Articles by Grist staff

Hot and Bothered

The warming of ocean waters seems to be an early warning sign that humans may be threatened by an epidemic, a team of earth scientists and infectious disease experts reported last week in the journal Science. The researchers found that higher temperatures in the Indian and Pacific Oceans increased rain in parts of Africa, and […]

Don't Blow These Horns

The Javan rhinoceros of Vietnam, long thought to be extinct, was captured in a photograph that was released last week by the World Wildlife Fund. Once plentiful throughout Asia, many rhinos were killed off for their horns by poachers and their habitat was heavily damaged during the Vietnam War by defoliants such as Agent Orange. […]

Wails for Whales

Some 800 gray whales, about 3 percent of the gray whale population, died this year during their annual migration from the lagoons of Baja California to feeding grounds in the Bering Sea. This is the largest number in the 24 years records have been kept. The 150 or so whales which washed up dead on […]

Birds of Pray

Israelis and Palestinians are teaming up to preserve the lesser kestral, a threatened raptor which finds ideal nesting spots in the dark crannies of aging buildings in Jerusalem’s Old City. Today only about 400 pairs nest in Israel, down from about 2,000 in the 1970s. The birds find fewer old buildings each year and fewer […]