In the mountains of southern Spain, one type of thistle plant seems to have built-in air conditioning.
The flowers of the thistle&nbsp;Carlina corymbosa are, on average, about 3 degrees Celsius cooler than the surrounding air, ecologist Carlos Herrera reports February 13 in&nbsp;Ecology. The most extreme cooling &mdash; sometimes up to 10 degrees C &mdash; occurs during the hottest part of the day. This means when the air temperature reaches a sweltering 45&deg; C, the plant&rsquo;s flowers can remain close to a relatively cool 35&deg; C.
&ldquo;Those are substantial coolings relative to the air next to it,&rdquo; says Christopher Still, an ecologist at Oregon State University in Corvallis who was not involved in the work. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a nice, careful study.&rdquo;
In Spain&rsquo;s Sierra de Cazorla mountain range, scorching summers leave many plants dead, dried out or dormant. This brown sea is intermittently broken by bursts of yellow, as&nbsp;C. corymbosa&nbsp;improbably peeks its flowers above the vegetation. When Herrera, of the Spanish National Research Council in Sevilla, touched one of the flower heads during the peak of the day&rsquo;s heat on a recent trek, he found it pleasantly cool.
Herrera was there to study the relationship between the region&rsquo;s plants and their pollinators. He bent to touch the thistle because he &ldquo;was checking for the presence of nectar in the flower head,&rdquo; he says, and then became curious about why the flower felt chilled.
Using an electric thermometer, he measured the temperatures of seven different thistles across two sites and multiple days per flower. He found the flowers consistently cooled down as the day grew hotter.

In southern Spain, summer heat can make life tough for a plant. The thistle Carlina corymbosa beats the heat by somehow cooling down its flowers to well below air temperature.

On hot summer days, this thistle is somehow cool to the touch

How did the ant steal the lion&rsquo;s dinner? This isn&rsquo;t the beginning of one of Aesop&rsquo;s Fables. It&rsquo;s the finding of a new study showing how the disruption of one tiny mutual relationship on the African savanna has big impacts on the food web &mdash; all the way to the lion&rsquo;s den.
When big-headed ants (Pheidole megacephala) invade the savanna, they kill off native acacia ants (genus&nbsp;Crematogaster), robbing local whistling thorn trees of their valiant defenders against hungry elephants. Without ants to bite them, the elephants rip up the thorn trees, opening up the grassland, which makes it harder for lions to catch their preferred zebra meals. Lions end up hunting buffalo instead. The findings, published online January 25 in&nbsp;Science, show that Invasive Species' effect can be very indirect&mdash; and suggest that changes in different low-level mutualisms might also echo up food webs in other ecosystems. 
Over the past 15 years or so, wildlife ecologist Jake Goheen and his colleagues at the University of Wyoming in Laramie and the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Laikipia, Kenya, have been studying how acacia ants Protect whistling thorn trees (SN: 6/15/10). When an elephant tries to eat the tree, &ldquo;ants swarm up inside its nostrils and bite from the inside out,&rdquo; Goheen says.
The scientists were also examining what the lions in the conservancy eat as part of a separate study. &ldquo;One of the things that we found &hellip; was that lions are much more effective, they&rsquo;re more successful with their hunts in areas where tree cover is high,&rdquo; Goheen says.
But what happens when tree cover is suddenly low? To find out, Goheen and his colleagues collared six lionesses from the local pride to track their activity and kills. The team also set up experimental plots where big-headed ants had invaded, and where the native ants still held sway.
The big-headed ant arrived in the conservancy between 2002 and 2005, Goheen says. &ldquo;We think it probably was imported on produce,&rdquo; brought into the houses or tourist camps in the area. The invading insects kill local acacia ants wherever they find them. and other studies have shown that without defending ants, pachyderms tore down the thorn trees five to seven times more often.

The impact rippled up from ants to trees to elephants to lions and their prey

How an invasive ant changed a lion’s dinner menu

<h2 id="0" class="story_para_0">An African elephant&rsquo;s skeleton and muscles are projected onto a life-size model in an exhibit that highlights new science on proboscideans.</h2>
For millions of years, over a dozen species of proboscideans, the group that includes mammoths, mastodons, and elephants, roamed landscapes as varied as Arctic tundra and African savannas. Then, around 11,700 years ago, as the last ice age waned and human hunting picked up, this number dwindled to just three: the Asian elephant, the African forest elephant, and the African savanna elephant &mdash; all of which are now endangered.
Losing elephants comes with a far-reaching and underappreciated impact, warns &ldquo;The Secret World of elephants&rdquo; The exhibit, now on display at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, explores that impact, as well as what modern science is revealing about elephant minds and bodies.
As ecosystem engineers, modern elephants transform their environments. Because these herbivores are so big, they eat a lot, poop a lot and travel far to graze, dispersing mounds of viable seeds far and wide. The beasts also trample fields, making room for a diversity of plants, and dig enormous water holes that other animals use too.

The American Museum of Natural History delves into science and conservation

A new exhibit invites you into the ‘Secret World of Elephants’

NASA is preparing to launch NOAA&rsquo;s (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) GOES-U (Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite U), a mission to help improve weather observing and environmental monitoring capabilities on Earth, as well as advance space weather observations.
NASA and SpaceX are targeting a two-hour launch window opening at 5:16 p.m. EDT Tuesday, June 25. The mission will launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA&rsquo;s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
<a>The satellite</a>&nbsp;will carry a suite of instruments for advanced imagery, atmospheric measurements, real-time mapping of lightning activity, and detecting approaching space weather hazards, including a new compact coronagraph that will image the outer layer of the Sun&rsquo;s atmosphere to detect and characterize coronal mass ejections.
Media interested in covering the GOES-U launch must apply for&nbsp;<a href="https://media.ksc.nasa.gov/" rel="noopener">media accreditation</a>. Deadlines for accreditation are as follows:
<ul>
<li>U.S. media and U.S. citizens representing international media must apply for accreditation by 11:59 p.m., Friday, June 7.</li>
<li>International media without U.S. citizenship must apply by 11:59 p.m., Tuesday, May 28.</li>
</ul>
Media requiring special logistical arrangements, such as space for satellite trucks, tents, or electrical connections, should email&nbsp;<a href="mailto:ksc-media-accreditat@mail.nasa.gov">ksc-media-accreditat@mail.nasa.gov</a>&nbsp;by May 28.
A copy of NASA&rsquo;s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nasa.gov/general/nasa-agencywide-media-accreditation-policy/">media accreditation policy</a>&nbsp;is available online. For questions about accreditation, please email:&nbsp;<a href="mailto:ksc-media-accreditat@mail.nasa.gov">ksc-media-accreditat@mail.nasa.gov</a>. For other mission questions, please contact NASA Kennedy&rsquo;s newsroom at: 321-867-2468.
Accredited media will have the opportunity to participate in a series of prelaunch briefings and interviews with key mission personnel. Details regarding the media event schedule will be communicated to accredited members as the launch date approaches.
NASA will post updates on launch preparations to prepare the spacecraft on the&nbsp;<a href="https://blogs.nasa.gov/goes/" rel="noopener">GOES blog</a>.
As the fourth and final satellite in the GOES-R Series, GOES-U will enhance the nation&rsquo;s ability to monitor and forecast weather, ocean, and environmental dynamics in real-time. The satellite has seven instruments that will provide advanced imagery and atmospheric measurements of Earth&rsquo;s Western Hemisphere, real-time mapping of lightning activity, and advanced monitoring of solar activity and space weather. Following a successful launch and on-orbit checkout, NOAA will redesignate GOES-U as GOES-19. Working in tandem with GOES-18, the satellites will continuously observe Earth from the west coast of Africa to New Zealand, providing data for weather forecasting, severe storm tracking, and environmental monitoring. The GOES constellation helps protect the one billion people who live and work in the Americas.
NASA and NOAA collaborate on various missions to enhance our understanding of Earth, its climate, and its environment, enhancing the safety and well-being of all humanity. NASA&rsquo;s Launch Services Program, based at Kennedy, manages the launch service for the GOES-U mission. NASA&rsquo;s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, oversees the acquisition of the spacecraft and instruments. Lockheed Martin designs, builds, and tests the GOES-R series satellites. L3Harris Technologies provides the primary instrument, the Advanced Baseline Imager, along with the ground system, which includes the antenna system for data reception.

NASA Invites Media to NOAA’s Advanced Weather Satellite Launch

Mount Ontake in Japan rises 3,067 meters above sea level &mdash; a windswept giant standing head and shoulders above densely forested hills. This ancient volcano is a popular trekking site. A trail traverses its ash- and boulder-strewn ridges. There are several huts and a shrine. On September 27, 2014, hikers took advantage of a blue sky and gentle wind. At 11:52 a.m., over a hundred of them stood on the summit, eating snacks and taking photos. Disaster struck with little warning.
The windows and doors of a nearby hut rattled, vibrated by a low-frequency shock wave inaudible to humans.
People glanced around curiously and quickly saw it &mdash; half a kilometer down the southwest slope, a gray cloud billowed from the mountain.
The ash cloud swept over the summit with a blast of hot air, leaving people shaken and blinded, but otherwise unhurt. Disoriented in that gray fog, they couldn&rsquo;t see what arrived soon after.
Thud-thud. Thud.&nbsp;Rocks blasted out of the mountain rained down from the sky. The barren mountaintop offered no shelter to those who desperately sought it in the swirling, gagging dust.
The tempo of hail quickened, as millions of rocks came down &mdash; most smaller than baseballs but some as large as beach balls. More and more people fell.
Roughly a million tons of ash and rock spewed from the mountain that day, ejected through several craters that hadn&rsquo;t existed a moment before. Fifty-eight people died, most killed by falling rocks. Five others were never found.
When&nbsp;<a href="https://earth-planets-space.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40623-016-0452-y" target="_blank" rel="noopener">scientists investigated the aftermath</a>, they found no new lava flows and no freshly formed ash. What exploded from the mountain wasn&rsquo;t lava or fire; it was water.
<div class="wp-block-image has-alignleft">
<figure class="alignleft size-full"><img class="wp-image-3139370" src="https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/050424_yellowstone_inline1.jpg?resize=680%2C1020&amp;ssl=1" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/050424_yellowstone_inline1.jpg?w=680&amp;ssl=1 680w, https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/050424_yellowstone_inline1.jpg?resize=255%2C383&amp;ssl=1 255w, https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/050424_yellowstone_inline1.jpg?resize=300%2C450&amp;ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/050424_yellowstone_inline1.jpg?resize=124%2C186&amp;ssl=1 124w, https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/050424_yellowstone_inline1.jpg?resize=387%2C580&amp;ssl=1 387w, https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/050424_yellowstone_inline1.jpg?resize=517%2C776&amp;ssl=1 517w" alt="A photograph of the 2014 phreatic explosion of Mount Ontake spewing gas and ash into the air" width="330" height="495"></figure>
</div>
The explosion was powered by a seemingly innocuous pool of water, derived from rain and snowmelt, hidden beneath the surface. The water was suddenly heated from below, perhaps by a burp of hot gas from a deep magma chamber. The water flashed into steam.
Subterranean cracks were pried apart as this vaporized water expanded to hundreds of times its original volume. This high-pressure wedge drove the cracks to the surface &mdash; blowing out holes that widened into craters as the escaping vapor flung rocks and old ash into the air.
The tragedy at&nbsp;<a href="https://earth-planets-space.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40623-016-0458-5" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ontake</a>&nbsp;is not unique.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sciencenews.org/article/volcano-deadly-2019-eruption-new-zealand-satellite-data-monitoring">A similar explosion killed 22 people</a>&nbsp;and injured two dozen others on White Island off the coast of New Zealand in 2019 (SN: 6/18/21). Steam explosions can happen in many other places around the globe, including Greece, Iceland and Northern California.
The ones that happen at active volcanoes are called phreatic explosions. They occur when underground water is suddenly heated by magma or gases. But similar steam explosions, called hydrothermal explosions, can happen in areas without active volcanoes. Like Ontake and White Island, destructive force comes from water expanding into steam.
Yellowstone National Park, where no magma eruption has happened in 70,000 years, has seen hundreds of hydrothermal explosions of various sizes. &ldquo;In recorded history, it&rsquo;s been only small ones,&rdquo; says Paul Bedrosian, a geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey in Lakewood, Colo. &ldquo;But we know [Yellowstone] is capable of creating whoppers.&rdquo;

Catastrophic hydrothermal explosions rocked the park in the past and could again in the future

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On hot summer days, this thistle is somehow cool to the touch

How an invasive ant changed a lion’s dinner menu

A new exhibit invites you into the ‘Secret World of Elephants’

NASA Invites Media to NOAA’s Advanced Weather Satellite Launch

A hidden danger lurks beneath Yellowstone