![earthandscience:
Until a century ago, the American chestnut (Castanea dentata) was the cornerstone tree species of eastern North America. With long, straight trunks and bushy crowns, it carpeted the forest floor each autumn with prickly brown nuts. But the arrival of chestnut blight (Cryphonectria parasitica) from Asia wiped out almost all the stately trees, leaving only a few, isolated stands. Since then, a faithful fan club of scientists and citizens has sought to tame the blight.
As chief scientist of the American Chestnut Foundation (ACF), a group of chestnut enthusiasts and scientists, Hebard has bred thousands of hybrids at the organization’s research farm in Meadowview, Virginia. He crosses descendants of the original American chestnut with the much smaller Chinese variety (Castanea mollissima), which has some natural immunity to the Asian fungus. And after decades of work, he is within reach of his goal, a tall American tree with enough Chinese traits to keep it healthy.
[…] Once researchers have a resistant chestnut, the question is where to plant it. Forest ecosystems have transformed in the past century, and reintroducing the chestnut could upset the new ecological balance. “You can’t assume that a forest with chestnut is better than a forest without. You can’t roll the clock back,” says Steve Hamburg, chief scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund in Boston.
“Reintroduction is going to be kind of a gradual thing,” says Jacobs. In 2009, the ACF began planting restoration chestnuts on US Forest Service land in Virginia, Tennessee and North Carolina. In April 2012, it also started planting hybrid chestnuts and other hardwood saplings at a former mining site.
For chestnut lovers, other signs of hope stand alongside a path at the New York Botanical Garden. In a corner of the garden, a transgenic chestnut and a restoration hybrid both reach about a metre high. Although their leaves have shrivelled a bit, the scrappy saplings have managed to survive one of the warmest summers on record. And their bark is smooth, with no sign of the cankers that claimed their ancestors.
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Until a century ago, the American chestnut (Castanea dentata) was the cornerstone tree species of eastern North America. With long, straight trunks and bushy crowns, it carpeted the forest floor each autumn with prickly brown nuts. But the arrival of chestnut blight (Cryphonectria parasitica) from Asia wiped out almost all the stately trees, leaving only a few, isolated stands. Since then, a faithful fan club of scientists and citizens has sought to tame the blight.
As chief scientist of the American Chestnut Foundation (ACF), a group of chestnut enthusiasts and scientists, Hebard has bred thousands of hybrids at the organization’s research farm in Meadowview, Virginia. He crosses descendants of the original American chestnut with the much smaller Chinese variety (Castanea mollissima), which has some natural immunity to the Asian fungus. And after decades of work, he is within reach of his goal, a tall American tree with enough Chinese traits to keep it healthy.
[…] Once researchers have a resistant chestnut, the question is where to plant it. Forest ecosystems have transformed in the past century, and reintroducing the chestnut could upset the new ecological balance. “You can’t assume that a forest with chestnut is better than a forest without. You can’t roll the clock back,” says Steve Hamburg, chief scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund in Boston.
“Reintroduction is going to be kind of a gradual thing,” says Jacobs. In 2009, the ACF began planting restoration chestnuts on US Forest Service land in Virginia, Tennessee and North Carolina. In April 2012, it also started planting hybrid chestnuts and other hardwood saplings at a former mining site.
For chestnut lovers, other signs of hope stand alongside a path at the New York Botanical Garden. In a corner of the garden, a transgenic chestnut and a restoration hybrid both reach about a metre high. Although their leaves have shrivelled a bit, the scrappy saplings have managed to survive one of the warmest summers on record. And their bark is smooth, with no sign of the cankers that claimed their ancestors.
TEE HEE
(Source: beantz)
It's Okay To Be Smart: This GIF might break your brain a little:
Take a look at the sequence of images below (I recommend clicking through to enlarge, Tumblr Dashboard folks). Works best if you stare at the dot:
Color? Or black and white?
The rods and cones of your retina respond to the illumination (black-white) and color of a scene, respectively….
Cool
Meet another kind of dinosaur
When you think of dinosaurs, you might think of those found in the movie Jurassic Park, but there were many other prehistoric animals that are still around today. And some lived even before dinosaurs first appeared: dragonflies and damselflies!
Damselflies (suborder Zygoptera) are insects in the order Odonata. Damselflies are similar to dragonflies, but the adults can be distinguished by the fact that the wings of most damselflies are held along, and parallel to, the body when at rest. Furthermore, the hindwing of the damselfly is essentially similar to the forewing, while the hindwing of the dragonfly broadens near the base. Damselflies are also usually smaller than dragonflies and weaker fliers in comparison, and their eyes are separated.
Although, the Damselfly is talented enough to tuck their wings onto their back, they are not skilled enough to be able to walk. That’s right, this particular insect has no problem landing but they are incapable of walking due to the position of their legs.
Sweet and creepy
Simply put
(Source: spiritualityyeah)
The First Animal Astronauts
These pioneering space animals did not volunteer to travel into space, but their adventures captured the imagination of millions as they watched these animals make history.
- Laika, a mixed-breed dog, was the first living being in orbit. She was launched on the Soviet Union’s Sputnik 2 mission in November of 1957.
- A rhesus monkey named Sam is shown after his flight in December of 1959, which tested the launch-escape system of NASA’s Mercury spacecraft.
- Enos the chimpanzee being readied for his orbital spaceflight of November 1961.
Brave little animals.
A non-profit has created a genetic bank of the biggest trees in the world and wants to clone them and reforest the world with them!
http://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/non-profit-wants-clone-worlds-oldest-trees-reforest-planet.html
fuck yes
Only 23 days left to pre-order the new Shadow Image album, Kiss the Ashes!
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/shadow-image-s-first-full-length-album-preorder/x/3200591
Death rock sounds pretty cool I guess
