Latest Articles

Heavy metal sucks; this device eliminates it

Heavy metal, as in the music and the cartoon movie with all the boobs, is still cool. (YES IT IS.) But heavy metals, as in heavy metals, are not very popular on account of being toxic. Luckily engineers at Brown are also cool (YES THEY ARE), and have devised a new way to remove heavy […]

The New Agtivist: Inga Haugen, farm girl at large

Photo: Cathrine Windyk Inga Haugen may look a little like Heidi, but she’s a modern-day farm girl through and through. In 1993, her family moved to the small town of Canton, Minn. (population less than 400), to Springside Farm, 230 acres of rolling hills and grazing land that was then a hobby farm. Her mother, […]

Insane Disney WWII propaganda video boosts Big Ag

Ever wonder why U.S. agriculture gets such huge subsidies for things like corn and wheat? It turns out it's because we're trying to smother Nazis under flour drifts and build a corn bridge from London to the Black Sea. At least, that appears to be the contention of Disney animators in 1942. This video illustrates […]

Here’s a parking garage that doubles as an urban farm

Even the most utopian visions of a low-carbon world include cars, and even if they're fueled on electricity or ethanol, cars need places to park. But if parking structures have to exist, at least they can double as urban farms. In Vancouver, a company called Valcent Products is building a high-density "VertiCrop" farm on the […]

Russia spills as much oil as Deepwater Horizon every two months

Russian oil spills come in drips and trickles, instead of dramatic explosions. But the Associated Press reports that oil companies there spill at least 1 percent of all oil produced every year — "equivalent to one Deepwater Horizon-scale leak about every two months," the AP says. Why have you never heard about this? Well, for […]

The city speaks — and artist Candy Chang finds fresh ways to listen

Photo:Randal FordThe house was a nightmare. “It had been collecting dust and graffiti since Katrina and there was something very shabby and Brothers Grimm about it,” says Candy Chang, an artist and graphic designer who lives just a few blocks from the place in New Orleans. But where others saw blight, Chang saw an opportunity, […]

Critical List: Keystone XL decision should come in two months; NIH stops chimp research

The president will most likely have to make a final decision on Keystone XL within two months. Brace for the imminent lobbying fight. Democrats are already pointing out that issuing permits two months from now is impossible, because that timeline wouldn't leave room for required environmental reviews. Germany got a fifth of its power from […]

McDonald’s rings in 2012 with farmwashing

Remember last year’s Washington state-based “From Here” campaign, which added a “locavore” twist to McDonald’s highly processed offerings? Well, the fast food giant will take farmwashing to a national scale starting next month with a truly groan-worthy advertising campaign. Here is one of the upcoming ads: This is all part of the company’s desire to […]

Ask Umbra: Is silicone cookware safe?

Send your question to Umbra! Q. Dear Umbra, Can I recycle my silicone hotwater bottle? Also is it really OK cooking in silicone baking dishes? What IS it? Marcea C. Totnes, England Photo: Scorpions and CentaursA. Dearest Marcea, Something about your final question has caught my fancy — the wistful perplexity, the beseeching helplessness, the […]

The U.S. electricity mix in 20 years: A prediction

What will the U.S. power mix look like in 10 to 20 years? It’s impossible to predict for certain, of course, because there’s no way to know what regulators will do. Given the heavily regulated nature of the electric sector, even in so-called “deregulated” markets, surprises tend to come from regulatory reform, not innovation. (The […]