Have you been shopping around for a new home? Perhaps one in or near Boerne?

You can now take a tour of some exquisite homes in the beautiful Texas Hill Country during the 2021 Spring Tour of Homes.

Spring Tour of Homes, also known as the biggest open house in Central Texas, is happening this weekend, April 24-25 in San Antonio, Boerne and New Braunfels.

The annual tour, presented by the Greater San Antonio Builders Association, offers eight key communities and 39 new homes.

Homes range in price from $200,000 to more than $1 million and can suit most budgets and lifestyle needs.

Featured in the tour is Monticello Homes, which will offer homes in The Estates at Hinder Ridge at Kinder Ranch, located off Bulverde Road north of Stone Oak.

Located in the gated enclave of Hastings Ridge, The Estates features spacious estate-sized lots with eight luxury semi-custom home options from Monticello Homes Legacy design series.

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In the market for a luxurious home? This tour highlights 8 new communities hidden in the Texas Hill Country - KSAT San Antonio

In todays homes kitchens serve a multitude of purposes beyond being a space to whip up a meal. Theyre the heart of your home, the command center, the family gathering spot. So its no wonder why kitchens are where homeowners invest their renovation budget and why homebuyers pay a premium for an updated look.

Savvy design professionals agree, spicing up your kitchen with stylish, timeless and natural materials like cypress is a recipe for success.

Planning a new or remodeled kitchen can be an exciting yet overwhelming time. Designer Erika Powell from Urban Grace Interiors in Santa Rosa Beach, Fla., says making the process less stressful boils down to ensuring the layout meets your needs.

When starting a project we first like to sit down with our clients in order to get to know them and how they will be using their kitchen, she said. If an architect is involved, we also like to work hand-in-hand with them so that any overarching architectural vision they may have is included in the interior design as well.

Nowadays homeowners are mostly looking for open-concept floorplans with kitchens that open up to living and dining rooms. And because theres less available wall space, there are fewer upper cabinets. To compensate modern kitchen layouts feature expansive islands with seating and storage, a pantry for canned and dry goods and a butler pantry to hide away less frequently used items.

Once we determine the layout, then we get to work on selecting building products and finishes, Powell said. While there is a wide range of products to choose from, our style focuses on fine materials and classic design elements. Being near the beach, our clients gravitate toward light and natural materials products like real wood are just more beautiful. A wood like cypress is stable and durable with unique charm. Its a fixture in many of our kitchen projects.

When it comes to choosing cabinetry, architect Ben Patterson from Bossier City, La., says it doesnt take long to notice the difference between cabinetry thats built with solid wood and what you can find at the big box stores.

In my experience homeowners value the natural character and quality of solid wood cabinets, he said. Im a full-service architect and usually design custom cabinets for the projects I work on. And I like working with local materials, so my cabinet designs usually have a cypress face with a birch box.

Selecting a finish can be tricky but Patterson said trends come and go. Painted cabinets seem to be all the rage these days but a natural wood finish is tasteful and timeless, he added. And thats another reason I love cypress. Whether new growth, old growth, sinker or pecky, cypress is simply beautiful.

If your kitchen feels a little bland, luxury homebuilder Matt Cain from Dallas-based Tatum Brown Custom Homes says whats overhead is often overlooked.

In kitchens, we typically install a wood plank ceiling treatment to add visual texture and aesthetic warmth, he said. There are a lot of materials to work with, but I prefer cypress especially pecky cypress because it offers such a specific look and homeowners just fall in love with it. In fact, Ive never painted a cypress ceiling; its too beautiful to cover up.

For more ideas on how to add some spice and style to your kitchen, visit CypressInfo.org.

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Cypress wood brings a dash of spice and style - Mountain Democrat

FRESNO, Calif. (KGPE) Could tiny homes help those who lost houses in the Creek Fire?

The Creek Fire destroyed 853 structures last year, including hundreds of homes.

Rebuild Our Sierra is partnering with Operation Tiny Home to help some families make a quick return to their property.

Dylan Johnson, one of the co-founders of Rebuild Our Sierra, says it takes three or four years to rebuild a full home and less than three months for a tiny house.

Operation Tiny Home founder Gabrielle Rapport says, A lot of times when people go tiny they are interested in that more minimalist lifestyle. Its not for everybody.

Operation Tiny Home is known for projects like housing veterans in volunteer-built and self-built tiny homes.

Rapport says, We do like to tailor it custom built to the needs of whoever it is we are building for. In these situations where we are building for people who lost their homes in the fires, we know that they want to have all the amenities and it might take them some time to rebuild their lives. They want a washer and dryer and they want access to a full size kitchen and a full size refrigerator. In these homes we can absolutely provide that for them.

Tiny homes are popular because they are often affordable, customizable and eco friendly.

Rapport says, It definitely does take a tremendous amount of creativity when youre building a small space like that. You really want to be thoughtful and use multifunctional furniture. So everything in the home typically has more than one function. You have a table that folds up or moves over and becomes a cutting board. You really do have to get creative.

Rebuild our Sierra already has four families set to receive tiny homes through the partnership with the first to be delivered this summer.

Sometimes local regulations dictate sizes of homes allowed and whether some may be permanent or temporary. Rules often differ community to community.

Rapport says, Our warehouse is in Oregon and we are building these homes to be able to transport them to the location and then they can be taken off that trailer. Theyre not intended to be moveable tiny homes. We do build moveable tiny homes but we also like to work within local zoning laws and whatever is allowed for the community where we are building it.

Johnson says, We dont have enough money to do it for them all. So thats why were looking for folks who believe in this and help support us make it happen. For more information on Rebuild Our Sierra visit the website here.

Operation Tiny Home is also donating $20,000 in power tools to support 18 families rebuild. These will be distributed at an April 30 Creek Fire Resource Event in Prather.

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Could tiny homes help families who lost houses in the Creek Fire? - YourCentralValley.com

Editor's Note

SPRING BRINGS LONGER DAYS AND WARMER WEATHER, reminding gardeners to get outside and put their hands in the dirt. Spring cleaning is a tradition with a long (if vague) history, related to a time of preparing our homes for something new. And after a year-plus in lockdown, we are perhaps in more need than ever of finding ways to rejuvenate the spaces we live in. This Home & Garden issue covers everything from interior upgrades (think shades and pillows) to medical gardening, plus bigger trends and policy questions related to housing, like whether we cost-effectively use Accessory Dwelling Units to increase density. Whatever your budget enough to buy a succulent for the windowsill, or rehab a historic house there are ways to invest in and improve where you live.-Sara Rubin

Not just any someone, mind you. Wizard, a Seaside City Councilmember whose day job is as a housing element coordinator with San Francisco-based YIMBY Law, and Hare, a registered nurse, had in mind someone who really needed housing, but might have trouble finding it in the Monterey Peninsulas pricey rental market.

In my mind the right person is not some bachelor from the Navy who has the BAH, Wizard says, referring to the Basic Allowance for Housing, which some believe helps contribute to high rents and low rental inventory on the Monterey Peninsula.

Our goal is to rent it out to someone who has the need for a two-bedroom apartment, Wizard says. A single parent with kids, or a couple of students. We dont really know who the person is, but we want to do it all legally and properly and because we think its a good thing to do.

It is a good thing to do, and the couple is still doing it, but what was to have been a garage conversion instead became a tear-down and new construction, after a city of Seaside building inspector took a look at the existing garage and said something to the effect of, Not a chance in hell.

The 70-plus-year-old foundation on the garage wouldnt have supported it, and building codes are stricter now than they were then. So tear it down they did and now the ADU construction is in process, with a new foundation poured and plumbing roughed in, awaiting an inspection.

Building an ADU is so much more complicated than you can even imagine, Wizard says. His advice to people interested in building one? Have patience, ask questions and be persistent with your local permitting agency.

ADUS ARENT NECESSARILY GOING TO GET CALIFORNIA OUT OF ITS WIDESPREAD AND ENTRENCHED HOUSING CRISIS, where too many people are competing for not enough space, new construction moves at a glacial pace and affordable housing construction usually doesnt move at all. But they stand to make a dent in that crisis.

California legalized ADUs for all cities in 2017 meaning cities and counties couldnt actively prohibit them, although it also didnt mean jurisdictions had to make it easy. The easy (or easier, anyway) part came in 2019, when the state legislature passed new bills aimed at making the process easier; Gov. Gavin Newsom signed all three into law.

SB 13, from Sen. Bob Wieckowski, D-Fremont, tackled the issue of high permit fees and prohibits jurisdictions from requiring the replacement of parking spots if a garage, carport or covered parking is demolished to build an ADU. AB 881, by Assemblymember Richard Bloom, D-Santa Monica, removed owner-occupancy requirements from ADUs. And maybe the most important of the three, AB 68, from Assemblymember Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, requires jurisdictions to approve one ADU and one junior ADU (or JADU, a unit no more than 500 square feet) per lot.

In comments to the press in 2019, Ting said the legislation was necessary because cities had been erecting barriers making it difficult to build ADUs, either through high permitting fees or by slow-rolling applications through the permitting process.

Craig Riddell, a former Pacific Grove planning commissioner and owner of Monterey Bay Design Group, which works with Hare Construction and local architects and designers on custom home design, has started to eat, sleep and breathe the ADU process, and is in the midst of writing a book on them. With a working title ofMaximizing Your Largest Investment, the theme is how to turn a home into a revenue stream via ADUs and JADUs.

He echoes Tings sentiments, about the early initial roadblocks that jurisdictions put up when it came to permitting ADUs.

We had the initial response from some districts where they were in denial, maybe, but now a lot of them are embracing it, Riddell says. He goes through a list of cities Seaside has its pre-approved plan program, Pacific Grove is on board and very strong and positive. Carmel, he says, has a lot of issues, Monterey is fine but has no water, and Marina is also positive. The county is another animal, because there are more zoning issues and septic systems can be a limiting factor, he says.

Throughout the state, the number of ADU permits issued has increased exponentially since 2017, when 5,000 permits were issued. In 2019, almost 15,000 ADU permits were issued. And, Riddell notes in a sample chapter from his book, a study from Freddie Mac (or Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation) found 1.4 million properties in the U.S. with ADUs, with the fastest growing areas in high-cost states in the South and West.

Its clear the state is for ADUs, and cities have resisted for a long time, Riddell says. But, he adds, post-WWII, housing was built for nuclear families, with two parents, 2.5 kids and a dog and it was fine.

Now, though, 62 percent of homes have fewer than three people living in them. And fewer people living in larger homes means theyre paying for more housing than they may want or need.

Were in this situation where weve created a housing problem for a lot of reasons, he says. One of the concerns with ADUs is that its intensifying a propertys use, but in reality, Im not sure we are. Some people call it hidden density. ADUs are interlaced into a neighborhood, theyre built by homeowners and can become a lifesaver for that homeowner.

How is it a lifesaver? It can house an adult child moving back home from college. It can house an elderly or infirm parent and avoid the need for a more expensive care facility. Or it can serve as a rental that provides an income stream and enables a homeowner to stay in their own homes as they age.

Building them isnt cheap, though. Construction is construction, and the soft cost of lumber has risen 170 percent during the pandemic, as some places have stopped cutting and processing lumber and a beetle infestation in Canada has taken out a number of trees. Meanwhile, speculators are buying lumber on the supposition it will be worth more in the future.

In general, if the area standard on per-square-foot cost for construction is $550 a square foot, thats what an ADU is going to cost you, Riddell says. You have all the parts plumbing, bathroom, foundation, utilities. You have all of that. Its one of the reasons garage conversions and JADUs look good right now.

RIDDELL RECOMMENDS THREE THINGS FOR PEOPLE CONSIDERING BUILDING AN ADU, whether its an ADU that comes from a garage conversion, one thats carved out of space in an existing home or from building a free-standing unit in a backyard.

First, figure out the purpose of the unit: Will you use it as space for family, as a rental unit or some other use, such as a home office or art studio? Second: Figure out your budget your real budget, not your fantasy, pie-in-the-sky budget. Third: Make sure your designer and your general contractor communicate effectively, and start that communication early in the process.

If you dont throw in a budget conversation, if that conversation never gets started, theres no use in going through a whole design process, Riddell says. Figuring out a rough budget and making sure you have a general contractor lined up is helpful, and working with a designer and general contractor together is a good idea.

Wizard also points out financing can be a problem, in that theres no good mechanism for financing ADUs.

You cant go to a bank and get a mortgage for an ADU. You have to get a home equity line or a consumer loan from 8 to 15 percent, and thats not a great financial strategy, he says. The consumer financial market has not met the moment of creating funding mechanisms.

Both former Gov. Jerry Brown in 2018 and Newsom in 2019 and 2020 vetoed an ADU financing bill to create a funding mechanism for consumers to borrow against. Still, Wizard says, Seaside has seen a lot of ADU activity, allocating 5 acre-feet of water for people who want to build one, but didnt have existing water credits. So far, 1.5 acre-feet have been used and the city has issued 36 ADU permits, with 19 of those finaled.

People want to build these because its an income stream, theyre critical to aging in place and for younger families buying a home, its a way to build wealth and provide stable housing.

Its a good use of the built environment, Wizard adds, and it concentrates human uses on already disturbed land and doesnt contribute to sprawl.

Hanif Panni is one member of a younger family looking to do just that build wealth and provide stable housing. An artist and DJ whose wife works in conservation communications, both have aging parents who live elsewhere, and they wanted to have a place for grandparents to stay. They availed themselves of one of Seasides pre-approved plans, and received their construction permit earlier this month.

We thought the water issue was going to make it impossible, but we started looking into it and found it was attainable, Panni says. Seasides package looked nice and theyre sexy plans. Theyre very future-thinking, forward-thinking. Where the [building] hardships will come is yet to be seen.

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ADUs are now reality for California. Heres some of what to expect when you build one. - Monterey County Weekly

DebbieLaPlaca| Correspondent

NORTHBORO This brick-front French Colonial in desirable Woodstone Estates is not your traditional box, and the location offers the best of both worlds.

The 4,200-square-foot, 12-room home at 18 Woodstone Road is on the market with Karen Scopetski of Coldwell Banker Realty Northborofor $824,900.

Scopetski says Woodstone Estates is an executive neighborhood with homes on 2- to 4-acre lots, so its private, spacious and spread-out.

We love the setting, homeowner Patty Border said of her four-bed, four-bath home. This property is lovely on almost 4 acres. We love our yard; its private, but its in a neighborhood so its the best of both worlds.

Inside, the home features lots of French doors, custom molding, including shadowbox trim, large windows, six fireplaces, hardwood flooring in most roomsand terra-cotta tiling in the kitchen area.

Or as Scopetski put it, Its a unique Colonial; its not your traditional box.

The two-story foyer with open staircase has a marble floor with custom inlay. Off the entranceway are a home office with fireplace and French doors for quiet, and a formal living room with fireplace.

The formal dining room shares open space with the living room and gives access to a three-season sunroom.

A butlers pantry alcove leads to the informal dining area in the kitchen, which has a striking terracotta tile floor and a wall of glass with views of the tree-lined backyard.

The kitchen is large and has an abundance of countertops and glass-faced cabinetry.

The family room has a cathedral ceiling with skylights and open beams, and a stone surround fireplace.

A second staircase off the family room leads to a sky-lit bonus room over the garage that would be suitable for a media room or a fourth bedroom.

Upstairs holds the master bedroom with large bathroom, and two other bedrooms, all with fireplaces.

The walkout basement has two finished rooms and a full bath.

This property is about 20 minutes from downtown Worcester and offers quick access to Route 290 for those who commute east.

Built: 1987

List price: $824,900

Living space: 4,200 square feet

Total rooms: 12

Bedrooms: 4

Bathrooms: 3 full, 1 half

Climate: 6 zone forced air heat

Fireplaces: 6

Land: 3.93 acres

Assessed value: $765,000

Taxes: $13,097 in 2021

Parking: 3-car garage

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House of the Week: Live outside the traditional box in Northboro French Colonial, $824,900 - Worcester Telegram

I first met Boris Moroz when I was a youth member of the Canadian Jewish Congress Eastern executive and he was one of its leaders. The 1970s were stormy years in Quebec from the FLQ Crisis to the election of the first PQ government. And CJC was right in the middle working to protect the interests of the Jewish community. What Boris taught - drawing from his own life of overcoming challenges - was how to deal with authority with pragmatism not dogma and where everybody comes out with something. Everyone is perceived as winning something. His lessons were not lost on me through my years of public engagement. Last Wednesday Boris celebrated his 100th birthday in fine form and as sharp as ever. His has been an exceptional life of an exceptional man.

Boris Moroz was born on April 21, 1921 in a small town in Poland called Gabin. He lived in the industrial city of Lodz growing up, which was the second largest in pre-war Poland and a European centre of the textile trade. The population was fairly even split between Poles, Germans and Jews. His family lived in the German area and so they spoke as much German as Polish. Boris was educated at a Hebrew school.

As far as he can remember, his family always wanted to immigrate to Canada where his mothers two brothers had settled and opened a printing business called the Service Linotyping Company. Although his family had visas to emigrate in the late 1920s, due to the stock market crash in 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression, immigration to Canada stopped. It did not re-open until 1935,when Boris family was able to leave for Canada. They arrived in November when Boris was 14 years old.

He had always wanted to be an architect. He loved to draw ands went to art school in Poland. In Montreal while in High School, Boris attended classes at Lecole des Beaux Arts and took art courses which were a pre-requisite for architecture. After finishing high school, Boris entered McGill University in 1939 in the School of Architecture. However, with the prevailing conditions at that time due to the outbreak of World War II, it was not a good time for architecture, with only six new students enrolled in the program. McGill was to discontinue the school and so, on the advice of architects and engineers, Boris switched to engineering and entered the first year pre-engineering program.

Boris spent five years at McGill, four of them in Mechanical Engineering. He did well scholastically receiving the honor of being named a University Scholar and graduating in 1944 with the Gold Medal.

Engineering students at the time had to take summer jobs in their field. After spending a month in survey school, his professor suggested Boris join a war-time emergency job surveying for an oil pipeline from Portland , Maine to Montreal East.

At that time the Germans were sinking our oil tankers with submarines at sea. Boris continued working on the construction of the pipeline in Canada. He wrote a paper on his work which won him a prize and was published. He went on to work at the Dominion Bridge Company, where he worked on design and construction of moveable bridges. Boris was always interested in construction, and as soon as the occasion arose, he took a leave of absence from Dominion Bridge and started his own business and built his first set of duplexes on Somerled at the corner King Edward in NDG.

Boris began drawing plans from his own duplex that he owned and began building on Lacombe Avenue next to where he lived. When his father in law Karl Kussner, moved to Montreal from Northern Ontario, Karl joined Boris in the business. Together they built duplexes on Maplewood, Van Horne, Carlton, Mckenna, and apartments on Decelles and Decelles Place.

Boris first began building in Hampstead with duplexes on MacDonald Avenue between Hampstead Road and Dupuis. Karl Kussner and Boris Moroz formed a partnership with Joel Sternthal and his son in law Aaron Gelber under the name of Planned Homes and bought a farm in Cote St. Luc adjacent to Hampstead. They built homes on Pinedale, Alpine and Kay Roads. This was the first development in Cote St. Luc with sewers instead of septic tanks. They put in their own domestic sewers and street drainage lines on these streets.

Boris then bought land in Hampstead, part private land and part from the sale of the Golf Course. He designed and built custom homes, south and north of Fleet Road, including his own at 300 Dufferin Road, where he lived for more than twenty years.In later years, Boris formed a realty company named Hampstead Realties and after his move to Florida, opened a company called Hampstead Realties of Florida.

But Boris never forgot the importance of giving back. He was always active in community affairs. He started his volunteer service in the 1940s and for over 30 years was active in Bnai Brith , Hillel, BBYO, Camp Bnai Brith, worked on fundraising drives , was Vice- Chairman of Israeli Bonds , formed the Eastern Regional Council of Bnai Brith with 31 Lodges, and became the 11th President of Canadian Bnai Brith (District 22), Chaired the League for Human Rights and the Soviet Jewry Committee, and was Vice President of the Eastern Region of Canadian Jewish Congress.

Frank Diamant , the long-time Executive Director of Canadian Bnai Brith said, As a leader in Bnai Brith Canada District 22 he will always be remembered for his strong activist positions on behalf of Soviet Jewry. He was a champion, advocating on behalf of the Jews, trapped behind the Iron Curtain. His strong leadership was also evident in both the Canada-Israel Committee and the Joint Community Relations Committee, which oversaw the battle against anti-Semitism in Canada.

On this the occasion of his 100th birthday, may he continue to be blessed with the love of his family and the knowledge that the Canadian Jewish Community appreciates his great contributions to its welfare. The name of Boris Moroz is synonymous with proud national Jewish leadership.

Originally posted here:
Boris Moroz: Celebrating the centenary of a community builder in every sense of the word - The Suburban Newspaper

Perched on a rugged terrace along the San Diego coast, the affluent beach community of Encinitas is dotted with craftsman- and ranch-style homes that help give the municipality its authentic, laid back surfer vibe. So when architect Soheil Nakhshab, whose work often employs a minimalist, midcentury aesthetic, was commissioned to design and build a home there last year, he aimed to create a modern dwelling that would gracefully interact with the more traditional neighboring properties.

Adding to the projects allure: he was also allowed to plan and construct the home without any input from the client. I had the good fortune to have free rein on the entire process, says Nakhshab, founder of Nakhshab Development and Design in San Diego who brought in Michael Hilal from the Bay Area and Julie Crosby from San Diego to work together on the interiors. I was simply told to design and build as you see fit and give me the keys when you're done.

A navy blue velvet sectional sofa, accented with a throw by Acne Studios and pillows by Raf Simons for Kvadrat, anchors the family room. A burl wood top coffee table from Therien & Co. sports a bronze-and-plexiglass base. Tall, carved pottery lamps adorn the console. A Pierre Paulin Archi chair sits next to a black Matter Made stool.

The results, a sleek and unobtrusive residence with expansive floor-to-ceiling windows, went well beyond simply pleasing the client. Settled on a hillside among the owners horse stables, the cantilevered stone-and-steel structure is being hailed by locals as an architectural gem. The most impressive part? The entire project was complete in just 11 months, all amid the pandemic, by relying on local resources to help reduce timelines.

The idea of being dependent on out of state or overseas manufacturing is detrimental in many ways because it makes a project like this more costly. [A]nd, [it] creates a negative carbon footprint, says Nakhshab. Using local resources not only benefited our clients timeline and overall costs but also helped the economic growth of our micro-economy.

Two low, cream-colored sofas anchor the living area, surrounding a vintage gold mirror-based cocktail table with a rosewood top and two midcentury Italian chairs. A custom ottoman topped with Herms fabric for Dedar and a tree trunk-shaped floor lamp by West Hollywood designer Robert Kuo accent a room that includes a floating fireplace and a custom silk-cashmere rug.

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Tour a Modern San Diego Home That Was Completely Constructed and Decorated During the Pandemic - Architectural Digest

Dinosaur and fossil aficionados are intimately familiar with the meteorite strike that drove Tyrannosaurus rex and all nonavian dinosaurs to extinction around 66 million years ago. But it is often overlooked that the impact also wiped out entire ecosystems. A new study shows how those casualties, in turn, led to another particularly profound evolutionary outcome: the emergence of the Amazon rain forest of South America, the most spectacularly diverse environment on the planet. Yet the Amazons bounty of tropical species and habitats now face their own existential threat because of unprecedented destruction from human activity, including land clearing for agriculture.

The new study, published on Thursday in Science, analyzed tens of thousands of plant fossils and represents a fundamental advance in knowledge, says Peter Wilf, a geoscientist at Pennsylvania State University, who was not involved in the research. The authors demonstrate that the dinosaur extinction was also a massive reset event for neotropical ecosystems, putting their evolution on an entirely new path leading directly to the extraordinary, diverse, spectacular and gravely threatened rain forests in the region today.

These insights, Wilf adds, provide new impetus for the conservation of the living evolutionary heritage in the tropics that supports human life, along with millions of living species.

Carlos Jaramillo, a paleobiologist at the Panama-based Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and co-lead author of the study, agrees that the meteorites evolutionary and ecological effects hold implications for todays rapid, human-caused destruction of the Amazon rain forest and other key habitats across the planet. We can relate this to nowadays, he says, because were also transforming landscapes, and that lasts foreveror at least a very long time.

Modern-day rain forests are integral to life on Earth. The Amazon, in particular, plays a crucial role in regulating the planets freshwater cycle and climate. Yet Western European and North American paleontologists have paid little attention to tropical forests, focusing instead on temperate latitudes. Many academic and amateur fossil hunters have also tended to write off warm, wet locales as a lost cause for finds because they have assumed that conditions there would prevent organic materials from being preserved long enough to fossilize. Its this combination of factors that has led us to this absence of much data in the tropics, says Bonnie Jacobs, a paleobiologist at Southern Methodist University, who co-authored a contextualizing essay that was published with the new study in Science.

Scientists already knew that the effects of the meteorite collision and its aftermathat least in temperate zonesvaried with local conditions and distance from the Chicxulub impact crater in Mexicos Yucatn Peninsula. New Zealand forests, for example, escaped relatively unscathed. But researchers have had no idea how the event changed the tropical rain forests of Africa or, until now, those of South America.

Along with most of his co-authors, Jaramillo is from Colombia and specifically wanted to investigate the origins of his home countrys tropical forests. The new study, which he conceptualized as an undergraduate student, represents nearly 12 years of effort. It took us a long time, he says, because we had to start from zero.

Whole trees are almost never preserved in the fossil record, so Jaramillo and his colleagues turned to fossilized pollen and leaves for insights. Pollen preserves well over time and is widespread in the fossil record. Like leaves, it differs morphologically among species, which helps researchers determine what types of plants lived in an ancient habitat.

Jaramillo and his colleagues searched 53 sites across Colombia for rocks that formed during the Late Cretaceous period, just before the meteorite strike, and others that formed during 10 million subsequent years, in the Paleogene period. From these rocks, the team amassed and analyzed around 50,000 fossil pollen grains and 6,000 fossil leaves to characterize the types of plants that made them. Recent separate findings indicate that plant leaves receiving more light have a higher density of veins, as well as a higher ratio of a naturally occurring isotope called carbon 13. The researchers studied those features among the collected fossils to piece together the structure of the regions past forests.

Their findings paint a picture of a sudden, cataclysmic annihilation of life after the impactbut also of a phoenix-like rebirth in the millions of years afterward. Prior to the meteorite, the authors determined, South Americas forests featured many conifers and a brightly lit open canopy supporting a lush understory of ferns. Dinosaurs likely played key roles in maintaining these Cretaceous forests by knocking down trees and clearing out vegetation, among other things. Within moments of the Chicxulub meteorites impact, however, this ecosystem was irrevocably altered. Fires, which likely burned for several years, engulfed South Americas southerly forests. Along with many of the animals they supported, a total of 45 percent of the continents tropical plant species disappeared, according to the authors calculations.

It took six million years for the forests to return to the level of diversity they had before the meteorite, and the species that slowly grew back were completely different than what came before. Legumesplants that form symbiotic relationships with bacteria that allow them to fix nitrogen from the airwere the first to appear, and they enriched the formerly nutrient-poor soil. This influx of nitrogen, along with phosphorus from the meteorites ash, enabled other flowering plants to thrive alongside the legumes and to displace conifers. As flowering species competed for light, they formed dense canopies of leaves and created the layered Amazon rain forest we know today, which is characterized by a blanket of productivity up top and a dark understory at the bottom.

Regan Dunn, a paleoecologist at the La Brea Tar Pits and Museum in Los Angeles, who was not involved in the new study, agrees that its findings are not only key for revealing the past but also for putting current anthropogenic threats into perspective. She particularly notes the authors calculation that 45 percent of plant species went extinct following the meteorite collision, because current estimates suggest that at least this many plant species will be globally threatened in the Amazon basin in the next 30 years from human activities alone.

The question remains: How will human impact change the composition and function of Amazonian forests forever? Dunn says.

The new findings show how extensive mass extinction events can alter the course of everything, Jacobs says. Today we are in the midst of another such event, she adds, but this one is driven by a single speciesand there is no place far from the metaphorical impact crater because humans are ubiquitous.

Yet unlike past mass extinction events, Jacobs says, this time we are not powerless to stop it.

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The Asteroid That Killed the Dinosaurs Created the Amazon Rain Forest - Scientific American

As the world marks the International Day for Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action on 04 April 2021, UNIFIL peacekeepers continue to carry on with the painstaking but necessary work of clearing large swathes of south Lebanese lands of deadly mines.

One of them is Captain Yang Dong from China. Recently, he was found hovering a hand-held metal detector a few centimetres above the ground, emanating a high-pitched electronic sound as he gingerly scanned the ground for mines near the village of Labbouneh.

The closer we get to a minefield in the remote areas of south Lebanon, the more red-painted stones we see, he says. The red stones remind us between safe and unsafe areas. It is reminding us not to step around It is dangerous and there could be some mines there.

Another deminer from China, Senior Sergeant Lu Nianyou, explains the procedure of detecting a mine: A steady beeping means all is fine, terrain is safe. But when beeping increases in frequency and becomes louder than the usual, it is a clear signal not to move any further.

In a nearby field close to the Blue Line, another group of UNIFIL deminers, from Cambodia, is busy undertaking the same task.

Team leader Chief Warrant Officer Ith Seyla says he feels very proud to be clearing the land of mines so that the landowners can till the land for farming.

If we clear all the mines, they can do farming in this area, he says.

His colleague, Warrant Officer Bun Channa of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF), is equally proud. I feel very happy in this job as a deminer because its humanitarian work, she adds. Its good to be serving my own country as well as Lebanon.

In 2020 alone, UNIFILs Chinese and Cambodian deminers cleared 14,541 square metres of land and discovered and destroyed 1,348 anti-personnel mines.

Since 2006, UNIFIL deminers have cleared nearly 5 million square metres of mine-filled land in south Lebanon. They have also destroyed more than 43,500 mines, bombs and unexploded ordnances.

During the first four years, UNIFIL deminers (which also included Italian, Belgian, Dutch, Spanish, Ukrainian and Finnish peacekeepers) conducted humanitarian demining in order to protect civilians and facilitate safe access to dwellings and agricultural land. As part of its mandate, UNIFIL facilitates the marking of the Blue Line. To ensure the safety of patrols carried out by UNIFIL peacekeepers, demining activities focused on specific operational tasks clearing access pathways to the Blue Line.

However, their scope of work increased again in January 2020 with the signing of a new agreement between UNIFIL and the Lebanon Mine Action Centre (LMAC) of the Lebanese Armed Forces.

Calling for continued efforts by Member States to foster the establishment and development of national mine-action capacities, the UN General Assembly declared on 8 December 2005 that 4 April of each year shall be observed as the International Day for Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action.

The global theme of this years observance isPerseverance, Partnership, Progressperseveranceneeded during the COVID-19 pandemic, newpartnershipsneeded to mitigate the threat of improvised explosive devices, withprogresstowardsa world free from the threat of landmines and unexploded ordnances.

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UNIFIL deminers persevere with clearing south Lebanese land of deadly mines | UNIFIL - UNIFIL

Its set to be a big 2021-22 fiscal year for the Alcoa/Maryville/Blount County Sanitary Landfill, which is in the early stages of expanding its more than 250-acre footprint and increasing per-ton tipping fees by mid-summer of next year.

Landfill and city of Alcoa officials said expansion of its Class III material cells nonhazardous industrial, commercial, landscaping, land clearing and farming wastes could take until at least February 2022.

Meanwhile, they said tipping fees to dump 1 ton of waste at the site will rise from $50 to $52 on July 1, this following a busy fiscal 2020 and sharp increases in trash drop-offs during the heat of COVID-19 restrictions.

Alcoa Public Works and Engineering Director Shane Snoderly said increased rates track with inflation. Weve held off the last few years, he said. We actually probably should be a little higher than what we are, but thats just kind of playing some catch-up.

As rates rise, so will the amount of space at the landfill. Operations there are finally realizing the fruit of planning that lasted several years, officials said.

Expanding for Class III materials is important to the landfill, where crews recently tore down the decades-old cabin staff used as an office tucked in a hilly, wooded area in the southwestern portion to make room for 11 more acres of Class III waste cells.

But before that happens, the Tennessee Department of Environment & Conservation has to give the permitting green light.

That could take until February 2022, according to Solid Waste Manager Kelly Hembree, though she hopes sooner. She also explained a single-permit expansion plan leaders initially created recently was split in two on TDECs recommendation.

What weve decided to do is to break it into two projects, Hembree said. The overlay project were doing first because were kind of in a hurry, and the other project is where the old office used to be.

Snoderly explained doing overlay strategically layering material on top of already existing cells is a lot easier to get permitted and get underway.

Launching these projects comes not a moment too soon for the landfill, Hembree added. Were currently on the last lift (or layer) of the current demolition cell, she said, explaining leaders already are using space designated for Class I materials to store Class III materials.

Ive put all the commercial construction demolition waste ... into the current Class I cell, and we dont want to do that, Hembree explained.

Having more cells by 2022 will mean less scraping for space, at least for the better part of another century, which is how long some officials estimate it will last.

Blount Countians may be able to help extend that time, however.

Hembree encouraged residents to find another use for things they throw away.

The only thing that really bothers me is a lot of things people haul off they could donate somewhere. You see a lot of good things that could have been used had it been taken to like a Habitat ReStore or AMVETS or somewhere like that, she said, noting the adage reduce, reuse, recycle still rings true in Blount.

Snoderly agreed, noting local recycling options are a huge benefit to extending the life of the landfill.

Follow @arjonesreports on Facebook and Twitter for more from city government reporter Andrew Jones.

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Landfill size, tipping rate increasing over coming fiscal year - Maryville Daily Times