Heartland & Company

Fruit heartland threatened

It has only recently been discovered that the likely origin of some of the world's most important fruit crops, such as apples, apricots and walnuts, lie in a small region of forests in central Asia. The region is home to more than 300 wild fruit and nut species but this unique genetic resource is under major threat, according to a new report which estimated that 90 per cent of this woodland has...

Essays from Its Heartland

What is the heartland of psychiatry?

Psychiatry has long identified schizophrenia as its defining disorder, its heartland as it has been called. In the past 20 years, this has had a number of negative consequences for psychiatry as a medical specialty, which result from the uncertainty of diagnosis and an increasing emphasis on demedicalising services in an attempt to provide social care outside hospital. These changes have probab...

The Changing Economy of the Rural Heartland

T he economy of the rural, or nonmetropolitan, Heartland has undergone great change over the past 15 years. Deep recessions in agriculture and energy, restructuring in manufacturing, and the emergence of the service industry are just some of the forces that have reshaped the rural economy of the nation’s midsection. Having shared in this economic transition and now facing a common economic futu...

Vertebrate Host Susceptibility to Heartland Virus

Heartland virus (HRTV) is a recently described phlebovirus initially isolated in 2009 from 2 humans who had leukopenia and thrombocytopenia. Serologic assessment of domestic and wild animal populations near the residence of 1 of these persons showed high exposure rates to raccoons, white-tailed deer, and horses. To our knowledge, no laboratory-based assessments of viremic potential of animals i...