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Sydney (dpa) - Relatives of eight children slain in their beds one year ago gathered Sunday to plant eight blossoming frangipani trees in their memory. The stabbings of three sisters, ages 2, 11 and 12, their four brothers, ages 5, 6, 8 and 9, and their 14-year-old cousin still shocks the community of Manoora, a suburb of Cairns in tropical far north Australia. The mother of the children, Raina Thaiday, 38, was found by her 20-year-old son in the garden of 34 Murray Street that the morning covered in blood and suffering self-inflicted wounds. Within days she was charged with...

In New York City, even sidewalk space is coveted real estate. Street vendors sometimes spend a fortune or languish for years on waiting lists to acquire one of the permits that allow them to sell goods in tightly regulated locations. But once a year, there's an exception, laid out in an artfully worded city ordinance: During the month of December, anyone may sell "coniferous trees" just about anywhere - no license required. It's a rare tree-for-all. Peddlers flock in from across North America. Big trucks carrying huge loads of trees arrive in the dead of night. Stands selling coniferous trees...

BDS battling "Jewish" trees gets down to the root of the true anti-Israel and anti-Jewish agenda. Kill the trees. Kill the Jews. And leave behind a barren spiritual and physical desert ruled by the destroyers You might think that the obstacles to peace are the rockets from Gaza and the brutal murders of Jews. You might be foolish enough to think that the obstacles are the ordinary Muslims who taunted and beat Adelle Banita-Bennett, suddenly widowed at 22, trying to escape the Muslim terrorist who had just murdered her husband. You might think that it’s the fact that a majority...

Whether, how, and why forest stands have changed their growth patterns over the last century are still hotly disputed questions The world’s great forests have long been recognized as the lungs of the earth. They fix carbon and produce oxygen. So it should come as a pleasant surprise to hear that there are over three trillion trees on earth, according to a new assessment. The figure is more than seven times as big as the previous best estimate, which counted perhaps 400 billion at most. It has been produced by Thomas Crowther and colleagues, from Yale University, who combined a...

The global extent and distribution of forest trees is central to our understanding of the terrestrial biosphere. We provide the first spatially continuous map of forest tree density at a global scale. This map reveals that the global number of trees is approximately 3.04 trillion, an order of magnitude higher than the previous estimate. Of these trees, approximately 1.39 trillion exist in tropical and subtropical forests, with 0.74 trillion in boreal regions and 0.61 trillion in temperate regions. Biome-level trends in tree density demonstrate the importance of climate and topography in controlling local tree densities at finer scales, as well...

It seems that scientists were a little off in calculating the number of trees on the planet. You remember trees: they turn CO2 into oxygen and water. In fact, if you buy a “carbon credit,” you are paying to plant trees to buy an indulgence for your private jet travel -- just like Al Gore and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. supposedly do. Well, all those calculations of doom over purported CO2-caused global warming may be a little more unsettled. The Wall Street Journal reports:

Every so often you will see articles warning that some species is going extinct. And usually it's not really a species -- you never hear about "leopards" going extinct, usually it's "purple dotted left handed bisexual Nepalese leopards" or some subvariety.  We are assured they are going extinct because fewer have been seen recently. But the Earth is so big, how can we really be sure that some subspecies is going extinct just because we see fewer of them? After all, only three percent of the land mass of the Earth is urbanized. Animals could easily be hidden in...

There are just over three trillion trees in the world, a figure that dwarfs previous estimates, according to the most comprehensive census yet of global forestation. Using satellite imagery as well as ground-based measurements from around the world, a team led by researchers at Yale University created the first globally comprehensive map of tree density. Their findings were published in the journal Nature on Wednesday. A previous study that drew on satellite imagery estimated that the total number of trees was around 400 billion. The new estimate of 3.04 trillion is multiple times that number, bringing the ratio of trees...

The global map of tree density at the square-kilometer pixel scale. Credit: Crowther, et al A new Yale-led study estimates that there are more than 3 trillion trees on Earth, about seven and a half times more than some previous estimates. But the total number of trees has plummeted by roughly 46 percent since the start of human civilization, the study estimates. Using a combination of satellite imagery, forest inventories, and supercomputer technologies, the international team of researchers was able to map tree populations worldwide at the square-kilometer level. Their results, published in the journal Nature, provide the most comprehensive...

The tallest redwood tree in Muir Woods — a giant that was assumed to have sprouted up to 1,500 years ago in the Middle Ages — is a measly 777 years old, a puerile sprig in the hallowed halls of old growth, an analysis of tree-ring data has revealed. The study, by a Humboldt State University scientist, is the first definitive determination of the age of trees in Muir Woods. The findings by Allyson Carroll, a tree-ring specialist, mean that a 249-foot-tall coast redwood known by the lackluster name of Tree 76 sprouted seven centuries later than originally believed, at...

When Jadav Payeng was 16 years old, he confronted a problem quite unlike those most teenagers devote their attention to. He lived in remote northeast India on Majuli Island, the largest river island in the world. Abnormal monsoon flooding was bombarding the island’s eastern side. It was rapidly eroding the landmass and stripping all vegetation from the remaining land. Jadav looked at the wasteland where lush forest had once stood, and made up his mind to reverse the trend. So he planted a tree. That was in 1979, and Jadav has continued planting trees, spreading seeds and nurturing the forest...

Its spring time in America - a time when the musky marxists residue of a long winters night is washed away by the cleansing flood of purer more forgiving capitalism. So as you begin searching for plants to purchase for your landscape, lets discuss: -New and exciting plants for the landscape -Ways to recover from freeze damage -Techniques for planting trees, shrubs, perennials and other plants -General lore, tall tales, and history of gardening

The scientific world is stunned by research which backs an Aboriginal legend about how palm trees got to Central Australia. Several years ago Tasmanian ecologist David Bowman did DNA tests on palm seeds from the outback and near Darwin. The results led him to conclude the seeds were carried to the Central Desert by humans up to 30,000 years ago. Professor Bowman read an Aboriginal legend recorded in 1894 by pioneering German anthropologist and missionary Carl Strehlow, which was only recently translated, describing the "gods from the north" bringing the seeds to Palm Valley. Professor Bowman said he was amazed....

JACKSON, N.J. (AP) - A theme park plans to cut down more than 18,000 trees for the construction of what it says will be the largest solar farm in New Jersey. Park President John Fitzgerald said in a statement that solar power will significantly reduce the park's reliance on fossil fuels.

Trees Really Are 'Pleasant to the Sight' by Brian Thomas, M.S. * Genesis 2:9 records one of the Lord's original intentions for creating trees, saying, "Out of the ground the LORD God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." A new study has quantified just how pleasant to the sight trees can be, inadvertently confirming the truthfulness of this ancient biblical passage. Professor William Sullivan and lecturer Bin Jiang of the...

Claims that coastal tree barriers can halt the might of a tsunami are false and dangerous, a team of international marine scientists said today.

**SNIP** Of course, this is counterintuitive. We all learn in school how trees effortlessly perform the marvel of photosynthesis: They take up carbon dioxide from the air and make oxygen. This process provides us with life, food, water, shelter, fiber and soil. The earth’s forests generously mop up about a quarter of the world’s fossil-fuel carbon emissions every year. So it’s understandable that we’d expect trees to save us from rising temperatures, but climate science tells a different story. Besides the amount of greenhouse gases in the air, another important switch on the planetary thermostat is how much of the...

A fungus called Cryptococcus gattii can cause life-threatening infections, especially in people with compromised immune systems. One-third of AIDS-related deaths are thought to be caused by the fungus. But though people in Southern California have been getting sick from C. gatti for years, nobody knew how.... C. gattii from three trees, Canary Island pine, New Zealand pohutukawa and American sweet gum, matched almost exactly with C. gattii from infected patients. And the tree samples matched not just those from recent patients but from people who were sick 10 to 12 years ago. Thus this strain of C. gattii has been...

Advantages of forestry mulchingBy processing trees and other vegetation where they stand, mulching machines eliminate many of the steps involved in land clearing such as site prep, cutting/felling/hauling, and site cleanup. This also eliminates the need for multiple machines such as a bulldozer accompanied by some combination of excavators, tree shears, wood chippers or grinders, and hauling equipment. One simpler jobs only one mulching machine is required, reducing fuel requirements and emissions. Some mulching machines also have the ability to operate on steep slopes and in small or tight areas, in poor ground conditions, and in wet or snowy weather....