Walnut Industry May Crack Under Climate Pressure
Commercially grown walnut trees (Juglans nigra and Juglans regia) are
very particular about their growing conditions and drought or untimely
frosts can crack the walnut tree’s defenses. Walnut is really restricted
to sites not too wet or dry. It has an extremely narrow range. Climate
change is going to have a real impact on walnuts. Almost all climate
change models predict that climates will become drier. Walnut species
thrive in the tropics, but in temperate areas, they are cautious about
frost. To avoid the chilly danger, they don’t even sprout leaves until
nearly a month after other trees. Loss of the walnut’s high quality wood
and delicious nuts would have economic consequences across the U.S.,
from California’s $1 billion per year nut farms to Indiana’s $11 million
per year walnut lumber industry
Mass Electrocution Kills Flamingos
Nearly 140 greater flamingos were killed in a wildlife sanctuary in
western India when they were startled and flew into a string of
high-tension power lines, a forest official said. Tens of thousands of
flamingos turn the flat, warm marshes of the Khadir region of Gujarat
state into a sea of pink every year when they fly in from Siberia to
breed. The mass electrocution took place when a large
flock of flamingos was startled at night by the noise of a vehicle. The
entire flock took off. Many of them flew straight into the electric
wires and 139 were killed instantly.
Voyagers detect birth pains of stars
Far beyond the orbit of Pluto, the two ageing Voyager spacecraft have
detected ultraviolet light that confirms that a type of radiation known
as Lyman-alpha emissions come from parts of the Milky Way where stars
are born. Lyman-alpha emissions are produced when ultraviolet light hits
neutral hydrogen atoms, splitting them into protons and electrons. When
the two recombine, they can form an atom in an excited state that emits
ultraviolet light at a characteristic wavelength, known as the
Lyman-alpha band.
For the first time, scientists have been able to measure a type of
radiation streaming out from the Milky Way that in other galaxies has
been linked to the birthplaces of young, hot stars. There was no way to
make our own galaxy’s measurement of the radiation, known as
Lyman-alpha, until the probes were about 40 times as far away from the
sun as Earth — any closer and the solar system’s own emissions drowned
out the fainter glow from the galaxy.
The Voyager probes are crossing boundary regions in space where the
amount of gas from the sun is subsiding and the amount of gas from the
galaxy is increasing. The twin Voyager probes were launched in 1977 to
exoplore the outer Solar System.