What do earthquakes, wealthy Italian families and your circulatory system have in common? Scientists use fractals, self-similarity and power laws to translate from local to global scales.
Trees clean urban air, store carbon, slow floodwaters and can be used to design safer streets. Scholars are starting to calculate what these services are worth – a fitting topic for Arbor Day.
Walking towards this tree, which grows only on a select few mist-shrouded mountainsides in Queensland, can feel like stepping into a prehistoric dinosaur-filled fantasy.
Whether plastic or natural, Christmas trees are generally bad for the environment. However, a new chemical process could recycle dead trees into all kinds of useful products.
Both natural and artificial Christmas trees have environmental impacts, but they’re not major. What matters most is what happens to the trees after the holidays.
Climate change is shrinking winter snow cover in Northeast forests, which protects tree roots and soil from repeated freezing and thawing. This could stunt tree growth and forest carbon storage.