Sex Change Operation in Trees

In an effort to relieve the city from pollen infestation, Beijing's female poplar trees will receive "sex change operations" in order to stop them from producing flying pollen.

The air-borne pollen is overwhelming the city, increasing and worsening allergy and asthma problems amongst Beijing citizens.

The technique itself is more experimental than scientifically proven, but with over 300,000 poplar trees on the streets of Beijing, there seems to be a huge sample for making any type of experimentation.

Scientists in the Chinese capital have begun to inject some "male" trees with plant hormones in an experiment to change their "gender" so no pollen would be produced, states broadcaster CCTV. "The poplar pollen affects the air quality of the city, and harms human health, so the city authorities must do something to deal with it," has explained a gardening expert.

"Hospitals in Beijing have received increasing numbers of patients who suffer from asthma or allergies after inhaling the pollen, which blankets the city in a snowfall of white fluff. It would not be China's first attempt to alter nature", reported Reuters.

China has also made other attempts to intervene in nature.

Besides the Three Gorges Dam, the biggest ever, the drought affected country employs as a common procedure seeds clouds to trigger rainfall; two weeks ago, Chinese meteorologists have announced they have managed to induce the first artificial snowfall in Tibet, amid worldwide increasing concerns about global warming and melting glaciers.

Many environmentalists look at this action with disbelief and said that China must put the higher rates of allergy and asthma on industrial pollution.

The galloping economic development of China has produced a booming of industries of all kinds that dump huge amounts of carbon dioxide and other toxic gases and aerosols into the atmosphere.

Currently, China is regarded as the second world contaminant after the United States, and the biggest one in Asia.