When a wildfire is tearing through a conifer forest, the assumption is usually that trees are simply fuel, more vegetation means a bigger, faster moving fire. Two recent studies, one covering the southwestern United States and another examining Canada’s entire boreal forest, suggest that assumption does not hold for every tree species. Aspen, a fast […]
When roads, railways or new buildings are planned, centuries-old trees are often among the first casualties of development. In Japan, however, some of the country’s most valuable trees are given a second chance. Rather than cutting them down, arborists and horticultural experts sometimes relocate them using a painstaking process that can take months or even […]
A 187-foot-tall dipterocarp tree For decades, scientists believed that the tallest trees faced one of nature’s toughest challenges: Getting water from their roots to leaves hundreds of feet above the ground. Now, a study of towering trees in Southeast Asia suggests some of the world’s tallest flowering plants have evolved specialised systems to overcome that […]
Southeastern Australia’s iconic alpine ash forests face a stark future, with projections indicating a significant contraction due to changing fire patterns. Image Credits: Wikimedia Commons When visualising the mountain tops of southeastern Australia, one might conjure up an image of a typical Alpine environment. We picture ourselves walking under the huge, light-barked cover of the […]
Peeling trunks and ribbons of bark hanging from branches are among the most distinctive features of eucalyptus trees. To many people, the sight can appear as though the tree is damaged or dying. In reality, the opposite is often true. For most eucalyptus species, shedding bark is a natural process that plays an important role […]
New book reveals final moments of Trump before Iran strikes US President Donald Trump was actively pursuing nuclear diplomacy with Iran even as military plans for an attack were being finalised, according to a new book that offers a detailed account of how negotiations collapsed and strikes followed.“Regime Change,” by New York Times journalists Jonathan […]
PC: Guinness World Record On the mudflats outside Mombasa, the tide does not sit still for long. It pulls in, withdraws, leaves behind a surface that looks soft but behaves like something less forgiving once you step into it. On a stretch of coast usually shaped by salt, heat, and passing weather systems, a man […]
Ho Chi Minh (Image: Wikipedia) There are some quotes that feel simple when they are first read and then slowly become larger the more time a person spends thinking about them. This quote, often associated with Ho Chi Minh, belongs in that category. At first glance, it appears to be talking about two things that […]
A recent study shows that urban tree canopies play a crucial role in combating the ‘Urban Heat Island’ (UHI) effect. They cut the temperature gap between cities and rural areas by almost half. Trees offer shade and cool the air through a process called transpiration, lowering summer air temperature by a population-weighted mean of 0.15 […]
Saudi Arabia restores 1 million hectares of land, plants over 159 million trees under green initiative/Representative Image Saudi Arabia has marked a major environmental milestone, transforming degraded land into green cover at scale. The progress reflects a long-term national push to restore ecosystems, expand vegetation and tackle desertification.Saudi Arabia has restored one million hectares of […]
