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Tag: Nature

  • How family time in nature helps with big feelings like anger, worry, or sadness – Growing Family

    Big emotions such as anger, worry, or sadness can overwhelm both children and adults. Family time in nature offers a simple way to calm those heavy feelings and bring everyone closer together.

    Nature helps families regulate emotions, lower stress, and restore balance through simple shared experiences like fresh air, sunlight, and movement. Even short moments outside, such as walking under trees or sitting near water, give the mind space to reset and the body a chance to relax. For families living in Pasadena, that might mean an evening walk through a tree-lined neighbourhood, a visit to a nearby park, or a quiet moment in one of the city’s many green spaces.

    Families that spend time in nature often notice calmer moods and easier communication. Natural settings reduce stress hormones, slow heart rates, and create peaceful pauses that help everyone process emotions more clearly. These small breaks away from screens and routines can encourage understanding and patience during difficult moments.

    This article explains why nature supports emotional health for families and how everyday outdoor moments, like a park visit or garden game, can ease tension and strengthen wellbeing. Simple ideas and realistic examples will show how you can use family time in nature as a steady support for connection and emotional balance.

    a family walking in nature

    Why nature eases big feelings for families

    Spending regular time outdoors can calm the body, balance mood, and build emotional awareness. Families who include nature in their routines often notice fewer arguments, steadier attention, and more relaxed communication.

    Nature’s calming effect on the mind and body

    Natural environments can lower the stress hormones that rise during frustration or anxiety. Studies show that being outside for even 20 minutes can reduce cortisol levels by more than 20%. The body’s stress response slows, breathing deepens, and muscle tension eases. Families often feel this calm within minutes of stepping into a park or forest.

    Nature benefits adults and children differently but meaningfully. Parents report fewer headaches and better sleep, while children display more patience and focus. A licensed psychiatrist (Pasadena CA) often recommends incorporating outdoor time alongside therapy or medication as part of a steady emotional care plan. Practical options include short morning walks or quiet time in the garden to support mood balance.

    Reducing anger, worry, and sadness through green spaces

    Access to trees, grass, and sunlight can provide relief from anger, sadness, and chronic worry. People in green spaces experience lower rumination, the cycle of repeated negative thoughts, compared to those indoors. Families walking on a local trail often notice children’s tempers soften and adults’ concerns ease by the end of the outing.

    A study from multiple public health groups found that families who spend time outdoors each week report higher relationship satisfaction and fewer daily conflicts. Outdoor play encourages laughter, light movement, and teamwork. These natural rewards act as gentle emotional resets. For individuals in therapy, such relaxation complements professional support from mental health providers across California who focus on lifestyle-based care.

    Time in sunlight also raises vitamin D levels, which influence serotonin activity and support a stable mood. Simple outdoor routines often lead to better mornings and more restful evenings.

    Mindfulness and mental wellness in natural environments

    Nature naturally invites mindfulness, a state of paying attention to the present moment without judgment. The soft sounds of wind and birds can help draw awareness away from worries about the past or future. This mental pause eases emotional overload and gives families space to reset together.

    Some people describe outdoor mindfulness as easier than indoor meditation because natural cues keep attention grounded. Parents who practice slow breathing outdoors with their children model stress management in a simple, visible way. Over time, families can learn to notice feelings sooner and respond with patience rather than frustration.

    Licensed mental health professionals note that this awareness helps prevent emotional buildup that can lead to conflict at home. Even five minutes of quiet observation among trees or at a park bench can restore calm. Families who value mental balance often build small outdoor rituals, such as end-of-day walks, as reliable anchors for emotional wellness.

    a family spending time in nature on a woodland walka family spending time in nature on a woodland walk

    Simple ways to boost family wellbeing outdoors

    Families can improve their mental health and strengthen emotional balance through shared time in natural spaces. Regular outdoor activities also build stronger relationships and encourage physical exercise that supports calmness and focus.

    Outdoor activities to strengthen family bonds

    Practical outdoor ideas include activities such as hiking or trail walking, which help build trust and communication among family members. Gardening together teaches care and shared responsibility as everyone participates in planting or tending to vegetables and flowers. Outdoor games and picnics encourage laughter and relaxation, giving families a chance to enjoy each other’s company in a fun and low-pressure way. Children who spend time outdoors often become more confident in expressing emotions, and parents also gain more patience and awareness of their children’s needs through these shared experiences.

    Nature walks and the power of exercise together

    Nature walks combine physical exercise with time spent in green spaces, which supports both physical and mental wellbeing. The fresh air, sunlight, and gentle rhythm of walking ease tension and can lower stress levels. Families can choose routes close to home, such as local parks, lakes, or tree-lined paths, to make this practice a regular habit.

    Walking side by side is also a great way to create natural moments for conversation. Children often open up more easily in outdoor settings because the movement and scenery reduce emotional pressure. This allows parents to listen more closely and respond with understanding.

    Short, regular walks – about 20 to 30 minutes – can benefit sleep quality, improve focus, and elevate mood. A comfortable pace suits all ages and encourages families to notice small details in nature, such as the sound of birds or the colour of leaves. These observations promote mindfulness and emotional grounding.

    When families spend more time outdoors, practical preparation can help make these outings smoother and less stressful. Simple habits like carrying water, wearing comfortable shoes, or protecting devices with durable accessories such as Ghostek cases can prevent small frustrations from turning into bigger emotional moments. Having the essentials to hand allows you to focus on being present rather than worrying about minor mishaps. These small steps support the overall goal of creating calm, enjoyable outdoor experiences together.

    Building emotional resilience in children through nature

    Children develop emotional resilience through repeated experiences in nature. Outdoor exploration exposes them to challenges and discoveries that build confidence and adaptability. For example, climbing over a fallen log or identifying animal tracks allows them to practice problem-solving and patience.

    Parents can use outdoor time to teach emotional regulation skills. Deep breathing exercises, quiet observation of waves, or naming positive feelings after completing a walk can help children link peaceful emotions with natural surroundings.

    A simple family routine, such as weekly visits to a park or garden, is an easy way to support long-term mental health. These experiences reduce anxiety and strengthen emotional awareness. Over time, children learn that nature offers a dependable place of calm and safety when they face anger, worry, or sadness.

    Summing up

    Families that spend time in nature often notice calmer emotions and stronger connections. Simple activities like walks, picnics, or gardening can lower tension and help both children and adults control anger or worry. These shared moments give everyone a chance to slow down, breathe deeply, and reset their mood.

    Natural spaces also create a setting where people feel safe enough to talk about their feelings. Fresh air, open skies, and quiet surroundings support honest conversation and reduce emotional strain. As a result, family bonds often grow steadier and more trusting.

    By adding regular outdoor time to weekly routines, families can improve emotional balance and communication. Even short experiences outdoors can bring a sense of peace that lingers long after returning home. Together, these experiences show that nature can serve as a gentle guide through big feelings like anger, sadness, and worry.

    Catherine

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  • Scientists uncover an ant assassination scheme that helps a parasitic queen rise to power

    Scientists say they have for the first time unlocked how a parasitic ant uses chemical warfare to take over the nest of a different species, by tricking workers into an unlikely assassination.The deadly scheme unfolds like a Shakespearean drama. In an ant colony, the queen is dying, under attack by her own daughters. Meanwhile, the true enemy — an invader queen from another ant species — waits on the sidelines. Her plan is simple: Infiltrate the nest and use chemical weapons brewed inside her body to deceive the worker ants into mistaking their rightful ruler for an imposter.In a few hours, the nest’s queen will fall. Once the former matriarch is dead, the invader will assume the role of the colony’s new leader.Matricide in an ant colony is not unheard of — it typically happens when a colony produces multiple queens or when a solo queen reaches the end of her fertility. But this particular scenario, in which an outsider queen turns workers into her proxy assassins, has never been described in detail before, researchers reported Monday in the journal Current Biology.In fact, this strategy is yet to be documented in any other animal species, said the study’s senior author, Keizo Takasuka, an assistant professor in the department of biology at the University of Kyushu in Japan.”Inducement of daughters to kill their biological mother had not been known in biology before this work,” Takasuka told CNN in an email.The researchers observed this behavior among ants in the Lasius genus, documenting invasions and worker manipulation by queens in the species L. orientalis and L. umbratus.”Prior studies had reported that, after a new L. umbratus queen invaded a host colony of L. niger, host workers killed their own queen,” Takasuka said. “But the mechanism remained entirely unknown until our study.”Scent of a worker antAnts communicate through smell, which is how they distinguish between nestmates and foes. When researchers previously observed parasitic ant queens near a colony’s foraging trails, they saw that the parasite would snatch up a worker ant and rub it on her body, disguising her scent and allowing her to slip into the nest undetected.For the new study, coauthors Taku Shimada and Yuji Tanaka — both citizen scientists in Tokyo — each raised an ant colony and introduced parasitic queens. Shimada observed an L. orientalis queen in an L. flavus colony, and Tanaka recorded an L. umbratus queen invading a colony of L. japonicus.In both experiments, the scientists first co-housed an invading queen with host workers and cocoons “so that she acquired the nestmate odour,” Takasuka said. “This allowed her to gain nestmate recognition and avoid retaliation upon entry.” The scientists then released the queen into the colony.Both parasite queens followed a similar plan of attack. After disguising their smell, the queens entered the colonies’ feeding areas. Most workers ignored the interloper. Some even fed her mouth-to-mouth.But the invading queens weren’t there for dinner — they had an assassination to set in motion. After locating the resident queen, the invader sprayed her with abdominal fluid that smelled of formic acid. The scent agitated workers, with some of them turning on their queen immediately and attacking her. Multiple sprays followed, and the attacks became more brutal.”The host workers eventually mutilated their true mother after four days,” the scientists reported.All in the familyThe death of the true queen was the invader’s cue to start producing hundreds of eggs, attended by her newly adopted “daughters.” Over time, her biological daughters would number in the thousands, usurping the colony until none of the original species remained.”It’s refreshing to see a very careful observational study that discovers something interesting that we — ‘we’ meaning ant researchers — suspected but had never confirmed,” said Jessica Purcell, a professor in the department of entomology at the University of California, Riverside.”I was really struck by this discovery, especially the use of a chemical compound to elicit that behavior by the workers,” said Purcell, who was not involved in the research.Social insects like ants gather and store resources for the colony to share. That makes them an attractive target for social parasites — species seeking well-stocked nests that they can exploit. Some ant species kidnap the colony’s offspring and enslave them. Others, such as L. orientalis and L. umbratus, set up shop in the colony, where they eliminate the existing queen and take her place.”There’s all of this amazing diversity,” Purcell told CNN. “What we didn’t know a lot about before this study is the various ways that socially parasitic queens might go about assassinating the host queen. People had done some observations of direct killing, where the infiltrating queen would go and cut off the head of the existing queen. But this is astonishing that they can actually use chemical manipulation to cause the workers to do it.”Violence within families is often described in fairy tales and myths, with wicked adults — typically desperate parents or jealous stepparents — conspiring to harm or kill children. Rapunzel is imprisoned in a tower; Snow White is hunted and then poisoned by an apple; Hansel and Gretel are abandoned in the forest and captured by a witch, who imprisons them and fattens Hansel for her supper.But while such stories include plenty of violence, the killing of a mother in folklore — let alone children being tricked into matricide — is almost nonexistent, said Maria Tatar, a professor emerita of folklore and mythology at Harvard University who was not involved in the new study.In that respect, Takasuka noted, the grim tale of the invading, manipulative ant queens stands out even more.”Sometimes, phenomena in nature outstrip what we imagine in fiction,” he said.

    Scientists say they have for the first time unlocked how a parasitic ant uses chemical warfare to take over the nest of a different species, by tricking workers into an unlikely assassination.

    The deadly scheme unfolds like a Shakespearean drama. In an ant colony, the queen is dying, under attack by her own daughters. Meanwhile, the true enemy — an invader queen from another ant species — waits on the sidelines. Her plan is simple: Infiltrate the nest and use chemical weapons brewed inside her body to deceive the worker ants into mistaking their rightful ruler for an imposter.

    In a few hours, the nest’s queen will fall. Once the former matriarch is dead, the invader will assume the role of the colony’s new leader.

    Matricide in an ant colony is not unheard of — it typically happens when a colony produces multiple queens or when a solo queen reaches the end of her fertility. But this particular scenario, in which an outsider queen turns workers into her proxy assassins, has never been described in detail before, researchers reported Monday in the journal Current Biology.

    In fact, this strategy is yet to be documented in any other animal species, said the study’s senior author, Keizo Takasuka, an assistant professor in the department of biology at the University of Kyushu in Japan.

    “Inducement of daughters to kill their biological mother had not been known in biology before this work,” Takasuka told CNN in an email.

    The researchers observed this behavior among ants in the Lasius genus, documenting invasions and worker manipulation by queens in the species L. orientalis and L. umbratus.

    “Prior studies had reported that, after a new L. umbratus queen invaded a host colony of L. niger, host workers killed their own queen,” Takasuka said. “But the mechanism remained entirely unknown until our study.”

    Scent of a worker ant

    Ants communicate through smell, which is how they distinguish between nestmates and foes. When researchers previously observed parasitic ant queens near a colony’s foraging trails, they saw that the parasite would snatch up a worker ant and rub it on her body, disguising her scent and allowing her to slip into the nest undetected.

    For the new study, coauthors Taku Shimada and Yuji Tanaka — both citizen scientists in Tokyo — each raised an ant colony and introduced parasitic queens. Shimada observed an L. orientalis queen in an L. flavus colony, and Tanaka recorded an L. umbratus queen invading a colony of L. japonicus.

    In both experiments, the scientists first co-housed an invading queen with host workers and cocoons “so that she acquired the nestmate odour,” Takasuka said. “This allowed her to gain nestmate recognition and avoid retaliation upon entry.” The scientists then released the queen into the colony.

    Both parasite queens followed a similar plan of attack. After disguising their smell, the queens entered the colonies’ feeding areas. Most workers ignored the interloper. Some even fed her mouth-to-mouth.

    But the invading queens weren’t there for dinner — they had an assassination to set in motion. After locating the resident queen, the invader sprayed her with abdominal fluid that smelled of formic acid. The scent agitated workers, with some of them turning on their queen immediately and attacking her. Multiple sprays followed, and the attacks became more brutal.

    “The host workers eventually mutilated their true mother after four days,” the scientists reported.

    All in the family

    The death of the true queen was the invader’s cue to start producing hundreds of eggs, attended by her newly adopted “daughters.” Over time, her biological daughters would number in the thousands, usurping the colony until none of the original species remained.

    “It’s refreshing to see a very careful observational study that discovers something interesting that we — ‘we’ meaning ant researchers — suspected but had never confirmed,” said Jessica Purcell, a professor in the department of entomology at the University of California, Riverside.

    “I was really struck by this discovery, especially the use of a chemical compound to elicit that behavior by the workers,” said Purcell, who was not involved in the research.

    Social insects like ants gather and store resources for the colony to share. That makes them an attractive target for social parasites — species seeking well-stocked nests that they can exploit. Some ant species kidnap the colony’s offspring and enslave them. Others, such as L. orientalis and L. umbratus, set up shop in the colony, where they eliminate the existing queen and take her place.

    “There’s all of this amazing diversity,” Purcell told CNN. “What we didn’t know a lot about before this study is the various ways that socially parasitic queens might go about assassinating the host queen. People had done some observations of direct killing, where the infiltrating queen would go and cut off the head of the existing queen. But this is astonishing that they can actually use chemical manipulation to cause the workers to do it.”

    Violence within families is often described in fairy tales and myths, with wicked adults — typically desperate parents or jealous stepparents — conspiring to harm or kill children. Rapunzel is imprisoned in a tower; Snow White is hunted and then poisoned by an apple; Hansel and Gretel are abandoned in the forest and captured by a witch, who imprisons them and fattens Hansel for her supper.

    But while such stories include plenty of violence, the killing of a mother in folklore — let alone children being tricked into matricide — is almost nonexistent, said Maria Tatar, a professor emerita of folklore and mythology at Harvard University who was not involved in the new study.

    In that respect, Takasuka noted, the grim tale of the invading, manipulative ant queens stands out even more.

    “Sometimes, phenomena in nature outstrip what we imagine in fiction,” he said.

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  • Why More Doctors Are Prescribing an Old Remedy for Stress

    MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Find a shady spot under a tree, take a breath of fresh air and call me in the morning.

    Health care providers have long suggested stressed-out patients spend time outdoors. Now hundreds of providers are going a step further and issuing formal prescriptions to get outside. The tactic is gaining momentum as social media, political strife and wars abroad weigh on the American psyche.

    Of course, no one needs a prescription to get outside, but some doctors think that issuing the advice that way helps people take it seriously.

    “When I bring it up, it is almost like granting permission to do something they may see as frivolous when things seem so otherwise serious and stressful,” said Dr. Suzanne Hackenmiller, a Waterloo, Iowa, gynecologist who started issuing nature prescriptions after discovering time outdoors soothed her following her husband’s death.

    Getting outdoors can improve your health

    Spending time in natural areas can lower blood pressure, reduce stress hormones and boost immunity, multiple studies have found.

    “Study after study says we’re wired to be out in nature,” said Dr. Brent Bauer, who serves as director of the complementary and integrative medicine program at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. The program focuses on practices that usually aren’t part of conventional medicine, such as meditation, acupuncture, massage and nutrition. “That’s more than just ‘Woo-woo, I think nature is cool.’ There’s actually science.”

    Telling someone to go outside is one thing. The follow-through is something else. Starting about a decade ago, health care providers began formalizing suggestions to get outside through prescriptions.

    Dr. Robert Zarr, who doubles as a nature guide, launched an organization called Park Rx America around 2016, offering providers protocols for prescribing nature outings. The guidelines call for talking with patients about what they like to do outside — walking, sitting under a tree, maybe just watching leaves fall — how often to do it and where to go. That all then gets included in a prescription, and Park Rx America sends patients reminders.

    Nearly 2,000 providers have registered with the organization across the U.S. and a number of other countries, including Australia, Brazil, Cameroon and Spain. They’ve issued more than 7,000 nature prescriptions since 2019, said Dr. Stacy Beller Stryer, Park Rx America’s associate medical director. About 100 other organizations similar to Park Rx America have sprung up around the U.S., she said.

    A nature prescription can motivate

    Bauer specializes in treating CEOs and other business leaders. He said he issues about 30 nature prescriptions every year. The chief executives he treats sometimes don’t even know where to begin and a prescription can give them a jump start, he said.

    “I recommend a lot of things to a lot of patients,” he said. “I’m not under the illusion all of them get enacted. When I get a prescription, someone hands me a piece of paper and says you must take this medication … I’m a lot more likely to activate that.”

    Hackenmiller, the Iowa gynecologist, said she’s having more discussions with patients about getting outside as a means of escaping a world locked in perpetual conflict.

    “When so many things are out of our control, it can be helpful to step away from the media and immerse ourselves in nature,” she said. “I think time in nature often resonates with people as something they have found solace in and have gravitated to in other times in their life.”

    Getting outside is the important part

    The effectiveness of nature prescriptions is unclear. A 2020 joint study by the U.S. Forest Service, the University of Pennsylvania and North Carolina State University concluded that more work was needed to gauge follow-through and long-term health outcomes.

    But unless you’re choking on wildfire smoke or swatting swarms of mosquitoes, getting outside — no matter what motivates you — can be helpful.

    At William & Mary college in Williamsburg, Virginia, students issue nature prescriptions to their peers. “Patients” obtain prescriptions by filling out online applications indicating how far they’ll travel to get to a park, times they can visit, whether they need a ride and favorite outdoor activities.

    Students issued an average of 22 online prescriptions per month in 2025, up from 12 per month in 2020.

    Kelsey Wakiyama, a senior, grew up hiking trails around her home in Villanova, Pennsylvania, with her family and their dog, Duke. When she started her freshman year in Williamsburg, she didn’t know where to walk. She saw an advertisement for nature prescriptions in the weekly student email and eventually got one that helped her find trails near campus.

    “I love the greenery,” Wakiyama said. “When you’re sitting inside — I was in the library for four hours today — the fresh air feels very nice. It calms my nervous system, definitely. I associate being outside with a lightness, a calmness, good memories. That kind of comes back to me when I’m outside.”

    Copyright 2025. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. 

    The early-rate deadline for the 2026 Inc. Regionals Awards is Friday, November 14, at 11:59 p.m. PT. Apply now.

    Associated Press

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  • VIDEOS: Hurricane Melissa, a monster Atlantic storm, makes landfall in Jamaica with record strength

    VIDEOS: Hurricane Melissa, a monster Atlantic storm, makes landfall in Jamaica with record strength

    Updated: 1:57 AM EDT Oct 29, 2025

    Editorial Standards ⓘ

    Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Jamaica on Tuesday as a monstrous Category 5 hurricane, bringing fierce 185 mph winds, heavy rain and flooding, life-threatening storm surge, and power outages.Hurricane Melissa is one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes on record and is the most intense storm to hit Jamaica since records began being kept 174 years ago.As of early Wednesday morning, the hurricane was bearing down on Cuba, and videos of the storm’s intensity and the damage it had caused in Jamaica have been emerging. Here is a look at some of that footage. Police station turned into a shelter in a hard-hit area of JamaicaCNN reports that a police station in Jamaica’s southwestern city of Black River has been turned into a temporary shelter amid reports of extensive damage. Video from Jamaica Constabulary Force shows some of the damage. See the video in the player above.“The Black River Police Station has become a refuge for residents whose houses have been flooded,” Jamaica’s Constabulary Force posted on X Tuesday. “We are sticking close to the community as we weather Hurricane Melissa together,” the force added.In the player below: Video released by the Jamaica Constabulary Force shows police in Black River surveying damageStrong nighttime winds in JamaicaKingston, Jamaica, was experiencing difficult weather conditions into the night on Tuesday amid Hurricane Melissa.Heavy rain in Kingston Downtown Kingston, Jamaica, saw heavy rain after Hurricane Melissa made landfall.Flooding in St. Thomas, JamaicaSt. Thomas, Jamaica, saw heavy flooding, and TVJ in Jamaica and CNN were reporting that residents were being urged to remain cautious as rising waters continued to pose a flooding risk in the area.Strong winds hit St. JamesSt. James, Jamaica, saw heavy winds ahead of the landfall of Hurricane Melissa____CNN contributed to this report

    Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Jamaica on Tuesday as a monstrous Category 5 hurricane, bringing fierce 185 mph winds, heavy rain and flooding, life-threatening storm surge, and power outages.

    Hurricane Melissa is one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes on record and is the most intense storm to hit Jamaica since records began being kept 174 years ago.

    As of early Wednesday morning, the hurricane was bearing down on Cuba, and videos of the storm’s intensity and the damage it had caused in Jamaica have been emerging. Here is a look at some of that footage.

    Police station turned into a shelter in a hard-hit area of Jamaica

    CNN reports that a police station in Jamaica’s southwestern city of Black River has been turned into a temporary shelter amid reports of extensive damage. Video from Jamaica Constabulary Force shows some of the damage. See the video in the player above.

    “The Black River Police Station has become a refuge for residents whose houses have been flooded,” Jamaica’s Constabulary Force posted on X Tuesday. “We are sticking close to the community as we weather Hurricane Melissa together,” the force added.

    In the player below: Video released by the Jamaica Constabulary Force shows police in Black River surveying damage

    Strong nighttime winds in Jamaica

    Kingston, Jamaica, was experiencing difficult weather conditions into the night on Tuesday amid Hurricane Melissa.

    Heavy rain in Kingston

    Downtown Kingston, Jamaica, saw heavy rain after Hurricane Melissa made landfall.

    Flooding in St. Thomas, Jamaica

    St. Thomas, Jamaica, saw heavy flooding, and TVJ in Jamaica and CNN were reporting that residents were being urged to remain cautious as rising waters continued to pose a flooding risk in the area.

    Strong winds hit St. James

    St. James, Jamaica, saw heavy winds ahead of the landfall of Hurricane Melissa

    ____

    CNN contributed to this report

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  • Yearning for the Great Outdoors Thanks to These Bushcraft Pics

    With Autumn in full effect, we’re craving the great outdoors more than ever. Sitting around a campfire when there’s a bit of a chill in the air? Sign me up yesterday!

    So we’ve compiled another batch of bushcraft photos. From knives to lean-tos, bonfires to hatchets. We’ve got everything you need for a successful trip out in the wild.

    Enjoy!

    Zach

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  • Your latest prescription is to get outside

    Find a shady spot under a tree, take a breath of fresh air and call me in the morning.Health care providers have long suggested stressed-out patients spend time outdoors. Now, hundreds of providers are going a step further and issuing formal prescriptions to get outside. The tactic is gaining momentum as social media, political strife and wars abroad weigh on the American psyche.Of course, no one needs a prescription to get outside, but some doctors think that issuing the advice that way helps people take it seriously. “When I bring it up, it is almost like granting permission to do something they may see as frivolous when things seem so otherwise serious and stressful,” said Dr. Suzanne Hackenmiller, a Waterloo, Iowa, gynecologist who started issuing nature prescriptions after discovering time outdoors soothed her following her husband’s death. Spending time in natural areas can lower blood pressure, reduce stress hormones and boost immunity, multiple studies have found.”Study after study says we’re wired to be out in nature,” said Dr. Brent Bauer, who serves as director of the complementary and integrative medicine program at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. The program focuses on practices that usually aren’t part of conventional medicine, such as meditation, acupuncture, massage and nutrition. “That’s more than just ‘Woo-woo, I think nature is cool.’ There’s actually science.”Telling someone to go outside is one thing. The follow-through is something else. Starting about a decade ago, health care providers began formalizing suggestions to get outside through prescriptions.Dr. Robert Zarr, who doubles as a nature guide, launched an organization called Park Rx America around 2016, offering providers protocols for prescribing nature outings. The guidelines call for talking with patients about what they like to do outside — walking, sitting under a tree, maybe just watching leaves fall — how often to do it and where to go. That all then gets included in a prescription, and Park Rx America sends patients reminders.Nearly 2,000 providers have registered with the organization across the U.S. and a number of other countries, including Australia, Brazil, Cameroon and Spain. They’ve issued more than 7,000 nature prescriptions since 2019, said Dr. Stacy Beller Stryer, Park Rx America’s associate medical director. About 100 other organizations similar to Park Rx America have sprung up around the U.S., she said. Bauer specializes in treating CEOs and other business leaders. He said he issues about 30 nature prescriptions every year. The chief executives he treats sometimes don’t even know where to begin, and a prescription can give them a jump start, he said.”I recommend a lot of things to a lot of patients,” he said. “I’m not under the illusion all of them get enacted. When I get a prescription, someone hands me a piece of paper and says ‘you must take this medication’ … I’m a lot more likely to activate that.”Hackenmiller, the Iowa gynecologist, said she’s having more discussions with patients about getting outside as a means of escaping a world locked in perpetual conflict.”When so many things are out of our control, it can be helpful to step away from the media and immerse ourselves in nature,” she said. “I think time in nature often resonates with people as something they have found solace in and have gravitated to in other times in their life.” The effectiveness of nature prescriptions is unclear. A 2020 joint study by the U.S. Forest Service, the University of Pennsylvania and North Carolina State University concluded that more work was needed to gauge follow-through and long-term health outcomes. But unless you’re choking on wildfire smoke or swatting swarms of mosquitoes, getting outside — no matter what motivates you — can be helpful. At William & Mary college in Williamsburg, Virginia, students issue nature prescriptions to their peers. “Patients” obtain prescriptions by filling out online applications indicating how far they’ll travel to get to a park, times they can visit, whether they need a ride and favorite outdoor activities. Students issued an average of 22 online prescriptions per month in 2025, up from 12 per month in 2020.Kelsey Wakiyama, a senior, grew up hiking trails around her home in Villanova, Pennsylvania, with her family and their dog, Duke. When she started her first year in Williamsburg, she didn’t know where to walk. She saw an advertisement for nature prescriptions in the weekly student email and eventually got one that helped her find trails near campus.”I love the greenery,” Wakiyama said. “When you’re sitting inside — I was in the library for four hours today — the fresh air feels very nice. It calms my nervous system, definitely. I associate being outside with a lightness, a calmness, good memories. That kind of comes back to me when I’m outside.”

    MADISON, Wis. —

    Find a shady spot under a tree, take a breath of fresh air and call me in the morning.

    Health care providers have long suggested stressed-out patients spend time outdoors. Now, hundreds of providers are going a step further and issuing formal prescriptions to get outside. The tactic is gaining momentum as social media, political strife and wars abroad weigh on the American psyche.

    Of course, no one needs a prescription to get outside, but some doctors think that issuing the advice that way helps people take it seriously.

    “When I bring it up, it is almost like granting permission to do something they may see as frivolous when things seem so otherwise serious and stressful,” said Dr. Suzanne Hackenmiller, a Waterloo, Iowa, gynecologist who started issuing nature prescriptions after discovering time outdoors soothed her following her husband’s death.

    Spending time in natural areas can lower blood pressure, reduce stress hormones and boost immunity, multiple studies have found.

    “Study after study says we’re wired to be out in nature,” said Dr. Brent Bauer, who serves as director of the complementary and integrative medicine program at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. The program focuses on practices that usually aren’t part of conventional medicine, such as meditation, acupuncture, massage and nutrition. “That’s more than just ‘Woo-woo, I think nature is cool.’ There’s actually science.”

    Telling someone to go outside is one thing. The follow-through is something else. Starting about a decade ago, health care providers began formalizing suggestions to get outside through prescriptions.

    Dr. Robert Zarr, who doubles as a nature guide, launched an organization called Park Rx America around 2016, offering providers protocols for prescribing nature outings. The guidelines call for talking with patients about what they like to do outside — walking, sitting under a tree, maybe just watching leaves fall — how often to do it and where to go. That all then gets included in a prescription, and Park Rx America sends patients reminders.

    Nearly 2,000 providers have registered with the organization across the U.S. and a number of other countries, including Australia, Brazil, Cameroon and Spain. They’ve issued more than 7,000 nature prescriptions since 2019, said Dr. Stacy Beller Stryer, Park Rx America’s associate medical director. About 100 other organizations similar to Park Rx America have sprung up around the U.S., she said.

    Bauer specializes in treating CEOs and other business leaders. He said he issues about 30 nature prescriptions every year. The chief executives he treats sometimes don’t even know where to begin, and a prescription can give them a jump start, he said.

    “I recommend a lot of things to a lot of patients,” he said. “I’m not under the illusion all of them get enacted. When I get a prescription, someone hands me a piece of paper and says ‘you must take this medication’ … I’m a lot more likely to activate that.”

    Hackenmiller, the Iowa gynecologist, said she’s having more discussions with patients about getting outside as a means of escaping a world locked in perpetual conflict.

    “When so many things are out of our control, it can be helpful to step away from the media and immerse ourselves in nature,” she said. “I think time in nature often resonates with people as something they have found solace in and have gravitated to in other times in their life.”

    The effectiveness of nature prescriptions is unclear. A 2020 joint study by the U.S. Forest Service, the University of Pennsylvania and North Carolina State University concluded that more work was needed to gauge follow-through and long-term health outcomes.

    But unless you’re choking on wildfire smoke or swatting swarms of mosquitoes, getting outside — no matter what motivates you — can be helpful.

    At William & Mary college in Williamsburg, Virginia, students issue nature prescriptions to their peers. “Patients” obtain prescriptions by filling out online applications indicating how far they’ll travel to get to a park, times they can visit, whether they need a ride and favorite outdoor activities.

    Students issued an average of 22 online prescriptions per month in 2025, up from 12 per month in 2020.

    Kelsey Wakiyama, a senior, grew up hiking trails around her home in Villanova, Pennsylvania, with her family and their dog, Duke. When she started her first year in Williamsburg, she didn’t know where to walk. She saw an advertisement for nature prescriptions in the weekly student email and eventually got one that helped her find trails near campus.

    “I love the greenery,” Wakiyama said. “When you’re sitting inside — I was in the library for four hours today — the fresh air feels very nice. It calms my nervous system, definitely. I associate being outside with a lightness, a calmness, good memories. That kind of comes back to me when I’m outside.”

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  • Melanie Winter, who fought for embracing nature along the Los Angeles River, dies

    Melanie Winter, who dedicated much of her life to reimagining the Los Angeles River as a natural asset, has died. She was 67.

    Winter worked persistently for nearly three decades to spread her alternative vision for the river and its watershed, calling for “unbuilding” where feasible, removing concrete and reactivating stretches of natural floodplains where the river could spread out.

    Leading her nonprofit group the River Project, she championed efforts to embrace nature along the river, saying that allowing space for a meandering waterway lined with riparian forests would help recharge groundwater, reduce flood risks and allow a green oasis to flourish in the heart of Los Angeles.

    She developed ambitious plans for rewilding parts of the river channel and nearby areas, and helped spearhead new riverfront parks as well as neighborhood “urban acupuncture” projects that replaced asphalt with permeable paving, allowing rainwater to percolate underground instead of running in concrete channels to the ocean.

    Melanie Winter and her dog, Maisie, look over the L.A. River near the Sepulveda Basin.

    “She was a voice for nature and a voice for the river,” said Rita Kampalath, L.A. County’s chief sustainability officer and a longtime friend of Winter’s. “She had such strength of her convictions, and she was so clear-eyed in the vision that she wanted to push forward. And I think that inspired a lot of people.”

    Winter had lung cancer but continued working and attending local water meetings even as her health declined. She died Tuesday night at a Los Angeles hospital where friends had been visiting to spend a little last time together.

    “I think what always drove her was the sense of, it was a river that had been contained in concrete … and that nature-based solutions could do a better job,” said Conner Everts, a friend and leader of the Southern California Watershed Alliance. “Her goal was to re-create a natural meandering river, with the ability to recharge into the [San Fernando] Valley and restore nature, as much as possible.”

    Winter was born in 1958 and grew up in the Valley.

    She was a talented dancer, and at 17 moved to New York City to start a career as a dancer and actor. She performed in Broadway shows and several Hollywood films, and also found work as a photographer, making black-and-white portraits of actors including Bruce Willis, Helen Hunt and Val Kilmer.

    She left the city in 1991 and moved back to L.A., where she gravitated toward other art forms and social activism.

    In 1993, to raise awareness about breast cancer, she made plaster casts of hundreds of women’s torsos and placed them in a cemetery-like installation on a lawn.

    Melanie Winter admires the lush surroundings during a canoe trip on the L.A. River in the Sepulveda Basin in 2024.

    Melanie Winter admires the lush surroundings during a canoe trip on the L.A. River in the Sepulveda Basin in 2024.

    She organized a river cleanup for the group Friends of the Los Angeles River, and then a pivotal moment came in 1996 when she attended a meeting where she heard activist Dorothy Green eloquently describe how concrete channels had starved the life from waterways, and how the city could make room for the river once again. Green became her mentor.

    Winter worked for a time as executive director of Friends of the Los Angeles River, then left to start the River Project in 2001.

    She sued developers and the city to challenge a planned development by the river, and organized a community coalition to push for a new state park. In 2007, she and others celebrated the opening of Rio de Los Angeles State Park.

    Winter spoke passionately about the need for a network of parks “along the backbone system of our waterways,” saying this can boost ecosystems, improve air quality and protect public health. The lush, shady vegetation along restored stretches of river, she said, can provide natural cooling, helping the city become more resilient to climate change.

    “I want to reverse-engineer us to a better future,” Winter said in an interview in 2024. “It would be a living river instead of a concrete river.”

    Melanie Winter at Rio de Los Angeles State Park, on a bench designed by local artists commemorating its founding

    At Rio de Los Angeles State Park, Melanie Winter sits on a bench designed by local artists to commemorate the park’s founding.

    Winter was steadfast and uncompromising as she faced resistance from engineers and local officials who preferred traditional hard-infrastructure approaches.

    “Engineers just can’t wrap their heads around the idea that nature can do it cheaper, better, easier than they can,” she said. “If you want a livable Los Angeles, then I fully believe that flipping the script on how we treat our waterways is central to it all.”

    Three years ago, her group published a study outlining a proposal to restore the river and its tributaries in the Sepulveda Basin and transform the area into the “green heart” of the Valley, reducing the size of three golf courses and opening wide corridors where the river and creeks would spread out in the floodplains.

    Winter was disappointed when the city released a plan for the area that she said failed to prioritize restoration.

    “Even though she met with so much resistance over the years, she didn’t lose her optimism and her strong desire to make positive change,” said Melissa von Mayrhauser, a doctoral student at UC Berkeley who interviewed Winter for her research and became a friend. “I’m inspired by her vision, and I have brought that into my research, and I plan to continue working on a career in river restoration.”

    She said Winter’s legacy includes not only the parks and neighborhood projects she completed, but also vital plans and concepts that can still be adopted throughout the watershed, and along other rivers.

    “Thanks to Melanie, there are so many more people imagining a living L.A. River than ever before,” she said.

    Melanie Winter leaves the site of a shuttered quarry with her dog.

    Melanie Winter leaves the site of a shuttered quarry with her dog, Maisie, in 2024. She supported a proposal to convert two old gravel quarry pits into giant reservoirs where storm runoff could be routed to recharge the aquifer and reduce flood dangers downstream.

    Near Winter’s home in Studio City sits a small riverside park shaded by cottonwood trees, where the native plants attract hummingbirds. There is a bench shaped like a butterfly, a retaining wall with a snake sculpture, and a green metal gate with an arch in the form of a giant toad.

    In the early 2000s, Winter started envisioning the park, called Valleyheart Greenway, and invited a group of fourth- and fifth-grade students to design the garden landscape.

    When the park opened in 2004, Winter said it wasn’t just about planting the garden, but also about instilling in the children a connection to their river.

    Learning about the river, she said, created a group of “children with a fierce sense of place and a fierce determination to protect what’s left and to bring back as much as we can.”

    Ian James

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  • WATCH: Rare, stinky corpse flower to bloom in Brooklyn just before Halloween

    Usually, people try to avoid anything considered “rotting.”

    But a rare corpse flower is expected to bloom in Brooklyn just in time for Halloween.

    The infamous flower known for its rotting, putrid smell is literally called the “corpse flower” — otherwise known as titus-arum or amorphophallus titanum.

    The New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) says this one should bloom in about two weeks. The bloom doesn’t last long, though, and neither, mercifully, does the smell.

    NYBG says the corpse flower only blooms every three to five years after its first bloom, which can take nearly a decade, and lasts just for two to three days, heightening anticipation for the attraction.

    The flower, which is “the largest unbranched inflorescence in the plant kingdom,” according to the federal government, can grow up to 9 feet tall.

    Good news: You can watch a livestream of this one as we wait, courtesy of NYBG, in the YouTube player above.

    NBC New York Staff

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  • Powerful 7.4 magnitude earthquake strikes near east coast of Russia’s Kamchatka region

    A powerful 7.4 magnitude earthquake struck early Saturday near the east coast of Russia’s Kamchatka region, the U.S. Geological Survey reported.The quake’s epicenter was 111.7 kilometers (69.3 miles) east of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, and had a depth of 39 kilometers, according to the USGS.There were no immediate reports of injuries or major damage.The Pacific Tsunami Warning System briefly said there was a threat of a possible tsunami from the earthquake but later dropped the threat from its website.The Japan Meteorological Agency said warnings were issued to coastal areas about a slight change in sea levels, but that means the likelihood of damage is minimal.Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula was hit by five powerful quakes — the largest with a magnitude of 7.4 — on July 20, 2025.

    A powerful 7.4 magnitude earthquake struck early Saturday near the east coast of Russia’s Kamchatka region, the U.S. Geological Survey reported.

    The quake’s epicenter was 111.7 kilometers (69.3 miles) east of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, and had a depth of 39 kilometers, according to the USGS.

    There were no immediate reports of injuries or major damage.

    The Pacific Tsunami Warning System briefly said there was a threat of a possible tsunami from the earthquake but later dropped the threat from its website.

    The Japan Meteorological Agency said warnings were issued to coastal areas about a slight change in sea levels, but that means the likelihood of damage is minimal.

    Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula was hit by five powerful quakes — the largest with a magnitude of 7.4 — on July 20, 2025.

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  • Bushcraft Pics That Make Us Want to Go Touch Grass Immediately

    Being stuck inside all day truly has us ready for adventure and the great outdoors. But since there’s still work to be done here at Chive HQ, I figured bushcraft photos were the next best thing.

    We’ve compiled some of the most interesting and ingenious uses of bushcraft – not to be confused with Busch craft which is just me crushing an entire 12-pack by myself.

    Perfect idea for the weekend: Enjoy these pics, then get out there and touch some grass yourself!

    Zach

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  • Tripping Out: Wound Up in the Mountains of Oklahoma

    Don’t let the cooler weather of the past couple of days fool you, because the 90-degree weather is set to return this week — this is Texas, after all. If you find yourself chasing this brief respite from the heat, you might want to look north.  Another short jaunt out of state is waiting to be discovered, just a few hours from Dallas…

    Lorri Kennedy

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  • A Journey of Surviving One of the Hardest Hikes in Texas

    “Nah, you’ll be fine.” That’s what my brother-in-law said when I questioned his sanity after he floated the idea of hiking the Guadalupe Peak Trail…

    Nick Reynolds

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  • Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano erupts with lava pouring out from multiple vents

    Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano erupts with lava pouring out from multiple vents

    Updated: 12:44 AM EDT Sep 3, 2025

    Editorial Standards ⓘ

    Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano resumed erupting on Tuesday, firing lava 330 feet into the sky from its summit crater.It’s the 32nd time the volcano has released molten rock since December, when its current eruption began. So far, all the lava from this eruption has been contained within the summit crater inside Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.Lava emerged from the north vent in Halemaumau Crater after midnight. The vent began shooting fountains of lava at 6:35 a.m., the U.S. Geological Survey said. By mid-morning, it was also erupting from the crater’s south vent and a third vent in between.Kilauea is one of the world’s most active volcanoes. It’s located on Hawaii Island, the largest of the Hawaiian archipelago. It’s about 200 miles south of the state’s largest city, Honolulu, which is on Oahu.

    (Video: USGS via CNN Newsource) —

    Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano resumed erupting on Tuesday, firing lava 330 feet into the sky from its summit crater.

    It’s the 32nd time the volcano has released molten rock since December, when its current eruption began. So far, all the lava from this eruption has been contained within the summit crater inside Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.

    Lava emerged from the north vent in Halemaumau Crater after midnight. The vent began shooting fountains of lava at 6:35 a.m., the U.S. Geological Survey said. By mid-morning, it was also erupting from the crater’s south vent and a third vent in between.

    Kilauea is one of the world’s most active volcanoes. It’s located on Hawaii Island, the largest of the Hawaiian archipelago. It’s about 200 miles south of the state’s largest city, Honolulu, which is on Oahu.

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  • Republican legislators propose bill to prevent local ‘rights of nature’ ordinances

    The Fox River empties into Lake Michigan in Green Bay, where city officials have proposed a resolution acknowledging that local bodies of water have a right to be protected. (Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources)

    Two Republican legislators have proposed legislation that would prevent local governments from enacting “rights of nature” ordinances — laws that grant natural entities legal rights — claiming that such ordinances are “incompatible with America’s founding principles.” 

    The proposal from Rep. Joy Goeben (R-Hobart) and Sen. Steve Nass (R-Whitewater) was released after the Green Bay City Council voted unanimously last month to direct the city’s sustainability council to begin drafting a “rights of nature” resolution. 

    The concept of granting natural entities legal rights is relatively new in American government, but countries around the world have enshrined legal rights for nature into their constitutions. In Wisconsin, the Menominee and Ho-Chunk Nations have written rights of nature provisions into their tribal constitutions. Two years ago, the Milwaukee County Board enacted its own rights of nature resolution that promises to protect the health of the Menominee, Milwaukee and Fox rivers and Lake Michigan. 

    The Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights has been working for years to track and support the passage of rights of nature laws around the world. The organization’s executive director Mari Margill says these laws are meant to help protect the environment.

    “As environmental crises deepen, supporters of the bill are trying to make it harder to protect the environment,” Margill says of the Goeben and Nass proposal. 

    While the Republican legislation, if it manages to pass the Legislature, is unlikely to be signed into law by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, critics say the proposal is an example of kneejerk Republican opposition to pro-environment ideas and another instance of Republicans from northeast Wisconsin attempting to meddle in Green Bay city politics. 

    A co-sponsorship memo supporting the legislation states that these types of ordinances threaten the integrity of the legal system and property rights. 

    “Allowing and promoting this ideology represents a dangerous shift in legal precedent,” the memo states. “It would allow nonhuman entities to sue in court, threatening property rights, stalling development, and burdening the judicial system.” 

    Goeben did not respond to a request for comment. 

    Rep. Ryan Clancy (D-Milwaukee), who helped write Milwaukee County’s resolution as a member of the county board in 2023, tells the Wisconsin Examiner the idea of granting bodies of water legal rights isn’t so different from corporations having legal “personhood.” In 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in its Citizens United decision that corporations have the right to free speech. 

    “It is wholly disingenuous to say only real tangible people have rights and then fight explicitly for those rights for corporations,” Clancy says. “It’s frankly frustrating to see Republicans take these really popular measures, these are broadly popular things, and rather than engaging with us in dialog, just trying to block these things through process. It’s a disingenuous way to go about it. Let’s talk about the things that necessitate these pieces of legislation.” 

    He adds that legislators have the power to do more than just write legislation. Goeben’s district is in the Green Bay suburbs but doesn’t include any of the city, but, Clancy argues that she could go to city council meetings and speak with people about these ideas instead of trying to blanket ban them without any dialog. 

    “It would be a much more earnest process to show up in Green Bay and go to those meetings and voice your concerns there,” he says.” We have bully pulpits, I show up at the city council, county board, school board meetings, both in my capacity as a legislator and as a parent and community member. Make your case there rather than trying to ban it.” 

    A number of Green Bay area officials expressed frustration at Republicans again involving themselves in Green Bay city politics. Earlier this year, Green Bay-area Republicans Rep. David Steffen (R-Howard) and Sen. Eric Wimberger (R-Oconto) proposed a bill that would limit the types of flags allowed to be flown at government buildings. Many Green Bay residents saw the bill as an effort to weigh in on a local debate over the flying of LGBTQ Pride flags. 

    “Given the challenges our communities are facing, from our housing crisis to fully funding our public schools, I am always surprised by elected officials who don’t represent this city wasting time on policies that don’t solve real problems or fund actual solutions,” Rep. Amaad Rivera-Wagner (D-Green Bay) says.

    Joey Prestley, the Green Bay city council member who has led the local rights of nature effort, says the resolution — which hasn’t been drafted yet — is meant to serve as a non-binding advisory statement that city government will consider the environmental effects of its decisions throughout the development process. 

    “Historically, the human actors have been the ones who have had the rights and the natural features have not been able to have people speaking for them,” he says. 

    Prestley says the idea for the resolution started after a group of residents objected late in the process to a new housing development. The development would be near the Niagara escarpment, a geological feature residents want to protect, but didn’t hit the thresholds that would instigate involvement from the federal Environmental Protection Agency or state Department of Natural Resources. 

    “My hope with a resolution would be maybe we consider these — all environmental features — but especially these ones that are important to our region, earlier in the process, and more thoroughly in the process, so we don’t have people coming up in the 11th Hour and saying, ‘wait a second, you can’t build this housing development,’” Prestley says. 

    He adds that if that consideration and discussion of the environmental effects came earlier, it could have been a more constructive discussion rather than turning into a heated local debate that had the potential to kill a housing project in a city that, like much of Wisconsin, is in dire need of more housing. The Green Bay city council approved the 160-unit project in April 

    “If it had been earlier in our process, it could have been more collaborative, and it could have been neighbors and environmental advocates working together with the developer and the city to make sure it’s a plan that benefits everybody, everybody who engages with the environment, everybody who relies on the environment, everybody who appreciates the environment,” he says.

    In proposing a resolution, he adds, the objective is  “not trying to compel anyone, but really trying to adapt as a philosophy for the city that we want to consider nature as the original inhabitants of the land did before we were here.”

    Prestley says it’s easy to spin the rights of nature discussion as “the work of a crazy person” who wants “to get trees to sue the city,” but actually he says he’s trying to make sure the city considers the potentially damaging environmental effects of its actions after decades of managing the harmful contamination of the Fox River. 

    “There was not enough people speaking up for the damage that was happening to the river back then, and it created something that affected the whole community,” Prestley says. “People used to swim in the river. Nobody touches the river now. Maybe we should consider the environment. That’s not a radical idea, that is a sensible idea, considering what we’ve done in the past in this community, and thinking about how we want to move forward.” 

    Prestley says the proposed legislation seems “silly” and notes a number of city actions, such as wetland reconstruction, that have benefited the environment. He says that if the Legislature isn’t going to help, it should get out of the way. 

    “I think we’re trying to do good things in Green Bay for the environment,” he says. “And I think the state’s responsibility should be to help with the good things, or to do their own thing.”

    The lawmakers proposing the bill, “they’re not helping us,” Prestley says. “They’re not helping the people, they’re just opposing things, and I don’t know why.”

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  • University researchers model storm surge study on Hurricane Ian

    Hurricane Ian dramatically changed our coastlines, damaged homes and caused serious flooding when it struck Florida in 2022.Oregon State University researchers looked at Hurricane Ian’s impact on coastal communities and saw an opportunity to investigate storm surges and how to protect people’s homes. “So those houses are 1:3, which means everything is dramatically three times smaller than the real house… but also the response of the house, how it’s broken and how is damages is also scaled properly to represent what happens in nature,” Pedro Lomonaco, director of the Hinsdale Wave Research Lab, said.It’s all about seeing how houses in coastal communities hold up to storm surge.”We build those in our directional wave basin. Our directional wave basin is imagined like an Olympic-size swimming pool where we can generate wave,” Lomonaco said. The researchers replicated waves as close as possible to what you find in nature with increasing storm surges. One house was built to meet the 100-year-flood standard which is the current FEMA guideline. Another was built to a 500-year-standard and sits higher above the water.The researchers increased the wave strength every 15 minutes until the houses collapsed.“The houses that are lower are going to be affected by waves sooner, and they are going to be damaged sooner. And the higher elevation houses are going to be more resilient and more resistant to those storm surge and wave,” Lomonaco said. Lomonaco says they’re still processing all the data; however, the information can be helpful in the future.The researchers are still processing all of the data from the experiment, but Lomonaco believes this research will be helpful in the future.He added that awareness is one of the main takeaways from the experiment, “We have to accept that we have placed the houses in the wrong place is the first point. and we allowed the construction of houses in places that were too risky and now we’re paying the price of that.”He acknowledged that this may not be the popular answer, but people may need to move their houses to places which are safer.Lomonaco anticipates the experiment’s results could be incorporated into building codes and where houses are built.

    Hurricane Ian dramatically changed our coastlines, damaged homes and caused serious flooding when it struck Florida in 2022.

    Oregon State University researchers looked at Hurricane Ian’s impact on coastal communities and saw an opportunity to investigate storm surges and how to protect people’s homes.

    “So those houses are 1:3, which means everything is dramatically three times smaller than the real house… but also the response of the house, how it’s broken and how is damages is also scaled properly to represent what happens in nature,” Pedro Lomonaco, director of the Hinsdale Wave Research Lab, said.

    It’s all about seeing how houses in coastal communities hold up to storm surge.

    “We build those in our directional wave basin. Our directional wave basin is imagined like an Olympic-size swimming pool where we can generate wave,” Lomonaco said.

    The researchers replicated waves as close as possible to what you find in nature with increasing storm surges.

    One house was built to meet the 100-year-flood standard which is the current FEMA guideline. Another was built to a 500-year-standard and sits higher above the water.

    The researchers increased the wave strength every 15 minutes until the houses collapsed.

    “The houses that are lower are going to be affected by waves sooner, and they are going to be damaged sooner. And the higher elevation houses are going to be more resilient and more resistant to those storm surge and wave,” Lomonaco said.

    Lomonaco says they’re still processing all the data; however, the information can be helpful in the future.

    The researchers are still processing all of the data from the experiment, but Lomonaco believes this research will be helpful in the future.

    He added that awareness is one of the main takeaways from the experiment, “We have to accept that we have placed the houses in the wrong place is the first point. and we allowed the construction of houses in places that were too risky and now we’re paying the price of that.”

    He acknowledged that this may not be the popular answer, but people may need to move their houses to places which are safer.

    Lomonaco anticipates the experiment’s results could be incorporated into building codes and where houses are built.

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  • Live Wildly Welcomes 2025 With Year-Round Opportunities to Discover the Wild Side of Florida

    From Music Festivals to Volunteer Events, Live Wildly Helps People Connect With Nature


    TAMPA, Fla., January 22, 2025 (Newswire.com)
    –
    Live Wildly, a non-profit working to advance conservation of Florida’s Wildlife Corridor and beyond, today announced a 2025 calendar of events that will inspire Floridians and others to get outdoors and learn about the important role nature plays in their daily lives.

    “One of the best New Year’s resolutions you can make in 2025 is to get outside and explore wild Florida,” said Lisa Shipley, CEO of Live Wildly. “We can sometimes forget about the wild lands and waters that surround us. But Florida offers countless opportunities to be inspired by nature.”

    Live Wildly will kick off the year with Unseen Florida, a campaign that will help people – regardless of where they live – discover the hidden side of Florida’s wildlife. Collaborating with Moultrie Mobile, the fStop Foundation, the Archbold Biological Station, and others, Live Wildly will highlight photos, film, and stories of wildlife captured through camera traps placed in remote areas across Florida.

    “Camera traps play an important role in conservation by helping researchers study wild animals, their movements, eating habits, and other valuable information,” Shipley said. “Camera traps also are just a lot of fun, allowing all of us to get a glimpse into the secret lives of animals.”

    For some “groovy” fun this year, Live Wildly is the title sponsor of the Peace, Love & Vans vanlife meetup and industry expo March 7-10 at the Withlacoochee River Park in Pasco County. The park, surrounded by ancient oak trees with miles of hiking and biking trails, fishing, camping, and other outdoor activities, will provide meetup attendees the perfect opportunity to connect with nature as they enjoy live music, food trucks, workshops, and other activities that highlight camping and travel in wild Florida. Single-day tickets will be available for the event, and Live Wildly will be on-site highlighting the countless ways to explore Florida’s wild places on four wheels.

    Also in March, Floridians will have the chance to celebrate their award-winning state parks. Live Wildly is working with the Florida State Parks Foundation and Florida lawmakers to officially designate March 19 as the second annual Florida State Parks Day, honoring these amazing outdoor destinations that draw nearly 30 million visitors each year and generate more than $3 billion in annual revenue.

    Live Wildly and the Florida State Parks Foundation also are partnering this year to host the second annual “Explore the Corridor Week” from April 26 through May 3. This public volunteering drive will be held at 20 state parks located inside the Florida Wildlife Corridor – 18 million acres of wild and working lands that stretch from the Panhandle to the Everglades. The event will give volunteers the opportunity to support the diverse wildlife, plants species, and habitats of the Corridor, the nation’s largest conservation initiative of its kind that was established by state lawmakers in 2021. Last year, the event drew more than 300 volunteers who contributed 1,200 hours of their time removing invasive plants, restoring hiking trails, collecting data on wildlife, and other activities. Live Wildly will share more information in the coming weeks on how people can participate in this event.

    For music fans, Live Wildly this year offers several opportunities to enjoy some of the nation’s top musical groups while getting outdoors. Award-winning musician and Florida-native JJ Grey will continue his partnership with Live Wildly as a conservation ambassador to raise awareness for protecting threatened lands and waters across the state and elsewhere. Live Wildly will sponsor JJ’s Blackwater Sol Revue held at the St. Augustine Amphitheatre May 24-25. Tickets go on sale January 24.

    And in September, Live Wildly will once again partner with Sing Out Loud Festival to grow support for conserving wild Florida. During the Live Wildly Showcase, the music festival’s two-day marquee event, Live Wildly will create an immersive experience that will allow concert goers to experience Florida’s unique landscapes. For every ticket sold to the festival, a portion of the proceeds will go towards conservation.

    Throughout 2025, Live Wildly also will work to sign up 10,000 new members for its Join the Movement Campaign, which helps people learn more about the important role Florida’s lands and waters play in their daily lives. For every person who signs the Join the Movement pledge to honor and protect wild Florida, Live Wildly will donate a dollar to conservation.

    “Live Wildly believes that people will protect what they love,” Shipley said. “That’s why Live Wildly is helping people fall in love with wild Florida and inspiring them to take action to save it.”

    Source: Live Wildly Foundation

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  • Protect your home and property: Gloucester Fire reminds Cape Ann of Wildfire Protection Plan amid red flag warning

    Protect your home and property: Gloucester Fire reminds Cape Ann of Wildfire Protection Plan amid red flag warning

    High fire danger led the National Weather Service to issue a red flag warning for the entire Commonwealth of Massachusetts on Friday, and the Gloucester Fire Department would like to remind residents and business owners that they can help protect themselves by reviewing the Community Wildfire Protection Plan that was prepared by Cape Ann stakeholders this spring.

    The Cape Ann Community Wildfire Protection Plan website, https://bit.ly/3CjdhPT, provides detailed maps of Cape Ann along with numerous resources for home and business owners to protect their properties against fire. An entire section of the plan is focused on steps that home and property owners can take to help protect their properties.

    Among the tips for homeowners are reducing flammable brush within 5 feet of the home, keeping gutters clean and keeping trees trimmed back from homes and trimmed at least 10 feet from the ground.

    The  Cape Ann plan also identifies high-risk areas for wildfires and suggested strategies for preventing them and reducing risk.

    Those strategies include mechanical fuel treatments, in which vegetation that can fuel fires is managed; adding fire containment features to the environment, such as firebreaks; working with local home owners associations and residents to develop fuel break measures around homes and properties; working with the Department of Conservation and Recreation to establish forest projects that reduce wildfire risk; and implementing a community chipper program to encourage residents to keep brush and other vegetation cut back from their homes.

    “The Gloucester Fire Department and other regional, state and federal stakeholders put a lot of work into creating this plan earlier this year in preparation for the dangerous fire conditions we knew would come,” Deputy Chief Robert Rivas said. “We encourage homeowners and business owners to review the plan and learn what they can about simple ways to protect lives and property.”

    To learn more about the plan or to view its full details, visit https://bit.ly/3CjdhPT.

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