Stories
Aug. 13, 2012
Cows on the Lawn
Eckles Hall represented a huge investment by the Missouri Legislature to boost Missouri’s agricultural economy through dairy teaching and research. Where students now walk, some of the most productive cows in the world once grazed.
July 16, 2012
River Fuel
Are the Missouri and Mississippi rivers and their floodplains the key to America replacing a portion of imported oil with domestic biofuel by 2022? A consortium of more than 40 academic institutions and agricultural and energy companies says yes. Shibu Jose, director of the Center for Agroforestry at the University of Missouri – the lead institution in the Mississippi/Missouri River Advanced Biomass/Biofuel Consortium (MRABC) – says recently completed preliminary research shows that America’s two great rivers can support an effort to economically take biofuels from plants harvested in waste ground to finished biofuel pumped…
June 14, 2012
Counting Calories
Childhood obesity has increased dramatically throughout the past 40 years and has been tied to many health problems. Now, a University of Missouri researcher has found that children’s weight is associated with their math performance.
May 21, 2012
Better Bull
Research from a CAFNR reproductive scientist identifies faulty sperm and takes them out of the equation for artificial insemination (AI) of cattle.
April 9, 2012
Calming the Storm (Water)
Using 777 willow trees, a University of Missouri research team is beginning a two-year study to determine best methods to reclaim flood plain land damaged by development, keep waterways free of potential pollutants, and develop a cash crop for farmers.
March 9, 2012
Deep Roots
Wine is back in Missouri. Vineyards plowed under during Prohibition are blooming again. The state’s wineries are winning international competitions. Viticulture, enology and winemaking are popular courses at the Institute for Continental Climate Viticulture and Enology at the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources at the University of Missouri. It’s all but forgotten that grape growing and wine making were pivotal parts of MU’s early history. Vineyard donations helped found the College of Agriculture, and students learned the winemaking craft in the basement of the famous, but ill-fated, Academic Hall. Some of the University’s most…
Feb. 17, 2012
Building Better Soybeans
The National Center for Soybean Biotechnology (NCSB) at the University of Missouri has begun a project to sequence the DNA of 1,008 commercially important soybean varieties. The effort is designed to provide a multifold increase in genetic data to breeders to create improved soybeans that are more productive, more disease tolerant and have improved nutritional quality.
Feb. 10, 2012
No Men Upstairs
Today, men climb the stairs of Gentry Hall without a second thought. In the days when Corvettes had whitewalls and co-eds wore bobby socks, a man on the second floor of Gentry would have created screams.
Jan. 13, 2012
A Concrete Pedigree
With its drab façade, Mizzou’s Agriculture Building is easy to pass by. However, unknown to most, the building has an indirect connection to an unsavory part of Kansas City history. It was designed by a frequent architect of one of the most notorious political bosses of the 1930s.
Jan. 6, 2012
Listening for Cancer
Commercial production of a device that measures melanoma using photoacoustics, or laser-induced ultrasound, will soon be available to scientists and academia for cancer studies.