In the simplest of terms, waves are energy moving through water. Given their existence as flowing energy, it's surprising that up until the past two decades, waves were untapped as a possible U.S. electricity source."At a moment when large offshore wind projects are encountering public resistance, a nascent ocean industry is showing promise: wave energy.
Midwestern agriculture has its fair share of industrial farms that use chemicals to enrich soils, kill bugs and prevent weeds to increase crop yields. But amid the region's miles of traditionally grown crops, Clear Creek Acres farm is growing 50,000 acres of corn, soybeans, oats and other crops "without the use of synthetic chemicals."
Reporting on Addiction is a collaborative movement staffed by media professionals working to decrease addiction stigmas by sharing leading practices for covering all types of addiction.One of the project's best offerings is its website's visual guide, which allows journalists to access photo portrayals that illustrate addiction experiences from multiple real-life angles.
Electric utility Entergy wants to build a $3.2 billion natural gas plant in rural northeast Louisiana to provide energy for an unnamed company's data center. Some people are "calling the development a 'godsend' for the region; however, environmental and economic concerns have left some officials and residents questioning the viability of a project that creates more fossil fuel emissions and could result in electricity rate hikes.
Growing up on a junkyard may sound depressing, but for Jeffrey or "Jeffie" Brewer, an East Texas native sculpture artist, his childhood days living among discarded things helped him develop his quirky, playful artistic style. He shares some of his artistic wisdom and childhood experiences in the condensed version of their Q&A is shared below.
Voters in rural towns and counties are working to break away from their state's blue-voting big cities and create their own governments. The "breakup" process has already begun in Illinois and California and is gaining momentum in "other states where vast swaths of red, rural counties are dominated by a few blue cities.
Even before the pandemic years, the number of vaccination exemptions issued for kindergartners entering public schools was on the rise. According to estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, when allowances from school years ending in 2012 to 2022 were tallied, the "nationwide median rate of kindergartners with vaccine exemptions nearly doubled."
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention "unveiled its Rural Public Health Strategic Plan, which outlines the priorities, objectives and outcomes the agency hopes to see over the next five years as it collaborates with stakeholders on how to improve the health of rural residents," reports Liz Carey of The Daily Yonder. This plan is the overarching guide for CDC and its Office of Rural Health to use as it works to address health disparities between urban and rural areas.
Over the past decade, the rate of U.S. adults and teens who smoke has hit its lowest level since 1965, but "disparities remain among the 36 million adults and 760,000 kids who smoke," reports Ken Alltucker of USA Today. U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy released a report that outlined identifiers for those who continue to smoke, which are often the same descriptors used to depict American rural populations: Poorer, less educated, Native American, and lacking access to medical care.