Grist List

Critical List: Finding a town to host nuclear waste; 3-D Amazon map

Now that the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage plan has been scrapped, a nuclear commission needs to find a town that wants to host the repository. Transocean isn’t legally responsible for some of the pollution from the Deepwater Horizon spill. Scientists mapped the Amazon in 3-D. The plan for protecting New Orleans from hurricanes requires […]

Sarah Laskow

Newt Gingrich wants to colonize the moon

Newt Gingrich is gunning to become our first nerd president, and obviously a nerd president’s first order of business is securing voting rights for the moon. (Maybe right after knighting George Lucas.) Gingrich wants to establish a “permanent base on the moon” by the end of his first term, and once it has 13,000 people […]

Jess Zimmerman Politics

Study explains why it’s useless to argue with climate deniers

Apparently the logic is something like "It's not about whether my theory is right but what they are telling us is definitely wrong."

Christopher Mims Accountability

Sporty little MIT ‘city car’ is cute as an animal-themed butt plug

MIT’s 1,609-pound, all-electric wheeled pod thingy is actually going to be produced and sold, so we thought it could use a marketing campaign. Also, the whole web is kind of having a holiday right now, and we wanted to throw our party hats in the ring.

Christopher Mims Technology

Oklahoma makes bold move to not eat human fetuses

Apparently the new hotness among Republicans is legislating against things that don't exist.

Jess Zimmerman Food

Study: News coverage of Keystone XL slanted toward pipeline proponents

During the debate so far over Keystone XL, the media have favored pipeline proponents, according to a new study from Media Matters. Broadcast, cable, and print news stories all featured more people who supported the pipeline than who opposed it. Of guests on broadcast outlets, 79 percent supported Keystone XL; only 7 percent opposed it.

Sarah Laskow Energy

Critical List: Big trees suffer more from deforestation; Japan’s version of Al Gore

Deforestation is disproportionately killing off the world’s largest trees. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif., a.k.a. the Mustache of Justice) wants to subpoena Koch Industries executives to force them to testify about the company’s connection to Keystone XL. The National Academy of Sciences wants to find out more about nanomaterials and their effects on humans, since the […]

Sarah Laskow

Republicans cockblock NOAA appointment because of an oil-drilling snit

You’d think that the main criterion for being named the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association’s chief scientist would be that you are a scientist. (Lesser criteria: being plausibly chiefly; studying some field related to oceanic and/or atmospheric science.) Turns out, though, that being a scientist can be a real liability for the chief scientist job, […]