Subject: Science and Technology

• The Plant's Dead, But the Fallout's Still Coming Down

  October 24, 2007

• Daily Briefs: Suspicious Packages, Steroidal Teens, Flesh-Eating Bacteria

  January 16, 2008

• Now's Your Chance: Remix Radiohead

  April 1, 2008

• Missouri Energy Debate Goes Nuclear

  July 9, 2008

• Missouri and Kansas are among "Dirty Dozen" for mercury pollution

  Ameren's Labadie power plant By CAROLYN SZCZEPANSKI Environmentalists in Missouri celebrated earlier this month when a ballot initiative requiring investor-owned utilities to produce more renewable power faced no organized opposition and passed with a resounding 66 percent of the vote. Last year, the administration of Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius denied the permit for a massive new coal-fired power plant, even though the political fallout virtually paralyzed the 2008 legislative session.

  November 20, 2008

• Missouri Matters: Missouri politics' Facebook

  Forget Facebook and MySpace, Missouri political junkies. Scooter Jackson, the man behind the not-at-all-Republican Missouri Political News Service, has started a social networking site for Missouri politicos called Missouri Matters. So far, 163 people have signed up. Hey, who wouldn't want to be friends with Matt Blunt's former chief-of-staff Ed Martin (pictured)? Except for maybe, Scott Eckersley. But at least that whole e-mail lawsuit is finally settled.

  January 6, 2009

• KC FreeThinkers shed their clothes to "Keep Winter Cold"

  The KC Free Thinkers -- a group of atheists, agnostics and humanists -- gained some notoriety when they erected a provocative billboard in Overland Park last October. Saturday, they're employing a different attention-grabbing tactic: taking off their clothes. But this frigid baptism has got nothing to do with God.

  January 9, 2009

• Sebelius gives State of State address

  Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius just delivered her seventh State of the State address. I don't blame you if you watched 24 instead. Lots of "we" talk. It wasn't a thriller, but if you want to read the whole thing, it's after the jump.

  January 12, 2009

• Pile up! KU report makes commute even more depressing

  It's going to take more than a great big stimulus package and a giant dose of optimism to dig the country out of our transit and infrastructure challenges. So says a new report from the University of Kansas Transportation Research Institute released last week. "Humankind confronts interrelated crises of energy and transportation in a rapidly changing world where we must deal with spiking petroleum prices, decaying bridges, growing congestion in all modes, an aging and inattentive driver po

  January 19, 2009

• Another argument for thrift store shopping

  I got a text message on New Year's Eve from a friend who showed up to a party wearing the same dress as another friend. The matchy-matchy event was "a disaster," according to the text, which I thought was a pretty ridiculous exaggeration. Apparently I underestimated a serious matter, because some chick named Sacha Nana (really?) in Fairway created a whole Web site about it, called That'sMyDress.

  January 22, 2009

• FDA lurves new media

  Unless I still get salmonella from a Clif bar or there's another outbreak, I promise this will be my last post on the peanut butter panic of 2009. Partly because I'm thinking about switching off of peanut butter to Vegemite (oh wait!) and partly because the FDA and CDC are releasing enough gadgets to make Q of the James Bond films happy. First there are the CDC's badges seen below. You place the code for these badges on your social Web sites like Facebook and MySpace to "let your friends know th

  February 5, 2009

• Star runs stupid and horrible climate column

  The Kansas City Star reprinted a George F. Will column about climate change roundly derided as a pile of stink-poo upon its publication.Will's column first appeared in The Washington Post on February 15. The bow-tied conservative took aim at the "eco-pessimism" surrounding the "hypothetical" calamity of climate change. Will concluded his column by stating that "there has been no recorded global warming for more than a decade," according to the U.N. World Meteorological Organization.Within hours,

  February 26, 2009

• Power Player

  March 26, 2009

• Party Like You're 200 Years Old

  February 12, 2009

• Cosmology Theater at Linda Hall Library

  January 8, 2009

• iPod Dance Party

  December 4, 2008

• The Messier Sky

  August 28, 2008

• Responsible Fuel

  June 26, 2008

• Knowledge of Power

  June 19, 2008

• Missouri biologist Frederick vom Saal and his team exposed the dangers of bisphenol A — and earned the wrath of the plastic industry.

  April 24, 2008

• Environmental Economics

  March 20, 2008

• Sure, global warming has skeptics. But how many teach science at Mizzou?

  March 20, 2008

• Power Switch

  May 21, 2009

• Stream On

  Royalty hikes shouldn’t dam Web radio’s flow into the future.

  May 10, 2007

• Across the Universe

  September 27, 2007

• By the Numbers: the Kansas Speedway

  Here’s something to choke on while you cheer on your favorite driver.

  September 27, 2007

• Google War (Beta)

  September 20, 2007

• Her Dirty Secret

  Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius preaches green, but her heart seems as black as coal.

  August 9, 2007

• So Spacious

  February 15, 2007

• Soap Opera

  A former dishwasher tells all.

  June 21, 2007

• Dark Matter

  June 14, 2007

• Hot Mama

  April 19, 2007

• BPU Could Face Thousands In Fines

  A confidential report reveals the utility didn’t follow federal pollution regulations when upgrading its plants.

  March 1, 2007

• Bumpkins on Parade

  March 8, 2007

• Wii Love It

  Nintendo finally gets 1-Up on the competition.

  December 14, 2006

• Wii Love It

  December 7, 2006

• As the World Burns

  August 10, 2006

• Mike Brown's Body

  August 11, 2005

• What's the 411?

  Rob Walch brings podcasting to the people.

  August 11, 2005

• Your OFFICIAL program to the Scopes II Kansas Monkey Trial

  This week’s debate over evolution is Kansas’ trial of the century!

  May 5, 2005

• Wind development could be a multibillion-dollar export industry for Kansas

  A new report concludes that calling Kansas the Saudi Arabia of wind power is actually an understatement of its blustery wealth. Last October, Kansas Lt. Gov. (and wind czar) Mark Parkinson asked the American Council on Renewable Energy, a non-profit group based in Washington, D.C., to put hard numbers on the state's renewable energy potential. The study released yesterday says the Sunflower State could produce so much juice from sustainable sources that electricity could become a multibillion-

  April 28, 2009

• Point/counterpoint: Is Miriam Pepper paying any attention?

  The Washington Post continues to face criticism of its handling of a George Will column about climate change.Will's column, which appeared in The Kansas City Star, was roundly criticized for distorting climate science. The column was so bad, Will's colleagues have made attempts to point out its flaws. Will stands by the column, as does his boss, Fred Hiatt, editor of The Washington Post editorial page, who was asked about the piece in a recent online chat.I blogged about the Star's decision to r

  May 1, 2009

• Parkinson's Dirty Deal, Part 1

  Governor Mark ParkinsonWhen Gov. Mark Parkinson capitulated to Sunflower Electric Power Corporation and gave his stamp of approval to a monstrous coal-fired power plant in Western Kansas, he sucker-punched his predecessor Kathleen Sebelius, who had mustered the political courage to oppose the pollution-spewing facilities for a solid two years. The new governor also gave the finger to thousands of Kansans who put exceptional pressure on their elected officials to hold the line against the dirty

  May 14, 2009

• Parkinson's dirty deal, part 2

  The deal with Sunflower Electric Power Company was brokered by Mark Parkinson, but it required more than the new governor's signature. Before Sunflower got the go-ahead for that coal-fired power plant in Holcomb, the Legislature had to sign off on a Comprehensive Energy Bill. While the bill passed overwhelmingly -- with only two senators and 18 representatives voting against it -- environmental groups argue that it doesn't go nearly far enough. After all, this bill was the carrot in exchange f

  May 15, 2009

• Free Planetarium Shows

  February 7, 2008

• Dr. Steven Hawley Presents Galileo, Apollo, and Beyond

  July 2, 2009

• Wired's 10 Space-Rocking Astronaut Songs

  Wired put up a list of 10 space-rocking astronaut songs" in honor of the return of the astronauts with the shuttle Endeavour. Now, while I can totally support their inclusion of the Pixies' "Planet of Sound" and -- of course -- Bowie's "Space Oddity," I cannot brook the fact that they include Billy Thorpe's "Children of the Sun" at the exclusion of Peter Schilling's "Major Tom (Coming Home)." If you're going to include one piece of musical detritus, why not include the one that sucks least? Al

  August 4, 2009

• President talks health care to Congress -- Rightbloggers make it all about a guy named Joe

  ​ Roy Edroso's Rightbloggers: Exploring the right Wing Blogosphere appears courtesy of our sister paper in New York City, Village Voice.Last week the President delivered a health-care speech to a joint session of Congress. The most newsworthy part of the event, from the rightblogger perspective, was Rep. Joe Wilson's cry of "You lie" during a section having to do with coverage of illegal immigrants. (Whether the still-fluid health-care reform plan will cover illegals is a matter of debate, whi

  September 14, 2009

• It Takes Focus

  October 1, 2009

• KC Chamber's green initiative gets a national nod

  ​When the U.S. Chamber of Commerce came out against federal legislation aimed at slowing global warming, Apple kicked its membership and Nike resigned its position on the board. But Partners for Livable Communities, a national smart growth and sustainable development advocacy group, suggested this week that local chambers aren't nearly so backwards when it comes to protecting the climate. A new report from the Washington, D.C., based group argues: There is a powerful -- and perhaps unexpect

  November 5, 2009