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It's been a brutal forest fire season in California. But there's actually a greater threat to California's trees — the state's record-setting drought. The lack of water has killed at least 60 million trees in the past four years.

Scientists are struggling to understand which trees are most vulnerable to drought and how to keep the survivors alive. To that end, they're sending human climbers and flying drones into the treetops, in a novel biological experiment.

By Michael D'estries

Researchers studying a remote section of the Pindos mountains in northern Greece have discovered a grove of ancient trees untouched for more than 1,000 years. The dozen millennium-old trees, all Bosnian pines, include one specimen that first set down roots at least 1,075 years ago.

That makes it the oldest officially dated tree in all of Europe.

The Bosnian pine (Pinus heldreichii) was dated by counting the rings, which are formed each year as the tree grows.

Paul J Krusic, the leader of the expedition that found the tree, described the its survival as "remarkable". Around the time that this tree was a seedling, in the year 941, the Vikings were roaming northern Europe. And it was already about 250 years old when the University of Oxford was founded.

by Rina Marie Doctor

On Thursday, Nov. 5, chinese local authorities said that a Taxus chinensis tree assumed to be around 1,300 years old was found in Hunan Province in central China. The discovery was made during a census activity involving ancient trees.