Brian Gongol
World Health Organization says bed nets are working and malaria is in decline
Deaths due to malaria have fallen by half in parts of sub-Saharan Africa, thanks to bed nets and indoor spraying, but the organization is concerned that only 35% of kids in Africa are sleeping under bed nets, and the gains against malaria are fragile. Science can work to save lives, but we have to let it work.
Iowa farmland prices skyrocket 15% in a year
The average acre is worth $5,064 at the market rate. It's pretty difficult to believe that the figure actually reflects the true earnings potential of that land (as opposed to a speculative fury), given the wild variability in crop prices recently. If one assumes that the price of an asset should reflect the time-discounted value of what that asset will produce in the future, then farmland is a real challenge to assess objectively. As great as it may feel for farm values to be high on paper, high land prices also make it difficult for young farmers to enter the trade, and for farm families to pass on the assets of the family operation in an estate. Some counties, it should be noted, are seeing average prices of more than $7,000 per acre.
