Articles by Grist staff

PopSci announces this year’s top young scientists

PopSci has this month announced its fifth annual Brilliant 10 awardees. These are young scientists (average age: 34) just beginning to be noticed outside their respective fields and "changing not just what we know but the limits of what we think it's possible to know." PopSci explains the meaning of the Brilliant 10 honor:

By "brilliant," we don't mean smart. Or at least not just smart. Brilliance is marked by insight, creativity and tenacity. It's the confidence to eschew established wisdom in order to develop your own. It's the foolishness needed to set out for the edge of understanding and sail right past it, ignoring the signs reading "Thar be monsters" (not to mention "Turn back lest ye never be awarded a decent research grant again").

The work of the 10 winners ranges from the biomechanics of worm movement to birdsong "language" translation. And two of the 10 are working on eco-related projects.

Hummer Bummer

Correction: Schwarzenegger didn’t really sell off his Hummers News reports published last week and cited here in Daily Grist claimed that California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) had, in a fit of green consciousness, sold his fleet of Hummers. Turns out that was poppycock. A media representative in the Governator’s office said Monday that Schwarzenegger still […]

The Little Engine That Could

Honda develops “superclean” diesel engine for passenger cars Honda Motor Co. is aiming to clean up diesel’s dirty image with a new diesel engine for passenger cars that runs as cleanly as the most advanced gasoline-powered engines. In 2009, the company plans to start selling a sedan, probably a Honda Accord, powered by its new […]

Anyone Got an Extra PFD?

Earth nearing warmest point in a million years, may see rougher El Niños The earth is the warmest it has been in the last 12,000 years and is within 1.8 degrees of its highest average temperature in the past million years, scientists report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The global surface […]