Latest Articles

Bad food makes kids dumber, study says

Look, ma! No nutrients!Photo: Amanda WestmontA new study says 3-year-olds who mostly eat processed foods have lower IQs five years later. (So Pop-Tarts and Sunny-D are why we’re “falling behind” China in math and science?) The study, cited in The Guardian, examined the diets of 14,000 wee Britlets, based on what their parents reported feeding […]

China: the neverending traffic jam story

Transportation experts say there’s barely enough space on the roads in China’s largest cities for the 35 million cars that were bought during the past decade of frenzied consumerism. Photo: Remko TanisThis piece was written by Melinda Burns. The new Great Wall of China is the “Great Wall” of cars stuck in city traffic, researchers […]

Will US international climate funding be cut?

The Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee Hal Rogers (R-KY) just proposed significant cuts to US international funding.  While the proposal he just released doesn’t spell out the exact cuts for different programs and categories of funding, we expect that the Majority Members of the committee will recommend cuts to US international climate funding.  Such […]

Definition of car-dependency: Using a car to steal a bike

Photo: K. SteudelHere’s how car-dependent we are as a culture: Even bike thieves don’t ride bikes. Police in Iowa City report that a man who could have committed one criminal act — stealing an expensive bicycle — instead decided to commit two by drunk-driving his Jeep over to get it, rather than just riding the […]

Lose three pounds instantly by getting rid of the Yellow Pages

Photo: Frank HebbertFinally, you can opt out of having several pounds of straight-to-the-bin dead tree matter show up at your door on the regular. Register at yellowpagesoptout.com, and you can elect to stop getting some or all of your phone directories (or sign up for more, I guess, if your version of green living involves […]

Ask Umbra Book Club: What makes a home?

Home is where the art is. And the war too.Photo: Stefano ADearest readers, Welcome to February’s book club conversation. I hope you’ve gotten some good couch time in at home to read At Home: A Short History of Private Life, by Bill Bryson. If you haven’t been able to cozy up next to this “history […]

Costs of inaction: the price of ice

Click for a larger version.Image: NASAArctic sea ice extent averaged over Januray 2011 its lowest recorded levels since satellite records began in 1979. It was 19,300 square miles below the record low of 5.25 million square miles, set in 2006, and 490,000 square miles below the 1979 to 2000 average. Climate change, the crisis many […]

San Francisco descends into self-parody with a bike for every personality

Oh, San Francisco. You with your flowers-in-the-hair and bikes for every person. 

We need to start cleaning up space pollution

Image: European Space AgencyIt’s not just the Earth we’re junking up. There’s also a ton of man-made space-crud in orbit around the planet. Efforts to keep track of it are falling short — there are an estimated 600,000 pieces of stuff bigger than a centimeter in diameter, and fewer than 20,000 can be tracked — […]

Climate deniers look out, see catastrophic storms, attack Al Gore

Cross-posted from the Wonk Room. After a year of climate devastation in 2010, this year has begun with more extreme weather across the globe. In the southern hemisphere and along the equator, it is a summer of floods and storms — in Australia, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Tonga, Brazil, Colombia, South Africa, as […]