Latest Articles

More ideas needed

Here's a recent story of how two poachers, while posing as tourists, managed to slip away just long enough to kill a couple of rhinos and cut their horns off.

National Geographic has this story about the discovery of a critically endangered male Sumatran rhino in Malaysia. Problem is, that horn sure would make a nice dagger handle. It is just a matter of time now before the locals find out one is there.

This problem has been discussed a few times in letters to Science magazine: Biologists report finding an endangered species only to lose it again to collectors and poachers who learned of its whereabouts from the same report. This profit motive thing is powerful. Maybe we should be looking harder for ways to use it to protect what remains.

From Strippers to Stingrays

It’s getting hot in herre … Climate scientists got hot and bothered last week when a group of burlesque dancers began a striptease at a government-sponsored conference in Australia. When the show started rubbing the researchers the wrong way, the seven performers were asked to pull out prematurely. Prius passes GO, collects more than $200 […]

Why canvassing no longer works

A while back, Nathan Wyeth wrote a Soapbox for Grist about the crappiness of green-group canvassing operations. It kicked off quite a discussion.

If you're interested in the subject, Dana Fisher has a good piece on it at The American Prospect:

Grasping at Straw

Alternative fabrics hit the action-sports market Surf’s up, dude — and so is action-sports apparel makers’ interest in alternative fabrics. (OK, that was a stretch.) Clothes made from organic cotton, hemp, bamboo, and even recycled plastic bottles are hitting the action-sports apparel market. Sustainability will “definitely be the next big wave,” says the oh-so-punny Don […]

San Joaquin Phoenix

Dead San Joaquin River will be revived More than 60 miles of California’s dead, sandy San Joaquin River may yet run with water and salmon again, as enviros and farmers have settled an 18-year legal battle over the river’s fate. Based on a new 20-year, $250-to-$800 million restoration plan, agricultural water diversion from the river […]

You Can’t Always Nyet What You Want

Russia plans enormous sports complex near pristine national park Hoping to strengthen its bid for the 2014 Winter Olympics, the Russian government has approved an $11.3 billion project to turn areas of Sochi National Park into a ginormous winter-sports complex. The park is home to 300 endemic plant species and a variety of endangered flora […]

Wigley Room

Spewing sulfur dioxide into atmosphere could slow warming, says research On earth, sulfur dioxide contributes to acid rain and harms human hearts and lungs — but if injected into the stratosphere, says new research in Science, it could shade the sun’s rays and keep global warming at bay. Hey, if volcanoes can spew it, why […]

You are now entering science fiction land …

Sometimes life in the 21st century feels like a weird science fiction movie -- one so unnerving it's difficult to distinguish reality from nightmare.

Here are some science fiction-y nightmares well-known scientists, writers, and bloggers brought forward this week:

And why is it still around?

Why isn't it the 21st century's spray-on deodorant?

Let me explain, and meet me after the jump.

And it’s OK to support Cali’s Prop 87

Prop 87 is a California ballot initiative that would tax oil drilling in the state, and use the money to reduce petroleum usage. Passage is by no means assured, as the opposition is incredibly well-funded.

Here, sometime Gristblogger Ana Unruh Cohen writes a rebuttal to Robert Rapier, one of the measure's critics.

To her many fine points, I would also add one more.