discovered. subscribe to the documentary on you tube. ready set go. today to take a glimpse into the world of insects. no other class of animal has so many species. but a german study has shown that they populations are plummeting. how do you actually count insects. the answer to that and other questions coming up. well come to you tomorrow today the science show on t.w.

. is still a string the night sky is an ever rarest sight for most people on the planet the night looks more like this. week humans can shield us selves from too much artificial light. that sounds and animals especially insects are defenseless against light pollution we meet someone who's trying to help them the 1st night protection officer in a german city. on this autumn evening sabina frank goes out looking for sources of light pollution in her home studio folder in central germany she discovers a brightly illuminated plane tree on the university campus. this gets me reading annoyed people forget that trees have a biological rhythm to. the one in the light still has all its leaves while the one

next to it is bad some call that. too much artificial light has convinced the tree it's still summer now frank is germany's 1st so-called night protection officer she goes around with a light meter measuring and recording the outdoor illumination 5 locks is the minimum intensity required here for squares and streets but there is no upper limit . left sounds i think the light is supposed to be there to help us see powerful lights set in the ground have no meaningful function it's just night for nothing. when you walk over them they don't. they use up electricity light up the sky all for nothing it's next. she'll contact the university about this later it's her job to meet with officials property developers and businesses to raise their awareness about light pollution and advise them on solutions nearly all life forms have a natural rhythm of day and night in the darkness the human body produces the

hormone melatonin which encourages sleep but too much light during the night disrupts the process which can disturb metabolism and regenerative processes in the body animals are affected in the same way. unlike us animals can't just close the shutters they have to live with the light. studies show for example that black birds in cities start singing earlier in the year migratory birds lose their orientation over bright urban areas the strong like confuses them the possible consequences are still being studied. pond and river life is also affected by life as scientists in britain have found normally water for you swim up to the surface at night to feed on the algae there that keeps the ecosystem intact if it's too bright the water fleas don't come to feed that causes

an imbalance. these 12 streetlights have been placed in the middle of a field by scientists from the life in its institute of freshwater ecology in berlin they want to know how did life begin tonight affects insects. still we see that the lights draw insects away from what they're doing and stop them searching for a mate. the insects gather near the light so you'd think it would be easier for them to find a mate there. but the scent that females tout to attract a male is reduced quality and an amount. every month between march and october the scientists catch insects in special traps . on the street lights draw up to 70 percent more insects that's compared to the numbers measured in the dark control field. but. also wanted to know how

different types of lighting affect the insects initially they used sodium vapor with a color temperature of 1800 kelvin then in 2015 they changed to a brighter and we delight with 3000 kelvin. hall insects are very sensitive to ultraviolet and blue light and so we assume that they will be more drawn to the cold white lights than the warmer white ones such as the sodium vapor lamps. but if there's no other light around the sodium vapor light also shines out very brightly. and so at the moment we're not seeing much difference between the 2 types of lighting. that would suggest that if there's only one light source roughly the same number of insects will be drawn to it no matter what color it is so the scientists are now working to develop

a lamp that the insects won't see yet so involved in this the complete option wow a now is to have the lamp completely shielded said that the cover comes right down over the light source said that we're only lighting up the areas that we need down below the people the road and so on. that would not only attract fewer insects but also mean less light pollution for birds and humans back to full night protection officers up enough frank has an appointment with someone from the university she explains why the lighting set in the ground is not good. we're not so keen on these buses and such and i'm green while the university has got the message and the campus was planned in 2011 that opened in 2013 with light pollution wasn't such a high profile issue please and so will the university take action. is usually

the university will check the outdoor lighting on the entire campus next year and will look to see what's really necessary in terms of safety and what could perhaps be switched off those ground embedded lights are probably more for effect so i presume they'll be switched off. and all starts up to show to true. that it would be another success for the night protection officer she's already achieved a lot in full bright cold winds have been replaced with dimmer orange light and the trees by the cathedral are no longer being alumina. hated the saying how are you and so we now have these modules installed their flat and the light shines downwards to the right and left it's a nice warm color and the trees are no longer eliminated. and the new models developed by the light mics institute are also due to be tested in folder but what would help even more is an upper limit for the illumination allowed on the roads and public spaces one more way of bringing back the night.

how can we tell how a species is doing many conspicuous beautiful species like butterflies have been collected by researchers for centuries. to fight them and preserve them for they to generations for example collections from the vicinity of the german city of lincoln's book have been maintained since 1840. scientists recently reexamine them while in the 40s the area had 117 different butterflies species by 2013 there were only 70. 3 local species have vanished altogether. they all required certain plants and ecosystems for their survival. they were known

as specialists now german landscapes are dominated by butterfly species that are less picky such as the common brimstone. leaf. and the meadow brown so the number of butterflies species that existed 2 centuries ago has definitely declined but what about the actual number of insects. that kind of study requires different methods from. researches at the entomological society in crayford to germany have been gathering data for 3 decades that allow inferences about the change in insect populations they used traps like this. the insects fly into the tent wall head up to the branches point and end up in a small chamber above a bottle containing a solution of ethanol the vapor daises the insects they fall into the liquid which preserves them. and the.

insects get trapped this way day and night throughout the season the bottles are collected every 2 weeks sometimes thousands of different species of fish out of the alcohol. lab the catch is sorted. and the experts get to work. every member of the entomological society has a special area of expertise tomas hearn fishes out before lying there are more the $9000.00 fly species in germany alone the team joins forces to identify the species the society's insect collections go back more than a century they document the diversity of local insect species and how that's changed over the years. since the late 1980 s. members have been recording not just the various species but also the weight of each catch. before the sorting begins the content of

a bottle is weighed. and members follow a standardized procedure to make sure they get comparable results. i have to perform every step in exactly the same way each time we have set procedures for times materials everything otherwise we can compare the results of. the society now has some 3 decades worth of data on the total weight of the trapped insects. over time the research is observed what appeared to be an alarming paten. they'd been putting out traps in a clay fed for many years in 1909 this spatio did 1117 rounds of insects in 2013 it yielded just 257 grams that's

a drop of 77 percent was this just an anomaly. they kept conducting measurements and finally reviewed the data they had collected between 19092016 from traps at 63 locations more than 1500 bottles of insects over 27 years. they found a lot of variation from year to year but overall the biomass trended downwards on average 5 percent last year which adds up to a huge decrease. in london. if you look at the entire period from 1989 to 2016 that is 27 years then we're talking about a decline of about 76 percent. or kong for. the shocking findings by the clay fed insect watches made headlines around the world. hey if you're looking for even more d.w.

signs content some that you can take with you anywhere you want to go you should really check out our podcast it's called science unscripted will keep you safe keep you healthy and we will give you something to talk about you can find it on spotify apple or d. again our podcast is called science unscripted we hope you listen and until then please stay safe out there. in the 19th century machines driven by steam and power at the 1st industrial revolution. the early 20th century saw mass production aided by assembly lines and electrical power the 2nd industrial revolution then came the 3rd industrial revolution as technology went digital. now industry 4.0 is taking that to a new level robots people machines logistics and products can communicate and

cooperate directly thanks to artificial intelligence. let's meet some researchers who are making it happen. university in western germany is home to the b. i t. . and 29000 they took 1st at the world competition the annual robot soccer world cup offers researchers a chance to collaborate on developing robot algorithms mohamed from indonesia was part of the team helping to develop artificial intelligence and robots the body is the robot and acts as its brain. my name is mohammad. as you bought an industrial robot my research interest is robot perception how robots perceive their environment and how they respond to

objects. this robot uses a time a flight camera which can capture objects in 2 d. and 3 d. using that sensory data it can identify and estimate the position of objects in its vicinity mohamed says machine learning to train his robot to recognize objects such as bolts or material such as aluminum and factories. but 1st of all we need to collect data of the objects that we want the robots to learn then we train them using that data this is what happens during the training process the robot predicts the name and location of those objects. object to support. the robot is then instructed to autonomous and perceive and transport the object. that doesn't always work when the object has

a complex chain that sometimes miscalculates its position. but you thought is a good navigator when there's an obstacle in its path it comes up with an alternate route on its own what kinds of applications are there for robots like this to industrial robotics. industry robots can be used to assemble components they can also be used to move goods autonomous lee from one place to another. almost. in agriculture my research could be applied to detect crops so that fertilizer can be applied more efficiently and that's a book. that they get into. it could help autonomous cars detect roads pedestrians traffic lights. cyclists and other cars to reduce the risk of accidents that a deadly accident at the. peak muhammad was seal hopes that research on artificial

intelligence will also progress in his home country i'd like to see more indonesian researchers working in the field of ai. we're now on the cusp of industry 4.0 which will have a i as one of its key components this could help accelerate ai research in many fields such as manufacturing and agriculture in indonesia. points to transform manufacturing agriculture and other industries the world over and help them become more intelligent and efficient. if our what is right why are they latin. do you have a science question you'd like us to answer send it in if we all saw it on the show you'll get a little surprise as a thank you. if you. can log on just ask.

you can get in touch by going to our website d.w. dot com slash science or check us out on twitter. the alps are a popular holiday destination. but it's not all fun and games in the close in the swiss cam town of god bindon landslides are growing more and more frequent erosion and global warming are contributing factors melting ice and strong rains sent rivers of mud and rock star on the slopes how can people protect themselves. from the summit of the hopeful the mountain in the alps will soon collapse into the valley scientists at munich's technical university want to pinpoint exactly when it will happen and warn people in the vicinity as quickly as possible yeah far better to her kick start the mountain is moving quickly and we

might see rockslide soon we're planning to monitor this until that happens to see how good our forecasts are could we give a useful warning 3 days in advance and reports are good for have us from just. i'm warming to swedish guys when speeds are high access is difficult and it's all a bit dangerous pursuit if you're looking. a large section of the southern summit is threatening to break off and tumble down more than 1000 meters. new cracks have formed some of them more than 100 meters long. the most striking is a huge crevice so white a truck could drive through it it's growing by 0.4 millimeters every day that might

not sound like much but it's very fast for a mountain. michelle cottle and his colleagues have already installed some senses meanwhile they've broken. today the weather is good so they've come to repair the instruments. i say this is that i want to spawn of this right now this is the most exciting crevice though it's quite small emerged in 2014 i can see 15 meters down right here but if you look from the rock face it's more than 100 meters deep. we put these sensors in here which can measure the gap to $100.00 to the millimeter but a lightning strike charge of the sensors this one is broken too so we're going to try and fix actions prove me might even turn off and 3. new senses need to be installed on the other side to. the senses measure the distances in the

crevasse record every change and send the data back by radio. the think that this is next. to the right are you ready i'm going to throw the rope down. the crevasse has been expanding so rapidly that the upper edge tipped backwards and then the sensor rods the chain have to climb down and reinstall them they reckon that if all the cracks and crevices were to break open at the same time up to 260000 cubic meters of rock could fall into the valley. that does this it means a geyser that's huge a one cubic metre rock fall is enough to block a ravine or a road that's the usual size so 260000 cubic meters would be huge there would be clouds of dust for hours it would probably take quite a while and be insanely loud. the dust cloud would be visible across the horn and

probably cover everything it would be a major event. to get. a similar rock fall took place in august 2017 on the pits in the swiss alps. around 3000000 cubic meters of rock broke off in its northeast track. 8 hikers were killed in the rock slide a massive river margin granite swept more than 6 kilometers across the valley before striking the village of bondo. the village of him to one back in austria at the foot of the hole for what it is not likely to be hit by a rock slide but mudslides afterwards could wreak havoc here too. the scientists

hope that their continuous monitoring will allow them to warn the residents and any hikers in the area in good time. these plastic rugs contain distance senses that expand and contract to monitor the size of the crevice as it grows. that data is then transmitted to the valley. if the southern flank of the hopeful go collapses that would also affect the northern side in germany there are no villages here but there is a popular hiking trail. as of end of that cliff suddenly collapses the entire summer will be destabilized more rockslides will be the result is going to come so why don't you do it's. lovely and made land and. also monitor the area with a drone. it's good let's focus on the summer shoots.

so that's good i'll shoot the photos you steered as smoothly as you can. flurry and major takes photos with the drone camera which he uses to make a 3 d. graphic image that is accurate to within one or 2 cent. is this allows them to detect cracks the 2 centimeters in when. their research is also take the opportunity to test different monitoring techniques. back at the large crevice michelle cottle atta and his team are installing the sensors. that's easier said than done. but what's the problem they're struggling to attach the devices. it's hard work there's about 20 kilos of tension on this.

earth and. you have to be very careful the cliff walls are crumbling you need to check carefully because you can easily lose your grip. on one of this is everything . everything ok. but then it works. the other way yes. by nightfall they've installed all the sensors another step forward in warning nearby residents and hikers of an impending rock slide. thanks. that's all for this week's edition of tomorrow today the science show on d

w. we'll be back next time with more hot topics from the world of science and technology. until then stay healthy i'm curious.

life on earth one of a kind and. a coincidence. or the improbable happen to come close to the office we're going to bring up the creation of our solar system without a planet is a bit like winning the lottery going in the. morning earth more unique. in 75 minutes on w. . the power of influencers and what they mean for democracy. will come to 6

all mine special closet. influencers have enormous range. now simply forcing their opinions about all. coalition. a new dynamic is emerging. what does this mean for democracy. joining our discussion starts 1230. did beethoven in china has to do to dig deep to do did he do. it is it is a god of 16 of. the committee peter true king of rock n roll up. so many rubber bands of stolen beethoven. and of course the subconscious always one thing is clear the

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this is d.w. news live from her lead to pay massive investigation finds banks around the world were involved in a legal dealings to the tune of $2.00 trillion dollars journalists band together to reveal documents showing big banks facilitated corruption money laundering and sanctions both say and on behalf of criminals. also coming up protesters in delaware it's back on the streets over the weekend despite a government push back to police arrest hundreds of people mainly women and european union leaders are today looking at imposing.