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  • Your bike seat could ruin your sex life

    One type of ergonomic "no-nose" saddle. Photo by Hutschi on Wikimedia Commons.

    Bike seats may contribute to erectile dysfunction -- and it's no surprise, when you consider where you shove 'em. “When you sit on a regular bike saddle, you’re sitting on your penis,” says reproductive physiologist Steven Schrader. If that didn't just make you cross your legs, don't get comfortable, ladies: More than 60 percent of you will experience genital pain, numbness, or tingling from sitting on a bike seat. According to this New York Times article, at least, bike seats are the worst threat to your junk since America's Funniest Home Videos.

  • Voters Strongly Oppose Michele Bachmann's Proposal to Abolish the EPA

    Building on an idea that seems to have originated with Newt Gingrich, Presidential candidate Michele Bachmann has spent the past few weeks calling for the Environmental Protection Agency to be abolished. In the June 13th GOP debate, Bachmann said she would pass the “mother of all repeal bills” to target “job-killing regulations.” She indicated that […]

  • D.C. schools chancellor defends decision to ditch chocolate milk

    D.C. Public Schools officials apparently have no intention of reinstating chocolate milk in local cafeterias despite a recent grilling by D.C. Council Chairman Kwame Brown and the pleadings of a first-grader who polled his fellow students. In an email to Brown dated June 22, newly-confirmed schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson says the decision to remove chocolate […]

  • Cars vs. bulldozers: a look at road construction GHGs

    Photo: Joost J. Bakker IJmuidenThis post originally appeared on Sightline Institute’s blog. Here’s an interesting study (not free, unfortunately) by University of Washington engineering professor Stephen Muench, reviewing the literature on the energy and CO2 impacts of road construction. His study looks mostly at the construction phase itself, rather than the use of the road. […]

  • 'Natural' gas fails the sniff test

    Top decisionmakers in Washington seem to have forgotten that “natural” gas is a fossil fuel, with some of the same damning negatives as coal and oil. For instance, unlike renewables, “natural” gas is an energy source we will exhaust — possibly sooner than previously thought. Let’s not forget that the recent rise of hydraulic fracturing […]

  • Youth and Positive Social Change

    “That which touches me most is that I had a chance to work with peoplePassing on to others that which was passed on to meTo me young people come first, they have the courage where we failAnd if I can but shed some light as they carry us through the galeThe older I get the […]

  • Friday music blogging: The Chemical Brothers

    An old favorite of mine, The Chemical Brothers, have just done a soundtrack for the new movie Hanna. It's awesome!

  • Outrage: As mountaintop removal linked to birth defects, politicians gut Clean Water Act

    I just can’t stop thinking about a new scientific study published this week that found there are “significantly higher” rates of birth defects near mountaintop removal coal mining operations As a mother of a 1-year-old, I can vividly remember the long wait of pregnancy. I was so excited to meet my new daughter, and so […]

  • What ever happened to the party of national security?

    This OnEarth column was written by George Black. I don’t spend a lot of time listening to Rush Limbaugh. But driving through Wyoming recently, I chanced upon his distinctive cadences on my car radio. I couldn’t find a reliable signal for NPR, I don’t like Mötley Crüe, and I was getting tired of listening to […]

  • Some in the US need to stop opposing the EU program to control carbon pollution from aviation

    On Wednesday June 22, the US and European Union (EU) officials will meet in Oslo, Norway for a bilateral on aviation issues.  As a part of this meeting they will discuss the EU Aviation Directive – the only program in the world to regulate the carbon pollution from airplanes.  The Wall Street Journal is reporting […]