fire made for my own every journey begins with the 1st step and every language with the 1st word i looked. niko is in germany to learn german. oh, why not learn with him? with it's simple online, on your mo bile and free t w's e learning course. nico speak, german made easy. ah, in the 1950s farmers and the u. s. worked the land so intensively that the soil eroded years of drought resulted in millions of tons of it being blown away. the affected regions were dubbed the dust bowl. farming methods have changed

over time, but soil degradation is a worldwide problem. how can soil be restored to full health? ah, that's a topic in this edition of dw science magazine. welcome to tomorrow to day. soil not only provides us with feed, it's also a natural habitat, as well as the water and carbon reservoir. it consists of different layers. there is hardly any life in the bedrock and the withered stone fragments above it. apart from a few isolated roots, water is filtered and stored in the sub soil. the top soil is full of nutrients and forms a habitat for numerous microbes. the human layer provides the material that plants need to grow. fertile soil doesn't come out of nowhere. it's formed from rocks that are with it by the sun, wind and rain, and it's decomposed by organisms and plug. it takes 2000 years to create 10

centimeters of fertile soil. mm. for soil to remain fatal and healthy microbes need to be present. but that can be problem. what we are doing basically is destroying the soil date, is it? and now and not renewable resource. christina cru specializes in the interactions between plants, soil, and microbes. once we have been doing so far during the last id to id is navy ease genius soils as a substrate, you grow black, we've been under valuing them and expecting them to stay healthy, but tilling over using chemicals and climate change are harming our soils. this is a problem for growing food, as well as resources for clothing in construction. soil is also key to storing carbon and filtering water to make sales healthy again,

we need to start seeing them as what they are. entire ecosystems, teaming with hidden life, all run by microbes. a healthy soil will have a diversity of microbes. the most common ones are bacteria and fungi. one of their most important jobs is transforming nutrients. every single nutrition cycle on the planet is mostly driven by my jennifer wood has a background in soil microbial ecology and studies how microbes affect ecosystems. none of these cycles, it really exist in a vacuum. they all into linked. one of those nutrients cycles is with carbon. plants and animals are made mostly of carbon. and when they die, they're broken down by micros. no microbes, no decomposition. the microbes use some of the carbon to reproduce, storing it in the soil, and breathe the rest of it out, sending it back to the atmosphere. another nutrient cycle happens with the nitrogen, which makes most of the air around us,

and is one of the main nutrients plants used to grow. plants can't get it from the air by themselves, so they partner with microbes, microbes specifically fund guy, also exchange other nutrients of plants. they very fine routes called hifi. the intertwined themselves of the roots of the plant. congress is really good at releasing things for a site from the plan. so it does that and exchange is that the plant in return for things like sugar, which the plant can make tricks. there's also some evidence this relationship makes the plant more able to withstand drought and disease in a degraded soil. these new chain cycles aren't working as well as they could be. climate change is one cause of degrading soils with drought and extreme weather, causing them to dry out in a road intensive. agriculture can be another cause as pesticides and are besides kill off beneficial microbes and reduce their activity. the more degraded soil is

the more chemicals are needed to grow stuff degrading this while even further and when you start digging, it's amazing what you find down there. this is benny france. he's an electro engineer, turned farmer and has been on this land for 4 years. tons of a records returned this rich soil field running mother into well, mostly samo, even though different parts of the world have very different soils. one thing, all degraded agricultural souls haven't comment, is that they're susceptible to disease. now we don't want a soils to contain many passages, so the pathogen might might be an indicator oh, a degrading slow pathogens. the worst soil is degraded, soils also lose their ability to hold and filter water are more susceptible to erosion and have less of those beneficial microbes, meaning plants don't grow as well. but soil health is about more than just our food

security foil communities. and so health is actually the foundation of all ecosystems, but natural and man, hey, if the foundation of something crumbles, everything else comes tumbling down. no till agriculture. leave soil undisturbed, which allows the microbes living inside the clamps to thrive. specifically those fun guy, high feet which are important for soil structure. there can be a kilometer of them and a gram of soil and cover crops planted to leave in the ground, provide micros of carbon to chow down on, as well as reduce erosion and nutrient los well and encourages those fungal microbes to grow. it can also be made into a liquid fertilizer. first of all, we're gonna massage it in um, but we're gonna feed it on. so the bacteria and from that will multiply a lot. this compost, he concentrates microbes into a form that can be sprayed on fields. unfortunately, this kind of farming just isn't possible everywhere. you can do it. that's fantastic. ease, warped, we warms, but the problem is,

did vast than mountain areas where the soil, he so degraded that these techniques on halting now. you can recover the soil in your time. here's room microbes come in, our larger scale. the most common use is, is bio fertilizers. they're used like chemical base fertilizer, except they contain fungi, or bacteria. soil degradation is a big enough threat that bear a company known for selling our cultural chemicals is also interested. their quality already knows or in a ball concrete is frank terrorist is the executive vice president for the crop science division with a backhanded business economy. bio chose is a certainly a b, a health jewel with the company is also investing in

seeds that had been infused with microbes because delivering microbes along with seeds is the most targeted way to apply them. seats can also be planted with a coating of microbes, conservation organizations are using this approach to restore ecosystems. a problem with commercial microbial products is that the microbes are not specifically adapted to environment. non native microbes could find it hard to survive, rendering the process useless. and because these are living organisms, they could cause an imbalance in the micro biome, policies. something we need nearly half june to taking concentration, especially a leader found john this brad faster and they are more easy. she sank. even bare agrees. oh, doesn't necessarily need a ha hold. since soils are different around the world, we would ideally develop microbial products for specific regions,

but that will take time and more research. unfortunately, our soil health is an emergency. we are going to need these guys who he actually covers foils in the sees the cheapest way to do recovery because we are covering them while we are up maintaining the dvd to for large farms. bio fertilizers are a step above chemicals and where possible agriculture that relies on helping native my groups like on this farm is the way to go. our soil is becoming more and more depleted from intensive agriculture. where do you see opportunities to better protect the soil ecosystem? that's what we asked on d. w. social media channels. than the gomez rides, infrastructure integration and investment are needed to digitize agriculture. that's crucial for developing countries or as

command takes a very practical approach, we can use organic fertilizer it reminds roberta to to alarcon of the old testament, which describes working the 947, and letting it rest for 7 years. maybe if he try us, it will work. he says, thankful you'll come in. intensive agriculture not only can see in soil, but also a loss of water. methods such as drip irrigation can help to reduce consumption. this is important because almost 7 to percent the world's available fresh water ends up on our land. yet less than one percent of the us water supply is accessible, renewable fresh water. the vast majority is salt. water is also the subject

of the question sent to us by brown. nobody away from nigerian pole. is there any liquid water in outer space? more than 2 thirds of the earth's surface is covered with liquid water. that's why it's called the blue planet. liquid water is the most important prerequisite for the creation of life. we believe that life began in hydrothermal, vince at the bottom of the deep ocean, simple organisms which have evolved over billions of years into the animals plants and microbes that populate our planet to die with our birth is the only planet in the solar system that has liquid water on its surface. liquid water can also be found on the i see moons of the gaseous giants, jupiter, and saturn. but it's buried under ice sheets more than

a kilometer. thick. water can also be found under the surface of mars. on the red planet surface, though, water is only present as ice or as vapor in the atmosphere, who as far as we know, how univers has been around for about 14000000000 years, water has been present for 12000000000 years. astronomers have calculated that from the light of a quasar. water is present everywhere in the universe as vapor or as microscopic crystals clinging to dust grains in the frozen waists about a space. on earth, there's liquid water because we orbit the sun at a certain distance. that means the earth surface is at precisely the right temperature, so that water isn't locked up in ice sheets or evaporated into the atmosphere. this all the distance where the earth travels is nicknamed the goldilocks sown. every

star has a similar habitable zone. not only our son, another rocky planet, similar to the earth orbiting. a star in a similar goldilocks own, could also have liquid water on its surface. and so could also support life if our blood is red, why i gave you, you have a science class to send it to us as a video text oh, voicemail. if we answer it on the show, we'll send you a little surprise as the thank you. come on, just does plan. it's beyond the so the system, that's what scientists, laura cry ferg is looking for so far. she's done this with the help of the hubble telescope, but for several months now, hubble success in the james web telescope has been on the move in space. it

provides fascinating images from the cosmic neighborhood like the planet jupiter, and is so light sensitive that it can see even very distant galaxies. the new telescope is also expected to be helpful in the search for ex o'clock. there are about a 100000000000 stars in the milky way galaxy. we think almost every star has at least one planet. so there are hundreds of billions of planets, lake we and our own galaxy, and hundreds of billions of galaxies out there. ah. i would be shocked if there is no extra terrestrial wife out there. ah

i i think it's so lonely if humans are the only living things the only intelligent beings in the universe. there is such a strong human desire to know who we are and where we come from and why every time i see a star in the night sky, i asked myself what kind of planets around it? oh, planets are really places we can imagine them as some way you could visit. maybe you wouldn't want to, maybe it's too hot. maybe the officers made out of toxic gases that would kill us. but nevertheless, it truly is a place that you could imagine going to,

and for me, that's one of the biggest fascinations of planets is that it feel so personal in a way that a star galaxy or black hole doesn't. ah, some planets are so hot that even rocky material rock iron silicate glass is vaporized in their atmosphere. and when this rock gas moves into cooler regions, it can condense into clouds and potentially rain out. and so you could think of it as having a glass rain on an echo planet. ah, this is so fantastic going. we never, this is an example of the type of spectacular discovery that i never could have imagined. there was much, much more variety out there than we ever could have imagined from our own planet.

ah, we do know already that rocky planets extremely common there. tens of billions of those planets in our galaxy alone. we still do not exactly know how common 1st analyzers are just knowing the size of the planet and the temperature of the planet is not the story. one of the biggest goals is to take the next step and measure the atmospheres of these planets directly. and that's the information we need to say, whether it's true, we earth lake or not the nearest planet that we know of is called proximal centauri. be it is the planet perhaps not so different from earth to similar size. similar temperature is the earth. it is about for the late years away from us,

which in the whole scheme of the galaxy is right next door. it is so close the even if we tried to get there with normal rocket propulsion, it would take tens of thousands of years to reach it. oh, that's the 1st echo planet was discovered and $995.00. over 5000 planets have been confirmed around other stars, and we've learned a lot about their sizes or temperatures. there were bit and now for my work were just beginning to scratch the surface of what their

atmosphere or like, ah, atmosphere is what makes the planet place. it is responsible for whether it's that's the climate or an earthquake. it determines whether it could possibly be habitable that had to steer also tells us a lot about how the planet formed and how it evolved over time. i 2 of the primary techniques we use to characterize the planets are called transit when the planet passes in front of the star. and also eclipses when the planet passes behind the star. they give us different, but very complimentary information. and so by combining these types of measurements,

we can really get a very complete picture of what the planet it's like. 0, one of the most famous potentially habitable planets is called trappist when this is a very special planetary system, it's nearby is so easy for us to study. and this star has 7 rocky planet orbiting it all of them transiting so we can see them . ah, and one of the planets planet is in the habitable zone of the star. so could potentially have liquid water. and it could even have life the site. so i think it was the next 10 years will

truly be a golden age. upon an atmosphere characterization, there's so much to come and there's this incredible speed, a pace of discovery. it's really incredible. ah, so trappist wind is one of the most popular systems to be observed with the new james. but the telescope, which launched on christmas day of 2021 and every single planet in the system will be observed, ah, this hospital has a much bigger collecting area than hubble has. and that allows us to push to finter

observations. the most planets are not so hot actually, and so it broadens the number of planets we can look at. ah, and so it just opens up so many doors to learning about new in different planets. and we've ever study before j w s t is only the beginning later on and the decade will see 1st by it for the next generation of ground based telescope systems. the european extremely large telescope, which is the biggest telescope ever constructed. and that will also provide us with leap forward and what we can learn about the planets as to what i expect. the only thing i can say with certainty is that there will be surprises. ah,

every time we look at extra planets we see something we were not expecting to put on my good scientists. tat, i have to say, i'm coming in with no expectations. i will let the data guide me. we'll see what we see that there's something else. it takes a very expert, i to look at our data and interpret what that means for the planet. sometimes i talk to my husband who the data scientist and he looks at my plots and he says you, you've learned wet about the planet from those squiggly lines. but i've been working on this now for over a decade. and to me those quigley, lines are beautiful and filled with information. it's like, you know, as if you walked down the street and you and you see someone with bright red hair, black hair, you can so easily tell the difference. and for me, that's what the specter of the planet's look like. oh,

there's such a vast possibility of what these atmospheres and what these planets could be like. i want to know how often rocky planets have atmospheres under what conditions would you expect a planet to be hospitable for life and eventually eventually my big dream is to find evidence for life on a rocky planet. ah, and yet the information we have about them, even with our most advanced newest health folks still never get every piece of information that we would find me. i am grateful for this because it means they have a great and interesting job for many years as we were to figure this out. i do feel very strongly that we're just at the beginning of

a long journey to know for sure that there's another inhabited planet out there completely changes our perspective about our place in the universe. and so even if we can talk to them, even if we can visit them, it's still so important to know. i think it was fascinate people all over the world . the searching for life on other planets makes me appreciate life here on earth, even more. it makes me appreciate all of the things that are special about very a little flower or a bird flying it. it seems even more miraculous to me knowing the vast possibilities that are out there. and here we are on comfortable cozy earth as our home.

it also makes me very, very conscious of the fact that we need to take care of her because it is so special and there is no planet be ah and that's all we have time for today. thank you for joining us. see you next time on tomorrow. today, until then but like with

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77 percent. we talk about the issues with the 7 percent in 30 minutes on p w. ah oh, rare natural spectacle in an improved world. the return of the spiky yellow blouse will ensure the survival of the entire ecosystem. ah, one of the many success stories from a question of biodiversity. st. helena starts november 18th on d. w. mm hm.

oh no, no. can they get all the harvesters or immigrants, dolock estate, everything you enjoy eating at home with your family was harvested by people who are being exploited. and then i guess for free and we're going to need to. uh huh. we can keep doing what we're doing. and that's why your green revolution is absolutely necessary. euro revealed the future is being determined. now, our documentary theory will show you how people, companies and countries are rethinking everything. i'm making make changes

to your revealed this week. and d, w ah, [000:00:00;00] ah, this is dw news live from berlin. global climate talks are underway in egypt. got $27.00 must be the place, and now must be the time. when secretary general antonio good terrorist calls for