http://www.physorg.com/ en-us Physorg.com internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. The potential of forest biotechnology to help address significant social and environmental issues is being "strangled at birth" by the rigid opposition of some groups and regulations that effectively preclude even the testing of genetically modified trees, scientists argue in a new report. http://www.physorg.com/news165588974.html Biology Tue, 30 Jun 2009 13:56:46 EST news165588974 There are hundreds of choices when picking a crabapple tree from the nursery, but a Purdue University expert says only a handful are resistant to a widespread fungus or other serious diseases. http://www.physorg.com/news165158760.html Biology Thu, 25 Jun 2009 14:40:01 EST news165158760 For the first time, Cornell researchers have reported the sighting of the emerald ash borer - an ash-destroying beetle - in New York state. http://www.physorg.com/news164557994.html Biology Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:34:00 EST news164557994 In recent years the use of non-invasive biomarkers to assess liver fibrosis has become widely accepted. Although the combination of surrogate markers, such as those employed by the FibroTest, have a high predictive value for the assessment of significant fibrosis, it is important to find tools that can improve its accuracy, particularly in intermediate stages and to reinforce its reliability by ensuring that the classification results are independent of contingent features of the classification technique. http://www.physorg.com/news164281006.html Medicine & Health Mon, 15 Jun 2009 11:10:01 EST news164281006 Annual rings are acclaimed in representing natural climate archives. For the temperate latitudes it is known that the growth of these annual rings depend mainly on temperature and precipitation. In the tropics, however, with only slight seasonal variations, the correlation is not so evident. Now scientists of the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences and their colleagues of the Australian National University have been able to prove that tree growth in north-east Australia depends mainly on the annual precipitation. http://www.physorg.com/news163936876.html Space & Earth Thu, 11 Jun 2009 11:01:39 EST news163936876 (PhysOrg.com) -- A long-standing mystery surrounding a fundamental process in plant biology has been solved by a team of scientists at the University of California, Davis. http://www.physorg.com/news163343595.html Biology Thu, 04 Jun 2009 14:13:51 EST news163343595 Dr. Leo Lombardini has gone underground to get the most top secret information in his field. http://www.physorg.com/news162574986.html Biology Tue, 26 May 2009 16:43:25 EST news162574986 (AP) -- Forestry officials in the Northeast are on an urgent mission, tracking thousands of Massachusetts residents as they search for tree-eating stowaway insects they may have carried to campgrounds or vacation homes. http://www.physorg.com/news162232623.html Biology Fri, 22 May 2009 17:37:41 EST news162232623 The expansion of rubber plantations in southeast Asia could have a "devastating" environmental impact, scientists warned Thursday as they pressed for a substantial increase in forest preserves. http://www.physorg.com/news162135227.html Space & Earth Thu, 21 May 2009 14:34:18 EST news162135227 (PhysOrg.com) -- Global warming may include some periods of local cooling, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley. Results from satellite and ground-based sensor data show that sweltering summers can, paradoxically, lead to the temporary formation of a cooling haze in the southeastern United States. http://www.physorg.com/news161886252.html Space & Earth Mon, 18 May 2009 17:24:39 EST news161886252 (AP) -- A little beetle could cause big problems for Florida's multimillion-dollar avocado industry. http://www.physorg.com/news160983223.html Biology Fri, 08 May 2009 06:34:33 EST news160983223 (PhysOrg.com) -- Trees positioned to shade the west and south sides of a house may decrease summertime electric bills by 5 percent on average, according to a recent study of California homes by researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. http://www.physorg.com/news160838589.html Technology Wed, 06 May 2009 14:24:09 EST news160838589 The nontimber forest products industry has been growing rapidly since the mid-1980s, contributing billions of dollars to the U.S. economy annually. Examples of nontimber forest products (NTFP) include edibles such as fruits and nuts, medicinal and herbal products, and specialty floral and decorative products. Standouts in the NTFP industry include U.S.-grown herbs used to satisfy increasing consumer demand for herbal medications. American ginseng, for example, accounted for $32 million in U.S. export revenue to Asia during 1996. The emerging economic industry has its share of challenges, including the impact of wildlife that naturally inhabit forests where NTFPs grow. Of particular concern are white-tailed deer, which can reduce the quality, quantity, and profitability of NTFPs by "browsing" twigs and rubbing the stems of shrubs, trees, and plants. http://www.physorg.com/news160651723.html Biology Mon, 04 May 2009 10:29:38 EST news160651723 Consider the cumulative stresses that transplanted trees must endure from the time they are harvested until they become established in a landscape. Multiple stress factors can mean the difference between survival and death for trees. For starters, when "balled-and-burlapped" trees are dug prior to transport, the majority of the root system is often separated from the tree. After this initial stress, trees are typically taken to a loading site and placed on trucks or trailers for shipment. At each stage of the transplanting process, trees are exposed to mechanical shock and vibration that can further disrupt the root system and cause considerable injury. http://www.physorg.com/news160649265.html Biology Mon, 04 May 2009 09:48:21 EST news160649265 U.S. Forest Service scientists have completed a study on a beetle that was first detected in California in 2004, but has now attacked 67 percent of the oak trees in an area 30 miles east of San Diego. http://www.physorg.com/news160409155.html Biology Fri, 01 May 2009 15:06:49 EST news160409155 (AP) -- The bear cub could be heard but remained unseen among the barren trees and dried leaves blanketing the forest floor. http://www.physorg.com/news159864719.html Biology Sat, 25 Apr 2009 07:53:03 EST news159864719 (PhysOrg.com) -- A new study of storm-related deaths from a super cyclone that hit the eastern coast of India in 1999 finds that villages shielded from the storm surge by mangrove forests experienced significantly fewer deaths than villages that were less protected. http://www.physorg.com/news158947478.html Space & Earth Tue, 14 Apr 2009 17:05:10 EST news158947478 In May 2008 the island of Guam became a living laboratory for scientists as they attached acoustic equipment to coconut trees in order to listen for rhinoceros beetles. A grant from USDA IPM allowed Richard Mankin, a recognized world-class expert on acoustic detection of insects, to travel to Guam to collaborate with island scientists on the Guam Coconut Rhinoceros Beetle Eradication Project. The results of this research were recently published in the journal Florida Entomologist. http://www.physorg.com/news158926505.html Biology Tue, 14 Apr 2009 11:16:14 EST news158926505 Widespread die-off of piņon pine across the southwestern United States during future droughts will occur at least five times faster if climate warms by 4 degrees Celsius, even if future droughts are no worse than droughts of the past century, scientists have discovered in experiments conducted at the University of Arizona's Biosphere 2. http://www.physorg.com/news158861782.html Space & Earth Mon, 13 Apr 2009 17:16:51 EST news158861782 Rainforest reserves - even those disturbed by roads - provide an important buffer against fires that are devastating parts of the Brazilian Amazon, according to a new study by a trio of researchers at Duke University published April 8 in the open-access, peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE. http://www.physorg.com/news158394763.html Space & Earth Wed, 08 Apr 2009 07:33:07 EST news158394763 As the U.S. Southwest grew warmer from 18,700 to 10,000 years ago, juniper trees vanished from what is now the Mojave Desert, robbing packrats of their favorite food. Now, University of Utah biologists have narrowed the hunt for detoxification genes that let the rodents eat toxic creosote bushes that replaced juniper. http://www.physorg.com/news158206615.html Biology Mon, 06 Apr 2009 03:17:25 EST news158206615 (PhysOrg.com) -- Today's slumping economy and housing market may reduce, temporarily, the insistent economic forces on Washington's private forestland owners to give up the cycle of harvesting and replanting trees in favor of converting the land to other uses, such as lots for houses. http://www.physorg.com/news157645853.html Space & Earth Mon, 30 Mar 2009 15:31:33 EST news157645853 Pine bark and peatmoss are the two most common substrates used for horticultural crop production in the southeastern United States, but both media can present challenges to growers. Reduced forestry production and increased use of pine bark as fuel and landscape mulch has made the medium less available, while the price of peatmoss is rising due to transportation costs and growing environmental concerns over the mining of peat bogs in Canada and Europe. These and other factors have contributed to a demand for new alternative substrates for container production of horticultural crops. http://www.physorg.com/news157288388.html Biology Thu, 26 Mar 2009 12:14:55 EST news157288388 No single decision-support system exists for selecting alternatives for postfire management. That thesis is what a recently released report on management after fire hinges upon. The publication, Effects of Timber Harvest Following Wildfire in Western North America, tells us that the type of forest landscape determines the ways fire and logging may change an area after a wildfire. The authors, however, hope that public land managers will use the publication to evaluate postfire management options. http://www.physorg.com/news156763381.html Space & Earth Fri, 20 Mar 2009 10:55:03 EST news156763381 (AP) -- Hawaii's native avian population is in peril, with nearly all the state's birds in danger of becoming extinct, a federal report says. http://www.physorg.com/news156751854.html Biology Fri, 20 Mar 2009 07:11:32 EST news156751854 A short rainy season and desertification make growing food in northern Ghana difficult enough. It doesn't help that in this western African country there is little fuel available to power tractors for planting crops or to power grain milling. http://www.physorg.com/news156714111.html Biology Thu, 19 Mar 2009 20:42:53 EST news156714111 On Nov. 1, 1933, Mrs. Bruce Reid recorded seeing both a male and female ivory-billed woodpecker in Texas. And on May 28, 1938, Oscar McKinley Bryans observed a ruby-throated hummingbird in Michigan, noting that the birds were most common when apple trees were blooming. http://www.physorg.com/news156603740.html Space & Earth Wed, 18 Mar 2009 14:06:57 EST news156603740 (PhysOrg.com) -- A new way to make paper more easily and cheaply from bagasse, the fibrous sugar cane waste from sugar production, than from trees has been discovered by a Queensland University of Technology researcher. http://www.physorg.com/news155537317.html Chemistry Fri, 06 Mar 2009 04:49:01 EST news155537317 The Amazon is surprisingly sensitive to drought, according to new research conducted throughout the world's largest tropical forest. The 30-year study, published today in Science, provides the first solid evidence that drought causes massive carbon loss in tropical forests, mainly through killing trees. http://www.physorg.com/news155485964.html Space & Earth Thu, 05 Mar 2009 14:34:20 EST news155485964 New research by U.S. Forest Service Southern Research Station (SRS) scientists and partners suggests the hemlock woolly adelgid is killing hemlock trees faster than expected in the southern Appalachians and rapidly altering the carbon cycle of these forests. SRS researchers and cooperators from the University of Georgia published the findings in the most recent issue of the journal Ecosystems. http://www.physorg.com/news154872476.html Space & Earth Thu, 26 Feb 2009 12:08:42 EST news154872476