American Pharaoh wins the Triple Crown, horse racing’s most celebrated title. Fire destroys Younkers in downtown Des Moines
2014
Pope Francis visits the United States.
2015
American Idol ends its 15-year run on American TV. The Chicago Cubs win baseball’s World Series for the first time since 1908. Photo by Arturo Pardavila III, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
2016 The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) awards nearly $97M to the state of Iowa for the “Iowa Watershed Approach (IWA) for Urban and Rural Resilience.” This statewide watershed improvement program slows down water moving through the landscape by building farm ponds, wetlands, and other conservation practices in the watershed. IWA restores some of Iowa’s natural resiliency to heavy rainfall, while also improving water quality, adding natural beauty to the landscape, creating wildlife habitat, and restoring ecosystem services.
The Iowa Geological Survey affiliates with IIHR at the University of Iowa.
IIHR’s Ching-Long Lin develops a multi-level model of the human lung, part of a multidisciplinary research effort to improve our understanding of lung function and structure, with the goal of making a difference for patients with lung disease.
IIHR’s Connie Mutel publishes a new book, A Sugar Creek Chronicle: Observing Climate Change from a Midwestern Woodland, that artfully weaves together two threads — her personal life story and the emerging global climate crisis. 5 0 • IIHR Cu rr ents