Articles by Grist staff

Land Trust but Verify

Congressional investigation leaves fate of land trusts uncertain A recent congressional investigation into doings at The Nature Conservancy, the country’s largest land trust (not to mention the world’s wealthiest environmental group), uncovered some seriously unsavory practices: insider dealings, tax dodging, corporate kowtowing, and endangerment of rare species, to name a few. As a result, Congress […]

Walking octopus inspires robot design

In the vein of marine animals inspiring design, I offer today the octopus-cum-robot. I kid not.

After discovering in March that some octopus species use two of their eight arms to "walk" along the seafloor bipedal style (it's true! see footage here and here), scientists at the University of California at Berkeley were inspired to develop an entirely new field of robotics involving soft, muscle-like machines that would walk much like the octopus.

"Each arm rolls along the suckers and pushes the animal back, and then the other arm touches down, rolls along the suckers, and pushes the animal back again," says biologist Chrissy Hufford.

"They flatten part of their arm like a tank tread, and roll backwards on it. They make a functional foot, even though they don't have an anatomic foot."

Scientists are hoping they will be able to mimic this fluid movement and flexibility in robots built without hard parts, and a prototype -- essentially a tube with a spring inside -- has already been constructed. The advantage of soft robotics, says biologist Bob Full, is that the robot could squeeze through tiny spaces, much like the octopus, and could function in a search-and-rescue capacity, moving into tight areas no other robot could reach.

Pretty cool, though the idea of robots in general kinda freaks me out.

Gore is transforming into fiery climate evangelist

Al Gore. Photo: The House Policy Committee. Al Gore, once derided by the right as a stiff, wooden Ozone Man, is now recasting himself as the fiery, headstrong Climate Avenger — a blunt and passionate spokesperson about what he calls “a collision between our civilization and the earth.” He is currently in negotiations to play […]

Nothing to See Here, Folks

White House defends revisions of scientific reports on climate change The White House scrambled into damage-control mode after The New York Times revealed yesterday that a former oil lobbyist had revised scientific government reports on climate change to enhance the appearance of uncertainty. Pushed in a press briefing to respond to charges that the edits […]