environmental science

Andrea Tudhope / KCUR 89.3

A short march from 27th and Grand to Washington Square Park kicked off Kansas City's "March for Science" Saturday morning. One of hundreds around the world, the event was intended "to voice the critical role that science plays in each of our lives."

At 1215 South Jefferson Avenue in St. Louis, a red brick building housed a chemical plant, owned by a black man who always dreamed of running his own business on a city block full of black business owners. In a new memoir to his father, the owner of Du-Good Chemical whose dreams became a reality, Kansas City writer Lewis Diuguid takes us back to that city block where he grew up.

Plus, how a favorite childhood pastime of catching bugs became an academic career for one KU grad student. 


GarrettTT / Flickr -- CC

When you flip a light switch or plug something into an outlet, something usually happens. Lights come on, iPhones get charged. But where does that energy come from in Kansas City? How are we using it, and what is the future of energy here?

Then, the story of Aldo Leopold, a Missourian and a passionate early writer about nature and conservation.


Valter Weijola / Journal of Mammalogy


Universal Pictures

How many times has terrible science kept you from enjoying a sci-fi movie? From hits like I Am Legend to the classic Soylent Green, we explore the science behind these (and other) movies, and how they relate to real life.

David Nichols / Flickr -- CC



Rick Fredericksen / Iowa Public Radio


Lisa Rodriguez / KCUR

It's that time of year. Flowers are blooming, the grass is green, and the sweet scent of honeysuckle wafts in the warm summer air.

Honeysuckle’s fragrance however, may be the only sweet thing about it. According to conservationists in Kansas and Missouri, Asian Bush Honeysuckle is the most visible and environmentally destabilizing invasive species in the metro area.

Larry Rizzo, a natural history biologist at the Missouri Department of Conservation, says that there is a difference between invasive and exotic species, and the two are not necessarily exclusive. 

Sylvia Maria Gross / KCUR

Joseph Tomelleri is trying to discover a new species of trout. That's why he was just in Mexico, and that's why he'll be returning again soon.

Working as a scientist and an artist rolled into one, he's created upwards of 1,100 hyper-realistic colored-pencil illustrations depicting fish species for scientific books and magazines. He goes on research expeditions, documenting the distinguishing characteristics of each species, in some cases more faithfully than even a photograph could capture. 

wikimedia commons

National Geographic reports that in the first dozen years of this century the world lost almost 35% more forest canopy than it gained…. and some of the greatest losses have been in tropical forests.

Stuart Davies, a tropical ecologist, explains how these forests are being studied and monitored and what their reduction could mean for the rest of the world.


Francis Bacon And The Gulf Oil Spill

Dec 7, 2011

On today's show, a conversation about the influence of 17th Century Renaissance poets on modern environmental thought. Modern environmental thought breaks down into two different schools. One says science can create new technology to solve the environmental crisis, and the other school of thought calls that approach pure hubris, and argues for a more ethical treatment of nature in the first place. We'll speak with Johnson County Community College English professor Anthony Funari about how the origins of this modern debate lies in the 17th Century writings of Francis Bacon.