Articles by Grist staff

At Least Their Breasts Won’t Catch Fire

But mothers have something else to worry about. Scientists and environmentalists are calling for a ban on a chemical flame retardant that has been shown to accumulate in breast milk. The chemical, polybrominated diphenyl ether, or PBDE, is commonly used in foam furniture and plastics to reduce risk of fire by up to 45 percent, […]

Girls Will Be Boys

Environmental toxins are disrupting human biology at the most basic level: reproduction. That was the conclusion of researchers at Michigan State University, who found that men with higher levels of exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) were more like to father boys than girls. PCBs are known to cause sex-related defects in animals (although the researchers […]

Shark Skin Suit

Last summer, they were are our worst enemy; now they need a best friend. We’re talking about sharks, of course. The much-maligned beach marauders are now the subject of a lawsuit filed earlier this week against the U.S. government by environmental organizations. The National Audubon Society, Earthjustice, and the Ocean Conservancy claim the National Marine […]

I Didn’t Realize That England Had Food

England’s food production and farming needs to take a radical turn for the greener, according to a new report by the Policy Commission on the Future of Farming and Food. The commission, which was convened following devastating outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease in the U.K., calls for some farm subsidies to be based on conserving the […]