Articles by Grist staff

Hugh and Cry

Questions raised about influential conservation software In recent years, many large conservation plans — including the biggie that led Australia to ban fishing on a third of the Great Barrier Reef — were produced using a computer program called Marxan. Now, Australian professor Hugh P. Possingham, who helped develop the program in 1998, is raising […]

Assault and Pepper

Trial of “Pepper Spray 8” may deadlock again In 1997, protesters locked themselves together with metal sleeves to protest Pacific Lumber Co.’s plans to log old-growth forests in California’s Humboldt County. Although the protests were nonviolent, Humboldt police swabbed pepper spray in the eyes of eight protestors at three separate protests. Footage of the protestors […]

Ghostwriter in the Machine

More language in proposed mercury regs found to echo industry memos Language in the Bush administration’s proposed mercury regulations has been found to almost precisely mirror passages in memos written by a law firm representing coal-fired power plants. No, we’re not rerunning a story from months ago — it’s happened again. For those of you […]

And You Thought the Food Was Bad

Water on many airplanes is contaminated Happy National Clean Hands Week! While more than 90 percent of folks say they wash their hands after using the bathroom, researchers have discovered that many of them are, well, lying. So wash those hands, people. Except, uh, don’t wash them on airplanes. A new U.S. EPA study just […]