Cory Ritterbusch and Emily Lubcke sought out Shullsburg, Wisconsin (population 1,209), for the quality of life it offered them and their children. The young couple aren’t the only ones going to (or returning to) small towns. “People don’t move to your town for pity,” Winchester said. [node:read-more:link]
Hurricane Maria likely killed thousands of people across Puerto Rico last year, more than 70 times the official estimate, a Harvard study released Tuesday says. Authorities in Puerto Rico placed the death toll at 64 after Maria roared through the island Sept. 20, destroying buildings and knocking out power to virtually the entire U.S. territory of more than 3 million people.Researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, however, surveyed more than 3,000 households on the battered island. [node:read-more:link]
Officials and volunteers in eastern Iowa have opened a park on a former vacant lot with hopes of increasing habitat for bees, butterflies and other insects and demonstrating the importance of such efforts. The Muscatine Journal reports that the Pollinator Park opened in Muscatine May 19. Volunteers planted new plants during the ceremony.Jon Koch is a founding member of the nonprofit Pollinator Park Project group. He says they hope to attract bees, butterflies, hummingbirds and other flying insects with the plants.Volunteers from Nature Conservancy of Iowa, U.S. [node:read-more:link]
Over a lifetime, some Lancaster County residents may have seen a fox with mange. Hunters may have glimpsed an infected coyote. It’s a horrible sight with clumps of hair missing from the beautiful animals. Now, unfortunately, the scourge of mange has spread to bears, and the Pennsylvania Game Commission recently declared that the highly contagious disease has reached epidemic proportions in the state’s population. [node:read-more:link]
Many schools across the country are struggling with a crippling teacher shortage. The number of students entering university-based teacher preparation programs has steadily declined and the number of teachers retiring or getting ready to retire is increasing; adding to this, current working conditions and public perceptions of the teaching profession have led to increased turnover rates — and according to some organizations, this growing shortage of teachers is at crisis level.This is especially true for rural communities, including in Colorado. [node:read-more:link]
Water, water everywhere—but not necessarily in the places it used to be. Even just in the past two decades, freshwater has been on the move in what scientists are now realizing represents "major hydrologic change." That's according to a new study published in the journal Nature. [node:read-more:link]
The Python Elimination Program, run by the South Florida Water Management District, recently celebrated a milestone: the 1,000th Burmese python has been captured. “We’ve got the best hunters this state has ever seen,” Mike Kirkland, the program’s project manager, said. “We also have a great team of district staff too and together we’ve formed this cohesive unit working together and that’s why this program has been such a success.”Experts say there are between 10,000 and 100,000 pythons in the Everglades. It is difficult to tell because the snakes are experts at hiding. [node:read-more:link]
Fewer cows have been breeding on the range since wolves migrated to northeast Washington, an economic loss little known outside the cattle industry, according to the owners of the region’s largest ranch. The Diamond M ranch estimates that the rate of “open cows” — females that didn’t become pregnant — has increased to about 20 percent from the historic rate of 5 percent.“If wolves were attacking people night and day, I don’t think you’d have too many people pregnant,” said Len McIrvin, the patriarch of the family-owned and -operated ranch. [node:read-more:link]
Shutting down power plants that burn fossil fuels can almost immediately reduce the risk of premature birth in pregnant women living nearby, according to research published Tuesday. [node:read-more:link]
The Arizona Department of Education hopes to make changes to science standards, which will affect K-12 districts and charter schools. The changes include removing the word "evolution" in some areas and describing it as a "theory" in others. Some educators and scientists are outraged by the change. According to the department, the standards are not curriculum or instructional practices. The standards focus on 14 core ideas regarding science and engineering that teachers use to create their curriculum. [node:read-more:link]
