TOP 100 CAMPING SITES
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| Chestnut Trees Return to the Eastern U.S. The imposing 100-foot American chestnut tree that once dominated forests in the eastern U.S. may soon return, fortified by a new resistance to an Asian fungus. That blight essentially wiped out the tree during the past century, altering entire forest ecosystems. Scientists are releasing a sixth-generation hybrid this year for planting in several locations, confident that it will show the resistance of its hardy Chinese cousin.The hybridization began decades ago, when breeders crossed the American and Chinese chestnuts to obtain the resistance genes. But because the American variety grows up to 50 feet taller and lacks lower branches, the researchers have had to backcross repeatedly to recapture those traits. The sixth generation should now have about 94 percent American character and “should have high resistance to the blight,” says Sara Fitzsimmons, a research technologist at Pennsylvania State University’s School of Forest Resources who works on the project. She won’t rest assured, however, until the trees grow on national forest­land for 10 years or so. Meanwhile scientists will continue to breed seedlings optimized for the sharply different local conditions from Maine to Georgia. [More] rss.sciam.com |
On the Web - July 2009 Slide ShowLife at the Marine Monuments [More] rss.sciam.com |
Saving the Good, the Bad--And the Ugly [Slide Show] The bulbous purple burrowing frog may not have made it onto any awww-inspiring tote bags like the unequivocally adorable giant panda. But, an increasing number of people are arguing, the humble frog--and other more homely creatures--is at least equally worth rescuing from the brink of extinction. [More] rss.sciam.com |
Don't Know Much Biology: Our Trouble Classifying the Living World Think about what it takes to learn biology. Not textbook biology, the kind you learn in high school with microscopes and dissecting kits. Rather the kind you learn on your own, as a young child encountering the vast and diverse world of living things. How does the human mind link together organisms as varied as hippos and lichen and mosquitoes and rhododendrons? And how do we assemble this diversity into meaningful categories? In short, how do we think about life?Psychologists are very interested in how the mature mind sorts the living world and where we put ourselves in relation to other life-forms. That is the stuff of philosophy and religion and morality. But how we recognize life--and arrange the living world in our mind--is not as obvious as one would think. [More] rss.sciam.com |
Can Alternative Energy Save the Economy and the Climate? BRIGHTON, Colo. - The low-carbon economy has already arrived on the windy prairie north of this fast-growing Denver 'burb. It's here that Danish wind-turbine giant Vestas converted 298 acres of hayfield into the West's largest turbine factory - and turned Brighton into a magnet for "green" energy companies. [More] rss.sciam.com |