Grist List

Giant, awesome ‘tree lobster’ survived 80 years in hiding

http://vimeo.com/14413689 The Lord Howe Island stick insect, which you see hatching above, looking like an alien struggling out of a human torso, will grow to the size of your hand. It’s also called a “tree lobster” — that’s how big it is. The most incredible thing about these insects, though, is not how big they […]

Sarah Laskow Science

MIT students invent bike helmet vending machine

Bikeshares are a really smart idea, so participants obviously know how to use their brains — but they apparently don’t know how to protect them. Helmet use on bikeshare bikes is pretty abysmal — data from Boston’s bikeshare program show that only 30 percent of users wear a helmet. So a group of adorable MIT […]

Jess Zimmerman Transportation

Critical List: The gas boom scam; Bieber’s electric car

In Rolling Stone, Jeff Goodell looks at “the scam behind the gas boom.” What really makes money for a natural gas company? “Buying and flipping the land that contains the gas,” Goodell reports. A team of scientists has discovered how to use wastewater’s bacteria to create electricity. For his 18th birthday Justin Bieber received (among […]

Sarah Laskow

Hot buttered sloths in pajamas

What do you do when orphaned baby sloths are afflicted with mange? Shave them, rub them with lard, and wrap them in sloth pajamas.

Jess Zimmerman Science

Levitating houses stay safe during earthquakes

A Japanese company called Air Danshin Systems can make houses fly. Not all the time, and not for particularly long. But when it counts — during an earthquake — the company’s technology can levitate a house more than an inch off its foundation. That means that while the earth shakes, the house stays safe.

Sarah Laskow Technology

Spectacular wooden bikes made from salvaged urban trees

The Giving Tree should be ashamed of herself. Oh, sure, she let herself be made into a boat and a house and an uncomfortable metaphor for maternal martyrdom, but did she ever turn into a completely sweet-ass bike? Not a chance. That’s reserved for the lucky urban trees that fall into the hands of Masterworks […]

Jess Zimmerman Transportation

Frank Lloyd Wright goes solar, posthumously

Taliesin West, the iconic desert home created by Frank Lloyd Wright, is about to go net-zero, which means it will produce as much energy as it consumes.

Christopher Mims Culture

Pro hockey player loves organic food and worms

Andrew Ference plays defense for the 2011 Stanley Cup champion Boston Bruins, so you'd think he'd be a meathead who mostly drinks beer and scratches his balls. But it turns out he shops with his kids at Whole Foods like all the other bobos.