Jose Torres-Gomez, sophomore, grinned on February 24, 2025 in front of Lafferre Hall, where he works in the Autonomous Systems Lab as a research assistant.
Jesse Hall towered over the Francis Quandrangle against a clear, winter afternoon sky on February 24, 2025 at the University of Missouri in Columbia, MO.
Jose Torres-Gomez, sophomore, glanced towards Jesse Hall on February 24, 2025 as he descended the steps of Lafferre Hall, the engineering building at the University of Missouri, in Columbia, MO.
Jose Torres-Gomez, sophomore, used a program to control SPOT on February 24, 2025 in Columbia, MO. SPOT is the nickname for the Boston Dynamics robot "dogs" belonging to the School of Engineering Autonomous Systems Lab, where Torres-Gomez works as a research assistant.
Jose Torres-Gomez, sophomore, controlled SPOT the 'dog' on February 24, 2025 in Columbia, MO. SPOT is programmed to mimic the movements of real dogs, such as a cock of the head.
Jose Torres-Gomez, sophomore, crouched with SPOT the "dog" on February 24, 2025 in Columbia, MO. Torres-Gomez created a program designed to work with SPOT that allows users who do not know how to code to simply press a button to trigger movement or poses.
Matt Arthur, owner and founder of Booneslick Heritage Farm (BLH Farm), moved carts of microgreen seedlings inside of the farm’s warehouse on Friday, Feb. 14, 2025 in Fulton, MO. BLH Farm grows microgreens indoors 50-52 weeks out of the year, and harvests them on Monday's, Wednesday's and Friday's.
Matt Arthur, owner of BLH Farm, pointed out a thriving tray of microgreen sprouts labeled “Variety: Salad” on Friday, Feb. 14, 2025 in Fulton, MO. BLH Farm grows several varieties of microgreens, including salad mix, cilantro, radish mix, pea shoots and more.
Matt Arthur described the early steps of mushroom cultivation on Friday, Feb. 14, 2025 in Fulton, MO at BLH Farm. Cultivation begins with an agar plate expanded to a liquid culture, called mushroom substrate, which is later extracted and added to bags of sterilized grain, called grain spawn.
Eddie Vickery, a farm-hand and mycologist of BLH Farm, organized bags of young grain spawn on Friday, Feb. 14, 2025 in the warehouse in Fulton, MO. The mushrooms grown inside these bags will eventually be packed and sold at the Columbia Farmers Market, where BLH Farm has been a vendor for five years.
Packaging, sticker labels, inventory lists, sprawled across a table inside BLH Farm’s warehouse in Fulton, MO on Friday, Feb. 14, 2025 as the farm prepares for market.
Matt Arthur, owner of BLH Farm, showed off a variety of mushrooms called Lions’ mane on Friday, Feb. 14, 2025 in Fulton, MO. Arthur and other employees pack the week’s mushroom harvest on Friday's for the following day’s farmers' market.
Matt Arthur, owner of BLH Farm, stamped boxes of Lion’s mane mushrooms with the company logo on Friday, Feb. 14, 2025 in Fulton, MO in preparation to attend the nearby Columbia Farmers Market.
Eddie Vickery, a mycologist at BLH Farm, checked the brittleness of reishi mushrooms after they through the warehouse’s dehydrator on Friday, Feb. 14, 2025 Fulton, MO. The dried mushrooms are later ground into a fine powder and jarred for market.
Matt Arthur, owner and founder of BLH farm, packs boxes of blue oyster mushrooms for market on Friday, Feb. 14, 2025 at the warehouse in Fulton, MO in preparation for the Columbia Farmers Market.
Matt Arthur, left, and Laura Hudson, owners of BLH Farm, stood at their vendor booth at the Columbia Farmers Market on Saturday, Feb. 15, 2025 in Columbia, MO. “We didn't know what we were doing on a lot of this stuff," Hudson said of the farm's start. "We've kind of grown and learned as we've come along.” She said they are proud that they started the farm "from nothing."
Matt Arthur, owner of BLH Farm, helped a family determine what mushrooms to take home on Saturday, Feb. 15, 2025 at the Columbia Farmers Market in Columbia, MO.
Microgreen sprouts rise toward florescent lights on growing carts on Friday, Feb. 14, 2025 at the BLH Farm warehouse in Fulton, MO.
Matt Arthur points to the malt compound in a jar of nascent mushroom spawns in the early steps of mushroom cultivation on Friday, Feb. 14, 2025 in Fulton, MO at BLH Farm.