Health & Science – Page 6 – TheMinotVoice.com

For some northern climate greens growers, winter doesn’t halt their harvests

by: Josh Wolsky | December 27, 2022

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.

Read & Share sourced from: Dickinson Press

Does solar power still work in the depths of winter?

by: Josh Wolsky | December 27, 2022

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

Northern Plains tribes bring back their wild ‘relatives’

by: Josh Wolsky | December 27, 2022

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

Why Recycling Isn’t the Answer to the Plastic Pollution Problem

by: Josh Wolsky | December 23, 2022

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

Oslo, Norway is Further North Than Us, But Far Less Frigid

by: Josh Wolsky | December 23, 2022

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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The US is about to make opioid addiction treatment much easier

by: Josh Wolsky | December 22, 2022

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

Army Corps greenlights $2.2 billion plan to stop coastal Louisiana from washing away

by: Josh Wolsky | December 21, 2022

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

Read & Share sourced from: Star Tribune

RAWA Bill Dies Amid Crypto Tax Disagreement

by: Josh Wolsky | December 20, 2022

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

RAWA: If Not Now, When?

by: Josh Wolsky | December 19, 2022

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

Read & Share sourced from: News Dakota

Can a vaccine for cows slash methane emissions?

by: Josh Wolsky | December 15, 2022

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

Daycares in Finland Built a ‘Forest’, And It Changed Kids’ Immune Systems

by: Josh Wolsky | December 14, 2022

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

5 Things Silicon Valley Gets Wrong About Agriculture (and why it matters)

by: Josh Wolsky | December 13, 2022

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

Election day is over and guess what?

by: Josh Wolsky | November 11, 2020

Tom Dean is a 75-year old physician who practices medicine in rural South Dakota. The virus is raging through his community; it claimed his father and ten others in the local nursing home. It all has him wondering what it will take to bring us together? Read his full commentary on The Washington Post.

Read & Share sourced from: The Washington Post

Trinity Hospital Costs & Completion Date Updated, Estimated Price Now Above $500 Million

by: Josh Wolsky | September 3, 2020

In an internal exchange email sent this morning (included below) to employees of Trinity Health, hospital administrators released revised cost estimates of the new medical campus under construction in Southwest Minot. The project, which is now being managed by JE Dunn Construction, has been plagued by contractor turnover as well as a construction-stopping explosion in

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The North American ‘Amazon’ You’ve Never Heard Of—And Why It’s In Peril

by: Josh Wolsky | August 6, 2020

Conservationists are sounding the alarm on enormous declines in bird populations — a loss of nearly 3 billion since the 1970s — and the key to turning the tide is an area as vital to North American as the Amazon is to South America. And it’s right here in North Dakota. It’s the prairie pothole

Read & Share sourced from: Forbes

NCAA Cancels Division II Fall Sports Championships

by: Josh Wolsky | August 5, 2020

Correction: An earlier version of this story referenced Minot State sports seasons. What has been canceled are the NCAA Championships. Many questions remain for how individual conferences will respond to the situation. Minot State is a member of the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference. The fall NCAA championships for Minot State University Men’s and Women’s athletics

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