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This post is part of the Science Tuesday feature series on the USDA blog. Check back each week as we showcase stories and news from the USDA's rich science and research portfolio.

In January, President Obama called upon the U.S. Department of Agriculture and all other U.S. agencies to perform a government-wide review of current federal regulations to update, streamline and remove excessive rules. This review, prompted by Executive Order 13563, was intended to minimize burdens...

The state of Mississippi, recently hit with back-to-back disasters in the forms of record-intensity tornadoes in the eastern portion of the state and devastating floods in the Mississippi River Delta, was visited by two USDA under secretaries on Thursday. USDA Under Secretary for Rural Development...

On a spring day in Chesterfield, South Carolina, a family works in unison to manage cattle, sheep and goats. This is a daily routine and a way of life for Paxton Pegues, his wife Olivia, and their four children Rachel, Marcellus, Spencer, and Lanier.

The views are breathtaking in what’s known as the “driftless area” in the upper Midwest, which encompasses parts of southeast Minnesota, southwest Wisconsin, northeast Iowa and northwest Illinois. This unique area was bypassed by retreating glaciers during the end of the last Ice Age several...

USDA staff in Missouri joined Governor Jay Nixon on May 10 and May 11, 2011, at five Flood Recovery Resource Meetings to an estimated 600 people in Southeast Missouri. The meetings were held in the cities of Poplar Bluff, Sikeston, Charleston, New Madrid and Caruthersville which are located in the...

Employees at the Stephens Federal Building in Athens, Georgia, celebrated the People's Garden planted in April with an educational lunch session in the garden. Deborah Callahan of USDA Rural Development and a recent graduate of Georgia's Master Gardener program demonstrated composting and explained...

What do wild Alaskan salmon and Sitka black-tailed deer have in common? Other than playing starring roles on many Alaskans’ favorite dinner menus, they also both thrive in forests with large open canopies of hardwood and conifers with thick plant undergrowth. Such characteristics exist in mature...

After a long, blizzard-filled winter, Earth Day was celebrated April 29 in Lidgerwood, North Dakota. USDA Rural Development delivered the latest in a number of loans and grants to help offset the cost of a $1.58 million project to provide safe drinking water to the city. Lidgerwood’s leaders first...

When young people set out to find a job, they usually don’t think, “What am I going to do for the next 50 years?” Instead, they tend to ask themselves, “What is something I would enjoy doing right now?”