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MoDOT May Close Southbound I-55 Ramp at Cherokee

2 years 6 months ago
From Riverfront Times:  The Missouri Department of Transportation may permanently close the southbound I-55 ramp at Cherokee Street as drivers feel unsafe merging there. According to MoDOT’s website, the ramp at Cherokee Street was made during a time when vehicle traffic did not move as quickly or “aggressively” as it does now. The ramp’s tight […]
Zo

Some movement reported in debt limit talks as Biden cuts short overseas trip

2 years 6 months ago

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden and congressional leaders struggled to find common ground on the debt ceiling during a Tuesday meeting, though lawmakers said afterward there was some progress toward a deal. Biden and U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy will become the two primary negotiators on a bipartisan debt limit bill that could include other […]

The post Some movement reported in debt limit talks as Biden cuts short overseas trip appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Jennifer Shutt

Serious Repairs Needed in East St. Louis Public Housing

2 years 6 months ago
From Yahoo News:  One of the East St. Louis Housing Authority’s oldest housing complexes, Orr-Weathers, needs significant work. That was the message from a group of about a dozen activists from United Congregations of Metro-East and a longtime Orr-Weathers resident who gathered Tuesday morning outside the housing authority administrative offices for a demonstration. Housing Authority […]
Zo

ShutterBee: Catch the Community Science Buzz

2 years 6 months ago

As flowers bloom, bees rev up their pollinating rounds, and a host of Community Scientists are helping local pros explore key bee-health questions: what promotes bee diversity and bee-plant interactions in residential and community gardens? 

              

This is Shutterbee! Backyard bee photography to improve conservation practices. Nina Fogel, Ph.D. co-leads this multi-year project from the Billiken Bee Lab at Saint Louis University with founder and Webster U professor Dr. Nicole Miller-Struttmann, and a team of fellow academics, students and community partners.

                 

Shutterbee is a "standardized survey." Volunteers observe strict protocols - as they strive to photograph bees on the move! Participants commit to taking their smartphone in the same hours on the same day of every month for the same walk around their gardens, and uploading photos of bees they observe into the Shutterbee project on the app iNaturalist. Project leaders identify bees and plants in these photos to evaluate how bees behave in urban, suburban, and rural environments. Next time you're out in your yard, try it. Happily - and essentially - training is provided.

Shutterbee enrollment is filled for 2023, but you can tap into studying bees using the project's vivid resources, pollinator info and bee identification guides.  

Congratulations Nina! Achieving her Doctorate this spring with her study of the patterns of bee diversity in home gardens enrolled in Bring Conservation Home, the native plant program of St. Louis Audubon - and for finding, through her work in 2022, a native bee so rare it had only been documented once before in Missouri.

THANKS to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms audio engineer, and to KDHX production potentate, Jon Valley.

Related Earthworms Conversations:
Wires Over Wildlife: power lines as biodiversity connectors (August 2020)

VR Botany: Dr. Kyra Krakos brings the outdoors waaaaay in (April 2020)

Naturalist: graphic novel updates Rockstar Biologist memoir (November 2020

 



North County Inc. Honors IBEW/NECA’s Sylvester Taylor

2 years 6 months ago
North County Inc. has honored IBEW/NECA Electrical Connection Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Sylvester Taylor with a 2023 Leadership Award. Taylor has had a long tenure of service to the North St. Louis County region, including treasurer of the Hazelwood School Board and he has served on the board of the Black Jack Fire […]
Dede Hance

America’s Aging Flood Control Infrastructure is Failing

2 years 6 months ago
From KSDK:  Heavy downpours and a thick snowpack in the Western mountains and Upper Midwest have put communities in several states at risk of flooding this spring – or already under water. Flooding is the costliest type of natural disaster in the U.S., responsible for about 90% of the damage from natural disasters each year. […]
Zo

Man who paralyzed Missouri officer with car enters mental disease plea

2 years 6 months ago
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — A Greene County judge accepted a not-guilty plea by reason of mental disease or defect for a man who paralyzed a Springfield Police Department officer by ramming into him with an SUV. Jon Routh will be committed to the Missouri Department of Mental Health to receive treatment. There were four impact statements [...]
Ben Gilbert

St. Louis Zoo Plans $40M Destination Discovery

2 years 6 months ago
From St. Louis Post-Dispatch:  The children’s zoo area at the St. Louis Zoo has been reimagined and will be rebuilt as a place where children and families can interact with and be inspired by animals: whether they’re “popping up” next to a prairie dog, splashing on one leg with Chilean flamingoes or climbing through tunnels […]
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