Articles by Grist staff

Sigh-anide

Concern about cyanide pollution is sprouting up in spots around the world in the wake of a massive spill at a Romanian gold-mining operation last month that killed hundreds of tons of fish in the Tisza and Danube rivers and contaminated the drinking water source for 2 million people. Chinese authorities have shut down nine […]

Let's Make This Gas Ex

The controversial gasoline additive MTBE can cause headaches, fatigue, and eye irritation in some people, according to a study released Friday by Rutgers University researchers. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) cited the study in calling for a three-year phaseout of MTBE, which is added to gasoline to make it burn more cleanly but has been blamed […]

Roll Over, Colombia, Roll Over

Colombia’s rainforests and wildlife are becoming victims of the war over drugs. Since the mid-1990s, tens of thousands of acres of virgin rainforest deep in the Amazon have been chopped down to clear land for the planting of coca and opium poppies, the sources of cocaine and heroin. Additional ecological problems are caused when the […]

While My Guitar Gently Weeps

More than 70 tree species used to make popular musical instruments are at risk of going extinct, according the conservation group Fauna and Flora International, which has launched a new program to help preserve the trees. Species in trouble include the African blackwood, used for making clarinets and oboes; Brazil’s pau brasil, used to make […]