Scientists at Wake Forest Baptist Medical center however have succeeded in identifying the brain functions involved. Although we've known that meditation can reduce anxiety we hadn't identified the specific brain mechanisms involved in relieving anxiety in healthy individuals said Fadel Zeidan Ph d. postdoctoral research fellow in neurobiology
and anatomy at Wake Forest Baptist and lead author of the study. In this study we were able to see which areas of the brain were activated and
Support for the study was provided by the Mind and Life Institute's Francisco J. Varela Grant the National institutes of health grant NS3926 and the Biomolecular Imaging Center at Wake Forest Baptist.
Co-authors are Katherine Martucci Ph d. Robert Kraft Ph d. John Mchaffie Ph d. and Robert Coghill Ph d. of Wake Forest Baptist.
The above story is provided based on materials by Wake Forest Baptist Medical center. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
Webster and Bump are on the faculty of Michigan Tech's School of Forest Resources and Environmental science.
and forestry bioenergy production and vegetation fires doubled over the course of the past century.
and forestry bioenergy production construction of buildings and infrastructures soil degradation or human induced vegetation fires--and thus not available to other ecosystem processes.
The utilization of vast land areas for the production of bioenergy can have a strong negative impact on food safety forest resources and biodiversity.
Grassy savannas and grassy woodlands in East Africa were widespread by 6 million to 7 million years ago.
and 2. 5 million years ago contradicting previous claims that they ate forest foods. Later Theropithecus oswaldi ate a 75 percent grass diet by 2 million years ago and a 100 percent grass diet by 1 million years ago.
Junguo Liu a professor at the School of Nature Conservation Beijing Forestry University; and Amy Myers Jaffe executive director of energy and sustainability at the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies.
#Threatened frogs palmed off as forests disappearoil palm plantations in Malaysia are causing threatened forest frogs to disappear paving the way for common species to move in on their turf scientists have revealed.
The study carried out by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) describes how forests converted to palm oil plantations are causing threatened forest dwelling frogs to vanish resulting in an overall loss of habitat that is important for the conservation of threatened frog
Scientists travelled to Peninsular Malaysia where they spent two years studying communities of frog species in four oil palm plantations and two areas of adjacent forest.
and very flat forests laying eggs in sandy streambeds. Scientists only found this species in forest areas
and if palm oil plantations continue to take over the peat swamp frog along with its forest home could be a thing of the past.
ZSL's Dr. Trent Garner a co-author on the paper says: Existing practices in managing oil palm are not accommodating the highly threatened forest frog species in Malaysia
which urgently need saving. The planting of oil palm plantations leads to the loss of natural forests and peat lands
and plays havoc with ecosystems and biodiversity. ZSL together with collaborators from Queen Mary University of London Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and University of Malaya continues to work closely with Malaysian palm oil producers in determining
if simple modifications to agricultural practices may bring some of the forest species back into areas planted with oil palm
The study shows that increasing year-to year variability in rainfall is associated to lower tree cover in the moist tropical forests worldwide
They show that increasing rainfall variability is associated to lower tree cover in the moist tropical forests of all continents.
and if these young seedlings grow fast enough to escape from herbivores then woodlands can expand. With our analysis of satellite data we could now assess how general this response is.
Understanding potential impacts of climate change on the Amazon forest and the savannas surrounding it is one of the major challenges for scientists in the region today explains author Marina Hirota who came to work with the Wageningen team after her studies in Brazil
to analyze forest resilience. Our study shows that the forest is fragile to increasing climate variability within a year but also between years.
This kind of information shows the risks and opportunities that are inherent to the stability properties of these ecosystems that still cover massive parts of the Earth.
and soft wood) with ultrasound consistently enhances the chemical reactions necessary to convert the biomass into high-value fuels and chemicals.
#Human activity echoes through Brazilian rainforestthe disappearance of large fruit-eating birds from tropical forests in Brazil has caused the region's forest palms to produce smaller less successful seeds over the past century researchers say.
In undisturbed patches of forest on the other hand large-gaped birds still make their homes and palms continue to produce large seeds successfully dispersed by the birds they say.
But small-gaped birds such as thrushes that populate the fragmented patches of forest are unable to swallow
and forest cover but none could account for the change in palm seed size over the years in the fragmented forests.
They performed genetic analyses to determine that the shrinkage of seeds among forest palms in the region could have taken place within 100 years of an initial disturbance.
This timescale suggests that the conversion of tropical forests for agriculture which began back in the 1800's
and displaced many large bird populations in the region triggered a rapid evolution of forest palms that resulted in smaller less successful seeds.
Long periods of drought and increasingly warmer climate (as predicted by climate model projections for South america) could be particularly harmful to tropical tree populations that depend on animals to disperse their seeds.
No tropical forests in South america currently experience average yearly temperatures of more than 84 degrees Fahrenheit (29 degrees Celsius.
Because larger areas of forest generally sustain higher diversity than smaller areas do higher diversity during warming events could be explained by the expansion of tropical forests into temperate areas.
which is further evidence that tropical forests may prove resilient to climate change. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.
While protecting and restoring natural forests is part of the solution the reality is that for all practical purposes fossil fuel CO2 emissions are irreversible Professor Mackey said.
The study found that protecting natural forests avoids emissions that would otherwise result from logging
or planting new forests helps store some of the carbon dioxide that was emitted from past land use activities.
#More at-risk bird species in Brazilian forest than previously thoughtin a study published today in the journal PLOS ONE a team of researchers led by NJIT Associate professor Gareth Russell has applied a novel method for linking large-scale habitat
Our goal was to assess the extinction risk for bird species in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil a global'hotspot'of bird diversity said Russell.
Based on elevation restrictions and forest type requirements as well as ongoing tropical deforestation we already knew that most species have access to far less habitat than typically assumed.
The current study applied this metric to 127 forest-dependent passerine birds inhabiting the Atlantic Forest of Brazil an area that has lost over 90 percent of its original forest.
Daniel Nievergelt a dendrochronologist at The swiss Federal Institute for Forest Snow and Landscape Research WSL was just having a look at a building site on the southern edge of the city.
and who in 1999 had already found subfossil*wood during the excavation of the Uetliberg Highway Tunnel.
The researcher took a closer examination of a few tree stumps on the edge of the loamy building pit in the neighborhood of Zurich Binz that had been discarded by the construction workers as waste timber.
the timber was discovered to go back to between 12846 BP**and 13782 BP. With the support of the building-site management to date the WSL researchers have managed to salvage some 200 pine-tree stumps which they have had transported in truckloads to the WSL.
In addition the prehistoric wood in Zurich Binz could help in the calibration of the C14 curve.
The density and chemical composition of the wood may provide clues to the climate and air composition in the past.
and are analyzing the wood and the rings in their own laboratories and in those of their partners.
Perhaps the newfound timbers can fill a gap and extend the chronology by around 2000 years.
Whatever the case may be discovered the timbers in Zurich Binz and the data arising from their analysis are of invaluable scientific importance.
The above story is provided based on materials by Swiss Federal Institute for Forest Snow and Landscape Research WSL.
or protect forests have been promoted as a way to reduce deforestation. However the effectiveness of the programmes has been questioned and new research from the School of business Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg Sweden points to potential negative long-term effects and a need for broader guidelines and policies.
The established climate targets make the measurability of PES programmes appealing--it is tempting to point to results by quantifying forests that would probably have been cut down in the absence of PES programmes.
However this strategy implies that those who are already maintaining their forests are rewarded not. Nord n conducted experiments to identify the consequences of such programmes
and found that those who are already displaying the desired behaviour tend to eventually lose their willingness to protect their forests.'
'When a poor landowner is paid in cash he may become able to pay somebody to cut down his forest.'
A vertically aligned forest of carbon nanotubes grown on diamond would disperse heat like a traditional heat sink but with millions of fins.
Testing found that the graphene layer remains intact between the nanotube forest and the diamond or other substrate.
Ajayan is the Benjamin M. and Mary Greenwood Anderson Professor in Mechanical engineering and Materials Science and of chemistry at Rice.
#Study explores 100 year increase in forestry diseasesas ash dieback disease continues to threaten common ash trees across Europe new research in the Journal of Quaternary Science explores the historic impact of forest diseases to discover
The temperate and boreal forests of Europe and North america have been repeated subject to pathogen outbreaks over the last 100 years said Martyn Waller from Kingston University.
and fires could cause much of the Amazon forest to transform abruptly to more open dry-adapted ecosystems threatening the region's enormous biodiversity and priceless services he added.
This research has been published in the journal Forest Ecology and Management. The Bechstein's Bat (Myotis bechsteinii) has a broad distribution:
and Holocene says Dr Marã a Napal leading author of thepaper published in Forest Ecology and Management.
That led us to revisit the traditional dogma that the M. bechsteinii is a Euro-Siberian species restricted to the temperate forests of Central
More flexible in the Mediterraneanin the Atlantic as well as Mediterranean domain the observations were consistent with the data available on the ecology of the species. M. bechsteinii prefer roosts carved out by woodpeckers in the trunks of living oak trees located inside the forest
In both areas the colonies hunted in the middle of the forest but the distances covered between their roosts
This study confirms that the M. bechsteinii is a forest specialist with a relatively narrow ecological niche
and roosting in temperate deciduous forests. Both areas of study offer conditions that meet the ecological needs of the species
but also the severe loss and degradation of the deciduous forests in the Mediterranean says Napal by way of summary.
if these forests were still present. This is a clear demonstration of the effect that a prolonged history of deforestation
and degradation of the forestry systems can have on the populations of forestry specialists like the Bechstein's bat.
#Future doctors unaware of their obesity biastwo out of five medical students have an unconscious bias against obese people according to a new study by researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical center.
and the doctor-patient relationship and even a patient's willingness or desire to go see their physician so it is crucial that we try to deal with any bias during medical school said David Miller M d. associate professor of internal medicine at Wake Forest Baptist
At Wake Forest Baptist all third-year medical students in the family medicine clerkship must complete the online IAT
As part of their efforts to reform curriculum the Wake Forest Baptist team created an on-line educational module about fat bias and stigmatization
Ph d. of Wake Forest Baptist. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Wake Forest Baptist Medical center.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. Journal Reference e
#Reforestation study shows trade-offs between water, carbon and timbermore than 13000 ships per year carrying more than 284 million tons of cargo transit the Panama canal each year generating roughly $1. 8 billion dollars in toll fees for the Panama canal Authority.
Each time a ship passes through more than 55 million gallons of water are used from Gatun Lake
One proposed measure is the reforestation of the watershed. To help planners and policy makers understand the effects of reforestation ASU scientists Silvio Simonit
and Charles Perrings studied the effects of reforestation on a'bundle'of ecosystem services: dry-season water flows carbon sequestration timber and livestock production.
Published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) their study--Bundling ecosystem services in the Panama canal Watershed--examines precipitation topography vegetation
and soil characteristics to model on-site and off-site effects of several reforestation options. The Panama canal watershed is currently being reforested to protect the dry-season flows needed for canal operations.
We find however that reforestation does not necessarily increase water supply but does increase carbon sequestration
and timber production said Simonit. Our research provides an insight into the importance of understanding the spatial distribution of the costs and benefits of jointly produced services.
Simonit a member of ASU's Ecoservices Group co-directed by Perrings is part of a collaborative research partnership between ASU and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI.
In parts of the watershed not currently under forest they found that reforestation of areas with high precipitation rates flat terrain
However they note that these conditions exist in less than 5 percent of watershed not currently under forest.
Water supply is however only one amongst many ecosystem services affected by reforestation of the watershed said Perrings a professor in the School of Life sciences in ASU's College of Liberal arts and Sciences.
And the balance between services depends on the type of reforestation undertaken. Accordingly the duo investigated two reforestation scenarios:
natural forest regeneration and teak plantation. We found that if all existing grasslands were allowed to regenerate as natural forest there would be a reduction in dry-season flows across the watershed of 8. 4 percent compared to 11.1 percent
if reforestation took the form of teak plantations. In both cases these conditions potentially pose a problem for the Panama canal Authority.
Even with water-saving advances in the new locks the canal is expected to need 14 percent more water
when the expansion takes full effect and other options for securing dry-season flows are not cost-free.
Both natural forest and teak plantations offer benefits in the form of carbon sequestration and timber products among other things and these should be weighed against any water losses said Perrings.
According to their study water losses from natural forest regeneration would be compensated by the value of carbon sequestration in 59.6 percent of the converted area at current carbon prices.
On the other hand reforestation of existing grassland with teak (under sustainable forest management) would generate gains sufficient to offset the hydrological losses in all converted areas regardless of the value of carbon.
However they say their results could help canal planners prioritize reforestation efforts Knowing what to plant
and where can reduce the negative impact of forests on dry season water flows while providing other important ecosystem services.
Also slithering it way onto this year's top 10 is a snail-eating false coral snake as well as flowering bushes from a disappearing forest in Madagascar a green lacewing that was discovered through social media
Although the forests where the monkeys live are remote the species is hunted for bush meat
With few exceptions this and other ultra-small frogs are associated with moist leaf litter in tropical wet forests--suggesting a unique ecological guild that could not exist under drier circumstances.
Endangered Forest Eugenia petrikensis Country: Madagascarendangered shrub: Eugenia is a large worldwide genus of woody evergreen trees and shrubs of the myrtle family that is particularly diverse in South america New caledonia and Madagascar.
It is one of seven new species described from the littoral forest of eastern Madagascar
and is considered to be endangered an species. It is the latest evidence of the unique and numerous species found in this specialized humid forest that grows on sandy substrate within kilometers of the shoreline.
Once forming a continuous band 1600 kilometers long the littoral forest has been reduced to isolated vestigial fragments under pressure from human populations.
In addition to its scientific interest this new knowledge has immense importance to the forestry industry in many countries.
Forest tree breeding is now entering a new era and Sweden has the potential to be in the forefront of development says Professor Ove Nilsson from UPSC.
for Nature and Forest in Belgium and the University of Mons Belgium. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of Leeds. Note:
In addition mass flowering is typical for the tropical forests in Borneo and elsewhere where hundreds of different plant timber species from the Dipterocarpaceae family flower synchronously.
Up to now it was supposed that several weeks of drought may trigger mass flowering in Borneo's forests.
Environmental protection and restoration of the forests have so far been hindered severely by the irregularity of the mass flowering intervals
when we walk in the forest after the lumberjacks have been there. When the logging machinery moves on what it usually leaves behind are piles of branches and tops.
The transformation is effected via a process called torrefaction a sort of extreme sauna for timber and vegetation.
Problematic raw materialsenior scientist à yvind Skreiberg shows Gemini a fistful of fragments of wood with an admixture of spruce needles.
A new article published in the journal Forest Ecology and Management by U s. Forest Service scientists synthesizes recent findings on the interactions between fire and climate and outlines future research needs.
Authored by research meteorologists Yongqiang Liu and Scott Goodrick from the Forest Service Southern Research Station (SRS) and Warren Heilman from the Northern Research Station the article homes in on the effect
of emissions from wildfires on long-term atmospheric conditions. While research has focused historically on fire-weather interactions there is increasing attention paid to fire-climate interactions says Liu lead author
and team leader with the SRS Center for Forest Disturbance Science. Weather the day-to-day state of the atmosphere in a region influences individual fires within a fire season.
The above story is provided based on materials by USDA Forest Service#Southern Research Station. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
#Combined wood and tobacco smoke exposure increases risk and symptoms of COPDPEOPLE who are exposed consistently to both wood smoke
About 40 percent of the world's population uses solid fuels--especially wood--for cooking
In their initial review of data the researchers learned that 53 percent of those diagnosed with COPD had both wood
moreover the prevalence of COPD increased as exposure to wood smoke increased. After adjusting for specific factors including age active and passive tobacco smoking education level history of TB
and women and those with both wood and tobacco exposure had poorer lung function scores
and to be shorter than those exposed to tobacco smoke or to a combination of wood and tobacco smoke.
In addition the prevalence of COPD was significantly higher in those who were exposed to both wood
This result suggests that the combination of wood and tobacco smoke produces an additive effect that causes an increase in COPD prevalence and in the frequency of COPD symptoms he added.
It actually exceeds the amount of carbon you can measure in the rain forests. So what happens to that stockpile of carbon
and grow a forest over it is completely unknown. Another unknown is whether the Northern hemisphere during this time was glaciated also and warming.
Previous studies have suggested that open-habitat tropical lizard species are likely to invade forest habitat
but the Dartmouth research suggests that the open-habitat populations will not invade forest habitat and may actually benefit from predicted warming for many decades.
Conversely one of the forest species studied should experience reduced activity time as a result of warming while two others are unlikely to experience a significant decline in performance.
Whereas studies conducted to date have made uniformly bleak predictions for the survival of tropical forest lizards around the globe our data show that four similar species occurring in the same geographic region differ markedly in their vulnerabilities to climate warming the authors wrote.
Considering that these populations occur over extremely small geographic ranges it is possible that many tropical forest lizards
#Artificial forest for solar water-splitting: First fully integrated artificial photosynthesis nanosystemin the wake of the sobering news that atmospheric carbon dioxide is now at its highest level in at least three million years an important advance in the race to develop carbon-neutral renewable
. While artificial leaf is the popular term for such a system the key to this success was an artificial forest.
Visually arrays of these nanostructures very much resemble an artificial forest. Yang who also holds appointments with the University of California Berkeley's Chemistry department
#Helping forests gain ground on climate changeuniversity of Alberta researchers have developed guidelines that are being used by the timber industry
and government foresters to get a jump on climate change when planting trees. Maps developed by Laura Gray a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Renewable Resources at the U of A provide projections of climatically suitable habitat for tree species based on climate predictions for the 2020s 2050s and 2080s.
Currently Alberta forestry companies and government agencies plant 80 million spruce fir and pine seedlings to reforest more than 50000 hectares of harvested land annually.
Generally Gray said forest managers should consider using seed from more southern climates or lower elevation environments.
Foresters in British columbia have started using the study's results as one of the tools to aid assisted seed migration strategies Gray noted.
and effect change in reforestation policy so that those efforts can be leveraged to improve resilience and productivity of Alberta's forests under changing climate Hamann said.
The study was funded by the Natural sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada the Alberta Forestry Research Institute and industry partners Alberta-Pacific Forest Industries Ainsworth Engineered Canada LP Daishowa-Marubeni International
Ltd. Western Boreal Aspen Corporation and Weyerhaeuser Company Ltd. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of Alberta.
This new study published in the open access journal Phytokeys offers a complete revision of all of the species of the Dulcamaroid clade including the description of a new species endemic to the forests of Ecuador.
This new study published in the open access journal Phytokeys offers a complete revision of all of the species of the Dulcamaroid clade including the description of a new species endemic to the forests of Ecuador.
and head of the OSU Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society and co-author on the study.
Through a combination of the forest biomass removal itself and the resulting climate change which feeds back on the ecosystem productivity the researchers calculate that biomass on the ground could decline by up to 65 per cent for the period 2041-2060brazil faces a huge
challenge as pressure mounts to convert forestlands to croplands and cattle pasturelands in the Amazon.
and forest resources regulate climate and air quality and ameliorate infectious diseases. Lead author of the study Dr Leydimere Oliveira said:
The researchers from the Federal University of Viã§osa Federal University of Pampa Federal University of Minas gerais and the Woods Hole Research center show that the effects of deforestation will be felt most in the eastern Parã¡
#Loss of eastern hemlock will affect forest water usethe loss of eastern hemlock from forests in the Southern Appalachian region of the United states could permanently change the area's hydrologic cycle reports a new study by U s. Forest Service
Hemlock decline is expected to have a major impact on forest processes including transpiration. Transpiration describes the loss of water from plant leaves or needles.
Coweeta researchers estimated changes in transpiration at the forest-level since hemlock woolly adelgid infestation by monitoring tree water use
and changes in forest composition from 2004 to 2011. The four studied stands were once dominated by eastern hemlock trees
The loss of hemlock from southern Appalachian forests can be compared to the loss of American chestnut from eastern forests
Changes in local forest hydrology from the loss of eastern hemlock will largely depend on which species replace it.
Rhododendron a woody evergreen shrub common in southern Appalachian forests is one of the species replacing eastern hemlock trees.
and thus transpiration in rhododendron-dominated forest stands is lower than in previously-healthy hemlock forests.
The study was conducted at the U s. Forest Service Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory in the Nantahala Mountains of western North carolina.
Since 1934 precipitation temperature and stream flow have been recorded continuously at Coweeta a U s. Forest Service Southern Research Station facility.
The above story is provided based on materials by USDA Forest Service#Southern Research Station. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
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