It’s a simple and common prescription for global warming and fire suppression: Plant more trees. But where they’re planted makes a real difference, new research shows. “Our study found more cooling from planting in warm, wet regions, where trees grow year-round,” study first author James Gomez, a graduate student at UC Riverside, said in a news release. “Tropical trees not only pull carbon dioxide from the air, they also cool while releasing water vapor.” His team recently reported its findings in the journal npj Climate and Atmospheric Science.  They found that trees planted at higher latitudes, like the U.S., could actually have a slight heating effect.  “It’s not that planting [there] doesn’t help — it does,” Gomez said. “But the tropics offer the strongest returns per tree.” The new research echoes an earlier UC Riverside study. It found that planting trees could cool Earth’s surface more than once anticipated. That research weighed the chemical effects of trees interacting with the atmosphere, while the new study focused more on the physical effects of tree planting. Those effects include evapotranspiration — or in simple terms, “tree sweating.”  Roots of trees suck water from the soil. It travels up through the trunk and into leaves, where some evaporates into the air. This cools the tree and the air, as well. “It’s just like the way sweating cools your…  read on >  read on >

It’s a simple and common prescription for global warming and fire suppression: Plant more trees. But where they’re planted makes a real difference, new research shows. “Our study found more cooling from planting in warm, wet regions, where trees grow year-round,” study first author James Gomez, a graduate student at UC Riverside, said in a news release. “Tropical trees not only pull carbon dioxide from the air, they also cool while releasing water vapor.” His team recently reported its findings in the journal npj Climate and Atmospheric Science.  They found that trees planted at higher latitudes, like the U.S., could actually have a slight heating effect.  “It’s not that planting [there] doesn’t help — it does,” Gomez said. “But the tropics offer the strongest returns per tree.” The new research echoes an earlier UC Riverside study. It found that planting trees could cool Earth’s surface more than once anticipated. That research weighed the chemical effects of trees interacting with the atmosphere, while the new study focused more on the physical effects of tree planting. Those effects include evapotranspiration — or in simple terms, “tree sweating.”  Roots of trees suck water from the soil. It travels up through the trunk and into leaves, where some evaporates into the air. This cools the tree and the air, as well. “It’s just like the way sweating cools your…  read on >  read on >

Local parks and neighborhood greenery protected people’s mental health from the stresses of the COVID-19 pandemic, a new study says. Overall, depression increased nearly two-fold during the pandemic, with both men and women more frequently diagnosed, researchers said. But middle-aged adults and seniors had a reduced risk of depression if they lived in greener neighborhoods, Canadian researchers reported Aug. 20 in the journal PLOS One. What’s more, the greener a person’s neighborhood, the lower their risk for depression, researchers found. “Urban greenery wasn’t just a backdrop — it played a protective mental health role in one of the most stressful global events in recent history,” said lead researcher Paul Villeneuve, a professor of neuroscience at Carleton University in Ottawa. For the study, researchers analyzed mental health data from more than 13,000 urban-dwelling participants in a Canadian study on aging. The team compared that data to the amount of green space located near each participant’s home, based on satellite imagery. The protective effects of green space were particularly pronounced among people with less financial means, researchers found. “Our findings suggest that green spaces may have played a modest, yet meaningful, role in supporting the mental well-being of lower-income Canadians during the pandemic, offering some relief amid deepening socio-economic inequities,” researcher Susanna Abraham Cottagiri, a doctoral candidate at Queen’s University in Ottawa, said in a news release.…  read on >  read on >

Local parks and neighborhood greenery protected people’s mental health from the stresses of the COVID-19 pandemic, a new study says. Overall, depression increased nearly two-fold during the pandemic, with both men and women more frequently diagnosed, researchers said. But middle-aged adults and seniors had a reduced risk of depression if they lived in greener neighborhoods, Canadian researchers reported Aug. 20 in the journal PLOS One. What’s more, the greener a person’s neighborhood, the lower their risk for depression, researchers found. “Urban greenery wasn’t just a backdrop — it played a protective mental health role in one of the most stressful global events in recent history,” said lead researcher Paul Villeneuve, a professor of neuroscience at Carleton University in Ottawa. For the study, researchers analyzed mental health data from more than 13,000 urban-dwelling participants in a Canadian study on aging. The team compared that data to the amount of green space located near each participant’s home, based on satellite imagery. The protective effects of green space were particularly pronounced among people with less financial means, researchers found. “Our findings suggest that green spaces may have played a modest, yet meaningful, role in supporting the mental well-being of lower-income Canadians during the pandemic, offering some relief amid deepening socio-economic inequities,” researcher Susanna Abraham Cottagiri, a doctoral candidate at Queen’s University in Ottawa, said in a news release.…  read on >  read on >

COVID-19 infection might increase a person’s risk of developing asthma, seasonal allergies and long-lasting sinus problems, a new study says. However, vaccination appears to reduce this risk, researchers report in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. “It is interesting to see that vaccination not only protects against the infection itself, but also appears to provide good protection against certain respiratory complications,” senior investigator Philip Curman, a researcher in medical epidemiology and biostatistics at Karolinska Institute in Sweden, said in a news release. For the study, researchers compared nearly 974,000 people who’d been infected with COVID with more than 4.4 million people who’d been neither infected nor vaccinated. The records came from a major U.S. electronic health database. Results showed that COVID patients had a 66% increased risk of developing asthma. They also had a 74% higher risk of chronic sinus inflammation and a 27% increased risk of hay fever, researchers said. However, infection did not increase risk of other diseases like eczema or esophageal inflammation, researchers siad. “Our results suggest that COVID-19 can trigger type-2 inflammation in the airways, but not in other organs,” Curman said. The team also compared healthy people against those vaccinated against COVID and found the opposite effect — risk of asthma was 32% lower against those who’d gotten the jab. But when COVID patients were compared to those vaccinated against…  read on >  read on >

COVID-19 infection might increase a person’s risk of developing asthma, seasonal allergies and long-lasting sinus problems, a new study says. However, vaccination appears to reduce this risk, researchers report in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. “It is interesting to see that vaccination not only protects against the infection itself, but also appears to provide good protection against certain respiratory complications,” senior investigator Philip Curman, a researcher in medical epidemiology and biostatistics at Karolinska Institute in Sweden, said in a news release. For the study, researchers compared nearly 974,000 people who’d been infected with COVID with more than 4.4 million people who’d been neither infected nor vaccinated. The records came from a major U.S. electronic health database. Results showed that COVID patients had a 66% increased risk of developing asthma. They also had a 74% higher risk of chronic sinus inflammation and a 27% increased risk of hay fever, researchers said. However, infection did not increase risk of other diseases like eczema or esophageal inflammation, researchers siad. “Our results suggest that COVID-19 can trigger type-2 inflammation in the airways, but not in other organs,” Curman said. The team also compared healthy people against those vaccinated against COVID and found the opposite effect — risk of asthma was 32% lower against those who’d gotten the jab. But when COVID patients were compared to those vaccinated against…  read on >  read on >