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  • 11 from ’11: The most-clicked Grist stories of the year

    Can’t … resist … clicking …Photo: Lindsey TurnerWe’ve had a few year-end lists here at Grist. Here are our choices for top stories of the year, top cities stories of the year, and top food stories of the year. But what about you, the great unwashed masses, surfing the great unwashed interwebs? What are your […]

  • Merry Bikesmas: A 1970s Schwinn livens up a family holiday

    Photo: Joe Penniston This year, as we have in years past, my wife and I packed up the kids and flew across the country to spend the holidays with her family in suburban Baltimore. Christmas at the Thomas house is always a festive affair: crab soup, wine by the bottleful, quality time with grandma and […]

  • There’s never been a better time to build a hobbit house

    If you're anything like me, i.e. friends with dozens of nerds, your Twitter stream was aflame with talk of the Hobbit trailer last night. I'm psyched about it! It's the only Tolkien book I read, and will therefore probably be the only one of the movies I can stay awake through. Anyway, hobbits are cool […]

  • Here’s your holiday reading!

    It is getting so close to that magical week between Christmas and New Year's where offices are either closed or abandoned by the vast majority of employees, and no work gets done. Whether you plan to be snuggled on a couch by an open fire or logging truncated days of semi-productivity in a half-empty office, […]

  • Will nature always be the last book on the shelf?

    Photo: Martin DeutschCross-posted from Cool Green Science. Driving with my kids the other day, I saw a sign announcing: “Borders Books Going Out of Business: 90% Off!” We headed in with great enthusiasm, thoughts of nearly free books dancing in our heads. The place was swarming with bargain hunters. The remaining inventory had been moved […]

  • The city speaks — and artist Candy Chang finds fresh ways to listen

    Photo:Randal FordThe house was a nightmare. “It had been collecting dust and graffiti since Katrina and there was something very shabby and Brothers Grimm about it,” says Candy Chang, an artist and graphic designer who lives just a few blocks from the place in New Orleans. But where others saw blight, Chang saw an opportunity, […]

  • Ask Umbra: Is silicone cookware safe?

    Send your question to Umbra! Q. Dear Umbra, Can I recycle my silicone hotwater bottle? Also is it really OK cooking in silicone baking dishes? What IS it? Marcea C. Totnes, England Photo: Scorpions and CentaursA. Dearest Marcea, Something about your final question has caught my fancy — the wistful perplexity, the beseeching helplessness, the […]

  • Green Christmas: Santa’s carbon footprint [INFOGRAPHIC]

    We all know that with the end of December quickly approaching, Santa is busy getting everything set for his worldwide tour. Tim Allen’s, erm, Kris Kringle’s boots are mighty big, but the carbon footprint he leaves behind is even bigger. Ethical Ocean took a look at Santa’s environmental impact, and tried to see if they […]

  • Critical List: Congress does everything it can to screw the environment; fabric cleaned by sunlight

    Congress voted to put sanctions on Iran, which would make it harder for Iran to sell oil, but potentially make oil sales more profitable for the regime overall. After all the work that the anti-Keystone coalition did, Republicans are trying to tack a measure to approve the pipeline onto a bill that extends the payroll […]

  • How bikes can solve America’s most pressing problems

    (click to embiggen) Air quality, obesity, commute times, strained family budgets, unnecessary deaths, runaway health care expenses — is there anything that a mass shift to bicycles transportation wouldn't solve? And it's not like this is a fantasy — Europe has demonstrated that not only is this possible, it's the future.