How a repurposed medical device is helping us investigate ancient climate tipping?

A medical device that was used to help people is now helping scientists learn about the weather from long ago.

Imagine you have a thermometer, which tells you how hot or cold something is. Now imagine this thermometer went on a journey, it traveled through time, all the way to ancient lakes and oceans! Scientists took a device originally used in hospitals, called a sensor, and put it into layers of dirt that had been buried for thousands of years.

This sensor is like a time machine. When scientists use it on these old layers of dirt, they can find out how warm or cold the world was long ago, just like you check your thermometer to see if you have a fever!

It’s like putting a thermometer in an ice cream sandwich that has been frozen for years. By seeing what temperature the sensor reads now, scientists can guess what the weather was like back then.

This helps us understand how Earth's climate changed, and maybe even predict what it might do in the future!