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CARL AZUZ: Science and nature headline today's show.
And we've even got some cheese to top things off later.
I'm Carl Azuz.
It's great to have you watching.
A couple of hundred miles off the northwestern
coast of Africa is where you'll find the Canary Islands.
This archipelago is officially a part of Spain.
And that's why Spain's prime minister
traveled there this week.
He wanted to get a firsthand look at a volcanic eruption
on the island of La Palma.
For the first time in 50 years, the Cumbre Vieja volcano
had a major eruption on Sunday.
It wasn't a complete surprise.
Spanish volcanologists said they detected
more than 25,000 earthquakes around the volcano
over the past couple of weeks.
Still, emergency workers evacuated
5,000 people from the area closest to Cumbre Vieja.
More than 80,000 in all live on the island of La Palma.
And while officials say no injuries or deaths have been
reported from the eruption, some houses
have been damaged or destroyed.
And at least one highway has been cut off by lava.
Hundreds of firefighters have been
mustered to guard against any blazes
the flowing lava might cause.
Residents have been told to keep their distance
from the volcano.
Ships have been told to steer clear of the waters
around Cumbre Vieja because lava flowing into the sea
could be a threat to them.
The Canary Islands are a popular tourist spot for
European and other visitors.
400 of them were evacuated from a hotel in La Palma
and taken to another island.
A Canary Islands government official
says the eruption of molten lava and ash
is likely to continue for days.
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- With about 1,500 volcanoes on earth,
it's no wonder we worry about these mountains of molten rock.
But why do they erupt?
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More than 80% of the earth's surface above and below sea
level is volcanic.
And deep below, the earth's tectonic plates
are always moving.
Most volcanic activity occurs where these plates collide.
Deep within the earth, it is so hot that rocks
slowly melt and become magma.
Because this flowing substance is lighter than the rocks
around it, it rises.
When some of these tectonic plates shift,
the magma rises even higher.
Some of the magma pushes through the cracks in the earth's
crust, at vents and at fissures, and reaches the surface,
where it is then called lava.
What kind of eruption the volcano will have
depends on the properties of the magma.
Thin and runny magma means gas trying to escape
can do so easily.
When this happens, the lava will flow out of the volcano.
We've seen this with Hawaii's volcanoes.
Because the lava flows slowly, people can get away quickly.
And it rarely results in victims.
But thick and sticky magma is a different story.
There's less room for gases to escape.
And the pressure mounts.
Gas gets trapped in the magma, which
then explodes at the surface.
This is called an explosive eruption.
And we've seen it with Mount Etna in Sicily
and Mount St. Helens in the US.
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CARL AZUZ: 10 second trivia.
Which of these fish can only survive in saltwater?
Sockeye salmon, bull shark, Atlantic stingray, or seahorse?
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All of these fish have been found in oceans and freshwater
rivers, except for the seahorse, which only lives in saltwater.
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Seahorses, as you're about to see, are fascinating creatures.
They can be as small as an inch or as large as a foot long.
They're found in warm and cold waters all over the world.
But they can be threatened by a fishing practice
called bottom trawling.
This is when a boat tows a weighted net
along the ocean floor.
It's very effective in catching large amounts
of popular seafood, from crab and shrimp to flounder
and whiting.
And improvements in the methods and nets used
have reduced the environmental problems
that bottom trawling can cause.
But according to Amanda Vincent, a university professor
and Rolex Awards Laureate, bottom trawling
is still a danger to seahorses.
And she's working to protect them.
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AMANDA VINCENT: I think the first time
you ever look at a seahorse, you're fascinated by them.
They're almost mythical.
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- Fabled fish of the ancient gods,
and now an aquarium favorite.
Meet the tiger tail, the hedgehog, and the pygmy.
Some of the 46 known species of seahorse
that scientists have struggled to identify,
due to their expertise in camouflage,
which helps them avoid predators.
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AMANDA VINCENT: They change color when they court.
They form permanent pair-bonds.
The male and female come together
and dance every morning.
I mean, these animals are the coolest fish.
They really are.
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- One predator that seahorses haven't been able to avoid
is humans.
Their habitats in coral reefs, sea
grasses and mangroves across the world
are increasingly under threat.
AMANDA VINCENT: The biggest single threat to seahorses
is bottom trawling every day.
Hundreds of thousands of trawlers
scrape the ocean bottom.
And they remove everything in their path,
leaving devastation behind.
And it's annihilation fishing, pure and simple.
And it has to stop.
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- Amanda Vincent is a marine conservationist
and one of the world's leading experts on seahorses.
[boating sound]
She has spent over 30 years studying these tiny creatures
with big personalities.
AMANDA VINCENT: We usually tell people not to touch
the seahorse if you see it.
But I've had to touch them in my professional work.
And it's riveting.
You tickle their little tails, and they
let go of whatever they're holding,
and they grasp your hand instead.
I mean, when did you last have a fish hold your hand?
It's just to feel an instant surge of connection
with this animal.
- Vincent co-founded Project Seahorse in 1996,
a conservation and research organization,
which campaigns for stronger regulations on fishing
practices and wildlife trade.
They have succeeded in changing national and international
legislation to help protect seahorses and establish 35
marine-protected areas in the Philippines,
home to 10 species of seahorse.
During her research, Vincent uncovered a huge global trade
in seahorses, a popular ingredient
in Chinese medicine worldwide, including in her native Canada.
AMANDA VINCENT: We tallied it up to be 20, 30 million animals
a year, among about 80 countries.
It was huge.
In terms of number of individual animals traded,
it's one of the biggest wildlife trades by far.
So it was really important to take action.
We then generated the first-ever export
controls on marine fishes.
That led to a lot of countries actually closing down
their seahorse trade, legally.
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- After a lifelong crusade against harmful fishing
methods, Vincent is always on the lookout
for sustainable alternatives.
And she finds it here, in the village
of Steveston in Vancouver.
AMANDA VINCENT: Hey, you've got spot prawns.
- We have a lot of spot prawns.
AMANDA VINCENT: They're caught by traps.
No habitat destruction.
No bycatch of other animals.
They're the only shrimp I ever eat.
So when were these guys fished?
- Questioning where your seafood comes
from is one way to help protect marine life, Vincent says.
AMANDA VINCENT: If you can avoid eating anything connected
with bottom trawling, you will have done
a great service to the ocean.
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- And for Vincent, serving the ocean
means making us fall in love with these
mysterious, mythical creatures.
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AMANDA VINCENT: I find that when you talk seahorses,
everybody cares.
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Essentially, we're using seahorses
to help save the seas.
If we get it right for these funky little fishes,
we will have done a lot for the ocean.
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- This is a planet worth protecting.
Tell us how you're answering the call
with the hashtag #calltoearth.
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CARL AZUZ: In fact, as part of a new partnership with the Rolex
luxury watch company, CNN is highlighting
a planet worth protecting with the first ever Call
to Earth Day.
It takes place on November 10th.
If you or your school would like to learn more, please
visit cnn.com/calltoearth.
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It's not every day someone tries to break
the world record for the longest piece of string cheese.
But hey, at the Weyauwega Star Dairy at Weyauwega, Wisconsin,
breaking cheesy records is what they're all about.
More than 1,700 people took hold of the single piece of cheese
as it was unraveled from a tractor.
After it doubled back, people held part of a 3,832-foot
piece of string cheese history.
It was almost 3/4 of a mile long.
I know what you're thinking.
Carl is about to make some cheesy puns.
And you cheddar believe it.
You know, I ricotta mascot pony up
to stay linguistically limburger by briely
cutting loose with all the muensterous and gouda
puns you Camembert.
That's the fun thing about cheese puns,
we just eat them up.
I'm Carl Azuz.
You-- some of you, anyway, are watching
from Medford High School.
It is in Medford, Minnesota.
Thank you for subscribing and commenting
on our YouTube channel that's Mozzarella for CNN.