Get a whole bunch of plastic bags (we know you have them), cut ‘em down, stack ‘em together and do some other stuff [ instructions here ].  And voila!  A plastic bag tote of your very own.

This project is great because it puts to good use something people already have lying around and aren’t likely to recycle. It also answers a need for reusable bags, which (if they’re also made of plastic) only last 2-3 years anyway.

Missouri’s 2012 National Geographic Bee champion, Jack Langen, gives a tour of his home town of Columbia for the NatGeo YouTube channel. Double-fisting Sparky’s ice cream? Walking on the MKT? The kid couldn’t be more spot on.

Jack will be competing against the other state champions in Washington, D.C., on May 22-24. The Bee finals hosted by Alex Trebek air Thursday, May 24 at 7:00 p.m. (Central Time) on the National Geographic Channel and Nat Geo WILD.

Photos by Kat Seal.

Tigers for Community Agriculture, Sustain Mizzou’s gardening group, have sold 324 pounds of lettuce, chard and broccoli to MU Campus Dining Services and the University Club in just one month. The journey from seed to students resulted entirely from student volunteer efforts.

In early February, the students started romaine lettuce, Swiss chard, leek, onion and broccoli seed in the campus green house. Volunteers then transplanted the sprouts into hoop houses at Bradford Research and Extension Center and carpooled there to water it periodically. Using a drip-tape watering system, which waters at the roots, conserves water. There’s also a commercial benefit: “You don’t have water spots on the lettuce so it looks better when you try to sell them,” says Monica Everett, a project volunteer who has been with TCA since its inception in 2010. The group also sold 60 pounds of greens to the University Club, a higher-end dining establishment at the Alumni Center.

Setting up the business plan was surprisingly simple: they asked CDS to buy their produce. “After marching into the kitchen offices of the Student Center (not knowing what we were doing), we brought [sous chef] Jeremy out the Ford Explorer,” says Kat Seal, project volunteer and former Sustain Mizzou president. “He looked at the lettuce and said, ‘we’d take it all.’”

TCA has other produce coming up for harvest, including peppers, spinach, carrots and tomatoes. They plan to sell it to the aforementioned businesses, as well as Centro Latino. All profit goes back to building the program and its assets.

Short-eared owl at Eagle Bluffs Conservation Area. Photo by Benjamin Zack.

John Sam Williamson’s family has been farming the McBaine bottoms along the Missouri River for six generations. They’ve fought floods, droughts and the changes of the river while taking care of the rich bottomland and growing food for the country.

There’s a lot going on in the McBaine bottoms, including Eagle Bluffs Conservation Area, the Columbia Water Treatment Plant and well field and the much revered site of the state record bur oak tree, which Williamson and his family have been taking care of for generations. Williamson is also the president of the McBaine Levee and Drainage District and treasurer of the Boone County Fire Protection District.

John will share some of his family history in the area and bring the story to the present, where changes in the management of the Missouri River mean changes in the ways farmers deal with levees.

Directions:

• Take I-70 to the Rocheport, MO, exit (Exit #115). It’s the first exit east of the Missouri River.
• Head north toward Rocheport.
• After about a mile, turn left at the sign for Les Bourgeois Bistro. Follow the signs to the Bistro. You will probably need to park in the lot above the Bistro and walk the trail down.
• The presentations are held in the lower level. You can either enter at the restaurant entrance then go down the stairs to your left past the bar, or you can follow the walk to the right of the restaurant and enter through a glass door into the lower level.
• 14020 W. Hwy BB, Rocheport, MO (click for Google Map)

For more information, visit Missouri River Relief’s page for the Big Muddy Speaker Series.

*Well, ok, there are a few catches. Watch the video to find out more!

From the Youtube page:

What are biofuels and where do they come from? This video presents algae biodiesel as a possible future source of renewable carbon neutral energy.

If you like, please hit the happy thumb!

Special thanks to the Oberlin College Biology Department and the Bonner Center for Service and Learning

Also thanks to some of the pioneers for this type of video format, people like Jorge Cham and Henry Reich over at MinutePhysics who do this kind of thing far better than me.

A couple of things I didn’t mention: the reason why biofuels are considered carbon neutral is because even though they release carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere when burned, they sequester it as biomass while they’re growing. So they’re not actually adding to the sum of atmospheric carbon – it all is supposed to come out close to zero.

In a boycott, everyone loses. In a Carrot Mob, everyone WINS! That’s the basic premise of today’s Carrot Mob at Shakespeare’s, part of Sustain Mizzou’s Sustainability Week.

Sustain Mizzou is challenging YOU to join the Carrot Mob campaign TODAY.

Print this flier, take it to Shake's, and 15% of their sales will go back into energy efficiency updates. Since commercial buildings use a significant amount of total U.S. energy, this is a small step toward a HUGE collective impact.

It’s a party, not a protest! On April 26th join us at the yummiest event of MU’s Sustainability Week to chow down and save the planet, all in one bite (or gulp). Here’s the deal: you buy pizza or beer, then Shakespeare’s will take 15% of the money from your purchase and re-invest it in an energy audit and energy efficiency retrofits at the store. Here’s the catch: for your money to count you’ll need a super-secret code from Sustain Mizzou. You’ll be able to find us at Earth Day, on Lowry Mall during Sustainability Week (April 23-27), on Facebook, and prancing around Columbia in carrot costumes.

Traditionally mobs have formed to protest businesses with bad practices, but this Carrotmob campaign will be the opposite of a boycott: we’ll party at Shake’s to bring more customers to a local company with good practices!

So grab some friends, track us down, and join the Carrotmob! You’ll have never felt so good about stuffing your face.

30-40 dead fish, which our TA must sprinkle with alcohol every half-hour to keep them “fresh.” During the test, we hop from one seat to the next, identifying each specimen by its Latin name. It involves counting scales and recalling which minnow has a dorsal fin in front of its pelvic fin. Sometimes this process is spiced up by a question such as, “what does this fish eat?” Thrilling.

Ok, so really this part is tedious. But the process of learning about fish diversity, especially in our own backyards, is really fun! I have a couple of new favorite fish, and I can impress all my friends at parties by explaining fin functions at parties. And now, with this personal gallery of 59 pictures of preserved fish specimens, you can, too! But really, if you’re interested, check out The Fishes of Missouri by William L Pflieger. The book is no longer in print, but the University Bookstore custom prints them for the spring class. Happy fishing!

Photos all taken from Ichthyology lab specimens at the University of Missouri.

1. Don’t replace the nozzle right after filling up. Wait 3 seconds.
2. After waiting, insert the nozzle deeper into your gas tank, so that the rubber hood becomes all scrunched up. I will refrain from making any inappropriate sexual comments despite how obvious it all seems.
3. After a second or two, feel free to replace the nozzle. There should be no spilled gas nor shall gasoline vapor end up.

To give you an example of how this should look, I have included two images. The first one shows the recovery nozzle in it’s natural, unperturbed form. The second shows what it should look like when you push it in all the way, bro.

Kills your lungs

So there you go, you’re now an instant expert not only on ground level ozone but also how to properly fill up your tank in St. Louis.

Now,  why this is important and why you should feel bad if you aren’t doing this already:

For asthmatics, the elderly, and those who’ve smoked a pack of American Spirits daily for years, summer can suck (as well as other seasons, depending on what bothers your lungs). Not only is hot and humid air just objectively harder to breathe, but summer also brings the relentless sunshine and heat that encourages ground level ozone formation.

But wait, Ozone is good right? Yes, Ozone is fantastic and prevents our skin from melting off like the Nazi Doctor guy who opened the Ark of the Covenant in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Just kidding. It’s protective ability is not that dramatic, but it does prevent a lot of harmful ultraviolet radiation from cooking your skin cells and mutating their DNA into unfriendly, cancerous skin DNA.

However, Ozone (O_3, that’s right, it’s not 2 but 3 oxygen molecules) does that in the upper atmosphere best. At ground level it can totally ruin your day. Scientists now believe there is a strong association between exposure to ground level ozone and premature death, According to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, cutting ground level ozone emissions by a third nationwide would save 4,000 lives annually.

So, how is ground level ozone formed? In large part, due to almost everything in modern life, man.  Ground level ozone forms from the leftovers of the various nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, and classes of compounds known as volatile organic compounds (VOCs) spewed into the air by modern, western society. To give you a scope of how much precursor material put out that can form ground level ozone, consider how we power our homes to our cars. Most of us (Midwesterners more) use a lot of fossil fuels. These fuels are organic in nature, and once out in the open air they release volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Sunshine and heat (it’s fucking hot and sunny in summer in a lot of places here, if you haven’t figured it out yet) conspire to break up these chemically volatile and fragile molecules. When broken up, some of the attached oxygen molecules in these compounds peace the hell out and attach themselves to floating, regular O₂ molecules. The ones that people like to breathe, unfortunately. Keep in mind, I mentioned fossil fuels, but VOCs can be found anywhere, including windshield wiper fluid, perfume, and even oil based paint (I’m looking at you here, Tina). Add that all up, and you can how the problem can snowball out of control.

I’m going to throw this right out here: there is not going to be a quick fix. Many of the chemicals that are precursors are also extremely necessary in modern life. So we can all do our part to use less of them. However, I have advertised one neat feature that is featured on gas pumps in large cities with smog issues. They are called vapor recovery nozzles.