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<ul class="summary-list"><li>An ape skull found in Turkey may challenge the belief that human and ape ancestors came from Africa.</li><li>The discovery suggests that hominins may have first evolved in Europe.</li></ul><p>The discovery of an ancient ape skull may challenge the long-held belief that the ancestors of apes and humans came from Africa, a controversial new study says.</p><p>The partial skull of the ape, called an Anadoluvius turkae, was found in Cankiri, Turkey, and appears to date back to 8.7 million years ago, <a href="https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/human-and-ape-ancestors-arose-in-europe-not-in-africa-controversial-study-claims" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Live Science</a> reported.</p><p>Meanwhile early hominins, which include humans, the African apes, and their fossil ancestors, are not seen in Africa until around seven million years ago.</p><p>The discovery challenges the widely-held view that the ancestors of African apes and humans originated exclusively in Africa.</p><p>Researchers say that this suggests that hominins might have first evolved in Europe before migrating to Africa.</p><div type="image" title="The skull" height="740" width="1110" msid="103331841" hostid="261" sizebytes="46758"></div><p>"Our findings further suggest that hominins not only evolved in western and central Europe but spent over five million years evolving there and spreading to the eastern Mediterranean before eventually dispersing into Africa, probably as a consequence of changing environments and diminishing forests," said Professor David Begun, a paleoanthropologist from the University of Toronto and co-senior author of the study, per <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/09/03/discovery-of-87m-year-old-ape-rewrites-story-of-humanity/?li_source=LI&amp;li_medium=liftigniter-rhr">The Telegraph</a>.</p><p>"This new evidence supports the hypothesis that hominins originated in Europe and dispersed into Africa along with many other mammals between nine and seven million years ago, though it does not definitively prove it," he said.</p><p>In order to prove this, more fossils from Europe and Africa would need to be found from between seven and eight million years ago to try and find a link between the two groups, he added.</p><p>The finding suggested that the ape would have weighed around 110 to 130 pounds, possibly lived in a dry forest, and likely spent a lot of time on the ground.</p><p>The skull was found in 2015 but its significance was discussed in research recently published in the journal Communications Biology.</p><p>Other researchers have said that the findings do not challenge our understanding of the origins of humans.</p><p>"This has been a long-running debate regarding great ape and our origins," said Professor Chris Stringer, research leader in human evolution at the Natural History Museum in London, The Telegraph reported.</p><p>"I don't think this find changes much from the discussions (in a recent paper in the journal Science) which concluded: 'Current evidence suggests that hominins originated in Africa from Miocene ape ancestors unlike any living species.'"</p>

An 8.7 million-year-old ape skull suggests that human and ape ancestors may have evolved in Europe, not Africa

<ul class="summary-list"><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mammoth-tusk-found-ocean-deep-sea-2021-11">Paleontologists</a> unearthed roughly 2,000 <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/child-skull-human-ancestor-homo-naledi-south-africa-cave-2021-11">fossils</a> of insects, fish, spiders, and plants in <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-show-coral-spawning-in-great-barrier-reef-2021-11">Australia</a>.</li><li>The <keyword id="11954588" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="fossils" source="Orion">fossils</keyword> paint a picture of life in <keyword id="11897977" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="australia" source="Orion">Australia</keyword>'s prehistoric <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-rainforest-parts-emit-more-co2-than-absorb-study-says-2021-7">rainforests</a>, 15 million years ago.</li></ul><p>Paleontologists have uncovered a treasure trove of roughly 2,000 remarkably well-preserved fossils from an ancient Australian <keyword id="12552979" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="rainforest" source="Orion">rainforest</keyword>, revealing an ecosystem in the thick of a changing climate.</p><p>The researchers were excavating Jurassic fossils in the hills and flats of southeastern Australia in 2017, when they got an important tip: A local farmer told them he'd discovered fossils on his own land nearby.</p><p>The farmer had cleared and stacked a huge pile of heavy rocks from his field. While it's common for Australians to find fossilized leaves — and there were plenty of those in the farmer's rocks — as the researchers turned over the stones, they also found an array of rare insects.</p><p>In the three years since, the farmer's field, now known as McGraths Flat, yielded detailed fossils of ancient spiders, cicadas, wasps, flies, fish, flowers, and even a bird feather.</p><p>Hundreds of these prehistoric species were previously unknown to <keyword id="11896083" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="science" source="Orion">science</keyword>, and together, they paint the first clear picture of life in the rainforests that once blanketed Australia. Today there are only vestiges of these lush forests along the continent's eastern coasts.</p><div type="image" title="split image left sawfly head fossil right black and white microscope image of pollen grains" height="1909" width="5229" msid="88764594" hostid="261"></div><p>The new fossils include fish with their last meals still in their stomachs, insects dusted with grains of pollen from the last plant they visited, and bugs' eyes and muscles preserved in exquisite detail.</p><p>Previously, only four spider fossils had been found across Australia. At McGraths Flat, paleontologists have already unearthed 13.</p><div type="image" title="spider fossil imprint on orange red rock" height="2250" width="1500" msid="88764597" hostid="261"></div><p>"We never imagined that the fossils would be so well preserved and there'd be such a diversity of life," Matthew McCurry, a paleontologist at the Australian Museum and the University of New South Wales, told Insider. McCurry is one of the leaders of the McGraths Flat excavation. His team's <a href="www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abm1406">findings</a> were published Friday in the journal Science Advances.</p><p>"As a paleontologist, it's quite common to go on field work and not find anything," he added. "But at this site we're going with a small team, and we're bringing hundreds of fossils back every time."</p><p>The fossils formed between 11 and 16 million years ago, during the Miocene era, as Australia's rainforests were drying up and turning into the deserts that dominate its landscape today. The McGraths Flat fossils could reveal how different groups of plants, bugs, fish, and other creatures responded to their changing environment — historical context for modern-day <keyword id="11896311" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="climate-change" source="Orion">climate change</keyword>.</p><h2>A lush forest with iron-rich waters made perfect conditions for pristine fossils</h2><div type="image" title="rainforest illustration plants bugs bird flying between trees underground worms ants fish in lake" height="2500" width="2500" msid="88764599" hostid="261"></div><p>When iron-rich waters flowed into an oxbow lake about 15 million years ago, thousands of creatures now buried at McGraths Flat were trapped. As the water stagnated and the iron minerals fell to the lake's bottom, they encased the dead bugs, leaves, and fish that sunk there.</p><p>"Almost everything that fell into the water was indeed preserved, so you really have a good view of the spectrum of the things that lived at McGraths Flat," Michael Frese, a microbiologist at the University of Canberra, who worked with McCurry to analyze the fossils, told Insider.</p><div type="image" title="split image left long thin fish fossil right zoomed in bugs inside fish stomach" height="1539" width="5228" msid="88764601" hostid="261"></div><p>The details preserved in iron rock hint at the creatures' lives. For example, one fish fin was fossilized with the parasitic larva of a freshwater mussel attached to it. The lake wasn't hospitable to mussels, so the fish must have picked up the parasite upstream, then swam into the lake. It likely died soon afterward, because mussel larvae only stay attached to their host for a few weeks, Frese said.</p><div type="image" title="split image left fish fin fossil right circular red parasite" height="1928" width="5224" msid="88764603" hostid="261"></div><p>"The level of preservation in the fossils allows us to say things about ecosystems that are otherwise really, really difficult to figure out," McCurry said, adding, "Those interactions between species in particular is something you wouldn't normally have preserved at all."</p><h2>Fossils reveal a rainforest drying up</h2><div type="image" title="yellow purple flower fossils imprint on red brown rock" height="1815" width="2500" msid="88764605" hostid="261"></div><p>Though the creatures in the McGraths Flat rocks clearly lived in a rainforest, much of the fossilized pollen comes from desert plants. That suggests that the site was surrounded by arid regions, and wind carried dry-climate plants' pollen to the lake. The rainforest was beginning to dry out.</p><p>"We sit at the brink of a pretty dramatic climate change right now. And to understand and predict what's happening, it's probably good to understand some of the most recent past climate changes," Frese said. "The Miocene climate change and the Miocene extinction event is a good one to study, I think, because the flora and the fauna in the Miocene is quite similar [to] what we have now."</p><div type="image" title="side by side images of two men in hats holding fossil rocks" height="1500" width="2000" msid="88764607" hostid="261"></div><p>To better understand the Miocene climate change, researchers will need to find other fossil sites like this one. As they continue excavating McGraths Flat, McCurry and Frese's team is analyzing rocks at the site to determine how the oxbow lake formed, and how it ended up with perfect conditions for pristine fossils.</p><p>If they crack the code, they may be able to identify similar sites across Australia. With a bounty of fossils from multiple sites like this, paleontologists could learn which species adapted to the Miocene climate changes, which ones migrated to survive it, and which ones went extinct.</p><p>Already, McCurry and Frese's team has discovered species at McGraths Flat that didn't survive the rainforest drying up. Cataloguing the migrations and extinctions of the Miocene could hint at the future of species facing climate change today.</p>

Treasure trove of 2,000 fossils reveals life in Australia's prehistoric rainforest before it turned into desert

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Global temperature changes have been an important driver of penguin <keyword id="12109010" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="evolution" source="Orion">evolution</keyword>, a new study suggests.</li><li>Researchers mapped penguin evolution and identified traits that helped them survive.</li></ul><p>About 60 million years ago, <keyword id="12133598" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="penguins" source="Orion">penguins</keyword> evolved from their flying ancestors into the water-loving swimmers and divers we know today. A new genetic analysis reveals just how they evolved this underwater prowess, offering the most comprehensive overview of the tuxedo-clad bird's evolutionary history to date.</p><p>In a new study, published this week in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-31508-9">Nature Communications</a>, a team of international researchers analyzed 27 genomes — or the complete set of genetic information — of all living and recently extinct penguin species. Using that <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/telomere-consortium-scientists-map-full-human-genome-for-first-time-2022-4">genetic data</a> and the existing penguin fossil record, researchers compared the penguin genomes to the genomes of other birds, like pelicans and albatrosses.</p><p>They found that penguins evolved in response to ancient <keyword id="12002886" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="climate" source="Orion">climate</keyword> shifts, making their bodies uniquely specialized to some of the harshest conditions on Earth.</p><p>"This paper provides a step change in our understanding of which genes underpin these different adaptations," Richard Phillips, a seabird ecologist at British Antarctic Survey and a co-author on the study, said in a <a href="https://www.bas.ac.uk/media-post/study-reveals-60-million-years-of-penguin-evolution/">press release</a>. </p><h1>Temperature changes drove penguin evolution</h1><p>Ancient penguins <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/extinct-penguin-species-suggests-origin-on-lost-zealandia-continent-2020-9">originated in Zealandia</a>, a submerged land mass off the coast of Australia, about 60 million years ago. Scientists think from there, they migrated to South America and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/Antarctica-ice-shelf-previously-thought-stable-collapses-2022-3">Antarctica</a>. Around 30 to 40 million years ago, later groups likely hitched rides on a strong ocean current flowing around the globe, called the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. </p><p>Penguins lost their ability to fly before the formation of the polar ice sheets, as getting off the ground took too much effort for birds that were becoming expert swimmers.</p><p>"Although when most people think of penguins, they picture them among ice floes and being chased by leopard seals, penguins evolved to be aquatic creatures," Phillips said.</p><div type="image" title="Many penguins in the snow in the Falkland Islands on June 20, 2022." height="2274" width="3024" msid="93073466" hostid="261" sizebytes="285386"></div><p>Researchers found that global temperature changes have been an important driver of penguin evolution and contributed to the diversification of new species. For example, the expansion of Antarctica's glaciers during the middle-to-late Miocene period, a period roughly 5.3 to 16 million years ago, marked by significant global cooling, coincides with the emergence of modern crown penguins, roughly 14 million years ago. </p><p>A suite of genetic adaptations, including body size, underwater vision, heat regulation, and diving ability, allowed these birds to thrive on both land and in water, according to researchers.</p><p>For example, some genes made forearm bones shorter, while others reduced penguins' feathers, leading them to develop flippers. Other genes helped penguins store white fat, which works as an insulator and energy source, helping the birds stay warm in bitterly cold environments. </p><h1>Penguins in a warming world</h1><div type="image" title="Keepers at the London Zoo keep the Humboldt penguins cool with frozen fish lollies treats during the heatwave on July 18, 2022." height="2552" width="3650" msid="93073468" hostid="261" sizebytes="311894"></div><p>The way ancient penguins experienced immense climate fluctuations in the past could offer insight into how they are coping with a warming world. Research suggests modern penguins are not coping well. Due in part to to rising temperatures from <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/climate-change-alter-human-life-un-ipcc-report-2022-2">climate change</a>, half of all living penguin species are classified as either endangered or vulnerable on the <a href="https://www.iucnredlist.org/">IUCN Red List of Threatened Species</a>. </p><p>One of the new study's findings is that in warmer temperatures, penguins' rate of evolution slowed.  The flightless birds might not be able to handle modern climate change, researchers say, which is happening at a faster clip than the past temperature changes ancient penguins survived.</p><p>"Over 60 million years, these iconic birds have evolved to become highly specialized marine predators, and are now well adapted to some of the most extreme environments on Earth," <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-31508-9">the study authors wrote in the new paper.</a> "Yet, as their evolutionary history reveals, they now stand as sentinels highlighting the vulnerability of cold-adapted fauna in a rapidly warming world."</p>

A new genetic analysis explains how penguins lost the ability to fly, headed south, and became excellent swimmers

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Nearly all <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sharks-animals-use-earth-magnetic-field-navigate-2021-5">sharks</a> disappeared in a 100,000-year period about 19 million years ago, research shows.</li><li>The total number of <keyword id="6785521" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Sharks">sharks</keyword> declined by 90%, and the number of shark species decreased by 70%.</li><li>Scientists don't know why the <keyword id="132391" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="mass-extinction">mass extinction</keyword> happened - it didn't coincide with changes in climate.</li></ul><p>Sharks are the consummate survivors. They've been around for more than 400 million years, surviving all five of the major mass extinctions in Earth's history.</p><p>But the animals almost disappeared completely 19 million years ago, according to <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/cgi/doi/10.1126/science.aaz3549">a study</a> published this week in the journal <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">Science</keyword>. During a span of less than 100,000 years, the total number of sharks in the world's <keyword id="6373773" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="oceans">oceans</keyword> decreased by 90%. The number of shark species, meanwhile, dropped by at least 70%.</p><p>The finding comes from an examination of shark fossils from two sites deep in the Pacific Ocean - researchers   analyzed changes in the variety and number of shark fossils there over time. They concluded that this previously unknown die-off hit shark species harder than the mass extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs and 75% of all life on Earth 66 million years ago. </p><p>"This event, for sharks, was a much bigger deal than the end-Cretaceous event that killed the dinosaurs," Elizabeth Sibert, an ecologist at Yale University who co-authored the new study, told Insider. "It was twice as extreme."</p><p>According to the study, sharks never recovered.</p><p>"Sharks don't come back and magically re-diversify," Sibert said.</p><p>Had this extinction not occurred, she added, "we'd see a whole lot more different sharks and relatives of sharks in the open ocean today."</p><h2>Scientists used scales the size of a human hair to reconstruct the past</h2><div type="image" title="shark denticles" height="1389" width="2551" msid="83241543" hostid="261"></div><p>Marine fossils from the early Miocene - the geologic epoch that occurred between 23 million and 16 million years ago - are rare. That could explain why scientists didn't know about this extinction before.</p><p>Sibert's research involved examining microscopic fish teeth and shark scales (called denticles) preserved in sediment cores collected in the Pacific Ocean. Denticles, which are no wider than a human hair, ensconce sharks in an armor-like coating of scales that slough off regularly.</p><p>Deep sea drillers collected the cores at two sites - one in the north Pacific, the other in the south Pacific - up to 3 miles under the waves. The cores, cylinders of earth and sand, act like a geologic hour glass: Fossils found in deeper layers are older.</p><p>The layers revealed a striking tale. Up until 19 million years ago, there was about one shark fossil for every five fish fossils preserved, suggesting sharks were about 20% as plentiful as fish. But after that, the ratio changed dramatically. Sibert could only find one shark denticle for every 100 fish teeth. </p><p>Given that the cores came from sites 2,000 miles apart yet told the same story, the devastation likely hit sharks everywhere, according to <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/cgi/doi/10.1126/science.abj2088">a letter accompanying the study</a>. The shark extinction was a "global event," it says.</p><p>Sibert said she thinks the extinction event "could've taken one day, 100 years, or 1,000 years, but probably less than 100,000 years."</p><h2>Some shark species got hit harder</h2><p>In order to determine which sharks, and how many species, had disappeared, Sibert enlisted the help of Leah Rubin, an undergraduate at the College of the Atlantic in Maine at the time.</p><p>"My focus was really on teasing out the 'who' of this decline," Rubin, who co-authored the paper, told Insider.</p><p>Sibert and Rubin categorized more than 1,200 denticles into 88 groups of species - the more groups, the greater the total number of shark species. But after that mysterious transition point 19 million years ago, less than 10 of those groups remained in the fossil record. That suggests shark diversity plummeted by between 70% and 90%.</p><div type="image" title="cookie cutter shark" height="1041" width="1388" msid="83241545" hostid="261"></div><p>Further analysis of the preserved denticles offered insight into which types of shark species survived while others perished.</p><p>Denticles are not all the same. Sharks that migrate long distances along coastlines, like great whites, have denticles with parallel ridges that help reduce drag as the animals glide through water. Sharks like cookie cutters - which stick to the same patches of open ocean, preferring to ambush their prey - have geometric denticles with ridges that resemble a Jackson Pollock painting.</p><p>Sibert and Rubin found that fewer species with these geometric denticles made it through. That could explain why only <a href="https://sharks.panda.org/conservation-focus/sharks-and-rays">53 open-ocean shark species</a> are alive today, compared to hundreds of coastal shark species. </p><h2>This mass extinction likely affected more than just sharks </h2><p>Rubin said "the million-dollar question" left unanswered in this research is why sharks nearly disappeared.</p><p>Most mass extinctions are caused by climate change, asteroid impacts, volcanic eruptions, or a combination thereof. But none of those events happened in the early Miocene, and there wasn't a corresponding extinction on land during that time. </p><div type="image" title="dinosaur asteroid meteor" height="1017" width="1440" msid="83241546" hostid="261"></div><p>Sometimes, species can also vanish if another predator that relies on the same prey arrives on scene. But according to Sibert, migratory whales and tuna - which would have competed with sharks for the same resources - didn't show up until at least 2 million years after the big die-off.</p><p>"How is it that sharks that ruled the oceans for many millions of year could go extinct so thoroughly?" Sibert said.</p><p>She's working on follow-up studies that aim to identify other marine species hit by this same mass extinction.</p><p>"The more we look, the more we find it wasn't isolated to sharks and it was not isolated to open oceans," Sibert said. </p>

Sharks once nearly disappeared in an abrupt extinction event 'twice as extreme' as the one that killed the dinosaurs

<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="6427688" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Prince-William">Prince William</keyword>, <keyword id="6422869" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="kate-middleton">Kate Middleton</keyword>, and their three children — <keyword id="2846581" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Princess-Charlotte">Princess Charlotte</keyword>, <keyword id="292759" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Prince-George">Prince George</keyword>, and <keyword id="6475909" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="prince-louis">Prince Louis</keyword> — met with "Planet Earth" narrator <keyword id="711617" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="David-Attenborough">David Attenborough</keyword> at <keyword id="400661" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Kensington-Palace">Kensington Palace</keyword>.</li><li>On Saturday, the duke and duchess shared photos of their kids meeting the historian and environmentalist earlier in the week.</li><li>Princess Charlotte was pictured with her hands on her face in excitement at meeting Attenborough.</li><li>Another photo shows Prince George holding a giant shark tooth that was a gift from Attenborough.</li></ul><p>The <a href="https://www.insider.com/kate-middleton-cutest-family-photos-2018-5">Cambridge kids</a> met "Planet Earth" narrator and famous environmentalist David Attenborough, and their reactions were captured on camera.</p><p><a href="https://www.insider.com/category/prince-william">Prince William</a>, <a href="https://www.insider.com/category/kate-middleton">Kate Middleton</a>, and their three children — Prince George, 7; Princess Charlotte, 5; and Prince Louis, 2; met Attenborough in the gardens outside Kensington Palace. </p><p>The <keyword id="1335205" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="duke-and-duchess-of-cambridge">Duke and Duchess of Cambridge</keyword> <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CFnWkVDFKbN/">shared photos</a> of the meeting on their official Instagram page on Saturday, saying that Attenborough visited the palace earlier in the week. In the photo of the family with Attenborough, Princess Charlotte appears to have her hands on her face in excitement over meeting the conservationist.</p><p>Per the Kensington Royal Instagram post, the duke and duchess share Attenborough's passion for conservationism.</p><p>"With a shared passion for protecting the natural world, they continue to support one another in their missions to tackle some of the biggest environmental challenges our planet faces," the caption read.</p><p>Another photo from the meeting shows Prince George holding a shark tooth that was gifted to him by Attenborough. Prince Louis and Prince William are pictured alongside him.</p><div type="image" title="Attenborough gave Prince George a shark tooth as a gift." height="3976" width="3170" msid="78350396" hostid="261"></div><p>The tooth is from a giant shark of the scientific name "Carcharocles megalodon," which means "big tooth," as stated in Kensington Royal's Instagram post. </p><p>"Sir David found the tooth on a family holiday to Malta in the late 1960s, embedded in the island's soft yellow limestone which was laid down during the Miocene period some 23 million years ago," the Instagram caption read.</p><p>Prince William and Middleton also announced that they are working with Attenborough on <a href="https://earthshotprize.org/">the Earthshot Prize</a>, a project the couple launched in late 2019. The cash prize is awarded to five people each year who can solve environmental problems. </p><p>Prince William and Middleton <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/B6u_5AyFJqU/?utm_source=ig_embed">shared a clip</a> of the Earthshot Prize launch video — which is narrated by Attenborough — on Instagram in December 2019.</p><p>"Led by Prince William and a global alliance, the Earthshot Prize will inspire the planet's greatest problem solvers to solve Earth's greatest problems: the emergencies facing our natural world," the caption read.</p><p>Representatives for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.</p><ul class="read-more-links"><li>Read more:</li><li><a href="https://www.insider.com/prince-william-and-kate-middelton-released-new-photo-prince-louis-2020-8">Prince William and Kate Middleton shared a new photo of Prince Louis to thank fans who wished him a happy birthday</a></li><li><a href="https://www.insider.com/kate-middleton-cutest-family-photos-2018-5">Kate Middleton is the first royal mom to take official photos of her kids. Here are her cutest family pictures so far.</a><p><a href="https://www.insider.com/captain-tom-moore-raised-money-walking-laps-prince-william-video-2020-4">Prince William thanked the 99-year-old veteran who raised $28 million for NHS by walking laps in his garden, and his reaction to the heartfelt message is pure joy</a></p></li></ul>

Prince William, Kate Middleton, and their kids met David Attenborough, and Princess Charlotte's excitement was captured on camera

<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="292759" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Prince-George">Prince George</keyword>, <keyword id="2846581" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Princess-Charlotte">Princess Charlotte</keyword>, and <keyword id="6475909" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="prince-louis">Prince Louis</keyword> spoke to "Planet Earth" narrator <keyword id="711617" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="David-Attenborough">David Attenborough</keyword> in a new video released by the royal family on Saturday.</li><li>Prince William and Kate Middleton's kids each asked Attenborough one question, and Princess Charlotte revealed that she's a big fan of spiders.</li><li>The video is believed to be the first time the three <keyword id="6418563" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Royals">royals</keyword> have spoken together on camera, according to Sky News.</li><li>The <keyword id="1335205" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="duke-and-duchess-of-cambridge">Duke and Duchess of Cambridge</keyword> and their children recently met with Attenborough outside Kensington Palace, and the environmentalist gifted Prince George a shark tooth fossil.</li></ul><p>Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis spoke to "Planet Earth" narrator David Attenborough in a new video released by the royal family.</p><p>Prince William and Kate Middleton <a href="https://twitter.com/KensingtonRoyal/status/1312376865332420608">shared a video</a> of their children speaking to Attenborough via the family's official social media accounts on Saturday. The video is believed to be the first time that all three royal children have spoken together on camera, <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/royal-children-speak-to-sir-david-attenborough-in-new-video-12088796">according to Sky News.</a></p><p>The family captioned the video: "Sir David Attenborough, we've got some questions for you..."</p><p>The video includes Prince George, 7; Princess Charlotte, 5; and Prince Louis, 2; each asking Attenborough one question about the <keyword id="6356826" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="ENVIRONMENT">environment</keyword>. </p><p>"What animal do you think will go extinct next?" Prince George asked Attenborough.</p><p>"Well, let's hope there won't be any! There are lots of things we can do when animals are in danger of extinction. We can protect them," Attenborough said in response to Prince George.</p><p>Princess Charlotte and Attenborough then discussed their shared love of spiders.</p><p>Prince Louis was the last to question the environmentalist, asking what his favorite animal is, to which Attenborough responded that he likes monkeys best. </p><p>The video comes after <a href="https://www.insider.com/prince-william-kate-middleton-cambridge-kids-david-attenborough-photos-2020-9">the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge met with Attenborough</a> in the gardens outside Kensington Palace during the week of September 21.</p><div type="image" title="Prince William, Kate Middleton, and their kids met David Attenborough at the gardens outside Kensington Palace..JPG" height="1327" width="1769" msid="78479377" hostid="261"></div><p>In one photo from the event, Prince George is holding a giant shark tooth that was gifted to him by Attenborough. </p><p>"Sir David found the tooth on a family holiday to Malta in the late 1960s, embedded in the island's soft yellow limestone which was laid down during the Miocene period some 23 million years ago," the royal family wrote on Instagram.</p><p>However, <a href="https://www.insider.com/prince-george-shark-tooth-malta-david-attenborough-2020-9">it's possible that Prince George might have to return the prehistoric shark tooth</a> that Attenborough gave him.</p><p>On September 28, Malta's Culture Minister José Herrera told the <a href="https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/ancient-shark-tooth-gifted-to-prince-could-find-its-way-back-to-malta.820687">Times of Malta</a> that he plans to ask for the tooth to be returned so that it can be included in the nation's collections.</p><p>Citing <a href="https://culture.gov.mt/en/culturalheritage/Pages/Legislation.aspx">Malta's Cultural Heritage Act 2002</a>, the Times of Malta reported that fossils are considered "cultural heritage." Items that fall under the "cultural heritage" category cannot be removed or excavated from Malta, according to the policies.</p><p>"There are some artifacts that are important to Maltese natural heritage and which ended up abroad and deserve to be retrieved," Herrera told the Times of Malta.</p><div type="image" title="Attenborough gave Prince George a shark tooth as a gift." height="3976" width="3170" msid="78479379" hostid="261"></div><p>Additionally, the duke and duchess shared on Instagram that they are working with Attenborough on the <a href="https://earthshotprize.org/">Earthshot Prize,</a> a project the couple started in 2019 to award cash prizes to five people who can come up with solutions to environmental problems.</p><p>Representatives for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Malta's Ministry for the National Heritage, The Arts, and Local Government, respectively, did not immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment.</p><ul class="read-more-links"><li>Read more:</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/david-attenborough-leads-call-for-world-to-invest-500-billion-a-year-to-protect-nature-2020-9">David Attenborough leads call for world to invest $500 billion a year to protect nature</a></li><li><a href="https://www.insider.com/queen-elizabeth-cancels-events-at-buckingham-palace-windsor-castle-2020-10">Queen Elizabeth cancels all large events at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle for the rest of the year</a></li><li><a href="https://www.insider.com/kate-middleton-denim-sustainable-dress-gabriela-hearst-2020-9">Kate Middleton made a statement in a $1,590 dress made out of repurposed denim</a></li></ul>

Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis spoke with David Attenborough in a rare video from the royal family

<ul class="summary-list"><li>On Saturday, Kensington Palace announced that Sir David Attenborough recently visited <keyword id="6427688" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Prince-William">Prince William</keyword>, <keyword id="6422869" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="kate-middleton">Kate Middleton</keyword>, and their kids.</li><li>During the visit, the environmentalist and "Planet Earth" narrator gifted <keyword id="292759" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Prince-George">Prince George</keyword> a prehistoric shark tooth.</li><li>Attenborough discovered the fossil on the island of Malta in the 1960s while he was visiting on a family vacation.</li><li>On Monday, Malta's Culture Minister José Herrera told the Times of Malta that he plans to ask for the tooth to be returned so it can be included in the nation's collections.</li></ul><p>Malta is reportedly planning to ask for the return of a prehistoric shark tooth that Sir David Attenborough gifted Prince George during a <a href="https://www.insider.com/prince-william-kate-middleton-cambridge-kids-david-attenborough-photos-2020-9">recent visit to Kensington Palace</a>. </p><p>On Saturday, Kensington Palace released new pictures showing Attenborough's meeting with <a href="https://www.insider.com/category/duke-and-duchess-of-cambridge">Prince William and Kate Middleton</a> and their kids Prince George, 7; Princess Charlotte, 5; and Prince Louis, 2.</p><p><a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CFnWkVDFKbN/">The palace wrote on Instagram</a> that the environmentalist visited the family sometime during the week of September 21.</p><div type="image" title="Prince William, Kate Middleton, and their kids met David Attenborough at the gardens outside Kensington Palace..JPG" height="1327" width="1769" msid="78372596" hostid="261"></div><p>In one of the pictures from the event, Prince George can be seen holding the shark tooth that Attenborough gave him.</p><p>The tooth is from a giant shark of the scientific name "Carcharocles megalodon," which means "big tooth," as stated in Kensington Royal's Instagram post. </p><p>"Sir David found the tooth on a family holiday to Malta in the late 1960s, embedded in the island's soft yellow limestone which was laid down during the Miocene period some 23 million years ago," according to the caption of Kensington Palace's Instagram post.</p><div type="image" title="Attenborough gave Prince George a shark tooth as a gift." height="3976" width="3170" msid="78372608" hostid="261"></div><p>However, it's possible that Prince George may not get to keep the artifact.</p><p>Malta's Culture Minister, José Herrera, told the <a href="https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/ancient-shark-tooth-gifted-to-prince-could-find-its-way-back-to-malta.820687">Times of Malta</a> in an article published on Monday that he would "get the ball rolling" on retrieving the shark tooth for inclusion in the nation's collections.</p><p>"There are some <keyword id="714696" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="artifacts">artifacts</keyword> that are important to Maltese natural heritage and which ended up abroad and deserve to be retrieved," Herrera told the Times of Malta.</p><p>Herrera continued, saying: "We rightly give a lot of attention to historical and artistic artifacts. However, it is not always the case with our natural history. I am determined to direct a change in this attitude."</p><p>Citing <a href="https://culture.gov.mt/en/culturalheritage/Pages/Legislation.aspx">Malta's Cultural Heritage Act 2002</a>, the Times of Malta reported that fossils are considered "cultural heritage."</p><p>Malta defines cultural heritage as "movable and immovable objects of artistic, architectural, historical, archaeological, ethnographic, palaeontological and geological importance." </p><p>In line with the <a href="https://culture.gov.mt/en/culturalheritage/Documents/form/CulturalHeritageAct2002.pdf">policies enacted in 2002</a>, the removal or excavation of cultural heritage items is forbidden, according to the Times of Malta.</p><p>Representatives for Malta's Ministry for the National Heritage, The Arts, and Local Government did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment. Kensington Palace has declined to comment on the matter.</p><p>Attenborough, the natural historian, TV broadcaster, and narrator of the <keyword id="6360307" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Nature">nature</keyword> documentary "Planet Earth," is working with the <keyword id="1335205" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="duke-and-duchess-of-cambridge">Duke and Duchess of Cambridge</keyword> on their conservation-related project, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/EarthshotPrize/?hl=en">The Earthshot Prize.</a></p><p>While at Kensington Palace, Prince William joined Attenborough in watching an outdoor screening of his new film, "A Life On Our Planet."</p><p>The project is described by Kensington Palace as "the most prestigious global environment prize in history."</p><ul class="read-more-links"><li>Read more:</li><li><a href="https://www.insider.com/kate-middleton-denim-sustainable-dress-gabriela-hearst-2020-9">Kate Middleton made a statement in a $1,590 dress made out of repurposed denim</a></li><li><a href="https://www.insider.com/prince-louis-trooping-the-colour-first-appearance-unimpressed-2019-6">18 photos of Prince Louis looking royally unimpressed</a></li><li><a href="https://www.insider.com/photos-princess-charlotte-looks-like-young-princess-diana-2020-6">Princess Charlotte looks just like a young Princess Diana in the Cambridges' latest family photo</a></li><li><a href="https://www.insider.com/kate-middleton-cutest-family-photos-2018-5">Kate Middleton is the first royal mom to take official photos of her kids. Here are her cutest family pictures so far.</a></li></ul>

David Attenborough gifted Prince George a prehistoric shark tooth he found in Malta, but the country reportedly wants it back

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Bobbit <keyword id="6395657" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="worms">worms</keyword> explode out of tunnels on the ocean floor to ambush prey.</li><li>According to a new study, these worms had 6-foot-long carnivorous ancestors that burrowed under the Pacific Ocean.</li><li>Researchers found 20-million-year-old tunnels made by these prehistoric worms in Taiwan.</li></ul><p>Scientists in Taiwan noticed odd, L-shaped burrows in a set of rocks eight years ago. Since the rocks once sat on the Pacific Ocean floor, they thought the tunnels had been made by shrimp, or perhaps octopuses. But the shape and structure of the burrows didn't match those made by such creatures, and the mystery lingered.</p><p>Now, it's been solved: The architects behind the tunnels were 6-foot-long worms that lived about 20 million years ago, according to <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-79311-0#:~:text=Bobbit%20worms%20can%20grow%20up,and%20other%20annelids6%2C7.">a study published this week</a>. Fossil evidence helped the study authors figure out how these predators hunted and built their undersea lairs.</p><p>According to their research, the ancient marine worms would lay waiting under the sand for unsuspecting prey; then when fish passed by, the worms would lunge out of their burrows, snag the swimmers in their gaping maws, and drag the victims under the seafloor. Collapsed sand around the tunnel mouths indicated the prey thrashed fiercely in the worms' grip.</p><p>The researchers also concluded that the ancient worms are the ancestors of the modern-day bobbit worm<em>, </em>which catches prey in the same way.</p><div type="image" title="bobbit marine worm Eunice aphroditois" height="2905" width="2457" msid="80424715" hostid="261"></div><p>"We knew that predatory worms have been around for hundreds of millions of years, but this is the first time we  can actually see evidence of a behavior similar to the modern bobbit worms'," Ludvig Löwemark, a geoscientist from National Taiwan University in Taipei and one of the study's coauthors, told Insider.</p><h2>Ancient rocks reveal how these huge worms lived</h2><div type="image" title="Bobbit worm final marine worms" height="3456" width="4608" msid="80424721" hostid="261"></div><p>Löwemark's group found the burrows in sandstone rock layers in northeastern Taiwan. The rock formed between 5.3 and 23 million years ago, during an era called the Miocene.</p><p>They collected hundreds of burrow samples from Taiwan's Yehliu Geopark and Badouzi coast, then used those to identify the characteristics of trace fossils of the prehistoric worms' tunnels. A trace fossil is a geologic formation left by an animal that doesn't include remains of the animal itself.</p><div type="image" title="marine bobbit worms" height="526" width="701" msid="80424726" hostid="261"></div><p>Löwemark and his colleagues think the particular worms that built the burrows they found either abandoned them or died. The chance of finding a fossilized worm is very small anyway, Löwemark said, because its soft tissues would decompose quickly after death.</p><p>But the trace fossils can still show how the ancient worm hunted. The scientists named the fossil Pennichnus formosae, and determined that the worms built L-shaped burrows about an inch wide and up to 6.5 feet long.</p><p>The scientists also found evidence that the sand surrounding mouths of the burrows had been disturbed, suggesting that the predator that lived inside moved quickly to ambush prey, and also that the prey struggled in response.</p><p>This is the first time that scientists have found fossil evidence of an ambush predator living under the ocean floor.</p><p>"So far, similar trace fossils have not been reported from anywhere else on Earth," Löwemark said. Though he added that "this is likely explained by the fact that scientists didn't know what to look for until now."</p><div type="image" title="marine bobbit worms" height="2847" width="3797" msid="80424727" hostid="261"></div><p>Given that modern-day bobbit worms hunt the same way as these prehistoric creatures, the study authors hypothesized that they are related.</p><p>Further evidence for that idea came in the form of iron found in the rock, toward the top section of the ancient burrows. When bobbit worms build their burrows, they line them with mucus, and bacteria feeds on that mucus, leaving traces of iron behind. So the presence of iron in the trace fossils suggests that, much like bobbit worms, these ancient creatures sometimes had to re-build sections of their burrows with mucus.</p><h2>An ambush predator</h2><div type="image" title="marine worms" height="2256" width="3000" msid="80424728" hostid="261"></div><p>Löwemark thinks the worms that built the ancient burrows probably looked fairly similar to bobbit worms in appearance. Bobbit worms, however, can grow to lengths of 10 feet - much longer than the 6.5-foot-long burrows.</p><p>Bobbit worms live in the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific <keyword id="6373773" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="oceans">Oceans</keyword>. Only a tiny portion of their bodies protrude out of the sand. They snake their antennae into the water, wiggling them like tiny worms to attract nearby fish. When prey comes within striking distance, bobbit worms then explode out of their tunnels, grab the fish with sharp teeth, and sink back under. A bobbit worm's jaw, or pharynx, can snap a fish in half.</p><div type="image" title="Bobbit marine worm" height="3456" width="4608" msid="80424732" hostid="261"></div><p>According to Löwemark, the bobbit worms' prehistoric ancestors probably had a similar diet. But it's not known for certain what happens after bobbit worms catch their prey and tug it under the sand (so the ancient worms' digestive process is a mystery too).</p><p>Luis Carrera-Parra and Sergio Salazar-Vallejo, ecologists at El Colegio de la Frontera Sur in Mexico, told <a href="https://www.wired.com/2013/09/absurd-creature-of-the-week-bobbit-worm/">Wired</a> that they think bobbit worms sting <keyword id="6371668" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="animals">animals</keyword> with a narcotizing or killing toxin, so the prey "can be safely ingested - especially if they are larger than the worm - and then digested through the gut."</p><p>Bobbit worms don't pose a threat to humans, however.</p>

Mysterious, 20-million-year-old tunnels in the ancient ocean floor came from 6-foot-long carnivorous worms, a study found

<ul class="summary-list"><li>On Saturday, Kensington Palace announced that <keyword id="6422869" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="kate-middleton">Kate Middleton</keyword>, Prince William, and their kids recently met with "Planet Earth" narrator David Attenborough in the gardens of their home. </li><li>For the occasion, the Duchess of Cambridge wore a midi denim dress from Gabriela Hearst that retailed for $1,590 before selling out at the time of writing.</li><li>The dress is from Hearst's pre-fall 2020 collection and is made from repurposed denim.</li></ul><p><a href="https://www.insider.com/category/kate-middleton">Kate Middleton</a> knows how to make a statement in just a simple look. </p><p>On Saturday, Kensington Palace shared three photos of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and their kids, Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis, <a href="https://www.insider.com/prince-william-kate-middleton-cambridge-kids-david-attenborough-photos-2020-9">meeting with "Planet Earth" narrator Sir David Attenborough in the gardens of their home</a>. </p><p>Middleton wore a denim dress from Gabriela Hearst's pre-fall 2020 collection for the occasion. She paired the dress — made from repurposed denim, according to <a href="https://www.vogue.com/article/kate-middleton-gabriela-hearst-denim-dress-sustainable">Vogue</a> — with $465 <a href="https://www.emmylondon.com/products/josie-midnight">navy-blue block heels from Emmy London</a>. </p><p>The Marley belted denim midi shirt dress that Middleton wore was sold out at the time of writing, but it had a price tag of $1,590 on <a href="https://www.matchesfashion.com/us/products/Gabriela-Hearst-Marley-belted-denim-midi-shirt-dress-1363441?qxjkl=tsid:38929|cgn:TnL5HPStwNw&amp;c3ch=LinkShare&amp;c3nid=TnL5HPStwNw&amp;utm_source=linkshare&amp;utm_medium=affiliation&amp;utm_campaign=us&amp;utm_content=TnL5HPStwNw&amp;rffrid=aff.linkshare.2116208.37420=aff.linkshare.2116208.37420">MatchesFashion</a>. </p><p>In a blog post on <a href="https://www.gabrielahearst.com/blogs/stories/pre-fall-2020">the designer's website</a>, Hearst says that the pre-fall line "is always one of the most sustainable collections that we do, because we work from sketches and swatches."</p><p>"We don't even develop one sample, because we have plenty of preexisting materials," she added.</p><div type="image" title="gabriela hearst marley dress" height="1854" width="1391" msid="78370204" hostid="261"></div><p>Middleton's upcycled outfit subtly matched the theme of her family's meeting with Attenborough.</p><p>According to the Instagram caption of Kensington Palace's post, the focus of their discussion was their "shared passion for protecting the natural world" by tackling some of the environmental challenges the world is currently facing. </p><h2>It's not the first time Middleton has worn sustainable <keyword id="6" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="60" keywordseo="fashion">fashion</keyword></h2><p>In May, she wore a yellow printed dress from Raey, an in-house MatchesFashion brand that focuses on using low-impact materials and a supply chain that is traceable and responsible, according to a <a href="https://assets.matchesfashion.com/devTest/translated/2018/ecoAge/attachments/MATCHESFASHION-COM-sustainability-report-2018-en.pdf">2018 sustainability report from the brand</a>. </p><p>Middleton is also a longtime fan of <a href="https://www.stellamccartney.com/experience/en/sustainability/themes/mission-statement/">Stella McCartney</a>, who is known for never using leather or fur for her products.</p><p>Middleton's sister-in-law Meghan Markle is also a fan of McCartney, choosing to wear a dress by the designer for her wedding reception in 2018.</p><div type="image" title="meghan markle reception dress" height="2867" width="2000" msid="78370205" hostid="261"></div><p>And like Middleton, Markle has incorporated sustainable brands into her wardrobe.</p><p>It's no secret that Markle loves to rewear her <a href="https://www.insider.com/rothys-flats-review">Rothy flats</a>. The machine-washable shoes are made from materials including plastic water bottles and eco-friendly outsoles. </p><div type="image" title="meghan markle rothy flats" height="3000" width="1998" msid="78370210" hostid="261"></div><ul class="read-more-links"><li>Read more:</li><li><a href="https://www.insider.com/kate-middletons-best-fall-fashion-looks-2020-9">16 of Kate Middleton's best fall fashion looks</a></li><li><a href="https://www.insider.com/prince-william-kate-middleton-cambridge-kids-david-attenborough-photos-2020-9">Prince William, Kate Middleton, and their kids met David Attenborough, and Princess Charlotte's excitement was captured on camera</a></li><li><a href="https://www.insider.com/kate-middleton-recycled-outfits-pink-pants-affordable-fashion-2020-9">Kate Middleton dressed down a pair of $38 trousers that were originally part of a suit by wearing them with white sneakers</a></li><li><a href="https://www.insider.com/kate-middleton-floral-zara-dress-zoom-call-2020-9">Kate Middleton wore a $13 Zara dress designed with a thigh-high slit during a Zoom call</a></li></ul>

Kate Middleton made a statement in a $1,590 dress made out of repurposed denim

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><ul><li><strong>The average concentration of <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/category/carbon-dioxide">carbon dioxide</a> in Earth's atmosphere just topped 410 parts per million, according to measurements from Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii.</strong></li><li><strong>This is the highest CO2 levels have gotten in the 800,000 years we have good data for.</strong></li><li><strong>This is expected to have a catastrophic effect on human health and the planet itself.</strong></li></ul><p><br>We have a pretty good idea of what Earth's atmosphere has looked like for the past 800,000 years.</br></p><p>Humans like us - <em>Homo sapiens</em> -&#xa0;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/neanderthals-created-first-cave-paintings-2018-2">only evolved about 200,000 years ago</a>, but ice-core records reveal intricate details of our planet's history from long before humans existed. By drilling more than <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-three-minute-story-of-800-000-years-of-climate-change-with-a-sting-in-the-tail-73368">3 kilometers deep into the ice sheets over Greenland and Antarctica</a>, scientists can see how temperature and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have changed from then until now.</p><p>From that record, we know the atmosphere and the air that we breathe has never had as much carbon dioxide in it as it does today.&#xa0;</p><p>For the first time in recorded history, the average monthly level of CO2 in the atmosphere exceeded 410 parts per million (ppm) in the month of April, according to <a href="https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/2018/05/02/carbon-dioxide-in-the-atmosphere-hits-record-high-monthly-average/">observations&#xa0;made at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii</a>.</p><p>The new record is not a coincidence - humans have rapidly transformed the air we breathe by pumping CO2 into it over the past two centuries. In recent years, we've pushed those gas levels into uncharted territory.</p><p>That change has inevitable and scary consequences. Research indicates that unchecked, this trend could directly <a href="https://news.stanford.edu/news/2008/january9/co-010908.html">lead to tens of thousands of pollution-related</a> deaths, reach a point at which it slows&#xa0;<a href="https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/1104789/">human cognition</a>, and lead to the rising sea levels, searing heat waves, and superstorms that scientists&#xa0;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/climate-change-resilience-solutions-2018-4">project as effects of climate change</a>.</p><p>"As a scientist, what concerns me the most is what this continued rise actually means: that we are continuing full speed ahead with an unprecedented experiment with our planet, the only home we have," climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe <a href="https://twitter.com/KHayhoe/status/992229084326395905">said on Twitter</a> about the new record.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><h2>Breathing the air of a new world</h2><p>For the 800,000 years we have records of, average global CO2 levels fluctuated between about 170 ppm and 280 ppm. Once humans started to burn fossil fuels in the industrial era, things changed rapidly.</p><p>Only in the industrial era has the number risen above 300 ppm. The concentration first crept above <a href="https://climate.nasa.gov/400ppmquotes/">400 ppm in 2013</a>, and continues to climb.&#xa0;</p><p>Scientists debate the last time CO2 levels were this high. It might have happened during the Pliocene era, between 2 and 4.6 million years ago, when <a href="http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/node/14874">sea levels were at least 60 to 80 feet higher</a> than today. It may have been&#xa0;<a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/326/5958/1394">in the Miocene</a>, 10 to 14 million years ago, when seas were more than 100 feet higher than now.&#xa0;</p><p>In our 800,000-year record, it <a href="https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo-search/study/17975">took about 1,000 years</a> for CO2 levels to increase by 35 ppm. We're currently averaging an increase of more than 2 ppm per year, meaning that we could hit an average of 500 ppm within the next 45 years, if not sooner.</p><p>Humans have never had to breathe air like this. And it does not seem to be good for us.</p><p>Global temperature tracks very closely to atmospheric levels of CO2. The potential impacts of higher average temperatures include tens of thousands of deaths from heat waves, increased air pollution that leads to lung cancer and cardiovascular disease, higher rates of allergies and asthma, more extreme weather events, and the spread of diseases carried by ticks and mosquitoes - <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/tick-and-mosquito-diseases-tripled-cdc-2018-5">an effect we're already seeing</a>.</p><h3>Global annual temperature and CO2 levels, 1959-2016</h3><p>Higher levels of CO2 also exacerbate ozone pollution. One <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2007GL031101/">2008 study found</a> that for every degree Celsius the temperature rises because of CO2 levels, ozone pollution can be expected to kill an additional 22,000 people via respiratory illness, asthma, and emphysema.&#xa0;<span style="font-weight: 400;">A recent study calculated that overall, air pollution already</span><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/pollution-kills-more-people-than-wars-obesity-smoking-malnutrition-2017-10"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">kills 9 million people every year</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span></p><p>Other research has raised even more reasons for concern. The average CO2 level doesn't represent the air most of us breathe. Cities tend to have far more CO2 than average - and those levels rise even higher indoors. Some research indicates that <a href="https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/1104789/">this may have a negative effect on human cognition</a> and decision-making.&#xa0;(There's a full list of possible ways climate change will affect human health on an <a href="https://19january2017snapshot.epa.gov/climate-impacts/climate-impacts-human-health_.html#ref1">archived EPA page</a>.)</p><p>President Obama's EPA <a href="https://19january2017snapshot.epa.gov/climatechange_.html">ruled in 2009 that CO2 was a pollutant</a> that needed to be regulated under the Clean Air Act, though the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/signpost/cc.html">Trump administration is re-evaluating</a> that decision.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><h2>Drowning in CO2</h2><p>The human health effects from CO2 increases are just one part of the bigger story here.</p><p>The change we've seen in CO2 levels recently has been much more rapid than the natural historical trends.&#xa0;Some experts think we're on <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/co2-levels-for-february-eclipsed-prehistoric-highs/">track to hit 550 ppm</a> by the end of the century, which would cause average global temperatures to rise 6 degrees Celsius. (For context, the increase in superstorms, rising sea levels, and spreading tick-borne disease that we're already seeing comes after a <a href="https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature/">0.9-degree rise</a>.)</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>Sea-level rise projections will only get bigger as&#xa0;CO2 levels will continue to climb.</p><p>Right now, carbon-dioxide emissions are&#xa0;<a href="http://trackingsdg7.esmap.org/data/files/download-documents/tracking_sdg7-the_energy_progress_report_full_report.pdf">still rising</a>. The goal set in the Paris agreement is to limit the global temperature increase to 2 degrees C or less. But as a recent <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-04931-6">feature in Nature</a> put it, we're currently on track for more than 3 degrees of warming.</p><p>The latest measurements from Mauna Loa show that if we want to avoid that, we'll need to make some dramatic changes very quickly.</p><div><div style="position:relative;width:auto;padding:0 0 75%;height:0;top:0;left:0;bottom:0;right:0;margin:0;border:0 none" data-break-on="414" data-lg-id="experience-5adf8133c69dd" data-lg-src="//view.ceros.com/business-insider/carbon-levels-over-time-desktop" data-lg-padding="75%" data-sm-id="experience-5adf81486c843" data-sm-src="//view.ceros.com/business-insider/carbon-levels-over-time-mobile" data-sm-padding="80.72%">   </div></div>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/infinity-stones-avengers-infinity-war-real-science-origins-explained-2018-5">The Infinity Stones in 'Avengers: Infinity War,' explained by a Marvel science advisor</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div></hr>

Earth just hit a terrifying milestone for the first time in more than 800,000 years

<p>Yesterday, <keyword id="66463" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="60" keywordseo="Carbon">carbon</keyword> dioxide levels in Earth's atmosphere reached a major milestone: a daily average above 400 parts per million. The new high — the highest in human history — was recorded at two separate stations — one in Hawaii and the other in San Diego, California.</p>
<p>That number — expressed in parts per million — means that out of a million molecules of "air," about 400 are molecules of carbon dioxide. The measurement at the Mauna Loa, Hawaii air sampling station, which has been tracking carbon dioxide levels since the 1950s, was 400.03 on May 9. Last year at this time, the level was at 396.81. Ten years ago it was 378.50.</p>
<p class="float_right"><div class="image-container" style="width:620px"><div class="image"></div><p class="source">NOAA</p><p class="caption">Daily and weekly carbon dioxide means at NOAA's Mauna Loa observatory. </p></div></p>
<p>These levels are higher than humanity has ever seen. Higher than they have been for at least the last 3 million years.</p>
<p>"We are creating a prehistoric climate in which human societies will face huge and potentially catastrophic risks," Bob Ward of the London School of Economics and Political <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">Science</keyword>, <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hQ9u14E6c69jxBJhIO0772V3jbIA?docId=CNG.c66aa3d5bd793128f7c8f3da314a73d9.11">told the AFP</a>. "Only by urgently reducing global emissions will we be able to bring carbon dioxide levels down and avoid the full consequences of [global warming]."</p>
<p>Since the beginning of humanity, up until about 200 years ago, the atmosphere held steady at 275 ppm of carbon dioxide. Along with the industrial revolution came carbon dioxide being pumped into the air, causing a steady and unyielding increase of the green house gas.</p>
<p>As we plucked carbon out of the ground as coal, then burnt it as fuel and released that carbon into the air as carbon dioxide, we've steadily increased the carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere.</p>
<p>Carbon dioxide is called a greenhouse gas because it locks in heat. This is really important, because without greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, our planet would be a lifeless, icy rock. But, when we accumulate too much of these gasses the planet heats up, which, when done in a short amount of time, leads to drastic changes in the <keyword id="6356826" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="environment">environment</keyword> — changes that plants and animals can't keep up with.</p>
<p>"There is no precedent in Earth's history for such an abrupt increase in greenhouse gas concentrations," Michael Mann, of Penn State University, <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hQ9u14E6c69jxBJhIO0772V3jbIA?docId=CNG.c66aa3d5bd793128f7c8f3da314a73d9.11">told the AFP</a>. "While living things can adapt to slow changes that took place over tens of millions of years, there is no reason to believe that they — and we — can adapt to changes that are a million years faster than the natural background rates of change."</p>
<p>The level of carbon dioxide in the air will dip again over the summer, because levels fluctuate during the year — peaking in May and dropping to its minimum levels (last year that was around 390 ppm) in October — after plants spend the summer sucking 10 billion tons of carbon from the air. But, these levels have been increasing about two parts per million every year, so soon the time will come when there is no longer a day with a carbon dioxide reading under 400.</p>
<p>The milestone is symbolic, but it's also a scary number. <a href="http://350.org/about/science">According to 350.org</a>, the safe level of carbon dioxide to have in the atmosphere is 350 ppm:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Unless we are able to rapidly return to below 350 ppm this century, we risk reaching tipping points and irreversible impacts such as the melting of the Greenland ice sheet and major methane releases from increased permafrost melt.</p>
<p>"The last time we're confident that CO<sub>2</sub> was sustained at these levels is more than 10 million years ago, during the middle of the Miocene period," climate scientist <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/10/atmospheric-co2-concentrations_n_3253757.html">Michael Mann told The Huffington Post</a>. "This was a time when global temperatures were substantially warmer than today, and there was very little ice around anywhere on the planet."</p>
<p>Governments have set our official targets at a maximum of 450 ppm carbon dioxide in the air. </p>
<p>Ralph Keeling, a climate researcher at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/11/science/earth/carbon-dioxide-level-passes-long-feared-milestone.html?hp&amp;_r=0">told The New York Times</a> he estimates we will reach that level in "well under" 25 years.</p>

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