When the world gets closer.

We help you see farther.

Sign up to our expressly international daily newsletter.

Already a subscriber? Log in.

You've reach your limit of free articles.

Get unlimited access to Worldcrunch

You can cancel anytime.

SUBSCRIBERS BENEFITS

Ad-free experience NEW

Exclusive international news coverage

Access to Worldcrunch archives

Monthly Access

30-day free trial, then $2.90 per month.

Annual Access BEST VALUE

$19.90 per year, save $14.90 compared to monthly billing.save $14.90.

Subscribe to Worldcrunch
Geopolitics

Rouhani Chides West, Hong Kong Protests, The Who

Nepalese girls celebrate the beginning of the Dashain festival.
Nepalese girls celebrate the beginning of the Dashain festival.

WILL UK JOIN ANTI-ISIS COALITION?
All eyes will be on Westminster today, where the House of Commons will vote on what the British media are calling the “third Iraq war.” Members are expected to support the the anti-ISIS coalition with strikes in Iraq, though Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said these might be extended to Syria in the near future, The Guardian reports.

U.S. airplanes, meanwhile, continued to target ISIS-held oil refineries in northern Syria for a second day. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, 140 militants and 13 civilians have been killed so far in the strikes.

EU anti-terrorism chief Gilles de Kerchove told the BBC that more than 3,000 Europeans were fighting with ISIS, while the FBI says it knows of 12 Americans that have joined the terrorist group. Director James Comey also said that they believed they had identified “Jihadi John,” the man with a British accent shown in the beheading videos.

TALIBAN KILLS DOZENS IN KABUL
More than 100 people were killed in Afghanistan as the Taliban stormed a district near the capital of Kabul after five days of fighting, Reuters reports. This comes just days after the country’s two presidential candidates agreed to end their feud and to form a national unity government.

VERBATIM
“Today's anti-Westernism is a reaction to yesterday's racism," Iran President Hassan Rouhani said Wednesday, using the occasion of the UN General Assembly to blame Western governments for the violent extremism that has taken root in the Middle East and created widespread instability.

U.S PLANS TO COMPROMISE WITH IRAN
The United States will soften its demands and is willing to meet Iran “close to half way” in the ongoing nuclear talks with Tehran, AP quotes two diplomats as saying. Under the new proposal, Washington would allow Iran to keep “nearly half” of its nuclear project untouched in exchange for more constraints on its potential development for nuclear weapons.

30 EUROS
Rome Mayor Ignazio Marino has backed a plan that will pay Italian families 30 euros a day to host migrants waiting for asylum, as the country's immigration centers struggle to cope with the ever-soaring number of arrivals.

UNITY GOVERNMENT TO RULE GAZA
Hamas and Fatah, the two main Palestinian factions, agreed yesterday to place the civil administration of Gaza under the rule of a unity government led by the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, The Jerusalem Post reports. The agreement, reached after two days of reconciliation talks in Cairo, is a breakthrough in the bid to ease the Israeli and Egyptian blockade on the Gaza Strip and start rebuilding after this summer’s 50-day Israeli offensive, which left over 2,000 dead and 110,000 homeless. Meanwhile, Palestinian news agency Ma’an reports that in his speech at the UN General Assembly later today Abbas will launch a bid to end the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.

STUDENTS JOIN HONG KONG PROTESTS
Close to 1,000 secondary school students joined a week-long protest led by pro-democracy university students in Hong Kong, AFP reports. Yesterday, some 2,000 protesters marched to the residence of Hong Kong leader Leung Chun-ying to speak to him directly. The civil disobedience campaign come one month after China announced that the candidates in the next local election in 2017 would first be approved by a committee. “The government is ignoring our voices, so I think that if we have so many secondary students boycotting the classes maybe then they will be willing to listen to us,” a young protester said.

NORTH KOREAN LEADER STILL MISSING
North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un did not attend yesterday’s parliamentary session, the first time he has missed one since succeeding his father Kim Jong-il and coming to power almost three years ago, Bloomberg reports. The North Korean leader has not been seen in public since Sept. 3, and state media have acknowledged that he is suffering from “discomfort.”

GUESS WHO’S BACK?
Today is the 45th anniversary of the Beatles’ Abbey Road release, as auspicious a time as any for The Who to unveil a new song entitled “Be Lucky.” It’s the group’s first recording in eight years, which will appear in its 50th anniversary compilation to be released later this year. For those preferring Neil Young, the Canadian singer has posted multiple versions of an environmental protest song on his website.

You've reached your limit of free articles.

To read the full story, start your free trial today.

Get unlimited access. Cancel anytime.

Exclusive coverage from the world's top sources, in English for the first time.

Insights from the widest range of perspectives, languages and countries.

Green

Forest Networks? Revisiting The Science Of Trees And Funghi "Reaching Out"

A compelling story about how forest fungal networks communicate has garnered much public interest. Is any of it true?

Thomas Brail films the roots of a cut tree with his smartphone.

Arborist and conservationist Thomas Brail at a clearcutting near his hometown of Mazamet in the Tarn, France.

Melanie Jones, Jason Hoeksema, & Justine Karst

Over the past few years, a fascinating narrative about forests and fungi has captured the public imagination. It holds that the roots of neighboring trees can be connected by fungal filaments, forming massive underground networks that can span entire forests — a so-called wood-wide web. Through this web, the story goes, trees share carbon, water, and other nutrients, and even send chemical warnings of dangers such as insect attacks. The narrative — recounted in books, podcasts, TV series, documentaries, and news articles — has prompted some experts to rethink not only forest management but the relationships between self-interest and altruism in human society.

But is any of it true?

The three of us have studied forest fungi for our whole careers, and even we were surprised by some of the more extraordinary claims surfacing in the media about the wood-wide web. Thinking we had missed something, we thoroughly reviewed 26 field studies, including several of our own, that looked at the role fungal networks play in resource transfer in forests. What we found shows how easily confirmation bias, unchecked claims, and credulous news reporting can, over time, distort research findings beyond recognition. It should serve as a cautionary tale for scientists and journalists alike.

First, let’s be clear: Fungi do grow inside and on tree roots, forming a symbiosis called a mycorrhiza, or fungus-root. Mycorrhizae are essential for the normal growth of trees. Among other things, the fungi can take up from the soil, and transfer to the tree, nutrients that roots could not otherwise access. In return, fungi receive from the roots sugars they need to grow.

As fungal filaments spread out through forest soil, they will often, at least temporarily, physically connect the roots of two neighboring trees. The resulting system of interconnected tree roots is called a common mycorrhizal network, or CMN.

Keep reading...Show less

You've reached your limit of free articles.

To read the full story, start your free trial today.

Get unlimited access. Cancel anytime.

Exclusive coverage from the world's top sources, in English for the first time.

Insights from the widest range of perspectives, languages and countries.

Already a subscriber? Log in.

You've reach your limit of free articles.

Get unlimited access to Worldcrunch

You can cancel anytime.

SUBSCRIBERS BENEFITS

Ad-free experience NEW

Exclusive international news coverage

Access to Worldcrunch archives

Monthly Access

30-day free trial, then $2.90 per month.

Annual Access BEST VALUE

$19.90 per year, save $14.90 compared to monthly billing.save $14.90.

Subscribe to Worldcrunch

The latest