Hundreds of hammerhead sharks gather around an ancient volcano in the Pacific Ocean, drawn by secret signals radiating from the seabed, a new clip reveals.

The footage, which features in the third episode of Netflix's new wildlife documentary series "Our Living World," shows a school of hammerhead sharks (Sphyrnidae) circling Cocos Island — a volcanic island in the eastern tropical Pacific about 310 miles (500 kilometers) southwest of mainland Costa Rica.

Cocos Island is a known haven for endangered hammerhead sharks, but scientists still aren't sure how and why so many sharks navigate across swathes of ocean to convene there every year.

"We don't really know how these sharks are doing this," Ben Roy, the series producer of Our Living World, told Live Science. "We know that they've got sensors in their heads and we know that these sensors pick up on the magnetic signature of these cool volcanic rocks."

The island formed when lava erupted from an ancient underwater volcano and solidified, until it eventually rose 12,000 feet (3,660 meters) above the seabed.

For the episode, film crews followed a young female hammerhead shark as she left her coastal nursery and traveled 300 miles (480 km) across the Pacific Ocean to the volcanic oasis, where scientists think the sharks assemble to relax, socialize and find a mate. The female instinctively knew the way to Cocos Island thanks to electromagnetic signals emanating from hardened volcanic rocks on the island's slopes.

Related: Watch great white shark get mobbed by gang of seals in 'incredible and surprising' footage

In the clip, the young female joins hundreds of other hammerhead sharks as they form a vortex around the island. At "the actual moment when all those hammerheads aggregate and start to swim in those cyclones," Roy said his team "got lucky with some cracking behavior."

This isn't the first time sharks have been seen mysteriously congregating. Scientists previously documented a hammerhead shark gathering in the tropical waters of French Polynesia, in the South Pacific Ocean, but that assembly attracted only females. 

Our Living World

The hammerhead shark gathering is just one astonishing scene among many featured in the four-part nature series, which premieres Wednesday (April 17) on Netflix. The show highlights the intricate links that support the huge web of life on Earth, from the invisible fungal networks that nourish forest ecosystems to transatlantic clouds of nutrients that blow from Africa to South America and rain down on the Amazon. 

"The links are what makes this series totally different to anything I've been involved with or seen in terms of wildlife nature shows on the TV, because what we've tried to do is tell a story that shows how individual animal lives and animal behaviors are connected to a much bigger picture," Roy said.

In telling these stories, "we were really looking for the wow," Roy said. "We are potentially the first generation to be able to fully grasp the connectivity of what's going on here and potentially the last generation to be able to put that knowledge to good use."

The hammerhead shark assembly footage fulfills every expectation Roy had for the show, he said. "Talking about those 'wow' revelations — for me that was one of them," he said. "Sharks need volcanoes? Who knew!"

A protein found in human sweat may offer protection from Lyme disease, a bacterial infection spread by ticks, research suggests.

For a new study, published March in the journal Nature Communications, scientists scoured huge datasets of human genetic information and compared the genes of people with and without Lyme disease. The researchers uncovered three genes associated with a higher risk of infection, two of which were known to be associated with the disease. However, the third gene — which makes a type of protein found in the skin and sweat — had never been tied to it.

This mutant gene carried by those with Lyme disease seemed to boost their susceptibility to the disease. But the researchers discovered that the standard, non-variant version of the gene can actually prevent the growth of Lyme disease-causing bacteria — at least in lab dishes and mice. About 60% of people are thought to carry the standard version of the gene, they noted.

Related: New anti-tick vaccine prevented Lyme disease (in guinea pigs)

This type of study, which sifts through a huge number of people's genomes for genes associated with a specific condition, had never been done for Lyme disease, co-senior author Michal Tal, a principal scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told Live Science. They started with data from the FinnGen project, which contains genetic information from more than 410,000 Finnish people, including over 7,000 individuals diagnosed with Lyme disease.

That work revealed the mysterious variant of a gene that makes a protein called secretoglobin family 1D member 2 (SCGB1D2). Secretoglobins are small proteins secreted by cells, and in this case are found in sweat glands.

The researchers initially posted this discovery online in a preprint paper, and before long, they heard from a group in Estonia that had uncovered the same gene variant while examining data from the Estonian Biobank. The repository contains data from more than 210,000 Estonian people, including 18,000 with Lyme disease.

The two groups decided to collaborate, incorporating the additional data into the study now published in Nature Communications. In both sets of data, people with the mutant version of SCGB1D2 were more likely to be diagnosed with Lyme disease.

The researchers then conducted lab-dish experiments where they exposed Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacteria behind Lyme disease, to a mutant and standard version of the sweat protein. The standard version suppressed the bacteria's growth, but twice as much of the mutant version was needed to prevent the bacteria growing.

They also injected both the standard version of the secretoglobin and a different secretoglobin typically found in the lungs into mice and exposed the rodents to the bacteria. Mice that were injected with the lung secretoglobin developed Lyme disease, but those given the standard version of SCGB1D2 did not, even after a month of the researchers watching them for signs of infection.

The discovery of this gene holds great potential for improving scientists' understanding of Lyme disease, Janis Weis, a professor in the Department of Pathology at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, who was not involved in the study, told Live Science.

In general, many secretoglobins line the lungs and other organs and play a role in the body's immune response. Unraveling the role of SCGB1D2 in Lyme disease might help researchers gain insight into the condition, addressing the question of why about 5% to 10% of those infected don't respond well to treatment and can develop long-term health problems, Weis said.

The study has several limitations, including that it examines only populations from Finland and Estonia, Weis noted. Future research could incorporate genetic information from additional demographics, she said.

Then there's the mystery of what biological role the protein normally plays in humans and how it interacts with the ticks that transmit Lyme disease, Hanna Ollila, a group leader at the University of Helsinki and an instructor at Massachusetts General Hospital told Live Science.

"It's a little bit like a detective story," she said.

Ever wonder why some people build muscle more easily than others or why freckles come out in the sun? Send us your questions about how the human body works to community@livescience.com with the subject line "Health Desk Q," and you may see your question answered on the website!

Nature is filled with cylindrical life-forms, from worms to snakes to plant stems. An amusing consequence of this evolution is that there are plenty of organisms resembling the human penis. Some of these phallic species are branded with willy-related scientific names, while others have risen to internet stardom because of a single photo taken from just the right angle.

Here, we honor the most suggestive organisms and, in doing so, pay tribute to some of the funniest scientific reporting. From girthy worms to well-endowed palm trees, here are 10 things in nature that look like penises.

Penis worm

The appropriately named penis worms are a group of marine worms with a phallic appearance. Their scientific name, Priapulida, honors the well-endowed Greek god Priapus. The largest Priapulida species grow to around 16 inches (40 centimeters) long, according to a 2013 study published in Zoologischer Anzeiger - A Journal of Comparative Zoology.

Penis worms made a splash on social media in 2021 after Australian freediver Josie Jones photographed a particularly phallic-looking individual and shared the images with a marine research Facebook group, the New York Post reported.

Related: No, the Loch Ness Monster was not a whale's penis

Carnivorous penis plant

The Cambodian government requested that people stop picking carnivorous penis plants in 2022 after a video emerged of a group posing with the rare, phallus-shaped flora. The species snatched up in the video, Nepenthes bokorensis, is one of several plants in its genus with specialist leaves shaped like pitchers that also resemble genitalia from a certain angle.

The sweet-smelling Nepenthes species lure insect prey into their pitchers, where they drown in digestive fluids. The plants look most penis-like when the leaves are still developing and the pitcher part of the plant is yet to open.

Stinkhorn fungus

Stinkhorn fungi (Phallus impudicus) produce a slimy, penis-shaped mushroom that smells like rotting flesh. The mushroom, which is the visible part of the fungus, emerges from an egg-shaped base and often grows near rotting wood and plants. When fully grown, this mushroom can be 10 inches (25 cm) tall.

The mushroom's powerful odor attracts invertebrates, which then spread the stinkhorn's spores. Despite smelling like decomposing flesh, rotting feces and sewage, the mushroom is edible and reportedly tastes like hazelnuts in its egg form, according to the University of Florida.

Huacrapona palm tree

Huacrapona palm trees (Iriartea deltoidea) grow stilt-like roots that can look more than a little lewd. Native to Central and South America, I. deltoidea mainly grows in wet, tropical environments, according to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in the U.K. The amusing roots form a 3.3-to 6.6-foot-long (1 to 2 meters) cone around the tree to support the base of its trunk.

A 2007 study published in the journal Revista de Biología Tropical looked at stilt roots in walking palm trees (Socratea exorrhiza). The findings suggest that stilt roots enable the palms to rapidly increase their height and maintain stability without having to invest in increasing stem diameter, which means they can exploit light gaps in the canopy faster.

Related: 42,000-year-old anatomically accurate penis pendant is the world's earliest known depiction of human genitalia

Granulated sea star

Plenty of sea stars have long, cylindrical appendages, but granulated sea stars (Choriaster granulatus) top the list. This stubby-armed marine species is native to the Indo-West Pacific, ranging from East Africa to Fiji.

These sea stars live on reefs at shallow depths down to just 16 inches below the surface and feed on coral polyps and other small invertebrates, according to SeaLifeBase, a Canadian online database of global marine life.

Fat innkeeper worm

Fat innkeeper worms (Urechis caupo) are non-segmented marine worms nicknamed "penis fish" for obvious reasons. They live in U-shaped sand burrows on the Pacific Coast and use their mucus like a net to prey on plankton, bacteria and other tiny organic material.

Thousands of these 10-inch penis fish washed up on a California beach in 2019, to much fanfare. A strong storm probably dislodged the worms from their burrows, leading to a mass stranding.

Proboscis monkey noses

Including specific animal appendages on this list is a slippery slope, but the noses of proboscis monkeys (Nasalis larvatus) deserve a special shout-out. Male proboscis monkeys have large, dangling noses for attracting mates, and those schnozes can look more than a little suggestive from the right angle. A 2018 study published in the journal Science Advances found that the size of a male's nose affects which vocalizations it can make, and individuals with larger noses attract more females.

Ladyfinger cactus

There are many cactuses with cylindrical appendages, but our pick for this list is the ladyfinger cactus (Mammillaria elongata). Members of this species grow clusters to form a tongue-twisting pack of prickly peckers.

Ladyfinger cactuses are native to Mexico and mainly grow in desert or dry shrubland environments, according to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. They're also kept as houseplants and are easy to grow at home, according to Gardenersworld.com.

Penis snake

Penis snakes (Atretochoana eiselti) aren't technically snakes, but they do look like penises. These large, legless amphibians of the caecilian group can grow up to 32 inches (81 cm) long. Researchers still have much to learn about this cryptic species from the Amazon, but penis snakes are believed to be aquatic and, lacking lungs, might breathe through the skin on their heads, Mongabay reported.

Peanut worm

This extremely phallic-looking peanut worm was pulled from the abyssal depths off eastern Australia in 2017 by scientists from Museums Victoria. The creature (species unknown) was found at a depth of 13,000 feet (4,000 m) and belongs to the genus Sipunculus. Peanut worms have a bulbous trunk and a mouth from which tentacles extend to grab food. When threatened, they can retract this section into their main body, giving them a peanut-like appearance.

Scientists have captured a bewitching new time-lapse showing the birth and decay of a penis-shaped mushroom infamous for its foul smell.

The mushroom is the visible part of a stinkhorn fungus (Phallus impudicus), which commonly grows near rotting wood and plants and can reach up to 10 inches (25 centimeters) above the ground. The stem is topped by a bell-shaped cap covered in olive-brown slime, known as the gleba, which gives the mushroom its unmistakable stench.

"The smell of stinkhorns has been described as similar to decomposing flesh, rotting feces, and sewage," the University of Florida said on its website. Despite their unappetizing odor, stinkhorns are edible. "The flavor of Phallus impudicus, known as the common stinkhorn, is reported to resemble hazelnuts when eaten in its egg state," the website said.

Stinkhorns emerge from a small, egg-shaped base that is buried in the soil and tethered to the ground with white filaments. This base contains a blob of slime and spores that eventually becomes the mushroom's stinky cap.

Related: Horrifying photo captures moment parasitic fungus bursts from huge spider's body

In the new video, scientists captured the moment a stinkhorn emerged from its base and grew to its full size within three hours.

"What you see in our video is the short lifetime of the stinkhorn's fruiting body," the Regionalforstamt Soest-Sauerland, the government forestry office for the Soest-Sauerland region of eastern Germany, said in a translated Facebook post. "It took three weeks to shoot this video. Nothing happened for the first two weeks, we had to wait and keep checking the camera until we finally obtained this footage." 

Flies swarmed around the mushroom's gleba as soon as it formed, the post said, drawn by the putrid smell. They feasted on the slime for 10 hours, stripping the mushroom of its olive-brown cover. In the following few days, the remaining white body, known as a "corpse finger," can be seen beginning to rot before slowly toppling over. The footage then shows the fruiting body as it decomposes and disappears back into the ground.

This short life is enough time for stinkhorns to complete their reproductive cycle. The mushrooms' sticky cap is loaded with spores, which flies and other invertebrates ingest as they dine on the slime and scatter in new locations via their excrement, according to the University of Florida.

This strategy is different from most mushroom-forming fungi, which disperse their spores by releasing them into the wind, and it explains the mushroom's offensive smell, the website noted.

Nature is a complex web that humans have barely begun to untangle. And sometimes, when we try, we just wind up making an even bigger tangle. 

From causing roofs to collapse to instigating emu wars, here are 10 times humans messed with nature and it backfired.

1. Operation Cat Drop

In response to a malaria outbreak in Borneo in the early 1950s, the World Health Organization (WHO) sprayed the island with a powerful insecticide called DDT. This successfully killed off the mosquitoes that carried the disease, but it also triggered a cascade of catastrophic, unforeseen events.

DDT is an indiscriminate poison that, it turned out, also exterminated parasitic wasps that preyed on thatch-eating caterpillars. Without the wasps to keep them at bay, the caterpillars multiplied and gnawed at people's roofs, eventually causing the structures to suddenly collapse. 

Then, the islanders' cats started dying. The insecticide had moved up the food chain, with geckoes eating the poisoned insects and cats feasting on the geckoes. As the cats died out, the number of rats skyrocketed. The rodents spread disease across the island, sparking outbreaks of typhus and plague. 

In 1960, the WHO finally launched Operation Cat Drop to stem the wave of problems it had created, which involved parachuting cats into Borneo. While some reports say 14,000 cats were airdropped in the successful operation, others put this number at 23. 

2. The Emu War

When Australian veterans returned from fighting in World War I, the government gifted them land in Western Australia for farming. These holdings started out small, but as the Great Depression gripped the country in 1929, the new owners were encouraged to expand wheat production.

In October 1932, farmers who were already in trouble due to falling wheat prices encountered another threat to their livelihoods. Mobs of emus (Dromaius novaehollandiae) — large flightless birds that look similar to ostriches and are indigenous to the outback — suddenly appeared, trampling and chowing down on their crops. Emus migrate southwest after their breeding season in May and June, and the wheat fields likely provided safe habitat, plentiful food and a reliable source of water.

By November, the damage was so severe the minister of defense sent soldiers to wage war against the emus. On the first day of the Emu War, as it became officially known, the army faced a 50-strong flock with a barrage of machine-gun fire that turned out to be largely ineffective. The birds scattered and ran, dodging the bullets. Six days later, with just a dozen feathered casualties, the war was deemed a lost cause, and the soldiers traipsed home. Major Meredith, who led the troops, was quoted in a 1953 newspaper article, saying the emus "can face machine guns with the invulnerability of tanks." 

3. Chasing rat tails

When rats began infesting houses and spreading the plague in 1902, French colonialists in Hanoi decided it was time to tackle the city's rodent problem. They sent the inhabitants of what is now the capital of Vietnam into the sewers to hunt the rats down, which yielded significant results — at first.

To spur the eradication effort and encourage entrepreneurialism, French officials created a bounty for each rat killed of 1 piastre (the currency used in French Indochina between 1887 and 1952). People could collect the reward in exchange for every rat tail handed over as proof of elimination. But as the death toll rose to tens of thousands of rats a day, officials noticed a strange increase in tailless rats scurrying around the city.

Despite the growing mounds of tails, there also seemed to be no decline in the number of living rats. Officials realized that people were releasing amputated rats so they could reproduce, expanding the opportunity to make a profit. Health officials also discovered farming operations dedicated to breeding rats in the city's outskirts. The French later scrapped the bounty. Left unchecked, rats carrying the bubonic plague caused an outbreak in 1906, resulting in 263 deaths. 

4. Indestructible starfish

The Indo-Pacific is home to threatened coral reef ecosystems, and one of their natural predators can decimate entire reefs in a matter of months. Crown-of-thorns starfish (Acanthaster planci) can reach 31 inches (80 centimeters) in diameter and sport up to 21 arms covered in hundreds of toxic thorns. They satisfy their voracious appetite by inverting their stomach so it hangs out of their mouth, and sucking the tissue off coral skeletons.

Related: Humans are practically defenseless. Why don't wild animals attack us more? 

In some places, people attempted to kill the starfish by chopping them into pieces — forgetting that starfish can regenerate body parts, and so inadvertently multiplied their numbers. People also injected the animals with poisonous chemicals and accidentally caused them to spawn, releasing thousands of sperm and eggs into the water. A more efficient method is to remove the starfish from the reef, according to Oceana.

5. A 100-year-old miscalculation

The Colorado River is a critical source of water for more than 40 million people in seven U.S. states. However, it has shrunk dramatically in the last few decades, in part because of climate change and in part due to a 100-year-old miscalculation. 

In 1922, Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming divided the Colorado River's water supply among themselves. But their estimate of the river's yearly flow was derived from an unusually wet period of time and was never adjusted, meaning the states had assigned themselves higher amounts of water than the river could provide in normal times. Over the course of a century, this political oversight has led to a 20% decline in the flow of the Colorado River and record-low water levels in the Hoover Dam reservoir and Lake Powell — the two largest reservoirs in the country. 

6. Cane toad bonanza

Toward the end of the 19th century, Australia's budding sugarcane industry encountered a bump in the road. Native beetles had acquired a taste for the crops that were introduced a century earlier and were causing huge losses by chomping on the roots.

Entomologists heard about the American toad's (Rhinella marina, formerly Bufo marinus) apparent success in curbing cane beetle populations in Puerto Rico. In 1935, after importing a breeding population from Hawaii, scientists let 2,400 toads loose in the Gordonvale area of Queensland. But they had failed to check whether the toads actually eat cane beetles and, according to the National Museum of Australia, did not assess the potential environmental impacts.

Cane beetle populations held steady, and the bugs continued to ravage sugarcane plantations. Meanwhile, the cane toad population exploded and the amphibians spread from Queensland to coastal New South Wales, the Northern Territory and parts of northwestern Australia. Cane toads secrete venom that can kill animals that eat them, which soon triggered declines in native predators — including northern quolls (Dasyurus hallucatus), now listed as endangered — and caused huge damage to ecosystems.

The invasive toads still wreak havoc today, but "there is unlikely to ever be a broadscale method available to control cane toads across Australia," the Australian government said on its website. 

7. Underground inferno

In May 1962, a fire started in the small borough of Centralia, Pennsylvania, which reportedly originated as an intentional burning of residential trash in an abandoned mine. As the flames spread, people tried to douse them with water several times over the next few days, but no amount of effort seemed to extinguish the fire. The waste continued burning into August, when the council alerted local coal companies and state mine inspectors of the possibility of a mine fire.

Centralia sits atop a labyrinth of abandoned coal mines, which may have been set ablaze by an unsealed opening in the trash pit. The fires are still burning today. Federal and state governments gave up fighting the flames in the 1980s, opting to relocate inhabitants instead. The smoldering coal seams have baked the town through the ground, bleaching trees white and opening fissures that leak poisonous gases. Little remains of Centralia except a deserted grid of streets and a dozen people who refused to leave. It could be another 250 years before the coal fueling the underground inferno runs out.

8. Electrocuting fish

Asian carp were imported to the U.S. in the 1970s to deal with algal blooms in water treatment plants and aquaculture ponds. But they soon escaped confinement and made their way into rivers and streams — some species can even jump over low dams and overcome barriers in waterways. Having escaped, they became invasive and interfered with fishing activities. 

Carp have spread to the Mississippi River and its tributaries and are on the verge of spilling into the Great Lakes, where they could wreak ecological havoc and tank the annual $7 billion fishing industry. As a preventive measure, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers erected an underwater electric barrier in Chicago's waterway system in 2013. The design stuns fish as they swim upstream, and their limp bodies drift back down. While it seems to have kept carp at bay so far, the barrier may not be completely reliable and could let small fish sneak through. 

9. Smash sparrows

Under the rule of leader Mao Zedong from 1949 to 1976, China underwent an industrial makeover like no other. The slogan "man must conquer nature" became a rallying cry during the Great Leap Forward — a radical social and economic project designed to outproduce Britain and achieve Mao's idea of communism.

Mao launched the "Four Pests" campaign in 1958 and called upon people to eradicate flies, mosquitoes, rats and sparrows. He was convinced sparrows were diminishing crop yields by eating the grain and ordered them to be shot, their nests destroyed and any survivors eliminated by banging pots and pans until they died of exhaustion. 

As sparrow numbers dwindled across China, the birds' prey swarmed in. Locusts boomed and crop-eating insects surged. Combined with other effects of Mao's war on nature — including widespread deforestation and pesticide use — and other disastrous policies, the "Smash Sparrow" effort contributed to a devastating famine that killed tens of millions of people.

10. Flushed away

For 7,000 years, the Mississippi River has carried sediment from across North America and deposited it in the Gulf of Mexico. There, the mud piled up into lobes of land separated by swampy water channels, shaping the famous river delta and its marshes. But in 1718, French colonists who founded New Orleans on a finger of land alongside the Mississippi's main channel were dismayed when spring floods sent water streaming through the half-finished buildings. They ordered the construction of a levee — a mound of earth acting as a barrier to keep the city dry. Over the decades, more and more levees were erected until they merged into a wall stretching thousands of miles north into Missouri.

These constructions enabled cities and farmland to flourish, but they also funneled the river into a single torrent. While the Mississippi formerly recycled the soils it flushed away by creating marshland, it now shoots straight out into the gulf and dumps them in the deep sea. As a result, since the 1930s, Louisiana has lost over 2,000 square miles (5,200 square kilometers) of land to the ocean — an area equivalent to a football field drowning every 100 minutes.

The loss of protective wetlands worsens the impact of storms and hurricanes on coastal communities. Compounded by rising sea levels, land loss also threatens Louisiana's commercial fishing industry — which makes up 30% of the U.S. yearly catch — five major ports and rich wetland ecosystems. 

Some animals are venomous, meaning they create their own toxins that can sicken, paralyze or kill when injected via fangs or a stinger. 

But there's another category of toxic creature: those that are poisonous. These animals can't inject their toxins, but they can be just as deadly if they're eaten — or even touched. Some of these species, such as the jewel-colored poison dart frog, are well known. But there are also a slew of surprising poisonous animals. Here are some strange creatures you should definitely not eat. 

Regent whistler

The regent whistler (Pachycephala schlegelii) is a poisonous bird found in the jungles of Papua New Guinea. While this songbird's bright yellow feathers may look enticing, they're actually highly poisonous and contain batrachotoxin, a lethal toxin also found in the skin of poison dart frogs. Upon contact, the bird's batrachotoxin can lead to muscle cramps and cardiac arrest when consumed, according to a 2023 study published in the journal Molecular Biology.

Rufous-naped bellbird

Like the regent whistler, the rufous-naped bellbird (Aleadryas rufinucha) is another poisonous bird found in Papua New Guinea's jungles. Its combination of an olive-colored body, yellow throat, gray face and red crown is unique and not found on any other bird species. Its body and feathers also contain batrachotoxin, which, like the regent whistler, it acquires by eating a steady diet of toxic Choresine beetles, according to the 2023 study published in the journal Molecular Biology.

Hooded pitohui 

Pitohuis are a genus of bird found in New Guinea. They look harmless, but in several species, the skin and feathers contain neurotoxins similar to those found in poison dart frogs. 

The batrachotoxins found in the hooded pitohui (Pitohui dichrous) can disrupt the nervous system, causing paralysis or cardiac arrest in large enough doses. There are no reports of anyone dying from contact with a hooded pitohui, though local hunters have long known to avoid the birds, according to Australian Geographic. Their neurotoxin was first identified scientifically in 1989, when California Academy of Sciences researcher Jack Dumbacher trapped some of the birds and found that when he handled them, his skin began to tingle and burn. The closely related northern variable pitohui (Pitohui kirhocephalus) is also toxic.

Scientists aren't sure why pitohuis are poisonous. The toxins may deter predators, or they may be a defense against parasites; a 1999 study in the journal The Auk found that the batrachotoxins deterred and killed lice. 

Choresine beetles 

Pitohuis don't generate their poisons on their own. Scientists think the birds accumulate toxins from their diet — a common strategy for poisonous birds. In the case of pitohuis, the source is likely beetles from the genus Choresine, according to 2004 research by Dumbacher.

These beetles are just 0.23 inch (6 millimeters) long and have iridescent blue-green coloring. They're consumed by pitohuis and are known by locals as "nanisani," a word also used to describe the tingling and numbing sensation caused by touching pitohuis. 

Brush bronzewing 

The brush bronzewing (Phaps elegans) is a species of Australian pigeon with a gorgeous splash of iridescent color on its wings. After reports of animals dying after eating these beautiful birds, scientists learned that brush bronzewings' flesh is toxic. 

That's because the brush bronzewing can safely consume the poisonous seeds of Gastrolobium plants and accumulate the toxins in its flesh. Other native Australian species, such as the brush-tailed possum (Trichosurus vulpecula) and boodie (Bettongia lesueur), both marsupials, have also been known to eat Gastrolobium seeds and poison their predators or scavengers.  

Carolina parakeet 

The Carolina parakeet (Conuropsis carolinensis) is no longer on anyone's menu. This brightly colored bird was once one of only three parrot species native to what is now the United States. It used to live in the eastern U.S., Midwest, and part of the Great Plains but went extinct in 1939, devastated by human hunting. Not only were the birds considered agricultural pests, but their feathers were prized for hats and other accessories, according to the National History Museum in London.

Interestingly, the Carolina parakeet may have been poisonous. The bird ate cockleburs (Xanthium strumarium), a thorny native plant that is itself toxic to many animals. The 19th-century naturalist James Audubon reported that dogs that ate the parakeets died. As with the brush bronzewing, the Carolina parakeet's diet may have protected the bird from predators.  

Pacific newts 

The four newts of the genus Taricha — the rough-skinned newt (Taricha granulosa), the red-bellied newt (Taricha rivularis), the Sierra newt (Taricha sierrae) and the California newt (Taricha torosa) — all found along the Pacific coast of North America, are small but deadly. Species in this genus contain tetrodotoxin, a neurotoxin that blocks signals between nerve cells. This leads to the paralysis of the muscles of the diaphragm, halting breathing and leading to death unless the individual seeks immediate medical intervention, such as being put on a ventilator. 

There is at least one case of a person dying after consuming a rough-skinned newt. In a 1981 report in the Journal of the American Medical Association, doctors described the 1979 case of a 29-year-old man in Oregon who swallowed the newt on a dare and soon began to complain of numbness and tingling. Within two hours, his breathing stopped. Though his friends tried to revive him, the man died due to the newt's neurotoxin.  

Garter snake 

Garter snakes (Thamnophis sirtalis) have a mild venom and small fangs that are not dangerous to humans. But garter snakes are resistant to tetrodotoxin, meaning they can feed upon Pacific newts without dying. After a Pacific newt meal, a 2004 study found, toxins from the newts remain in the garter snake liver for at least a month. Three weeks after eating just one newt, the snakes had enough tetrodotoxin in their livers to kill any bird unlucky enough to try eating them, the research found.  

Milkweed butterflies 

Milkweed butterflies are beautiful but deadly. These butterflies, in the subfamily Danainae, include species like the orange-and-black common tiger butterfly (Danaus genutia) and the striped blue crow butterfly (Euploea mulciber). The most famous member is the monarch (Danaus plexippus). 

Because these insects feed upon the toxic milkweed plant, they, too, carry toxins, particularly in the caterpillar stage. These toxins, called cardiac glycosides, typically disrupt the pumps in cell membranes that balance electrical charges within and outside cells, according to Science magazine. In large enough quantities, these toxins can cause nausea, vomiting, vision changes and fatal disruptions to the heart rhythm, according to the Cleveland Clinic. 

Barracudas

The toothy barracuda is scary enough in its own right. But eating the flesh of these long, silvery fish can sometimes cause poisoning. 

Barracudas aren't toxic on their own, but if they consume fish that have been chowing down on the dinoflagellate Gambierdiscus toxicus, a single-celled marine organism, the dinoflagellate's toxins can accumulate in the barracudas' flesh. People who eat contaminated barracuda flesh contract a disease called ciguatera, marked by diarrhea, cramps, vomiting, heart arrhythmias and pain. Most people recover, but 1% of reported cases in the Pacific region lead to death, according to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. However, the actual mortality rate is likely lower, as many cases go unreported. 

Greenland shark 

The Greenland shark (Somniosus microcephalus) is a strange creature. The longest-living vertebrate species, which can survive for hundreds of years, lives in the deep, cold waters of the Arctic and North Atlantic. They're slow-moving giants, growing up to 24 feet (7.3 meters) long and weighing up to 2,645 pounds (1,200 kilograms).

To survive in very cold temperatures and under high water pressure, Greenland sharks stabilize their proteins with a compound called trimethylamine oxide (TMAO). When digested, TMAO breaks down into trimethylamine (TMA), according to 1991 research in the journal Toxicon. TMA is a neurotoxin that causes intoxicating effects similar to those of alcohol, according to the Florida Museum. Humans and sled dogs who have eaten the shark's meat are sometimes referred to as "shark drunk" by Greenland natives. Drying the shark's meat over several months, however, neutralizes the toxins.  

Blue-capped ifrit 

The blue-capped ifrit (Ifrita kowaldi) is a colorful rainforest bird endemic to New Guinea. Locals call it the "bitter bird," or "slek-yakt," according to a 2000 article in the journal BioScience, because eating the bird causes tingling and numbness in the mouth, sort of like the effect of biting into a hot chili pepper. 

The culprit is the same batrachotoxin that makes pitohuis toxic, most likely from the same dietary source (Choresine beetles). The toxins are most prevalent on the legs, belly and breast feathers, leading to speculation that they might rub off on the birds' eggs, helping protect them from predators, according to 2000 research published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 

Quail

The common quail (Coturnix coturnix) is an unassuming brown-and-white bird that is often hunted as game around the Mediterranean. On rare occasions, though, the meat from these birds can be toxic. 

The disorder caused by consuming quail meat is called coturnism. Symptoms include muscle pain, nausea and vomiting, caused by rhabdomyolysis, or the breakdown of muscle cells, according to a 2008 article in The Journal of Emergency Medicine. Coturnism may even get a mention in the Hebrew Bible, with the Book of Numbers describing a mass poisoning of Israelites after a feast of quail. 

Poisonings usually happen during quail migration season, suggesting that they occur only when quail are feeding on a particular toxic plant. Scientists aren't sure which plant is to blame, but they suspect that the most likely culprit is hemlock, according to a 2004 case report in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. 

Cinnabar moth

A poisonous moth? Yes. The cinnabar moth (Tyria jacobaeae), found in Europe and Asia, has wings decorated with bright-red patches that scream, "Do not eat!" And for good reason. Moth larvae feed on ragwort plants and incorporate bitter alkaloid compounds from the plants into their tissues. This makes them unpalatable to birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians, though some arthropods still eat the larvae and adult moths, according to a 1968 article in the journal Nature.

Because ragwort is toxic to livestock, cinnabar moths have been introduced around the world to control the spread of the plant. 

Shrikethrush 

The Arafura shrikethrush (Colluricincla megarhyncha) is found in forests in New Guinea and Australia. Like ifrits, these birds may contain batrachotoxins, though the concentration likely depends on their diet. A 2000 study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that of two specimens of little shrikethrush tested, one had trace amounts of batrachotoxins in its body, while the other did not.  

Palythoa 

Palythoa is a genus of cnidarian, the soft-bodied animals that include corals and jellyfish. They look a bit like frilly undersea mushrooms, with their rings of tentacles surrounding a disc-like mouth. Toxins are standard among cnidarians, which sting and paralyze prey, but Palythoa species are known for their particularly nasty poison, palytoxin. Palytoxin breaks down red blood cells, causes heart arrhythmias and muscle spasms, and can be fatal in small doses. There is no antidote, according to the Government of South Australia's health agency.

One toxin-producing species, Palythoa toxica, is native to Hawaii and is known in the indigenous Hawaiian language as "limu-make-o-Hana," or "seaweed of death from Hana," according to the American Chemical Society. Aquarium hobbyists have reported poisoning symptoms from handling suspected Palythoa polyps. Even inhaling coral dusts or aerosolized coral during aquarium cleaning can cause respiratory symptoms.  

Blue-ringed octopus 

Most species of octopus protect themselves with camouflage, ink and the ability to cram their soft bodies into rock crevices. But four species in the Pacific and Indian oceans — the greater blue-ringed octopus (Hapalochlaena lunulata), the southern blue-ringed octopus (Hapalochlaena maculosa), the blue-lined octopus (Hapalochlaena fasciata) and the blue-ringed octopus (Hapalochlaena nierstraszi) — take their defenses further. These cephalopods contain the deadly neurotoxin tetrodotoxin, making them one of the most dangerous marine animals. 

Just handling a blue-ringed octopus can be deadly: According to WebMD, even a milligram of the tetrodotoxin in an octopus' saliva can kill a human. Bites are rare, though, with only three confirmed deaths, according to a 2008 study in the journal Clinical Toxicology. Because the tetrodotoxin is found throughout the octopus's tissues, not just in specific venom glands, it is poisonous as well as toxic, making it an unappetizing meal for predators. 

Flamboyant cuttlefish

Another unappetizing cephalopod, the flamboyant cuttlefish (Metasepia pfefferi), can be found along shallow, muddy ocean bottoms in the Indo-Pacific region. Its flame-like coloration and frilly body shape provide an eye-catching warning against consumption. 

The flamboyant cuttlefish is the only cuttlefish species known to contain a toxin, according to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Researchers have found tetrodotoxin in the cuttlefish's tissues, according to Science Friday. However, there is still debate over whether the cuttlefish are toxic enough to deter predators with this tetrodotoxin, as plenty of animals do eat the cuttlefish with no sign of adverse effects. 

Colorado River toad

Plenty of amphibians excrete toxins through their skin as protection against predators, but none may be as strange as the Colorado River toad, also known as the Sonoran desert toad (Incilius alvarius). This toad, found in the southwestern United States and northern Mexico, produces a hallucinogen called 5-methoxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine (5-MeO-DMT). 

5-MeO-DMT can be toxic when ingested, especially to the types of predators that normally might eat the toads, such as coyotes. According to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, a mouthful of toad can kill a typical pet dog. However, when dried and smoked, 5-MeO-DMT is a potent psychedelic that researchers are now studying as a potential mental health treatment. However, this interest could be bad for the toad, as illegal collection of their toxins might threaten the species, The New York Times reported. (Luckily, there are ways to synthesize the chemical artificially for psychiatric research.)  

Blister beetles

Look, but don't touch beetles of the family Meloidae. These beetles are popularly known as "blister beetles" because they secrete cantharidin, a toxin that causes — you guessed it — blistering. In fact, cantharidin can be beneficial, too: It's one of the active ingredients in wart-removal treatments. The compound, also known as "Spanish fly," is rumored to be an aphrodisiac, but it's more likely to ignite your intestines than your libido. 

Blister beetles typically don't cause humans any problems, though there is at least one report of a human fatality, a fisherman who, in 1954, attempted to use cantharidin to attract fish, pricked his thumb on a fishhook and popped his cantharidin-contaminated thumb into his mouth, ingesting a fatal dose, according to McGill University's Office for Science and Society. Blister beetles present a deadly threat to livestock. These beetles are found in alfalfa fields, according to the University of Colorado agricultural extension, and when they are inadvertently crushed during harvest and processing, they can end up in the hay fed to horses, cattle and sheep. In these animals, cantharidin poisoning yields symptoms such as diarrhea and bloody urine, and can be fatal.  

Hawksbill sea turtle 

The Hawksbill sea turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata) is an endangered species found in tropical oceans. They're not picky eaters, chowing down on everything from algae to marine invertebrates to seagrasses. Their favorite food is sponges, and an adult Hawksbill can eat 1,200 pounds (544 kg) of sponges a year, according to the National Wildlife Federation. 

Some of these sponges are toxic, which doesn't bother the Hawksbill. But the toxins can accumulate in the turtles' fat stores, making their meat poisonous. In 2010, four children and two adults died, and 95 other adults fell ill, in Micronesia after consuming contaminated turtle meat. 

Arrow-poison beetle 

Diamphidia nigroornata, also known as the Bushman arrow-poison beetle, excretes an interesting poison. It does not harm humans when ingested, but if injected into the bloodstream, it breaks down the blood cells by damaging their protective membranes, according to 1990 research. The San people of southern Africa use the extract to poison their arrows. 

Puffer fish

Some puffer fish are perfectly fine to eat. Others are among the most poisonous potential meals on Earth, thanks to their store of that now-familiar neurotoxin tetrodotoxin. 

The toxin is found mainly in the liver and sex organs, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, so trained chefs can prepare toxic puffer fish without poisoning diners. The flesh of many species in this family, Tetraodontidae, is considered a delicacy. However, mistakes in preparation can be deadly. According to research published in 2018 in the journal Food Control, there were 106 cases of tetrodotoxin poisoning in China between 2003 and 2008, causing 16 deaths. 

Battus butterflies

Butterflies in the genus Battus, known colloquially as swallowtail butterflies, are found in the Americas. The larvae of these winged insects feed off pipevine plants in the genus Aristolochia. All parts of these plants are toxic to humans, according to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. However, Battus larvae have no problem chowing down on the plants, incorporating their toxins so that they taste disgusting to predators.  

Spur-winged goose 

The spur-winged goose (Plectropterus gambensis) is found in the sub-Saharan wetlands of Africa and is identifiable by its stark black-and-white markings and bright-red face. Oddly enough for a waterfowl, some populations of these geese are toxic. Like the hooded pitohui, they accumulate cantharidin from blister beetles, according to a 2022 paper in the Journal of Medical Toxicology. The toxin makes a meal of spur-winged goose singularly unappetizing, with possible symptoms including blistering of the mouth and throat, abdominal pain and cramping, and dehydration from cells leaking fluid.  

Eurasian hoopoes

While many toxic birds get their poisons from their diet, the Eurasian hoopoe (Upupa epops) has its own poison factory. Birds have a gland over their tails called the uropygial gland, which normally makes oils that the animals use to preen their feathers. In Eurasian hoopoes, this gland is colonized by bacteria of the genus Enterococcus, which make a variety of nasty compounds, such as dimethyl sulfide. Dimethyl sulfide is only hazardous in very large doses, and humans don't eat Eurasian hoopoes anyway, but the compound does have a disagreeable cabbage-like odor. 

According to the 2022 Journal of Medical Toxicology paper, there may be other bacteria in the hoopoe's uropygial gland that add volatile (read: stinky) chemicals to the mix. Researchers sometimes say their hands smell bad for hours after handling the birds. 

Boxfish

Boxfish (Ostracion cubicum) look like cartoon characters come to life, with their strangely angular bodies and bright polka-dot coloration. These fish are menaces to those around them, however. When threatened, boxfish excrete a mucousy toxin that breaks down red blood cells and is deadly to potential predators, according to a 1964 study in the journal Science.

In the ocean, this toxin disperses pretty quickly, meaning the boxfish is only a threat to the fish and other marine animals in its immediate proximity. But in aquariums, where the toxin can recirculate indefinitely, boxfish sometimes cause sudden death in their tankmates. 

Moray eel

Like barracuda, moray eels are large predators that are high up the food chain. And like barracuda, this means they sometimes accumulate the marine plankton toxins that cause the disease ciguatera in their own flesh, making them potentially deadly to eat. 

Some researchers have speculated that widespread ciguatera poisoning prompted the early Polynesian voyages of discovery between 1000 and 1450 that spread humans throughout the Pacific islands. According to a 2009 study, archaeological evidence suggests shifts in diet after 1450, and ciguatera poisoning events are linked to large-scale ocean circulation changes, suggesting that the early explorers of the Pacific may have been seeking safer food sources when they set sail for new islands.  

Corroboree frogs 

Most poisonous frogs get their toxins from their diet. But the southern corroboree frog (Pseudophryne corroboree) and the northern corroboree frog (Pseudophryne pengilleyi) are different. These native Australian species, found only in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory, make their own poisons. 

This toxin, first reported in 1990 in the Journal of Natural Products, is an alkaloid, similar to poisons found in many poison frogs that borrow these chemicals from the insects they eat. But even in captivity, when fed a diet of insects without the toxin, corroboree frogs remained poisonous, researchers found, indicating that they synthesize the poison themselves. 

Garden tiger moth

The garden tiger moth (Arctia caja) drapes itself in color to warn potential predators that it makes a nasty snack. This moth is found in the U.S., Canada and Europe, and is part of the large moth family Erebidae, which is known for containing many toxic species.

As caterpillars, these insects are known for their woolly appearance; their hairs can be irritating to the skin (or mouths of potential predators). Both caterpillars and adults contain neurotoxic alkaloids that they acquire from plants in their diet.  

Fowler's toad

The mottled brown-gray-green Fowler's toad (Anaxyrus fowleri) doesn't look like a toxic creature. It lacks the brilliant coloration of other poisonous amphibians, such as the poison dart frog. But this toad, which can scarf down stinging velvet ants without ill effects, causes nasty indigestion in anything that might consider targeting it as a meal. The toad secretes a noxious substance called bufotoxin from the warts on its back to deter predators, according to Animal Diversity Web, and the toxin is potent enough to kill small animals. 

Gray side-gilled sea slug 

A spate of mysterious dog poisonings on beaches near Auckland, New Zealand, in 2009 turned out to be the work of the gray side-gilled sea slug (Pleurobranchaea maculata). The slug, its eggs and its larvae all contain the potent poison tetrodotoxin, according to the Auckland Museum.

These gray-and-brown sea slugs grow just 4 inches (10 centimeters) long and are found in New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Sri Lanka and possibly other regions in the Pacific, according to the museum. Half a teaspoon of sea slug would be enough to kill a 165-pound (75 kg) human. 

A creepy portrait of a crocodile keeping a watchful, yellow eye from a mud pool is the grand prize winner of the 2022 World Nature Photography Awards (WNPA), which honored the most evocative shots from thousands of entries in a variety of categories. The photo was taken in Zimbabwe by Jens Cullmann of Germany, who won the award for World Nature Photographer of the Year and scooped top prize for Animal portraits..

"This photograph is the result of my staking out the largest pool in Mana Pools National Park, Zimbabwe, at a time when an extended drought had reduced the pool to rapidly-drying mud," Cullmann told the WNPA. "I had to be very careful not to disturb the crocodile, even though it was buried in dry mud. They will launch themselves with tremendous speed and power at any animal foolish enough to come too close."

From underwater wonders to spectacular landscapes, here are the 2022 winners in each category.

 Related: Best wildlife photography cameras 2023 

Behavior - Amphibians and reptiles

Norihiro Ikuma of Japan captured this otherworldly scene of two Japanese stream toads (Bufo torrenticola), also known as Honshū toads, looking over long strings of toad eggs as one toad rides on the other's back. These animals are endemic to Japan and only come down from the mountains of Owase in Mie to the river when it is time to spawn. 

Behavior - Birds

This male hooded merganser (Lophodytes cucullatus) is heading straight for the camera lens, where photographer Charles Schmidt was patiently waiting for the bird to take off in Huntley Meadows Park, Virginia. "Ducks will often begin swimming more quickly when they are preparing to fly," Schmidt told the WNPA. "I saw that they began to swim more quickly and thus was prepared to catch them taking off. I was lucky that they headed directly towards me!" 

Behavior - Invertebrates

This red crab (Grapsus adscensionis) was photographed by Javier Herranz Casellas on La Gomera, in Spain's Canary Islands, just as a wave hit the rock where it was perched. The crab was looking for small crustaceans and plants to feed on when a thin veil of water streamed over its back, giving it a distinct Spider-Man-like appearance. 

Behavior - Mammals 

Hidetoshi Ogata photographed a rarely seen behavior of six Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) cozying up in a huddle during the lactation season on Japan's Awaji Island. It takes just one embrace between a mother and her baby to entice other female and male monkeys to join a huddle, which can sometimes include more than 30 individuals and is thought to encourage grooming and cuddling behavior. 

Animals in their habitat

Sascha Fonseca, from the United Arab Emirates, set up a camera trap on the snowy peaks of the Indian Himalayas to snap this rare picture of a snow leopard (Panthera uncia). "I captured this image during a 3-year DSLR [digital-single-lens reflex] camera trap project in the Ladakh region of northern India," Fonseca told the WNPA. "The mystery surrounding the snow leopard always fascinated me. They are some of the most difficult large cats to photograph in the wild. Not only because of their incredible stealth, but also because of the remote environment they live in." 

Black and white

Ernoult Alain of France photographed this Lesser Antillean iguana (Iguana delicatissima), which looks like it's rubbing its tummy after a big meal, on the Caribbean island of Grenada. The image captures, in stunning detail, the scales and folds of this endemic lizard's skin as the animal stretches its neck. 

Nature art

Coral spawning underwater is a tricky event to capture, as it happens only for a few minutes, at a certain hour on a single night of the year. Tom Shlesinger of Israel captured the rare moment when thousands of corals cast their egg-and-sperm bundles into the open water, resulting in an artistic composition of what looks like a balloon-filled night sky. The bundles are carried away by sea currents and mix so that the sperm fertilize the eggs in the water. 

Nature photojournalism 

Nicolas Remy captured this heartbreaking photo of an Australian fur seal (Arctocephalus pusillus doriferus) with bad injuries caused by a boat propeller in Australia's Port Kembla. Marine mammals such as whales, seals and sea lions are frequently hit by boats of all sizes, often resulting in injury and, sometimes, death. 

People and Nature

To take this photograph, Virgil Reglioni of Norway abseiled down into the depths of a glacier at night. "This is how it feels to be inside the glacier's guts," he told the WNPA. "Not many people would even dare to go in there, where it is deep, cold, loud and wet. And that is the whole purpose of this photograph; pushing your limits to capture what few people will ever experience at night. Abseiling down felt incredible, as the more we penetrated into this dark monster, the more the fear rises up. The setup was simply impressive, and I did feel amazing just being hanging into that moulin with about 30 meters [100 feet] of dark void under my feet and my hanging tripod in the air." 

Planet Earth's landscapes and environments

This panoramic shot of the Milky Way crowning Grand Teton was U.S. photographer Jake Mosher's reward for climbing to the top of Wyoming's Table Mountain on a clear spring night. Towering 13,775 feet (4,199 m) high, Grand Teton is the highest peak in the Teton Range.

"On June 17th, 2021, I hiked, snowshoed and climbed to the 11,000-foot [3,400 m] summit of Wyoming's Table Mountain to photograph the Milky Way over Grand Teton Peak," Mosher told the WNPA. "While these iconic mountains have been photographed tens of thousands of times, I wanted to show an entirely unique view of them. I was treated to one of the most spectacular displays of airglow that I've ever seen — similar to the aurora and created by photo-charged particles, but spanning much of the horizon." 

Plants and fungi

Julie Kenny of Australia captured sheep tracks surrounding a fallen tree in this evocative shot. "The tree is seen as a sacred symbol, which carries significant meanings in both religious and spiritual philosophies," Kenny told the WNPA. "From above, the surrounding sheep tracks combined with the fallen tree reminded me of the Tree of Life. While the aerial perspective focuses on the earth, you can see the pooled water in the sheep tracks reflecting hints of blue from the sky. While this represents many different things, for me it communicates the interconnection of all things, beginnings and endings, the cycling of life." 

Underwater

Positioning the camera to focus on a blue sea star (Linckia laevigata), Adriano Morettin of Italy photographed a couple of color-coordinated harlequin shrimps (Hymenocera picta) in Lembeh Strait in Indonesia. Female harlequin shrimps grow larger than males do — up to 2 inches (5 centimeters) long. 

Urban Wildlife

Vladislav Tasev of the United Kingdom spotted this male common kestrel (Falco tinnunculus) perching on the doorstep of its new street-lamp home in Stara Zagora, Bulgaria.

"I took the picture at sunset to see the rust, the lamps and the bird in natural light," Tasev told the WNPA. "The photo was taken in the town of Stara Zagora near the Thracian University, in an abandoned parking lot near a small forest." 

As climate change transforms our world, the impacts will be felt unequally, with some animals struggling to survive and others finding ways to overcome the resulting challenges.

This phenomenon is increasingly described as the "winners and losers under climate change," said Giovanni Strona, an ecologist and former associate professor at the University of Helsinki, now a researcher at the European Commission. Strona led a 2022 study, published in the journal Science Advances, that found that under an intermediate emissions scenario, we stand to lose, on average across the globe, almost 20% of vertebrate biodiversity by the century's end. Under a worst-case warming scenario, that loss rises to almost 30%.

So which animals are the "winners," and how well will they really fare under increasing temperatures, drought and habitat loss?

Related: When did scientists first warn humanity about climate change?

Everything is connected

There's no doubt about the threats to Earth's biodiversity from climate change and habitat destruction. In 2022, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) released the Living Planet Report, which described a 69% decline in the relative abundance of monitored species since 1970. Meanwhile, 1 million species now face extinction across our planet because of these twin threats, according to the report. There's now mounting evidence that Earth is experiencing its sixth mass extinction.

Climate change contributes to these extinction risks in complex and interconnected ways, some of which are still-unknown. It will affect populations directly by inducing extreme weather events, like storms; by driving up temperatures or reducing rainfall beyond the thresholds a species needs to survive; and by shrinking key habitats on which animals depend. 

As Strona's research showed, climate change can also have indirect effects that ripple through an ecosystem. He and his team built several model Earths incorporating over 15,000 food webs to represent the connections of many thousand terrestrial vertebrate species. Then, they simulated various climate and land-use change scenarios in these ecosystems. 

Their simulations showed that when climate change directly caused the loss of one species, it resulted in a cascading loss of several species that depend on that one species for food, pollination or other ecosystem services. This domino-like effect, known as "co-extinction," will drive the bulk of terrestrial vertebrate species diversity declines under projected climate change, the research predicts. Because the study didn't model the impact of climate change on communities of insects or plants, these findings are likely also optimistic, Strona said.

The huge complexity of animal relationships within natural ecosystems, plus the uncertainty over how extreme climate change will get, makes it difficult to drill down into such data and pinpoint which animals will do better than others as our world warms. However, Strona's research did pick up on a general trend: "What we found is that larger species and species at high trophic [food chain] levels will be more adversely affected," he told Live Science.

So animals with lower positions in the food chain, such as insects or rodents, may fare better in a warming world.

Related: What would happen to Earth if humans went extinct?

Adaptable animals

Larger species tend to reproduce more slowly, and that's another clue researchers have connected to climate vulnerability.

Another recent study, published in the journal Global Change Biology, looked at 461 animal species across six continents and analyzed the disruptive effects of historical land-use and temperature changes on their populations. "What we found in our study is that species that breed really fast are really good at exploiting new habitats — taking energy and transforming it into offspring," study lead author Gonzalo Albaladejo Robles, a conservation biologist at University College London, told Live Science. 

Faster breeding may benefit species in a changing climate because they're more adaptable to changing habitats; fast breeding cycles give these species an "opportunity to survive these peaks in environmental disruption," such as extreme weather or habitat loss, Albaladejo Robles explained. Meanwhile, slower-breeding animals showed the opposite trend in the study, and their populations declined when temperature and habitat changed.

Size is a factor that may also work against species. For instance, bigger animals might struggle more under climate change because they typically need larger stretches of uninterrupted habitat, as well as more food, which is easily threatened by habitat loss and the landscape and resource impacts of climate change, Albaladejo Robles said. 

"If you're an elephant, it's more likely that you're going to be sensitive to severe droughts, and also deforestation, than other smaller species that need less resources," Albaladejo Robles said. "Generally speaking, small species are going to be more likely to survive human-change interactions, like climate change and land use change." 

Species with more niche diets, such as pandas and koalas, may be at increased risk under environmental change, too. By contrast, the broad diets of generalist feeders, such as crows and raccoons, give them a wide range of foods to fall back on if one food source disappears. 

The ability to migrate and adapt to different habitats could also insure animals against an uncertain future. For instance, many creatures that can survive only at frozen latitudes or in coral reefs, which will dwindle under continued warming, face greater risks. Research has also unearthed evidence that animals such as parrots, bats and shrews are "shape-shifting" over generations, developing bigger beaks, wings and tails to help them cool down more effectively in warmer climates, and possibly making them more adaptable.

All this suggests that animals that are more resilient to habitat disruption and temperature changes are most likely to thrive in a warmer world. For clues to which species that future might include, just look to the unfussy, generalist, fast-breeding species that occupy the most disrupted habitats on our planet: cities. Those include cockroaches, mice, rats, crows, pigeons, some raptors, monkeys and raccoons. 

Related: Could climate change make humans go extinct?

And that's assuming we don't end up with catastrophic levels of heat that stretch beyond the thermal limits of those species. If that scenario were to unfold, we'd be looking at a world populated by extremophiles like tardigrades, also known as water bears. These tiny creatures can go into a state of hibernation that almost completely shuts down their metabolism, enabling some tardigrade species to weather extreme cold of minus 320 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 196 degrees Celsius), and heat of up to 300 degrees Fahrenheit (150 degrees Celsius).

And yet, even their seemingly indestructible bodies have limits, according to some of Strona's previous research. This study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, simulated how tardigrades would fare under extreme cold and warming based on their temperature-tolerance levels alone. The research confirmed that the tardigrades could withstand incredible extremes. But when the researchers factored in the other species interactions that make up the ecosystems on which they depend, tardigrade populations plummeted under projected extreme warming that would decimate these other animals.

"Tardigrades are super resistant by themselves, but they need the other species to survive," Strona said.

That is the flaw in the idea of "survivor species," he said, because it misses the need for whole ecosystems and their web of complex species interactions to sustain life on Earth, as the Science Advances research showed.

Instead of resting our hopes on some resilient species to survive under climate change, we need to protect whole ecosystems. That means slowing warming by curtailing fossil fuel consumption, limiting habitat destruction and reducing other human impacts on wildlife, experts say. 

Projections can help by shining a spotlight on the most vulnerable animals that need our immediate attention. Even better, paired with the likes of recent research that identifies projected habitat refuges for climate-threatened animals, we can proactively protect whole ecosystems that keep species interconnected. 

There may be short-term "winners" under projected climate change. "But what matters, I think, is the net balance," Strona said. "My perception is that there will be much more losers than winners" — and ultimately, those losers could include us, he said.

As the world's tectonic plates crash, grind and dive into one another, they release their pent-up energy in giant earthquakes that can rock the ground, trigger volcanic eruptions, move mountains and unleash tsunamis.

And since scientists figured out how to measure earthquake magnitude in the early 1900s, some truly massive quakes have shaken our planet. These are the monstrous "megathrust" earthquakes, the most powerful quakes in the world. A huge fraction of these earthquakes occurred in a handful of subduction zones along the seismically restless "Ring of Fire" in the Pacific, where tectonic plates dive beneath one another.

From the devastating Sumatran quake and tsunami of 2004 to a monstrous temblor in Siberia that, thankfully, killed no one, here are the 20 largest earthquakes ever recorded, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

21. Sanriku-Oki, Japan; 1933; magnitude 8.4

A magnitude 8.4 quake struck near the Sanriku region of Japan on March 2, 1933, according to the USGS. The quake occurred about 180 miles (290 kilometers) offshore of Honshu, Japan.

Most of the deaths resulted from the tsunami the quake generated, which swept away 3,000 homes and destroyed 2,000 others and generated nearly 100-foot (29 meters) waves in Honshu, Japan.

Several decades later, a magnitude 9.0 temblor would rock the same general region, causing the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami of 2011.

This area is part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, a nearly 25,000-mile-long (40,000 km) horseshoe-shaped belt that is known for both earthquakes and volcanic activity. The ring fringes the boundaries of the Pacific Plate wherever it smashes into its neighboring plates; in the region around Tōhoku, the Pacific Plate is colliding with the North American Plate.

20. Arequipa, Peru; 2001; magnitude 8.4

A magnitude 8.4 earthquake struck 4 miles (6 km) from the coastal town of Atico, Peru, on June 23, 2001. At least 74 people were killed; more than a third of them were swept away by the resulting tsunami. More than 2,600 people were injured, and over 50,000 homes were damaged by the strong ground shaking.

The quake occurred at the boundary of the Nazca and South American plates, where the Nazca Plate is moving northeast at about 3 inches (78 millimeters) per year, smashing into and diving beneath the South American Plate, according to the USGS. Ground shaking as a result of the seismic activity was felt as far away as La Paz, Bolivia.

19. South of Sumatra, 2007, magnitude 8.4

On April 12, 2007, a magnitude 8.4 earthquake struck approximately 76 miles (122 km) offshore of Bengkulu, Indonesia, on the island of Sumatra. The giant quake occurred due to thrust faulting on the boundary between the Sunda and Australian plates.

Around 25 people died, and more than 161 were injured. More than 20,000 buildings were damaged in the cities of Bengkulu and Sumatera Barat, according to the USGS.

The quake marked the fourth magnitude 7.9 or greater temblor to strike the general region that decade; the area was still actively remodeling itself after the monster quake that struck just after Christmas Day in 2004 (see #3).

18. Near Kamchatka Peninsula, 1923, magnitude 8.4

Relatively little is known about the magnitude 8.4 quake that struck off the east coast of Kamchatka, Russia, on Feb. 3, 1923. The sparsely populated area of the Russian Far East sits near the Kuril-Kamchatka Trench, where the Pacific Plate is diving beneath the Okhotsk Plate, a teensy plate that was once thought to be part of the North American Plate.

No reported injuries or deaths occurred, but the quake triggered a modest tsunami, according to the USGS.

17. Kuril Islands, Russia; 1963; magnitude 8.5

Relatively little is known about the quakes that struck the remote Kuril Islands on Oct. 13, 1963. This volcanic archipelago stretches between Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula and Hokkaido, Japan.

No deaths, damage or injuries were reported as a result of this temblor, but it triggered a tsunami that reached the northern Pacific Ocean.

16. Atacama, Chile; 1922; magnitude 8.5

On Nov. 11, 1922, a massive magnitude 8.5 quake struck the Atacama Desert on the border of Argentina and Chile. Even though the epicenter of the earthquake was beneath land, the shaking was so strong that it triggered a tsunami that killed hundreds of people, according to news reports at the time.

15. Banda Sea, Indonesia; 1938; magnitude 8.5

On Feb. 1, 1938, a magnitude 8.5 quake rocked the seafloor about 88 miles (141 km) northwest of Tual, Indonesia. Despite the strength of this temblor, the damage was fairly minor.

Residents of the Banda and Kai islands felt the tremors, while in the city of Tual, glassware broke and a pendulum stopped.

14. Unimak Island, Alaska; 1946; magnitude 8.6

A magnitude 8.6 quake struck Unimak Island on April 1, 1946. Despite its large size, the quake did not destroy any buildings. However, it triggered a 115-foot-high (35 m) tsunami that swept away a lighthouse, along with its five occupants, according to the USGS.

When the tsunami reached Hilo, on the Big Island of Hawaii, it swept away 159 people and caused $26 million in property damage.

Unimak Island is one of the Aleutian Islands, which sit on the restive Ring of Fire, just like many of the other regions struck by large quakes on this list.

13. Andreanof Islands, Alaska; 1957; magnitude 8.6

The quake that struck off of the Andreanof Islands, part of the Aleutian Islands, on March 9, 1957, registered a magnitude 8.6. The quake occurred about 53 miles (86 km) southeast of Adak, Alaska, a tiny village of a few hundred people and the state's southernmost town.

No one was killed, but the quake destroyed two bridges, created a meters-long crack in one road in Adak and damaged houses.

The quake also generated a 49-foot-high (15 m) tsunami that slammed into the nearby Scotch Cap lighthouse, as well as a 26-foot-high (8 m) tsunami that washed away oil lines in Sand Bay. The tsunami then traveled to Hawaii, where it destroyed two villages, and to San Diego, where it also damaged some property.

12. Northern Sumatra, Indonesia; 2005; magnitude 8.6

The area around Sumatra is a seismically active one, with the Indonesian island sitting astride the volcanically active Pacific Ring of Fire.

That seismically unsettled region, where the Australian Plate and Sunda Plate meet, unleashed a massive amount of energy on March 28, 2005, when a magnitude 8.6 quake struck 48 miles (78 km) west of Singkil, at a depth of 18 miles (30 km). More than 1,300 people were killed, another 340 were injured and hundreds of buildings were destroyed, mostly on the island of Nias. The quake was felt as far away as India and Sri Lanka.

The earthquake occurred because the Australian Plate is moving to the northeast at a rate of 2 inches (50 millimeters) per year and is diving into the mantle at the Sunda Trench. According to the USGS, the massive quake was unleashed in the aftermath of the massive Indian Ocean earthquake of 2004 as the faults in the region continued to adjust to that seismic shift.

11. Off the west coast of northern Sumatra, 2012, magnitude 8.6

On April 11, 2012, a magnitude 8.6 temblor struck off the coast of northern Sumatra. Because it struck a few hundred miles off the coast, it was felt as strong shaking in only a few population centers, such as Banda Aceh and Meulaboh, Indonesia. It caused only light structural damage in those metropolitan regions, according to the USGS. Light shaking could be felt as far away as Mumbai, India, and Broome, Australia.

Two people were killed directly by the quake, eight died of heart attacks and 12 were injured.

10. Assam-Tibet, 1950, magnitude 8.6

At least 1,500 people died across eastern Tibet and Assam, India, when this temblor shook the region on Aug. 15, 1950. Ground cracks, large landslides and sand volcanoes struck the area. The quake was felt in China's Sichuan and Yunnan provinces, and as far away as Kolkata, India.

The quake caused large landslides that blocked rivers. When the rivers finally burst through the walls of debris, waves inundated several villages and killed hundreds of people.

This quake is commonly called the Assam-Tibet earthquake or the Assam earthquake, even though the epicenter was in Tibet. The quake struck at the intersection of the most vigorous collision of continental plates on the planet, where the Indian Plate smashes into the Eurasian Plate and dives beneath it. The slow-motion crash helped create the massive Himalayas.

9. Rat Islands, Alaska; 1965; magnitude 8.7

Alaska had been a state for only six years when this huge earthquake triggered a tsunami over 30 feet (10 m) high on Feb. 4, 1965. Despite its size, the quake caused little damage due to its remote location at the tip of the Aleutian Islands. The tsunami was reported in Hawaii and spread as far as Japan.

The temblor was the result of the Pacific Plate diving beneath the North American Plate at the Alaska-Aleutian megathrust, which has been the location of many megathrust earthquakes.

The quake cracked wood buildings and split an asphalt runway. Hairline cracks also formed in the runways at the U.S. Coast Guard's Loran Station.

8. Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia; 2025; magnitude 8.8

On July 29, 2025, a magnitude 8.8 earthquake struck approximately 40 miles (60 km) from Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula, at a depth of 12.8 miles (20.7 km). The earthquake generated multiple tsunamis, with warnings issued in regions across the Pacific, including North America, South America, Japan, Russia and Pacific island nations.

The earthquake occurred when the Pacific plate rubbed against the North American plate. According to the USGS, the likely cause was a slip over a large fault area. It was the largest earthquake since 2011's magnitude 9 Tohoku earthquake in Japan.

7. Off the coast of Ecuador, 1906, magnitude 8.8

On Jan. 31, 1906, a catastrophic magnitude 8.8 earthquake hit off the coast of Ecuador and Colombia and generated a strong tsunami that killed 500 to 1,500 people. The tsunami spread along the coast of Central America, and even lapped at the shorelines in San Francisco and Japan.

The earthquake occurred along the boundary between the Nazca Plate and the South American Plate. Because it hit more than 100 years ago, reports are spotty. But according to the USGS, witnesses reported a huge rush of water in Honolulu Bay. All the steam and sailboats in the bay were turned around, and then a sudden flood tide roared inland.

6. Offshore Maule, Chile; 2010; magnitude 8.8

On Feb. 27, 2010, an earthquake and tsunami hit central Chile. At least 500 people were killed and 800,000 were displaced by the natural disaster. More than 1.8 million people were affected, and the total economic loss was estimated at $30 billion.

Like many other quakes on this list, this temblor took place along the seismically active boundary between the Nazca and South American tectonic plates, which can release bone-shatteringly strong shaking.

The quake hit just over a month after the disastrous magnitude 7.0 quake in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, which killed more than 200,000 people.

5. Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia; 1952; magnitude 9.0

The world's first recorded magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck off the east coast of Kamchatka on Nov. 4, 1952. The quake generated a 43-foot (13 m) tsunami locally. The tsunami rocked Crescent City, California.

No one died, but in Hawaii, property damage was estimated at up to $1 million ($11.12 million in today's dollars). The waves tossed boats onto the beach, caused houses to collide, destroyed piers, scoured beaches and moved road pavement.

4. Tōhoku, Japan; 2011; magnitude 9.1

On March 11, 2011, a magnitude 9.1 quake triggered a tsunami that left more than 15,700 people dead, more than 4,600 missing, over 5,300 injured and more than 130,900 displaced, according to the USGS. More than 332,000 buildings, 2,100 roads, 56 bridges and 26 railways were damaged as a result of the quake. The quake also damaged nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, leading to one of the biggest nuclear disasters in history. This earthquake was the largest ever recorded in Japan, and cost an estimated $309 billion in damage.

For weeks afterward, strong aftershocks above magnitude 6.0, and even 7.0, continued to rock the region, and the quake sent tsunami waves as far as Hawaii, California and the Galapagos Islands. Even in distant Antarctica, the quakes cracked large slabs of ice from the Sulzberger Ice Shelf, according to the USGS.

The quake was caused by thrust faulting near the Japan Trench, the boundary between the Pacific and North American plates.

3. Sumatra-Andaman Islands, 2004, magnitude 9.1

This quake was the third-largest earthquake in history and the largest since the 1964 earthquake in Prince William Sound, Alaska (see #2). In total, nearly 300,000 people were killed or presumed dead, and about 1.2 million people were displaced by the earthquake and subsequent tsunami in 10 countries in Southeast Asia and East Africa.

Extremely strong shaking was felt in Banda Aceh, but the deadliest aspect of this quake was the resulting tsunami, which caused more deaths than any other in recorded history up to that point. The tsunami was recorded nearly worldwide on tide gauges in the Indian, Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

The massive quake struck one day after Christmas along the interface of the Indian and Burma tectonic plates and was caused by the release of stress that developed as the Indian Plate dived beneath the Burma microplate. The massive fault zone, which was offshore, was as long as California, according to the USGS.

2. Prince William Sound, Alaska; 1964; magnitude 9.2

This great earthquake and ensuing tsunami took 128 lives and caused about $311 million in property loss. The earthquake damage was heavy in many towns, including Anchorage, which was about 75 miles (120 km) northwest of the epicenter. The quake, which struck on March 27, 1964, ruptured along a seismically active fault between the North American and Pacific plates. The shaking lasted about 3 minutes.

Landslides in Anchorage caused heavy damage. Huge slides occurred in the downtown business section, and water mains and gas, sewer, telephone and electrical systems were disrupted throughout the area.

1. Valdivia, Chile; 1960; magnitude 9.5

Approximately 1,655 people died in the largest earthquake ever recorded, which struck Valdivia, Chile, on May 22, 1960. Thousands more were injured, and millions were left homeless. Southern Chile suffered $550 million in damage.

The quake triggered a tsunami that killed 61 people in Hawaii, 138 in Japan and 32 in the Philippines.

The earthquake struck where the Nazca Plate dives underneath the South American Plate, on the Peru-Chile Trench.

Editor's Note: This article was originally published on 2012.

From affectionate foxes to ruby-eyed frogs and flamboyant flamingos, the shortlist of photographs selected for the Wildlife Photographer of the Year People's Choice Award display the natural world in all of its awesomeness. 

Run by the Natural History Museum, London, the People's Choice Award is open to voters worldwide, who can choose their favorite image at the contest website until Feb. 2, 2023. The winner will be showcased at the museum until the photography exhibit closes in July 2023.  

Highway hyena

A spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta) pauses in the flash of a remote camera. U.K. photographer Sam Rowley captured this photo outside the city of Harar, Ethiopia, where hyenas eat refuse left by humans, including rotting meat and bones. This hyena is the lowest-ranking member of a local group known as the Highway Clan.  

Among the flowers 

Canadian photographer Martin Gregus caught this bucolic image near Hudson Bay, where this polar bear (Ursus maritimus) cub was gamboling amid a patch of fireweed. Gregus used a remote camera placed at ground level to mimic a young bear's-eye-view of the scene.  

That’s the spot 

South African photographer Richard Flack captured this slice of guinea fowl life in Kruger National Park. As he watched a flock of crested guinea fowl (Guttera pucherani), one began to scratch the other's ear. The recipient of these attentions stood motionless with its mouth open, as if to say, "that's the spot!" 

"It's not often you get to capture emotion in the faces of birds . . . but there was no doubt — that was one satisfied guineafowl!" Flack said in a statement accompanying the image. 

Fishing for glass eels 

Eladio Fernandez of the Dominican Republic captured this otherworldly image over the course of several nights in order to highlight the plight of European eels (Anguilla anguilla). These eels migrate from coastal Europe to the Sargasso Sea in the North Atlantic to spawn, and their young — known as glass eels for their transparent appearance — are fished as a delicacy. However, the eels are critically endangered, making this unregulated fishery problematic for the species' future survival.  

A golden huddle 

China's Minqiang Lu took this photograph in the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi province, the last place on Earth where endangered golden snub-nosed monkeys (Rhinopithecus roxellana) live in the wild. Lu hiked for over an hour in 14 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 10 degrees Celsius) to capture this shot of two females and a male snuggling together for warmth.  

Caribbean crèche 

Pink flamingos are silhouetted against a sapphire sky in this shot taken at Ría Lagartos Biosphere Reserve, on the Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico. Photographer Claudio Contreras Koob, from Mexico, stayed a distance from this flamingo nursery, where babies are always guarded by alert adults.  

Wasp attack 

Roberto García-Roa of Spain focused his lens on the very small in this image of a pompilid wasp and Ctenus spider doing battle. Pompilid wasps sting spiders, paralyzing them and dragging them back to their nests to feed their young. In this image taken in Peru, the wasp has just won the battle and is preparing to drag the paralyzed spider away.  

Unlucky for the cat 

Sebastian Kennerknecht, from the U.S., took this picture of an Andean mountain cat (Leopardus jacobita), stuffed and hanging in a shed, in Abra Granada, Argentina. The endangered cat is respected in the region as a guardian of the mountains, but its body is also considered a charm for the fertility of livestock, so the cats are sometimes hunted and killed.  

The elusive golden cat 

Kennerknecht had better luck with wildcats in Uganda, where he captured this image of one of the rarest cats on Earth, an African golden cat (Caracal aurata). There are very few high-resolution images of African golden cats in the wild; Kennerknecht captured this shot through sheer persistence. After fleeing the area to avoid a charging forest elephant, he and a biologist friend returned to set up a camera trap. The effort paid off.  

The frog with the ruby-eyes 

What ruby eyes you have! Spanish photographer Jaime Culebras captured this image of a female Mindo glass frog (Nymphargus balionotus) in the Río Manduriacu Reserve in the foothills of the Ecuadorian Andes. The frog sat calmly as Culebras set up his equipment to the soundtrack of male glass frog calls.  

Caught by the cat 

Using a trail cam, Polish photographer Michał Michlewicz tracked a steady stream of activity into this abandoned barn in the village of Radolinek, Poland: a badger, a martin, a fox and lots of cats. This domestic cat had caught and killed a chaffinch. 

Head to head 

Spanish photographer Miquel Angel Artús Illana had been following five musk oxen (Ovibos moschatus) — a male, a female and three calves — through Dovrefjell-Sunndalsfjella National Park in Norway when the little family came across another little herd. Illana expected the males to stand off, but the weaker of the two backed down quickly. However, to the photographer's surprise, the two females engaged in a brief but fierce scuffle, caught on camera here.

 Covid litter 

A young perch ended up tragically trapped by a discarded surgical glove in a canal in The Netherlands. This incident triggered a scientific study on the impact of COVID-19-related trash on wildlife.

Life and art

Spanish photographer Eduardo Blanco Mendizabal planned ahead for this shot of a graffito cat and a real gecko. Knowing that the decorated wall in his hometown of Corella was a common place to see geckos, Mendizabal came out with a camera to wait for the perfect shot. When a gecko perched above the cat's nose, he got it.  

Red and yellow

This gorgeous shot of a gull was taken on the Japanese island of Hokkaido by French photographer Chloé Bès, who braved the cold to capture the minimalist shot. 

Holding on

Nature's harsh side is highlighted in this photograph of a female leopard (Panthera pardus) that had just killed a mother baboon in Zambia's South Luangwa National Park. The baboon baby clung to its mother as the leopardess walked back to her own baby. The leopard cub then played with the baboon infant for an hour before killing it — a brutal hunting lesson for the young cat.  

Heads or tails? 

American photographer Jodi Frediani was offered a spot near the bow of a boat in Monterey Bay, California by a friendly stranger and captured this image of three northern right whale dolphins (Lissodelphis borealis). The dolphins were frolicking in the boat’s bow wave on an unusually calm day at sea.  

Portrait of Olobor 

This lion (Panthera leo), named Olobor is one of five in the Black Rock pride of Kenya's Maasai Mara National Reserve. Spanish photographer Marina Cano lowered her camera out of her vehicle to capture this regal shot of Olobor against a black background — the land had recently been burned by local Maasai herdsman to stimulate new growth. 

Coastline wolf

A female gray wolf (Canis lupus) trots along the shoreline of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. British photographer Bertie Gregory was in a dinghy searching for black bears when he spotted this lone female. Gregory set up a remote camera ahead of the wolf's path and then got out of the way, triggering this shot when the wolf walked by.  

Night encounter

Photographer Sami Vartianinen, from Finland, spent a magical 45 minutes watching this badger (Meles meles) trundle about in a forest near Helsinki. As Vartiainen waited quietly about 23 feet (7 meters) away, the badger scratched, sniffed, rested on the ground and finally headed off into the night to find food.  

Snowshoe hare stare 

Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado was quiet the day that photographer Deena Sveinsson, from the U.S., went on a snowy hike and captured this image of a camouflaged snowshoe hare (Lepus americanus). Sveinsson was hiking home when she saw the hare crouched against the snow.  

Fox affection

Two foxes (Vulpes vulpes) nuzzle each other affectionately on Prince Edward Island, Canada. Photographer Brittany Crossman reported that this was the tenderest moment she'd ever witnessed between adult foxes.  

A tight grip 

A male Bargibant's seahorse (Hippocampus bargibanti) looks more like a video game character than a living animal in this shot by photographer Nicholas More. More captured the image off the coast of Bali. The seahorse, which measures only about 0.8 inch (2 centimeters) long, was gestating young, which hatch as tiny versions of their parents after two weeks.  

World of the snow leopard 

A snow leopard is framed against the stunning mountains of northern India in this image, which was captured by a remote camera set by German photographer Sascha Fonseca. Fonseca ran a three-year project setting up bait-free camera traps in the Indian Himalayas in the region of Ladakh. There are likely fewer than 10,000 snow leopards (Panthera uncia) left in the wild, and these elusive cats are a rare sight, given their cold, high-elevation habitat.  

 A fox's tale 

The sad story of this fox in Bristol, England, highlights the impact that humans can have on wild animals. This young fox sustained an injury after getting tangled in construction netting. Sympathetic humans put out food for the animal, which was struggling to hunt, including the chicken leg seen in this image. After five months, she was captured, treated for her wounds and released back into the wild. But just six months after that, she was hit by a car and killed.  

Let your view linger on this incredible binocular deal for Prime Day, but don't stay too long before it leaves the sale bin.

The already pocketbook-friendly Bushnell PowerView 2 10x25 binocular is on sale right now at Walmart for $34.99. At 52% off its usual affordable price, the Powerview 2 is part of a line we reviewed as powerful despite being inexpensive.

If you'd like this binocular for $5 cheaper without the accessories, go to Amazon for a $29 price point, on sale for 25% off the usual.

Making the price more incredible, the binocular comes as a bundle with a tactical flashlight, tactical pen set, a waterproof case primed to survive shocks, and a microfiber cleaning cloth.

What we love about the entire binocular line is not only the magnification and aperture, but also its sturdy construction. It's not too heavy and should pack easily for you to head into the field for birdwatching or for skygazing. 

A caveat that this set is not waterproof, and its optics are little less than more expensive brands, but for the price of a restaurant meal it's incredible value.

For that reason, you probably will want to consider this binocular for your children, so we've also included here our round-up of the best binoculars for kids and best telescopes for kids, which contain plenty of further suggestions.

Price is certainly a huge consideration these days for budget-friendly options, which is why we think this binocular will be very helpful for folks counting their coins. It provides an affordable way to get into astronomy, which tends to be bound by intimidatingly expensive options. 

But do make sure to make the right choice for stargazing binoculars or nature binoculars when considering this pair. Often we recommend wide field views to get more context of a region, while zooming in requires higher magnification. 

The Bushnell PowerView 2 10x25 binocular may require one of our best travel tripods to stay steady for long periods of time, as it prioritizes zooming over context, although we do like how lightweight it is. This means your arms shouldn't get too tired, but it's good to be prepared for long sessions so you don't startle the wildlife.

Happily there is a huge range of options in this same brand: it's available as 10x50, 10x25, 10x42, 12x50, 16x32 and a mighty 20x50. You should check out this page to get the full range of Bushnell deals, but if you'd like to take a quick scout around we have some other brands you can consider. 

Popular entries for discount binoculars are also available at our Celestron binocular and telescope deals, or you can get the whole range at our binocular deals page.

Be sure to check out Space.com's Amazon Prime Day guide, or our guide to the best binoculars.

Fix your gaze on incredible binocular deals with two gate-crashers from Celestron, one of our top-rated brands for nature and astronomy.

The Celestron Nature DX 10x42 binocular is on sale right now at Amazon for $129.72, an incredible 28% less than usual. If you want a smaller set, Celestron's Nature DX 8x42 binocular is on sale right now at Amazon for $133.18, which is 22% off the normal listing price.

The Nature DX line is one of the best binocular sets rated at our sister website Space.com. We're huge fans of the powerful magnification available, along with the waterproof construction and the reasonable eye relief (at least, for those folks without eyeglasses.)

Both of these deals are the deepest discounts we've seen this season and as such, you are going to want to act quickly if you want to look at birds, animals or objects in the night sky with more ease on your pocketbook. 

While you're looking around for discount options, Space.com has a roundup of the Amazon Prime Day deals on binoculars, which will make comparison shopping easier for you. The best binoculars for 2022 includes top picks for stargazing, wildlife and more. Let's next take a deeper dive into the Celestron features below to help with your buying choice.

Making the right choice for stargazing binoculars or nature binoculars comes down to many factors, high among them personal choice. Wide field views will show you more of the area that you want to be looking at, which is great if you want to get context. If you prefer zooming in, however, strong magnification will let you pick out stars within galaxies, or the colors on a nearby bird.

The Celestron Nature DX 10x42 binoculars play to the magnification side of things. If you want to see stuff in high definition, this is where you'll want to invest your money. You probably will want to buy one of our best travel tripods to keep your gaze steady, or to lean against a railing or balcony to avoid your arms getting tired.

The 10x42 set has fully multi-coated lenses to let in as many colors as possible, which is good if you're trying to see the difference between two birds, or to tell a couple of stars apart. Waterproof body will help with looking at nature in the rain, or inevitable dewy conditions while stargazing. 

If you prefer to get the context, go for the Celestron Nature DX 8x42 binocular set.  It's rather similar to the 10x42 with multi-coated lenses and that waterproof body, but the benefit of this set is it's easier to hold for long periods of time and likely will not require the tripod for some conditions. The 8x42 set (like its larger counterpart) also comes with a compact carrying case and objective lens caps to protect it in between, so really it's a matter of how much you can safely carry and store.

Celestron is one of our top brands and you can look at the full range of the sales here at our Celestron binocular and telescope deal page. More telescopes and cameras, for you astrophotography and nature-capturing fans, are available on the Amazon Prime Day deals hub. Happy observing!

Be sure to check out Space.com's Amazon Prime Day guide, or our guide to the best binoculars.

Long portrayed in pop culture as scary beasts, real sharks are no Hollywood monsters. Sharks are a diverse group of mostly predatory fish. They do not have bones; their skeletons are made of a tissue called cartilage. Sharks traveled the seas long before the dinosaurs roamed Earth, and they play vital roles in the ecosystem. These marine creatures face far more dangers from humans than surfers or swimmers do from them.

5 fast facts about sharks

• The largest known great white shark was 20 feet (6 meters) long.
• Sharks sleep, but they may keep their eyes open while they do it.
• Sharks can learn to solve puzzles by watching other sharks.
• Different shark species swallow their food whole, tear it apart with razor-sharp teeth, or grind it down with flat chompers.
• You're more likely to be killed by lightning than by a shark.

Everything you need to know about sharks

Shark pictures

Further reading

Watch director Eli Roth's "Fin" documentary on Discovery+. See the low risk of shark attacks put in terms of other rare risks, like getting struck by lightning, from the Florida Museum. Follow great white shark activity online with the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy Sharktivity app. Learn how shark teeth were mistaken for dragon tongues in the Middle Ages, along with other odd shark facts, from Smithsonian Magazine.

Discover more about sharks

—Sharks are older than the dinosaurs. What's the secret to their success?

—Angular roughshark: The pig-faced shark that grunts when captured

—Stupendous sharks: The largest, smallest and strangest sharks in the world

Shark quiz

Forest bathing, or shinrin-yoku in Japanese, means to soak in the forest through all of your senses. In practice, forest bathing can be a slow, mindful walk in nature, where you pay close attention to your surroundings using your senses (e.g. sight, smell, hearing, touch). There is no destination or goal, other than to notice and appreciate your surroundings. 

Forest bathing, which originated in Japan in the 1980s, can be practiced alone. However, it is often helpful to try the first few times with a guide who can suggest new ways of enhancing your senses and prompt you to notice your surroundings.

Related: What is mental health? 

What does forest bathing look like?

Forest bathing involves using your senses to notice your surroundings. For example, this may include noticing the different colors and patterns of leaves; noticing movement in the tree canopy or on the surface of water; viewing a natural scene or finding a "sit spot" from which to observe nature; smelling fallen leaves and soil; listening to the sound of the wind through the trees, running water or bird song; or noticing textures by touching bark, leaves and moss. 

Although most of the walk is conducted in silence so that you can pay full attention to your surroundings, a guide can offer opportunities to share the interesting things you notice. Other people’s observations can also inspire you to look for new things, such as the fallen leaf that smelled like cinnamon, for instance. 

Often the guide ends the session by inviting people to spend time with a preferred tree or a view or by leading a mindfulness activity that involves noticing your surroundings through all the senses in turn. (Broadly speaking, "mindfulness" refers to the act of bringing your attention to what you're doing in the present moment.)

Some guides end the session by offering a foraged tea to experience the sense of taste in the forest.

How is forest bathing different from a typical walk in nature?

Even for those who already love the outdoors, forest bathing often differs dramatically from their usual experience of being in nature. 

On a typical nature walk, you might be moving quickly to cover distance, chatting with a friend, walking the dog, listening to music, checking your phone or simply being distracted by your thoughts. In contrast, in a guided forest bathing session, the guide plans a route that provides opportunities to notice nature using all the senses, sets a slower pace and provides prompts to keep you in your senses rather than inside your busy head. The guide will suggest different ways to enhance our senses to help you notice the small details of your surroundings that you would normally miss on a typical walk.

Origins of forest bathing

Forest bathing originated in Japan, where the practice is called shinrin-yoku. The translation into English is "forest bathing," and a bit like the term "sun bathing," the idea is that you "bathe" in the atmosphere of the forest by noticing your surroundings and breathing in the oxygen and wood oils let off by the trees. 

Japan has a long cultural history of valuing nature through Shintoism, a religion that centers around the idea that divine spirits or "kami" are manifested in everything in nature, taking the form of the trees, rocks, mountains, sea and animals, according to the Asia Society. 

In the 1980s, when the Japanese government realized they had a problem with stressed workers who were experiencing too much screen-time — or "techno-stress" — the government invested in forest bathing as a solution, protecting woodland and establishing 62 forest bathing clinics. Forest bathing became available on prescription, so when patients visit their doctor because of stress or high blood pressure, they may be given the option to take medication or try forest bathing, according to "Shinrin Yoku: The Japanese Art of Forest Bathing" (Li, 2018). 

Benefits of forest bathing

Since 2004, the Japanese government has invested $4.3 million in 62 clinics offering forest bathing as a public health treatment, according to "Shinrin Yoku: The Japanese Art of Forest Bathing." The science about the benefits of forest bathing came later with Japanese researchers such as Qing Li and Yoshifumi Miyazaki leading the way in proving what people intuitively knew: that spending time in nature is good for you. 

So far, research has shown that forest bathing can improve several aspects of a person's health. For example, research published in February 2021 in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health showed a decrease in systolic blood pressure after 12 healthy volunteers practiced forest bathing for a two-hour stint. In a research article published in October 2018 in the journal Frontiers in Public Health, scientists showed improvements in heart rate variability — a measure of cardiovascular health — in 485 male participants while walking in a forest for just 15 minutes.  

Research published in February 2018 in the journal Biomedical and Environmental Sciences, found reduced biomarkers of chronic heart failure, inflammation and oxidative stress in elderly chronic heart failure patients after they participated in two four-day forest bathing trips. Researchers also found that a five-day forest trip improved immune system health, as indicated by an increase in natural killer cells, which are part of the body's defence against cancer, they reported in March 2018 in the journal Oncotarget. 

Research has also found that forest bathing offers psychological benefits. In a review of 20 research studies published  July 2022 in the International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, researchers found consistent improvements in mood, especially anxiety, following forest bathing sessions. In January 2021 researchers published an article in the journal Sustainability, revealing reductions in anxiety and rumination about problems, and increases in social connection and prosocial values such as feeling compassion for others in 61 volunteers, after two hours of forest bathing. 

How does it work and what's the dose?

In researcher Li’s book "Shinrin-Yoku: The Art and Science of Forest Bathing," he describes how 50% of the benefit of forest bathing comes from breathing in the essential oils given out by evergreen trees. His research suggests that forest bathing for two hours daily and breathing in the wood oils, known as phytoncides, is linked to an increase in the number and activity of natural killer cells in the body. This research led to guidance about the correct "dose" of forest bathing: at least two hours every month. 

(Different tree species produce different phytoncides, and more research is needed to understand whether trees native to different regions of the world offer specific benefits, according to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.)

Research published in the journal Scientific Reports in 2019 found that spending two hours in nature per week produces the greatest noticeable improvements in well-being, measured as a change in self-reported health and well-being. However, don’t worry if you can’t spend two hours in one go forest bathing, because the same study found that shorter visits to nature — as short as 20 minutes per day adding up to two hours per week — were still really beneficial to a person's health and well-being.

According to research published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health in 2021, levels of the stress hormone cortisol typically decrease in people's blood after just 15 minutes of forest bathing. And there are many forest bathing guides who notice it takes about 20 minutes for people to slow down, relax and connect with their surroundings during a session, so give yourself at least 20 minutes each day to connect with nature in your garden, local park, forest or any other type of natural environment that appeals to you.

Where can I find forest bathing guides near me?

Forest bathing guides can offer in-person forest bathing walks or if you are currently experiencing low energy or limited mobility, some guides offer online forest bathing experiences.

You can find a trained guide near you by using the certified guide maps on the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy website and Forest Therapy Hub website.

For forest bathing in New York City, check out the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx. 

For forest bathing across Washington DC, perhaps try a guided walk with naturalist and author Melanie Choukas-Bradley. 

You can also search MeetUp.com or EventBrite.com to find guides near you.

For those with low energy or limited mobility there are online forest bathing sessions.

If you’d rather try forest bathing on your own, there are audio and visual guides to get you started.

Bibliography

Jones, R., Tarter, R., Ross, A.M. (2021). Greenspace Interventions, Stress and Cortisol: A Scoping Review. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(6):2802. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18062802

Kobayashi, H., Song, C., Ikei, H., Park, B-J., Lee, J., Kagawa, T., Miyazaki (2018). Forest Walking Affects Autonomic Nervous Activity: A Population-Based Study. Frontiers in Public Health, 6, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2018.00278 

Kotera, Y., Richardson, M. & Sheffield, D. (2022). Effects of Shinrin-Yoku (Forest Bathing) and Nature Therapy on Mental Health: a Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 20, 337–361. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-020-00363-4

Li, Q. (2018).  Shinrin-Yoku: The Art and Science of Forest Bathing’. Penguin Life. (ISBN13: 9780241346952)

Mao, G.X., Cao, Y.B., Yang, Y., Chen, Z.M., Dong, J.H., Chen, S.S., Wu, Q., Lyu, X.L., Jia, B.B. Yan, J., Wang, G.F. (2018). Additive Benefits of Twice Forest Bathing Trips in Elderly Patients with Chronic Heart Failure, Biomedical and Environmental Sciences, 31,2, 159-162. https://doi.org/10.3967/bes2018.020

McEwan, K., Giles, D., Clarke, F.J., Kotera, Y., Evans, G., Terebenina, O., Minou, L., Teeling, C., Basran, J., Wood, W., Weil, D. (2021). A Pragmatic Controlled Trial of Forest Bathing Compared with Compassionate Mind Training in the UK: Impacts on Self-Reported Wellbeing and Heart Rate Variability. Sustainability. 13(3):1380. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13031380

Miyazaki, H. (2018). Shinrin-yoku: the Japanese way of forest bathing for health and relaxation. Aster. (ISBN13: 1912023512) 

NYS Dept. of Environmental Conservation. (n.d.). Immerse yourself in a forest for Better Health. Immerse Yourself in a Forest for Better Health . Retrieved June 24, 2022, from https://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/90720.html 

Peterfalvi, A., Meggyes, M., Makszin, L., Farkas, N., Miko, E., Miseta, A., Szereday, L. (2021). Forest Bathing Always Makes Sense: Blood Pressure-Lowering and Immune System-Balancing Effects in Late Spring and Winter in Central Europe. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(4):2067. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18042067 

Tsao, T., Tsai, M., Hwang, J., Cheng, W., Wu, C., Chou, C., Su, T. (2018). Health effects of a forest environment on natural killer cells in humans: an observational pilot study. Oncotarget, 9, 16501-16511. https://doi.org/10.18632/oncotarget.24741

White, M.P., Alcock, I., Grellier, J., Wheeler, B.W., Hartig, T., Warber, S.L., Bone, A., Depledge, M.H., Fleming, L.E. (2019). Spending at least 120 minutes a week in nature is associated with good health and wellbeing. Science Reports, 9, 7730. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-44097-3 

This article is for informational purposes only, and is not meant to offer medical advice.

Originally published on Live Science.   

In biology, symmetry is typically the rule rather than the exception. Our bodies have left and right halves, starfish radiate from a central point and even trees, though not largely symmetrical, still produce symmetrical flowers. In fact, asymmetry in biology seems quite rare by comparison.

Does this mean that evolution has a preference for symmetry? In a new study, an international group of researchers, led by Iain Johnston, a professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Bergen in Norway, says it does. 

Although symmetrical structures represent only a small fraction of possible forms — in geometry, at least — symmetry pops up everywhere in living organisms. It's not just a body-plan phenomenon, either. Proteins, the molecular machinery within a body, are largely symmetrical as well, often being composed of a series of repeating, modular parts. Repeating structures are often seen in animals, too; think of centipedes, with their repeating body segments. The reason for this apparent "preference" is not driven by aesthetics. Instead, according to the researchers, it comes down to simplicity. 

"It can be tempting to assume that symmetry and modularity arise from natural selection," Johnston and his co-authors wrote in the new study. Natural selection can cause beneficial traits to become more common because those traits help survival. However, natural selection can only make a beneficial trait more common or do away with a harmful one; it can't force brand-new ones to appear. 

Instead, it can only reinforce the effects of mutations that occur randomly. For example, moths with dark-colored wings might be harder for birds to see than moths with light-colored wings. Predators might therefore be more likely to overlook dark-winged moths, enabling more of those insects to survive, reproduce, and pass that trait along to their offspring. But this doesn’t force black wings into existence; a gene has to mutate in order for that to happen. And if a mutation provides an advantage, it’s more likely to be perpetuated among a population for generations, until it becomes a common trait for the species.

Related: Genes of 500-million-year-old sea monsters live inside us

In the same way, natural selection might only seem to favor symmetry because it is mostly given symmetrical forms to work with. The most likely explanation for why proteins and bodies are symmetrical is not because symmetry gives a survival advantage, but because more symmetrical, repeating forms appear in the first place.

So what makes that happen? Symmetrical forms have likely evolved more frequently and then persisted over evolutionary time because they often require less information to produce than asymmetrical forms do.

"Imagine having to tell a friend how to tile a floor using as few words as possible," Johnston said in a statement. "You wouldn't say, 'Put diamonds here, long rectangles here, wide rectangles here.' You'd say something like, 'Put square tiles everywhere.' And that simple, easy recipe gives a highly symmetric outcome."

Johnston and his colleagues tested this simplicity hypothesis by using computational modeling. By running a simulation of protein evolution, the researchers found that random mutations are much more likely to produce simple genetic sequences than complex ones. If those simple structures are good enough to do their jobs, natural selection can then take over and make use of those structures. In the researchers' simulations, as well as in life, high-symmetry structures with low complexity far outnumbered complex structures with low symmetry.

The study puts a new spin on the so-called infinite monkey theorem, an old thought experiment in the field of evolutionary biology. If, as the theorem predicts, a monkey types randomly for an infinite amount of time, it will eventually produce the complete works of Shakespeare (or perhaps the script for "Die Hard"). Essentially, random mutations in DNA are like typing monkeys. Given enough time (and enough monkeys), it is a certainty that some pretty ingenious mutations will appear. 

But by the time a hypothetical monkey produces Shakespeare’s entire catalog of work, the industrious creature will have likely already typed a large number of short poems. Similarly, if biology is entirely reliant on genetic instructions generated at random (much like the work of a randomly typing monkey), it is going to generate a very large number of simple instructions, because those will appear much more frequently than complex directions do. As far as natural selection is concerned, complexity is unnecessary when a simple solution is available, study authors concluded.

So, the next time you stop to admire a flower’s radial symmetry, you can also admire the efficiency of the shorter, simpler gene sequences that encoded for that trait. 

This study was published March 11 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Originally published on Live Science.

Every year, some of the deadliest natural disasters — earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, tsunamis, floods, wildfires and droughts — kill nearly 60,000 people, according to Global Change Data Lab. 

Violent natural disasters have been a fact of human life since the beginning of humankind, but the death counts of the most ancient of these disasters are lost to history. The ancient Mediterranean island of Thera (now Santorini, Greece), for example, experienced a catastrophic volcanic eruption that eradicated the entire Minoan civilization around 1600 B.C., according to a 2020 study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences. But exactly how many lives were lost? We'll never know.

However, thanks to historical records and journals, historians can at least estimate the number of fatalities linked to disasters that occurred in the common era. According to such records, the following natural disasters are some of the deadliest of all time.

The A.D. 1138 Aleppo earthquake

On Oct. 11, 1138, the ground under the Syrian city of Aleppo began to shake. The city sits on the confluence of the Arabian and African plates, making it prone to temblors, but this one was particularly violent. The magnitude of the quake is lost to time, but contemporary chroniclers reported that the city's citadel collapsed and houses crumbled across Aleppo. The resulting death toll is estimated at around 230,000, but that figure comes from the 15th century, and the historian who reported it may have conflated the Aleppo quake with one that occurred in what is now the modern-day Eurasian country of Georgia, according to a 2004 paper in the journal Annals of Geophysics. Still, this supposed death toll marks this event as one of the most deadly natural disasters of all time. 

The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami

Another deadly natural disaster was a catastrophic magnitude 9.1 earthquake that struck undersea off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, on Dec. 26, 2004. The quake created a massive tsunami that killed approximately 230,000, and displaced nearly 2 million people in 14 South Asian and East African countries. Traveling as fast as 500 mph (804 km/h), the tsunami reached land in as little as 15 to 20 minutes after the quake hit, giving residents little time to flee to higher ground. 

In some places, especially hardest-hit Indonesia, the tsunami wave reached over 100 feet (30 meters) high, according to World Vision, a humanitarian aid organization. 

Damages from the earthquake and tsunami are estimated at $10 billion dollars. This event is considered the third largest earthquake in the world since 1900, and its tsunami has killed more people than any other tsunami in recorded history, according to NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information.

The 1976 Tangshan earthquake

At 3:42 a.m. on July 28, 1976, the Chinese city of Tangshan was razed to the ground by a magnitude 7.8 earthquake, according to a report by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Tangshan, an industrial city with a population of about 1 million at the time of the disaster, suffered staggering casualties of over 240,000. While this was the official death toll, some experts suggest this number is grossly underestimated and that the loss of life was likely closer to 700,000. Reportedly, 85% of Tangshan's buildings collapsed, and trembles were felt in Beijing, China, more than 100 miles (180 km) away. It took several years before the city of Tangshan was rebuilt to its prior glory.

The A.D. 115 Antioch earthquake

The Hellenistic Greek city of Antioch, which served as a regional capital to both the Roman and Byzantine empires, sits in modern-day Turkey atop a triple tectonic junction between the African plate, the Arabian plate and the Anatolian sub-plate. On Dec. 13, A.D. 115, the tectonic system beneath the city produced an estimated magnitude 7.5 earthquake that reached an "extreme" intensity on the Mercalli intensity scale.

The earthquake resulted in approximately 260,000 deaths and destroyed Antioch, as well as five nearby cities. It also triggered a local tsunami that severely damaged Beirut, the capital of modern-day Lebanon, and the harbor of an ancient port city called Caesarea Maritima. The Roman emperor Trajan was caught in the earthquake while wintering in Antioch and became trapped under the rubble of his home, but he managed to escape with only minor injuries. 

The A.D. 526 Antioch earthquake

As with all disasters occurring millenia ago, a precise death toll for the A.D. 526 Antioch earthquake is hard to come by. Contemporary chronicler John Malalas wrote at the time that about 250,000 people died when the temblor hit the Byzantine Empire city (now Turkey and Syria) in May, 526. Malalas attributed the disaster to the wrath of God and reported that fires destroyed everything in Antioch that the earthquake did not.

According to a 2007 paper in The Medieval History Journal, the death toll was higher than it would have been at other times of the year because the city was full of tourists celebrating Ascension Day — the Christian feast that commemorates Jesus' ascension into heaven. 

The 1737 Calcutta cyclone

The 1737 Calcutta cyclone, also known as the Hooghly River cyclone, made landfall in the Ganges Delta just south of the city of Calcutta (modern-day Kolkata), in India's West Bengal state, early in the morning of Oct. 11, 1737 — although some accounts say the storm occurred on Sept. 30. The cyclone is the earliest super-cyclone on record in the North Indian Ocean, meaning it had wind speeds of at least 140 mph (225 km/h) that were sustained for 3 minutes.

The cyclone caused a storm surge up to 40 feet (13 meters) high in the Ganges and traced a 200-mile-long (320 kilometers) path of destruction. It left few buildings standing in Calcutta and sank roughly 20,000 boats in the Bay of Bengal. The storm caused 300,000 deaths according to some accounts — but researchers point out there is a discrepancy between this casualty count and the urban population of Calcutta at the time, which was less than 20,000. 

The 1920 Haiyuan earthquake

"The Haiyuan earthquake was the largest quake recorded in China in the 20th century with the highest magnitude and intensity," Deng Qidong, a geologist with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said during a seminar in 2010. 

Related: How are earthquakes measured?

The earthquake, which struck north central China's Haiyuan County on Dec. 16, 1920, also rocked the neighboring Gansu and Shaanxi Provinces. It was reportedly a 7.8 on the Richter scale, however, China today claims it was of magnitude 8.5. There are also discrepancies in the number of lives lost. The USGS reported total casualties of 200,000, but according to a 2010 study by Chinese seismologists, the death toll could have been as high as 273,400. The region's high deposits of loess soils (porous, silty sediment that's very unstable) triggered massive landslides which were responsible for over 30,000 of these deaths, according to a 2020 study published in the journal Landslides. 

The 1839 Coringa cyclone

The Coringa cyclone made landfall at the port city of Coringa on India's Bay of Bengal on Nov. 25, 1839, whipping up a storm surge of 40 feet (12 m), according to NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory Hurricane Research Division. The hurricane's wind speeds and category are not known, as is the case for many storms that took place before the 20th century. About 20,000 ships and vessels were destroyed, along with the lives of an estimated 300,000 people.

The 1881 Haiphong typhoon

Another disaster with a similar death toll as the Coring cyclone is the 1881 typhoon that hit the port city of Haiphong in northeastern Vietnam on Oct. 8. This storm is also believed to have killed an estimated 300,000 people. 

The 2010 Haiti earthquake

The catastrophic magnitude 7.0 earthquake that struck Haiti just northwest of Port-au-Prince on Jan. 12, 2010, ranks as one of the three deadliest quakes of all time.

Haiti's standing as one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere and its limited history of large earthquakes left it extremely vulnerable to damages and loss of life. As many as 3 million people were affected by the quake. Death toll estimates were all over the place; initially, the government of Haiti estimated fatalities stood at 230,000 people, but in January 2011, officials revised that figure to 316,000. A 2010 study published in the journal Medicine, Conflict and Survival put the number at around 160,000 deaths, while the USGS claimed even lower numbers — around 100,000. These disparities reflect the difficulty of counting deaths even in the modern era, not to mention the political wrangling that goes on over "official" numbers.

The 1970 Bhola cyclone

This tropical cyclone hit what is now Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) on Nov. 12-13, 1970. According to NOAA's Hurricane Research Division, the storm's strongest wind speeds measured 130 mph (205 km/h), making it the equivalent of a Category 4 major hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane scale. Ahead of its landfall, a 35-foot (10.6 m) storm surge washed over the low-lying islands bordering the Bay of Bengal, causing widespread flooding. 

The storm surge, combined with a lack of evacuation, resulted in a massive death toll estimated at 300,000 to 500,000 people. A 1971 report from the National Hurricane Center and the Pakistan Meteorological Department acknowledged the challenge of accurately estimating the death toll, especially due to the influx of seasonal workers who were in the area for the rice harvest. As of the writing of this article, the Bhola cyclone is considered the deadliest tropical cyclone on record, according to the World Meteorological Organization. And it caused an estimated $86 billion in damages.

The 1556 Shaanxi earthquake

The deadliest earthquake in history hit China's Shaanxi province on Jan. 23, 1556. Known as the "Jiajing Great Earthquake" after the emperor whose reign it occurred in, the temblor reduced a 621-square-mile (1,000 square kilometers) swath of the country to rubble, according to the Science Museums of China. An estimated 830,000 people died as their yaodong — cave homes carved into the region's loess plateaus — collapsed. The exact magnitude of the quake is lost to history, but modern-day geophysicists estimate it at around magnitude 8.

The 1887 Yellow River flood

The Yellow River (Huang He) in China was precariously situated far above most of the land around it in the late 1880s, thanks to a series of dikes built to contain the river as it flowed through the farmland of central China. Over time, these dikes had silted up, gradually lifting the river in elevation. When heavy rains swelled the river in September 1887, it spilled over these dikes into the surrounding low-lying land, inundating 5,000 square miles (12,949 square km), according to "Encyclopedia of Disasters: Environmental Catastrophes and Human Tragedies" (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2008). As a result of this flood, an estimated 900,000 to 2 million people lost their lives.

The 1931 Yangtze River floods

Excessive rainfall over central China in July and August of 1931 triggered the most deadly natural disaster in world history — the Central China floods of 1931. The Yangtze River overtopped its banks as spring snowmelt mingled with the over 24 inches (600 millimeters) of rain that fell during the month of July alone. (The Yellow River and other large waterways also reached high levels.) According to "The Nature of Disaster in China: The 1931 Yangzi River Flood" (Cambridge University Press, 2018), the flood inundated almost 70,000 square miles (180,000 square km) and turned the Yangtze into what looked like a giant lake or ocean. Contemporary government numbers put the number of dead at around 2 million, but other agencies, including NOAA, say it may have been as many as 3.7 million people.

Additional resources

For more on natural disasters check out DK's Eyewitness Books "Natural Disasters: Confront the Awesome Power of Nature from Earthquakes and Tsunamis to Hurricanes" and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention page "Natural Disasters and Severe Weather". 

Bibliography

Nicholas N. Ambraseys, “The 12th century seismic paroxysm in the Middle East: a historical perspective”, Annal of Geophysics, Volume 47, June 2004. 

Walter Kutschera, “On the enigma of dating the Minoan eruption of Santorini”, Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences, Volume 117, April 2020, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2004243117

U.S. Geological Survey, “Earthquakes with 1,000 or More Deaths 1900-2014”, February 2015.

Mischa Meier, “Natural Disasters in the Chronographia ofJohn Malalas: Reflections on their Function—An Initial Sketch”, The Medieval History Journal, Volume 10, 2007

NOAA, OAR, Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory, "175th Anniversary of the Coringa cyclone", November 2014. 

Athena Kolbe, et al, "Mortality, crime and access to basic needs before and after the Haiti earthquake: a random survey of Port-au-Prince households", Medicine, Conflict and Survival, Volume 26, December 2010, https://doi.org/10.1080/13623699.2010.535279

Angus Gynn, "Encyclopedia of Disasters: Environmental Catastrophes and Human Tragedies", Greenwood Publishing Group, December 2007. 

Chris Courtney, "The Nature of Disaster in China: The 1931 Yangzi River Flood", University of Cambridge Press, February 2018, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108278362. 

Did you know that our planet is rocketing around the sun at 67,000 mph? Or that it may once have been purple? Here are 50 facts about Earth.

1. We're the third rock from the sun

Our home, Earth, is the third planet from the sun, the fifth largest planet in our solar system, with a radius of 3,959 miles, and the only world known to support an atmosphere with free oxygen, oceans of liquid water on the surface and life. Earth is one of the four terrestrial planets, according to NASA: Like Mercury, Venus and Mars, it is rocky at the surface.

2. Earth is squashed

Earth is not a perfect sphere, but rather a geoid, which means it bulges at the equator. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), as Earth spins, gravity points toward the center of our planet (assuming for explanation's sake that Earth is a perfect sphere), and a centrifugal force pushes outward. But since this gravity-opposing force acts perpendicular to the axis of Earth, and Earth's axis is tilted, centrifugal force at the equator is not exactly opposed to gravity.

3. The planet has a waistline

Gravity pushes extra masses of water and earth into a bulge, or "spare tire" around our planet. At the equator, the circumference of the globe is 24,901 miles (40,075 kilometers), according to Space.com. Bonus fact: At the equator, you would weigh less than if standing at one of the poles.

4. Earth is on the move

You may feel like you're standing still, but you're constantly moving — fast. Depending on where you are on the globe, you could be spinning with the planet at just over 1,000 miles per hour, according to Space.com.

People on the equator move the fastest, while someone standing on the North or South pole would be perfectly still. (Imagine a basketball spinning on your finger. A random point on the ball's equator has farther to go in a single spin as a point near your finger. Thus, the point on the equator is moving faster.)

5. The planet moves around the sun

The Earth isn't just spinning: Earth orbits the sun every 365.25 days, traveling at an average speed of 18.5 miles per second. Thats 67,000 miles (107,826 km) per hour, according to the American Physical Society.

6. Earth is billions of years old

Researchers calculate the age of the Earth by dating both the oldest rocks on the planet and meteorites that have been discovered on Earth (meteorites and Earth formed at the same time, when the solar system was forming). Their findings? Scientists estimate that Earth is around 4.54 billion years old, according to the National Center for Science Education.

7. The planet is recycled

The ground you're walking on is recycled. Earth's rock cycle transforms igneous rocks to sedimentary rocks to metamorphic rocks and back again.

The cycle isn’t a perfect circle, but the basics work like this: Magma from deep in the Earth emerges and hardens into rock (that's the igneous part). Tectonic processes uplift that rock to the surface, where erosion shaves bits off. These tiny fragments get deposited and buried, and the pressure from above compacts them into sedimentary rocks such as sandstone. If sedimentary rocks get buried even deeper, they "cook" into metamorphic rocks under lots of pressure and heat, according to Dorling Kindersley.

Along the way, of course, sedimentary rocks can be re-eroded or metamorphic rocks re-uplifted. But if metamorphic rocks get caught in a subduction zone where one piece of crust is pushing under another, they may find themselves transformed back into magma.

8. Our moon quakes

Earth's moon looks rather dead and inactive. But in fact, moonquakes, or "earthquakes" on the moon, keep things just a bit shaken up. Quakes on the moon are less common and less intense than those that shake Earth. The total seismic energy released by the moon is about 80 times less than that released by Earth, according to the Encyclopedia of Physical Science and Technology.

According to the Journal of Geophysical Research, moonquakes seem to be related to tidal stresses associated with the varying distance between the Earth and moon. Moonquakes also tend to occur at great depths, about midway between the lunar surface and its center.

9. Chile had the largest earthquake

As of March 2016, the largest earthquake to shake the United States was a magnitude-9.2 temblor that struck Prince William Sound, Alaska, on Good Friday, March 28, 1964.

The world's largest earthquake was a magnitude 9.5 in Bio-Bio, Chile on May 22, 1960, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

10. The hottest spot is in Libya

The fiery award for Earth’s hottest spot goes to El Azizia, Libya, where temperature records from weather stations reveal it hit 136 degrees Fahrenheit (57.8 degrees Celsius) on Sept. 13, 1922, according to NASA Earth Observatory. There have likely been hotter locations beyond the network of weather stations.

11. The coldest place is in Antarctica

It may come as no surprise that the coldest place on Earth can be found in Antarctica, but the chill factor is somewhat unbelievable. Winter temperatures there can drop below minus 100 degrees F (minus 73 degrees C).

The lowest temperature ever recorded on Earth came from Russia's Vostok Station, where records show the air plunged to a bone-chilling minus 128.6 degrees F (minus 89.2 degrees C) on July 21,1983, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

12. Antarctica is an extreme continent

The southern continent is a place of extremes. According to the American Museum of Natural History, the Antarctic ice cap contains some 70 percent of Earth's fresh water and about 90 percent of its ice, even though it is only the fifth largest continent.

Did you know Antarctica is actually considered a desert? Inner regions get just 2 inches (50 millimeters) of precipitation a year (typically as snow, of course).

13. There are giant stalagmites

Spelunkers ahoy! The largest confirmed stalagmite in the world can be found in Cuba in the Cuevo San Martin Infierno, according to the journal Acta Carsologica. This behemoth rises 220 feet (67.2 meters) tall. (Shown here, a photo of a stalagmite in a northwest Yucatan peninsula cave.)

14. There's uneven gravity

Because our globe isn't a perfect sphere, its mass is distributed unevenly. And uneven mass means slightly uneven gravity.

One mysterious gravitational anomaly is in the Hudson Bay of Canada . This area has lower gravity than other regions, and a 2007 study finds that now-melted glaciers are to blame.

The ice that once cloaked the area during the last ice age has long since melted, but the Earth hasn't entirely snapped back from the burden. Since gravity over an area is proportional to the mass atop that region, and the glacier's imprint pushed aside some of the Earth's mass, gravity is a bit less strong in the ice sheet's imprint.

The slight deformation of the crust explains 25 percent to 45 percent of the unusually low gravity; the rest may be explained by a downward drag caused the motion of magma in Earth's mantle (the layer just beneath the crust), researchers reported in the journal Science.

15. The magnetic pole creeps

Earth has a strong magnetic field, similar to a magnet bar, due to the molten iron and nickel in its core, or that's what geophysicists are pretty certain is the cause. This flow of liquid creates electric currents, which, in turn, generate the magnetic field.

Since the early 19th century, Earth's magnetic north pole has been creeping northward by more than 600 miles (1,100 kilometers), according to NASA scientists.

The rate of movement has increased, with the pole migrating northward at about 40 miles (64 km) per year currently, compared with the 10 miles (16 km) per year estimated in the 20th century.

16. The pole flip-flops

In fact, over the past 20 million years, our planet has settled into a pattern of a pole reversal about every 200,000 to 300,000 years, according to the journal Nature. As of 2012, however, it has been more than twice that long since the last reversal.

These reversals aren't split-second flips, and instead occur over hundreds or thousands of years. During this lengthy stint, the magnetic poles start to wander away from the region around the spin poles (the axis around which our planet spins), and eventually end up switched around, according to Cornell University astronomers.

17. There's a tie for tallest mountain

The title for tallest mountain goes to either Mount Everest or Mauna Kea. The summit of Mount Everest is higher above sea level than the summit of any other mountain, extending some 29,029 feet (8,848 meters) high, according to the Indian Journal of History of Science. However, when measured from its true base to summit, Mauna Kea takes the prize, measuring a length of about 56,000 feet (17,170 m), according to the USGS.

Here are some of Mauna Kea's detailed measurements, according to the Hawaii Center for Volcanology: The highest point is 13,680 ft (4,170 m) above sea level; the flanks of Mauna Loa continue another 16,400 ft (5,000 m) below sea level to the seafloor; and the volcano's central portion has depressed the seafloor another 26,000 ft (8,000 m) in the shape of an inverted cone, reflecting the profile of the volcano above it.

18. Earth once had two moons?

Earth may once have had two moons, according to Space.com. A teensy second moon — spanning about 750 miles (1,200 km) wide — may have orbited Earth before it catastrophically slammed into the other one. This titanic clash may explain why the two sides of the surviving lunar satellite are so different from each other, said scientists in the Aug. 4, 2011, issue of the journal Nature.

19. We may still have a second moon?

Some scientists claim Earth still has two moons. According to researchers reporting in the Dec. 20, 2011, issue of the planetary science journal ICARUS, a space rock at least 3.3-feet (1-meter) wide orbits Earth at any given time. They're not always the same rock, but rather an ever-changing cast of "temporary moons," say the scientists.

Their theoretical model posits that our planet's gravity captures asteroids as they pass near us on their way around the sun; when one of these space rocks gets drawn in, it typically makes three irregularly shaped swings around Earth, staying with us for about nine months before hurtling on its way.

20. Rocks can walk

Rocks can walk on Earth, at least they do at the pancake-flat lakebed called Racetrack Playa in Death Valley. There, a perfect storm can move rocks sometimes weighing tens or hundreds of pounds. Most likely, ice-encrusted rocks get inundated by meltwater from the hills above the playa, according to NASA researchers. When everything's nice and slick, a stiff breeze kicks up and moves the rock.

21. People have climbed Everest without oxygen

On May 8, 1978, climbers Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler became the first to summit Everest without the aid of oxygen, according to the journal Respiratory Physiology and Neurobiology. Messner described his feelings upon reaching the top like this: "I am nothing more than a single narrow gasping lung, floating over the mists and summits."

22. Mid-ocean ridge is the longest mountain chain

To find the world's longest mountain range you'd have to look down, way down. It is called the mid-ocean ridge, and the underwater chain of volcanoes spans some 40,389 miles (65,000 km), according to NOAA. It rises an average of 18,000 feet (5.5 kilometers) above the bottom of the sea.

As lava erupts from the seafloor it creates more crust, adding to the mountain chain, which stretches around the globe.

23. Coral reefs are the largest living structures

Coral reefs support the most species per unit area of any of the planet's ecosystems, rivaling rain forests. And while they are made up of tiny coral polyps, together coral reefs are the largest living structures on Earth — a community of connected organisms — with some visible even from space, according to NOAA.

24. The Mariana Trench is the deepest spot

How low can you go? According to NOAA, the deepest point on the ocean floor is 36,200 feet (11,033 meters) below sea level in the Mariana Trench. The lowest point on Earth not covered by ocean is 8,382 feet (2,555) meters below sea level, but good luck walking there: That spot is in the Bentley Subglacial Trench in Antarctica, buried under lots and lots of ice.

25. The Dead Sea is the lowest point on land

The lowest point on land, however, is relatively accessible. It's the Dead Sea between Jordan, Israel and the West Bank, according to the European Space Agency (ESA). The surface of this super-salty lake is 1,400 feet (427 m) below sea level.

26. Lakes can explode

In Cameroon and on the border of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo there are three deadly lakes: Nyos, Monoun and Kivu. All three are crater lakes that sit above volcanic earth. Magma below the surface releases carbon dioxide into the lakes, resulting in a deep, carbon dioxide-rich layer right above the lakebed. That carbon dioxide can be released in an explosion, asphyxiating any passersby, according to Nature.

27. We're losing fresh water

As the climate changes, glaciers are retreating and contributing to rising sea levels. It turns out that one particular glacier range is contributing a whopping 10 percent of all the meltwater in the world. That honor belongs to the Canadian Arctic, which lost a volume equivalent to 75 percent of Lake Erie between 2004 and 2009.

28. Glaciers are melting fast

Humans leave our mark on the planet in all sorts of weird ways. For example, nuclear tests in the 1950s threw a dusting of radioactivity into the atmosphere. According to the American Geophysical Union, those radioactive particles eventually fell as rain and snow, and some of that precipitation got trapped in glaciers, where it forms a little "you are here" layer for scientists trying to date the age of glacial ice.

Some glaciers are melting so fast, however, that this half-century of history is gone.

29. Earth used to be purple

It used to be purple … well, life on early Earth may have been just as purple as it is green today, suspects Shil DasSarma, a microbial geneticist at the University of Maryland. Ancient microbes, he said, might have used a molecule other than chlorophyll to harness the sun's rays, one that gave the organisms a violet hue, he suggests.

DasSarma thinks chlorophyll appeared after another light-sensitive molecule called retinal was already present on early Earth. Retinal, today found in the plum-colored membrane of a photosynthetic microbe called halobacteria, absorbs green light and reflects back red and violet light, the combination of which appears purple. The idea may explain why even though the sun transmits most of its energy in the green part of the visible spectrum, chlorophyll absorbs mainly blue and red wavelengths.

30. The planet is electric

Thunder and lightning reveal our planet's fiercer side. A single stroke of lightning can heat the air to around 54,000 degrees Fahrenheit (30,000 degrees Celsius), according to the book Energy by Don Herweck, causing the air to expand rapidly. That ballooning air creates a shock wave and ultimately a boom, better known as thunder.

Bonus fact: Did you know there are about 6,000 lightning flashes around the Earth every minute?

31. Earth is covered in seas

The oceans cover some 70 percent of Earth's surface, according to NOAA, yet humans have only explored or mapped about 20 percent, meaning most of the planet's vast seas have never been seen.

Some 300 million years ago, there was just one continent, a massive supercontinent called Pangaea. This means there was just one giant sea, called Panthalassa.

32. The planet is filled with riches

And these vast seas are rich, holding more than 20 million tons of gold, according to Forbes. But don't grab your mining hat just yet, the metal is so dilute that each liter of seawater contains, on average, about 13 billionths of a gram of gold. Undissolved gold is also tucked away in rocks on the seafloor, and though there's no efficient way of getting at that precious metal, according to NOAA, if we could extract all of it, each person on Earth could have 9 pounds of the shiny stuff.

33. Earth is covered with cosmic dust

Every day our planet is sprinkled with fairy dust … or dust from the heavens. On a daily basis, about 100 tons of interplanetary material (mostly in the form of dust) drifts down to the Earth's surface, according to Astronomy magazine. The tiniest particles are released by comets as their ices vaporize near the sun.

34. We trek around a star

The Earth is approximately 93 million miles (150 million kilometers) from the sun, according to Space.com. At this distance, it takes about 8 minutes and 19 seconds for sunlight to reach our planet.

35. Something once collided with the moon

Many researchers think some large object crashed into Earth long ago, and the resulting debris coalesced to form our moon. It is unclear though if that colliding object was a planet, asteroid or comet, with some scientists thinking a Mars-size hypothetical world named Theia was the instigator.

36. There was once a supercontinent

The Earth's continents are thought to have collided to become supercontinents and broken apart again several times in Earth's 4.5 billion year history. The most recent supercontinent was Pangaea, which began to break apart about 200 million years ago; the landmasses that comprised Pangaea eventually wandered into the current configuration of continents.

37. Shifting rocks created mountains

While the shifting slabs of rocks called tectonic plates are unseen to us, some of their effects are monumental. Take the Himalayas, which stretch 1,800 miles (2,900 km) along the border between India and Tibet, according to NASA. This immense mountain range began to form between 40 million and 50 million years ago, when India and Eurasia, driven by plate movement, collided. The tectonic crash led to the jagged Himalayan peaks, according to USGS.

38. Kilauea is not the most active volcano

Kilauea is historically regarded as the most active volcano. But, while Hawaii's Kilauea volcano does pop its top rather frequently, it's not Earth's most active erupter. One that is more active iso the Stromboli Volcano, off the west coast of southern Italy, which has been erupting nearly continuously for over 2,000 years, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Its spectacular incandescent explosions have earned it the moniker "Lighthouse of the Mediterranean."

39. There was a super-colossal eruption

The largest volcanic eruption recorded by humans occurred in April 1815, the peak of the explosion of Mount Tambora, according to NOAA. The eruption ranked 7 (or "super-colossal") on the Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI), which goes from 1 to 8 and is somewhat akin to the magnitude scale for earthquakes.

The explosion is said to have been so loud it was heard on Sumatra Island, more than 1,200 miles (1,930 km) away, Live Science previously reported. The death toll from the eruption was estimated at 71,000 people, and clouds of heavy ash descended on many far-away islands.

40. Our coastlines are crowded

Coastlines cover about 20 percent of U.S. land area (not including Alaska), and are home to almost 40 percent of the U.S. population, according to NOAA.

41. The Pacific Ocean is the biggest basin

The Pacific Ocean is by far Earth's largest ocean basin, covering an area of about 63 million square miles (163 million square kilometers) and containing more than half of the free water on Earth, according to NOAA. It's so big that all of the world's continents could fit into the Pacific basin.

42. Trees breathe in oxygen

When we think about big life, whales and elephants come to mind. But try on this tree for size: The General Sherman giant sequoia is the largest known stem tree by volume on the planet. The trunk of the tree contains slightly more than 52,500 cubic feet (1,486.6 cubic meters) of material.

43. A huge fungus is the largest living thing

If you want to pinpoint the biggest organism on the planet, though, your best bet might be a really huge fungus. In 1992, scientists reporting in Nature revealed to the world a Armillaria, or honey mushroom, fungal organism that spans 2,200 acres in Oregon. There’s a slight chance that the offshoots of this mega-fungus aren't clones, but are simply closely related, but we’re in awe either way.

44. This bat is the world's smallest mammal

On the other end of the spectrum, there are plenty of teeny-tiny organisms on Earth, all the way down to single-cell life. But let's focus on something a little more cuddly: the Kitti's hog-nosed bat, also known as the bumblebee bat.

This vulnerable species found in southeast Asia is only about 1 inch (29-33 millimeters) long and weighs only 0.071 ounces (2 grams), putting it in the running with Etruscan shrews– which are lighter but longer– for the world's smallest mammal, according to the Guinness World Records.

45. Tokyo is the most populated city

Don't like crowds? Stay away from Tokyo. This city in Japan is the most densely populated in the world. According to the 2021 World Population Review, , 37,435,191 people live there.

46. Greenland has the most open space

Lovers of solitude might try Greenland on for size. This nation boasts the least population density of any on Earth. As of 2016, 55,847 people lived in 836,330 square miles (2,180,000 square kilometers), according to ScienceNordic. Most of the settlements in Greenland are clustered on the coast, however, so this low population density is somewhat misleading.

47. The Atacama is the driest place on Earth

The driest non-polar desert on Earth is the Atacama Desert of Chile and Peru, according to the journal Antonie van Leeuwenhoek. In the center of this desert, there are places where rain has never been recorded.

48. Roald Amundsen was first to reach the South Pole

Speaking of deserts, the first person to successfully traverse the desert of Antarctica to reach the South Pole was Norwegian Roald Amundsen, according to Royal Museums Greenwich (RMG). He and four other men used sleds pulled by dogs to make it to the Pole. Amundsen would later attribute his success to careful planning.

49. There are other Earth-like planets

There are almost surely more planets like ours. Space scientists have found evidence of Earth-like planets orbiting distant stars, including an alien planet called Kepler 22-b circling in the habitable zone of a star much like ours.

However, Earth is the only planet in the known universe that is confirmed to host life, so whether any of these planets will harbor life is an open question.

50. The skies dazzle with dancing lights

Auroras occur when charged particles from the sun are funneled toward Earth by the planet's magnetic field and collide with the upper atmosphere near the poles, according to RMG. They are more active when the sun's activity peaks during its 11-year solar weather cycle, according to Space.com.

The southern lights, also called aurora australis, are seen less often than aurora borealis, the northern lights, because few people brave Antarctica's dark, freezing winters.

Additional resources

For ten facts about the Earth in space, visit the NASA Science website. Additionally, you can hear about what rivers can tell us about Earth’s history in this TED Talk from geoscientist Liz Hajek.

Bibliography

"On the barometer as an indicator of the earth's rotation and the sun's distance". The London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science (2009). 

"Lunar Rocks".  Encyclopedia of Physical Science and Technology, Third Edition (2003). 

"Constraints on deep moonquake focal mechanisms through analyses of tidal stress". Journal of Geophysical Research E: Planets (2009). 

"Regular stalagmites: The theory behind their shape". Acta Carsologica (2008). 

"The role of the Earth's mantle in controlling the frequency of geomagnetic reversals". Nature (1999). 

"Trigonometrical Survey of India and Naming of Peak XV as Mt. Everest" Indian Journal of History of Science, 50.4 (2015). 

"How important is V̇O2max when climbing Mt. Everest (8,849 m)?". Respiratory Physiology & Neurobiology (2022). 

"Energy". Herweck, D (2009). 

"The fungus Armillaria bulbosa is among the largest and oldest living organisms". Nature (1992). 

"Introducing the Atacama Desert". Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (2018). 

The meaning of colors are often imbued with great symbolic power. Even in the modern English-speaking world, where superstitious beliefs have largely faded in the light of scientific knowledge, many colors have retained their ancient associations.

Most people know that brides often wear white, that "seeing red" means being angry, and that one can feel "green with envy." But learning why these connotations exist requires a look back to the beliefs and practices of the ancients.

Red

Red has a range of symbolic meanings through many different cultures, including life, health, vigor, war, courage, anger, love and religious fervor. The common thread is that all these require passion.

In moments of rage, lust or embarrassment, bright red oxygenated blood rushes to the skin's surface as a response to your “fight or flight” sympathetic nervous system. There are many theories as to why human and non-human species have evolved this physiological trait, however many center their conclusions around asserting dominance or appearing more attractive to a potential mate, according to the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.

In relation to dominance, the colour red has even been found to impact the world of sport. A study published in the journal Nature found that several soccer teams achieved greater match results while wearing predominantly red shirts than while playing in other colours, such as white and blue. 

Colors were so powerful in traditional cultures that red objects were believed to convey health through their color alone. For example, most red stones such as garnets and rubies were believed to have health-giving and disease-preventing properties. In Rome, children wore red coral as a talisman to protect them from diseases, and in China, for similar reasons, children always wore a piece of red clothing.

White

Throughout history, white has been synonymous with purity and virtue, which lends itself to many religious ceremonies. For example, wearing white to a wedding dates back more than 2,000 years when Roman brides wore white tunics to signal a woman’s virginity, according to Ohio State University. 

However, it wasn’t until Queen Victoria walked down the aisle in a white lace dress to wed Prince Albert in 1840, that wearing white wedding gown became popular. In many Asian cultures, particularly in China, white is not a traditional used for wedding gowns – red or gold may be more commonly seen wedding colors – but is worn instead of black at funeral services and is a symbol of mourning, according to Yerevan State University.

Although white is often referred to as a “color”, white is actually the combination of all the wavelengths of color that are reflected off an object, according to Encyclopedia Britannica. 

Black

The colour – or rather adsense of colour– black is often linked with negative associations, such as death, fear or sadness, according to the Journal of international Colour Association. 

Many ancient cultures believed that black was "the color of mystery and of the mysterious ways and wisdom of God,"  historian Ellen Conroy wrote in her book "The Symbolism of Colors" (1921). This was because night, the absence of light, transcended human perception in the same way that the wisdom of God was thought to be beyond comprehension.

Of all mysteries, death may have been the biggest. Ancient people were completely "in the dark" about what would happen to them after death, and so it was (and is) represented by the color black in many cultures. There was the added coincidence of death sharing similarities with sleep, which happens in the darkness of night and when closed eyelids block out all light. Throughout history the color black has also been attached to fearful and mysterious things, such as black magic, black holes, the black plague and so on. 

Of course the black isn’t always synonymous with death and despair, especially in the world of fashion. A study published in the journal Color Research and Application found that black was the overall favourite color to wear amongst female study participants. 

Purple

Purple symbolizes royalty, nobility and imperialism. In many European societies, the symbolism was even established by law: From ancient Rome to Elizabethan England, "sumptuary laws" forbade anyone except close members of the royal family to wear the color, according to Harvard Law School.

Purple's elite status stems from the rarity and cost of the dye originally used to produce it. Fabric traders obtained "Tyrian purple," as the dye was called, from a small mollusk that was found only in a region of the Mediterranean Sea near Tyre, a Phoenician trading city located in modern-day Lebanon, according to the journal Molecules. More than 9,000 mollusks were needed to create just one gram of Tyrian purple, and because only wealthy rulers could afford to buy and wear fabrics dyed with the color, it became associated with the imperial classes of Rome, Egypt and Persia. 

Another consequence of this is that purple also came to represent spirituality and holiness, because the ancient emperors, kings and queens that wore the color were often considered to be gods or descendants of the gods.

Blue

According to Conroy, the primary association of the color blue for most of recorded history was with truth a meaning that leaves a remnant in our language in the phrase "true blue." This was because blue is the color of a calm and clear sky, and it is in calm reflection that leads to truth.

Today, though, blue mainly conveys sadness and despair. When you've "got the blues," you're down in the dumps. The connotation may relate to tears and rain , as water was typically represented in people's minds as blue. 

However, research has shown that the colour blue has many positive effects on people. For example, research exploring crime on the streets of both Glasgow, Scotland, and Nara, Japan, found that crime levels decreased in areas where blue streetlights had been installed, according to Psychology Today.

Green

For obvious reasons, the color green represents nature and the environment; more abstractly, it symbolizes wisdom. The latter association has ancient roots.

According to Conroy, the Egyptians believed that a god named Thoth led the souls of the dead to "a green hill of everlasting life and eternal wisdom." Later, the Romans based their god Mercury on Thoth, and the planet Mercury was in turn based on the god. For this reason, in astrology,"green is sometimes said to be the color of the planet Mercury, which is the planet governing the mind and conferring knowledge knowledge not only of the kind essential to material success, but also inspirational knowledge and celestial wisdom," Conroy wrote.

Aside from its association with wisdom, there's a flipside to green. "Green in its degraded sense gives us 'the green-eyed monster jealousy,' which is the direct opposite of celestial wisdom, for jealousy is always due to the intrusion of the desires of the self, while celestial wisdom wishes to give rather than to receive," Conroy wrote.

The color green has also been firmly attributed to the environment – in particular when used to illustrate products or campaigns which support the health of the planet. According to the BBC the word “green” comes from the Proto-Indo-European (ancient people that lived around the 4th millenium BC) word “ghre”, which means “grow”. It is fair to assume that green’s connection to nature lies in its abundance amongst it. The majority of plant’s naturally produce green-colored pigments called chlorophyll which are the sites for the conversion of atmospheric carbon dioxide into breathable oxygen, known as photosynthesis.

Yellow

It isn't surprising that yellow symbolizes happiness, warmth and sunshine in most cultures; these are characteristics of the yellow sun and its effects.

In ancient cultures where a god or gods were associated with the sun, such as Egypt and China, yellow was the highest and noblest of colors and thus, the color of religious figures and royals (who were thought to be descendants of the gods).

Conroy explains that all colors have a flipside, a degraded meaning that traditionally opposed the positive one. Along with warmth and happiness,  yellow also represents cowardliness and deceit. "We recognize the deceitful Judas very often in ancient pictures from the fact that he is given dingy yellow robes," she wrote.

Orange

Similarly to red, orange has a range of symbolic meaning and connotations – for example – in many Western cultures orange is often used for fun, strength, courage and creativity, according to the Huffington Post. 

In recent history, though, orange has come to denote a warning, and is used for high visibility clothing (such as spacesuits ) and safety equipment (such as traffic cones). This association is a practical one: Orange contrasts most strongly with the color blue and therefore is highly visible against a clear sky.

Additional resources

For more information about how colors have impacted the world throughout history, check out “The Colors of History: How Colors Shaped the World” by Clive Glifford and “Color: A Natural History of the Palette” by Victoria Finlay. 

Bibliography

Andrew Elliot, “Color and psychological functioning: a review of theoretical and empirical work”, Frontiers in Psychology, Volume 6, April 2015, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00368 

Naira Gasparyan, “Color symbolism and its cognitive cultural message”, Yerevan State University, 2019. 

Nina Jablonski and George Chaplin, “The colours of humanity: the evolution of pigmentation in the human lineage”, Philosophical Transcriptions of the Royal Society B, Volume 372, May 2017, https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2016.0349 

Although rainforests cover only a small percentage of Earth's total surface area, they're home to half of the world's plant and animal species. As the name suggests, rainforests are also very wet: They receive more than 70 inches (178 centimeters) of rain each year, on average.

There are many types of rainforests, but they can be split into two general categories: tropical and temperate. Tropical rainforests are hot, lush forests located close to the equator, while the rarer temperate rainforests are found farther north or south of the equator, near coastal areas, according to the NASA Earth Observatory. All of the biggest rainforests on Earth fall into the former category, but we've included the largest temperate rainforest as an honorable mention.

It's tricky to compare rainforest sizes because where they start and finish is not always clear; a single forest can span several countries and may be broken up. Rainforest sizes also fluctuate over time due to climate change and deforestation. There's no doubt about the largest and second-largest rainforests on this list, but the remaining two are based on estimates and expert opinion.

4. Sundaland rainforest

The Sundaland rainforest is the fourth-biggest rainforest in the world, at about 197,000 square miles (510,000 square km), according to Mongabay, a nonprofit news website for environmental science and conservation. The rainforest includes the Malay Peninsula on mainland Southeast Asia and the nearby islands of Sumatra, Java and Borneo. It spans Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, Thailand and Singapore.

The Sundaland rainforest is home to many species, including orangutans, Bornean rainbow toads (Ansonia latidisca) and corpse flowers (Rafflesia arnoldi), the world's largest flower. Indonesia's primary rainforest has declined by more than 37,000 square miles (97,000 square km) since 2001, according to data from Global Forest Watch, a nonprofit that monitors forests around the world. Nonetheless, Elizabeth Goldman, a research manager for Global Forest Watch at World Resources Institute, told Live Science she considers the country one of the brighter spots when it comes to deforestation.

"Historically, there has been a lot of commercial oil palm plantation establishment or timber extraction," Goldman said. But in recent years, she added, "we've seen decreasing primary forest loss in Indonesia and Malaysia." The Indonesian government has been very active in trying to reduce deforestation, especially since the country was badly affected by fires in 2015, she added.

3. New Guinea rainforest

The third-largest continuous rainforest in the world is on the island of New Guinea, which is split into two countries: The eastern half is part of Papua New Guinea, and the western half belongs to Indonesia. This island covers about 303,000 square miles (786,000 square km) and is home to at least 5% of the world's plant and animal species, including tree kangaroos and crowned pigeons, according to the WWF.

The New Guinea rainforest can also be mapped to include the forests of northern Australia as they were once connected; New Guinea and Australia became separated by ocean about 11,700 years ago, according to the Australian government's Geoscience Australia website.

Commercial logging and agriculture are rapidly deforesting New Guinea. The process usually starts with selective logging of commercially valuable timber, with the area then more likely to be converted to industrial plantations to grow crops such as oil palm trees, according to Mongabay.

2. Congo Basin

The Congo Basin rainforest in Central Africa is the second-largest rainforest, spanning more than 780,000 square miles (2 million square km), according to the WWF. The rainforest encompasses six countries in West and Central Africa: Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, the Central African Republic, the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The DRC has more than 383,000 square miles (992,000 square km) of primary rainforest — more than any other country except Brazil, according to Global Forest Watch data.

Gorillas, forest elephants and thousands of other species call the Congo rainforest home. Many of these species, such as bonobos (Pan paniscus) and okapi (Okapia johnstoni), are found nowhere else on Earth. The Congo Basin is threatened by deforestation, primarily for agriculture. In contrast to the industrial agriculture deforestation in the Amazon, the Congo rainforest is typically cut down for smaller-scale agriculture — for example, by subsistence farmers who grow food to feed their families or to supply local markets, Goldman said.

"It's often cultivated for a few years until soil nutrients are depleted, and then it's left fallow for a number of years," Goldman said. "And oftentimes, the forest will actually come back as secondary forest and then will get cut again. So you see this shifting cycle of loss and regrowth in those areas." The forest is also threatened by expanding urban areas, mining and industrial logging, according to Mongabay.

1. Amazon rainforest

The Amazon rainforest in South America is, by far, the largest rainforest in the world. It covers about 80% of the Amazon basin, which spans at least 2.3 million square miles (6 million square kilometers), according to the NASA Earth Observatory. That's more than half the size of the U.S. and three times bigger than the next-largest rainforest. The Amazon is spread across nine countries in South America: Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Venezuela, Guyana, French Guiana and Suriname.

According to the WWF, the forest includes at least 10% of Earth's total biodiversity, or variety of plants, animals and other living things. This includes many species, such as sloths, harpy eagles (Harpia harpyja), Brazil nut trees (Bertholletia excelsa) and jaguars (Panthera onca).

Brazil has the largest chunk of the Amazon rainforest, with more than 1.2 million square miles (3.11 million square km) of primary rainforest. These are mature forests that haven't been disturbed in recent times. However, that forest is rapidly deteriorating; Brazil is also the No. 1 country for forest loss, with a decline of more than 100,000 square miles (260,000 square km) since 2001, according to data from Global Forest Watch.

"A lot of this is due to agricultural expansion," Goldman said. "Fires will be set to clear land, and oftentimes, those fires will escape into neighboring forests."

Amazon clearing is typically for larger-scale industrial agriculture — for example, for growing animals such as cattle and crops like soy, according to Goldman. Fires contribute to climate change, which causes the forests to become hotter and drier. That makes them more flammable, thus creating a destructive feedback loop. Data from the World Wildlife Foundation suggests that nearly 20% of the Amazon forest has been completely destroyed, and more of the forest has been degraded.

Related: The Amazon rainforest is officially creating more greenhouse gases than it is absorbing

Honorable mention: Tongass National Forest

The largest temperate rainforest in the world is the Tongass National Forest in Alaska. It is much smaller than any of the tropical rainforests on this list, at about 26,250 square miles (68,000 square km), according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Temperate rainforests cover less land than tropical rainforests and are found in cooler climates, usually next to oceans.

Stretching along the coastline of southeast Alaska, the Tongass National Forest is home to wildlife such as salmon, brown bears (Ursus arctos), black bears (Ursus americanus) and bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus). The Tongass National Forest has declined over the past century due to logging and continues to be threatened by it today, according to the National Audubon Society, a nonprofit bird and habitat conservation organization. The forest is also vulnerable to climate change and threatened by drought, according to the USDA.

Genetic mishaps creating immortal clone armies, whales sharing battle tactics and tardigrades being quantum-entangled — 2021 was a year when the natural world shocked us, horrified us and, some of the time, grossed us out. Here are 10 times nature went wild in 2021.

A bee species created its own immortal clone army

Through a weird genetic fluke, one bee species has created its own army of perfectly identical clones, a June study in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B revealed. In a pinch, the workers of some species of social insects — such as ants, bees and wasps — can reproduce via parthenogenesis, or asexual reproduction. But because this process leads to an unsustainable loss of genetic material, the insects often choose to rear the progeny of their closely related queens as their preferred means of reproduction.

When a genetic mutation enabled the South African Cape honeybee (Apis mellifera capensis) workers to reproduce asexually without losing any genetic material, the proverbial bees' nest was well and truly kicked. Worker bees began embarking upon all kinds of cunning schemes. Some clones inserted their perfect clone daughters into royal chambers so they would be picked as queens, while others took over other hives that housed entitled, layabout offspring. Next on the researchers' agenda is finding out how the gene responsible for this infinite cloning ability can be switched on and off, and at what point the hives parasitized by the clone armies end up collapsing.

Read more: Single bee is making an immortal clone army thanks to a genetic fluke

Rabbits dug up priceless buried treasures on a remote Welsh island

Rabbits occupying a remote island just off the coast of Wales lent their forepaws to an incredible feat of amateur archaeology. The rabbits of Skokholm Island, in  Pembrokeshire, unearthed two priceless artifacts: a 9,000-year-old Stone Age tool and a 3,750-year-old pottery piece that was likely from the Bronze Age. Wardens Richard Brown and Giselle Eagle were patrolling the island when they spotted the smooth, oval-shaped Stone Age artifact sitting just outside a rabbit warren. The pottery fragment was found near the same rabbit hole a few days later, hinting that hunter-gatherers had once inhabited the island. The rabbits have not been offered financial compensation for their work, but they have inspired further archaeological investigations on the island — this time, led by humans. 

Read more: Rabbits dig up 9,000-year-old artifacts on 'Dream Island'

Turtles used a secret underwater corridor to migrate halfway across the world

North Pacific loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta) hatch on the shores of Japan and spend large parts of their adult lives sailing the currents of the open Pacific. It's long been a remarkable mystery, then, that they're occasionally spotted 9,000 miles (14,500 kilometers) away in Mexico, especially as the cold-blooded animals would need to pass through life-threateningly chilly waters to get there. A study published in April in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science used GPS tracking tags to crack the case: The turtles surf through a momentary warm opening in the cold water barrier during El Niño, a climate cycle that shifts warm water in the western tropical Pacific Ocean eastward along the equator. The turtles sense the warm corridor and glide right through until they arrive in Mexico. More studies need to be conducted to confirm this hypothesis, but the researchers view it as a fascinating insight that will help protect the majestic, yet highly vulnerable creatures. 

Read more: Turtles complete seemingly impossible journey thanks to a hidden 'corridor' through the Pacific

Snakes shove their heads inside living frogs' bodies so they can eat their guts 

Scientists in Thailand documented the country's kukri snakes — known for their long, razor-like fangs that they use to slice open eggs — taking their customary frog-eating habits to gruesome new extremes. Researchers spotted both a Taiwanese kukri snake (Oligodon formosanus) and an ocellated kukri snake (Oligodon ocellatus)  scarving open live frogs' bellies, wiggling their heads inside and chowing down on the unfortunate amphibians' organs, eating them from the inside out in an excruciating,  sometimes hours long, process. Why do the snakes do this? The researchers aren't sure, but it might be to avoid the unpleasant-tasting and toxic parts of the frog prey by going straight for the delicious entrails.

Read more: Snakes insert their heads into living frogs' bodies to swallow their organs (because nature is horrifying)

An eel pushed its head out of a living heron's body so that it could escape its guts 

The only thing that's comparably as bad as having your guts entered is having them dramatically exited — which is exactly what happened to an unfortunate heron in Delaware this year. Thinking it had safely swallowed an American eel (Anguilla rostrata) whole, the unfortunate bird was no doubt surprised when the eel pulled an "Alien" by erupting violently from the bird's stomach. Photographer Sam Davis snapped a shot of the heron flying, seemingly unperturbed, with the eel dangling out. Davis told Live Science that at first, he thought the eel was biting onto the heron, but a later inspection of his photos revealed the bizarre and grisly reality. How the eel burst out of the heron is unclear. A different type of eel, the snake eel, can emerge from the guts of fish after being swallowed alive, but scientists don't know how many eel species can perform this rare feat or which animals have been unlucky enough to have it happen to them.

Read more: Alien-like photo shows eel dangling out of heron's stomach in midair

A mountain goat took down a grizzly bear with its horns

The discovery of a dead 154-pound (70 kilograms) female grizzly bear (Ursus arctos horribilis) on a popular Canadian hiking trail this year led to its own bizarre murder mystery. In a spectacular twist, an analysis made by park rangers after the bear's carcass had been airlifted away revealed that the ursine victim had in fact been stabbed multiple times in the neck and armpit by the sharp horns of a mountain goat. As bears often hunt by attacking the neck, back and shoulders of their prey, it seems the goat killed its attacker with some well-timed thrusts of its head. 

Read more: Mountain goat kills grizzly bear by stabbing it with razor-sharp horn

Whales share evasive tactics to escape harpoons

Sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) have excellent social skills and communicate through clicks and body language. In a study published March 17 in the journal Biology Letters, scientists reported that sperm whale communication includes the sharing of battle tactics. By analyzing the newly digitized logbooks of 19th-century whalers, scientists found that the strike rates of the whalers upon their targets decreased by 58% in just a few years. 

The whales had learned to eschew their usual tactics of forming defensive circles (as they would for orca attacks) in favor of swimming upwind of the harpooners' wind-powered boats. More remarkable still, whales in regions that hadn't been attacked before had also learned the new tactic by following the lead of those who had.

Read more: Sperm whales outwitted 19th-century whalers by sharing evasive tactics

Cannibalistic cane toads are eating so many of their young that they're speeding up evolution

Australia's invasive cane toads (Rhinella marina) are cannibalizing themselves so much, it's making them evolve faster. They were brought Down Under by farmers in the 1930s to gobble up beetles that were destroying sugarcane fields, but the toads had no natural predators. So the toads' population jumped from an initial 102 to more than 200 million. With skyrocketing populations and limited food,the ever-adaptable toads soon resorted to cannibalism. Just after hatching, cane toad hatchlings exist in a vulnerable state for just a few days, making them ripe pickings for their older tadpole siblings. A study published in the Aug. 31 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences revealed that this cannibalism has even affected the evolution of the invasive cane toads, accelerating their development so they spend one-fifth less of their time in vulnerable their pre-tadpole state than their noninvasive cousins in South America. 

Read more: Cannibal toads eat so many of their young, they're speeding up evolution

Sea snakes are mistaking scuba divers for potential mates

Swimming off the Keppel islands in Australia's southern Great Barrier Reef, one diver noticed that he was creating quite a stir among the highly venomous male sea snakes. The underwater reptiles would chase the diver before wrapping themselves around his fins and amorously licking the surrounding water. A study by the diver and a fellow researcher, published Aug. 19 in the journal Scientific Reports, revealed the snakes' unusually frisky behavior was exactly as it appeared: The snakes had mistaken him for a potential mate.

In fact, many of the 158 interactions the diver had with the snakes happened during the snakes' mating season, which falls between May and August. Having only recently evolved to live in the ocean from snakes that once lived on land, the animals have incredibly poor eyesight, which means the sexually frustrated snakes can confirm an unfortunate diver isn't a female snake only by licking them. Worse still, as females typically flee from males during mating, escaping the snakes only further mimics the courtship ritual. 

Read more: Sexually frustrated sea snakes mistake scuba divers for potential mates

A tardigrade became the first quantum-entangled animal in history

Tardigrades are, without a doubt, some of the hardiest animals ever to have existed. Name an ordeal, and it's likely the "moss piglets" have already survived it — from being shot out of guns, bathed in boiling-hot water, exposed to intense ultraviolet radiation and crash-landed onto the moon. The microscopic critters have survived many  ridiculous scenarios because they can dehydrate themselves into a near-indestructible "tun" state. And if that weren't amazing enough, a study published on the preprint database arXiv in December claims that tardigrades have taken a fresh leap into the quantum realm — by becoming the first observed quantum-entangled animals in history.

After collecting three tardigrades from a roof gutter in Denmark, scientists forced the animals into their frozen "tun" states by cooling them down to within a mere fraction above absolute zero (minus 459.67 degrees Fahrenheit, or minus 273.15 degrees Celsius), the temperature at which atoms stop vibrating. Then, by placing them within an electrical system, the scientists said they brought the animals into a state of temporary quantum entanglement, linking their properties with those of the electrical device. After reanimation, the one tardigrade that survived could have a reasonable claim to being the first animal ever to survive quantum entanglement. This study, which has proved controversial among some physicists, is still awaiting peer review.

Read more: Frozen tardigrade becomes first 'quantum entangled' animal in history, researchers claim

When you look up at the blue sky overhead or gaze across the seemingly endless expanse of a blue ocean, you might think that the color blue is common in nature. 

But among all the hues found in rocks, plants and flowers, or in the fur, feathers, scales and skin of animals, blue is surprisingly scarce.

But why is the color blue so rare? The answer stems from the chemistry and physics of how colors are produced — and how we see them.

Related: Why is the sky blue?

We're able to see color because each of our eyes contains between 6 million and 7 million light-sensitive cells called cones. There are three different types of cones in the eye of a person with normal color vision, and each cone type is most sensitive to a particular wavelength of light: red, green or blue. Information from millions of cones reaches our brains as electrical signals that communicate all the types of light reflected by what we see, which is then interpreted as different shades of color.

When we look at a colorful object, such as a sparkling sapphire or a vibrant hydrangea bloom, "the object is absorbing some of the white light that falls onto it; because it's absorbing some of the light, the rest of the light that's reflected has a color," science writer Kai Kupferschmidt, author of "Blue: In Search of Nature's Rarest Color" (The Experiment, 2021), told Live Science.

"When you see a blue flower — for instance, a cornflower — you see the cornflower as blue because it absorbs the red part of the spectrum," Kupferschmidt said. Or to put it another way, the flower appears blue because that color is the part of the spectrum that the blossom rejected, Kupferschmidt wrote in his book, which explores the science and nature of this popular hue.

In the visible spectrum, red has long wavelengths, meaning it is very low-energy compared with other colors. For a flower to appear blue, "it needs to be able to produce a molecule that can absorb very small amounts of energy," in order to absorb the red part of the spectrum, Kupferschmidt said. 

Generating such molecules — which are large and complex — is difficult for plants to do, which is why blue flowers are produced by fewer than 10% of the world's nearly 300,000 flowering plant species. One possible driver for the evolution of blue flowers is that blue is highly visible to pollinators such as bees, and producing blue blossoms may benefit plants in ecosystems where competition for pollinators is high, Adrian Dyer, an associate professor and vision scientist at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Melbourne, Australia, told the Australian Broadcasting Company in 2016.

As for minerals, their crystal structures interact with ions (charged atoms or molecules) to determine which parts of the spectrum are absorbed and which are reflected. The mineral lapis lazuli, which is mined primarily in Afghanistan and produces the rare blue pigment ultramarine, contains trisulfide ions — three sulfur atoms bound together inside a crystal lattice — that can release or bind a single electron.

"That energy difference is what makes the blue," Kupferschmidt said.

Blue animals' colors don't come from chemical pigments. Rather, they rely on physics to create a blue appearance. Blue-winged butterflies in the Morpho genus have intricate, layered nanostructures on their wing scales that manipulate layers of light so that some colors cancel each other out and only blue is reflected; a similar effect happens in structures found in the feathers of blue jays (Cyanocitta cristata), the scales of blue tangs (Paracanthurus hepatus) and the flashing rings of venomous blue-ringed octopuses (Hapalochlaena maculosa).

Blue shades in mammals are even rarer than in birds, fish, reptiles and insects. Some whales and dolphins have bluish skin; primates such as golden snub-nosed monkeys (Rhinopithecus roxellana) have blue-skinned faces; and mandrills (Mandrillus sphinx) have blue faces and blue rear ends. But fur — a trait shared by most terrestrial mammals — is never naturally bright blue (at least, not in visible light. Researchers recently found that platypus fur glows in vivid shades of blue and green when exposed to ultraviolet (UV) rays, Live Science previously reported).  

"But it takes a lot of work to make this blue, and so the other question becomes: What are the evolutionary reasons to make blue? What's the incentive?" Kupferschmidt said. "The fascinating thing when you dive into these animal worlds is always, who's the recipient of this message and can they see the blue?"

For example, while humans have three light-sensing receptor types in our eyes, birds have a fourth receptor type for sensing UV light. Feathers that appear blue to human eyes "actually reflect even more UV light than blue light," Kupferschmidt explained. By that reasoning, the birds that we call blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus) "would probably call themselves 'UV tits,' because that's what they would mostly see," he said.

Related: How do dogs see the world?

Because of blue's scarcity in nature, the word for blue was a relative latecomer to languages around the world, appearing after the words for black, white, red and yellow, according to Kupferschmidt.

"One theory for this is that you really only need to name a color once you can dye things — once you can divorce the color from its object. Otherwise, you don't really need the name for the color," he explained. "Dyeing things blue or finding a blue pigment happened really late in most cultures, and you can see that in the linguistics."

The earliest use of blue dye dates to about 6,000 years ago in Peru, and the ancient Egyptians combined silica, calcium oxide and copper oxide to create a long-lasting blue pigment known as irtyu for decorating statues, researchers reported Jan. 15 in the journal Frontiers in Plant Science. Ultramarine, a vivid blue pigment ground from lapis lazuli, was as precious as gold in medieval Europe, and was reserved primarily for illustrating illuminated manuscripts.

Blue's rarity meant that people viewed it as a high-status color for thousands of years. Blue has long been associated with the Hindu deity Krishna and with the Christian Virgin Mary, and artists who were famously inspired by blue in nature include Michelangelo, Gauguin, Picasso and Van Gogh, according to the Frontiers in Plant Science study.

"The relative scarcity of blue available in natural pigments likely fueled our fascination," the scientists wrote.

Blue also colors our expressions, appearing in dozens of English idioms: You can work a blue-collar job, swear a blue streak, sink into a blue funk or talk until you're blue in the face, to name just a few. And blue can sometimes mean contradictory things depending on the idiom: "'Blue sky ahead' means a bright future, but 'feeling blue' is being sad," Kupferschmidt said.

Blue’s scarcity in nature may have helped shape our perception of the color and things that appear blue. "With blue, it's like a whole canvas that you can still paint on," Kupferschmidt said. "Maybe because it is rare in nature and maybe because we associate it with things that we can't really touch, like the sky and the sea, it's something that is very open to different associations."

Editor's note: The article was updated Sept. 7 to reflect that lapis lazuli is mined in locations other than Afghanistan, though Afghanistan is the main source of the mineral.

Originally published on Live Science.

Australia is famed for its weird and wonderful animals. From the alien blue-ringed octopus, which carries enough venom to kill 26 adult humans within minutes, to the duck-billed platypus with its patchwork anatomy, Australia is packed with species that, to the rest of the world, don't make a lot of sense. 

This is because these strange species often aren't found anywhere else on Earth. About 87% of Australia's mammals, 93% of its reptiles and 45% of its bird species can be found only in Australia, according to the Australian Wildlife Conservancy. 

During Earth's geographical evolution, the smallest of the seven continents, modern-day Australia, broke away from a supercontinent called Gondwana that dominated the world's landscape hundreds of millions of years ago. This meant that the species living in Australia didn't evolve in quite the same way as animals elsewhere on Earth, with the exception of migrating species that could fly or swim beyond the shores of Australia. This has resulted in some of the most fascinating, frightening and downright odd animals to ever walk the planet. 

Ocean sunfish (Mola mola) 

Although not endemic to Australia, these strange creatures can be seen swimming around the southern shores of the continent. Sunfish are the heaviest-known bony fish on Earth, with one species, Mola alexandrini, reaching a whopping 5,000 pounds (2,300 kilograms). 

What's most notable about these fish are their incredibly large dorsal and anal fins, making them over 13 feet (4 meters) tall. These ocean giants deep-dive into very cold waters to feed on zooplankton and avoid predators. To warm themselves back up, they move close to the surface to bask in the sun's heat, according to the Smithsonian magazine.

Giant centipede (Ethmostigmus rubripes) 

Over 6 inches (16 centimeters) long and made up of 27 body segments supporting up to 23 pairs of legs, Australia's giant centipede is one of the biggest in the world. To sustain their body size, these arthropods feed on insects, snails and worms. 

To capture and kill their prey, the centipedes have modified legs called forcipules that curve around the head and can deliver a potent venom, according to Australian Geographic. The venom is strong enough to kill a large animal quickly, and can cause severe pain to humans if the arthropod is disturbed or handled, according to the Australian Museum. 

Net-casting spider (Deinopis ravidus)

Australia is famous for its many scary spiders, but net-casting spiders are among the most innovative. Rather than building a silken web and passively waiting for prey to become entangled, these spiders take a proactive approach, using a net of silk to trap their food. 

These spiders typically use their nets to capture ants, beetles and even other spiders during the night, according to the Australian Museum. To help them see in the dark, the unusual arachnids have two large eyes, Live Science previously reported, earning them the nickname "ogre-faced spider." Before the sun rises, net-casters will consume their nightly catch, including the net to recycle the silk.

Peacock spider (Maratus volans)

Peacock spiders are found in the south of Australia and are well known for their elaborate courtship dance, Live Science reported. Males wave around their third pair of legs and reveal their vibrant abdomen to attract a female. The spiders are tiny, measuring around an eighth of an inch (a few millimeters) long.

Giant fishkiller (Lethocerus insulanus)

As the name suggests, these aggressive-looking water bugs have a taste for small fish, along with tadpoles, frogs and snails. To catch their prey, they sit on a plant stem that's submerged underwater , grabbing passing fish using their long, needle-tipped front legs, according to the Australian Museum. They then inject digestive enzymes into the prey's body to liquefy tissues, making it ready for consumption.

Short-beaked echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus)

Echidnas are not only one of the strangest animals in Australia, but possibly the entire world. These hedgehog-like creatures are one of only two kinds of mammals on Earth that lay eggs, according to San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance — the other is the duck-billed platypus. 

Adding to their oddities, echidnas have toothless jaws, so they crush their insect prey — of which they eat around 40,000 per day — between their tongue and the roof of their mouth. Echidnas feed during the night to avoid the high daytime temperatures and to maintain their low body temperature of 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius).

Giant panda snail (Hedleyella falconeri)

Named for their long pair of black stalks, giant panda snails are Goliaths in the mollusk world, with  shells reaching up to 4 inches (10 cm) long, making them the largest land snails in Australia, according to the Atlas of Living Australia. Giant panda snails spend their time in subtropical rainforests in eastern Australia, feeding on fungi on the forest floor after or during rainfall. 

Spiny leaf insect (Extatosoma tiaratum)

Masters of camouflage, these insects have evolved an exoskeleton that mimics the foliage of their forest habitat. Males can fly away when they feel threatened, but females are flightless so are completely reliant on their ability to blend into their environment, according to the Australian Museum. 

They have been found to sway in the wind to mimic the movement of vegetation in order to stay hidden from predators. Spiny leaf insects also curl up their abdomen to look like a scorpion. 

Arafura file snake (Acrochordus arafurae)

These stealthy serpents can grow up to 8 feet (2.5 m) long and spend their time swimming through the waters of lagoons, pools and flooded grasslands. Arafura file snakes feed almost exclusively on fish and can spend hours at a time hunting underwater. 

To immobilize their prey, they wrap around and constrict fish weighing up to 2.2 pounds (1 kg) before ingesting them. They are helped in this by their rough skin — which is where file snakes got their name, Kakadu National Park said on its website.

Marsupial mole (Notoryctes typhlops) 

Meet Australia's unusual mole. Unlike its cousins from around the world, this small mammal has a life cycle that is closer to that of a kangaroo than a common mole. As a marsupial, fetuses are partly developed in the womb, before emerging into the mother's pouch to suckle milk until they have grown up enough to leave. However, there have been no recorded sightings of any marsupial mole pups in the wild, so it remains unclear how long they stay in their mother's pouch. 

Little is known about marsupial moles, according to Animal Diversity Web. It is not known whether they create residential networks of tunnels or a permanent burrow, or whether they are solitary nomads. They are believed to continually burrow through sand, simultaneously filling in the tunnel behind them, Australia's Northern Territory government said in a fact sheet. They have evolved in such a way that enables them to survive on the small percentage of oxygen between the grains of sand. 

Blue-tongued skink (Tiliqua scincoides)

Found roaming through tussock grass and forest leaf litter, at around 24 inches (60 cm) long, this lengthy lizard is famous for sticking out its blue tongue. Skinks use their brightly colored tongues to ward off predators, flattening their tongues and puffing out their bodies to appear larger and more threatening, the Australian Museum said. 

The front of the tongue reflects ultraviolet (UV) light, according to San Diego Wildlife Alliance. This suggests that common predators of the skink, such as bird species that can see UV rays, will be dazed by a flash of UV and think twice about attacking them.

Dugong (Dugong dugon)

Often referred to as sea cows, these marine mammals spend most of their time hoovering up seagrass from shallow coastal waters. Unlike their manatee cousins, dugongs sport a dolphin-like tail and do not live in freshwater. 

They can be found mostly in northern and western Australian waters. Dugongs can weigh up to about 800 pounds (360 kg), consuming up to 90 pounds (40 kg) of seagrass every day. These mammals are equipped with a rounded muscular lip, called a cleft, that rips up the seagrass from the seabed, according to Oceana.

Editor's Note: Updated at 12:51 p.m. EST on Jan. 18, 2022 to state that centipedes are arthropods, not insects. 

Jurassic Coast, United Kingdom

There are 185 million years of history hidden along the south coast of England, in the United Kingdom. Paleontologist Mary Anning made game-changing discoveries of prehistoric remains along this coastline in the early 1800s. 

According to the Smithsonian, the shores of Devon and Dorset used to lie under the sea where Morocco sits today. Before the continents completely drifted apart this region was a hotbed of prehistoric life. Over thousands of years, animal remains became imbedded in sediment that eventually hardened to stone. 

Today this area is battered by coastal waves, but new fossil discoveries are still being made: finds range from small curled ammonites to 33-foot-long (10 meter) ichthyosaurs, according to the BBC.

Ha Long Bay, Vietnam

There are around 1,600 islands nestled throughout this 580-square-mile (1,500 square kilometers) bay in the Gulf of Tonkin, Vietnam. A layer of limestone slowly developed over 500 million years, and by the end of the Permian Period, 251 million years ago, it was 3,280 feet (1,000 meters) thick. 

The hunk of rock was then weathered by the sea, but really took a beating in the last ice age. The slab broke apart, and the fragments are the islands we see today. Around 1,600 people live in floating fishing villages rather than disturb the pristine islands, while tourists sleep on board boats during their visit, according to Lonely Planet.

Komodo Island, Indonesia

Famous for its giant lizards, this volcanic island in southern Indonesia is part of the Lesser Sunda Islands. Komodo dragons are the largest living lizards on Earth today. 

They came from Australia and are descendants of the biggest lizards known to science, according to the Guardian. With no other predators on the island, Komodo dragons were able to thrive, but eventually most of the native prey disappeared, so they now eat animals that have been introduced to the island, ranging from rats to water buffalo.

Pamukkale, Turkey

Pamukkale means “cotton castle.” Hot water flows down from a cliff-top spring 655 feet (200 meters) from the ground. The water comes out warm when it originates from a spring 1,050 feet (320 meters) underground. 

As water leaves the spring it makes contact with the air for the first time and begins to change. Initially, it’s fully saturated with minerals, but a chemical reaction causes it to release carbon. As this process happens it leaves a coating of crystals behind. Pamukkale boasts petrified waterfalls, mineral forests and terraced basins, according to UNESCO. 

Peyto Lake, Canada

This gorgeous lake is in Banff, the oldest national park in Canada. It’s fed by active glaciers high up in the Canadian Rockies. Flowing glaciers scrape away fragments of rock as they advance. 

The places where the ice touches the rock is wet and slippery, helping water to wash bits of rock down to sea level underneath the frozen river. The dust from this rock reflects blue light, according to Earth Science Picture of the Day, and so our eyes see the water as a vivid turquoise. This effect is strongest in the summer when glaciers melt fastest. 

Perito Moreno Glacier, Argentina

While most glaciers in the region are melting fast, this one has barely changed in the last 100 years. It crawled forward at least 2,625 feet (800 meters) since the late 1800s, according to a study published in the journal Scientific Reports, and may still be advancing today. It accumulates more mass than any glacier being monitored right now. 

The parts of a glacier that are bonded most strongly to rock are called pinning points. Glaciers usually retreat quickly if this part of the glacier melts. Perito Moreno is holding firm thanks to the strength of its crucial pinning points, which may help it survive the warming climate, according to the same study.

Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia 

This is the biggest salt flat in the world, stretching more than 4,000 square miles (10,300 square kilometers) and sitting at an elevation of 12,000 feet (3,660 meters). The ground is covered by salt crust several feet thick, with a pool of salty brine beneath. 

For thousands of years water has collected in the area to form lakes, then dried up again. A study published in the journal Quaternary Research found that the entire plain was permanently flooded at least four times in the last 40,000 years. Cacti are the only plants that can grow on the salt flat, but three species of flamingo visit for the breeding season every November.

The Maldives, Indian Ocean

The Maldives comprises 1,190 small islands in the Indian Ocean surrounded by coral reefs. Almost 1,000 of the islands are uninhabited by humans. Most of the sand around the world consists of rough grains of quartz, but the shores of the Maldives are piled with soft coral sand, making them some of the best beaches in the world, according to Lonely Planet.

With an average elevation of three to five feet (one to 1.5 meters) according to the High Commission of Maldives, it’s both the lowest and flattest nation on Earth. If sea levels rise at the rate scientists predict, much of the country could disappear underwater by 2100, says an article published on Earth.org.

Victoria Falls, southern Africa 

These are among the world’s most famous waterfalls. Its one-mile (1.6 kilometers) width is remarkable. The bedrock beneath the Zambezi River is basalt — volcanic rock that formed 180 million years ago. 

The bedrock built up over a million years of gentle volcanic eruptions, and the layers of hot lava cooled down and cracked in several places from east to west. When the Pangea supercontinent split, the damage to the basalt worsened. 

Tectonic plates then pushed southern Africa upwards, creating new river systems. Victoria Falls began flowing 5 million years ago after movements underground caused an enormous lake to start spilling over. The water quickly established a course and now flows elegantly off the cliffs of the fractured volcanic rock.

Great Barrier Reef, Australia

Almost 3,000 individual reefs make up the biggest coral system in the world. It’s home to 1,500 fish species, a third of the world’s soft coral and six of the world’s seven species of sea turtle. It was established as a World Heritage Site in 1981, and restrictions on fishing and tourism were put in place. 

Sadly, the Great Barrier Reef has lost half its coral since 1985. The damage is happening so fast scientists can’t keep up. Corals have died off because of pollution, invasive species and a process called coral bleaching, according to Science magazine. The water on the planet is simply getting too warm for corals to survive but, according to an article published by Nature on Nov. 27, 2019, scientists are protecting the more resilient reefs while nursing others back to health.  

Scientists have crafted a single-celled synthetic organism that divides and multiplies just like the real thing. The advancement could someday help researchers to build miniscule computers and tiny drug-producing factories, all out of synthesized cells. 

Of course, that future likely won't be realized for many years to come.

"There's just so many ways in which this coming century of biology could potentially change our daily lives for the better," said senior author Elizabeth Strychalski, leader of the Cellular Engineering Group at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). For example, Strychalski and her colleagues plan to engineer living sensors that can take measurements from their surrounding environments, monitoring the acidity, temperature and oxygen levels nearby. 

Related: 11 body parts grown in the lab 

These sensor cells could also be manufactured to produce specific products — namely medicines — and could potentially be placed inside the human body itself. "One vision is that when the cell senses a disease state, then it can make that therapeutic, and when a disease state is longer there, they could stop making that therapeutic," Strychalski said. Other cells could be cultured in the lab and used to efficiently produce food and fuel products, while still others could be made to perform computational functions at a molecular scale, she added.

But again, these are all visions for the future. To get there, scientists need to unpack the mysteries of the cell at a fundamental level before they can manipulate it in their synthetic organisms. 

In the new study, Strychalski and her colleagues took a step toward that goal and published their results March 29 in the journal Cell. They began with an existing synthetic cell called JCVI-syn3.0, which was created in 2016 and contains only 473 genes, Scientific American reported. (For comparison, the bacterium Escherichia coli has about 4,000 genes, according to a statement.)

This bare-bones cell was crafted from the bacterium Mycoplasma genitalium, a sexually transmitted microbe, which scientists stripped of its natural DNA and replaced with their own engineered DNA. In creating JCVI-syn3.0, the scientists wanted to learn which genes are absolutely essential for a cell to survive and function normally, and which are superfluous. 

But while JCVI-syn3.0 could build proteins and replicate its DNA without issue, the minimalist cell could not divide into uniform spheres. Instead, it split haphazardly, producing daughter cells of many different shapes and sizes. Strychalski and her team set out to fix this problem by adding back genes to the stripped-down cell.

After years of work, the scientists produced JCVI-syn3A, which contains a total of 492 genes. Seven of these genes are critical for normal cell division, they discovered.

"A number of the genes in the minimal cell did not have a known function," said co-first author James Pelletier, who at the time of the work was a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Center for Bits and Atoms. Similarly, "it turned out that some of the genes that the cell needs to divide previously did not have a known function," he said. Reintroducing these genes allowed the minimal cell to split into perfectly uniform orbs.

Some of these important genes likely interact with the cell membrane, based on their genetic sequences, Pelletier said. This could mean that they alter the physical properties of the membrane, making it malleable enough to divide properly, or that they generate forces within the membrane that encourage the split, he said. But for now, the team doesn't know what specific mechanisms the genes use to help cells split, he noted.

"Our study was not designed to figure out the mechanisms inside of the cell associated with each of these genes of unknown function," Strychalski said. "That's going to have to be a future study."

While researchers continue to probe the mysteries of the minimal cell, other synthetic biologists are working with even more simplistic systems. Synthetic biology exists on a spectrum, from "a soup of inanimate chemicals to the full glory of a mammalian cell or a bacterial cell," Strychalski said. The future of the field could lead us to innovative wonders like cell-sized computers, but for now, the work is largely driven by a curiosity about how the basic building blocks of life come together, and what that can tell us about ourselves, she said.

"How do we understand the most basic unit of life, the cell? … There's something very compelling about that," Strychalski said. "Later on, we can imagine all the things we can do with ... this minimal platform."

Originally published on Live Science. 

For hundreds of years, people have looked up at the hazy peaks of California's Santa Lucia Mountains at sunset and seen tall, cloaked figures staring back. Then, within moments, the eerie silhouettes disappear.

These twilight apparitions are known as the Dark Watchers — shady, sometimes 10-foot-tall (3 meters) men bedecked in sinister hats and capes. They primarily appear in the afternoon, and according to a recent article on SFGate.com, visitors to California have seen them perched ominously on the mountaintops for more than 300 years.

"When the Spanish arrived in the 1700s, they began calling the apparitions los Vigilantes Oscuros (literally "the dark watchers")," SFGate managing editor Katie Dowd wrote in the article. "And as Anglo American settlers began staking claims in the region, they too felt the sensation of being watched from the hills."

Related: Why this optical illusion arrow always points right

One famous observer who felt the presence of the Watchers was the American author John Steinbeck. In his 1938 short story "Flight," a character sees a black figure leering down at him from a nearby ridgetop, "but he looked quickly away, for it was one of the dark watchers," Steinbeck wrote. "No one knew who the watchers were, nor where they lived, but it was better to ignore them and never to show interest in them." (This was a family obsession; Steinbeck's son, Thomas, went on to co-author a book about the Watchers with painter Benjamin Brode, Dowd wrote.)

So, who — or what — are the Dark Watchers?

One theory, according to Dowd, is that they are merely figments of the observers' pattern-seeking minds. In other words, it's a classic case of pareidolia: a psychological phenomenon in which an observer's brain finds patterns or significance in a vague or random image. 

The phenomenon is the reason some people see Muppet faces on the moon, or the visage of Jesus on burnt toast. In this case, ordinary shadows on the Santa Lucia hilltops may be interpreted by the viewer's brain to be tall, cloaked figures (the Watchers tend to appear in the late afternoon, when long shadows grace the hills, after all).

This pattern-seeking effect could be amplified by the presence of fog or low-flying clouds, according to Dowd. Shadows cast against clouds are responsible for another infamous illusion, known as the Brocken specter.

"German locals near the Harz Mountains have, for centuries, reported seeing shadowy figures on Brocken peak," Dowd wrote. "In reality, the Brocken spectre … happens when shadows — like those of a hiker — are cast on particularly misty mountain peaks. If the sun is behind the observer, the mist plays with the shadow, making it look huge and menacing."

The spectral figures are usually surrounded by a rainbow-colored halo, produced by sunlight refracting off of water droplets in the fog or clouds, according to the BBC. While it's common in the Harz Mountains, where fogs frequently creep in at low altitudes, you can see the effect on any misty mountainside with the sun at your back and the clouds below you. Perhaps you've seen it yourself from the window of an airplane; cruising between the sun and the clouds, the plane can cast a rainbow-rimmed shadow on the clouds below that looks supernaturally large.

It's possible, then, that hikers in the Santa Lucia Mountains are merely staring down their own shadows when the Watchers come a-watching. (Sorry, Steinbeck.)

Originally published on Live Science.

One tourist has died and three others were hospitalized with severe injuries after the collapse of an enormous frozen waterfall in eastern Russia on Thursday (Jan. 7), according to news reports.

The four tourists were among dozens of visitors to Russia's Vilyuchinsky waterfall — a tourist attraction known in winter as the Tsar Icicle — on Thursday. The 130-foot-tall (40 meters) tower of ice collapsed suddenly, trapping the four beneath a sheet of ice for several hours.

More than 40 rescuers flew to the scene by helicopter to dig the trapped tourists free, according to a statement from the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry — but one victim was already dead upon their arrival. The others — including a teenage boy — were promptly evacuated to a hospital with severe injuries.

Related: Trippy 'reverse waterfalls' seen flowing backward

Vilyuchinsky waterfall sits on the Kamchatka peninsula in far eastern Russia. The peninsula is home to around 160 volcanoes, 29 of which are still active. Many are capped with glaciers. As those glaciers melt in warm weather months, their runoff trickles through the mountains, occasionally forming waterfalls like Vilyuchinsky. In winter, when that runoff freezes again, the falls become a towering, frozen monument to the changing seasons. The so-called Tsar Icicle draws hundreds of tourists each winter, according to the Siberian Times.

Right now, no one knows what caused this year's deadly collapse. It's possible that an avalanche from a nearby volcano could have caused an ice block to break loose, according to Russian media reports, but this theory has not been confirmed. An investigation into the accident is underway.

Originally published on Live Science.

A pair of aggressive male giant pandas roar ferociously on the ground beneath a female perched in a tree, in the first-ever footage of panda courtship and mating in the wild. 

For nearly three years, nature filmmakers Yuanqi Wu and Jacky Poon followed pandas in China's Qinling Mountains, hoping to capture evidence of elusive behavior that was unseen in captive animals, which are mated under controlled conditions that do not include competitions between males. 

Their patience paid off during breeding season, when they spied two bristling males squaring off at the foot of a tree, with a fertile female in the branches above. This and other remarkable scenes of panda life — including a young cub learning critical survival skills — are part of the new PBS Nature documentary "Pandas: Born to be Wild," premiering Wednesday (Oct. 21). 

Related: In photos: The life of a giant panda

Pandas (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) are popular for their comically round body shape and adorable antics, and videos of captive pandas playing in snow; rolling around like giant balls; using their heads to climb; or even accidentally face-planting, are undeniably enchanting. But when these bears are seen in their natural habitat, "there's nothing cute and cuddly about them," Jacky Poon, "Born to be Wild" filmmaker, said in the documentary. 

Adult male pandas can weigh as much as 300 lbs. (136 kilograms) and are nearly 7 feet (2 meters) tall when standing upright on their hind legs, according to the World Wildlife Fund. Pandas are highly territorial, and males usually interact with females only during mating season between March and May, WWF says.

In the tense standoff between the dominant, older male panda and an eager rival, the younger male eventually retreated, but when the female came down from her perch, she fought with the victor and escaped. For weeks, the two males trailed her, their growling challenges becoming more frequent and culminating in another tense confrontation. But a week later, when the female was finally ready to mate, just one suitor remained — the younger male. 

Male pandas' bellowing, scent marking and female "hostage"-holding are mating behaviors that may trigger ovulation in female pandas. That could explain why pandas are so difficult to breed in captivity, in the absence of this male competition.

Another star of "Born to be Wild" is a young male cub born through artificial insemination at the Wolong Panda Center and raised there in a special enclosure. Most of the reserve's cubs grow up around other pandas and human caretakers, and so they are more social than is typical for wild, solitary bears. However, to prepare this young panda for life in the wild as an adult, the caretakers will keep him for three years only with his mother, separated from other pandas and with very limited interaction with people. 

But caretakers still need to regularly check the cub's health and development; to do that, they dress in panda suits, and they further disguise their human scent by dousing themselves with panda urine. Though these costumes may not seem terribly realistic, they are close enough to the real thing to fool a young panda; vision in these youngsters is known to be very poor, PBS Nature representatives said in a statement. 

"Nature — Pandas: Born to be Wild" airs Oct. 21 at 8 p.m. (check local listings), pbs.org/nature and the PBS Video app 

Originally published on Live Science.

Young children who are just starting to explore the world around them often have plenty of questions, and a new animated series from PBS Kids not only encourages endless questions, but it also shows youngsters how they can use science to find answers.

In "Elinor Wonders Why," an inquisitive bunny named Elinor leads her friends in adventures around Animal Town. Along the way, they encounter new challenges and discover mysteries of the natural world that they've never seen before and don't understand. 

But Elinor and her animal companions also find that observation and investigation can help them piece together clues to find solutions and solve problems — just like scientists do. 

Related: The best STEM toys of 2020

Both of the "Elinor Wonders Why" co-creators — Jorge Cham and Daniel Whiteson — brought a science background to the series. Cham, also the creator of the nerdy online comic "Piled Higher and Deeper" (PHD Comics), formerly taught at Caltech and conducted research on neural implants. Whiteson, a physics professor at the University of California, Irvine, researches exotic particles using the Large Hadron Collider at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland.

The pair previously co-authored the humorous popular science book "We Have No Idea: A Guide to the Unknown Universe" (Riverhead Books, 2017), about unanswered questions in physics. For "Elinor Wonders Why," they wanted a show that also confronted unknowns, but at a level suitable for preschool-age kids, Cham told Live Science.

"Kids have lots of questions about everything, they want to know how everything works," Cham said. "This was an opportunity to create something that gives kids confidence about that — and gives them mental tools that they can use in situations when they have questions."

Empowering curiosity

The questions posed in each episode by Elinor and her best friends — a bat named Ari and an elephant named Olive — had to be questions that kids would be likely to ask, Whiteson explained. But the questions also had to be ones that kids could solve for themselves through investigation and deduction.

"It's really about empowering the audience's own curiosity," Whiteson said. "We tended to focus on questions that you could see the kids answering themselves with their own observations. They could use simple science techniques like taking notes, comparing things and doing experiments, to find answers to their own questions."

In one episode, while Elinor and her friends are camping out in her backyard, they learn to silently communicate with each other after watching the flashing signals of glowing fireflies. Another episode explores the different ways that animals keep themselves clean, after Ari declares that he has decided to stop taking baths. 

"We believe nothing is beyond being able to explain it to somebody," Cham said. "It's just a matter of finding the right language and how to approach it."

The natural world isn't a one-size-fits-all experience. Some children live near parks or have backyards, while others learn about plants and animals through interactions in their homes. As Cham and Whiteson imagined Elinor investigating science, they created stories that would be accessible to audiences regardless of their access to nature. 

"We have episodes where it's just about seeing birds out your window, or growing plants on your balcony," Whiteson said. "The same theme of curiosity and enjoyment and wonder of nature can be applied when all you have is a window."

"Elinor Wonders Why" is available to stream on the PBS Kids website.

Originally published on Live Science.

Earth has a lot of splendid natural gifts, and the unexpected beauty of geodes is one of them. These seemingly ordinary rocks have a colorful deposit of minerals on the inside. Once cracked open, the shimmering layers and crystals are exposed. From agate to amethyst, the multi-layered beauty of these special rocks is the perfect surprise for those who appreciate geology. We've collected the best imaginative geode gifts to surprise the nature lover in your life.

Geological gifts

Geodes are fascinating layers of crystallized minerals hidden in rocks. These shimmering discoveries are exquisite natural finds, so it's not surprising that geodes create and inspire a bounty of great gifts. Whether you know a rock enthusiast or someone who appreciates geological beauty, then a geode gift would be an ideal choice. Our staff pick is the JIC Gem polished geode agate bookends, because they add dimension to offices or living spaces, with their collection of glittering layers and natural raw-edge exterior. The agate book-keeping pair is available in a variety of colors and weights to accommodate every style preference.

Soothing chimes are also a great geode gifting option; the Kooalo agate wind chime is a clattering collection of shimmering agate slices organized in a natural cascade. This descending arrangement offers soothing melodic clangs, and each tier glimmers in the sunlight.

You don't have to be in Alaska to enjoy the magical color display of the Northern Lights. The vibrant wavering hues, from rosy pinks to earth greens, can be realized in home decor. Whether you're looking to capture the majesty through lightning or art, there are a variety of options to choose from. We've collected our favorites to commemorate this remarkable natural wonder in your living space. 

Shine the light

You can bring the beauty of the Northern Lights into your home with some fun decor choices. The soothing natural light display can appear in your lighting or art selections. Our first choice is the SOAIY Aurora Projector Lamp because it recreates the relaxing combination swirling tones for a soothing sensory experience. The projector has eight light settings, adjusts up to 45 degrees, and has a speaker to connect your smartphone to for sound. 

If you're looking to brighten up your living room, bedroom, or office, we suggest the Cao Gen Decor Art Aurora Borealis Canvas Print. This printed canvas features bright strokes of colorful light over a mountainous scene. There are a variety of available size options to best fit your space. 

If the Northern Lights captivate you, it's possible to bring the natural wonder into your home with a projector. These illuminating projectors offer a vivid, color-filled display of waving light, filling your living space with beauty and relaxation. To douse your dwelling with the happiest hues, we've collected the best options available. 

Get the light right

You can recreate the beauty of the Northern Lights in your home with the addition of a projector. These light-casting projectors mimic the soothing, swaying lights that splash against the night sky in the Antarctic and Arctic. Our first choice is the SOAIY Aurora Projector Light because it saturates darkened rooms with vibrant hues in eight soothing color modes. The color modes, as well as timer settings, are managed by the convenient remote control. To add a little sound, the protector also has a built-in speaker that can be utilized by connecting a smartphone with the auxiliary cable.

To add a little light, choose the compact Projectables Northern Lights LED Projection Light. This minimalist projector simply plugs into the nearest outlet. When darkness is detected through the light sensor, it displays the loveliest color combination. The vibrant LED light tilts to achieve the best position.

After looming above the Arctic for nearly a month, the single largest ozone hole ever detected over the North Pole has finally closed, researchers from the European Union's Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) reported.

"The unprecedented 2020 Northern Hemisphere ozone hole has come to an end," CAMS researchers tweeted on April 23.

The hole in the ozone layer — a portion of Earth's atmosphere that shields the planet from ultraviolet radiation — first opened over the Arctic in late March when unusual wind conditions trapped frigid air over the North Pole for several weeks in a row.

Those winds, known as a polar vortex, created a circular cage of cold air that led to the formation of high-altitude clouds in the region. The clouds mixed with man-made pollutants like chlorine and bromine, eating away at the surrounding ozone gas until a massive hole roughly three times the size of Greenland opened in the atmosphere, according to a statement from the European Space Agency (ESA).

Related: 16 times Antarctica revealed its awesomeness in 2019

While a large ozone hole opens every autumn over the South Pole, the conditions that allow these holes to form are much rarer in the Northern Hemisphere, the ESA researchers said. The Arctic ozone hole opened this year only because the cold air was concentrated in the area for much longer than is typical.

Late last week, that polar vortex "split," the CAMS researchers said, creating a pathway for ozone-rich air to rush back into the area above the North Pole.

For now, there's far too little data to say whether Arctic ozone holes like this one represent a new trend. "From my point of view, this is the first time you can speak about a real ozone hole in the Arctic," Martin Dameris, an atmospheric scientist at the German Aerospace Center, told Nature.

Meanwhile, the annual Antarctic ozone hole, which has existed for roughly four decades, will remain a seasonal reality for the foreseeable future. Scientists are optimistic that the hole may be starting to close; a 2018 assessment by the World Meteorological Organization found that the southern ozone hole has been shrinking by about 1% to 3% per decade since 2000 — however, it likely won't heal completely until at least 2050. Warmer Antarctic temperatures caused by global warming are partially responsible for the hole's apparent shrinkage, but credit is also due to the Montreal Protocol, a global ban on ozone-depleting pollutants enacted in 1987.

• Images of melt: Earth's vanishing ice
• The reality of climate change: 10 myths busted
• Top 10 ways to destroy Earth

Originally published on Live Science.

Proving that 2020 is going to be a year of mixed blessings, conservationists in Indonesia have discovered the largest-ever blooming flower — on a parasitic plant that literally smells like death.

The record-setting flower's name is Rafflesia tuan-mudae, though it's sometimes referred to as a corpse flower for the unholy, rotting-meat stink it emits when in full bloom. (Several species of stinky tropical flowers share this title.) According to AFP.com, the large orange flower's petals spread a whopping 3.6 feet (111 centimeters) in diameter, surpassing the previous species record of 3.5 feet (107 cm), which was set by a Rafflesia bloom in West Sumatra several years ago. 

The corpse flower is considered one of the world's largest flower species, making this stinky specimen one of the largest flowers ever measured. The bloom will last about a week before it closes up again, Sumatran conservationist Ade Putra told the AP.

Related: The Most Disgusting and Deadly Flowers

Contrary to its name, the corpse flower is actually a parasite that makes its home on a tropical genus of grape vine called tetrastigma. Once a corpse bud takes root in an unsuspecting vine, it grows for about nine months before unfurling into a giant orange flower. The flower stays in bloom for about a week, attracting flies with its signature stench; properly seduced ones then carry off the flower's pollen to help spread that corpse-y goodness to other vines.

If you've heard of corpse flowers before, it may be thanks to one that bloomed in the New York Botanical Garden in 2016, following an excruciating 10-year growth period. (A stinker of the same species bloomed in the San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers in 2018, too.) This species of parasitic flower, known as Amorphophallus titanum (a name that literally translates to "giant misshapen phallus"), can grow to between 6 and 12 feet (2 to 4 meters) tall before blooming. When the time comes, the flower only opens for about 24 to 36 hours before closing again — a brief window that is either entirely too fleeting or far too long, depending on your feelings about rotting-meat stench.

• Flower Photos: Beautiful Begonias
• In Images: Stunning Flower Fields of the Atacama Desert
• In Photos: Beautiful Cactus Flowers Signal Spring Is Here

Originally published on Live Science.

If a bunch of exploding stars hadn't forged the universe's heaviest elements billions of years ago, there would be no iron for our Maidens, no lead in our Zeppelins and no rocks to roll all nite.

This is to say, nature has never needed humans in order to be totally metal — and 2019 was no exception. This year was so metal that cockatoos taught themselves to headbang, cows rode hurricanes across the sea and black holes got so heavy that they defied physics.

In humble appreciation of these epic stories and others, we offer the following collection of 10 times nature was totally metal in 2019.

1. Walrus mom sinks boat

A walrus is a saber-toothed torpedo wrapped in 2,000 lbs. (900 kilograms) of rippling blubber. You probably don't spend much time thinking about how brutal these arctic sea units are — unless you've had the misfortune of getting too close to one or her calves.

That was the case for a group of Russian marine scientists in September, when they landed on a remote island in the Russian Arctic during a research expedition. According to a report from the Russian Geological Society, the team piloted its landing craft a bit too close to a mother walrus and her babies, prompting mama to attack the vessel — and wreck it. "The boat sank," the report said, though, luckily, "all the landing participants safely reached the shore."

The mother walrus and her family were also unharmed. When was the last time you headbanged a boat to death and walked away unscathed? 

2. Reindeers form mosh pit

Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer didn't go down in history for his combat prowess. Clunky and herbivorous, reindeer are much better at running away from predators than they are at fighting them. Spook enough reindeer at once, however, and their mad dash for safety could transform into an unstoppable force of nature.

In February, a PBS documentary called "Wild Way of the Vikings" showed what it looks like when this happens. It's called a "reindeer cyclone." When threatened (say, by a wolf's fangs or a hunter's arrow), a herd of reindeer may stampede over the ground in a spiral shape that makes it impossible for a predator to target any individual member of the herd. These cyclones once confounded Viking hunters in Norway, the documentary explains. But now, thanks to some stunning drone footage, we modern gatherers can marvel at the awesomeness of this furry mosh pit while chewing on beef jerky from the safety of our homes.

3. Headbanging worms wake sea

If reindeer prove that nature didn't need humans to invent the mosh pit, these deep-sea worms prove that nature didn't need us to invent headbanging either.

Lurking within sea sponges up to 550 feet (167 meters) deep off the coast of Japan, the paper clip-size worms called Leocratides kimuraorum are nearly transparent and exceptionally quiet — until it's time to rock out. When two worms engage in what researchers describe as a "mouth fight," they charge each other mouth-first, expand their throat muscles to create a high-tension bubble and then butt heads until those bubbles burst in an ear-splitting "pop." In a July 8 study, researchers found that each pop can reach up to 157 decibels in water, making these headbanging brawls some of the noisiest animal interactions in the sea (not bad for a bottom feeder).

4. Grasshoppers go biblical

"Grasshopper blizzard" sounds like a rough-draft name for one of the 10 plagues that was cut from the Old Testament before printing. But the people of Las Vegas got to experience such an event firsthand this summer when tens of thousands of migrating bugs swarmed the city several nights in a row.

Following a rainy spring that filled the Mojave Desert with lots of tasty vegetation, swarms of well-fed desert grasshoppers collectively flew northward this July as part of their regular seasonal migration. This year, their path took them directly over Las Vegas. Perhaps enticed by the bright lights or promise of free drinks, tens of thousands of the bugs alighted on the Strip, blanketing the sidewalks and seething around streetlights like living snow flurries.

So dense was the swarm that meteorologists mistook it for a storm when the cloud of insects appeared on weather radars on July 27. A few weeks later, the harmless bugs were gone, leaving, as so many Vegas visitors do, with nothing.

5. Cannibal galaxies collide

Galaxies cannibalize each other all the time. The Milky Way eats other galaxies; our neighboring Andromeda galaxy does it. And when the two inevitably crash into each other about 4 billion years from now, they will do it to each other. Justice is sweet (and apparently tastes like stars).

Astronomers aren't sure exactly what will happen when our galaxy smashes into Andromeda, but it will probably be messy. Once-dormant black holes could spark to life, stars will ricochet quadrillions of miles out of orbit, and crackling cosmic radiation will stain the sky in every direction. For a picture of what this could look like, take a gander at the ongoing galactic pileup known as NGC 6052. As shown in an epic photo snapped by the Hubble Space Telescope in March, two large galaxies in the Hercules constellation (about 230 million light-years away from Earth) smash into each other like a buzz saw biting through wood.

Studying this cosmic carnage could help astronomers find some clues about the crash that awaits the Milky Way. Or it could just be a nice reminder that life is futile and meaningless. Either way!

6. Bunker ants eat their dead

In cannibal news closer to home, a bunch of ants fell into a nuclear fallout shelter in Poland and have been eating each other to survive for years.

That's what scientists discovered when they found a colony of roughly 1 million wood ants trapped in a bunker near the German-Polish border in 2015. The ants were once part of a larger colony living over a 1960s-era nuclear base, but they had apparently fallen through a ventilation pipe that ended in a long drop to the bunker floor. Escape was impossible and food nonexistent; to survive, the unlucky castaways must have taken to eating each other's corpses, the team reported in an appropriately spooky Oct. 31 study. Indeed, in an analysis of 150 corpses from the room, 93% showed signs of being eaten. (Metal.)

Cannibalism isn't new to wood ants; the species is known to feed its young with the corpses of fallen enemies racked up during ant turf wars, the researchers noted. On a second trip to the bunker, the team installed a wooden board connecting the bunker's floor to the ceiling pipe. Most of the ants escaped within the year, free at last to cannibalize their enemies instead of their comrades, as nature intended. 

7. Dragon grows invisible fangs

Besides having a totally awesome name, the deep-sea dragonfish (genus Aristostomias) has one of the most metal jaws in nature. The eel-like predator's jaw can yawn open at 120-degree angles, allowing a dragonfish to devour prey more than half its size. (Imagine a toddler swallowing a newborn. Yikes.) You might think the sight of chompers like these would be enough to send sea critters running in fright, but the dragonfish's fangs are virtually invisible, not even reflecting the light from the fish's own bioluminescent body.

How is this feat of carnivorous camouflage possible? A study published in June looked at dragonfish fangs under an electron microscope, finding an array of grain-size nanocrystals speckled across each tooth's enamel that prevent light from scattering. The same trick could inspire human-size cloaking devices, the researchers wrote, allowing devious Muggles to skulk around like it's lights out at Hogwarts, hiding in plain sight. 

8. World's oldest death march discovered

Fossils are awesome because they show us how animals lived long ago, when snakes had legs and penguins were the size of middleweight boxers. But fossils are metal because they also show us how those animals died.

Take these baby fish, who perished in a perfectly preserved school when an underwater avalanche crushed them 50 million years ago. Or take this spiky worm, whose final commute across the muddy seafloor was immortalized in what scientists call the earliest "death march" in the fossil record, dating to roughly 550 million years ago. That dead millipede got scientists particularly excited in September, because it proved that animals have been mobile since at least the Ediacaran period (635 million to 539 million years ago), even earlier than was previously estimated. So long, ancient corpse worm. We salute you.

9. Tsunamis ravage sun

In case you've forgotten, Earth's sun is a constantly exploding ball of awesome. It's home to towering fountains of plasma; "lava lamp blobs" of mystery matter 500 times larger than Earth; and a writhing magnetic field that twists, turns, snaps and lashes out into space every 11 years or so, seriously screwing with Earth's power grid. In July, scientists added new phenomena to that list, these known as "terminator events." They're basically cataclysmic magnetic field collisions at the sun's equator.

Besides having a 1,000% epic name, these "terminator" collisions may result in twin tsunamis of plasma tearing across the star's surface in both directions, according to a February 2019 study. Yes, that means tsunamis of plasma, on the sun, moving at 1,000 feet (300 m) per second for weeks at a time. There is nothing not metal about this … save for the fact that, at the moment, the tsunamis are only theoretical. (The researchers who described them were looking at magnetic field patterns and data models, not physical observations.) Nevertheless, we challenge scientists to be bold and give the next version of the Parker Solar Probe a surfboard … and maybe some speakers for blasting Dick Dale.

10. Dead metal planet rots in space

Finally, we end on the most literally metal story of the year. In April, astronomers discovered the shattered remains of a dead planet orbiting a dead sun in a desolate solar system 400 million light-years away from Earth. The expired planet's broken heart is made of actual heavy metal, and this world orbits at breakneck speed through a dirty cosmic boneyard full of other chunks of dead planets.

How did these worlds die? Their own star probably engulfed them in flames as it ballooned outward during the final phases of its life, then devoured any leftovers after collapsing into a white dwarf (the superdense, gravitationally intense husk of a dead star). The remaining planetary chunk that makes up the newfound, dead world may have survived only by the strength of its heavy metal core, which now flies around the dead star like a missile, completing an orbit every 2 hours.

Mourn the dead planet and its dead star if you like, but do not pity them; one day, astronomers say, after our sun runs out of fuel and inevitably collapses, our solar system will probably look much the same.

Happy holidays!

• 9 Times Nature Was Totally Metal in 2018
• The 12 Strangest Objects in the Universe
• Top 10 Ways to Destroy Earth

Originally published on Live Science.

The Paris Zoological Park has added a brand-new blob to their collection. No, it's not a jellyfish. It's not even an animal, really — more like a living pile of old yellow silly string with a powerful hunger for fungus. 

As you can imagine, scientists have had a hard time classifying such an organism. It looks like a fungus, yet moves like an animal. It has no brain, yet can "learn" to navigate complex mazes in a few hours on its curious quest for food. What is this thing?

Technically, it's called a slime mold (aka, Physarum polycephalum) — a single-celled organism capable of growing up to square meters in size, though most specimens don't grow beyond a few square centimeters or inches. They're found all over the world, usually on the undersides of leaves and logs, where they like to hunt fungi and bacteria. In the lab, however, the molds have a hunger for oatmeal — and that has allowed researchers to unlock their weird growth potential.

To capture food, slime molds stretch out long veins of goo that can squiggle around obstacles or through mazes with surprising efficiency. In one 2010 study, scientists laid out dollops of oatmeal in a pattern representing Tokyo and the 36 surrounding towns. When let loose to feed, the slime mold branched out in a network similar to Tokyo's existing train system, connecting the food piles with impressive efficiency.

But wait, it gets weirder. Other studies have shown that slime molds can actually follow their own slime trails back to a food source for subsequent feedings, suggesting this brainless organism has a sort of spatial memory and problem-solving prowess. When two or more slime molds merge together, they can share what they've learned and continue finding the most efficient path to food. Occasionally, hundreds of individual slime molds can combine into a giant "plasmodium," making decisions through a sort of hive mind. (Not bad for a creature with no brain cells.)

On the subject of mating, did you know that slime molds have more than 720 sexes? It's true — thanks to some weird chromosomal alchemy.

In humans, sex is determined by the combination of chromosomes carried by a mating sperm cell and an ovule. A sperm cell can carry either an X or a Y chromosome, while an ovule will always carry a Y, resulting in a new cell with either XX chromosomes (a female) or XY chromosomes (a male). 

For slime molds, things get a little… stickier. Instead of having just two types of sexual chromosomes (X or Y), a slime mold’s sex is determined by three different locations or "loci" on their chromosomes, each of which has many different alleles (or gene variations).

"To date, at least 16, 15 and 3 alleles are known to exist at each of the three loci," Audrey Dussutour, a slime mold researcher at the Research Centre on Animal Cognition of Toulouse University, told Live Science in an email. In other words, slime molds have 720 possible sex chromosome combinations. That's a lot — but luckily, two slime mold spores don’t need to have the same sexual type to mate. "To cross efficiently, spores must carry different alleles," Dussutour said.

It's no exaggeration when Paris Museum of Natural History director Bruno David calls slime molds "one of nature's mysteries." You can see the mystery for yourself now at the Paris Zoological Park.

• Extreme Life on Earth: 8 Bizarre Creatures
• Photos: World's Cutest Baby Wild Animals
• The 12 Weirdest Animal Discoveries

Originally published on Live Science.

There's an 8% chance that Southern California could be rocked by another magnitude 6.0 or above earthquake this week, according to seismologists.

The region trembled under the effects of two large quakes last week, one a magnitude 6.4 on July 4 and one a magnitude 7.1 on July 5, both epicentered near Ridgecrest, California. That second temblor demoted the magnitude 6.4 to a mere foreshock. But chances are, the 7.1 magnitude quake is as bad as it's going to get: The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) estimates a 1% or less chance of a magnitude 7.0 or above quake in the Southern California desert in the coming week or month.

"Most of the earthquakes that are going to happen as we move through time are going to get smaller and less frequent," said Wendy Bohon, a geologist at the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (a university research consortium) in Washington, D.C. [Could Massive SoCal Earthquakes Trigger the 'Big One' on the San Andreas Fault?]

Forecasting aftershocks

No one can predict earthquakes, but scientists can give rough probabilities of aftershocks. The USGS calculates the likelihood of magnitude 3 and above aftershocks for any quake of magnitude 5 or above in the United States and its territories.

The process is not dissimilar to predicting the weather, Bohon told Live Science. Seismologists use observations from past earthquakes and their aftershocks, taking into account the magnitude, or energy released in the quake, and local geophysical patterns. The Eastern California Shear Zone, the region where the recent Ridgecrest quakes hit, is particularly notorious for active aftershocks, Bohon said. More than 3,000 quakes have been recorded since July 4 near the Ridgecrest quake's epicenter, according to the Southern California Earthquake Data Center, but the vast majority have been in the unnoticeable-to-weak magnitude 1 or magnitude 2 range.

Seismologists' predictions are governed by certain scientific laws, like Omori's law, which states that the frequency of aftershocks decreases with time. Then there's the Gutenberg-Richter law, which defines the relationship between larger and smaller quakes. This is the law that states that for every magnitude difference in a quake, there's a tenfold change in frequency. For example, for every 4.0 magnitude quake, there will be 10 magnitude 3.0 quakes and 100 magnitude 2.0 quakes. Both of these laws give scientists a rough pattern to follow when forecasting the aftereffects of an earthquake of any given magnitude.

SoCal quake stats

Southern California's quakes are a result of the movement of the Pacific tectonic plate and the North American tectonic plate against each other; much of this stress occurs on the San Andreas Fault, but about 25% occurs in the Eastern California Shear Zone, Bohon said. This zone is where some of the largest quakes in California's history have occurred, she added. The July 5 magnitude 7.1 quake was the largest in the state since 1999, when the Hector Mine earthquake shook the Mojave Desert area. That quake, also a magnitude 7.1, was epicentered in the Twentynine Palms Marine Corps Base.

As of July 7, the USGS forecasts a 99% chance of magnitude 3 and above earthquakes near the epicenter of the July 5 quake. There is a 56% chance of magnitude 5 and above quakes, and an 8% chance of another quake of magnitude 6 or above. For a quake of magnitude 7 or higher, the probability drops to less than 1% and only rises to 2% over the time frame of a full year.

• The 10 Biggest Earthquakes in History
• Image Gallery: This Millennium's Destructive Earthquakes
• Photo Journal: The Gorgeous San Andreas Fault

Originally published on Live Science.

"TURN AROUND DON'T DROWN!"

That was the all-caps message the D.C./Baltimore National Weather Service (NWS) issued today (July 8) as surging water engulfed roads and stranded drivers — requiring multiple water rescues. The severe flooding prompted the office to issue a somewhat unusual "flash flood emergency" declaration in Washington D.C. and its Virginia suburbs. That's one step up from the somewhat more common "flash flood warning."

Locals posted images and videos to social media of intense flooding across the region. [In Images: Extreme Weather Around the World]

Even the White House basement reportedly flooded.

A slow-moving, hard-pounding cluster of storms was responsible for the high waters, according to Cody Ledbetter, a NWS forecaster in the Virginia-based D.C./Baltimore office.

Those storms were part of a hot, wet air mass — called a boundary layer — that formed near the northern tip of the state near the West Virginia border and flowed south and east toward the capital.

"We had lots of reports of 3 to 5 inches [of rainfall] across the region, from Frederick city [in western Maryland] to D.C., and even some reports a bit higher than that," Ledbetter told Live Science.

The critical factor for turning all that rain into a flood was the speed with which it fell, he said.

"It fell in the span of two hours or less. There's no way the ground could keep up with that. It was coming down way too fast for the ground to be able to soak any of it up," he said. "So it flows pretty much immediately into streams, rivers. That causes them to rise pretty quickly and overtake roadways."

The good news, he said, is that flash floods should abate within hours as the rain stops and water flows downriver. In the meantime, the NWS is urging residents to avoid dangerous flooded roads, and find alternate routes to avoid stranding or drowning.

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Originally published on Live Science.

If you're the sort of person who just can't keep a plant alive, you're not alone — according to a new study published June 10 in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution, the entire planet seems to be suffering from a similar affliction.

After analyzing the populations of more than 330,000 seed-bearing plants around the world, the study authors found that about three plant species have gone extinct on Earth every year since 1900 — a rate that's roughly 500 times higher than the natural extinction rate for those types of plants, which include most trees, flowers and fruit-bearing plants. Unsurprisingly, human activity plays a key role in this elevated extinction trend. [Wipe Out: History's Most Mysterious Extinctions]

"The geographical pattern of modern extinction of plants is strikingly similar to that for animals," the researchers wrote in their new study.

The team found that roughly half of all reported plant extinctions occurred on isolated islands, where species are more vulnerable to environmental changes brought on by human activity. The islands of Hawaii proved the single most dangerous place for plant species, with 79 extinctions reported there since 1900. Other places with particularly high extinction rates included the Cape Provinces of South Africa, the island of Mauritius, Australia, Brazil and India.

To reach these conclusions, the researchers scoured every journal and plant database at their disposal, beginning with a 1753 compendium by pioneering botanist Carl Linnaeus and ending with the regularly updated IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, which maintains a comprehensive list of endangered and extinct plants and animals around the world. After combining and cross-checking the various extinction reports, the team compared the results to the natural or "background" extinction rates for plants, which a 2014 study calculated to be between 0.05 and 0.35 extinctions per million species per year.

The researchers found that, while roughly 1,300 seed plant species had been declared extinct since 1753, about half of those claims were ultimately proven to be false. In the last 250 years, more than 400 plants thought to be extinct have been rediscovered, and 200 others have been reclassified as a different living species. That leaves approximately 571 species confirmed extinct in the last 250 years, vanishing at a rate of roughly 18 to 26 extinctions per million species per year.

That number may look wilted when compared with the rate at which animals are dropping off the planet (which is about 1,000 times greater than the natural rate), but the trend is still troubling.

Perhaps more troubling, the authors wrote, is that the elevated extinction rate they found is very likely an underestimate of the actual number of plant species that are extinct or critically endangered. These results do not account for plants that are "functionally extinct," for example; meaning they only exist in captivity or in vanishingly small numbers in the wild, Jurriaan de Vos, a phylogeneticist at the University of Basel in Switzerland, who was not involved in the research, told Nature.com. (De Vos is, however, the lead author of the 2014 study on background extinction rates.)

"You can decimate a population or reduce a population of a thousand down to one and the thing is still not extinct," de Vos said. "But it doesn’t mean that it’s all OK."

• Image Gallery: Carnivorous Plants
• The Most Disgusting and Deadly Flowers
• 10 Species That Will Die Long Before the Next Mass Extinction

Originally published on Live Science.

It seems every week there's a scary new report about how man-made climate change is going to cause the collapse of the world's ice sheets, result in the extinction of up to 1 million animal species and — if that wasn't bad enough — make our beer very, very expensive. This week, a new policy paper from an Australian think tank claims that those other reports are slightly off; the risks of climate change are actually much, much worse than anyone can imagine.

According to the paper, climate change poses a "near- to mid-term existential threat to human civilization," and there's a good chance society could collapse as soon as 2050 if serious mitigation actions aren't taken in the next decade.

Published by the Breakthrough National Centre for Climate Restoration in Melbourne (an independent think tank focused on climate policy) and authored by a climate researcher and a former fossil fuel executive, the paper's central thesis is that climate scientists are too restrained in their predictions of how climate change will affect the planet in the near future. [Top 9 Ways the World Could End]

The current climate crisis, they say, is larger and more complex than any humans have ever dealt with before. General climate models — like the one that the United Nations' Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) used in 2018 to predict that a global temperature increase of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) could put hundreds of millions of people at risk — fail to account for the sheer complexity of Earth's many interlinked geological processes; as such, they fail to adequately predict the scale of the potential consequences. The truth, the authors wrote, is probably far worse than any models can fathom.

How the world ends

What might an accurate worst-case picture of the planet's climate-addled future actually look like, then? The authors provide one particularly grim scenario that begins with world governments "politely ignoring" the advice of scientists and the will of the public to decarbonize the economy (finding alternative energy sources), resulting in a global temperature increase 5.4 F (3 C) by the year 2050. At this point, the world's ice sheets vanish; brutal droughts kill many of the trees in the Amazon rainforest (removing one of the world's largest carbon offsets); and the planet plunges into a feedback loop of ever-hotter, ever-deadlier conditions.

"Thirty-five percent of the global land area, and 55 percent of the global population, are subject to more than 20 days a year of lethal heat conditions, beyond the threshold of human survivability," the authors hypothesized.

Meanwhile, droughts, floods and wildfires regularly ravage the land. Nearly one-third of the world's land surface turns to desert. Entire ecosystems collapse, beginning with the planet's coral reefs, the rainforest and the Arctic ice sheets. The world's tropics are hit hardest by these new climate extremes, destroying the region's agriculture and turning more than 1 billion people into refugees.

This mass movement of refugees — coupled with shrinking coastlines and severe drops in food and water availability — begin to stress the fabric of the world's largest nations, including the United States. Armed conflicts over resources, perhaps culminating in nuclear war, are likely.

The result, according to the new paper, is "outright chaos" and perhaps "the end of human global civilization as we know it."

How can this catastrophic vision of the future be prevented? Only with the people of the world accepting climate change for the emergency it is and getting to work — immediately. According to the paper's authors, the human race has about one decade left to mount a global movement to transition the world economy to a zero-carbon-emissions system. (Achieving zero-carbon emissions requires either not emitting carbon or balancing carbon emissions with carbon removal.) The effort required to do so "would be akin in scale to the World War II emergency mobilization," the authors wrote.

The new policy paper was endorsed with a foreword by Adm. Chris Barrie, a retired Australian defense chief and senior royal navy commander who has testified before the Australian Senate about the devastating possibilities climate change poses to national security and overall human well-being.

"I told the [Senate] Inquiry that, after nuclear war, human-induced global warming is the greatest threat to human life on the planet," Barrie wrote in the new paper. "Human life on Earth may be on the way to extinction, in the most horrible way."

• The Reality of Climate Change: 10 Myths Busted
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• 50 Amazing Facts About Earth

Originally published on Live Science.

Oklahoma, northwest Texas and the Texas Panhandle are bracing for a day of extreme weather, including dangerous tornadoes, flooding and thunderstorms.

"Numerous intense and long-track tornadoes" are expected in the region today (May 20) and tonight, according to the National Weather Services' Storm Prediction Center (SPC).

There's a 95% chance of tornadoes, 95% chance of winds over 75 mph (120 km/h), and 95% chance of hail larger than 2 inches (5 centimeters), according to the SPC. [Tornado Facts: Causes, Formation & Safety]

The SPC officially issued a tornado watch across the region. About 5.5 million people live in the region likely to be affected by the weather system, CBS News reported.

"The only other watch like this was issued for Alabama on 27 April 2011," the SPC tweeted.

As CNN pointed out, today is the sixth anniversary of a tornado that struck the city of Moore, Oklahoma, killing 24 people.

"A tornado watch means that conditions are favorable for tornadoes to form during the next several hours," the SPC said, urging residents to pay attention to local media for updates. "If a tornado warning is issued for your area, move to a place of safety, ideally in a basement or interior room on the lowest floor of a sturdy building."

Tornadoes can continue to form and will remain a threat after dark. And serious weather remains a threat in the areas outside the immediate zone of highest risk.

"More isolated but still potentially dangerous severe weather, including tornadoes and destructive winds and hail, is possible in surrounding parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Arkansas," the SPC said.

• In Images: Extreme Weather Around the World
• Top 11 Deadliest Natural Disasters in History
• Earth from Above: 101 Stunning Images from Orbit

Originally published on Live Science.

From towering treetops to buried caverns, Earth harbors rich and varied environments that host diverse communities of organisms. Some of these unusual creatures will be visiting a computer screen near you for Earth Day (April 22), in a new Google Doodle.

The Doodle features six forms of life that inhabit a range of habitats at different elevations around the planet, and each of these animals and plants demonstrate unique adaptations that help them to survive.

As the animation travels from Earth's greatest heights to its deepest depths, it lends viewers an endearing perspective on global ecosystems and their inhabitants. [Mother Earth: 5 Fun Facts About Earth Day]

The Doodle kicks off with a view of Earth from space, before plunging through the atmosphere; high above the ground soars a wandering albatross (Diomedea exulans), which has the widest wingspan of any living bird — about 11 feet (3 meters) on average, according to the National Audubon Society.

Another organism featured in the Doodle that reaches impressive heights is the coastal redwood (Sequoia sempervirens). These evergreen trees can live up to 2,000 years old and can grow to 379 feet (116 meters) tall; they are among the oldest and tallest trees on Earth, the National Parks Service reported.

The animation also visits a coelocanth, a type of fish that has existed on the planet for 407 million years, and a frog from Papua New Guinea called Paedophryne amauensis; measuring about 0.3 inches (8 millimeters in length), this tiny amphibian is Earth's smallest vertebrate.

• Eight Energy-Saving Tips to Make Every Day Earth Day
• Happy Earth Day! 6 Books to Read to Celebrate the Planet
• 10 Ways You Can Improve Earth's Health

Originally published on Live Science.

Historic floods across the Midwest have left three dead, prompted mass evacuations, and drowned cities.

The floods aren’t isolated incidents, however: Two giant waves of water are rolling down from the country's far-northern middle expanse. One wave is following the path of the Missouri River toward the Mississippi River, carrying with it big chunks of ice. The second wave is taking a similar path down the Mississippi River from Minnesota. Both are the result of a long winter of heavy snowfall in Minnesota and the Dakotas followed by a short, sharp melt.

Both floods are more or less each one giant wave traveling at the speeds of their rivers, said Darone Jones, director of the Water Prediction Operations Division (WPOD) at the National Weather Service’s National Water Center (NWC) in Alabama.

The North Dakota wave traveled down the Missouri River to Nebraska and yesterday (March 18) reached northwestern Missouri. After passing Kansas City it will turn left, following the river, and make its way toward the joining of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers in St. Louis. [Top 10 Ways to Destroy Earth]

The Minnesota wave is taking the more straightforward route down the Mississippi River through Iowa, past St. Louis and into the ocean. Along the way, both waves should lose some water, so the downstream floods may not be as intense as those upstream.

It takes about 28 days for a drop of water originating in North Dakota to make its way down the Missouri River to the ocean, Jones told Live Science. This series of floods is the result of excess water swelling the northern stretches of the Missouri River following a sudden melting event last week.

Snowpack, melting

The WPOD has known that there was a lot of potential meltwater in the northern Midwest in the form of snowpack, Jones said. The whole region had a very rough winter.

(Figuring out how much potential meltwater there is isn't just a matter of seeing how high the snow is piled, but weighing it, Jones added. Light, fluffy snow doesn't produce as much water when it melts as heavier, more tightly packed snow.)

Indeed, the NWC has a spring flooding forecast due for release at the end of this week that will warn (perhaps too late) that this winter dumped a lot of heavy snow in the northern Plains and Midwest, creating significant flooding risks. But the extent of flooding is a factor of how fast the snow melts, not just how much snow is up there, Jones said.

Thanks to a strong storm system last week, the snow is melting very fast. That storm dumped heavy snow on Colorado and then turned into rain over North Dakota and Minnesota, Jones said. That rain was very cold, but still warm enough to trigger a sudden snowmelt. Ultimately, a couple inches of rainwater across a wide area combined with several inches of snowmelt to produce this intense flood wave.

And the chunks of ice in the flood make things worse, Jones said. Periodically, they clump up as the flood moves south, creating temporary ice dams. Those dams cause water to back up behind them, worsening the flooding before they break and release the wave again.

Forecasters aren't sure yet just how bad this flood season will be, Jones added. That depends a lot on whether there are many more sudden melting events like the one that caused this wave, he said, or whether the region has a chance to warm slowly.

• 12 Strangest Sites on Google Earth
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• Gallery: Most Famous Waterfalls in the US

Originally published on Live Science.

The breathtaking waters that cascade off of steep cliffs may be self-made productions.

It was long thought that waterfalls needed an outside force to form — such as an earthquake, landslide or changes in sea level — that molds the rocky edges the water tumbles over.

But a new study suggests that a waterfall can form without any external influence. A river's own chaotic nature can mold the bedrock beneath it and spontaneously create a waterfall, researchers reported yesterday (March 13) in the journal Nature.

To demonstrate this, the group of researchers first created a model of a river in a lab. [Gallery: Most Famous Waterfalls in the US]

They used a material called polyurethane foam to model the natural bedrock that waterfalls form over — this material is scalable to actual rocks but erodes much faster. The foam was placed at a 20-degree downward tilt in a 24-foot-long (7.3 meter) flume.

Then, the researchers turned on the "stream," releasing sediment-filled water down the flume. 

They found that, under the pressure of the water and sediments, the once-straight layer of "rock" began to erode unevenly and became wavy. Some parts of the bedrock didn't erode at all, creating crests, while others eroded sharply, creating steep hills. In other words, the bedrock began to look like a set of steps.

In a little over 2 hours, water began to flow over the less-eroded crests and cascade down the more-eroded pockets; the scientists had their waterfalls. These lab-made waterfalls stuck around for about 20 minutes before the crests eroded away entirely. The researchers calculated that their lab-made waterfall's lifespan represented 10 to 10,000 years in a natural river's life span, according to the study.

The authors concluded that some (but not all) waterfalls in nature might form spontaneously, like their lab-made one did — and if they can figure out which waterfalls formed spontaneously and which had help, that could mold our understanding of how our landscapes formed throughout our planet's history.

• The World's Longest Rivers
• In Living Color: A Gallery of Stunning Lakes
• The Great Lakes: North America's Third Coast

Originally published on Live Science.

Vikings hunting reindeer in Norway were once confounded by "reindeer cyclones"; a threatened herd would literally run circles around the fierce hunters, making it nearly impossible to target a single animal.

Filmmakers recently captured incredible aerial footage of one of these reindeer cyclones, which aired Feb. 13 on PBS in the documentary "Wild Way of the Vikings," a program about Vikings and the wilderness they inhabited around A.D. 1000. [Photos: Ancient Arrows from Reindeer Hunters Found in Norway]

One of the documentary's most striking scenes shows a re-enactment of a Viking hunt interspersed with real footage of reindeer herds. Reindeer were important to the Vikings for their meat, hides, antlers and bones, according to the film.

In the cyclone scene, a lone hunter (an actor playing a Viking) approaches the herd; he notches and releases an arrow. The footage that follows shows an actual herd of reindeer running in circles. As the swirling mass of bodies thunders along a circular path, an overhead camera reveals that the herd's momentum follows a spiral shape, drawing tightly toward the cyclone's "eye" at the center.

Faced with this spinning reindeer stampede, any predator — wolf, bear or human — would have a very tough time targeting and overpowering a single reindeer, making this a formidable defense strategy, according to a statement from PBS.

This behavior is also practiced by reindeer kept in corrals, occurring in groups of at least 20 to 25 animals, researchers wrote in a 2002 study published in the journal Rangifer. Penned reindeer formed "cyclones" and were observed to run "invariably" in a counterclockwise direction, the scientists reported.

Opportunistic hunters

Vikings were opportunistic hunters who preyed on reindeer, birds, fish, seals, walruses and possibly even whales, Albína Hulda Pálsdóttir, a doctoral candidate with the Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis at the University of Oslo in Sweden, told Live Science.

"The Vikings really adapted to making use of everything that they could," she said.

Scientists know that Vikings hunted with bows and arrows, and used ropes and nets for fishing "and possibly birding," said Pálsdóttir, a zooarchaeologist and science adviser for the film.

However, archaeologists know little about the details of their hunting techniques, as Vikings crafted tools primarily from organic materials such as wood, rope and hide, which don't preserve well.

But in recent years, many of these ancient relics have emerged from melting ice and permafrost. This is particularly true in Norway, where ice patches — regions of long-frozen snow — are rapidly disappearing, providing archaeologists with access to Viking objects that were preserved in ice for more than a millennium, Pálsdóttir said.

"It's really adding to our understanding of their material culture, and what they may have used to hunt reindeer," she added.

You can watch the entire episode of "Wild Way of the Vikings" on the PBS website.

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• 6 Surprising Facts About Reindeer
• In Photos: Viking Outposts Possibly Found in Canada

Originally published on Live Science.

Nature is brimming with beautiful patterns, like the seemingly complex shapes of snowflakes, coastlines, clouds and seashells.

But zoom in, and you'll see fractals, meaning the same, simple pattern repeating at smaller and smaller scales. 

Now, researchers have found that a simple human-made object, a laser, can also create these stunningly intricate patterns — as was first predicted two decades ago. They reported their results Jan. 25 in the journal Physical Review A.

A laser can be thought of as a box that's made up of two mirrors, with light particles, or photons, bouncing back and forth between the mirrors, said study author Andrew Forbes, a professor of physics at the University of the Witwatersrand, in Johannesburg, South Africa. However, one of the mirrors is curved so that some of the photons bounce off at an angle and escape rather than hitting the other mirror again, Forbes said. The laser light we see is made up of those escaping photons. [Amazing Images: Heart Shapes in Nature]

Scientists predicted decades ago that the light escaping from the laser could theoretically produce a fractal under the right conditions. But it turns out that's not the case.

Rather, "what we had to do was to look inside the box," Forbes told Live Science.

To create the fractal, they used the curved mirrors of the laser and had them do double duty as a kind of "telescope." In this case, the mirrors were curved in a special way that distorted shapes like a funhouse mirror. "What a telescope does is [it] either makes big things small or small things big," Forbes said. So every time the light goes around once, their telescope system either magnifies it or shrinks it. As a result, in "one particular place [inside the laser], it forms this funny, this really crazy structure" — "an image within an image within an image," he said. In other words: a fractal.

The researchers created many different kinds of fractals by playing with the curvature of the mirrors and thus changing the magnification.

They then built an imaging system that captured these internal fractals and brought them outside to a screen. The pattern repeats only until you reach the wavelength of the light, just like fractals in nature repeat only until zoomed in to the level of the atom, said co-author Johannes Courtial, a senior lecturer in physics and astronomy at the University of Glasgow in Scotland. (In mathematics, however, fractals repeat infinitely, as is the case with the famous Mandelbrot set.)

Up until this point, people were probably looking at the wrong place in the laser, Courtial said.

"We didn't look quite in the right plane [either], so it's not the perfect experiment," Courtial told Live Science. Now that they've figured out it can be done, in subsequent experiments, "we can do much better."

The theoretical simulations, led by Courtial, suggested that this pattern might not only exist in two dimensions, but also in 3D. That means that when you cut through the fractal pattern perpendicular to the plane it's on, you might see the exact same, self-similar pattern. When that showed up in simulations of the laser, "I did not expect that at all," Courtial said. But the researchers still have yet to prove this experimentally.

Courtial said they conducted these experiments "purely out of interest" and that there are no practical applications as of yet.

But knowing that laser lights can create fractals might possibly lead to some sort of microscope or imaging system that could look at multiple dimensions rather than the surface or just one layer of an object, Forbes told Live Science. "Fractal light carries a lot of complexity, and so one can dream that perhaps it's then the perfect type of beam to probe complex matter."

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Originally published on Live Science.

Nature Is Metal.

Nature. It's home to such popular creations as butterflies, orchids and elephants that eat cereal with their trunks.

We love these bright, happy things about our planet, of course — but nature also has a darker side. A brutal side. A metal side. For every donkey and emu that fall in love, there is a two-headed snake waging a constant fight to the death with itself. For every blooming flower, there is a melting iceberg shaped like a casket.

We invite you now to slip on your blackest T-shirt, crank some Sabbath and thoughtfully head bang along as we review the nine most metal discoveries, photographs and unexplained phenomena that crept out of nature's darkest corners in 2018.

When Scientists Discovered NeCROWphelia

Crows are nature's most metal birds. They're black as a broken heart, smart enough to turn a twig into a shiv and, as George R.R. Martin loves to remind us, fond of eating the dead. This year, scientists added one more feather to that cap of creepiness: turns out crows also copulate with corpses.

Scientists at the University of Washington were watching footage of a "crow funeral" when they noticed some of the birds in attendance didn't stop at cawing their respects to their fallen flock-mate. Some crows attacked the corpse; others mounted and tried to mate with it. Why? No one knows. But the researchers hypothesize it could be a confused, emotional response to seeing a dead comrade (a clear signal of danger) during the stressful heights of mating season.

Crows: Even darker than you thought.

The Coffin-Berg Cometh (and Dieth)

In November, NASA satellites caught a glimpse of arguably the most poignant possible symbol of Earth's climate-hobbled future: A lone iceberg, shaped like a coffin, drifting into warm waters to die forever.

There is nothing not metal about this, except perhaps that the ice doesn't appear to be bloodstained or wearing even a single tattoo.

According to NASA, the coffin-berg (officially named B-15T) broke off Antarctica's Ross ice shelf about 18 years ago, then bobbed around the continent's frigid southern border for nearly two decades. Scientists said the coffin-berg's shape is partially a result of collisions with other icy bodies during that time, but ultimately is "an accident of time and space," sort of like life itself (#metal). In any case, coffin-berg has now drifted into the southern Atlantic where it will soon melt out of existence forever, sort of like you, me and everyone you've ever known. (#doublemetal.)

The 'Skull and Crossbones Nebula' Is So Ready to Rock

When you scream into the void, sometimes the void screams back.

That screaming is probably coming from the so-called "skull and crossbones nebula," a hellish mask of overlapping stars located a few tens of thousands of light-years beyond Earth. Why the name? Look at it. From our planet's point of view, the nebula's swirling plumes of gas and dust form the outline of a giant face in the night sky. Two bright star clusters leer out from the face's dark sockets like menacing eyes.

Scientists like photographing and studying the nebula because it's young (less than 2 million years old, probably) and actively forming stars. We like it because it's spooky-as-all-get-out, and the best proof we have that nature's most metal creations are still lurking out there in space, just beyond our vision, waiting to scare the bejesus out of us.

This Two-Headed Viper Can't Stop Fighting Itself

It's said that each of us is his or her own worst enemy. That's especially true when you're a hungry, venomous snake with two heads.

One such snake — a baby, two-headed copperhead — was discovered this year slithering around a family's yard in northern Virginia. According to a statement from the Wildlife Center of Virginia, the rare conjoined serpent has two brains, two tracheas and two esophagi leading to a single, shared heart and set of lungs. Both heads are capable of catching and swallowing prey — and that's where the trouble starts.

These heads just can't get along. They can't decide on when to eat, who gets to swallow what or even which direction to slither in. In nature, they'd be doomed. In a zoo (where they'll likely end up if they survive long enough) they'll just be awesome.

In other totally metal snake news, it turns out cobras cannibalize each other, like, all the time.

The Chest-Bursting Wasp Named for an Alien

The parasite wasps of the ichneumonoidea family are so savage that they've actually convinced theologians to second guess whether a benevolent God could have possibly created them. What makes these bugs so brutal? Just that they reproduce by laying eggs inside of caterpillars, then wait for the hatchlings to literally chew their way out of their still-living hosts.

Fun! And better yet, scientists think there might be 10,000 unique species of these chest-bursting buggers around the world just waiting to be discovered. One group of researchers writing in the Journal of Hymenoptera Research described three new species earlier this year. Fittingly, they named one of them Dolichogenidea xenomorph — an homage to the parasitic alien from Ridley Scott's 'Alien' (her name was also Xenomorph).

Besides a common name, D. xenomorph and her cinematic counterpart also share a spooky, streamlined body and a penchant for really ruining their host’s days. You can find D. xenomorph in Australia and in your nightmares.

Goth Moth Drinks Bird Tears for Supper

Somewhere in the Brazilian Amazon there is a moth sucking the tears out of a bird's eye in the dead of night. The moth is not doing this because he thrives on the suffering of others, like that one girl you knew in high school. He is doing this because he loves salt.

Animals drink each other's tears so often it has a name: lacryphagy. It's a relatively common way for insects like butterflies, bees and moths to supplement their diets with some free sodium, according to a new study published this year in the journal Ecology. Common targets include turtles and crocodiles, who are prone to lowering their metabolisms and lying still for hours at a time — but what about this bird? According to study author Leandro João Carneiro de Lima Moraes, birds like the black-chinned antbird seen here can go all-but-comatose at night in order to reduce their body temperature on muggy Amazon evenings.

While the goth moth gets a free meal out of the arrangement, it's unlikely the bird gets anything in return — except perhaps the risk of ocular disease. Nobody said nature was fair.

Siberia Happened

Siberia — that vast, snowy place that would be the world's largest country if it were one — had quite the metal year. Let's see: There was the time a sack of 54 severed human hands sprouted up from a snow drift, the time the sun mysteriously disappeared for three hours over the world's coldest city, the time it "rained blood" (actually just industrial pollution caught in a draft) over a factory parking lot, the time a 40,000-year-old dead baby horse emerged perfectly preserved from the permafrost, the 3 tons of gold bricks that fell from the sky…

We could go on. But instead, we will just say that, in 2018, "Siberia happened." And that is more than enough for us.

When a Moose Duel Stopped Traffic in Canada

Bull moose are furry bulldozers with giant, spiked weapons attached to their skulls, but it's rare for humans to see those weapons in action.

Earlier this summer, one Canadian motorist did when two moose appeared before him on the New Brunswisk roadside. In a bizarre and beautiful ritual, the mighty moose alternated clashing their antlers together like Kirk and Spock in that one episode of Star Trek, pausing for several minutes of sober reflection, then crashing into each other again. Bull moose do this to solve sexual and territorial disputes, and the duel only ends when one moose shoves the other off balance using the force of his antlers alone. In this case, the fight took about 10 minutes — and you can watch it all (preferably with Sabbath still blasting in another tab).

When a Punch-Drunk Honey Badger Got Punted

Honestly, photographers witnessed enough animal fights this year to fill the lines of an epic Norse poem. Highlights include the warring king cobra and python who died tangled in each other's grasp, the shrieking match between two Canada lynx venting their sexual frustrations, the tied-up alligator who head-butted a smug trapper in the face, and the laboratory cockroach who kicked a wasp in the head to avoid becoming a mind-controlled zombie.

But the warriors to whom we'd like pay particular homage are the fearless honey badger and the South African oryx — a type of antelope 10 times its size — he picked a fight with. That's right: the honey badger started the fight. And for that he got punted, over and over again.

"[The honey badger] kept on charging at the oryx, then the oryx would hook the badger between its horns and toss him five or six meters (16 to 19 feet) into the air," Dick Theron, the photographer who saw the scene unfold, told the Daily Mail. The honey badger "just got up, shook itself and then charged at the oryx again!"

Nobody knows why. But we have a proposal: Badger and oryx weren't fighting — they were moshing. And to those two warriors we say have a very metal 2019, and rock on.

Originally published on Live Science.

The deadliest cat on Earth isn't a shaggy-maned lion, a sleek leopard or a stealthy tiger. It's a wee cat that you've probably never heard of: Africa's smallest feline, the black-footed cat.

Native to the grasslands of southern Africa, the black-footed cat has an endearingly round face and a light brown, black-spotted body that is small even compared to domestic cats. The wild feline measures only 14 to 20 inches (36 to 52 centimeters) long, stands about 8 inches (20 cm) tall and weighs about 2 to 6 lbs. (1 to 3 kilograms), according to the International Society for Endangered Cats (black-footed cats are listed as "vulnerable" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature).

Admittedly, those measurements don't sound very impressive when compared to the sizable big cats that are among the world's most fearsome predators. But despite its small size, the black-footed cat hunts and brings down more prey in a single night than a leopard does in six months, according to the PBS Nature miniseries "Super Cats." [Meet the Rare and Fabulous Felines of 'Super Cats' (Photos)]

The second episode in the miniseries aired on PBS last night (Oct. 31). It featured an unprecedented glimpse of the black-footed cat, along with views of other fascinating and elusive wild felines, such as a pregnant jaguar in Costa Rica, a rare swamp tiger in India and a family of fishing cats — the only semiaquatic cats — in the wetlands of Asia.

For the latest episode, titled "Cats in Every Corner," filmmakers captured never-before-seen views of black-footed cats by collaborating with researcher Alexander Sliwa, a curator at the Cologne Zoo in Germany who has studied the black-footed cat since the 1990s. Through Sliwa, the series' makers gained access to several small cats that had already been fitted with radio collars at a study site in South Africa, "Super Cats" producer Gavin Boyland told Live Science.

A real killer

Filming the tiny cats proved unusually challenging, Boyland said. Because the black-footed cats are so small, they're harder to track through tall grasses than big cats are. Since the little cats hunt mostly at night, the production crew needed to use a special light-sensitive camera to detect the felines at all, recording footage of hunting behavior that had never been captured before, Boyland explained.

And when it comes to hunting, as the filmmakers saw, the black-footed cat is extraordinarily efficient — "a real powerhouse," said Luke Hunter, Chief Conservation Officer at Panthera, a global wildcat-conservation organization.

Hunter, who served as a scientific consultant for "Super Cats," explained that small predators like the black-footed cat have accelerated metabolisms, which they need to keep fueled all the time, "so they're constantly hunting," he said. 

Black-footed cats use three very different techniques to nab their prey. One method is known as "fast hunting," in which the cats bound quickly and "almost randomly" through the tall grass, flushing out small prey such as birds or rodents, Hunter said. Another of their methods takes them on a slower course through their habitat, with the cats weaving quietly and carefully to sneak up on potential prey.

Finally, they use a sit-and-wait approach near rodents' burrows, a technique called still hunting, Hunter said.

"They wait for up to 2 hours, [staying] absolutely immobile, just silently waiting at the burrow for a rodent to appear. And then they nab it," Hunter told Live Science.

"The deadliest little cat on Earth"

In one night, a black-footed cat kills between 10 and 14 rodents or small birds, averaging a kill about every 50 minutes, according to Hunter. With a 60 percent success rate, black-footed cats are about three times as successful as lions, which average a successful kill about 20 to 25 percent of the time, Hunter said.

"If you're a gazelle or a wildebeest, a black-footed cat isn't at all deadly. But those success rates make them the deadliest little cat on Earth," he said.

Black-footed cats represent but one species in a highly diverse feline family, many of which are difficult to observe in the wild and are not well-understood. And though most of the felines that appear in "Super Cats" face serious threats of habitat loss and destruction from human activity, conservation efforts can yet preserve vulnerable populations, Hunter said.

"I believe it's mostly not doom and gloom. But if we don't actively conserve these species, if we don't work to reduce those threats, then we could lose some of these animals," he added.

Episode 2 of "Super Cats" is available to stream beginning today (Nov. 1). You can also watch Episode 1 — "Extreme Lives" — and learn more about the miniseries on the PBS Nature website and on PBS apps. Episode 3, "Science and Secrets," premieres Wednesday, Nov. 7, at 8 p.m. on PBS (check local listings).

Originally published on Live Science.

Canada lynx

With spectacular images, the PBS Nature miniseries "Super Cats" showcases the beauty and diversity of wild cats around the world.

Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis) are the most northerly cats — a record they share with their Eurasian cousins. Thick fur and huge snowshoe-like feet help them deal with arctic conditions and keep up with their equally specialist prey. Learn more at PBS Nature's "Super Cats" website.

Lion

Lions (Panthera leo) are the only cat to live in groups. In numbers they find the strength and audacity to hunt the most formidable prey.

Leopard

From the deserts of Southern Africa, to the Boreal forests of Russia to the bustling suburbs of Mumbai in India, leopards (Panthera pardus) thrive in more environments than any other wild cat.

Cheetah

A cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus), Namibia. Cheetahs are not just the fastest cats but the fastest animals on land, too. The latest research is beginning to reveal that it is their extraordinary maneuverability that really gives them their killer edge.

Caracal

A caracal (Caracal caracal) in Namibia. Their long powerful legs enable them to leap as high as 10 feet and hunt birds on the wing.

Ocelot

Ocelots (Leopardus pardalis) are small and superbly camouflaged cats that thrive in the forests of Central America. Lightweight and agile, they can climb high up into the trees.

Serval

A serval (Leptailurus serval), South Africa. Proportionally, servals have the longest ears and legs of any cat, and are adapted to detect and leap for prey amongst tall savanna grass. The world's densest population of these small cats have made their home in a secure wasteland that surrounds Africa's biggest industrial complex.

Black-footed cat

Black-footed cats (Felis nigripes) hunt amongst the short desert scrub in the Karoo of South Africa. They are Africa's smallest cat, and the deadliest of the entire cat family — with a 60 percent hunting success rate. Anything that moves is a potential meal, from locusts to birds to gerbils.

Read more about these adorable, remorseless killing machines.

Fishing cat

A fishing cat (Prionailurus viverrinus) and kitten, hunt for fish in Bangladesh. They are suited to a life in the monsoon wetlands. Beneath a long outer coat they have a short layer of insulating fur that acts like a wetsuit — and they have partially webbed feet.

Jaguar

A jaguar (Panthera onca), Central America. Jaguars are the biggest cat in the Americas. For their size, they have the strongest bite of any cat. On the coast of Costa Rica, they leave the jungle to hunt turtles on the beach.

Pallas's cat

Pallas's cats (Otocolobus manul) thrive in the remote grasslands of the Mongolian steppe. They are perfectly adapted to hide in this open landscape, as they have a wide head and low ears, and can flatten their bodies to look like a rock when hunting.

Desert lions

Desert lions (Panthera leo) live in small isolated prides and roam huge territories, relying on shared knowledge to find food in the harsh Namib desert. These three cubs were orphaned at barely a year old. They survive against the odds as the desert's youngest and most inexperienced pride.

Jaguar

A jaguar (Panthera onca) in Costa Rica, seen in an image from a thermal camera, has learned to hunt turtles on a pacific beach. For their size, they have the strongest jaws of any cat — powerful enough to break into a turtle's shell to feed on the rich source of food.

Uncommon viewpoint

Conservationist Kevin Richardson has immersed himself in a pride of lions (Panthera leo), discovering a unique perspective on their behavior.

Tech to the rescue

In order to study the sprinting abilities of cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus), Professor Alan Wilson built his own plane from scratch just to keep up with the world's fastest land animals.

Mountain lion cub

A young mountain lion cub (Puma concolor) is fitted with a GPS collar so scientists can follow her early life. Over time her striking blue eyes will darken.

Teasing out info

Dr. Natalia Borrego works with so-called lion whisperer Kevin Richardson to carry out IQ tests. She believes that they are smartest of all the cats.

Urban leopard cub

An urban leopard cub (Panthera pardus) drinks from a backyard pond. One of the largest cities on the planet, Mumbai is also home to the densest population of leopards.

Tigers

Tigers (Panthera tigris) are the biggest of all the cats — from the giant Siberian tigers that roam the frozen boreal forest of Russia, to the secretive swamp tigers of the Indian Sundarbans that bathe in seawater and patrol muddy shores. In the early 20th century, 100,000 tigers reigned across Asia and Europe, but today there are fewer than 4,000 in the wild.

Snow leopard

A snow leopard (Panthera uncia), Indian Himalayas. The "Ghost of the Himalaya" is the world's highest living and most lonesome cat. They live in huge territories, where food is scarce and finding a mate is even harder.

Cheetah

Cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus), Namibia. Cheetahs are not just the fastest cats but the fastest animals on land, too. The latest research is beginning to reveal that it is their extraordinary manoeuvrability that really gives them the killer edge.

Leopard

Leopard (Panthera pardus), Namibia. Leopards thrive in more environments than any other wild cat but that does not mean life is easy. Leopard mothers must leave their vulnerable young cubs if they are to hunt successfully.

Rusty spotted cat

Rusty spotted cat (Prionailurus rubiginosus), Sri Lanka. This miniature predator is the world’s smallest cat, so small that they are happy dining on bugs.

Pumas

Pumas (Puma concolor) are the widest-ranging mammal in the Americas, thanks to extraordinary adaptability and an eye for opportunity. They even stalk the most unlikely of prey: penguins.

Puma cubs

Puma cubs (Puma concolor). Puma, mountain lion, cougar: these are all names for the same cat. In fact, they hold the Guinness World Record for more names than other animal, perhaps thanks to their extraordinary range, from the North to the South of the Americas.

Margay

Margay (Leopardus wiedii), Central America. Margay are the tree-climbing experts of the cat world. They will never get stuck in a tree; their ankles can rotate 180 degrees, allowing them to walk down vertically.

Jaguar

Jaguar (Panthera onca), South/Central America. Jaguars are the largest cat in the Americas and have a bite to match. For their size, it's the strongest of any cat, allowing them to dispatch monstrous prey such as caiman crocodiles.

After gaining strength overnight, Hurricane Michael will be a storm of unprecedented intensity for the Florida Panhandle when it is expected to make landfall later today (Oct. 10).

"This storm will bring deadly surge to the Florida Panhandle and Big Bend coast and is not comparable to anything we have seen before," the National Weather Service forecast office in Tallahassee said in a warning just after 1 a.m. ET.

Hurricane Michael became a Category 4 storm overnight, packing 140 mph (220 km/h) winds with even stronger gusts. The storm would be the most powerful hurricane to hit the mainland United States this year. [Hurricane Season 2018: How Long It Lasts and What to Expect]

Florida Gov. Rick Scott declared a state of emergency for 35 Florida counties ahead of the "monstrous" storm, and more than 100,000 people have been ordered to evacuate, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

As of 5 a.m. ET, Michael was about 130 miles (215 kilometers) southwest of Apalachicola, Florida, and moving at about 13 mph (20 km/h), according to an advisory from the National Hurricane Center.

Unlike slow-moving Hurricane Florence, which made landfall in North Carolina last month and dumped record-breaking amounts of rain, Hurricane Michael is moving quickly. "The storm is fast-moving, so only 6-10+ inches (15-25+ centimeters) of precipitation are forecasted to fall over the Panhandle," Marangelly Fuentes, a NASA atmospheric scientist, told NASA's Earth Observatory.

However, Hurricane Michael's strong winds and storm surge could be devastating. The worst storm surge is expected to occur between Tyndall Air Force Base near Panama City, Florida, and Keaton Beach, Florida, and it could be up to 13 feet if it occurs at the same time as high tide.

The strength of the hurricane is especially alarming because many people in the Panhandle "have little or no experience with storms this intense," Fuentes said. "Only eight major hurricanes on record have passed within or near the projected landfall of Michael, and only three of those (Eloise 1975, Opal 1995 and Dennis 2005) occurred in the past 100 years.

Michael already proved deadly in Central America, where at least 13 deaths associated with the heavy rains and flooding were reported across Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua, according to the Associated Press.

After making landfall, Michael is expected to weaken as it swerves northeast over Georgia and South Carolina before reaching the Atlantic Ocean on Friday, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Original article on Live Science.

Many people will likely decide to stay put despite evacuation orders ahead of Hurricane Florence. And if history is any guide, they may not be fully thinking through the problems they'll face in the aftermath.

I conducted a research survey in Harris County, Texas, which contains much of metro Houston, after the city was flooded by Hurricane Harvey in August 2017, and found a common thread. Few respondents who stayed in place during the storm planned in advance for coping with extended service interruptions, such as road closures, power and water outages and communications interruptions.

I am a civil engineer and study interactions between people and infrastructure in disasters. In this survey, I wanted to understand how different sub-populations prepare for and adjust to service disruptions during these events.

Hurricanes don't always prompt mandatory evacuations, and even when they do, many people choose not to go. My results show that planning for losing key services, potentially for days or weeks, should be part of preparing to weather storms in place. And cities should keep their most vulnerable residents in mind as they make decisions about storm-proofing critical infrastructure systems, such as power and water.

No electricity, no phone, no toilet

Harvey flooded sewers, closed roads, downed power lines and interrupted telecommunications services across southeast Texas. Unlike tornadoes, which can selectively level one neighborhood and leave another unscathed, hurricanes are perversely egalitarian. In Houston, tony and disadvantaged neighborhoods alike bore the brunt of Harvey.

Most residents in hurricane-prone areas know to store food, stock up on water, check their flashlights and radios and plan for evacuations. But I found that relatively few Houstonians were ready for infrastructure service disruptions.

My survey was conducted three month after Harvey and included 750 Harris County residents. They rated sewer, water, electricity and communications as the most important household services, and found sewage backing up into homes from overwhelmed public water systems to be the most onerous disruption. Even households with individual on-site septic systems experienced septic tank overflow due to flooding.

Loss of potable water, which affected hygiene, drinking and food preparation, was the next greatest hardship. Electricity and telecommunications outages tied for third place, followed by road closures due to fallen trees, debris and flooding.

My students and I found that 53 percent of the people we surveyed were not well prepared for service disruption. Even the 47 percent who had laid in provisions to weather the storm had not thought specifically about service outages. Most people who self-identified as prepared underestimated the extent and length of service disruptions, and many ran out of stored food and water. A whopping 80 percent of households who were without power after the storm had not even considered the possibility of extended outages. 

Most affected: Low-income and minority households, families with young children

Regardless of how well cities harden their infrastructure, service disruptions are inevitable during and after major hurricanes. Once residents accept that fact, they can adopt practical strategies for weathering storms in place.

Families that live outside of hurricane paths or flood plains can still experience extended disruptions – for example, if high winds damage power distribution networks, or local roads are blocked by downed trees. It is critical for households to understand the likelihood of service disruptions, assess their basic needs objectively and prepare for possible extended outages.

Our research showed that some population groups were especially vulnerable to losing specific services. Households with children 10 and younger self-reported that losing electricity was the most onerous hardship for them, since it made it impossible for them to refrigerate and prepare food. On the other hand, respondents age 65 and older reported that road closures were their greatest burden because they could not drive to work, grocery stores, health care facilities or pharmacies.

We also found that low-income residents and racial and ethnic minorities were less prepared overall and experienced greater hardship during post-Harvey service losses. Disaster researchers widely view these groups as vulnerable populations, since they have fewer resources to prepare or adapt to disruptions.

Interestingly, we found that seniors over 65 were better prepared to endure sewer, water and telecommunications losses after Harvey. For many of them prior experience with storms had instilled the value of preparation, and on the whole they were ready for the impending storm.

Some people choose to shelter in place during disasters because they cannot afford to leave their homes for unknown destinations.

Hardening infrastructure with people in mind

Houston is investing in a swath of flood control and flood risk reduction projects. Notably, on Aug. 25 the city adopted a $2.5 billion bond measure to overhaul the region's flood-protection system..

Protecting homes is important, but cities should also invest in hardening infrastructure systems, such as power and water lines, to support residents who shelter in place during storms. Local communities can handle some of these upgrades. For instance, some Houston neighborhoods lost internet connectivity for as long as six weeks due to submerged utility boxes housing network electronics. This problem could be solved by raising the boxes above potential flood levels.

Identifying and hardening infrastructure components, such as power sub-stations and wastewater treatment plants, that are highly vulnerable to future storms is a critical task for utilities and city planners. Also, recognizing and protecting vulnerable sub-populations who are most affected by service outages should be a priority.

As households prepare for an storm, consideration of possible power outages, sewer backup, and road closures should factor into their decisions about evacuating or sheltering in place. If they stay, they should not underestimate the likelihood of service disruptions. No one likes to lose power or internet, but imagining the possibility of extended service outages and the resulting hardship can help households prepare and cope with the disruptions.

Ph.D. student Amir Esmalian and technical writer Jan Gerston contributed to this article.

Ali Mostafavi, Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering, Texas A&M University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates — and become part of the discussion — on Facebook, Twitter and Google +. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science.