Operators of Spirit - one of the seemingly indestructible Mars Rovers - on Tuesday tried to unwedge it from the sand trap it’s been stuck in for months.

The New York Times has a good update on the mission, which is now…

Photo by Nick Turland

Led by scientists from the Missouri Botanical Garden, an international collaboration of scientific institutions has published the 32nd volume of the Flora of China, the definitive work on all Chinese wild orchids.

Since 1988, scientists have been working to…

An international team of scientists co-led by the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center’s Dr. Claude Fauquet have completed a draft genome sequence for the cassava, a food staple in Africa and Asia.

While cassava serves as a primary food source for…

The rabbitfoot mussel, found in both Missouri and Illinois, is now a candidate for the endangered species list, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Friday.

The mussel has only been identified in about 50 streams in 15 Midwestern states. One of…

America Recycles Day is Nov. 15 but there are quite a few events coming up this weekend aimed at promoting recycling, particularly electronics.

First up is an event this Saturday hosted by the cities of Balwin, Ellisville and WITS. Residents of St.…

People with longer toes and a unique ankle structure that allows for quicker acceleration make better sprinters, according to biomechanists.

Penn State scientists analyzed the feet of 12 collegiate sprinters and 12 non-athletes of similar heights. They measured the distance between the…

Patterson and his kill

PaThe legendary man-eating lions of Tsavo rumored to have killed more than 130 railroad workers in Africa more than a century ago likely only ate about 35 people, according to new research.

That’s nothing to sneeze at, but the…

File this under the “Who Knew?” category.

Turns out papayas come in three sexual varieties: male, female and hermaphrodite. And its the hermaphrodites that produce the flavorful fruit that’s often sold commercially and winds up in your fruit parfait.

From the grower’s…

Mark Templeton

Yesterday, EcoSpeak was forwarded an email from Department of Natural Resources Director Mark Templeton announcing the promotion of two long-time employees. What the memo didn’t say was that three other DNR employees were terminated that created the vacancies the…

Korean scientists have discovered that pumpkin skin contains a substance that inhibits growth of microbes that cause yeast infections in adults and children.

In the study, the scientists note how some disease-causing microbes are becoming resistant to antibiotics. As a result,…