Episode Details

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Monday, December 1st. I'm Mac Watson.

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Wyoming's shortage of nurse practitioners could get worse if the federal government takes nurse practitioners off its list of "professional" degrees. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that slashing federal student loan assistance could put the nurse practitioner program out of reach for students, and could negatively affect the medical landscape in Wyoming.

"Wyoming has a lot of remote communities that can't, you know, whatever they do, they're probably not going to attract a full fledged doctor to come and practice there. They're just not enough people there to support the practice. And so these nurse practitioners have been filling a very essential role in a lot of remote communities across Wyoming, they're the only source of local care in many of these smaller communities. So making this degree harder to get is kind of, you know, has the potential to constrict or put a chokehold on that pipeline of creating some of these new nurse practitioners."

The University of Wyoming says it will be difficult to offer its nurse practitioner program for much less than they now charge for tuition, but they do say they're looking at financial work-arounds for students.

Read the full story HERE.

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Researchers at Brain Chemistry Labs, a state-of-the-art biology laboratory in Jackson, are studying the brains of dolphins in a quest to cure Alzheimer's disease. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports researchers have discovered a link between the disease, the dolphins, and toxic algae blooms.

"Brain chemistry labs has been working with partners like Sea World and the University of Miami and Florida for quite a long time, and the this attempt to see if there was a connection between what was going on in the brains of beached whales and dolphins and the cyanobacterial blooms that have become more of a concern on the eastern coast of Florida and around the world. And what this study did was found a concrete link between these cyanobacterial blooms, the neurotoxins therein, and the brain damage being caused to dolphins and whales, which in turn, has implications on humans, because Miami, Dade County in Florida has the highest incidence of Alzheimer disease in the United States. So they think that it's more than a coincidence that you have these dolphins dying of a or at least dying as a result of a neurodegenerative brain disease, and the fact that there's an extremely similar disease in humans in the same spot."

Dolphin brains are distinctly different from human brains, but the tissue damage caused by neurodegenerative diseases looks the same.

Read the full story HERE.

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Kaci Bulkley of Campbell County is already an accomplished hunter at the age of 12. Outdoors Reporters Mark Heinz says this past fall, she stunned seasoned hunters by dropping a huge bull elk with one shot from 600 yards away.

"Her dad is a gunsmith, so he's able to custom make a rifle for and it's just that they practiced and they practiced at longer ranges. And so she had the aptitude for her but, yeah, but her mom was saying, 'No, she did.' I mean, people online trying to call us – liars, like, 'Nope, nope. My daughter absolutely made that shot.'"

The bull's antler rack scored in the 320-inch range. Kaci has also bagged coyotes, antelope, and a mule deer buck that scored 184 inches.

Read the full story

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