The link between nut consumption and longer life held even after the researchers took into account factors that might affect people's life span such as their weight physical activity and fruit and vegetable consumption
The study is one of the largest to look at the link between nut consumption and overall risk of death the researchers said.
The work was funded in part by the International Tree Nut Council Nutrition Research & Education Foundation
The findings from our study and others suggest a potential benefit of nut consumption for promoting health
The findings support the results of prior research linking nut consumption with a reduced risk of many diseases including heart disease type 2 diabetes and colon cancer.
Grizzlies eat caches of whitebark pine seeds embedded in the tree. Van Manen's team completed surveys of the whitebark pine population finding a marked decrease (74 percent) in the number of trees in the past few years.
if Darwin's frogs have been affected by the fungus in the wild but the researchers say it's worth investigating.
and both went extinct by the mid-1980s likely due to timber harvesting and the chytrid fungus.
#DC Cherry Blossoms Reach Peak Bloom! The gorgeous pink blooms of the cherry trees that dot the National Mall in Washington D c. have reached finally peak bloom officials announced yesterday (April 9).
) Peak bloom is reached when 70 percent of the blooms on the Yoshino Cherry trees (there are many different types of cherry trees) have opened fully according to the website of the National Cherry Blossom Festival.
The period of peak bloom can last for up to 14 days the site says. The blooming has been delayed this spring because of the cold beginning to the season though that cold could mean the blooms last longer.
Over the long term though global warming seems to be raising March temperatures in D c. these temperatures are a key predictor of
when the cherry blossoms will bloom according to a National park service horticulturalist) and the peak bloom date there is shifting earlier according to an analysis performed by Jason Samenow at the Washington post's Capital Weather Gang blog.
Take a gander at the cherry blossoms at the NPS's webcam. Follow Andrea Thompson@Andreatoap Pinterest and Google+.
+Follow Ouramazingplanetâ@OAPLANET Facebookâ and Google+o
#Dealing with Drought: Reaping the Benefits of Cover crops (Op-Ed) Margaret Mellon is a senior scientist for food and the environment at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS.
An expert on sustainable agriculture and the potential environmental risks of biotechnology Mellon holds a doctorate in molecular biology and a law degree.
This article was adapted from a post on the UCS blog The Equation. Mellon contributed this article to Livescience's Expert Voices:
Sending their roots down into bare soil cover crops can increase soil carbon provide slow-release nitrogen
The survey respondents reported a long list of challenges including cover-crop seed availability increased insect potential
#Deforestation Plants the Seed for Rapid Evolution in Brazil The deforestation of the Brazilian rain forest has created a hidden consequence:
The seeds of palm trees have evolved rapidly to be smaller. The change is the result of a domino effect that begins with human agriculture and hunting
and cotingas locally extinct or barely hanging on the palm trees have no way to disperse their largest seeds.
As a result seed sizes are smaller in parts of the rain forest where large birds are missing finds a new study detailed in the May 31 issue of the journal Science.
and we know that for smaller seeds they lose more water than large seeds Galetti told Livescience.
Galetti and his colleagues studied seed sizes in 22 populations of palm trees some in fragments where hardly any large birds survive
 They found that seeds are consistently smaller in sites without large birds. Seed sizes vary
but in areas with few or no large birds common sizes range from about 0. 3 to 0. 4 inches (8 to 10 millimeters) in diameter with almost no seeds a half-inch (12 mm
) in diameter. In areas with robust large-bird populations half-inch (seeds are common with some seeds reaching 0. 55 inches (14 mm.
In sites without large birds the researchers found that seeds with a diameter of a half-inch
or larger had nearly no chance of being dispersed away from their parent tree. Other factors such as soil fertility forest cover and climate could not explain the change in seed size the researchers reported.
Human action Using genetic data from the seeds Galetti and his colleagues created computer models to figure out how long it would have taken trees to evolve smaller seeds in bird-free zones.
For the plants that we studied it was 50 to 75 years Galetti said. It's quite fast.
Human deforestation in the Atlantic Forest dates back to the 1800s more than enough time for the observed changes to evolve.
The researchers plan to study other plant species and to take a deeper look at the genetics of the seeds to understand how forest fragmentation might be affecting heredity.
Trees play an important part in the water cycle grounding the water in their roots
Without tree roots to anchor the soil and with increased exposure to sun the soil can dry out leading to problems like increased flooding and inability to farm.
because their roots cannot hold onto the soil the way trees can. Life Quality: Soil erosion can also lead to silt entering the lakes streams and other water sources.
With so many dead trees available as fuel forest fires are a concern. And so are changes to the quality of drinking water.
so they drew from across the tree of life comparing aging patterns in 11 mammals 12 other vertebrates (animals with backbones) 10 invertebrates 12 plants and a green alga.
whether a plant is a tree or a shrub? Do certain environments promote longevity? There's good evidence that a lot of these plants that live a very long time tend to live in arid regions Jones said.
Conversely the researchers found no association between Vitamin e an antioxidantâ found in high levels in oils made from safflower sunflower and wheat germ as well as nuts and nut oils.
For fighting forest fires retardants consist primarily of ammonium compounds such as ammonium phosphate ammonium sulfate and others. These compounds are used also in agricultural fertilizers.
and other aquatic species causing a harmful algal bloom. These events reduce the amount of oxygen in a body of water
#Drought-Weakened Trees More Likely to Die in Fires Prolonged droughts are causing more trees to die in forest fires in the western United states according to a new study that looked at decades of controlled fire data.
but the theory is that xylem tubes (which carry water from the ground through the tree) are damaged by the fire
And monarch butterflies fight parasites by laying their eggs in toxic milkweed plants. Helping humans Animal medicine can be useful to humans in a variety of ways.
For instance bees collect plant resins with antifungal and antimicrobial properties and bring it back to their hives to help them fight infection.
since resin is sticky and hard to work with; this has made likely bees more prone to infection de Roode said.
One chemical in bee resin has been shown to have inhibitory effects against HIV-1 de Roode said.
and succulents about 3. 5 million years ago new research suggests. The new results published in several studies today (June 3) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) were found by analyzing the fraction of different carbon isotopes or atoms of the same chemical with different molecular weights
and fruits to foods derived from grasses and succulents. That could include grass seeds and underground roots and even termites or small scavenged animals
although the exact composition of the diet still remains a mystery. Â The findings suggest that beginning around the time of Lucy human ancestors seem to have transitioned from a fairly restricted diet to one with more variety
and that may have led to their diversification Sponheimer said. Lucy and her like they seem to be willing to eat just about anything Sponheimer told Livescience.
Though its large jaws were thought originally to be used for cracking nuts in fact now researchers believe they used their jaws to grind grasses and seeds.
The litter is ground to a pulp in their gizzard broken down and digested by their gut bacteria
The soil also houses bacteria and fungi that release carbon dioxide through their natural respiration. Â A lot of microbial ecologists have looked only at the bacteria
and fungi and not at the role of the earthworms that are said eating them Neher.
and through the rats inadvertently brought to the island that ate palm nuts before they could sprout into new trees.
Peppers and tobacco both belong to a family of plants called Solanaceae. As a result peppers be they red yellow
The hallmark signs are tremors slowness of movement stiffness of the arms legs or trunk and problems with balance.
Benefits associated with vegetables from the Solanaceae family seemed to be said fairly specific study researcher Susan Searles Nielsen an environmental and occupational health researcher at the University of Washington in Seattle.
The lotus leaf on the other hand maintains its squeaky clean reputation with a waxy surface structure that repels water a property called superhydrophobicity.
Combined with low adhesion this is known as the lotus effect. The September 2012 study published in the journal Soft Matter by Dr. Bhushan
and butterfly wings combine the low drag of shark skin with the superhydrophobicity of the lotus leaf putting these surfaces at the top of the list of nature-made self-cleaners.
and lotus leaves rice leaves and butterfly wings have special properties that make them particularly resistant to fouling.
They exhibited lotus-like properties including superhydrophobicity and low adhesion. This effect was magnified in coated samples
We are investigating methods to fabricate rice leaf and butterfly wing-inspired films for applications requiring low drag self-cleaning
Bushan's study on rice leaves and butterfly wings was titled Bioinspired rice leaf and butterfly wing surface structures combining shark skin
and lotus effects and was published online in the journal Soft Matter on September 11 2012. DOI:
and intentionally set fires that altered the vegetation and created a parklike landscape he said.
The team also found thousands of examples of wild barley wild wheat lentil and grass pea remains throughout the site some of the earliest evidence of agriculture in the world.
and contain forest fires could become a blueprint for fire management across California. The project which was developed in an experimental forest at the University of California at Berkeley's Sagehen Creek Field Station near Lake Tahoe in California creates pockets of thinner trees in areas where the fire risk is high
For instance giant sequoia cones are sealed by a glue that only melts in fire releasing their seeds.
But conflagrations like the recent Rim Fire California's fourth-largest wildfire in recorded history and the largest forest fire in the Sierra happen in part
because a century of fire suppression and replanting has left forests overgrown with thick underbrush
Hot fires scorch the earth burning seeds in the ground and the carbon in the soil and thus potentially changing the forest permanently.
Many areas are too steep to reach with bulldozers to rip out trees said Scott Conway a vegetation management officer with the U s. Forest Service in the Tahoe National Forest who is also involved with the project.
The King amendment is a sort of legislative kudzu so invasive and dangerous it could crowd out hundreds of state and local laws setting appropriate standards for agriculture.
This article was adapted from King Delivers Legislative Kudzu in Farm bill which first appeared as on the HSUS blog A Humane Nation.
and grass and sucked the juice of green stalks; at first he rejected bread. The story of the wild boy spread and in February 1726 King George i of England sent for him.
and spreading invasive weeds to carrying and transmitting more than 30 different kinds of diseases to humans livestock
Thanks to work by Keeley and his colleagues researchers now know techniques that work for firefighters in the Colorado mountains won't help Californians battling wind-driven wildfires in the chaparral.
Southwestern Wildfires Seen from Space Don't burn chaparral In California as the population sprawls the fires grow.
To protect homes local fire managers frequently set California's chaparral-covered hills ablaze. But the decades spent earnestly masticating (mechanically removing potential fire fuel) devil-red manzanitas with trunks as thick as thighs
and the repeated prescribed burns replaced native chaparral with incendiary invasive species like cheatgrass according to the USGS. The decades of effort were for naught finds a series of recent studies from the USGS and colleagues at the Conservation
Biology Institute and several research universities. Prescribed burning intended to remove dead wood and fuel before fire season does help control fires in Western conifer forests like the tall giants of Sequoia National park in Northern California.
But chaparral isn't forest. It's a dense carpet of woody shrubs: chamise ceonothus and other plants that cling to steep canyons and ridges.
I work in Sequoia National park and we've had a prescription burning program for the last 40 years
Unlike Western forests coastal chaparral and sage scrub may burn only once every 100 years and the inland ridges every 30 years.
Further tests revealed the shrubs are slow to regrow taking five 10 or even 20 years to flower and set new seed.
When chaparral erupts in flames every few years native species burn through their energy stores
and seed stock trying to recover said Rick Halsey director of the nonprofit California Chaparral Institute which advocates for preserving chaparral.
and said the natural fire regime in chaparral is anywhere from 50 to 150 years not 10 to 15 years.
Fighting fires with fuel Clearing chaparral for firebreaks a gap meant to slow spreading flames also does little to help fire fighters battle the chaotic infernos driven by California's Santa ana winds Fotheringham told Ouramazingplanet.
and in cleared chaparral act as kindling for flying embers said Fotheringham. The whirling winds carry embers as far as a mile in front of the actual wildfire.
when houses burn blown embers are at fault not trees or chaparral. The primary spread of fire where we lose houses under wind-driven conditions is from embers Fotheringham said.
With green vegetation you have to drive off the moisture before it will ignite. I got to looking around my yard and
A lot of what we have for urban vegetation is deciduous so in the fall the Santa ana wind-driven fires coincide with leaf drop.
It's a perfect storm. To really save homes Fotheringham wants Californians to spend their fall weekends cleaning the nooks and crannies around their homes.
and leaves hiding in roof shingles foundation cracks decorative shrubs and underneath decks. I get so fanatic that sometimes
The guidelines call for trimming branches keeping tall plants and shrubs away from buildings and spacing remaining trees
and bushes to prevent fire from spreading. Some residents scrape a moonscape around their homes removing all plants
and clearing the land to the dirt. But time after time in infernos created by Santa ana winds thousands of homes with defensible barriers burst into flames.
In fact the burning homes set their own shrubs and trees on fire. Raging Western Wildfires in Photos That's because clearing land encourages the growth of weeds flashy fuels that easily ignite from embers.
Instead of aggressive clearing a green fire barrier of irrigated wisely chosen shrubs and trees can help absorb heat
and deflect embers Halsey said. For the most up-to-date advice visit http://firecenter. berkeley. edu/toolkit.
and landscaping with fire-resistant vegetation will go a long way toward reducing future fire damage he said. We see the potential for improvements that can have as much impact as
but lays one pointy blue-green egg each year on the flat mossy branch of a redwood.
and berry bushes and campgrounds littered with tasty trash and crumbs. As humans spend more time in the forest the jay's numbers are booming.
instead choosing a flat branch covered in cozy moss and needles with cover to hide from airborne predators.
In spring 2010 and spring 2011 a team zip-tied hundreds of the copycat eggs to redwood-tree branches in several parks.
The bogus eggs were set low on branches to avoid drawing jays toward real murrelet eggs.
#Fish Poop Helps Spread Seagrass To spread and regenerate an important marine plant depends on animals to eat its seeds and poop them out around the ocean according to recent research.
Seeds from eelgrass a type of marine grass found around the world can survive and germinate after being eaten by three types of fish one turtle
and one type of bird said Sarah Sumoski a researcher at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science
It's hard to understate the importance of eelgrass and other seagrasses which globally can store up to twice as much carbon as the world's temperate and tropical forests according to a separate study.
This is potentially important as humans pump more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Eelgrass meadows which grow on the ocean floor in shallow waters also help shelter many different types of fish
and crabs and serve as food for animals as diverse as manatees and ducks Sumoski told Ouramazingplanet.
By hitching a ride in these animals'digestive tracts the grasses'seeds can travel long distances establishing far-flung seagrass meadows.
Sumoski's study found that a type of diving duck called the lesser scaup can transport seeds more than 12 miles (19.5 kilometers;
after this journey the seeds can still sprout Sumoski said. This is the first study to show how these seeds fare
when eaten by multiple types of animals said Sumoski. The ability of some of the seeds to sprout after being eaten surprised Sumoski she said especially in the case of one fish species which commonly feed on the grasses
and are equipped well to break down plant material. The study's results will help Sumoski and co-author Robert Orth in their efforts to reintroduce eelgrass to Virginia's coastal bays.
In the 1930s an outbreak of wasting disease and an enormous hurricane virtually wiped out these eelgrass beds which provide a bedrock for marine life.
The environmental impact was so great that bay scallops (a type of shellfish) disappeared; until that time the scallops had supported a significant local fishery.
 For the last 15 years Orth and a large group of collaborators have planted eelgrass shoots and millions of seeds throughout the coastal bays.
Now more than 6. 6 square miles (17 square km) of lush eelgrass meadows line these bays according to a release from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science.
Animals consuming seeds in one location and then excreting them in another location where they can germinate is said not new Matt Harwell a seagrass ecologist who was involved not in the study.
However it is a new finding for a seagrass species that is found across much of the world.
and resilience of a seagrass meadow to stresses especially since recent estimates suggest that seagrass loss globally is around 7 percent per year.
The trees and shrubs that live in these regions can thrive in salty water shifting sands
and hot temperatures and tree roots trap sediments slowing the lapping of water and allowing other life to flourish.
The disease made its way through fresh produce of raspberries lettuce basil and snow peas which were imported mostly from countries where the disease is endemic.
In excreted fecal matter Cyclospora exists in the form of oocysts (a thick-walled structure containing immature dormant parasite spores) a product of sexual reproduction of the parasite.
Within two weeks the spores mature making the oocysts infectious. Neither the natural environments of this process nor the exact manner of transmission are known yet
Quicker melting in forests was unrelated also to the tree well phenomenon familiar to skiers the well of soft snow that forms around a tree trunk sheltered by branches.
A species called the mountain pine beetle is one of the primary culprits leaving large swaths of forest dying of a fungus carried by the tiny insects.
(because there is less vegetation to suck up precipitation) as well as released additional carbon and nitrogen from dead decaying trees.
In Wyoming the understory plant cover which includes new tree seedlings shrubs and flowers more than doubled Ewers found.
and they eat leaves buds and branches from mimosa and acacia trees. Their height helps them reach food well above where other animals can reach.
Because they get just a few leaves in every bite they spend most of their day eating Acacia trees have long thorns that deter most animals but not giraffes.
Their 18-inch (46-centimeter) tongues can reach around the thorns and their thick sticky saliva coats any thorns they might swallow.
The dark blue-gray color of a giraffe's tongue helps protect it from sunburn while the giraffe is reaching for tree leaves.
and they eat a wide variety of plants including grasses shrubs tree leaves and shoots.
and shrubs and chew them again before swallowing. They also have specialized highly teeth. Their molars fall out regularly from the wear and tear of their plant-based diet
which helps them grip tree branches. Their thickly padded tail helps them sit for hours in trees.
Leopards can drag three times their own body weight up to tree branches over 20 feet (6 meters) high.
they even sleep sprawled out on tree branches. Â Other resources: IUCN Red List: Leopards Catalogue of Life:
Much of a moose's energy is maintained by eating flowering plants and fresh shoots from trees such as willow and birch.
and moose generally need to consume a good quantity of aquatic plants to make up for it.
Burrowers Funnel spiders pick moist and sheltered places to build their burrows like under rocks or logs or in shrubbery.
They typically live in rotting holes in the bark and build silk trip wires outside the holes to alert themselves to prey.
and bits of bark are used to disguise the entrance. Their dwellings have been found as much as 30 meters off the ground.
#Gangly Gerenuk Born at Denver Zoo The Denver Zoo welcomed an adorable baby gerenuk named Blossom this month.
Blossom has begun just venturing out into her yard and thoroughly enjoys it as she runs
Blossom is also Layla's first calf and she is proving to be a very attentive mother frequently making sure to clean
and check on Blossom. The word gerenuk appropriately means giraffe-necked in the Somali language.
and to make simple herbal medicines. George became fascinated by plants and was soon experimenting with natural pesticides fungicides and soil conditioners.
and flowers his instructor Etta Budd encouraged him to apply to Iowa State Agricultural School (now Iowa State university) to study Botany.
Working as director of the Iowa State Experimental Station Carver discovered two types of fungi which were named subsequently for him.
and had excellent nitrogen fixating properties to improve soil depleted by growing cotton. He took his lessons to former slaves turned sharecroppers by inventing the Jessup Wagon a horse-drawn classroom
Farmers were ecstatic with the large cotton crops resulting from the cotton/peanut rotation but were less enthusiastic about the huge surplus of peanuts that built up
Fear of something is at the root of hate for others and hate within will eventually destroy the hater.
Herbal remedies for GERD include licorice slippery elm and chamomile although rigorous studies herbal remedies for GERD are lacking.
Excess weight will put pressure on the stomach pushing more acid into the throat so doctors often recommend overweight patients lose weight to prevent heartburn.
and though they have a number of common characteristics including distinctive cinnamon-red bark they are different species. One giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) known as General Sherman is the world's largest tree
Mature sequoias lack branches on the lower half of their trunks. Sequoia trunks taper as they rise forming a rounded top where individual branches sweep downward.
Their green leaves are small scale-like and arranged in spirals. Both male and females cones are carried on the same tree e
#Giant sequoias at Risk from California Fire A raging forest fire sweeping toward Yosemite national park in California may threaten giant sequoia trees.
One of the world's tallest trees giant sequoias have evolved to withstand frequent forest fires experts say.
Protected by bark up to 3 feet (90 centimeters) thick sequoias also drop their lower branches
and fallen debris such as leaf litter thus leaving room for sequoia seedlings to sprout and grow.
Black burn scars that hollow out the living giants attest to their resistance to flames. A 1993 study published in the journal Science examined these scars
But I think the Rim Fire those kind of fire intensities are just not something that's been typical in the past Parsons told Livescience Recognizing the threat forest fires pose to giant sequoias the National park service started prescribed burns in giant sequoia groves beginning in the 1960s.
Prescribed burns remove the undergrowth and dead matter on the forest floor that can fuel a ground fire.
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