A support group and a lab in the St. Louis area provide resources for people with the allergy to mammal products — and evidence that its effects can be reversed.
“Pancake ice" floats on the Mississippi River near Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Such formations are rare this far south, but a freeze and warm-up further north caused it to float downriver. Credit: Molly Sobotka, Missouri Department of Conservation
Welcome to a new schedule we’re trying out for our newsletter — weekly on Tuesdays! What do you want to see here going forward? Answer two questions to let us know.
“Pancake ice" floats on the Mississippi River near Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Such formations are rare this far south, but a freeze and warm-up further north caused it to float downriver. Credit: Molly Sobotka, Missouri Department of Conservation
“We’re peering into the future of our ice conditions,” said one Wisconsin-based ecologist in Maddy’s story. “This year is going to give us a lot of interesting information about what iceless winters are going to look like.”
The basin has been on a rollercoaster of increasingly volatile swings between extreme weather conditions, which scientists predict will escalate as the planet warms. We’ve been covering this in-depth since our inception, with our series A Changing Basin last summer and our award-winning project When It Rains the fall before that.
These officials also called for better drought management strategies and resilience planning, after more than a year of dry conditions snarled shipping traffic and hiked dredging costs.
“Five hundred and fifty-three days of low water had incredible economic implications on this nation,” said Edward Belk, director of civil works for the Army Corps of Engineers, during the basin mayors’ Capitol visit.
Lately, our team has been excited about covering climate solutions — incentives for home electrification, the trade-offs of carbon capture and more. We also have a story out tomorrow about how warming is affecting maple syrup in the basin. 🥞🍁
The country’s biggest maritime disaster happened just outside Memphis, Tennessee, when a steamboat caught fire at the end of the Civil War and more than half of its 2,300 passengers drowned in the Mississippi River.
An artist's depiction shows the Sultana steamboat engulfed in flames on the Mississippi River near Memphis, Tennessee, in 1865. Courtesy: Sultana Disaster Museum
By Bennet Goldstein, Wisconsin Watch — featured in Undark Magazine
Staffing updates
The Desk bids a fond farewell this week to Brittney J. Miller, our Report for America corps member with The Gazette in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She’s off to be an associate editor with Florida Trend magazine in St. Petersburg, Florida, and will continue covering the energy and environment beat through a business lens.
