines that generate electricity. Methane is a greenhouse gas that's more than 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a 20-year lifespan, but it also breaks down faster in the atmosphere than CO2.
These hidden emissions mean that hydroelectricity is perhaps not as clean as it first seems.

The reason is that it's not just water passing through the turbines – a lot of dissolved greenhouse gases flow through them too. Just as carbon dioxide dissolves in our fizzy water while under pressure, so too does methane gas dissolve in large bodies of water under certain conditions.
Now imagine you're holding a bottle of sparkling water. Before opening it, you don't see any bubbles inside because the carbon dioxide gas stays dissolved. As you open the lid, you hear a fizzing sound as the pressure is released and bubbles of carbon dioxide rise up. Shake that water first, and this effervescent "degassing" will most probably make your carbonated drink explode everywhere.
Something similar happens to the methane dissolved in the water from lakes when it is churned.

Out of the 51 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases emitted by people every year, three billion tonnes of those are from methane which escapes from water. When water is disturbed, methane comes out of the solution and turns into bubbles of gas. And one of the single biggest sources of this degassing methane is something of a surprise – hydroelectric dams like Tucuruí.

While reducing fossil fuel use is part of the solution (40% of methane emissions come from the energy sector (i.e. oil and gas), methane comes from many other sources too, including livestock: 32% comes from burping and farting ruminants like cows. (Read more on the hunt for the hidden sources of methane.)
Less well known still is the significant contribution of water bodies to these emissions. Methane is also produced in sediments of freshwater when carbon-rich organic matter is decomposed by microbes in the absence of oxygen – that includes naturally occurring tropical swamps, peat bogs and waterlogged soils. With all these natural sources, their status as a source or sink of greenhouse gases such as methane can be a tightrope depending on land-use practices and climate change.
Then there are the manmade water sources of methane, including wastewater treatment plants and rice cultivations. In all these sources, bacteria are responsible for breaking down organic matter and releasing methane.

And then, of course, there's dams and their reservoirs. of methane per year – a little less than two-thirds of the methane produced by rice production or wastewater treatment (35 million tonnes each). The methane comes from decomposing organic matter at the bottom of the water body. In reservoirs as in sewage plants, when that water is churned up, it escapes.

Potential power source
Inside a 20-foot-long (6m) rust-red container at Cranfield University, water tumbles down through a series of pipes and containers under gravity. Here, Louise Parlons Bentata, chief executive and co-founder of Blue Methane, is developing tech that captures methane from bodies of water such as reservoirs and sewage treatment plants. Methane is the primary component of fossil natural gas, and it can be burned as an energy resource.
Parlons Bentata hopes her technology can capture bubbles of methane as they move up to the surface, funnelling it off to be collected for use as a non-fossil source of biogas.

But there are now hopes it may be possible to catch this methane before it escapes into the atmosphere, and put it to use as a source of power.

Aqua moth 13

12/09/2024

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