Sciences

University of Central Missouri Mathematician Discovers Largest Prime Number

Curtis Cooper, a math professor at the University of Central Missouri, has discovered the world's largest prime number. Wait a minute, you say. Aren't numbers eternal and always sort of...there? Well, yes, but primes are special. As you may recall from basic math, they're numbers that have no fact ... More >>

[UPDATE] Wash. U. Physicists to Set to Break Ballooning Record...In Antarctica

Update January 22: Super-TIGER has broken the official NASA balloon record. And yes, there's a trophy for that. Which has already reached the team in Antarctica. (Yet it takes a week for UPS to deliver a simple package within the continental United States. What is up with that? But we digress.) Cur ... More >>

You Think It's Hot Here? Check Out Summer in Greenland.

Trust me, I know it's hot here. I have no air conditioner, and I walk most places. I'm well aware of the temperature at all times. However, the abnormally hot summer St. Louis is experiencing is not a localized occurrence. AP writer Seth Borentstein has an article over at Salon that explains why Gre ... More >>

Mizzou Scientists Determine There's No G-Spot -- God Spot, That Is

There has been much debate over the existence of the G-spot. No, not that G-spot. The other one, in the brain, where G stands for God. "The spiritual experience is very complex," says Brick Johnstone, a neuropsychologist at the University of Missouri. Johnstone and four of his colleagues just compl ... More >>

Danforth Center Shows Off Awesome New Toy Robot

Scientists at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center are all aflurry this week over the new toy that just got delivered. Sorry, it's a tool that will advance our understanding of the plant world and affect agriculture and biofuel production and etc., etc., etc., that just happens to come in the fo ... More >>

Scientists Figure Out How Red Wine Keeps You Young

The glory days of Mad Men, when doctors prescribed regular cigarette smoking and judiciously-administered (daily) glasses of alcohol, are, sadly, long gone -- except for red wine, that miracle drink that keeps us young and healthy while also getting us drunk. Good Lord how we love it! For a long ti ... More >>

A Convenient Truth

Wash. U. Researchers Discover Why We Love Fat So Darned Much

So we all know, deep in our hearts and thighs and especially our tongues -- and despite all those resolutions we made a couple of weeks ago -- that fat is one of the most awesome things that can ever happen to a piece of food. But it is the goal of Science to illuminate and explain the mysteries of ... More >>

Mizzou Scientists Explore Romance Among Tree Frogs

Springtime, soft breezes, moonlight, music...the perfect setting for seduction, whether you're a romantic-minded human or a tree frog. But don't think the female tree frogs aren't any more picky than humans just because they happen to be, well, frogs. If a female tree frog doesn't like a dude's musi ... More >>

Zombies Latest Explanation for Colony Collapse Disorder

​Everything from pesticides to cell-phone towers has been posited as the cause of colony collapse disorder, which since 2006 has dramatically reduced the population of honeybees, whose pollination is vital to the agricultural system.(Riverfront Times has been following this story from almost the b ... More >>

200 Years Ago Friday the Mississippi River Ran Backwards

A drawing shows a keel boat tossed by waves from the tremor. Despite the magnitude of the earthquakes, few people died because the population in the area was so sparse at the time. ​Seismologists don't know for sure the magnitude of the earthquake that rocked Missouri at around 2:15 a.m. December ... More >>

"My Grandma Makes Some Good Ass Cookies": An Interview With King Kong Magnetics

St. Louis's most awesomely objectionable hip hop collective, King Kong Magnetics, dropped a serious mixtape earlier this week, entitled Bommarito Cash Orgy. They deal with current issues like foreclosure ("You broke ass, you white trash, good for nothing with your f***ing torn up shirt, your overall ... More >>

Nitrate Pollution in Mississippi River Basin Remains High Despite Conservation Efforts

Kelly Brady, USGSUSGS personnel sample water on the Missouri River at Hermann last month.​A new study out today indicates that the Mississippi River Basin (that includes the Missouri and Illinois Rivers) remains just as polluted from nitrates today as it was in the 1980s.The news comes despite eff ... More >>

In the Future, Airplanes Will Run on Pond Scum

image viaIt's bubbly and green and kills fish and now it makes airplanes fly!​The logic of this is impeccable: The price of oil -- and airplane fuel -- has gone through the proverbial roof (although at the rate it's going, in a couple of years, flying will become so expensive, nothing will get ... More >>

Wash. U. Receives $6.5 Million From Komen Foundation to Find Cure for Breast Cancer

image viaDr. William Gillanders​Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the world's largest breast cancer organization, announced yesterday that it would give a $6.5 million grant to researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine who proposed using genome sequencing to develop personalized v ... More >>

Nato Caliph Releases Two New Videos

A few weeks before he heads down to SXSW with a whole mess of other St. Louis musicians (more on that later), Nato Caliph released two new music videos, for the songs "Physics 720 (and the Universal Laws of...)" and "Appreciation." (The latter is from Knowledge Cipher; the former is from Cipher Insi ... More >>

New Study Finds Fewer Cases of Food-Borne Illness

E. coli (and other pathogens): Fewer cases, still deadly.​The Center for Disease Control and Prevention has lowered its estimate of the annual number of cases of food-borne illness in America, the New York Times reports. This new estimate reckons that each year 48 million people suffer from food p ... More >>

Grape Scott! Mizzou Scientists Engineering Fungus-Free Wine Grapes

​Missouri has long been one of the world's leading exporters of beer. But now, researchers at the University of Missouri say that vino could be the state's next big alcoholic gift to mankind.The state grape of Missouri -- the Norton variety -- is known for its resistance to powdery mildew, a funga ... More >>

John Shimkus: Ass Clown of the Week

In clowns we trust -- God help us.​Congressman John Shimkus has won his second election of the month. On November 2 voters in southwestern Illinois elected the Republican from Collinsville to his seventh term in Congress.  And, over the weekend, Daily RFT voted Shimkus their Ass Clown of the ... More >>

Congressman Shimkus Says His Quote on Global Warming and God Taken Out of Context

Rep. John Shimkus: Dinosaurs loved carbon, too. ​The man who wants to be chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee overseeing the nation's environmental regulation says a comment he made in a hearing last year was taken out of context. The Republican from Collinsville, Illinois, was speakin ... More >>

Show Your Work

Old Farmer's Almanac Predicts Weather and Best Days for Castration

According to the Old Farmer's Almanac, in bookstores this week, we are destined to have a cool, dry winter with less snow than last year. And next summer should be cooler, too. Rejoice, o St. Louisans, because the venerable old Almanac, which has been predicting weather for 219 years and counting (i ... More >>

Need to Stay Alert? Starve Yourself

image viaYeah, Chuck Norris has to sleep.​Have you ever noticed that Jack Bauer never stopped to eat or sleep on the TV show 24? You may have spent the past few years feeling terribly inferior to this paragon who never needed to succumb to basic human needs. But now scientists in Paul Shaw's s ... More >>

Andy Schlafly Strikes Again: Einstein's Theory of Relativity a Liberal Conspiracy

Image sourceEinstein tells the world what he thinks of Andy Schlafly​Last time we checked-in with Andy Schlafly -- son of Phyllis Schlafly and first-cousin of local brewer Tom Schlafly -- he was attempting to re-write the Bible, purging the holy book of "liberal bias," and striking well-known pass ... More >>

Keep Watching the Sky

Your Next Trip to the Airport May Be Fueled By Algae

Image ViaThe imaginary algae Ferrari of the future ​St. Louis-based conglomerate Enterprise Rent-A-Car is going green. Algae green, to be specific. The company is converting its entire fleet of airport shuttle buses -- more than 600 vehicles -- to biofuel. For now soybeans will provide the power b ... More >>

Star Bright

Will We Travel the Spaceways?

Wash U Research Links "Gut Microbes" With Malnutrition

www.cs.stedwards.eduTurns out that William Chignoli (subject of this week's RFT feature) isn't the only guy in town working with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to try and make the world a better place.Scientists from Washington University's Schools of Medicine and Genome Sciences recently r ... More >>

Cardinals to Particpate in Strange Pitch to Save Earth ... For an Hour

stlouis.cardinals.mlb.comYesterday I received a curious e-mail about a press conference at Busch Stadium scheduled for 2 p.m. this afternoon. The event sounded so preposterous that I immediately responded to the sender with the query: "Is this for real?" No, no! Came the reply from St. Louis marketi ... More >>

If You See a Metereologist Today, Wish Them Happy "National Weatherman's Day"

kmov.comKent Ehrhardt predicts a 100 percent chance today will be awesome!Good morning campers. It's a bone-chilling 19 degrees in the Gateway City as I write this, but the forecast calls for a major warm up later this afternoon. Perfect weather, I'll say, for "National Weatherman's Day." Don't beli ... More >>

Yukon

8 p.m. Thursday, January 22. Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center, 3301 Lemp Avenue.

The Morning Brew: Monday, 9.8

The Morning Brew: Thursday, 9.4

Botany Unshrouds the Past

Knowledge flowers with flowers' help

Readers dish the straight poop on pigs, cougars and cheese plates

Froggone It!

Inspired by Don King's words and Saturn's rings, Unreal tries out for Jeopardy!

Frog-gone It!

Mathematicians

8 p.m. Monday, September 24. The Bluebird, 2706 Olive Street.

Ready, Willing and Abell

Buzzkill

See all those little suckers? Did you know that they're an invasive species and a linchpin of modern agriculture? That they're dying off by the million and no one's sure why?

You Could Beat Einstein on Jeopardy!

Fahrenheit 2050

Al Gore takes on the other imminent threat to America

Scope out the Stars

The ALT Has Proof

The Wearing of the Plaid

Tartan Day comes early

This Week's Day-by-Day Picks

Week of February 23, 2005

Gland of Opportunity

Dr. William J. Catalona built an unrivaled repository of blood and tissue samples. Washington University wants to keep it. Now a judge will decide: Who owns the prostates?

Not Easy Bein' Green

A traveling exhibit now at the Missouri Botanical Garden details the grim plight of the world's amphibians