Welcome to tomorrow today the science show on d w. Is this really ice it is under polarized light ice shimmers in a rainbow of colors. And this is where it comes from the arctic weather sea ice has been declining for decades. And International Research group spent a year studying it to get a better understanding of Climate Change and its impact. Feel to take winter is a black void in 2 senses 1st its dark thanks to months of nights in which the sun no longer rises over the horizon plus theres a huge data hole we know precious little about when tearing the area around the north pole which plays a major role frog. I meant and is itself changing the ice has been receding for decades now what explains this Climate Change sure but how exactly does that affect this northern most part of the planet because if so how is the sea ice changing how does it grow in the winter and how does it melt in the summer. Christine haas is a sea ice geophysicist in the us institute in gemini he sees the arctic in winter as the key fact. That the ice forms in the winter and indoors through the summer. It has a considerable influence on the summer and therefore on the entire climate system. But to really study the taken during winter you need to be at one with the ice an International Research team made that very commitment since last october the palash done Research Ship has been drifting across the arctic ocean trapped in the pack ice. Its the center of the largest Arctic Research expedition ever lasting one full year. When its colder than mine is 30 or even down to minus 60 with the wind chill factor its a very hard to work and also very dangerous you have to cover up your entire body. Most christian has and his team use the winter months to investigate the sea ice on a quest for answers to the big question why is it shrinking. Their work involved extracting ice cores measuring the temperature and movement of the ice and cutting samples into thin slices their mission as such is not one of discovery but of data gathering to compile a detailed biography of the ice but they have made one major discovery during a dive by the trusty robot submarine. But of a bit was something id been hoping and searching for. What i didnt know was what it would actually look like. Just below the ice in the sea water the robots came across glistening cloud like masses comprised of ultra thin plates of ice known as plate let ice. Inspection plate like ice is very macroscopic you can see it there sheets of thin ice as big as your hand. They get stuck frozen onto the underside of sea ice and in various orientations. As the robot submarine swims around in the dark its lamps reveal all these things glittering in the distance. Going through as it gets closer you can see that there are ice crystals. Its a phenomenon already familiar from antarctica and one that the researches have now been able to observe for the 1st time in the arctic. Platelet ice can only form when the sea water beneath the ice has a temperature colder than 0 degrees celcius this super cooling leads to the water freezing and forming plate tectonics and seen on the ropes and gauges that the research is slow and the countless cavities kooris emerge between the plate lets create whats called the poorest layer. Its a habitat not just for microorganisms and algae them but also for zone as a kind of tiny chris stations such as krill coppa pods and amphipods we saw ample pods moving around the plate laid eyes looking for algae to eat and as they are also protected there from bigger animals from fish in particular arctic cod they would happily eat them orphans with all of these you know. A newly discovered layer of arctic ice and say well im one more that needs more in. Eps analysis while the expedition across the arctic ocean continues kristin haas is now back on land together with untold terabytes of data now waiting to be deciphered but his team do have at least preliminary insights into the big question of how the ice in the arctic is changing but. It was very interesting to see that when we came onto the ice flow in october the ice was only 30 to 50 centimeters thick. And over the course of the winter over the following 5 or 6 months it grew to almost 2 meters in thickness that is it almost quadrupled thats a very important discovery. Until now researches knew only that the surface of the ice is being shrinking as seen by satellite suspiciously well during the summer over the last 4 decades that surfaces almost tom often size. Satellites cannot measure however is the thickness of the ice. What weve now seen is that at the start of the season at the end of the summer the ice was much thinner than it had been 30 years ago the last time we measured ice in the syberia an arctic. Ocean. What surprised us is how thick the ice became. By the end of winter it was not much different from the way it had been back then. As we have established that changes are greatest during the summer not only in terms of the extent of the ice but also to its thickness and that the ice recovers relatively well in winter. And then the fact that the ice is so since by the end of the summer actually helps to ensure that it recovers significantly in thickness jewing the wind just you know as for it thats when the ice is thin and the ocean loses heat faster and more easily that leads to the creation of more ice and as a consequence by the end. Of winter the ice is again about as thick as it was 30 years ago. But theres a lawmaking news 2 new surveys predict that the arctic ocean is likely to see ice free some a spike 2050. At the alfred vega institutes ice core lab in him a half and the temperature is held at a steady minus 25. 00 degrees celsius the facility is home to various some pulls from the arctic expedition such as these thin slices of ice cold which turned into crystals on the post light. Been reflected in. These thin slices of ice cores to see how the ice had grown whether the growth process was slow and under calm conditions which would create these long colomba crystals. Or if there had been strong waves and turbulence in the water. System then only these small round grainy crystals develop can start and record with this in house expects the arctic ocean to become more turbulent making it impossible for long column shaped ice crystals to form properly that will bring changes to the young take ocean granular ice could then become more prevalent another insight into the workings of the arctic. d the tiny crystals remind us that large structures are made up of small parts on the earth or the universe on the one hand and 2 atoms on the other everything is important and has a role to play a tiny and fascinating well thats a crucial element in the still mighty pack ice that covers the arctic. If outlet is red white and black do you have a science question youve always wanted answered were happy to help out send it in and if we answer it on the show youll get a little surprise as a thank you come on just awesome. Stories from the world of science go to our website or find us on twitter and d w underscore science. Money mcmo some that wants to know what our genes. Genes are found in most of the cells in our body. A gene is made up of d. N. A. Found in structures called chromosomes in the cell nucleus. One important thing genes do is provide instructions for building up all the various parts of our body. Genes also underlie our body processes and to a large degree they determine what we look like. The human genome that is the entire set of our genes has been sequenced. We have more than 20000 protein coding genes. A lot of research is going into finding out what our genes actually do. For example are there specific ones that determine how long we live. A helper and that particular quest is the naked mole rat this remarkable rodent is long lived and remains fit and healthy and to old age its genome is well understood. As to us one field of research is the role of genes in our ability to taste things and to find something yummy and others nasty. It turns out thats not just a cultural matter but also a genetic one. A technology called crisper had its genes it modifies the cells genome by removing or adding bits of d. N. A. This enables it to turn genes on or off in plants and in animals including humans. Society will have to think hard about the implications of sciences growing ability to engineer our genes. Hearing voices. Visual hallucinations. Delusions. Schizophrenia is a mental disorder associated with changes in perception thoughts mood and behavior it can be hereditary so what genes are associated with the disease. The psychiatric clinic at berlins university hospital. A study here involves healthy test subjects providing saliva samples containing their genetic material and stoop a sions who suffer from schizophrenia. Geneticists. Is looking for genes that may play a role in the disease. Minor presumed list of my personal hope is to shed light on to the darkness of psychiatric. Knowledge so to speak. To she listens and supreme. People who suffer from schizophrenia may hear voices and be paranoid. Its unclear whats really happening inside their brains which is why Treatment Options have hardly changed in decades. But schizophrenia is known to be highly heritable a factor that geneticists now want to unravel. Theyre conducting large scale Genome Wide Association studies with tens of thousands of test subjects including those in berlin. Each individuals genetic material is examined for components that may be different for each person called single nucleotide polymorphisms or snips. The schizophrenia patient snips are then compared with those of all the healthy test subjects using statistical calculations. Certain steps are clearly more common among schizo phrenic looking at the genetic makeup in its entirety the especially common snips stand out like skyscrapers. A comparison of 35000 schizo phrenic swith 47000 healthy subjects revealed 108 snips associated with the disease the researchers called the confusingly complex genetic landscape a manhattan plant due to its resemblance to new yorks famous skyline. The snips identified the prominent skyscrapers constitute a vital clue they point the way to the genes that may play a role in schizophrenia. And is also what we were a little bit afraid of that its not just one gene that makes the person im sick of these guns feel for sheet its really many different genes that when combined. And create a persons individual risk. And there are hundreds the researchers analyzed every single gene theyve just discovered genes that influence the transmission of signals within the brain stefan presents the results at the european schizophrenia congress in berlin. I also want to show some other regions. Among the hundreds of genes is one that is affected by the medicines currently being used in schizophrenia treatment a match that has researchers hoping for other positive results. Domes so these shows us that one central gene can be enough to immensely improve treatment for us but its just a question of finding it is not normal. This is crazy its like taking a step on the moon but its still a long way off because we know that developing medicines takes decades. And. A mammoth undertaking which is why hundreds of researchers have teamed up via the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium including stefan. With the help of large scale genomic studies theyre also researching other psychiatric disorders many of which now have a manhattan like the one for schizophrenia they provide a guide towards the relevant genes. But entirely different fields of application are also hidden within the genetic landscapes. The most hotly debated is the potential for poly to be used in diagnostics for instance or to predict the risk of disease does that mean a persons genetic material could be a predictor. Individual material be examined for d. N. A. Sequence variations associated with the disease the number and nature of found can be used to calculate a personal policy. Such as. In some cases an individuals risk of succumbing to the disease can already be estimated but do people want to know that they have a 7 percent chance of contracting it at some point. Pandoras box. Isnt sick. And you tell them risk for a disease that person may never develop. Would have enormous consequences for the person themselves of. Their family their friends their associates. Legal issues it raises insurance issues. Apart from that putting the likelihood of developing the disease into numbers is restricted to the genetic element only. Person lives and what happens in their life cannot be predicted. Environmental factors play a role sometimes a major one in the development of psychiatric illness. Experts agree poly genic risks wars are not suited to predicting risk or aiding in diagnosis but they can be useful. To see whether it already does have a very large influence is in research. Stefan vickers teen divides the test subjects into groups according to the subjects poly genic scores and then they observe how the group with the especially high schizophrenia scorns develops the researchers are a long way off from totally understanding the complex genetics of psychiatric diseases but they are making progress. Hello out there in a moment well be taking a look at me well us but even as were pretty impressive small but mighty well not all that small we can reach out like that 135 centimeters and why up to 36 kilos. Plus our fur is unusually thick gives humans have up to 600. 00 hairs per square centimeter of skin we have up to 23000. 00 tall that right here. At our tafe other stuff of legends. We use them to build gigantic structures like this a dam 850 meters long so big its visible from outer space no wonder you call us busy. We might be rodents but were also ecosystem engineers geniuses though not all humans agree. Most people tend to think of beavers as a nuisance as pasts but it turns out that beavers are very beneficial to the ecosystem. Here in the easy river valley of southern germany water buffalo are helping keep these fields healthy organic farmer mathias license is bringing them in for the winter. Come on sweetie come on. The water buffalo will spend the winter months at the familys farm. So its great so. Cheering the some of the water buffalo had some company here before us. With the buffalo gone its time to get some advice. Get hot shaft a wildlife biologist is often called in when beavers look like they might come into conflict with farmers or other local resit. This past summer the beavers built a dam along the edge of the meadow. The other country i have has been working herd thats pretty fresh out there raising the dam for the winter. Obviously high for just a few go yeah were really glad the beaver built this big dam along our pasture this year because as you see that allows the water to flow into the grazing areas. Indeed if were here i didnt serve us a little bit too much then just on water buffalo need watering in wallowing holes to regulate their body temperature during the hot summer. Only to be activated without the beavers activity here wed have to either get water for the animals from outside or take them off the pasture i did so with that. But not everyone is such a fan of the dams the beef is build. A little glimmer gives him a tendency confluence when beavers build their dams are places that people are also using. This dam for example its created this wet area which can be used by other animals. And theres a part theres no longer obsess about it so went that anyone driving on it would get bogged down so the entire valley several hectares of land was no longer accessible for human use and he you say that beavers set up shop because they like eating the corn from that field they also use the corn stalks to build bad dam but that blocked the drainage and so now the areas under water this is what you tend to see when humans use land thats too close to water. Along this stretch of land adjacent to the east river the local villages arent bothered by the dams its a good spot to study the long term effects of beef or activity. Santa knows the area like the back of his hand. To see you here. Weve been studying this habitat for 25 years the winter is an especially good time to see whats going. Happening. Often dumb the vegetation has receded and you can see the dam better and move along here more easily with. The nearby university of applied sciences carries out a lot of Research Projects here the 1st signs of beaver activity were detected here in 1909 and researches have been monitoring the area ever since. It was real this used to be a relatively narrow stream with pastures to the right and left of it a small stream the landscape is totally changed in the. Beavers choose horses that are less than 80 centimeters deep to build the dams the water behind the down that rises creating the beaver pond. Since or to keeps flowing into the pond digimon chile bursts its banks those streams of water branch out eventually a complex ecosystem imagist with patches of standing water as well as small streams some moving slowly others small quickly. We start to grow along the pond submerged trees die off under marshland emerges nearby this gives rise to a vibrant most say a very taboo tatts. Says it will go because to me its fascinating to see how such a small animal can shape and transform an area leavers built a dam here thats more than 120. 00 metres long and several generations of them kept doing it and thats all and your children at least. Fish use the small streams to circumvent the dam under study carried out by the university of exeter showed that the dams actually improve the water quality. Thats because the dams act as natural filters removing suspended solids phosphate and nitrogen from the. Water downstream from a beaver dam the water contains about 70 percent fewer suspended solids 30 percent less nitrogen and 80 percent less phosphate on average than the water on the other side of the barrier. The sediment is deposited upstream of the dam where its used by plants such as reeds which is not rushed by the phosphate and nitrogen. The reed fills marshland the various will show ecosystems and the decaying would provide a rich habitat for many animals some quite uncommon zuki you can really see how life has returned to the area here starting with the dragonflies before we only had a few dragon fly species but now the experts have found 30 different species of them here then there are the amphibian and bird species which are now flourishing. Just how to live the potency of. Many long term studies confirm that beavers use the diversity of species in their habitats the busy creatures on pests atoll but valuable allies in the fight to preserve our rapidly dwindling biodiversity ringback. Thats all for this way kong tomorrow today nice that you could join us next time well have more exciting stories from the fields of science and technology until then. Blockbusters from nigeria here does what molly wood stands. Up. Often to. Come and successful beyond belief. The brotherhood this is the way we do it. Would. In 75 minutes on d w. One continent. 700000000 people. All with their own personal stories. Europe. Explore every day life for. What europeans fear and what they hope for. A focus on europe. On g. W. We know this is a scary time for the coronavirus is changing the world changing our lives so queens take care of yourself good systems wash your hands if you can date at how. Were d. W. B. For here for you we are working tirelessly to keep you informed on all of our platforms are all in this is getting on together make it. Stay safe everybody stay safe stay safe stay safe please stay safe. The media for our 3rd online session. The Coronavirus Crisis has hit making news organizations especially hard. What will it take for them to recover. Is a turbo digitalisation in looking journalism a way out of the crisis but. Join our online session at the forum. Today at 1230 u. T. C. 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