A forest near Trieste, Italy, is largely dead owing to drought stress during the summer of 2012.
Credit Herve Cochard / Nature
An air embolism in a narrow water-transporting cell in a leaf of a walnut tree, captured using light microscopy. Drought stress increases the likelihood of embolism, reduces photosynthesis and may eventually lead to plant death.
Scientists who study forests say they've discovered something disturbing about the way prolonged drought affects trees.
It has to do with the way trees drink. They don't do it the way we do — they suck water up from the ground all the way to their leaves, through a bundle of channels in a part of the trunk called the xylem. The bundles are like blood vessels.
When drought dries out the soil, a tree has to suck harder. And that can actually be dangerous, because sucking harder increases the risk of drawing air bubbles into the tree's plumbing.
Hinkley, Calif., may soon become a ghost town as residents move away from contaminated water.
Credit Gloria Hillard for NPR
Theresa Schoffstall's home — which is located just outside the boundary of the contaminated area and does not qualify for a buyout from PG&E — has been on the market for a year. Concerns for her family's health have her contemplating just walking away from the home she and her husband built 12 years ago.
The farmhouse houses 10 students and sits on 180 acres of land. Student farmers grow 40 varieties of organic vegetables; raise beef cattle, sheep and poultry; and actively manage a forest for firewood and timber.
Credit Courtesy of Erik Jacobs
Mushrooms grow in the yard of Maggie Rullo, the landowner who gave the farm (now known as Maggie's Farm) to The Farm School.
Credit Courtesy of Erik Jacobs
The soil at The Farm School tends to be on the wetter side, partly because of a high water table under the crops. This makes for good drought resistance in the dry season and muddy work other times of the year.
Credit Courtesy of Erik Jacobs
Student farmers clean and sort a variety of hardneck garlic called Music. The garlic that is truest to form will be kept for next year's seed and the rest will be sold at market, distributed in a CSA or kept for the farmhouse.
Credit Courtesy of Erik Jacobs
Eliza, a student farmer, inspects a pasture used for the rotational grazing of sheep during afternoon chores.
Credit Courtesy of Erik Jacobs
Late-season, frost-damaged spinach is harvested in the rain for a CSA distribution.
Credit Courtesy of Erik Jacobs
A large part of winter on the farm is learning the theory of forestry management, as well as gaining the practical skills of ax and chain saw handling.
Credit Courtesy of Erik Jacobs
Turkeys are slaughtered for friends and family of the farm in advance of Thanksgiving Day.
Credit Courtesy of Erik Jacobs
Clutch, one of the farm's cats, with his near-daily kill. Clutch will often leave the carcass at the door of a one lucky student farmer, a messy honor to have.
Credit Courtesy of Erik Jacobs
A sheep wanders near the protection of a barn early in the morning as Hurricane Sandy blows through.
Credit Courtesy of Erik Jacobs
Sarah, a student farmer, gives Patience, a Jersey milk cow, hay during a pre-dawn milking at The Farm School in Athol, Mass. Patience produces about 3 gallons of milk a day.
Credit Courtesy of Erik Jacobs
Photographer Erik Jacobs gave up a successful career as a freelancer to spend the year at Farm School.
A few months ago I received a bar of handmade soap in the mail from photographer Erik Jacobs. It came with a note saying he was leaving photojournalism to attend The Farm School, and the soap, made by him and his wife, was a way of wishing his clients farewell. I emailed him immediately.
I had a million questions about farm school. What was it? Why was he going? How could he give up photojournalism?
Originally published on Thu November 22, 2012 6:20 pm
For Thanksgiving, NASA's space food experts always try to make sure astronauts get to enjoy traditional holiday fare, even if its not exactly home cooking. And being so far from home, astronauts can get pretty attached to their comfort foods.
This year, Kevin Ford, the commander of Expedition 34 and currently working at the International Space Station, says he has the ingredients to make one favorite Thanksgiving dish the NASA nutritionists may not have anticipated: Candied yams with marshmallows.
The yams are thermostablized and come in a plastic pouch.
Why people yawn is a mystery. But yawning starts in the womb.
Past studies have used ultrasound images to show fetuses yawning, but some scientists have argued that real yawns were getting confused with fetuses simply opening their mouths.
So Nadja Reissland, a researcher at the University of Durham in the United Kingdom, used a more detailed ultrasound technique to get images of fetal faces that could distinguish a true yawn from just an open mouth.
A few months ago, I let you in on a little secret about Greek yogurt. Not all of this extra-thick, protein-rich yogurt is made the old-style way, by straining liquid out of it it. Some companies are creating that rich taste by adding thickeners, such as powdered protein and starch.
Robert Siegel speaks with Dr. Michael Ryan, Coordinator of Research and Curator and Head of Vertebrate Paleontology at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, about a new dinosaur species discovery — the Xenoceratops.
