Articles by Grist staff

Grist for the Military

Navy divers clean up coastal messes Navy divers are the latest crazy hippies clamoring to clean up coastal messes. For problems too expensive or vast for civilian government agencies to handle, military divers provide cutting-edge technology and finely tuned abilities — and in turn, they get to sharpen their diving skillz. This summer, Army and […]

Axis of Upheaval

Wobbly earth may contribute to extinction of mammals, study finds Natural shifts in the earth’s orbit and axis correspond to the periodic emergence and extinction of rodents and likely other mammals as well, says a study published today in Nature. Researchers studying 22 million years of rodent fossil records in central Spain found that certain […]

Drop Goes the Diesel

Most of U.S. diesel-fuel supply to be cleaner by next week Diesel fuel will get a major makeover this weekend, thanks to rules drawn up during the Clinton administration and set to take effect on Sunday. (The Bushies would like to get some credit too, for not quashing the rules, like they did so many […]

We Must, We Must, We Must Increase Our Dust

Saharan dust may decrease effect of Atlantic hurricanes Thick clouds of dust rising up from the Sahara Desert are linked to less frequent Atlantic hurricanes, says a new study in Geophysical Research Letters. Studying satellite data from 1981 to the present, American researchers noted that dust clouds were scarce in years with intense hurricane activity, […]