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<p>Mathematical modeling and AI can pick out patterns preceding epidemics that human brains can’t readily discern.</p>

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<p>From a neurobiology perspective, anxiety and sleep deprivation look very much alike.</p>

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<p>NOVA Next is NOVA’s award-winning digital publication that provides answers from the cutting edge of science and technology. Launched in 2012, we feature in-depth articles and commentaries from some of the most respected journalists, scientists, and engineers. NOVA Next explores the ideas that are changing the future, from the frontiers of synthetic biology to the politics of personalized medicine.</p><p>Let us know what you think. We’re listening on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/NOVAonline">Facebook</a>, <a href="http://twitter.com/novapbs">Twitter</a>, and email.</p><p>If you’re a journalist and have an idea for a story, send it our way.</p>

NOVA Next is NOVA’s award-winning digital publication that provides answers from the cutting edge of science and technology.

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<p>NOVA Next is NOVA’s award-winning digital publication that provides answers from the cutting edge of science and technology.</p>

<p>When an eagle dies in America, it may end up at one of our eagle repositories—unique institutions working to protect both birds of prey and Native American traditions.</p>

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      <div class="rich-text"><p>On March 20, as severe cases of COVID-19 spiked in northern Italy, emergency medicine doctor Marco Garrone paused during a chaotic shift <a href="https://twitter.com/drmarcogarrone/status/1241135134188937218?s=20">to tweet</a> a photo: two patients, next to each other in hospital beds, with arcs of tubing connecting them to the same ventilator. “This is what we are down to,” he wrote. “Splitting ventilators, and facing serious dilemmas like choosing who will be actually ventilated when everybody should. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/TakeThisSeriously?src=hash">#TakeThisSeriously</a>”</p><p>A month later, as caseloads skyrocketed across the pond in New York City, Columbia Presbyterian Hospital hurried to draft protocols for ventilator sharing. And around the same time, an emergency medicine doctor in Michigan named Charlene Babcock posted a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uClq978oohY">YouTube tutorial</a> featuring step-by-step directions on how to modify a ventilator so it can accommodate multiple patients. That video racked up nearly a million views in the ensuing weeks.</p></div>
  

  
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      <div class="rich-text"><p>“Here’s my disclaimer,” Babcock says to the camera. “This is off-label use of the ventilator.” But, she adds, extreme circumstances may call for measures that otherwise would be deemed too risky. “If it was me, and I had four patients—and they all needed intubation, and I only had one ventilator—I would simply have a shared discussion with all four families and say: ‘I can pick one to live, or we can try to have all four live.’”</p><p>The appearance of ventilator sharing (or “coventilating”) this spring in places where the novel coronavirus has hit the most severely prompts a number of questions: How does a ventilator work? Why is it possible for more than one patient to use a ventilator at once? And if it’s possible, why aren’t more doctors in hard-hit areas doing it? Good news: This is the first in a NOVA series answering burning coronavirus questions just like these.</p></div>
  

  
      

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  <div class="rich-text"><p>Have a COVID-related question for us? Follow the #CovidQs hashtag on Facebook and Twitter to submit your inquiry or ask us on Reddit @novapbs.</p></div>
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      <div class="rich-text"><h3><b>How do ventilators work? </b></h3><p>Treating a patient in extreme respiratory distress is “like staring out the window and seeing people free fall,” says Albert Kwon, an anesthesiologist at New York Medical College. Doctors don’t know how long their patients have been “falling” or how long they’ll continue to fall without intervention; they must make an on-the-spot assessment about whether a parachute is necessary.</p><p>In that case, they can choose from several options, ranging from less to more invasive. All ventilators provide oxygen and promote its absorption in the bloodstream while also helping rid the body of the resulting carbon dioxide. The ones you’ve probably heard the most about during the COVID-19 pandemic provide a stream of air into the lungs via a tube inserted into a patient’s throat.</p><p>This stream of air exerts positive pressure, which is the opposite of how breathing usually works. When we breathe in on our own, our diaphragm muscles move down in our chests, increasing available space and creating an area of <i>negative</i> pressure that causes air to rush in. (There is one ventilator that works on negative pressure, which you’ve probably heard of: <a href="https://amhistory.si.edu/polio/howpolio/ironlung.htm">the iron lung</a>.) </p>
            <figure class="richtext-image full-width"><img alt="mouselungs.jpg" class="richtext-image full-width" height="450" width="800"
            src="/wgbh/nova/media/images/mouselungs.width-800.jpg"/><figcaption><p>High-magnification images show the surface of alveoli in healthy mouse lungs (left) and lungs with ventilator-induced damage (right). Image Credit: Kate Hamlington Smith, University of Colorado School of Medicine</p><div class="credit"></div></figcaption>
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            <p>One reason COVID-19 patients need to use ventilators is because their lungs become so stiff that the diaphragm isn’t strong enough to complete its normal movement, causing breathing to slow or stop. Ventilation also keeps the lungs inflated while they heal. That’s important because inflamed capillaries in sick lungs can leak a protein-rich fluid, increasing surface tension in the liquid that normally coats the lungs and making them vulnerable to collapse. </p><p>But even healthy lungs are at risk during this process, because their tissues are not usually subject to positive pressure. That means that getting pressure levels wrong during ventilation can be dangerous. Too low, and a patient doesn’t get enough oxygen. Too high, and the lungs can become overinflated, causing their tissue to tear.</p><p>At first glance, the ventilator used in the most severe COVID-19 cases looks fairly simple: a tube that goes down the patient’s throat, two hoses that connect the tube to the machine itself (one for pushing air into the lungs and one for bringing carbon dioxide back out of the body); seals, valves, and filters to keep gases moving in the right direction; and a central case. But inside that case lives a much more complicated device, replete with pressure, flow, and oxygen sensors, and sets of circuitry and alarms associated with each element. A standard hospital ventilator has 1,500 parts, features several layers of fail-safes, and can cost around $30,000. </p><p>“The number of safeties that have to be on a medical device like this is amazing,” says Nevan Hanumara, a research scientist in MIT’s Precision Engineering Research Group. “This is second only to aerospace.”</p>
            <figure class="richtext-image full-width"><img alt="iStock-1216256777.jpg" class="richtext-image full-width" height="533" width="800"
            src="/wgbh/nova/media/images/iStock-1216256777.width-800.jpg"/><figcaption><p>A medical ventilator. Image Credit: Nenov, iStock</p><div class="credit"></div></figcaption>
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            <h3><b>Why isn’t ventilator sharing more common? </b></h3><p>Ventilators have such complicated inner workings in part because ventilation is much more involved than just turning on a hose. The process requires doctors to consider myriad disease factors and patient measurements, making it almost an art rather than a science. &quot;Tidal volume,&quot; for example, refers to the amount of air in each breath, &quot;resistance&quot; to the ease with which air moves through the lungs, and &quot;compliance&quot; to how stiff or flexible the lung tissue itself is. Clinicians can also adjust how fast patients breathe and regulate air pressure at each stage of those breaths.</p><p>All this means that while setting up coventilation is relatively simple—in her YouTube video, Babcock simply uses a cheap plastic adaptor to make space for more hoses—that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s safe. The first problem, Hanumara points out, is that coventilating requires using the same pressure with two very different sets of lungs. The healthier lungs receive more air because they inflate more easily, while the sicker, less flexible lungs won’t get as much.</p></div>
  

  
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      <div class="rich-text"><p>Secondly, he adds, sensors calibrated for one person’s measurements may not work for two, meaning the appropriate alarms might not be triggered if there is an emergency. Some COVID-19 patients, for example, experience sudden, catastrophic changes in their lung health; without alarms, it’s much more difficult to catch these changes in time. And finally there’s the matter of cross-contamination. Although two coronavirus patients sharing a ventilator can’t give each other their infections, they might still swap pneumonia microbes, or even tuberculosis.</p><p>Given these risks, research on coventilation has divided the respiratory care community. Among the more recent studies, Assistant Director of Research at SUNY Downstate Department of Emergency Medicine Lorenzo Paladino successfully coventilated four sheep for 12 hours in 2008. (Garrone, the Italian doctor, looked to that study when setting up his coventilated patients in March.) Paladino and his coauthors chose sheep for their study because adults have similar respiratory physiology and weight as humans, and aimed for 12 hours because emergency protocols allow for delivery of equipment from the Strategic National Stockpile anywhere in the continental US within that time.</p><p>The study was prompted by the 2001 anthrax attacks and 2003 SARS outbreak, Paladino says, and was meant to provide a stopgap “bridge” measure for emergency physicians with inadequate supplies waiting for backup in a disaster situation—not to replace single ventilation in the long term. Before COVID-19, the technique was most famously used after the 2017 Las Vegas concert shooting, when a single ER saw a huge surge of gunshot patients and coventilated them to keep them alive while they waited for surgery.</p><p>Paladino compares the technique to a life vest. “We don’t condone crossing the Atlantic in a life vest,” he says. “But if I’m in the middle of the Atlantic, I would rather have a life vest than not. And I would hope that a boat is coming to pick me up soon.”</p></div>
  

  
      <div class="rich-text"><h3><b>The future of coventilation</b></h3><p>Not every patient is a good candidate for coventilating, Paladino stresses. Patients with active asthma should be excluded, as should those who tend to “fight” the ventilator, trying to draw a breath when the machine is expelling air, or vice versa. But even with these caveats in place, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, six major organizations—including heavyweights like the Society of Critical Care Medicine and the American Society of Anesthesiologists—have made statements against coventilating, judging it too risky and ethically questionable to be worth considering. “There’s a very legitimate concern that instead of saving two people, you just highly increased the risk of mortality for two people,” says Bradford Smith, a biomedical engineer at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. </p><p>These serious risks point to the urgency of the recent situations in Italy and New York that have led doctors to try coventilation. Smith, who recently published a “preprint” (a not-yet-peer-reviewed preliminary study) suggesting an algorithm to match patients for safer coventilation, runs down the list of options he would try before resorting to the technique: fixing old, broken ventilators; using available machines normally used for surgical anesthesia; attaching endotracheal tubes to similar but less-invasive machines used for sleep apnea. “This is so rife with problems that the first time I heard about it, I thought, &#x27;This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,’” Smith says. “But people are taking steps to mitigate all those issues.”</p><p>Coventilating practitioners can use filters between patients to help prevent cross-contamination, for example. And protocols drawn up by Columbia Presbyterian and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) this spring suggest workarounds to allow for some adjustment of ventilator settings, better monitoring of both patients, and use of some built-in alarms.</p><p>As in Paladino’s case, most research on coventilation stems from a drive to prepare for the worst. Smith says he was initially inspired to work on his algorithms because he was afraid he would have to use them. (“With the news coming out of Italy, I was on these chain emails of critical care physicians, and things sounded pretty dire,” he says.) And the fact that HHS thought it necessary to convene a taskforce in Washington D.C.—which included Paladino and Babcock—to produce coventilation guidelines for future use speaks to the severity of both the pandemic and predictions for global health over the next two years.</p><p>Smith hasn’t had to use his algorithms, but he fears fall flu season may provide another opportunity. He also wonders if they may be of use in other places around the world where ventilator supplies are meager, to give physicians and respiratory therapists valuable context about how different types of patients may react to coventilation.</p><p>“This is not how nations, or even states, deal with a ventilator problem,” Paladino says. Instead, he sees coventilation playing an important role for communities that are rural or isolated, or lack access to medical care. Imagine a small hospital that owns just three ventilators and then receives six desperately sick COVID-19 patients in one night. Then what? “One night you see a spike, and you ask for help from the neighbors,” he says. In the meantime, coventilating just might keep those patients alive.</p><p></p><p><i>Stream</i> <b><i>Decoding COVID-19</i></b><i> starting on Wednesday, May 13 at 7/6c on the PBS Video app or online to learn more:</i></p><div>
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<p>The science of coventilation for coronavirus cases illustrates a complicated dilemma.</p>

Covid-19 patients sharing ventilators is possible—but not ideal





  
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      <div class="rich-text"><p>Hello, NOVA fans! We understand that many of you may be spending more quality time at home than usual. And, as schools across the country remain closed, fostering student learning at home is a top priority.</p><p>In the upcoming weeks, we’ll be sharing collections of some of our favorite NOVA films—all organized by subject to make bingeing, learning, and entertainment as easy as possible for science lovers of all ages.</p><p>Have you ever wondered about the ethics of genetic engineering or considered whether autonomous vehicles will someday take over our roads? Get ready: The subject of this collection is “Technology.”</p><p></p><h3><a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/decoding-da-vinci/">Decoding da Vinci (2019)</a></h3></div>
  

  
      

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      <div class="rich-text"><p>Leonardo da Vinci was a Renaissance genius. Not only did he paint masterpieces of art, but he was an obsessive scientist and inventor, dreaming up complex machines centuries ahead of his time, including parachutes, armored tanks, hang gliders, and robots. On the 500th anniversary of Leonardo’s death, with the help of biographer Walter Isaacson, NOVA investigates the secrets of Leonardo’s success. How did his scientific curiosity, from dissections of cadavers to studies of optics, shape his genius and help him create perhaps the most famous painting of all time, the &quot;Mona Lisa&quot;?</p><p></p><h3><a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/rise-of-the-rockets/">Rise of the Rockets (2019)</a></h3></div>
  

  
      

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      <div class="rich-text"><p>Rockets are becoming cheaper and more powerful than ever before thanks to stunning new technologies. As companies like SpaceX and Virgin Galactic make space more accessible, and NASA returns to crewed spaceflight, a new era of space exploration seems to be on the horizon. But will this seeming rocket Renaissance become more than just hype? NOVA explores the latest rocket technologies and the growing role private citizens may have in space.</p><p></p><h3><a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/look-whos-driving/">Look Who&#x27;s Driving (2019)</a></h3></div>
  

  
      

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      <div class="rich-text"><p>After years of anticipation, autonomous vehicles are now being tested on public roads around the world. As ambitious innovators race to develop what they see as the next high-tech pot of gold, some experts warn there are still daunting challenges ahead, including how to train artificial intelligence to be better than humans at making life-and-death decisions. How do self-driving cars work? How close are we to large-scale deployment of them? And will we ever be able to trust AI with our lives?</p></div>
  

  
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      <div class="rich-text"><h3><a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/school-of-the-future/">School of the Future (2016)</a></h3></div>
  

  
      

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      <div class="rich-text"><p>In a new age of information, rapid innovation, and globalization, how can we prepare our children to compete? Once the envy of the world, American schools are now in trouble. Test scores show our kids lag far behind their peers from other industrialized countries, and as the divide between rich and poor grows wider, the goal of getting all kids ready for college and the workforce gets harder by the day. How can the latest research help us fix education in America? Can the science of learning—including new insights from neuroscientists, psychologists, and educators—reveal how kids’ brains work and tell us which techniques are most likely to engage and inspire growing minds? What role should technology play in the classroom? Teachers, students, parents, and scientists take center stage as NOVA explores a new vision for the “School of the Future.”</p><p></p><h3><a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/nova-wonders-can-we-make-life/">NOVA Wonders: Can We Make Life? (2018)</a></h3></div>
  

  
      

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      <div class="rich-text"><p>&quot;It&#x27;s alive!&quot; Since Dr. Frankenstein spoke those famous words, we&#x27;ve been alternately enthralled and terrified by the idea of creating life in the lab. Now, a revolution in genetic engineering and thrilling innovations in synthetic biology are bringing that dream—or nightmare, as the case may be—closer to reality. New tools allow researchers to use cells to create their own DNA and edit it into existing genomes with more ease and less cost than ever before. Along with renewed hopes for treating some genetic diseases, there&#x27;s serious talk of using the newest technologies to bring long-extinct animals back from the dead – like the team hoping to resurrect the woolly mammoth. Science fiction is quickly becoming science fact. Another daring genetic experiment to bioengineer animals could prevent Lyme disease. But the power to make life comes with deep ethical questions. What are the potential rewards—and dangers—of tinkering with nature? <i>NOVA Wonders</i> explores the benefits and the burden of risk surrounding the controversial new technology.</p></div>
  

  
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<p>Five episodes exploring the revolution and ethics of technology.</p>

Five Technology Documentaries Streaming Right Now





  
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      <div class="rich-text"><p>Hello, NOVA fans! We understand that many of you may be spending more quality time at home than usual. And, as schools across the country remain closed, fostering student learning at home is a top priority.</p><p>In the upcoming weeks, we’ll be sharing collections of some of our favorite NOVA films—all organized by subject to make bingeing, learning, and entertainment as easy as possible for science lovers of all ages.</p><p>Whether you&#x27;ve ever been curious about the microscopic world of organisms living inside you or wanted a deeper understanding of the science of addiction, get ready: The subject of this collection is “Health and Medicine.”</p><p></p><h3><a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/decoding-covid-19/">Decoding COVID-19 (2020)</a></h3></div>
  

  
      

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      <div class="rich-text"><p>The coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 has upended life as we know it in a matter of mere months. But at the same time, an unprecedented global effort to understand and contain the virus—and find a treatment for the disease it causes—is underway. Join the doctors on the front lines of the fight against COVID-19 as they strategize to stop the spread, and meet the researchers racing to develop treatments and vaccines. Along the way, discover how this devastating disease emerged, what it does to the human body, and why it exploded into a pandemic.</p><p></p><h3><a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/addiction/">Addiction (2018)</a></h3></div>
  

  
      

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      <div class="rich-text"><p>Hear firsthand from individuals struggling with addiction and follow the cutting-edge work of doctors and scientists as they investigate why addiction is not a moral failing, but a chronic, treatable medical condition. Easy access to drugs like heroin, fentanyl, and even prescription medications like OxyContin has fueled an epidemic of addiction—the deadliest in U.S. history. Now, science is revealing how addiction affects the brain, and top experts are gathering evidence about how we should address our drug problem, from embracing evidence-based treatments, to rethinking public policies.</p><p></p><h3><a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/poisoned-water/">Poisoned Water (2017)</a></h3></div>
  

  
      

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      <div class="rich-text"><p>Water. Turn on the faucet and it’s always there. Without it we perish. But how safe is our tap water?</p><p>In this special report narrated by Joe Morton, NOVA investigates what happened in Flint, Michigan, when local officials changed the city’s water source to save money, but overlooked a critical treatment process. As the water pipes corroded, lead leached into the system, exposing the community—including thousands of children—to dangerous levels of poison. NOVA uncovers the science behind this manmade disaster— from the intricacies of water chemistry to the biology of lead poisoning to the misuse of science itself. NOVA follows ordinary citizens and independent scientists who exposed the danger lurking in Flint’s water and confronted those who turned a blind eye. And discover the disturbing truth that reaches far beyond Flint—water systems across the country are similarly vulnerable. How can we protect ourselves from poisoned water?</p><p></p><h3><a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/vaccinescalling-the-shots/">Vaccines—Calling the Shots (2014)</a></h3></div>
  

  
      

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      <div class="rich-text"><p>Diseases that were largely eradicated in the United States a generation ago—whooping cough, measles, mumps—are returning, in part because nervous parents are skipping their children&#x27;s shots. NOVA&#x27;s &quot;Vaccines—Calling the Shots&quot; takes viewers around the world to track epidemics, explore the science behind vaccinations, hear from parents wrestling with vaccine-related questions, and shed light on the risks of opting out.</p></div>
  

  
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      <div class="rich-text"><h3><a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/nova-wonders-whats-living-in-you/">NOVA Wonders: What&#x27;s Living in You? (2018)</a></h3></div>
  

  
      

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      <div class="rich-text"><p>Whether they make you fat, fart, or freak out, microbes play a central role in your life.</p><p>Right beneath your nose—on your face, in your gut, and everywhere in between—trillions of bacteria, viruses, and fungi are so abundant in your body, they outnumber your human cells. But these aren’t just nasty hitch-hikers. Many are crucial to your survival. Evidence suggests that a diverse microbiome can keep you healthy and, conversely, a damaged one could kill you. <i>NOVA Wonders</i> peers into this microscopic world to discover the fascinating, bizarre, and downright surprising secrets of the human microbiome, including the world’s largest stool bank, which transforms raw stool into life-saving poop pills.</p><p></p><h3><a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/lifes-greatest-miracle/">Life&#x27;s Greatest Miracle (2001)</a></h3></div>
  

  
      

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      <div class="rich-text"><p>A sequel to one of the most popular NOVAs of all time, &quot;Miracle of Life,&quot; this Emmy Award-winning program tracks human development from embryo to newborn using the extraordinary microimagery of Swedish photographer Lennart Nilsson.</p></div>
  

  
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<p>Six episodes exploring the fascinating science and innovations in health and medicine.</p>

NOVA Marathons: Health & Medicine





  
      <div class="rich-text"><p>Aurora Basinski crouches in a tent on a glacier jutting out from Antarctica, half a mile off solid land. She’s tinkering with a device called a VMP, which measures water temperature and salinity, when she starts cursing.</p><p>Thirty-six hours before, a storm moved off West Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier, giving Basinski and her fellow investigators a tiny, critical window of time. They dug their equipment out of snow drifts as tall as themselves and on January 8 began hot-water drilling a 14-inch-wide hole down into the glacier. </p></div>
  

  
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      <div class="rich-text"><p>Basinski is one of about 50 researchers working on the eastern tongue of Thwaites Glacier as part of the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration (<a href="https://thwaitesglacier.org/">ITGC</a>). The $50 million, five-year study is supported by the U.S. Antarctic Program and the British Antarctic Survey. The goal is to better understand how climate change is affecting Thwaites, nicknamed the “doomsday glacier” because it’s melting so quickly. Researchers will deploy all manner of scientific instruments across its surface. But to really understand what’s happening with Thwaites, they also need to send instruments into the water below it. </p><p>And that means drilling a hole through 2,000 feet of ice.</p><p>The team on the aptly named <a href="https://thwaitesglacier.org/projects/melt">MELT project</a> drills in shifts for 36 hours and by the time they hit water below the glacier, their borehole is twice as tall as the Eiffel Tower. Basinski and her advisor, New York University mathematician and ITGC Principal Investigator David Holland, immediately begin a “science shift,” trading in drilling tools for fine-tuned scientific instruments. It’s already the middle of the night, and when Basinski’s VMP acts up, she&#x27;s forced to stay awake fiddling with the device for another 12 hours. </p><p>“You want to get good data,” she says. “You have one shot.”</p>
            <figure class="richtext-image full-width"><img alt="Thwaites_Storm.jpg" class="richtext-image full-width" height="450" width="800"
            src="/wgbh/nova/media/images/Thwaites_Storm.width-800.jpg"/><figcaption><p>Winds blow through the ITGC research camp where David Holland and Aurora Basinski conduct their work. Image Credit: David Holland and Aurora Basinski</p><div class="credit"></div></figcaption>
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            <h3>Runaway Glacier</h3><p>Thwaites Glacier is a fragile piece of one of the most <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/antarctic-glacier-has-retreated-3-miles-in-22-years/">rapidly changing</a> places on Earth. That pace of change is what caught people’s attention about two decades ago, Holland says. Thwaites’ elevation falls by several feet every year. Scientists theorize that as the leading edge of a glacier retreats farther inland, the thicker ice above begins flowing down toward the sea faster. This creates a runaway effect of retreat, thinning, further retreat, and, ultimately, collapse.</p><p>“If a glacier collapse occurs in the next decade to century, or centuries, it will be here,” Holland says. “And it will be triggered by warm water and be unstoppable.” Thwaites could also trigger ice loss in connecting areas of West Antarctica, scientists believe. “Everything that we’ve seen, particularly from satellite and remote sensing in the last decade or so points to this area becoming more active,” says Paul Cutler, program director of glaciology, ice core science and geomorphology at the National Science Foundation. “And it’s not acting in isolation. If it starts rapidly retreating, it starts acting on the neighboring glaciers as well.”</p><p>The ice shelf that Basinski, Holland, and the rest of their team shared from mid-December to mid-January is like an ice cube in a glass of water. Because it’s over the ocean, it won’t directly contribute to sea level rise. But about half a mile away is what scientists call the grounding zone, where this “flowing” piece of Thwaites sitting on the water meets the “grounded” part attached to the seafloor.</p><p>It’s this ice atop solid ground—a massive ice cube on a countertop—that climatologists worry about. “The ice cube I’m standing on is holding [back] the ice cube on the kitchen counter,” Holland says from Thwaites’ eastern ice shelf. </p>
            <figure class="richtext-image full-width"><img alt="Thwaites_Graphic_Final.jpg" class="richtext-image full-width" height="350" width="800"
            src="/wgbh/nova/media/images/Thwaites_Graphic_Final.width-800.jpg"/><figcaption><p>Changing winds and currents carry warm water beneath Thwaites Glacier, accelerating ice melt on its underside. As the glacier loses its grip on the seafloor, the grounding line shifts back, hastening retreat. Image Credit: International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration</p><div class="credit"></div></figcaption>
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            <p>Already, the melting of Thwaites Glacier, which is roughly the size of Florida, accounts for 4% of global <a href="https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2680/new-study-finds-sea-level-rise-accelerating/">sea level rise</a> on an ongoing basis. And the amount of ice flowing from it and its glacial neighbors has almost doubled in the last 30 years. Current mathematical models illustrate that if it were to collapse, which scientists believe will happen in the coming decades or centuries, much of western Antarctica’s remaining ice will become unstable. </p><p>If Antarctica were to lose only Thwaites, the Earth’s oceans would rise by about two to three feet or more, researchers believe. That’s enough to cause major flooding in New York City and <a href="https://coastal.climatecentral.org/map/9/12.5321/45.4564/?theme=water_level&amp;map_type=water_level_above_mhhw&amp;contiguous=true&amp;elevation_model=best_available&amp;water_level=3.0&amp;water_unit=ft">completely engulf</a> some low-lying cities like New Orleans and Venice, Italy, with seawater.</p><p>And if the loss of Thwaites triggered the collapse of the rest of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, the global sea level could rise by more than 10 feet. “It can feel very far away,” Andra Garner, a climate scientist at Rowan University who is not part of the ITGC, says of melting glaciers. But “coastal sea rise is a problem for communities in itself,” she says. If the seas were to rise by 10 feet, Holland says, the effects on countries like Bangladesh, coastal states like Florida, and major cities like New York, London, and Shanghai will be “profound.” </p><p>Higher seas can also mean intensified storms. “On the East Coast we’re concerned because we already see sea level rise [playing out] in the background,” says Cutler, who’s based in Virginia. “Storms are able to encroach inland.” Even a minor hurricane, which wouldn’t cause intense flooding today, Garner says, could have a much worse effect in deeper coastal waters. </p><p>And to make matters worse, storms <i>themselves</i> seem to be growing. Garner’s <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/114/45/11861">research shows</a> that from 850 to 1850, storms similar in size to Hurricane Sandy were likely to occur about once every 500 years in New York. Today, Hurricane Sandy is what she calls a “25-year storm,” meaning one that has a 1 in 25 chance of hitting in any given year. But if our current patterns of carbon dioxide emissions continue—and glacial melt along with them—Hurricane Sandy will be a 5-year storm in New York by 2100.</p><h3>Ground Truth</h3><p><a href="https://www.climate.gov/maps-data/primer/climate-models">Climate models</a> rely on mathematics to describe how energy and matter interact in the atmosphere, on land, and in the ocean. About 30 organizations around the world, Holland says, continuously develop them to better understand the complexities of the Earth’s past, current, and future climate. But these models are limited, unable to account for the day-by-day shifting of glaciers’ grounding lines, for example, or features yet to be discovered. This leaves sea-level-rise projections with “a big asterisk called ‘Thwaites,’” Holland says. “And Thwaites is gonna run the whole show.” </p><p>That’s where the ITGC comes in. </p><p>The location, shape, and behavior of Thwaites’ grounding line, a feature that is bound to play heavily into future climate models, was unknown a decade ago. But from 2011 to 2014, Pietro Milillo of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and his team used satellite data to map out the grounding-line retreat of Thwaites and the neighboring Pine Island, Smith, and Kohler Glaciers. </p><p>Shortly after, a team of Seoul National University scientists used remote sensing data to show that the Thwaites Ice Shelf—the part of the glacier hanging over the ocean—is disintegrating quickly and its rate of shedding ice into the sea is accelerating. That made Thwaites a “top spot” for concern, Cutler says.</p><p>Then, in January 2019, Milillo’s team made <a href="https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7322">a startling discovery</a>. </p><p>Their remote sensing work revealed a Manhattan-sized cavity against the grounding zone on Thwaites’ western side, a place too crevassed for scientists to conduct on-the-ground research. The existence of such a cavity suggests that warm water below Thwaites licks at an already-unstable section of its ice shelf—a phenomenon that could hasten Thwaites’ retreat, but isn’t accounted for in models, Milillo says.</p><p>His team’s findings also revealed that Thwaites’ grounding line moves by a few miles with the tides—another feature that’s not taken into account by existing climate models.</p><p>Even the boundaries of Thwaites are hard to define, says Slawek Tulaczyk, a glaciologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz and a principal investigator of the ITGC. Whereas the boundary between glacier and rock are well-defined in places like Yosemite, he says, “in Antarctica, you more or less have a sheet of ice. Thwaites is a fast-flowing piece of ice on the sides, rubbing against slow-moving ice in the middle. There is no rock wall.”</p><p>About three decades of research show that these boundaries can shift over time as the glacier widens and narrows, or the grounding line shifts. “Models aren’t great at predicting that right now,” Tulaczyk says. “It’s much easier to write code where things are set and don’t change.”</p><p>Though they lack a layer of complexity, today’s climate models do offer a glimpse into what Earth’s future might look like. For comparison, imagine planning a road trip with only a globe. You’d be able to draw a line from your starting point to where you want to end up. Once you hit the road, with a globe in hand, you could hypothetically head in the proper direction. But to successfully end up in the state, town, and street of your destination (and get traffic reports along the way), you’ll likely want something more detailed. </p><p>Similarly, climate models need another layer of complexity to better assess Thwaites’ future and its potential effects on the planet: They’ll need to evolve from globes into Google Maps.</p></div>
  

  
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      <div class="rich-text"><h3>A Glimpse Beneath the Ice</h3><p>Back on the ice in Antarctica, after 12 hours of toying with the VMP, or vertical microstructure profiler, in a research tent, Basinski and Holland finally figure out what’s wrong with the highly sensitive probe: The noise from the generators surrounding them had created electrical interference strong enough to throw off the VMP’s readings. </p><p>Once fixed, Basinski lowers the VMP—a little probe on a long wire—down the 2,000-foot borehole and into the water below. The instrument soon gets a read on turbulence, the mixing of the colder surface water and warmer, saltier, water below, a phenomenon that can stoke further melting of the glacier potentially faster than warm air can. </p>
            <figure class="richtext-image full-width"><img alt="Thwaites_Borehole.jpg" class="richtext-image full-width" height="450" width="800"
            src="/wgbh/nova/media/images/Thwaites_Borehole.width-800.jpg"/><figcaption><p>The 2,000-foot borehole, referred to as a “Thwaites Glacier access point,” stays covered when scientists aren’t deploying their instruments. Image Credit: David Holland and Aurora Basinski</p><div class="credit"></div></figcaption>
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            <p>“It’s really exciting to have it in the ocean and to see the data that is coming back,” Basinski says. “It all looked good and reliable.”</p><p>Sharing this corner of Thwaites is Britney Schmidt, an ITGC principal investigator and Georgia Tech astrobiologist, and her team, which is responsible for a 12-foot torpedo-like robot called Icefin. On January 10, Schmidt and her team lean over the borehole and pull on Icefin’s tether, guiding the yellow robot out of the water and ice after six hours of exploration, its third of four trips. Icefin carries data about the temperature and salinity of the water in Thwaites’ cavity as well as the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTQWCCU8CpE">first-ever images</a> from the grounding zone. Unlike the researchers’ other instruments, Icefin can be guided away from the borehole using a remote control, allowing the researchers to capture readings over a wider area.</p><p>“Deploying a complex system is never straightforward, but the robot was a champ and we actually beat our personal bests in several ways,” Schmidt said in an email. Icefin completed its two longest trips ever, venturing over a mile out from the borehole. “We actually got to the end of our tether on our second dive out there,” Schmidt wrote.</p><p>Within a matter of days, the ITGC researchers receive their first readings.</p><p>The water beneath the borehole is about 160 feet deep. The top half of it is cold water, a few degrees above freezing, and the lower half is warmer, saltier water, Basinski finds. Based on this even splitting, it would seem that turbulence—the rapid mixing of warm and cold water—is low. That means the warm water isn’t readily able to heat up the cold water above it, which could be good news for Thwaites.</p><p>But the researchers aren’t celebrating yet.</p><p>We can’t ignore the fact that this warm water is there and touching the ice, Basinski says. This warm water, she adds, is from our active heating of the atmosphere. When the atmosphere warms, wind patterns change, which ultimately affects the shape of ocean currents. Scientists already know that changing currents, which now shepherd warm water to Greenland, are to blame for much of glacial melting in Earth’s Northern Hemisphere. The same might be happening in the South at Thwaites, they fear.</p><p>And, Holland adds, not all of Thwaites behaves the same: Under its heavily-crevassed, quick-moving western tongue, it’s very possible that warm and cold water are mixing. </p>
            <figure class="richtext-image full-width"><img alt="Aurora_David.jpg" class="richtext-image full-width" height="450" width="800"
            src="/wgbh/nova/media/images/Aurora_David.width-800.jpg"/><figcaption><p>Aurora Basinski and David Holland depart from West Antarctica. Image Credit: David Holland and Aurora Basinski</p><div class="credit"></div></figcaption>
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            <p>Now that the ITGC researchers have returned home, they’ll pore over more data, much of which is being beamed to them by tools they’ve left on the ice. Some team members plan to return to Thwaites next year or the following, or will visit for the first time. Some, like Basinski, don’t wish to return at all. “Antarctica is a lot of fun. But [returning there] would mean a lot of digging,” she says, referring to unearthing tools from a year’s worth of snow —about 10 feet.</p><p>With the information they collect over the five years of the ITGC, they hope to map out the glacier in detail. </p><p>“By doing that, we help understand what the linch pins are in the system,” Schmidt wrote in an email. “We know from a whole host of data that the climate is warming, that the ocean is warming and that Thwaites is changing rapidly, but the rates of change under the ice are uncertain without these new data.”</p><p>These data “will help beat down the uncertainty in how the system is changing,” she wrote. And that will allow scientists to make better climate predictions and society to properly respond.</p><p>Thwaites has the power to rapidly split and shed, to raise the seas, to inundate coastal cities. “The future of our planet’s sea level is tied up almost certainly with what I’m standing on and what the folks behind me are working on,” Holland said from the glacier in January, gesturing to Schmidt’s team and Icefin behind him. “The impact, around the world, will be on tens or hundreds of millions of people. And the impact in dollars is huge.” </p><p>For now, that impact comes with uncertainty. And that uncertainty is hinged on the amount of carbon dioxide we emit into the air now and moving forward, says climate scientist Andra Garner. It can feel dire, she says, but the future of Thwaites and our planet is largely in humans’ hands. “That’s our source of hope,” she says, “that we have the chance to change things.”</p><p></p></div>
  

  
      

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      <div class="rich-text"><p><i>NOVA science correspondent Miles O&#x27;Brien assisted in reporting this article.</i></p><p></p><p><i>Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that underneath Thwaites Glacier, a layer of warm water is sitting above colder water. Cold water is in fact above the warm water.</i></p></div>
  



<p>Thwaites Glacier is melting fast. But to understand how climate change is driving its decline, scientists need to send instruments through 2,000 feet of ice into the water below.</p>

Scientists find warm water beneath Antarctica’s most at-risk glacier





  
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      <div class="rich-text"><p>Hello, NOVA fans! We understand that many of you may be spending more quality time at home than usual. And, as schools across the country close and remain closed, fostering student learning at home is a top priority.</p><p>In the upcoming weeks, we’ll be sharing collections of some of our favorite NOVA films—all organized by subject to make bingeing, learning, and entertainment as easy as possible for science lovers of all ages.</p><p>Have you ever wanted to see the world through the eyes of nature&#x27;s fastest animal or wondered if your dog really loves you? Get ready: The subject of this collection is “Nature and Animals.”</p><h3><a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/cat-tales/">Cat Tales</a> (2020)</h3></div>
  

  
      

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      <div class="rich-text"><p>Worshipped as a goddess, condemned as satanic, and spun into a stunning array of breeds, cats have long fascinated humans.<br/>But did we ever really domesticate them? And what can science tell us about our most mysterious companions?</p><p></p><h3><a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/dog-tales/">Dog Tales</a> (2020)</h3></div>
  

  
      

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      <div class="rich-text"><p>Dogs have long been dependable companions by our sides. But it wasn’t always that way, and a look at their closest living relative, the wolf, makes it clear why. Research into dog domestication and intelligence offers clues into what the human-dog relationship is all about. And analyzing dogs’ brain activity and genes may even help answer the question of whether dogs are in it for the food—or if they really love us.</p><p></p><h3><a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/worlds-fastest-animal/">World&#x27;s Fastest Animal</a> (2018)</h3></div>
  

  
      

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      <div class="rich-text"><p>See the world through the eyes of nature’s fastest animal: the peregrine falcon. Though once perilously endangered in the U.S., this spectacular predator is now thriving again in American cities and on every continent but Antarctica. What is the secret to its predatory prowess? To find out, follow a young family of peregrines in urban Chicago as the chicks hatch and learn from their parents to fly and hunt. And join expert falconer Lloyd Buck as he trains a captive peregrine and puts its hunting skills to the test. What’s the secret behind the peregrine falcon’s blistering speed, able to reach nearly 200 mph?</p></div>
  

  
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      <div class="rich-text"><h3><a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/nova-wonders-what-are-animals-saying/">NOVA Wonders: What Are Animals Saying?</a> (2018)</h3></div>
  

  
      

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      <div class="rich-text"><p>From singing whales and squeaking bats to thumping spiders and clicking dolphins, the world is filled with the exotic sounds of our fellow creatures. What are they saying? While we believe language sets us apart, some animals demonstrate they can learn our language—like Chaser the dog, who recognizes hundreds of words, and Kanzi the bonobo, who appears to have a sophisticated understanding of spoken English. But can we decode their own communications? <i>NOVA Wonders</i> follows researchers around the globe who are deciphering an amazing array of clues that reveal how animals share information critical to their survival. Will we one day be able to write the bat dictionary or decode the hidden sign language of chimps? And what can these findings tell us about the roots of our own language?</p><p></p><h3><a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/inside-animal-minds-whos-the-smartest/">Inside Animal Minds: Who&#x27;s the Smartest?</a> (2013)</h3></div>
  

  
      

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      <div class="rich-text"><p>What makes an animal smart? What forces of evolution drive brains to become more complex? Many scientists believe the secret lies in our relationships. Throughout the animal kingdom, some of the cleverest creatures—including humans—seem to be those who live in complex social groups, like dolphins, elephants, and apes. Could the skills required to keep track of friend and foe make animals smarter? To find out, NOVA goes inside the social lives of some of the smartest animals on the planet. Off the coast of Florida, we see dolphins team up to catch fish by whipping up a wall of muddy water that drives the meal right into their companions&#x27; waiting mouths. It seems that the dolphins are working together to plan their hunt. But are they really? Biologists go on a quest to decipher the secrets of animal societies, from the seas of the Caribbean to the plains of Africa. Do dolphins and elephants have &quot;language?&quot; Do chimps have a sense of fairness? And are any animals besides ourselves capable of feeling empathy?</p></div>
  

  
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<p>Five episodes exploring the companionship, communication, and amazingness of animals.</p>

NOVA Marathons: Animals





  
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      <div class="rich-text"><p>Hello, NOVA fans! We understand that many of you may be spending more quality time at home than usual. And, as schools across the country close or remain closed, fostering student learning at home is a top priority.</p><p>In the upcoming weeks, we’ll be sharing collections of some of our favorite NOVA films—all organized by subject to make bingeing, learning, and entertainment as easy as possible for science lovers of all ages.</p><p>Ever wondered what makes our home planet such a unique and powerful place? Get ready: The subject of this collection is “Planet Earth.”</p><p></p><h3><a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/polar-extremes/">Polar Extremes</a> (2020)</h3></div>
  

  
      

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      <div class="rich-text"><p>In this two-hour special, renowned paleontologist Kirk Johnson takes us on an epic adventure through time at the polar extremes of our planet. Following a trail of strange fossils found in all the wrong places—beech trees in Antarctica, hippo-like mammals in the Arctic—Johnson uncovers the bizarre history of the poles, from miles-high ice sheets to warm polar forests teeming with life. What caused such dramatic changes at the ends of the Earth? And what can the past reveal about our planet’s climate today—and in the future?</p><p></p><h3><a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/decoding-the-weather-machine/">Decoding the Weather Machine</a> (2018)</h3></div>
  

  
      

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      <div class="rich-text"><p>Disastrous hurricanes. Widespread droughts and wildfires. Withering heat. Extreme rainfall. It is hard not to conclude that something’s up with the weather, and many scientists agree. It’s the result of the weather machine itself—our climate—changing, becoming hotter and more erratic. In this two-hour documentary, NOVA will cut through the confusion around climate change. Why do scientists overwhelmingly agree that our climate is changing, and that human activity is causing it? How and when will it affect us through the weather we experience? And what will it take to bend the trajectory of planetary warming toward more benign outcomes? Join scientists around the world on a quest to better understand the workings of the weather and climate machine we call Earth, and discover how we can be resilient—even thrive—in the face of enormous change.</p><p></p><h3><a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/rise-of-the-superstorms/">Rise of the Superstorms</a> (2018)</h3></div>
  

  
      

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      <div class="rich-text"><p>In just one devastating month, Houston, Florida, and the Caribbean were changed forever. In summer 2017, three monster hurricanes swept in from the Atlantic one after another, shattering storm records and killing hundreds of people. First, Harvey brought catastrophic rain and flooding to Houston, causing $125 billion in damage. Less than two weeks later, Irma lashed the Caribbean with 180 mile per hour winds—and left the island of Barbuda uninhabitable. Hot on Irma’s heels, Maria intensified from a Category 1 to a Category 5 hurricane in just 30 hours, then ravaged Puerto Rico and left millions of people without power. As the planet warms, are these superstorms the new normal? How well can we predict them? And as the U.S. faces the next hurricane season, does it need to prepare for the reality of climate refugees? NOVA takes you inside the 2017 superstorms and the cutting-edge research that will determine how well equipped we are to deal with hurricanes in the future.</p><p></p><h3><a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/killer-volcanoes/">Killer Volcanoes</a> (2017)</h3></div>
  

  
      

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      <div class="rich-text"><p>Follow a team of volcano sleuths as they embark on a worldwide hunt for an elusive volcanic mega-eruption that plunged medieval Earth into a deep freeze. The mystery begins when archaeologists find a hastily dug mass grave of 4,000 men, women, and children in London. At first they assume it’s a plague pit from the Black Death, but when they date the bones, they turn out to be too old by a century. So what killed off these families? The chronicles of that time describe a run of wild weather that devastated crops and spread famine across Europe. NOVA’s expert team looks for the signature of a volcanic eruption big enough to have blasted a huge cloud of ash and sulfuric acid into the atmosphere, which chilled the entire planet. From Greenland to Antarctica, the team finds telltale “fingerprints” in ice and soil layers until, finally, they narrow down the culprit to a smoldering crater on a remote Indonesian island. Nearly 750 years ago, this volcano’s colossal explosion shot a million tons of rock and ash every second into the atmosphere. Across the globe, it turned summer into winter. What would happen if another such cataclysm struck again today?</p></div>
  

  
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      <div class="rich-text"><h3><a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/decoding-the-great-pyramid/">Decoding the Great Pyramid</a> (2019)</h3></div>
  

  
      

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      <div class="rich-text"><p>The 6 million-ton Great Pyramid of Giza is the last surviving wonder of the ancient world. How did the Egyptians engineer the mighty pharaoh Khufu’s tomb so precisely, with none of today’s surveying and power tools? And who were the thousands of laborers who raised the stones? Were they slaves or volunteers, and how were they housed, fed, and organized? &quot;Decoding the Great Pyramid&quot; presents the latest evidence from groundbreaking archaeological research that has transformed our understanding of the ancient world’s most ambitious engineering project, revealing a “lost city&quot; and intimate details of the lives of the laborers and officials who toiled on the vast construction. Amazingly, French archaeologists recently found the logbook of a labor team that delivered limestone blocks to build the Great Pyramid, yielding crucial insights into the planning and logistics behind the operation. Beyond these construction secrets, &quot;Decoding the Great Pyramid&quot; traces how mobilizing the colossal labor and resources invested in the monument transformed ancient Egypt, uniting a nation behind the common goal of ensuring eternity for the pharaoh and continuing prosperity for everyone in this life and the next.</p><p></p><h3><a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/earth-from-space/">Earth from Space</a> (2013)</h3></div>
  

  
      

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      <div class="rich-text"><p>&quot;Earth From Space&quot; is a groundbreaking two-hour special that reveals a spectacular new space-based vision of our planet. Produced in extensive consultation with NASA scientists, NOVA takes data from Earth-observing satellites and transforms it into dazzling visual sequences, each one exposing the intricate and surprising web of forces that sustains life on Earth. Viewers witness how dust blown from the Sahara fertilizes the Amazon; how a vast submarine &quot;waterfall&quot; off Antarctica helps drive ocean currents around the world; and how the sun&#x27;s heating up of the southern Atlantic gives birth to a colossally powerful hurricane. From the microscopic world of water molecules vaporizing over the ocean to the magnetic field that is bigger than Earth itself, the show reveals the astonishing beauty and complexity of our dynamic planet.</p></div>
  

  
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<p>Six episodes exploring our unique and awe-inspiring planet.</p>

Brand: NOVA Next

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