Latest Articles
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Mayor Stubbs, cat, celebrates 15 years in office
Talkeetna, Alaska, isn’t going to the dogs. It’s going to the cats — or really, one cat, which has been mayor of the town for 15 years. Mayor Stubbs was voted in by a write-in effort when locals got fed up with their human rulers.
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Oil industry dumping crap in North Dakota. Um, literally.
The oil industry is diversifying the ways in which it pollutes. Hold your nose.
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The Department of Defense wants to put out fires by yelling at them
Much to pundits’ disappointment, you can’t solve most environmental ills just by yelling at them. But, as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has discovered, it does work for one thing: fires. DARPA’s “Instant Fire Suppression” program uses sound to put out flames — and it doesn’t even need to be that loud.
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This truck travels the country collecting stories about seeds
Seeds are natural beginnings for stories: From a small start, they grow into a larger world and eventually end. They’re also good subjects of stories: Where did they come from? Who loved them enough to keep them around? How’d they reach the person who planted them in the ground? What happened when they went viral […]
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Umbra’s second helpings: Planning dream vacations
A reader wants to see the world without destroying it. Umbra shares some green trip tips.
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Drug traffickers take advantage of energy-company roads in Texas
We're not saying that the DEA should crack down on ConocoPhillips, but, yeah, the DEA should crack down on ConocoPhillips.
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Could the U.S. Cut Household Electricity Use by Two-Thirds?
Your mind-blowing chart of the day, courtesy of Arne Jungjohann at the Heinrich Böll Foundation. To be fair, there’s little need for air conditioning in Germany compared to the United States, but air conditioning only accounts for about 20% of U.S. household electricity consumption. Leaving it out make it 9,200 kWh vs. 3,100 kWh. Wow. […]
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New York’s newest street, 6 ½ Ave., is just for pedestrians
For years, 1,200 people an hour have been seeing this six-block stretch of street in secret. But finally, New York City is bringing these back-alley relationships into the light, and giving them the official municipal seal of approval. Now the street can announce to the world: “I’m here. I’m part of the city. I’m not […]
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Talking the talk on the environment doesn’t equal walking the walk
People who advocate green behavior are not more likely to engage in it, according to new research in Hungary. How you think America is doing is a glass-half-full sort of question.
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Knock knock. Who’s there? LANDSPOUT
I’ve learned about so many new kinds of extreme weather in the last year or so — thanks, global warming! First there were haboobs, then derechos, and now this thing, which might have been a tornado but might also have been a “water spout over land,” i.e. a landspout. DO NOT OPEN THE DOOR IT […]
