It's Friday: Here's Your Week in Trees
December 21, 2012 at 2:30 pm by Amanda Cooke
Happy winter solstice! Today is the day when our sun appears to make its lowest, quickest trek across the sky, resulting in the shortest day of 2012 and the official start of winter. Learn more about the winter solstice [Mother Nature Network].
Here's your other earth-related news from around the world:
- Ticks the season? According to a Norwegian professor, 25,000 insects, mites, and spiders are sound asleep inside your Christmas tree [ScienceDaily]
- Mistletoe, still widely known as the “thief of trees” for its vampiric tendencies, may in fact help restore some damaged forests back to health [The New York Times]
- Ever wonder how plants like holly and yule logs became part of holidays and traditions? [USDA Blog]
- Norway seeks to slow deforestation as a strategy for climate "first aid" [Reuters]
- This leucistic robin has a Santa beard. FYI leucism, different than albinism, is a condition characterized by reduced pigmentation in animals [Wildlife Extra]
- Speaking of adorable fauna, Australia's tiny Leadbeater’s possum lives only in mountain ash forests, which are threatened by unsustainable logging practices [Scientific American]
- "Instead of giving us money, please give us forests,” an elephant breeder in Vietnam said this week [VietNamNet]
- Here's a cool slideshow about the potential return of the American chestnut [The Guardian UK]
- The U.S. wildfire burn area is expected to double in acreage by 2050 [Huffington Post, h/t toSeyden.net]
- Do palm trees hold the key to immortality? [ScienceDaily]
- Thigpen Tree Farm: "One of the best-managed loblolly pine stands I've seen" [AFF Blog]
- Read Tom Martin's statement on the U.S. Forest Service's 'Future of America’s Forest and Rangelands' assessment [AFF Newsroom]
Photo taken by Nate Irby during a field day on Thigpen Tree Farm in Mississippi.
