Articles by Video Producer Jesse Nichols

Jesse Nichols is a video producer covering science at Grist, where he has worked since 2017. Nichols produces the award-winning Grist series, Proof of Concept, and contributes multimedia reporting to Grist’s coverage. He lives in Seattle.

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A collage of a man and a woman looking toward the center of the image, where an electron microscope scan of a calcified algae cell is displayed — Kyoko Hagino and Jon Zehr spent decades trying to understand this mysterious organism.

For decades, Jon Zehr was haunted by an organism he knew was there — but couldn’t see.

It all started in the ‘90s on a research boat in the middle of the ocean. Zehr was an oceanographer studying nitrogen-fixing bacteria — simple, microbial life forms that could pull the element straight from the air, making it bioavailable to plants and animals. Scientists at the time had only seriously studied one species of nitrogen-fixing bacteria in the entire ocean, but Zehr wanted to change that. His plan was to gather and test samples of seawater with the hope that he might find something that other scientists had missed.

Left: Jon Zehr (bottom center) sits aboard a research vessel. Right: Zehr studies nitrogen-fixing bacteria in the lab. Courtesy of Jon Zehr.

Zehr’s plans involved something pretty cutting-edge for the ... Read more

Jesse Nichols Science

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5 min

This simple metal tube helps scientists predict drought before it happens

We’re in a perilous moment for water. But the Church Sampler is one of the many devices scientists can use help us make better decisions.

Jesse Nichols Science
A look at the growing ‘disaster economy’ turning crisis into cash

Disasters are big business. These charts show just how big.

Zoya Teirstein, Jesse Nichols, & Clayton Aldern Business
7 min

In the race to find critical minerals, there’s a ‘gold mine’ literally at our shoreline

Instead of continuing to dig tunnels or pits, some scientists are looking to a promising — but challenging — source of minerals: seawater.

Jesse Nichols Video
‘The sexiest race on the ballot’

Hello everyone, and welcome back to State of Emergency. I’m Jesse Nichols, a video producer and reporter at Grist, and today we’re going to be talking about how worsening climate impacts are raising the profile of a largely overlooked section on state ballots: The race for insurance commissioner. If you watched the presidential debate earlier […]

Jesse Nichols