trees

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When Columbus Set Sail, This Tree Was 500 Years Old

'Adonis' is Europe's oldest tree

(Newser) - When it comes to ancient things, the United States has Europe beat on one front: A bristlecone pine found in California's White Mountains was shown to be more than 5,000 years old, an age that dwarfs what was on Monday announced as Europe's oldest officially dated tree....

Man Upset at Tree for Ruining His Car Makes It Much Worse

Raymond Mazzarella probably shouldn't have cut down his neighbor's tree

(Newser) - Five people are homeless after a man's afternoon of aggressive pruning went awry. WNEP reports Raymond Mazzarella of Pennsylvania was upset because sap from the branches of his neighbor's tree was dripping onto his car. So he decided to take a chainsaw to the tree's 3-foot-wide trunk....

Beetle Destroying Trees Used to Make Iconic Baseball Bats

Nation's ash trees are being wiped out by Emerald Ash Borer

(Newser) - When the Emerald Ash Borer first made its way to US soil from Asia in the 1990s, it hardly registered among scientists or in the news—where it came from, after all, it only feasted on weak and dying ash trees. But the tiny beetle smaller than a penny quickly...

Feds Unleash Millions of Wasps on 24 States

But it's actually a good thing (unless you're an emerald ash borer)

(Newser) - The US government has unleashed millions of wasps into 24 states, the Guardian reports. But, contrary to the horrifying mental pictures this creates, the release of the wasps is actually a good thing. The emerald ash borer is believed to have invaded North America in the 1990s via wooden shipping...

This Is the Most Dangerous Tree in the US

Don't eat the 'little apple of death'

(Newser) - Just like a pack of cigarettes, the manchineel tree comes with a health warning: "This tree is very TOXIC," reads a sign that adorns one specimen of the tropical plant, which grows in south Florida, South and Central America, and a few other locales. Just looking at the...

Walk Quietly in the Woods, Trees Might Be Sleeping

Researchers find trees 'droop' at night

(Newser) - Well this gives the phrase "sleeping like a log" a whole new meaning. New research shows trees might sleep like any other living organism, the Christian Science Monitor reports. Scientists used lasers to make models of silver birch trees in Finland and Australia and discovered the trees' branches "...

The Planet Is Getting Greener Thanks to Pollution

But that doesn't mean global warming is a good thing

(Newser) - Dozens of scientists were shocked to find a dramatic increase in plant life around the world over the past 33 years instead of the global-warming-related "browning" they expected to find in their analysis of satellite data, Australia's ABC reports. According to a press release , a study published Monday...

Chimps Are Inexplicably Hurling Rocks at Trees

There are theories, of course—including that it might be part of a 'sacred' ritual

(Newser) - Chimpanzees in West Africa are throwing rocks at trees, and why they're doing it remains a mystery, Discovery reports. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology say this chimp behavior has never before been documented and that it may shed some light on the species' cultural customs—...

How Many Trees Cover the Earth? Scientists Now Know

3.04T—seven times higher than the previous estimate

(Newser) - How many trees are there on earth? A lot … or, more precisely, 3.04 trillion (about 422 per person on the planet, CNN notes). That's what some scientists discovered this year after conducting a global tree census, NPR reports. To put that number in context, it would take...

Droughts Could Be Even Worse for Trees Than We Thought

And the effects can last for years, study says

(Newser) - The ability of Earth's forests to stand up to droughts may be worse than previously believed. The Washington Post reports that many current scientific models assume trees recover immediately following a drought. But Princeton's William Anderegg demonstrated droughts actually have "legacy effects" on trees in a study...

NYC May Give Personal Email Addresses to Trees

'NYC is a tough place to be a tree'

(Newser) - Ever wanted to drop a line to a charming red maple but thought it would be a bit macabre to send it a letter written on the disfigured remains of one of its fallen relatives? Well good news! New York City politician Mark Levine has introduced a bill to assign...

Ancient Tree Has 'Surprise' Sex Change

The Fortingall Yew suddenly sprouts berries

(Newser) - One of Europe's oldest surviving organisms is having a "sex change"—and growing pretty red berries to boot. A yew tree in Scotland that's thousands of years old has grown three seed-bearing berries, marking it as "female" for the first time on record, the Guardian...

Guy Sues After Skull Crushed by Giant Falling Pine Cone

Man was napping in park when 16-pound seed pod crushed his head

(Newser) - Sean Mace—on vacation after losing his job in Washington—was napping under some trees in a San Francisco park while waiting to watch the Blue Angels perform when his skull was crushed by a falling 16-pound pine cone, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. The accident happened in October 2014,...

Helen Keller's Favorite Climbing Tree Cut Down

The oak at her childhood home was damaged by tornadoes, bugs

(Newser) - As a child, Helen Keller used to enjoy climbing a large oak tree in the front yard of her home in Tuscumbia, Alabama, the Times Daily reports. Yesterday, workers with chainsaws removed the tree, which had stood for more than 200 years. “Isn’t that the saddest thing?” Sue...

South Park Co-Creator Helps Save 3 Sequoias

Matt Stone's donation helping keep the trees from developers

(Newser) - The co-creator of South Park is helping save a trio of sequoias under threat from development in Portland, Oregon, which means "Lorax Dave" the protester might finally be able to come down, KATU reports. According to the Oregonian , the trees were planted in the mid-1800s, but developer Everett Custom...

Since 1990, We've Erased a Forest Twice as Big as Texas

Still, UN report finds rate of forest loss has improved over 25 years

(Newser) - There are positives and negatives to grasp from a new report on forest loss from the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization. The good news: The rate of deforestation worldwide has been halved over the last 25 years. The bad news: We lost 500,000 square miles of forest—an...

Earth Has 3T Trees —and That's Not Good

Study shows Earth has lost nearly half its trees since farming began

(Newser) - Congratulations, environmentalists, tree-huggers, and people who enjoy breathing oxygen: the Earth has seven times more trees—approximately 3 trillion—than previously estimated, according to a new study in Nature . Scientists from around the world created the first "data-driven global tree census" by combining satellite images with tree counts from...

Guy Drives to the Hospital With a Branch in His Neck

40-year-old mountain biker is lucky to be alive, doctors say

(Newser) - Keeping calm after, say, getting impaled by a tree branch might just save your life, doctors say. Take the example of a 40-year-old man who took a tumble while mountain biking in New Mexico. When he dusted himself off, he found the left side of his neck had been impaled...

How $220K Turned Up in a Tree

Money is linked to rumored bad marriage and a home fire

(Newser) - Money doesn’t fall from the sky, but a tree in Germany made it rain on passersby last week. A bag of money containing €200,000, or roughly $220,000, was hung in a tree in a campsite near the northern town of Mirow, the Local reports. Police say...

Tallest Redwood in Muir Woods Not So Old After All

Ring analysis shows Tree 76 is a mere 777 years old—not 1,500

(Newser) - You had us all fooled, Tree 76. Up til now, scientists believed that the tallest redwood in California's Muir Woods was about 1,500 years old, the Los Angeles Times notes. But the 249-foot-tall giant—or, as the San Francisco Chronicle now refers to it, "a puerile sprig...

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