Study proves that people who were raised in rural areas have a better sense of direction than city dwellers

A player navigates a boat in Sea Hero Quest

"People who grew up in the country have a better sense of direction and navigational skills than those raised in cities, a study has found," Agence France-Presse reports. This is something many rural people have long believed about urbanites; now we have proof.

"To find out how childhood environment influences navigation ability, scientists looked at how almost 400,000 people from 38 countries played a mobile video game designed for neuroscience research," AFP reports.

According to the study, which was published in Nature, players of the Sea Hero Quest game navigated a boat to find checkpoints on a map. The game was created in 2016 to study Alzheimer's disease, but has since been played by nearly 4 million people, AFP reports.

"We found that growing up outside cities appears to be good for the development of navigational abilities, and this seems to be influenced by the lack of complexity of many street networks in cities," lead researcher Hugo Spiers of University College London told AFP.

Co-lead author Antoine Coutrot of France's University of Lyon noted that people from cities with complicated layouts such as Paris and Prague fared much better than those from grid-based cities like Chicago: "Growing up somewhere with a more complex layout of roads or paths might help with navigational skills as it requires keeping track of direction when you’re more likely to be making multiple turns at different angles, while you might also need to remember more streets and landmarks for each journey."

That has implications in the United States, where most of the landscape is overlaid with rectangular grids, but not most of the Eastern U.S. -- except the states north of the Ohio River that were part of the Northwest Territory, governed by the Northwest Ordinance, which divided the land into grids of townships, a system used as Americans migrated west. Next time you fly over the Ohio, notice the difference in how the landscape is laid out. Here's a Google map example:

The researchers also developed and tested users on a new game called City Hero Quest to see how well rural and urban people navigated in cities. "People raised in cities did manage better in grid street plans than those who grew up in the country – but the difference was nowhere near as stark as the other way around," AFP reports. Coutrot noted that adult urbanites can improve their sense of direction if they work at it, but said it's much easier when one is young.

Analysis suggests fewer rural college students major in STEM fields because of inadequate high-school prep

Fewer rural college students major in science, technology, engineering and math than their suburban and urban peers, according to a new analysis of federal data. "Only 13 percent of rural and small town students major in math and science in college, compared with almost 17% of students in the suburbs ... Urban students also trail suburban students when it comes to studying science, but only by a little, according to the federal data." Jill Barshay reports for The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit education newsroom.

That's a problem when more jobs than ever require training in so-called STEM fields. "According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, occupations in these fields are projected to grow 8 percent by 2029, more than double the growth rate of non-scientific professions," Barshay reports.

Part of the reason for the gap is that fewer rural high-school students go to four-year colleges, but even those who do are less likely to major in STEM fields. A June 2021 data analysis may offer some clues as to why, Barshay reports. Researchers at Claremont Graduate University studied a federal dataset of more than 20,000 students nationwide, and found that rural students had the same interest in math and science careers as their suburban counterparts at the start of high school.

But many rural students weren't as well-prepared for STEM fields: "Rural students posted lower scores on math assessments in early ninth grade than their suburban counterparts and they had taken half as many high-school level courses in middle school," Barshay reports. "By the end of 11th grade, rural students’ desire to pursue a career in math or science dropped below 9%. Some suburban students became disenchanted with a life in math or science too, but their enthusiasm fell only 1 percentage point. At the same time, the math achievement gap between rural and suburban students grew even larger."

The researchers posited three explanations for rural students' declining interest in STEM fields: lack of advanced math and science classes; math and science teachers who weren't as qualified or confident; and fewer opportunities for extracurricular math and science through activities such as science fairs, robotics competitions, or math clubs, Barshay reports.

"Solving these problems won’t be easy. The Rural STEM Education Act proposes to improve teacher training and increase both online and hands-on science education in rural schools. It has bipartisan support, has passed the House and may become law," Barshay reports. "But it will remain hard to justify hiring an Advanced Placement physics teacher for just a handful of students in a small school and harder to recruit an excellent teacher to teach it."

Quick hits: Scientists ID carcinogenic chemicals in fracking wastewater; rural schools struggle with lack of broadband

Here's a roundup of stories with rural resonance; if you do or see similar work that should be shared on The Rural Blog, email us at heather.chapman@uky.edu.

University of Toledo scientists created a new way to identify chemicals in fracking wastewater; many are carcinogenic. Read more here.

With less broadband access, rural students and teachers struggle to keep up during pandemic. Read more here.

A program takes donated old computers and refurbishes them for rural students; your community can copy it. Read more here.

Study: Some social distancing may be needed through 2022

Intermittent social distancing may be needed through 2022 to keep covid-19 spikes from overwhelming the U.S. health care system, but much more testing is urgently needed to know more about how the virus might behave, says a newly published study in the journal Science.

Harvard University researchers examined a range of scenarios for how the virus will spread over the next five years. "The authors suggest a number of factors will play a major role in the path the disease will take over the coming years — if transmission subsides in summer and resurges in winter, if there is some immunity induced by infection and how long it lasts, and whether people get any cross-protective immunity from having been infected with related human coronaviruses that cause common colds," Helen Branswell reports for Stat. "Overall, the research concludes it is unlikely that life will return any time soon to the way it was before the virus’ emergence."

Their models predict that a one-time social distancing effort—such as what is happening now in the U.S.—won't stop transmission of the virus. The researchers see two ways that officials could loosen social distancing measures sooner: if a vaccine is developed, and/or a treatment that keeps cases from getting too serious, Branswell reports.

The researchers stressed the need to study blood samples over time to map out human immune responses to the virus and discern it behavior. Mark Lipsitch, the lead author, told Branswell that that's doubly important because some evidence indicates that not all covid-19 survivors develop a strong immune response, which means herd immunity will take longer to build up.

On Tuesday, President Trump announced a task force to help him decide when and how to end social-distancing measures; the list included business and sports leaders, but no health officials so far. Trump has been under heavy pressure from business leaders and some conservative politicians to reopen the country in order to avoid another expensive stimulus package. Governors in many states have pushed back though, asserting that they will choose when to end social distancing, Annie Karni and Maggie Haberman report for The New York Times.

Interstate transmission of the coronavirus is a bigger concern than international transmission, says new study

Interstate transmission of the coronavirus is a much bigger public health threat in the U.S. than cases coming from international travelers, according to a new study at the Yale School of Public Health.

Researchers can track where a virus came from by analyzing its genetic makeup, or genome. They analyzed the genomes of nine virus samples from Connecticut covid-19 patients in mid-March, then compared them with 168 other covid-19 genomes from the U.S. and around the world, Colin Poitras reports for Yale School of Medicine.

"The study found that most of Connecticut’s virus samples were more closely linked to outbreaks in other states than international locations such as Europe and China," Poitras reports. "Most importantly, seven of the nine Connecticut samples were clustered with known virus genomes from Washington state. This provides evidence that transcontinental spread of the virus was already happening between the West Coast and East Coast as early as mid-March, despite federal international travel bans that were put in place starting in late January."

The findings underscore the need for more testing at the state level and more tracking of people who may have been exposed to the virus, say the researchers. Click below for a short video explaining the science behind the study.

Interior employee inserts misleading language about climate change into scientific reports about agriculture and more

Longtime Interior Department official Indur Goklany inserted misleading and sometimes debunked language about climate change into the agency's scientific reports, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times.

"The misleading language appears in at least nine reports, including environmental studies and impact statements on major watersheds in the American West that could be used to justify allocating increasingly scarce water to farmers at the expense of wildlife conservation and fisheries," Hiroko Tabuchi reports.

In early 2017, near the beginning of the Trump administration, Goklany was promoted to the office of the deputy secretary responsible for reviewing the agency's climate policies. "The Interior Department’s scientific work is the basis for critical decisions about water and mineral rights affecting millions of Americans and hundreds of millions of acres of land," Tabuchi notes.

Goklany pushed department scientists to change the wording in studies to cast doubt on the scientific consensus regarding global warming. "He also instructed department scientists to add that rising carbon dioxide — the main force driving global warming — is beneficial because it 'may increase plant water-use efficiency' and 'lengthen the agricultural growing season'," Tabuchi reports. "Both assertions misrepresent the scientific consensus that, overall, climate change will result in severe disruptions to global agriculture and significant reductions in crop yields."

The Interior Department emails, which span 2017-2019, "provide the latest evidence of the Trump administration’s widespread attacks on government scientific work," Tabuchi reports.

Researchers find the little brown bat may be evolving to become more resistant to deadly white-nose syndrome

A healthy little brown bat (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service photo)

University of Michigan biologists have discovered the first genetic evidence of resistance in bats to white-nose syndrome, a fungal disease that has killed millions of the flying mammals in North America, according to a newly published study.

"The study involved northern Michigan populations of the little brown bat, one of the most common bats in eastern North America prior to the arrival of white-nose syndrome in 2006. Since then, some populations of the small, insect-eating bat have experienced declines of more than 90 percent," Jim Erickson reports for University of Michigan News. "UM researchers collected tissue samples from wild little brown bats that survived the disease, as well as individuals killed by the fungal pathogen. They compared the genetic makeup of the two groups and found differences in genes associated with regulating arousal from hibernation, the breakdown of fats and echo-location."

Translation: Bats that are genetically prone to be a little fatter or sleep more deeply may be less susceptible to the disease. The disease kills bats two ways: When the fungus grows on them while they're hibernating, it causes them to use twice as much energy as normal to maintain bodily functions, and sometimes they waste away before making it to spring. The fungus also kills bats when it irritates them so much that they wake up during hibernation and, disoriented, leave the cave in the middle of the winter and starve.

The rapid genetic changes in those areas suggest the bats are evolving due to natural selection. As bats with these genes reproduce, more bats could survive the disease, say the authors.

"While the study was small—involving tissue samples from 25 little brown bats killed by white-nose syndrome and nine bats that survived the disease—the authors say their sample size is large enough to detect genetic changes driven by natural selection," Erickson reports. "A larger follow-up study is underway, expanding both the number of bats and the areas affected by the disease, to develop a fuller picture of adaptive change that may be key to the species’ survival."

Bats play an important role in ecosystems and contribute at least $3 billion annually to the U.S. agriculture economy by pollinating crops, dispersing seeds and keeping insect populations down. But white-nose has decimated bat populations in at least 33 states and experts say some bat species may go extinct because of it.

Study notes top 3 reasons rural people are dying off faster than city dwellers; class, insurance and lack of doctors

Rural residents have been dying at a younger age, on average, than their urban counterparts since the 1980s, and that gap is widening. Researchers in Texas name the top three reasons why in a recently published study: socioeconomic status, lack of health insurance, and a shortage of physicians.

"Scott Phillips of Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center co-authored the study, published late last year, which found that those three factors accounted for just over 80 percent of the difference between rural and urban mortality rates," Jeremy Fugleberg reports for Inforum, an online partnership between The Forum newspaper and TV station WDAY in Fargo, North Dakota.

Living in a rural county doesn't automatically mean you're at a higher risk of dying sooner, but "it means you're more likely to grapple with the factors that get in the way of good health care," Fugleberg reports. "The study actually indicates without such hurdles, rural residents would have a lower mortality rates than those who live in urban areas." Only three states had higher mortality rates in urban counties than rural counties: Colorado, Montana and Wyoming.

USDA's five-year blueprint doesn't adequately address climate change or sustainability, farm economists write

Over the past decade, climate change has increasingly hurt American farmers, but many farmers and farm groups have tried to ignore or downplay its role. So University of Tennessee agricultural economists Harwood D. Schaffer and Daryll E. Ray were hopeful when the U.S. Department of Agriculture recently announced a new five-year blueprint with sections that appeared to address sustainable agriculture and adaptation to climate change.

However, the document had "nothing about sustainable practices. Not once did the paper give any sense that research in ag sustainability or sustainable practices were given serious attention. There were no items that suggested that sustainable practices might play a role in reducing agriculture’s contribution to global climate change," Schaffer and Ray write. "We would have thought that agriculture’s role in climate mitigation would have been mentioned alongside Ag Climate Adaptation. But we were wrong."

Though they believe many USDA scientists take climate change seriously, the economists are troubled by the administration's official stance that denies humans' role in climate change and ignores the need for all Americans to help reduce it. That puts "conscientious scientists in a bind when they apply for USDA grants," they write. "Though the results of their research may play a significant role in mitigating climate change, they need to hide that fact when they write their grant proposals. Given the recent dismissals of military and diplomatic officials by the White House, we are concerned that scientists who acknowledge the impact of their research on climate change could see their consideration for future grants limited. That would not be in the interest of farmers who want to use the latest research to reduce or eliminate the impact of their agricultural operations on the climate. It would also not be in the best interest of our children, grandchildren and all future generations."

Why have farmers, so close to nature, resisted action against climate change? "Either because they do not believe that humans are playing a significant role in climate change or more likely they are opposed to any regulations that might force them to change their agricultural production practices," write in their latest "Policy Pennings" column.

Critics say movement to eat less meat distorts science

Agriculture, especially cattle, is a main contributor to climate change, accounting for almost a quarter of annual greenhouse-gas emissions worldwide. In the United States, where the average person eats four times more beef than people in other countries, environmentalism is often cited as a reason to cut back on or eschew eating beef entirely and has helped spur some fast-food chains to offer vegetarian meat analogues. "But a rising chorus of farming advocates says that notion gets it wrong, or at best only partly right," Lynne Curry writes for The New Food Economy.

Nutritionist Diana Rodgers, who produces organic vegetables and pasture-raised meats on her farm, is frustrated with anti-meat messaging. She wrote on her blog recently that it comes from all angles, including the media, medical experts, international organizations, and sometimes city governments, Curry reports. Rodgers, who is working on a documentary urging better—not less—meat consumption, is an outspoken critic of meat reduction campaigns.

"In January, she railed against the Eat Lancet Commission’s 'diet for planetary health,' which suggested a dramatic reduction to about 1.5 ounces of animal protein per day. She agrees with many nutritionists who assert that meat is an irreplaceable, nutrient-dense food group, especially for children, women and at-risk populations," Curry reports. Meat analogues are often highly processed, expensive, and nutrient-poor, but are marketed as "cleaner, more virtuous, healthier," Rodgers said. "It's the biggest form of greenwashing there is today."

Andrew Gunther, executive director of sustainable livestock farming organization A Greener World, told Curry that the simplified view is dangerous: "If we thought the soil, air and water could be fixed by a single solution, we’d advocate for that." Rancher Ariel Greenwood, who co-owns grassland sustainability consulting company Grass Nomads LLC, said the notion of eating less beef to save the earth is "asinine" because it ignores the significant possible variations in beef production.

Vegetarian rancher Nicolette Hahn Niman objected on different grounds: "My strongest objection to environmental and public health advocates using the slogan 'eat less meat' is that it is extremely alienating to farmers and ranchers," she told Curry. "We need far more intelligent conversations about climate change’s connection to food, agriculture and health."

Democrats try to revive health-effects-of-mining study that Trump administration halted in 2017; Senate stands athwart

Nearly two years ago, the Trump administration halted a $1 million study on whether surface mining in Central Appalachia has caused health problems for residents. House Democrats protested at the time but couldn't do much as the minority; now that they have the majority, several are trying to revive the study, including Natural Resources Committee chairman Raúl Grijalva, D-Arizona.

"Rep. John Yarmuth, the sole Democrat in the Kentucky congressional delegation, is seeking to halt all new mountaintop coal removal mining permits until federal officials investigate potential health effects," Lesley Clark reports for McClatchy Newspapers, including the Lexington Herald-Leader. Yarmuth's effort is almost sure to fail because the Senate is controlled by Republicans, led by Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, a friend of the coal industry.

In a Natural Resources subcommittee hearing Tuesday, Michael McCawley, an associate professor in West Virginia University's Department of Occupational and Environmental Health Sciences, testified that he thought the study got canceled because the administration knew the results would be bad for the industry, Kate Mishkin reports for the Charleston Gazette-Mail. "I think they believed that the study was going to come out with evidence that supported banning mountaintop mining, that they knew what the evidence was," McCawley said, adding that he knew that because "I know most of the panel members; they’re colleagues of mine."

The study by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine was funded in 2016 by the Obama administration, but halted in August 2017. The Interior Department initially claimed it was reviewing all projects costing more than $100,000 because of budget cuts, but that wasn't true. Nearly a year later, the Pacific Standard reported that a top Interior official met repeatedly with coal-industry lobbyists just before canceling the study.

Biologists 'hack' photosynthesis to create bigger and faster-growing plants; now working on food crops

University of Illinois scientists say they've figured out how to genetically engineer some plants' photosynthesis process to make them grow dramatically bigger and faster, and they're now working on making the hack work in plants people grow for food.

Their work, published this month in Science, centers on rubisco, an enzyme found in most plants' leaves that uses solar power to convert carbon dioxide in the air into sugar molecules the plant can use for energy, Dan Charles reports for NPR. The problem with rubisco is that it also scoops oxygen from the air along with the carbon, and must detoxify it via an energy-intensive process. That leaves less energy available for making leaves or fruit.

The researchers have spent the past five years trying to make rubisco more efficient, with funding for their project from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and more. The team was able to create tobacco plants that grew faster and up to 40 percent bigger than normal in both greenhouse and open-air conditions, Charles reports.

The team is now working on food crops like tomatoes, soybeans, and black-eyed peas. Black-eyed peas were selected because they're a staple crop in sub-Saharan Africa, where funders want to make a big impact. But it will be years before such genetically engineered crops are available for purchase, if at all. "Researchers will have to find out whether it means that a food crop like soybeans actually produces more beans — or just more stalks and leaves," Charles reports. 'Then they'll need to convince government regulators and consumers that the crops are safe to grow and eat."

Carbon-fiber manufacturing could boost coal

A 3-D printed, carbon-fiber submersible made mostly from coal. (Dept. of Energy photo)

As more utilities switch from coal to cheaper, cleaner energy sources, America's huge coal reserves are increasingly untapped. But scientists are experimenting with new uses for coal, and while "no one expects the research to revive all the coal-mining jobs that disappeared in recent years, experts say new sources of demand are emerging for the carbon-rich rock, from battery electrodes to car parts to building materials," Tim Loh and Patrick Martin report for Bloomberg.

Probably the biggest potential use for coal right now is in creating carbon fiber, a stiff, strong, and ultra-lightweight material that has been widely used for aircraft and other items for years. The lion's share of most carbon fiber is made from a polymer resin called polyacrylonitrile, with a dash of petroleum pitch. But Mitsubishi has used coal for decades to create carbon fiber, so it's possible to change the formula to be mostly coal.

At the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, researchers used coal and a 3-D printer to create a 30-foot-long submersible to show what carbon fiber made from coal can do. "At the Oak Ridge lab, the 3-D printing techniques for the carbon-fiber sub hull helped reduce production costs by 90 percent and shortened manufacturing time from months to days, according to the Department of Energy. Improved design and building techniques encourage more use of carbon fibers, which could increasingly come from coal," Loh and Martin report.

Bloomberg graphic; click to enlarge

Most of America's coal is still used for electricity, but it's in decline. Coal accounts for 30 percent of the power mix used by utilities today, down from 50 percent in 2008. Correspondingly, the number of miners in the U.S. fell 40 percent to about 50,000 in the same time period. Oak Ridge researcher Edgar Lara-Curzio says "Coal for power generation is going to continue to decrease. Here is a chance for us to pay back all these coal communities that have sacrificed for so many years to give us cheap electricity."

If you're going to farm country for the eclipse, keep farmers in mind and watch for purple posts

David Cansler expects "a blizzard" of
eclipse watchers at his farm. (SF photo)

The expected rush to see Monday's solar eclipse has some farmers wary. "You can only get so many people down a two-lane road," Terena Bell writes for Successful Farming from Cerulean, Ky., which will be the point of greatest eclipse, where the moon covers the sun most fully, at about 1:25 p.m. CDT.

"In West Kentucky tobacco country, late August is cutting season," Bell reports. "Inability to get in and out limits how many wagons you can move from field to barn and back, which could leave crops to burn in the fields, a concern county Magistrate Mark Wells voiced at a recent town hall."

David Cansler, who with relatives owns the farm with the greatest-eclipse point, predicts "a blizzard in August . . . They're just going to have to shut everything down." Christian County Judge-Executive Steve Tribble said, "you could have some crops destroyed" by people parking vehicles.

Purple posts in Maine and other
states mean "No Trespassing"

Five states along the path of totality have "purple post" laws, which ban parking where fence posts are painted purple: Illinois, Idaho, Kansas, Missouri, and North Carolina, Bell reports. However, many visitors "are not going to know what a purple post means," said Jessica Hahn, the Farm Bureau manager in Jackson County, Illinois, which will have the point of greatest eclipse duration, where the moon will cover the sun for the longest time: one-tenth of a second longer than on Cansler's farm. Here's a screenshot of part of an interactive map from NASA:

Purple marker is where eclipse will last longest, 2 minutes and 40.2 seconds. Green marker shows where moon will cover sun most fully, but for 0.1 second less. Blue lines show bounds of totality, the length of which increases rapidly as you move inward; it will last 2:20 in Paducah, 1:48 in Cape Girardeau, Mo., and 47 seconds in Central City, Ky.

Tips and links for covering Monday's solar eclipse

In an eclipse, the moon shadows part of Earth.

The first coast-to-coast solar eclipse in 99 years is coming up Monday, Aug. 21, so here's an omnibus post with tips for covering the event and links to interesting stories and helpful resources.

Tips for coverage

• Get there early. Experts say the eclipse could cause historic traffic jams, so allot several hours more than you think you'll need to get there and back.
• Be aware that cell phone coverage may be spotty and plan accordingly. Some rural areas are getting extra cell service for the day, but don't count on it.
• Bring supplies. Traffic and strained local infrastructure may limit access to food, water and fuel. So gas up your car before you go, and bring food, plenty of water, sunscreen, bug spray, solar eclipse glasses, and whatever recording, writing or photography equipment you need at the scene. Bring a portable phone charger if you will not be near your car, as well as backup batteries for your gear. Consider bringing a portable wi-fi hotspot if you'll be transmitting stories or photos from the scene. If you're staying near your car and can pack a little more stuff, bring a camp chair, a lightweight folding table, and a canopy tent.
• If you plan to photograph the eclipse with your smartphone, you can safely do it by taping the lens from a pair of eclipse glasses over the lens. If you are using professional equipment, use a solar eclipse filter (not the same as a regular solar filter). Here are some articles on how to photograph the eclipse. Never point any camera, smartphones included, at the sun until it is fully eclipsed or you'll fry the imaging sensor. Apple says a filter may not be needed for iPhones during the eclipse, but better safe than sorry. You won't need any kind of filter when the sun is fully eclipsed, but the filter needs to go back on as soon as the sun starts peeking out again.
• If you are photographing the eclipse, get as close to the center of the 70-mile-wide path of totality as you can; it'll give you more time to get your shots. Totality is around one minute a few miles from the edge of the path, but as much as two minutes and 30 seconds at the center. Here's a zoomable map that tells you whether you'll be in the path of totality and if so, for how long.

Helpful and interesting links

• GreatAmericanEclipse.com is a great one-stop shop for all your informational needs. It features maps of the path of totality over each state, a map of probable traffic bottlenecks, safety tips, historical eclipse information, fun facts, and an eclipse animation gallery.
• Eclipse2017.com is a similar site with plenty of info about the eclipse. One great feature is a state-by-state list of communities that are planning official community celebrations. It's not a comprehensive list, so do your homework, but it's a good place to start.
• This tool from Vox shows you what you'll see from any ZIP code in the U.S. Enter a code, and it will tell you the percentage of the sun that will be covered, show you a time-lapse animation of what you'll see and when the eclipse will be greatest, and how far you'll need to travel to get to an area with totality. 
• If you don't already have eclipse glasses, they're scarce, but you may still be able to get your hands on a pair at a local store. You may be able to snag a pair online, but beware of fakes that will damage your eyes. Click here for a list of legitimate solar viewer manufacturers, brand names they may be sold under, and chain stores and online vendors that sell them.
• Here's an article from the Poynter Institute about one small-town Idaho journalist's plans to cover the eclipse while camping.
• NPR's plans to cover the eclipse include "22 videographers, kid reporters and local newsrooms."
• Another Poynter article has a round-up of how some different newsrooms are planning to cover the eclipse.
• University of Kentucky students are planning to live stream the eclipse from the edge of space with a solar balloon.
• This 10-year-old article from the Kentucky New Era is one of the earliest articles we can find about the eclipse. It predicted (probably underpredicted) the massive crowds expected in Hopkinsville, and revealed a few intriguing facts. For one thing, the point of greatest eclipse (where the sun is most fully covered) is not in the well-publicized Christian County seat but in the nearby community of Cerulean. That's beautifully apropos, since cerulean is a shade sometimes equated with a deep blue sky. The exact point of greatest eclipse is in a field just off Princeton Road. Another fun fact? The eclipse will happen on the 62nd anniversary of the Kelly Green Men incident, in which a Christian County family said aliens landed near their home. That's the source of the phrase "little green men."
• The tallest building in Hopkinsville, pop. 32,000, is a grain elevator. A video camera with a 360-degree pan has been installed on top of it for livestreaming of the eclipse, the New Era reports.

Eclipse could cause historic traffic jams, hazards

The nation is gearing up for the Monday, Aug. 21, solar eclipse, which will cross 14 states from Oregon to South Carolina in about 90 minutes. As excited citizens buy eclipse glasses and book hotel rooms, communities are preparing for the huge influx of visitors and the strain they could place on local infrastructure such as cell phone networks. But another big problem to watch out for? Traffic. About 200 million people live within a day's drive of the path of totality – the narrow cross-country line where the sun will be completely hidden for up to two minutes and 40 seconds.

Officials are expecting millions to clog the roads, Jenni Bergal reports for Stateline, the the nonpartisan, nonprofit news service of the Pew Charitable Trusts. Dave Thompson, a spokesperson for the Oregon Department of Transportation, told her: "People are thinking they're just going to pop in, see it, and then turn around and head back home. They're not. They need to be prepared for long backups and have a full tank of gas and stuff in their car like water and food and medications they might need."

States are doing what they can to mitigate traffic issues. Many plan to suspend construction projects for the day. Idaho officials are identifying potential bottlenecks and ways to manage traffic. Missouri will monitor capacity at interstate rest areas and welcome centers so they can be closed to new entries when they fill up. Geographic information systems expert Michael Zeiler, who operates GreatAmericanEclipse.com, a great one-stop source of eclipse information, created a map of potential traffic bottlenecks for the eclipse:

FiveThirtyEight.com map; click to view a larger version

Transportation officials are concerned about wrecks that could be caused by the congestion, confusion and people pulling onto road shoulders to observe the eclipse. They're particularly worried that drivers might take pictures while driving, or look up at the sun instead of at the road. Looking up at the sun is a no-win scenario: drivers who aren't wearing eclipse glasses could damage their eyes and become temporarily blinded, and those who are wearing eclipse glasses won't be able to see the road. Federal Highway Administration spokesperson Doug Hecox has simple advice for drivers: "Don’t stand on the interstate. Don’t pull your car over. Don’t take a selfie from a bridge. The risk of driver distraction from this once-in-a lifetime event has never been greater. We don’t want anyone to have an 'eclipse in judgment'."

Study: Rural living before age 10, especially before 5, reduces risk of inflammatory bowel disease

A study indicates that living in rural areas, especially at a young age, reduces the risk of getting inflammatory bowel disease later in life, reports Amy Wallace of United Press International. IBD is a general category for afflictions such as Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, and has become more common in the last 50 years, "particularly in children living in developed nations and in newly industrialized countries experiencing increased urbanization," the study says.

The researchers say they've known that environmental and genetic factors can be involved in IBD, but the study demonstrates the importance of early life experiences. "Our findings show that children, particularly those under the age of 10, experience a protective effect against IBD if they live in a rural household," researcher Dr. Eric Benchimol said in a press release. "This effect is particularly strong in children who are raised in a rural household in the first five years of life," when their intestinal bacteria are being established. "The number of very young children being diagnosed with IBD has jumped in the past 20 years. The findings also strengthen our understanding that environmental risk factors that predispose people to IBD may have a stronger effect in children than adults."

The study was conducted by researchers at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario, the Institute for Clinical Evaluation Sciences, and the Canadian Gastro-Intestinal Epidemiology Consortium and was published in the July 25 issue of the American Journal of Gastroenterology. Canada has one of the highest rates of IBD.

Rural areas and small towns prepare for influx of solar-eclipse viewers four weeks from today

The path of the August 21 solar eclipse (Los Angeles Times graphic)

As the historic August 21 solar eclipse draws near, towns along the path of totality are bracing for tens of thousands of visitors. "Whatever the biggest event in town is, they are going to get at least twice as many people — and usually more than that,"eclipse chaser and crowd consultant Kate Russo told Deborah Netburn of the Los Angeles Times. "This is not just a science event. This is a human event and something very powerful and life-changing." The eclipse will be the first to affect coast-to-coast America since 1918.

Signs in Hopkinsville, Ky., mark sites to view
eclipse. (Associated Press photo by Alex Sanz)

Hopkinsville, Ky., began planning for the eclipse 10 years ago since it is close to the point of greatest eclipse, which means the moon will look the biggest relative to the sun and the eclipse will last the longest. That will draw a big crowd, including some NASA astronomers. The town of 30,000 has employed a full-time eclipse coordinator since last September. "The community has enthusiastically embraced its role as eclipse central, even adopting the name 'Eclipseville' and painting a mural on the building next to Whistlestop Donuts, an iconic spot next to the railroad tracks that most everyone sees when pulling into downtown," Netburn reports. "It is renting 15-by-15-foot viewing stations in local parks for $30, parking pass included." The city also asked for 85 members of the National Guard to help with anticipated traffic. Since most of the world's bowling balls are manufactured in Hopkinsville, they're planning to produce a solar eclipse-themed bowling ball for the occasion, too.

Hopkinsville, Ky. (Wikipedia map)

Though 12 million Americans live in the 70-mile swath of totality, where the eclipse will be most dramatic, most of that path goes over rural areas. Almost all public campsites along the eclipse path have been reserved a long time ago, and managers for public lands are worried about the influx of eclipse watchers, reports Zach Urness for The Statesman Journal in Salem, Oregon. "It’s the peak of fire season. Our emergency responders are going to be spread thin. And the forest is going to be filled with a lot of people who don’t camp very often and might have little experience with the outdoors," Jean Nelson-Dean, the public information officer for Deschutes National Forest, told Urness. Park rangers advise those who want to view the eclipse on public lands to get to your viewing spot early, expect traffic to be heavy, don't litter or destroy fresh vegetation, and don't try to climb mountains for a better view if you're an inexperienced mountaineer.

One other piece of advice: Watch the weather forecast and have alternate locations in mind. An eclips just isn't the same if it's cloudy.

New app gathers data on important or vulnerable trees, especially in privately owned forests

Researchers try out TreeSnap. (University of Kentucky photo)

A new smartphone app encourages the public to help scientists with research to help protect and restore trees.

TreeSnap was developed by the University of Tennessee Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology and the University of Kentucky Forest Health Research Center as part of a $3 million grant from the National Science Foundation Plant Genome Research Program. Washington State University and the University of Connecticut are also collaborating.

TreeSnap focuses only on species that are economically important or have been affected by insects or disease, Carol Spence reports for UK AgNews: "Every day, American forests fight for their health against invasive species and pests. The app will provide scientists with more eyes in the field, giving them a greater reach to locate resilient trees that will advance their studies, whether they are working on breeding efforts or genomics to help in forest restoration."

The app's developers are working with several tree research and breeding programs to use gathered data in different projects, Spence reports: The U.S. Forest Service's Northern Research Station "will use data on ash and elm to help them in their fight against the emerald ash borer and Dutch elm disease. The Forest Restoration Alliance and the Hemlock Restoration Initiative will use information on hemlock to find trees that are resistant to the hemlock woolly adelgid. The American Chestnut Foundation is gathering data on trees that are resistant to chestnut blight, in the hopes of adding them to breeding and research programs."

The app gives researchers a way to get data through reporting private land owners reporting data, important in the East, where most forests are privately owned. It prompts users to collect data including habitat, height and health, trunk diameter and quantity of seeds or cones. GPS will automatically log the user's location, but precautions have been taken to protect users' privacy. More information is available here.

Trump: Cut EPA 31%, decimate climate research, eliminate Great Lakes and Chesapeake projects

President Trump's proposed budget calls for a 31 percent cut—or $2.6 billion—to the Environmental Protection Agency, the largest percentage cut to any agency and higher than the estimated 25 percent cut reported last week, Evan Lehmann and Emily Holden report for Climatewire. The budget, which does not specify how many jobs would be cut, calls for eliminating former President Barack Obama's Clean Power Plan "and 'reorienting' U.S. EPA on air pollution."

"The plan now goes to Congress, where lawmakers from both parties are bound to scrap many of Trump's politically painful cuts," Climatewire reports.

Under the budget, the EPA's Office of Research and Development, which does most of the agency's science work, would be cut from $488 million to $250 million, reports Climatewire. "Categorical grants to localities would fall 45 percent, from $1.1 billion to $597 million. Enforcement of environmental infractions and crimes would also see a 24 percent cut, from $548 million to $419 million."

The budget would also "eliminate funding for popular regional programs, including the $300 million Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, which Congress authorized last year, and a large Chesapeake Bay cleanup project, which receives $73 million each year," reports Climatewire. "Geographic programs would see a total $427 million cut. Those proposed reductions are likely to spur fights on Capitol Hill."

"In all, the proposed budget would do away with 50 EPA programs that cost $347 million, including Energy Star, targeted air-pollution grants, endocrine-disrupter screening and infrastructure assistance to Alaska Native villages and the Mexico border," Climatewire reports.