The Civility Project, which is an ongoing project that reminds citizens of the importance of respect in matters of public discourse, is celebrating its one year anniversary this week. To honor the occasion, leaders of the project, including members from the Library Center and Community Foundation of the Ozarks, will be hosting the free program series called “Building Common Ground: Discussions of Community, Civility and Compassion.” The program series includes poetry readings, photo exhibits and a soup dinner. KSMU’s Rebekah Clark has more.
Psychiatrists have long claimed that gardens hold healing powers for mental illness. Now, scientists are exploring a new field called horticultural therapy for everyone from troubled youth to veterans. But just how gardens affect the brain remains mainly a mystery.
Audie Cornish speaks with Grant Zazula, a paleontologist for the government of Yukon, about the cloning of an ancient Arctic plant by Russian scientists. He says he was skeptical at first, but is confident the experiment has been a success.
When Bill Watterson stopped drawing "Calvin and Hobbes" in 1995, everyone noticed. But the brothers behind the webcomic "Pants Are Overrated" reprised the characters in an homage to Calvin, and added a new character, too.
Rhythm in music is about timing — when notes start and stop. And now scientists say they've found a curious pattern that's common to musical rhythm. It's a pattern also found in nature.
Three skiers died in an avalanche over the weekend in Washington state. A fourth skier was caught in the snow slide, but survived thanks to an airbag she deployed from her backpack. Audie Cornish speaks with Doug Abromeit, former director of and now consultant for the US Forest Service National Avalanche Center, about how the air bag works.
Monday marks the 50th anniversary of astronaut John Glenn's orbiting of Earth. Glenn — who was one of NASA's original Mercury Seven — was the first American to achieve the feat. He flew the mission in just under five hours, circling the globe three times in a capsule named Friendship 7. Glenn, who says he recalls the mission as if it were just last week, tells Audie Cornish he doesn't want the US to lose sight of the future and America's role in outer space.
Eric Gilbert, an assistant professor at Georgia Tech, tells Audie Cornish about his latest study on work emails. He looked at how certain words or phrases used in work correspondence can reveal if the message is being sent by someone higher up or further below you on the corporate food chain.
Wildlife officials don't usually base hunting policy on the public's view about an animal. But the black bear seems to be different — it has bounced back from near-extinction to being a nuisance in some areas. Now the question is, would people rather live with bears, or keep their numbers in check?
Research that produced genetically altered bird flu viruses that could pose a danger to people should remain on hold for now. But a panel of experts recommended the details of the experiments should be published.
The WHO upheld its guidelines on the safety of hormone injections for contraception yesterday, despite some data that users are at increased risk of HIV transmission. An expert panel says the evidence isn't solid yet, and at-risk couples should use a second method, like condoms, for HIV prevention.
Military bases in the California desert could host seven gigawatts of solar power installations--roughly equivalent to the output of seven nuclear plants--according to a study commissioned by the Department of Defense. Study director Robert Kwartin discusses the report.
Andrew Wellerstein is a mad bomber — but a careful, data-driven, history-minded mad bomber. The science historian's latest project gives you the fascinating, terrifying power to detonate.
A small group has gathered at the World Health Organization in Geneva to discuss a controversy over bird flu experiments. After the meeting, which ends today, the WHO will announce what happened behind closed doors.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Wednesday that E. Coli bacteria are responsible for sickening 12 people in the Midwest. KSMU’s Brittany Donnellan reports.
The United States and five other nations are embarking on a new program to limit pollutants connected to global warming. But they're not targeting carbon dioxide with this effort — instead, they're looking at methane gas, and soot.
The highly-anticipated gathering of flu experts has been described as a fact-finding session that will focus on understanding how bird flu studies done at Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands and at the University of Wisconsin were performed and overseen by the relevant authorities.
Scientists working with bird flu recently called a 60-day halt on some controversial experiments. The unusual move has been compared to a famous moratorium on genetic engineering in the 1970s. And key scientists who organized the pause on genetic research say there are lessons that might hold for today's furor over bird flu.
Controversial experiments on bird flu have split the scientific community. Scientists recently took a bird flu virus and altered its genes and now it can spread through the air between lab animals. When word got out, there was an uproar and critics fear that if this virus ever escapes the lab, it could cause a devastating pandemic in people. It's all led to an "Asilomar-type moment." Asilomar refers to a famous event in the early days of genetic engineering, when scientists put a voluntary moratorium on their work and held a meeting in 1975 to discuss the potential risks of the research and how to control them. Key scientists who organized that historic meeting say there are lessons that might hold for today's furor over bird flu.
The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope will capture over 800 images of every patch of sky for an entire decade. The results, say one astronomer, will allow researchers to "answer fundamentally different questions about the universe."
This month, the bees from 1.6 million hives — many of them trucked in commercially from as far away as North Dakota — will pollinate California's almond orchards. Then beekeepers pack up their colonies and drive them back to the northern plains, where bees can graze for the summer. But scientists says that floral feast in the great plains is shrinking because of high corn prices.
The northern plains, especially the Dakotas, are home to about half of the country's honey bee hives during the summer. It's been a good place for bees because they can gather nectar and pollen from so many wildflowers. But the landscape of the area is becoming less bee-friendly, and the consequences could be felt as far away as the almond groves of California, which depend on those same bees for pollination.
