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When Lily Allen discovered a tarantula in her bed

May 14, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

London, May 14 (ANI): Singer Lilly Allen has revealed how she was terrified after discovering a tarantula in her bed during her recent trip to the Amazon rainforest.

The songstress spent a week in the Brazilian state of Acre filming a documentary for the World Wildlife Fund charity in a bid to publicize the need for conservation efforts.

But the British singer admits she wasn”t a fan of the area”s scary populace.

“I”ve been there (Brazil) a few times on tour but only to like Rio and Sao Paulo,” the Daily Star quoted her as telling Sky news.

“It was really nice to go up to the rainforest – even though there was a tarantula in my bed one evening, which was slightly terrifying. I just screamed and ran out of the room.”

A report in The Sun newspaper documents Allen”s terror at her confrontation with the critter – she sprinted from the hut, screaming: “There”s a f**king tarantula in my room! It”s about the size of my hand.” (ANI)

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Generous Hefner saves ‘HOLLYWOOD’ with $900k-donation

April 27, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

London, April 27 (ANI): Playboy magazine’s founder Hugh Hefner has saved the Hollywood sign by donating 900,000 dollars needed to prevent a development that would block the famous landmark on Hollywood hills.

Built in 1923, the sign is 450ft-long. The land on which it stands was recently put on sale. It was being feared that developers would buy the land to build grand homes.

Public Trust For Lands, an NPO, launched a campaign to purchase the 138-acre site known as Cahuenga Peak. The trust needed to raise 12.5 million dollars for the possession, reports The Telegraph.

And Hefner’s charity made them reach their target soon.

“My childhood dreams and fantasies came from the movies, and the images created in Hollywood had a major influence on my life and Playboy. The Hollywood sign is Hollywood”s Eiffel Tower and I”m pleased to help preserve such an important cultural landmark,” Hefner said.

It was “the Hollywood ending we hoped for,” California”s governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said, announcing the conclusion of the campaign.

“It”s a symbol of dreams and opportunity. The Hollywood sign will welcome dreamers, artists and Austrian bodybuilders for generations to come. I did what the Terminator was supposed to do, and that was to jump into action,” Schwarzenegger added. (ANI)

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Charlotte Church drops diamond engagement ring down plughole!

April 21, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

London, April 21 (ANI): Welsh singer/songwriter Charlotte Church is said to have flown into a tizzy when her new diamond engagement ring dropped down a plughole while she was washing her hands.

Church, 24, was left horrified when the ring disappeared in a bathroom basin at the Welsh farmhouse she shares with rugby star fiance Gavin Henson, who was not at home at the time.

Plumber Andy Ward was about to set off on holiday when he got the frantic call to Church’s 20-acre home at St Brides Major, near Bridgend.

“The ring was trapped in the U-bend and Andy found it within minutes. Charlotte was incredibly relieved,” the Mirror quoted a friend as saying.

The mum-of-two had been given the ring by Henson, 28, after her 24th birthday in February.

The two plan to marry on an island hideaway. (ANI)

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Meet Prince Charles and Camilla, the ‘wedding planners’!

September 20, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, Sept 20 (ANI): Prince Charles and wife Camilla are turning wedding planners and “loaning out” their country retreat of Highgrove House to wannabe brides and grooms.

And included in the package will be the royal couple’s shared “expertise”.

Like Charles and Camilla did at their Windsor wedding four years ago, couples will be encouraged to “keep it simple”, say reports.

As per rumours, the first pair to enjoy a “Charles and Camilla wedding” are TV babe Jenni Falconer and her actor fiancé James Midgley, reports The Daily Star.

A royal source said: “Obviously with it being their house they would want control of the event. But they also recognise what a great opportunity it would be to showcase their home.

“Highgrove is an absolutely fantastic building and would make a wonderful venue for a wedding and reception.”

The nine-bedroom country house on a 37-acre estate near Tetbury, Gloucestershire, was bought for Charles in 1980.

A source said: “Charles is hugely proud of Highgrove. It’s a wonderful property and he has spent thousands of pounds on the gardens and grounds. I’m sure by holding weddings there Charles would take great pleasure being the host.

“And he could use them to promote the Duchy Originals organic products he’s involved with.” (ANI)

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Pakistan’s rocket-shelling plunges market price of land beyond border

September 17, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Chak Allah Bakhash (Punjab), Sept. 15 (ANI): The prices of farming land have plunged following past week’s rocket-shelling incident in the India-Pakistan border villages.

Local farmers say that it was already quite tough to find buyers for the land situated beyond fencing and the latest rocket-shelling incident has caused the prices to drop further.

Fenced from three sides, Village Chak Allah Bakhash at the International border has nearly 150 acres of land beyond fencing.

Balwinder Kaur, one of the natives in village Chak Allah Bakhash, said that it was already difficult for her to meet the daily expenditure.

Sucha Singh, another villager, said: “My family owns a piece of land across fencing and has been facing many difficulties while cultivating the land at the border. There are no takers for our land.”

Nearly 553 km long barbed fencing of the Punjab border along side Pakistan resulted in thousands of acres of land being left beyond fencing.

The price of the land spread before fencing line is nearly three times higher than the vast land spread beyond the fencing.

An acre of land, located before fencing, is available for approximately 600,000 to 10,00,000 rupees whereas more fertile land, located beyond the fencing, is worth about 200,000 to 300,000 rupees per acre.

Mandatory frisking by security men at the border gates of the fence and restricted working hours and few objections could be some of the reasons for a lesser price of land beyond fencing.

The farmers are worried that it would be difficult to find buyers for their lands. By Ravinder Singh Robin (ANI)

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Cities trap more CO2 than rain forests

September 10, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, September 9 (ANI): A surprising new study has found that cities trap more carbon dioxide (CO2) than rain forests.

According to a report in National Geographic News, compared with tropical rain forests, cities store more carbon, acre for acre, in their trees, buildings, and dirt.

“Everyone thinks about the tropical forests, but I don’t think people consider cities as a way to store carbon,” said study leader Galina Churkina of the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research in Germany.

“Although a lot of studies have focused on carbon in forests, grasslands, and other natural ecosystems, looking at cities-which now house half of the world’s population-is relatively new,” Churkina said.

Intentionally storing carbon in cities could be one approach to counter global warming, she added.

Churkina and colleagues pulled together previous evidence looking at various stores of organic carbon, which comes from living things, as well as from such as plants and animals, wood, dirt, and even garbage.

Cities, including both dense metropolises and sprawling suburbs, store about a tenth of all the carbon in U.S. ecosystems, the study estimated.

In total, U.S. cities contain about 20 billion tons of organic carbon, mostly in dirt, according to the new study.

Some of this carbon-rich topsoil is in parks and under lawns, but it’s also sealed underneath buildings and roads-a remnant of grasslands or forests that were there before development.

Of all this urban carbon, about three billion tons are locked up in human-made materials-two-thirds of it in garbage dumps, and the rest in building materials such as wood.

Many cities have already launched ambitious plans for turning gray to green, such as Los Angeles’ Million Trees LA project, which aims to plant a million trees in the Californian city over several years.

Trees take up CO2 and turn it into carbon in their trunks, branches, and leaves, so planting more trees helps counter some of the excess CO2 in the air.

Likewise trees also cool cities and reduce the need for air-conditioning, according to urban forest expert David Nowak of the U.S. Forest Service in Syracuse, New York.

By planting trees around buildings, he added, “you avoid about four times more CO2 emissions than the trees sequester.”

Study leader Churkina added, “people could (also) try to store more carbon in gardens by smart management of the land. The carbon storage in lawns is quite amazing.” (ANI)

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Oxford University in land-grabbing row for its Indian campus

August 30, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, Aug 30 (ANI): Oxford University’s first overseas campus in India, which is going to be set up in Lavasa near Pune, has been embroiled in a land grabbing row, with accusations of human rights violations against the land developers.

Oxford’s outgoing vice-chancellor, John Hood, has been a strong backer of the Lavasa venture, described by the university as its first overseas campus.

Oxford has struck a preliminary deal with Ajit Gulab-chand, chairman of the company that controls Lavasa, to endow a chair at the Said Business School in Oxford for a reported 7.4 million pounds, The Times reported.

The Indian developers of the 12,500-acre Lavasa site have been accused of forcing farmers into selling their land and of pressing them to accept low prices. They have also been accused of worsening deforestation by cutting down millions of trees.

Medha Patkar, a human rights activist at the forefront of villagers’ campaign, described Lavasa as a “land grab”.

“People are threatened … made to feel like criminals. They cannot survive there unless they submit so they sell their land for the prices offered. They are continually asking them to leave. They say, ‘Give away your land, give away your land’.”

Oxford plans to offer courses for Indian executives in an education centre in Lavasa, a privately managed city modelled on hill stations built during the British rule,The Times reported.

Lavasa is to be home to 200,000 middle-class Indians and include resorts, educational and sports facilities including a golf course designed by Nick Faldo. The first of its four settlements, Dasve, is due to open next year.

Oxford will not offer degrees in the planned 15-20 million pounds education center, but Rajgopal Nogja, president of Lavasa Corporation, said he hoped 5,000 students would study there in its first five years.

He said Lord Patten, Oxford’s chancellor, had been enthusiastic about the plan in a visit two years ago. “It’s going to be the best building in my city, timeless architecture for the best university in the world,” the paper quoted Nogja, as saying. (ANI)

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Holidaying Obama sets himself grueling reading schedule of 2,300 pages

August 26, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Martha’s Vineyard (Virginia, US), Aug. 26 (ANI): US President Barack Obama has kicked off his vacation by revealing that, in addition to endless games of tennis and golf, he plans to read five books or an astonishing 2,300 pages.

His summer reading list, unveiled by a White House apparently keen to emphasise Obama’s highbrow credentials, contains two heavyweight works of non-fiction and three novels, The Independent reports.

On top of the pile stacked on Barack and Michelle’s bedside table at the 28-acre estate they have rented for 35,000 dollars is “Hot, Flat and Crowded”, the climate change polemic by New York Times columnist, Thomas Friedman. Subtitled “why we need a green revolution”, it makes a leftish call to arms regarding the future of the planet.

Obama’s second choice is historian David McCullough’s magisterial biography of John Adams, the often underrated second US president, who was the subject of an award-winning HBO docu-drama last year.

The novels include two crime thrillers: Richard Price’s Lush Life, and The Way Home, a novel by George Pelecanos set in Washington, DC – which, much like Obama’s best-selling autobiography, explores the relationship between a father and his son.

Completing the set is the novel Plainsong, by a little-known writer called Kent Haruf. Set in a small town on the Colorado plains, its existence on the reading list may reassure voters that their metropolitan commander-in-chief has not ignored Middle America.

The books were unveiled to reporters on Monday afternoon, at an official press briefing.

President Obama has already spent a portion of his week so far playing golf, beating Michelle at tennis, and visiting friends.

To finish all five books, he would have to manage more than 300 pages every day – quite an “ask” when a small portion of his time must also be spent running the country. (ANI)

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Jallianwala Bagh | Jallianwala Bagh Massacre | Jallianwala Bagh – 13th April 1919

August 14, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Jallianwala Bagh | Jallianwala Bagh Massacre | Jallianwala Bagh – 13th April 1919

Jallianwala Bagh is a public garden in Amritsar in the Punjab province of India, and houses a memorial of national importance, established in 1951 to commemorate the murder of peaceful celebrators on the occasion of the Punjabi New Year on April 13, 1919 in the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre.

Official British Raj sources placed the fatalities at 379, and with 1100 wounded. Civil Surgeon Dr. Smith indicated that there were 1,526 casualties. The true figures of fatalities are unknown, but are likely to be higher than the official figure of 379.

The 6.5-acre (26,000 m2) garden site of the massacre is located in the vicinity of Golden Temple complex, the holiest shrine of Sikhism.

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Moonwalker Jackson gets Moon crater named after him

July 8, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, July 8 (ANI): Late King of Pop Michael Jackson, whose moonwalk was a dancing phenomenon in itself, has got the ultimate tribute, for a crater on the Moon has now been named after him.

In what could be called as a heavenly tribute, the Lunar Republic Society has said that the Moonwalker has made his mark on the moon.

The news came as the singer’s family, friends, and fans celebrated his life at the Staples Center in Los Angeles on July 7, reports the Daily Express.

The crater, previously named Posidonius J, is located in the Moon’s Lake of Dreams, and is close to a 1,200-acre parcel purchased by Michael Jackson.

The ‘Thriller’ hit-maker passed away last month, after suffering a cardiac arrest at his Los Angeles home. (ANI)

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Neverland won’t become a grieving place for Jacko fans

July 8, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, July 7 (ANI): Late Michael Jackson’s beloved Neverland ranch is not going to become a grieving mecca for his fans, reveals an insider.

The real estate firm overseeing the 2,700-acre ranch has already received bids from several billionaires, and even turned down a 65million pounds offer to develop the property.

“All the offers are from individual billionaires. Neverland is not going to be sold to a corporation and become a company retreat,” The Daily Express quoted a senior executive at Colony Capital as saying.

Colony became Neverland’s joint owner with the Jackson estate in 2008, when it bought the 15million pounds debt on the property, for saving the superstar from losing his home.

However, earlier, wealthy neighbours, who include actress Bo Derek and musician David Crosby, have vigorously opposed any development in the area. (ANI)

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Jacko to make last journey to Neverland ranch

July 1, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, July 1 (ANI): Late King of Pop Michael Jackson is all set to make his final journey to his former home Neverland ranch, where his body will lie in state so that thousands of grieving fans can say their goodbyes.

His coffin will be driven through Los Angeles, and will make a 130-mile journey to Neverland-the site of the superstar’s former fantasy home.

It is believed that the ‘Thriller’ star’s body will be displayed in a glass coffin on Friday, and might be buried at the ranch at the weekend.

Reports have suggested that Jacko’s coffin will make its last trip to his beloved playground home in an amazing fairytale carriage.

However, the Jackson family is not divulging any details about the white horse-drawn coach The white horse-drawn coach is being kept under wraps until Jacko’s coffin is tenderly lifted on to it.

A Jackson family source revealed that they want Michael to “look like a prince” as fans pay their last respects, and the carriage is set to be the focal point in part of the star’s last journey.

It is expected that huge crowds of fans will come out to watch the King of Pop’s coffin taken through the streets of Los Angeles on July 2.

A 30-car motorcade will then make the drive to the remote 2,800-acre site of Neverland in Santa Barbara County.

Jacko, who died aged 50 on June 25, will lie in state for public viewing at his fantasy property on Friday.

“Details are still being finalised. The family will make an announcement soon,” British tabloid The Sun quoted a source as saying.

“The family want to give him a really special send off. They want the carriage to be a surprise for everyone. They want it to add a wow factor to the day. It is being kept hidden and is top secret.

“Thursday will be his final, grand journey from Los Angeles to Neverland. Friday will be the big public event, with fans able to pay their respects.

“Michael always said Neverland kept him young. It seems fitting. On Sunday there will be a memorial service for his family and close friends to mourn in private,” added the source. (ANI)

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Jacko to make last journey to Neverland ranch

July 1, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

His coffin will be driven through Los Angeles, and will make a 130-mile journey to Neverland-the site of the superstar’s former fantasy home.

It is believed that the ‘Thriller’ star’s body will be displayed in a glass coffin on Friday, and might be buried at the ranch at the weekend.

Reports have suggested that Jacko’s coffin will make its last trip to his beloved playground home in an amazing fairytale carriage.

However, the Jackson family is not divulging any details about the white horse-drawn coach
The white horse-drawn coach is being kept under wraps until Jacko’s coffin is tenderly lifted on to it.

It is expected that huge crowds of fans will come out to watch the King of Pop’s coffin taken through the streets of Los Angeles on July 2.

A 30-car motorcade will then make the drive to the remote 2,800-acre site of Neverland in Santa Barbara County.

Jacko, who died aged 50 on June 25, will lie in state for public viewing at his fantasy property on Friday.

“Details are still being finalised. The family will make an announcement soon,” British tabloid The Sun quoted a source as saying.

“The family want to give him a really special send off. They want the carriage to be a surprise for everyone. They want it to add a wow factor to the day. It is being kept hidden and is top secret.

“Thursday will be his final, grand journey from Los Angeles to Neverland. Friday will be the big public event, with fans able to pay their respects.

“Michael always said Neverland kept him young. It seems fitting. On Sunday there will be a memorial service for his family and close friends to mourn in private,” added the source.(ANI)

Queen ‘rents out part of royal forest to Harry Potter filmmakers’

June 27, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, June 27 (ANI): Queen Elizabeth II has reportedly rented out part of a huge forest near Windsor Castle for the filming of a Harry Potter movie.he shooting for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the final part of the series, will allegedly take place in the woodlands over the next two months.

Entire sections of the 2,600-acre Swinley Forest in Berkshire, 12 miles from Windsor Castle, were reportedly sealed off for the filming, reports The Sun.

Staff from the Crown Estate had purportedly inked a lucrative deal with producers Warner Brothers though the amount remained unknown.

The Monarch, who was said to a huge fan of the hit wizard series, was also said to be “delighted”. (ANI)

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Agriculture on the way ‘up’ for next 10 years

June 27, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, June 25 (ANI): A new research has indicated that despite certain uncertainties, ‘up’ is precisely the direction an Iowa State researcher believes agriculture is headed for at least the next 10 years.

Wally Huffman, professor in agricultural economics and Charles F. Curtiss Distinguished Professor in Agriculture and Life Sciences, predicts that supply will go up, demand will go up, and real prices of grain and oilseeds also will go up.

“I’m very optimistic about the next 10 years,” said Huffman.

Huffman presented his research to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris, France, last month.

An important part of Huffman’s study was the long-term trend of corn and soybean yields in Iowa, wheat in Kansas and France, rice in Japan and potatoes in the Netherlands. Huffman examined the trends and then made projections about the next decade.

The optimism starts with the producers.

“Prices right now for corn and soybeans are up about 50 percent relative to two years ago, so those are relatively good prices,” said Huffman. “That’s good news for grain producers,” he added.

The impact that the rising demand for biofuels will have on the market for agricultural products is not entirely clear, but grain and oilseed prices will generally be higher than they would be without biofuels.

“Overall, biofuels are probably a good thing for farmers,” said Huffman. “However, there will be more erratic variation in grain and oilseed prices than there would be without biofuels,” he added.

According to Huffman, while biofuels are pushing demand for grain and oilseeds up, the long-term trend in supply of grain and oilseeds is due to new technologies that are being developed by the private sector and marketed to farmers.

“Supply is going up, and demand is going up. I think they will grow at a similar pace,” he said.

“There will be occasional spikes due to bad weather and abrupt restriction in crude oil production, but prices will come down. When they do, they will come down to similar levels to what they are now in real terms, and those are pretty good prices,” he added.

Huffman also predicts that the rate of increase in yields for corn and soybeans in major production areas will rise much faster than it has in the past 50 years.

“From 2010 to 2019, corn yields are going to increase quite substantially, maybe at four to six bushels, per acre, per year,” he said. (ANI)

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CJP Chaudhry to set-up commission to probe loot sale

May 15, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Islamabad, May 15 (ANI): Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry is considering to set up a commission to investigate a “loot sale” of public property worth millions at throwaway prices.

“In my 20-year career, I have seen a loot sale of land belonging to the ETPB, railways and the CDA and we are considering constituting a commission to probe why public property worth millions is being sold at throwaway prices just like that,” The Dawn quoted CJP Chaudhry, as saying.

CJP Chaudhry is heading a bench, which had taken suo motu notice of the sale of land at a low price by the Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB) in Karachi.

The bench had been constituted on a note sent by Justice Jilani stating that public property worth billions was likely to be sold at a very low price. The current price of property in the area was estimated at 50 million rupees per acre.

The court also ordered ETPB Chairman Syed Asif Hashmi not to sell even an inch of the land that constituted national heritage.

Zafar Hussain Faridi, who claims to be the owner of 314 acres of land, alleged that 240 acres of his land had been taken over by the Karachi Development Authority (KDA) and now encroached upon.

Sources told Dawn that the dispute dates back to 1964 when the ETPB had taken over the Pinjaroport Trust land in 1964.

The KDA acquired a portion of the land to develop deh Okay Wari, Gulshan-i-Iqbal and Surjani Town. Since the KDA allegedly failed to pay the cost of the land to the ETPB, its pieces were allotted to different people by the trust.

In the early 1980s, Faridi secured power of attorney of 49 acres from 12 people who are now dead. He later approached a tribunal with a claim on 314 acres.

The Sindh High Court, it ordered the department concerned to grant the challan of survey No.55 and 56 to Faridi at the rate of 300,000 rupees per acre of encroached land and 500,000 rupees for unoccupied land.

ETPB’s counsel Iftikhar Javed Qazi said Faridi failed to pay the total amount. He only paid 5.1 million rupees out of the total amount of 115 million rupees. (ANI)

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Fergie’s priority – to find replacements for Giggs, Scholes

May 4, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, May 3 (ANI): Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson will leave behind a young squad with Wayne Rooney in the vanguard and the opportunity for his successor to take United on even further.

But his top priority will be to find replacements for the ageing Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs. That will be his transfer market priorities in his remaining time at the club.

He will also want to add an extra layer of quality to his forward line – especially if Carlos Tevez leaves.

United’s continuing dominance is not the only lasting impact their manager will leave his replacement. His success can be measured in bricks and mortar with the 75,000 capacity Old Trafford a testimony to the success Fergie has achieved.

United are buying up parcels of land which will enable them to expand the stadium even further. They already own a number of warehouses and also the 26-acre Manchester International Freight Terminal. But the new land grab is designed to increase stadium capacity to 95,000, reports The Sun. (ANI)

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Court stays Delhi plan to turn marshland into housing site

April 22, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

New Delhi, April 20 (IANS) The Delhi High Court Monday stayed a state government plan to convert two water bodies into land for residential projects in Jahangirpuri here.

Hearing a petition filed by voluntary organisation Tapas, Justices Mukul Mudgal and Vipin Sanghi stayed the order of Chief Secretary Rakesh Mehta that said ‘the marshland in Jahangirpuri cannot be termed as a water body and the same shall be considered as per the land use plan of Master Plan Delhi 2021′.

The petition alleged that the state government wanted to convert one of the largest water bodies in north Delhi into a concrete jungle for residential purposes.

The state committee on water bodies headed by Mehta last year maintained that in the government’s revenue record nearly 100 of the 300 acre marshland in Jahangirpuri was ‘never a water body but ‘banjar kadim’ (land not fit for cultivation)’.

Taking exception, the court said, ‘The scope of authority vested in the chief secretary, as part of the nodal agency, is to make efforts for revival of water bodies. Prima facie, the scope of his authority did not include determining whether a particular water body exists or not.’

The court also issued a notice to the Delhi government to respond by the first week of May.

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ArcelorMittal’s Orissa, Jharkhand steel projects delayed by two years

April 18, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

The LN Mittal-controlled company, ArcelorMittal, is reportedly holding up its $20-25 billion proposed steel projects in Orissa and Jharkhand, largely because of the global economic crisis that has weakened demand for steel. As such, the world’s biggest steelmaker’s pending payment to the state government, for a 1,500-acre land earmarked for the proposed facility, will also be delayed.

Talking to reporters on the sidelines of a steel industry seminar organized the FICCI – Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry – the ArcelorMittal’s India operations head, Vijay Bhatnagar, said that that company had no intentions of cancelling either of the projects, and the delay was a result of “changed priorities.”

Bhatnagar cited “economic downturn” as the “top reason” for the delay in the projects. He added that the other reason was “procedural delays and the cycle times have been much more to get land and mining resources” than anticipated.

Prior to the announced delay, the India-born, London-based entrepreneur Mittal had said that the groundbreaking for both Orissa and Jharkand projects – the company’s only greenfield steel plants globally; each with an overall 12 million tonnes per annum steel capacity – will kick off by end-2009 and production would begin by 2014.

However, Bhatnagar specified that, in the present economic scenario, “greenfield steel projects certainly do not top the list.”

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How fast climate warming could kill drought-stressed trees

April 14, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, April 14 (ANI): Scientists have discovered in experiments that the widespread die-off of drought-stressed trees across the southwestern United States during future droughts will occur at least five times faster if climate warms by 4 degrees Celsius.

The experiments were conducted at the University of Arizona’s Biosphere 2.

According to the scientists, quantitative information on how sensitive drought-stressed trees are to hotter temperatures is critical for predicting drastic, sudden and widespread die-offs.
University of Arizona (UA) researchers and their colleagues transported 20 reproductively mature pinon pine trees from New Mexico to Biosphere 2′s glass-enclosed 3.14-acre living laboratory near Oracle, Arizona, for the experiment.

Half the trees were kept in an area at temperatures normal for pinon pine. Half were kept in an area warmer by 4 degrees Celsius, or about 7 degrees Fahrenheit.

Once the trees were established, researchers deprived some of them of water.

Drought killed the trees at the higher temperature 28 percent faster than it killed the trees at the cooler temperature.

When the researchers extrapolated this temperature effect to the region’s 100-year historical drought record, they found that widespread pinon pine die-offs can be predicted to occur five times more frequently because of the higher temperature alone, without factoring in predictions for worsening drought, insect attack or other consequences of climate change.

“What was really striking is that all the trees in the warmer research area died first,” said Henry Adams of UA’s ecology and evolutionary biology department, who headed the experiment.

“It’s the kind of data that you don’t have to do statistics on, because the numbers don’t overlap. The results say that if the climate is warmer, then it takes a shorter drought to kill the trees. And there are many more shorter droughts than longer droughts in the historical record,” he added.

Regional tree die-off changes the landscape so much that it can have profound implications that include changes in nitrogen and other soil nutrients, hydrology, erosion, landscape reflectivity or ‘albedo’, release of stored carbon into the atmosphere, and wildlife habitat, according to Adams.

“The Biosphere 2 experiment is a critical next step to understanding how global climate change can trigger large-scale vegetation change on dramatically short timescales,” said professor David D. Breshears of UA’s School of Natural Resources, a scientist on the Biosphere 2 experiment.

“This study gives us a measure of how sensitive trees are to temperature,” he added. (ANI)

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