Silver Scorpio - International News | Spot News | Top News | Flash News | Live News
July 19 (Reuters) – India’s market regulator’s takeover panel on Monday recommended hiking the open offer trigger to 25 percent from 15 percent.
It also recommended raising the minimum open offer size to 100 percent from 20 percent currently.
(Reporting by Prashant Mehra & Aniruddha Basu; editing by Malini Menon)
July 1 (Reuters) – Sweden’s central bank is seen raising interest rates at a slightly faster pace than previously expected over the next year, a survey of money market players showed on Thursday.
The TNS Prospera survey of players active in the Swedish fixed income market, commissioned by the Riksbank, showed the central bank’s key interest rate at 1.4 percent in 12 months and 2.4 percent in two years.
The outcome compared with the previous money managers’ poll, published in June, which showed expectations for a repo rate of 1.3 percent in 12 months and 2.4 percent in two years.
The key repo rate is currently at a record-low of 0.25 percent. The central bank will publish its rate-setting decision at 0730 GMT.
(Reuters) – An 11-year-old American boy, hiking with his family on Table Mountain, South Africa, fell to his death on Saturday, Cape Town city officials said on Sunday.
U.S.
A rescue services spokesman said the boy slipped while climbing up a tricky section of Skeleton Gorge, falling into a stream.
The unidentified boy, who was with his brother, mother and father, was declared dead at the scene.
Thousands of tourists have flocked to South Africa to watch the continent’s first soccer World Cup, and Table Mountain is among the most popular tourist destinations in the country.
(Reporting by Wendell Roelf)
New York, Aug 20 (ANI): American actress Lauren Conrad has revealed that she got back her bikini shape body only after she lost all the pounds she had put on during romantic dinners out with boyfriend actor Kyle Howard.
Conrad, 23, admits in Shape magazine that she got a little “soft around the middle” early in her romance with Howard, 31.
“I call it the ‘boyfriend layer’,” the New York Daily News quoted her as saying.
“We were having more romantic dinners out, and I was exercising less,” she said.
The actress also reveals in the issue, which features her on its cover and which will be out in September, how she lost her pounds.
“I just ask Kyle, ‘You feel like working out?’” she said.
“We like doing outdoor stuff: tennis, bike riding, kayaking, surfing, hiking. It’s more fun than hitting the gym alone,” she added. (ANI)
New York, June 30 (ANI): The Argentine mistress of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, Maria Belen Chapur, has admitted that she was the woman who drew the rising GOP star away from the country for six days earlier this month.
Aides to the Republican governor had explained his absence by saying that he was hiking the Appalachian Trail.
She issued a short statement to Buenos Aires’ C5N TV station, tacitly admitting to the affair.
“Of my private life I won’t speak, not now or in the future. It’s been made public enough already, a fact that causes me terrible discomfort,” the statement said.
Chapur, a 41-year-old mother of two, said she had firm suspicions of who hacked into her e-mail and leaked steamy exchanges between her and the governor, who had been a rising star in the GOP.
The State newspaper of Columbia, S.C., obtained the e-mails in December, the Daily News reports.
“Since I don’t have sufficient proof and live in a state of law, I’m obligated to keep their identity anonymous. I am not the judge of anyone; I leave all that in the hands of God,” Chapur’s statement said.
Sanford’s e-mails to Chapur have fascinated both hopeless romantics and serious politicos alike.
If reports are to be believed, the emails are colorful, descriptive, and unabashedly romantic, at times to the point of being schmaltzy and embarrassing.
“Do you really comprehend how beautiful your smile is? Have you been told lately how warm your eyes are and how they softly glow with the special nature of your soul?” the Politico quoted Sanford as having written.
In between the mushy parts, the two of them write about everyday events.
While Maria talks about taking a lazy day trip and reading an Alan Greenspan book, Sanford writes about meetings in New York, the National Governor’s Conference and an invitational with then-presidential candidate Senator John McCain.
According to reports, the letters give the impression that Sanford was a real romantic with a knack for writing.
“The most cherished gift a lover can give and receive is a love letter from the heart,” says romance coach Leslie Karsner, who sells prewritten love letters through a website called ‘Love Letters Now’. (ANI)
Washington, June 25 (ANI): South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, who rose through the Republican ranks over the past decade, from congressman to governor to potential 2012 presidential candidate, has tearfully admitted having an affair with an Argentine pen pal, diminishing his future GOP chances.
Sanford, after pulling off a bizarre vanishing act this week, reappeared on Wednesday to admit that he was having an affair that involved secret visits with his mistress in Argentina.
South Carolina’s Governor arrived home from a secret six-day trip to Buenos Aires to tearfully admit he has been having an affair with an Argentine pen pal.
“I spent the last five days of my life crying in Argentina,” Sanford said at an extraordinary, rambling press conference in Columbia, S.C.
Sanford, who was until this week one of the GOP’s most promising rising stars, resigned as chairman of the Republican Governors’ Association but did not step down from his job running South Carolina.
His staff initially told reporters that he had left town on Thursday to go hiking on the Appalachian Trail, but the Governor returned on Wednesday morning on a flight from Argentina.
“I’ve let down a lot of people. That’s the bottom line. I’ve been unfaithful to my wife,” Fox News quoted Sanford, as saying.
E-mails obtained by The State, a South Carolina newspaper, capture deeply personal exchanges between the Governor and the woman, whom the newspaper called only by her first name, Maria.
“My heart cries out for you, your voice, your body, the touch of your lips, the touch of your finger tips and an even deeper connection to your soul,” Sanford wrote in one of the e-mails, dated last summer.
The newspaper said a McClatchy correspondent reached Sanford’s mistress, but she declined to be interviewed.
Sanford’s wife, Jenny, who apparently had known about the affair for five months, had asked him to leave home two weeks ago and to stop talking to her and their children. In a written statement, she said the couple needed a trial separation, but that her husband had since “earned a chance to resurrect our marriage.”
The Governor apologized profusely to his family, his staff and the people of South Carolina. He said he’s let down his four sons in a “profound way,” though he said his wife had known about the affair for five months and they were trying to work through it. (ANI)
Churachandpur (Manipur), May 29 (ANI): About a hundred youngsters from across northeast region of the country are attending a fortnight long adventure camp at Churachandpur area.
At the camp, training in basics skills of mountaineering, trekking and rappelling is being given to the adventurous youth of the region.
Organised by the Manipur Mountaineering and Trekking Association (MMTA) under the civic action programme of paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), has drawn many youngsters.
“Potential is lot (aplenty). But due to lack of financial help we cannot conduct more of adventure training camps here at Manipur. This time we got some sponsorship from CRPF (India’s paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force) under the civil action programme. This time plenty of students are coming from different parts of Manipur. We received more than 100 applications out of which we selected only 100,” said Surjit Singh, President of Manipur Mountaineering and Trekking Association (MMTA), Imphal.
It is hoped that the camp will help the youngsters in future to join higher-level training camps like the courses conducted at Himalayan Mountaineering Institute at Darjeeling.
Youngsters, mostly from the Seven Sisters of the North East-states of Assam, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Tripura and Arunachal Pradesh-are attending the camp.
At the camp, young trainees are camped in tents and provided nutritious food.
The adventure activities being taught at this camp include cave expedition, crossing obstacles, rock climbing, parasailing, trekking and hiking in and around the hills of Imphal valley.
An added attraction of the training camp will be the motorcycle relic hunt and sight seeing spread over the last two days.
According to Manipur Mountaineering and Trekking Association, such camps should be held on a regular basis in the region. Since these would help the youth to develop a positive focus in life and also prevent the young minds from going astray.
Manipur has produced a good number of famous mountaineers and also champions in adventure sports who have won medals at national and international level.
Having commenced on May 24, the camp will last till June 8. By L.C.K. Singh (ANI)
Seoul, May 8 (ANI): The Hyundai Motor India has reportedly decided to shift the production of one of its premium models ‘i20′ to Europe.
“Hyundai Motor is considering moving production of the i20 to Europe because about 90 per cent of them are being shipped there,” company sources said.
The plan follows a strike by a section of permanent workers at Hyundai Motor India in Chennai, the Financial Times reported. However, company sources refused to comment on this.
Employees of Hyundai’s factory in Chennai were on a hunger strike. The workers were demanding recognition of the employee union, formed in 2007. They also demanding charter includes, re-instatement of dismissed employees, hiking basic wages and reducing the performance-linked pay component in employee salaries.
“Because of these problems, we cannot keep up with targets and hence some production will shift to one of our facilities in Europe,” Rajiv Mitra of Hyundai Motor India was quoted as telling the daily.
This Hyundai vehicle is built on an all-new platform and is designed taking into consideration the European tastes in both style and ride.
The fresh premium, five-door, hatchback model got its design from the Hyundai’s European Car Design Centre in Russelsheim, Germany. (ANI)
London, May 8 (ANI): A ‘hot’ new adrenaline sport called ‘volcano boarding’ has been developed by a group of thrill-seekers.
In the sport, participants race at speeds of up to 50mph down the side of an active volcano.
While wearing protective jump suits, knee-pads and helmets, the boarders visited the foothills of Nicaragua’s Cerro Negro mountain, and climbed 726 metres (2,382ft) to travel down on specially-constructed plywood boards.
Cerro Negro is Central America’s youngest volcano and appeared in April 1850. It has been one of the most active volcanoes in Nicaragua, reports The Telegraph.
But its unstable reputation didn’t stop Phillip Southan, owner of Bigfoot Hostel and Green Pathways Tours, which developed the sport.
He said: “The volcano is very active. But the biggest risk is the risk is getting some scratches if you fall off. What we offer is a tour for everyone with absolutely no experience necessary. One of the greatest attractions of the tour is that you get a bit of everything.
“Nicaraguan rural culture, hiking, amazing views, walking in an active volcano and then of course the high adrenaline boarding down the volcano.” (ANI)
Forte dei Marmi – At the turn of the century, the Tuscan coastal town of Forte dei Marmi became hugely popular with artists, aristocrats and intellectuals from all over Europe.
Nowadays, the “beautiful people” still flock here to spend their holidays among the pine trees. In downtown Forte dei Marmi, the fashionable Café Versilia on the Piazza Garibaldi was a popular haunt for famous cultural names such as English writer Aldous Huxley, Italian poet Gabriele d’Annunzio or German author Thomas Mann. The latter allegedly based the character of the sorcerer, Cipolla, in his 1929 novella Mario and Magician on someone he met on the premises.
The tranquil resort on the attractive Versilia coast continues to lure an immaculately-clad jet set and remains a byword for elegance. Guests sip a glass of prosecco under the linen sunshades which line the far-reaching golden sands.
The beach bars are abuzz in the summer months, competing for attention alongside an extensive range of water sport activities and an ambitious cultural programme. The main beach stretches five kilometres between the rivulets of Fiumetto in the south and Cinquale to the north.
The name Forte dei Marmi translates as The Fortress of the Marble and the first settlers in this swampy area were dealers in the glossy white rock whose use in architecture goes back to classical Greek times.
In the 16th century, a certain Michelangelo Buonarotti, the Renaissance all-round genius commonly known only by his first name, was commissioned by Pope Leopold X. to draw up plans for the road to connect the marble quarries at Massa and Carrara in Apennine Mountains with the coast.
The artist set to work and both the road and a 300-metre along the pier were built so that the prized stone could be hauled aboard sailing ships. Today both locals and tourists gather at the spot to admire the spectacular sunsets.
A century later, the resort began to attract fishermen, farmers and quarry workers and it was in 1788 under the aegis of Grand Duke Leopold I that the town acquired its most notable landmark, the red brick fort in the main square “Il Fortino.”
Tourism in Forte dei Marmi only began to boom after World War II when wealthy Italian industrialists chose it as a summer retreat. Today the “Fortino” is home to the Museum for Satire and Caricature and visitors can admire exhibits dating back to antiquity as well as contemporary works. For those who want more there is even a specialised multimedia archive on the topic.
This town of around 8,500 residents – known to its admirers as “Forte” – offers an unusually rich tableau of cultural activities. There are numerous galleries and the town is a useful springboard for visits throughout Tuscany. Lucca, Florenz and Pisa are only a short ride away by local train.
There are plenty of chic cafes to visit in the central Forti and the town offers a wide range of hotel accommodation to suit all budgets. Four-star hotels line the promenade behind a fringe of oleander and palm trees while the more reasonably-priced establishments are generally found in the centre or on side streets.
The nearby Apennines offers all manner of sporting pursuits such as hiking and climbing tours while at the seaside windsurfers and kite surfers will find plenty to keep them occupied. A fine way of seeing Forti is from the saddle of a bicycle since in contrast to most places in Italy, the town has an extensive network of cycle paths. (dpa)
London, April 30 (ANI): Busy office workers will no longer have to depend on a microwave to rustle up a hot snack, all thanks to a food tin that warms up its contents.
The Hotcan meal, which costs 3.99-pounds, includes beef casserole, vegetable curry and an all-day breakfast.
Hotcans, based in Chesterfield, Derbys, is also developing a new range of pasta, curry and vegetarian dishes.
The 14oz cans generate heat by mixing water and limestone when a seal on the top is broken.
And it takes no more than 12 minutes to heat up the food.
“Our range has been aimed at the emergency services, the Army and people who go hiking, fishing or camping,” the Sun quoted Graham Taylor, boss of Hotcans, as saying.
“But we are now testing our new products with a wider audience.
“The meals make a great warm alternative to a sandwich or salad and are ideal for busy office workers,” he added. (ANI)
p
Melbourne, Apr 27 (ANI): Votes in the Swiss Alps have passed legislation banning naked hiking after dozens of mostly German nudists started rambling through their region./pp
The government recommended the ban after citizens objected to seeing the nude walkers, wearing nothing more than boots./pp
The reactions of the population have shown that such appearances over a large area are perceived as thoroughly disturbing and irritating, News.com.au quoted the government as saying./pp
There were only a few people who disagreed when citizens of Appenzell Inner Rhodes, a region regarded as a favourite among nude hikers, voted to impose a 200 Swiss franc fine on violators. /pp
A similar law is expected to be passed in nearby Appenzell Outer Rhodes in a move to rid the area of this shameless behaviour. (ANI)/p
FRANKFURT, April 10 (Reuters) – German carmaker BMW’s (BMWG.DE) chief executive said residual values of used cars have been steadying since the beginning of this year, according to a newspaper interview.
“Prices for used cars in the United States and in Great Britain have stabilised. But I would not want to deduce a turnaround from that yet,” Norbert Reithofer told Sueddeutsche Zeitung in an interview to be published on Saturday.
Carmakers including Chrysler and General Motors (GM.N) have halted or cut back their leasing business because falling residual values of cars coming off leases can mean big losses.
BMW absorbed a 1.6 billion euros ($2.13 billion) hit last year after hiking provisions for risky leasing deals, substantially more than peer Daimler’s (DAIGn.DE) 465 million euros impairment charge.
In the global auto industry as a whole, Reithofer said he saw a recovery from 2010 that would strengthen in 2011.
“We are currently seeing a slight improvement, but we do not expect a significant market recovery this year.”
He said he expected that unit sales declines seen across the industry could remain in a double-digit percentage range throughout 2009.
He said BMW could weather the storm of the global economic crisis for a while longer thanks to more than 20 billion euros in equity capital.
“Hypothetically, we could manage one or two years with relatively high losses,” he said.
He also reiterated that he could imagine expanding BMW’s cooperation with Daimler to further parts of the business.
BMW has been pooling component purchases with Daimler’s Mercedes-Benz, but this encompassed less than 100 parts that are not relevant to the brand image.
Reithofer previously said he wanted to expand this cooperation wherever possible without diluting the strong differentiation in brands. ($1=.7530 euros) (Reporting by Maria Sheahan; editing by Mike Nesbit)
The Directorate of Education on Wednesday issued showcause notices to 12 unaided public schools for ‘arbitrarily hiking tuition fees’. Education Minister Arvinder Singh Lovely made it clear that no school would be allowed to introduce a fee hike without an approval from the Parent Teacher Association general body.
“Schools will not be able to delete the name of any student or deny report cards on the basis of the alleged non-submission of hiked fees,” Singh said. The directorate was responding to complaints made by parents against 12 schools, which include Ramjas School, Anand Parbat, Hillgrove School, Army Public School, Vidhya Bharti School, Mount Abu School, Nutan Vidya Mandir, Vivekanand School, Little Flower Public School, Cambridge Foundation School, Rajouri Garden, and S D Public School.
Singh also directed all deputy directors of education to remain available in their offices to redress grievances of parents of this issue. “Parents can meet the deputy directors between 10 am and 12 noon on all working days and submit their complaints,” Singh said.
Jerusalem – Israel was placing its police forces on high alert Wednesday for the Passover festival which begins at sundown.
Thousands of police, Border Police and Civil Guard volunteers are to guard synagogues, holy places and hiking sites. The Magen David Adom, Israel’s equivalent of the Red Cross, also stepped up its state of alert and reinforced its stations with ambulances and medical teams.
Police officials were quoted as saying that militant organizations had high motivation to carry out attacks during the festival. On Tuesday night, Israel’s counter-terrorism bureau issued a warning cautioning Israelis against travelling to the Sinai peninsula for the holiday.
The bureau said it had information that several militant groups were planning to attack Israelis in the peninsula, a popular travel destination during Israeli holidays.
A Palestinian suicide bomber killed 30 people in 2002 when he blew himself up in a hotel in the coastal city of Netanya as guests were sitting down to begin the ritual meal which ushers in Passover.
The seven-day Passover festival (eight days outside of Israel) commemorates the Biblical Exodus from Egypt.
Jews traditionally usher in the holiday with a special festive meal, reading from the Haggadah, a collection of texts recounting the Exodus and laying out the ritual for the meal.
The meal itself includes special food with a symbolic significance, such as a vegetable, usually parsley, dipped into salt water to symbolize tears shed as a result of the Jews’ slavery in Biblical Egypt, bitter herbs to symbolize the bitterness of slavery, and a special paste made of fruit and nuts, the colour and texture of which is to remind Jews of the mortar the ancient Israelis used to bond bricks when they were slaves in Egypt.
Jews are also forbidden from eating bread products during the entire festival, and have to make do with matzo, unleavened flat bread which does not rise during baking.
On Wednesday morning, 50,000 people participated in a special “blessing of the sun” prayer at Jerusalem’s Western Wall, and thousands more elsewhere in the country also observed the ceremony.
The ritual takes place only once every 28 years when, according to Jewish tradition, the sun reaches the exact spot it stood in the heavens at the moment it was created.(dpa)
Sainte-Engrace, France – You had better not be prone to dizziness, if you cross the Himalayan-style suspension bridge at Holzarte in the French Pyrenees. Under your feet yawns a gorge some 150 metres deep, clearly visible in gaps between the slats. And the bridge sways more violently the closer you come to the middle.
Italian carpenters built the structure in the 1920s, when villages in the Pyrenees were isolated. Today, it serves as a starting point for hikes in Basque country and the former French province of Bearn.
The Basque country is known for berets, and Bearn for béarnaise sauce, but both attributions are false. Berets actually originated in neighbouring Bearn, where shepherds knitted the flat, round caps and then felted, them. They became world famous thanks to the Basque people, though.
As for béarnaise sauce, it was created in Paris and named after Henry IV, king of France, who was born in the Bearn region.
Jean Soust, a hiking guide, told these and other anecdotes during our steady ascent. “There’s hardly another mountain range in Europe where so much biodiversity has been preserved,” he said, pointing to flowers along the trail.
Unlike the Alps, the Pyrenees have been spared mass tourism so far. Two long-distance hiking trails traverse the range, which forms the border between France and Spain.
Our trail led past a powerful waterfall and through a beech forest. Above the timberline, a path used by shepherds wound its way up a mountain pasture. A tolling of bells sounded like the start of Catholic High Mass, but it came from hundreds of sheep. They gorge themselves on herbs that give Pyrenean cheese its flavour.
There was more ringing a little later, this time from sturdy horses with long, shaggy manes with bells around their necks so that their owners could find them more easily.
Numerous gites, guest houses where regional fare is served in the evening, offer travellers a place to spend the night. Didier Constance runs the Ferme de sejour Espondaburu, a gite near the village of Sainte-Engrace.
“Today there’s oeufs (eggs) en cocotte, mutton with chanterelles and sheet cake with fresh blackberries,” Constance announced to his guests. While delicious smells wafted from the kitchen, the guests bided the time until dinner splendidly with glasses of red wine by the fireplace.
The next morning, mist shrouded the valley, a condition typical of the northern, French side of the Pyrenees. It is often warmer and drier on the Spanish side. The murky weather in the mountains has its charm, however, as the landscape looks enchanted in soft light.
When a ray of sunlight managed to slip through the clouds, water droplets clinging to spiders’ webs and blades of grass glittered like crystal glass. Vultures circled overhead.
The Pyrenees also have some surprises for culture lovers, for example Romanesque churches with figures carved into column capitals. In Sainte-Engrace, there is a depiction of the Three Wise Men visiting Mary and the infant Jesus. Mary’s features are those of a well-fed Basque peasant woman.
Germany – Some holidaymakers want a maximum of fun; they down sangria from 10-litre buckets and party till dawn. But a growing number want the opposite: leisure instead of loud music, relaxation instead of rambunctiousness, and self-discovery instead of swilling.
Many tour operators are offering holidays for people seeking a chance to collect their thoughts and mull over matters they normally have too little time for. Though the circle is still small, “It’s a growing trend in tourism,” noted Professor Martin Lohmann, a tourism expert from the German city of Kiel.
Travellers in this group have varied expectations. Some would simply like time for themselves more than anything.
“After all, time is as much of a luxury for some people nowadays as a marble bathroom is for others,” said Lohmann. These people are not necessary interested in finding answers to life’s fundamental questions.
Others are, however, and also hope that the positive effects of stock-taking and reflection will outlast their holiday. “Some people may very well overestimate the therapeutic effects,” Lohmann said.
In 2003, German trend analyst Matthias Horx predicted the emergence of a new travel destination: Me. “The forecast is coming true,” remarked Susanne Leder, who wrote her doctoral dissertation on “leisure in tourism” and works at the resort region of Muellerthal in Echternach, Luxembourg.
Rather than expeditions to faraway places, “Journeys to one’s self” are gaining in popularity. “Selfness” is the new buzzword for holidays whose focus is on self-discovery, slowing down and inner peace. Leder calls holidays of this kind “leisure tourism,” which includes hiking tours, cabin stays, meditation retreats, desert treks and cloister sojourns.
She said there was a growing need for these types of holidays because of changes in society. Increasing pressure to perform at the workplace has disrupted the balance between tension and relaxation in many people, she remarked.
As Leder sees it, the lack of free time, the hectic pace and the complexity of everyday life have caused people with demanding occupations to be less desirous of variety and entertainment while on holiday.
“On the one hand, people today have a high degree of personal freedom,” said Professor Heinz-Dieter Quack, director of the European Tourism Institute in the German city of Trier. “On the other hand, they’re also personally responsible for many things that once seemed secure, such as providing for their old age.”
Quack said everyday life was overtaxing a lot of people, adding, “It’s getting harder to keep one’s bearings.” And many questions are more pressing now than they were for previous generations, he added: “How would I like to live? How much do I want to work? Should I live with my partner?”
The hectic pace of everyday life often leaves little time to think about these things carefully. So the sole opportunity can be a holiday. Leder said she was certain that the number of leisure holidaymakers was growing.
But they will never become a target group for mass-market tour operators, according to Lohmann. “That would be a contradiction in a way,” he noted
Washington, Feb 11 (ANI): A new research has indicated that as summer temperatures rise due to global warming, plants can take a hike to higher elevations, in order to bloom.
The research, from the University of Arizona (UA) in Tucson, US, reported plants flowering at higher elevations in Arizona’s Santa Catalina Mountains as summer temperatures rise.
The flowering ranges of 93 plant species moved uphill during 1994 to 2003, compared to where the same species flowered the previous ten years.
During the 20-year study period, summer temperatures in the region increased about 1.8 degree Fahrenheit (1 degree C.).
“For years, probably decades now, scientists have been trying to understand how species are going to respond to the anticipated global changes and global warming,” said Theresa Crimmins, research specialist for the UA’s Arid Lands Information Center and the network liaison for the USA National Phenology Network.
To better understand how plants respond to climate change, Crimmins and her husband, UA climatologist Michael Crimmins, teamed up with naturalist Dave Bertelsen.
Bertelsen has been hiking the Finger Rock trail about one to two times a week since 1983 and recording what plants were in flower.
The 5-mile hike starts in desert scrub vegetation and climbs 4158 feet (1200 meters), ending in pine forest.
Bertelsen has completed 1,206 round-trip hikes and recorded data along the trail for nearly 600 plant species.
Lead author Theresa Crimmins said that Bertelsen’s data shows that some species flowered farther upslope than before, others stopped flowering at lower elevations, and some species did both.
Because some plant species are moving and others staying put, she said that the changes may divide plant communities, increase the growth of invasive species and even cause local extinctions by affecting the food sources of local insects and animals.
“I think we can be confident that things are going to continue to change and we don’t necessarily know the ripple effects of all these changes in flowering ranges,” Crimmins said.
Theresa and Michael Crimmins plan to do additional analyses of the data to determine whether climate change is also causing flowers to bloom earlier in the year.
“The changes are happening fast enough now that more eyes on the ground are going to be much more useful as the human species tries to understand how these other systems, that we rely upon so dearly, are going to change,” said Theresa. (ANI)
Washington, Feb 11 (ANI): A new research has indicated that as summer temperatures rise due to global warming, plants can take a hike to higher elevations, in order to bloom.
The research, from the University of Arizona (UA) in Tucson, US, reported plants flowering at higher elevations in Arizona’s Santa Catalina Mountains as summer temperatures rise.
The flowering ranges of 93 plant species moved uphill during 1994 to 2003, compared to where the same species flowered the previous ten years.
During the 20-year study period, summer temperatures in the region increased about 1.8 degree Fahrenheit (1 degree C.).
“For years, probably decades now, scientists have been trying to understand how species are going to respond to the anticipated global changes and global warming,” said Theresa Crimmins, research specialist for the UA’s Arid Lands Information Center and the network liaison for the USA National Phenology Network.
To better understand how plants respond to climate change, Crimmins and her husband, UA climatologist Michael Crimmins, teamed up with naturalist Dave Bertelsen.
Bertelsen has been hiking the Finger Rock trail about one to two times a week since 1983 and recording what plants were in flower.
The 5-mile hike starts in desert scrub vegetation and climbs 4158 feet (1200 meters), ending in pine forest.
Bertelsen has completed 1,206 round-trip hikes and recorded data along the trail for nearly 600 plant species.
Lead author Theresa Crimmins said that Bertelsen’s data shows that some species flowered farther upslope than before, others stopped flowering at lower elevations, and some species did both.
Because some plant species are moving and others staying put, she said that the changes may divide plant communities, increase the growth of invasive species and even cause local extinctions by affecting the food sources of local insects and animals.
“I think we can be confident that things are going to continue to change and we don’t necessarily know the ripple effects of all these changes in flowering ranges,” Crimmins said.
Theresa and Michael Crimmins plan to do additional analyses of the data to determine whether climate change is also causing flowers to bloom earlier in the year.
“The changes are happening fast enough now that more eyes on the ground are going to be much more useful as the human species tries to understand how these other systems, that we rely upon so dearly, are going to change,” said Theresa. (ANI)
Washington, Feb 11 (ANI): A new research has indicated that as summer temperatures rise due to global warming, plants can take a hike to higher elevations, in order to bloom.
The research, from the University of Arizona (UA) in Tucson, US, reported plants flowering at higher elevations in Arizona’s Santa Catalina Mountains as summer temperatures rise.
The flowering ranges of 93 plant species moved uphill during 1994 to 2003, compared to where the same species flowered the previous ten years.
During the 20-year study period, summer temperatures in the region increased about 1.8 degree Fahrenheit (1 degree C.).
“For years, probably decades now, scientists have been trying to understand how species are going to respond to the anticipated global changes and global warming,” said Theresa Crimmins, research specialist for the UA’s Arid Lands Information Center and the network liaison for the USA National Phenology Network.
To better understand how plants respond to climate change, Crimmins and her husband, UA climatologist Michael Crimmins, teamed up with naturalist Dave Bertelsen.
Bertelsen has been hiking the Finger Rock trail about one to two times a week since 1983 and recording what plants were in flower.
The 5-mile hike starts in desert scrub vegetation and climbs 4158 feet (1200 meters), ending in pine forest.
Bertelsen has completed 1,206 round-trip hikes and recorded data along the trail for nearly 600 plant species.
Lead author Theresa Crimmins said that Bertelsen’s data shows that some species flowered farther upslope than before, others stopped flowering at lower elevations, and some species did both.
Because some plant species are moving and others staying put, she said that the changes may divide plant communities, increase the growth of invasive species and even cause local extinctions by affecting the food sources of local insects and animals.
“I think we can be confident that things are going to continue to change and we don’t necessarily know the ripple effects of all these changes in flowering ranges,” Crimmins said.
Theresa and Michael Crimmins plan to do additional analyses of the data to determine whether climate change is also causing flowers to bloom earlier in the year.
“The changes are happening fast enough now that more eyes on the ground are going to be much more useful as the human species tries to understand how these other systems, that we rely upon so dearly, are going to change,” said Theresa. (ANI)
Copyright © 2013 · eleven40 theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in