what secrets lie behind these walls. discover new adventures in 360 degree. and explore fascinating world heritage sites. p.w. world heritage 360. now. from. the ice cap is shrinking but there is some good news from the north pole we'll hear more. mental illness which genes are linked to schizophrenia a large scale study aims to find out. and beavers have been called nature's engineers but not everyone likes what they built. welcome to tomorrow today those signs 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. will take winter is a black void in 2 senses 1st it's dark thanks to months of nights in which the sun no longer rises over the horizon plus there's a huge data hole we know precious little about winter in the area around the north pole which plays a major role for our climate and is itself changing the ice has been receding for decades now what explains this climate change sure but how exactly does the. what

effect this northern most part of the planets 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 could be in an institute in gemini he sees the arctic winter as the key factor. 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 young during winter you need to be at one with the ice an international research team made that very commitment since last october the poor lash down research ship has been drifting across the arctic ocean trapped in the pack ice. it's the center of the largest arctic research expedition ever lasting one full year. when it's colder than minus 30 or even down to minus 60 with the

wind chill factor it's very hard to work and also very dangerous you have to cover up your entire body. most christian hoss 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 a 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 what it was something i'd been hoping and searching for what i didn't know was what it would actually look like. just below the ice in the sea water the robot came across glistening cloud like mad. it is comprised of ultra thin planks of ice known as plate let.

inspection plate light ice is very macroscopic you can see it there are 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 it's lamps reveal all these things glittering in the distance. going through as it gets closer you can see that there are ice crystals. it's 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 as seen on the ropes and gauges that the research is low into the water countless cavities or cause emerge between the platelets to create what's called the poorest layer. it's a habitat not just for microorganisms and algae but also for the president a tiny crustaceans such as krill coppa pods and amphipods we saw ample pods moving around the platelet ice looking for algae to eat and as they are also protected there from bigger animals from fish in particular arctic cod that would happily eat them. with all of these. newly discovered layer of the arctic ice and say well i'm one more that needs more in-depth analysis while the expedition across the arctic ocean continues christine haas is now back on land together with untold terabytes of data. and 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 with the ice was only 30 to 50 centimeters thick and. we don't over the course of the winter over the following 5 or 6 months it grew to almost 2 metres in thickness that is it almost quadrupled that's a very important discovery. until now researches knew only that the surface of the ice has been shrinking as seen by satellite suspiciously well during the summer over the last 4 decades that surface is almost home often size. cannot measure however is the thickness of the ice. what we've 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 and arctic.

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 sin by the end of the summer actually helps to ensure that it recovers significantly in thickness during the winter but i just don't know as for adults when the ice is thin and the ocean loses heat faster and more easily and that leads to the creation of more ice. as a consequence by the end of winter the ice is again about as thick as it was 30 years ago. but there's a lot to new surveys predict that the arctic ocean is likely. sea ice free summers

by 2050. at the alfred vega institute's ice cold lab in a half and the temperature is held at a steady minus 25 degrees celsius the facility is home to various some pulls from the arctic expedition such as these thin slices of ice cores which turned into crystals under polarized light. and resorted to. cut 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 in turbulence in the water. system then only these small round grainy crystals develop costarred and record with christian haas expects the arctic ocean to become more turbulent making it impossible for a long column shaped ice crystals to form properly that will bring changes to the arctic ocean granular ice could then become more prevalent another insight into the

workings of the arctic the prime minister the tiny crystals remind us that large structures are made up of small parts from the earth or the universe on the one hand to atoms on the other everything is important and has a role to play a tiny and fascinating well that's a crucial element in the still mighty pack ice that covers the arctic. if outlet is right right oh. do you have a science question you've always wanted answered we're happy to help out send it in and if we answer it on the show you'll get a little surprise as a thank you come on just ask. for more stories from the world of science go to our website or find us on twitter d w underscore sites. modern. wants to know want on 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 some things yummy and others nasty. it turns out that's not just a cultural matter but also a genetic one. a technology called crisper it's 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 science is growing the 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 is. the psychiatric clinic at berlin's 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 presumably my personal hope is to shed light on to the darkness of psychiatric knowledge so to speak discharge. supreme. people who suffer from schizophrenia may hear voices and be paranoid. it's unclear

what's 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. they're conducting large scale genome wide association studies with tens of thousands of test subjects including those in berlin. each individual's 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 snips 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 frantics with 47000 healthy subjects revealed 108. with the disease the researchers called the confusingly complex genetic landscape a manhattan plot due to its resemblance to new york's famous skyline. the snips identified the prominent skyscrapers constitute a vital clue they point the way to the genes that may play a role and schizophrenia. is also what we were a little bit afraid of that it's not just one gene that makes a person sick guns feel for sheet it's really many different genes that when combined create a person's individual risk. and there are hundreds the researchers analyzed every single gene they've just discovered genes that influence

the transmission of signals within the brain. 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. so this shows us that one central gene can be enough to immensely improve treatment but it's just a question of finding it. this is cause it's like taking a step on the moon but it's 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 they're also researching other psychiatric disorders. many of which now have a manhattan plant 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 for instance or to predict the risk of disease does that mean a person's genetic material could be a predictor. each individual's genetic material can 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 individual's 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. diction pandora's box. person isn't sick. and you tell them risk values for a disease that person may never develop. would have enormous consequences for the person themselves of. family 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 limbs 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. or not suited to predicting risk or diagnosis but they can be useful. or it already does have a very large influence is in research. team divides the test subjects into groups according to the subject's colleagues. and then they observe how the group with the especially high schizophrenia scores develops the researchers are a long way off from totally understanding the complex genetics of psychiatric diseases but they are making progress. in a moment we'll be taking a look at me well us but even as we're pretty impressive small but mighty well not

all that small we can reach a length of 135 centimeters and y. up to 36 kilos. and usually think you few months have up to $600.00 hairs per square centimeter of skin and we have up to $23000.00 top that. take other stuff of legends. some to build gigantic structures like this a dam 850 meters long so big it's visible from outer space no wonder you call is busy. we might be rodents but we're 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 very beneficial to the ecosystem

. here. in the east river valley of southern germany water buffalo are helping keep these fields healthy organic farm m.i.t.'s license is bringing them in for the winter. come on sweetie come on all. the water buffalo will spend the winter months at the family's farm. soviet state so. during the summer the water buffalo had some company here beavers. with the buffalo gone it's time to get some advice. get hot shots a wildlife biologist is often called in when they might come into conflict with farmers or other local residents this past summer the beavers built a dam along the edge of the meadow. when i got chicago you've just been working hard that's pretty fresh out there raising the dam for the winter. the obviously

high for just a few yeah we're really glad to be there built this big dam along a pasture this year because as you see that allows the water to flow into the grazing areas just as a young goes to deflect if you hear i didn't serve us a little bit too much then this town water buffalo need watering in wallowing holes to regulate their body temperature during the hot summer. only to. activity and without the beavers activity here we'd 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 beaches build thanks everybody will give him a dominatrix tendency confluence when beavers build their dams and places that people are also using. this down for example it's created this wet area which can be used by other animals. and there's a path is no longer obsess about it so when that anyone driving on it would get

bogged down so the entire. valley several hectares of land is no longer accessible for human use and here you see the beavers set up shop because they like eating the corn from that field they also use the corn stalks to build their dam but that block the drainage and so now the area's under water this is what you tend to see when humans use land that's too close to water was all water. along this stretch of land adjacent to the east river the local villages aren't bothered by the dams it's a good spot to study the long term effects of beef or activity. and those the area like the back of his town. just so you hear those who are we've been studying this habitat for 25 years the winter is an especially good time to see what's been happening and often dumb the vegetation has receded and you can see the dam better and move along here more easily without. 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. just this used to be a relatively narrow stream with pastures to the right and left of that a small stream the landscape has totally changed into. the 1st choose waters that are less than 80 centimeters deep to build that dams the water behind the down that rises creating the beaver pond. since altec eeks flowing into the pond it eventually 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 ponds. so much trees die off and a marshland emerges nearby this gives rise to a vibrant most say the very top it taps. this year will be 1st and it's fascinating to see how such a small animal can shape and transform an area. versus built a dam here that's more than $120.00 metres long and several generations of them kept doing it that's all and your children at least fish use the small streams to circumvent the dam on to study carried out by the university of exeter showed that the dams actually improve the water quality. that's 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 it's used by plants such as reeds which an average by the phosphate and nitrogen. the reed filled 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 starting with the dragonflies before we only had a few dragonflies 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. it's just hard to really put in see that. many long term studies confirmed that beavers boost the diversity of species in their habitats the busy creatures on pests atoll but valuable allies in the fight to preserve our rapidly

dwindling by. diversity. that's all for this week on tomorrow today nice that you could join us next time we'll have more exciting stories from the fields of science and technology until then go by.

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deep doo doo doo didn't even do to escape. it is just such a 16 with. a world without beethoven i can't even begin to imagine. comes to september 16th w. indeed a life of climate change. summit in the sixty's. to keep. the tears today the future of. the chemical city the making. sure.

we are watching of all the to play not in the water the poorest of the poor in poor countries. valuing education they are demanding good quality it is a question for their children because what it wanted also to realize that if they have to have good quality programs some good quality comes a most they need to look quality skilled workforce i'm very confident that in 2050 no child or no i going to build a man illiterate that is the fundamental human right that is the divine guide which the nature of the body has given to us and goes august legend of it that i had to learn those was trudging over that i had the freedom dead against nature that i guess bog.

zain. this is news a live from berlin chaotic scenes in beirut at least one police officer is killed and dozens of people injured in protests following tuesday's a devastating explosion demonstrators blame the blast on new years of government corruption. also coming up a mandatory coronavirus testing begins for travelers coming to germany testing stations open at airport arrival terminals as concerns of growth that a 2nd wave of the pandemic may be hitting the country.