Have you ever been inspired by a physical space? If you spend time in nature, the answer is probably yes. If you spend time in our cities, particularly the modern iterations of them, the ‘yes’ response might not come so quickly. Thomas Heatherwick writing at WIRED calls those responsible for building our urban environments to
Read & Share sourced from: WIRED
They say idle hands are the devil’s playground. And for a group of elderly citizen-makers in one Minnesota town, they’re occupying their time making and keeping the shelves stocked in their age-exclusive store. The Landing Shop in Minnetonka is a craft-makers consignment shop with a twist — the makers have to be at least 55
Read & Share sourced from: Star Tribune
Slippery roads and sidewalks are a big risk in wintertime, and there’s no better way to deal with them than adding a little salt. But for every action, there is a consequence, and when all that salt is added up, it’s having an impact on lakes and rivers. That’s what our Eastern neighbors in Minnesota
Read & Share sourced from: InForum
North Dakota has made improvements in the amount of natural gas flared as a result of oil production, but the impacts on those living closest to the activity are still significant. Patrick Springer writing at The Dickinson Press has the full story on the down-wind health costs that researchers suggest are tied to flaring.
Read & Share sourced from: Dickinson Press
Fresh produce from Minnesota in December? No, it’s not a joke. From passive-solar powered greenhouses to hydroponic container farms, demand for local produce is inspiring small farmers to innovate. And in a place like Minot that has no shortage of cold and an economy built on agriculture, this is a trend we need to watch.
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When it comes to sunlight hours, Northern geographies tend to get less sunlight hours than places further south, but the colder weather actually benefits energy transmission. Get the full story on solar effectiveness up here in the North at Inforum.
Read & Share sourced from: Grand Forks Herald
When the prairie was plowed up for farming generations ago, there were things lost that we didn’t know we had. Among those was habitat for species like the Black-Footed Ferret and the Swift Fox. Today, it’s the Native American tribes of the Northern Plains that are making intentional space for the reintroduction of these long-threatened
Read & Share sourced from: Associated Press
Recycling is a juggernaut. It has been so ingrained as the solution to waste management that we’ve failed to recognize that it’s just not very effective. For example, in a typical recycling program, only 15% of plastic actually gets collected for recycling. After collection, about 40% of the collected amount is discarded for poor quality.
Read & Share sourced from: Nature
WDAY Meteorologist John Wheeler explains it in the Inforum article linked below. But basically, Oslo (and the rest of Western Europe) get that warm Atlantic Ocean air. Here in North Dakota, we get a lot of that air that isn’t warmed up by the ocean. The result: places that are a lot further North with
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When it comes to opioid addiction, the U.S. has a staggering, heartbreaking problem. In 2021, our nation lost 109,000 people to overdoses. For 2022, the forecast is to see that number go down only slightly. To deal with the issue, Congress is expected to get the red tape out of the way. Get the full
Read & Share sourced from: Quartz
The Corps of Engineers working to restore the natural, delta-building characteristics of the Mississippi River. Southern Louisiana is one of the most man-made environments around because for hundreds of years, we’ve been diverting and containing the lower river. It’s an expensive, ambitious project with the goal of righting past wrongs. It’s also not without risks
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It was known as the Recovering America’s Wildlife Act, and it was the first major conservation bill that had traction since 1973. Its $1.7 billion annual funding was to be covered by closing a loophole that allowed crypto exchanges to escape taxes typically paid on other investments like stocks and bonds. Get the full story
Read & Share sourced from: Quartz
Biodiversity on the prairie is on the decline; threats to it are rising. More than 115 species are at risk of extinction. RAWA stands for the Recovery of America’s Wildlife Act, and according to Ricky Klaverkamp, writing at News Dakota, it’s an important bill for North Dakota and the time to act is now, before
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Do cows need a methane vaccine? Probably not. Do ranchers need a methane vaccine for cows? Maybe yes. Cows eat grass and the microbes in their stomachs turn a bunch of that biomatter into methane. It’s a problem because methane is bad for the environment, and there are a lot of cows on the prairie
Read & Share sourced from: Fast Company
It’s known as the ‘biodiversity hypothesis’. The thought is that environments with lots of living things positively impact our natural immunity. In Finland, researchers took it to the next stage, experiment and testing — they redeveloped daycare playgrounds to include natural green space. Then they sent the kids out to play and tested their markers
Read & Share sourced from: Science Alert
There’s a notion out there that farming is old-fashioned. But just because the vocation has been around for a few thousand years, doesn’t mean it’s opposed to innovation. It’s just the opposite, and we probably wouldn’t have food to eat today if the agriculture sector shunned new technology. But it’s possible Silicon Valley, our current
Read & Share sourced from: Entrepreneur