Grist List

This guy owns only 15 things

Andrew Hyde owns only 15 things. And he knows what you're thinking right now:

The first question is always "Do you do laundry? How many pairs of underwear?" I'll never get a stranger’s obsession with my knickers, but that is *always* question #1. Question #2 is the "What do you own?" countdown, which is both fun and annoying to answer.

Screw China: American scientists are finding replacements for rare earth

Priuses, wind turbines, and other clean technologies require rare earth materials, which generally go into ultra-strong magnets that help power clean technology. But rare earth elements have a couple of problems: China controls most of the supply, they require less-than-environmentally-friendly mining to get at, and, uh, they’re rare. So there's a race on to create a replacement magnet component that doesn't require rare earth.

CleanTechnica reports that a team at Boston's Northeastern University has taken one step in the right direction -- developing a material with similar magnetic properties to rare earth.

Mountain Dew can dissolve a mouse, says Pepsi

An Illinois man is suing Pepsi Co. because, he says, he found a mouse in his can of Mountain Dew. But Pepsi says the guy is pulling a Strange Brew, and here's how they know: If there really were a mouse in a Mountain Dew can, it would have dissolved into "a jelly-like substance" before the guy could find it. Seriously, this is their defense.

Critical List: Ghost octopi in the Antarctic; without ethanol subsidies, gas prices rise

The creatures discovered living in thermal vents near Antarctica -- ghost octopi, limpets, yeti crabs -- are le awesome.

Two major solar industry groups are merging in order to focus on state-level policies.

With ethanol subsidies gone, gas will cost more.

Climate change got even less media coverage than last year

Wait a minute, aren't liberals supposed to control the media? Well they're not doing their jobs, then, because climate change has been sliding slowly off the radar at major newspapers and magazines. That graph above shows coverage on a steady down slope since 2007, with a bump in 2009 because it's hard to slaver about "Climategate" without mentioning climate change.

Yeah, looks like fracking caused Ohio quakes

The Youngstown, Ohio area has had 11 minor earthquakes since last March, and according to seismologist John Armbruster of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, you can blame those rumbles on fracking. A fracking wastewater disposal well has been identified as the source of the quakes -- extraction companies inject the briny wastewater into the well, and the pressure from that injection ripples outwards, Armbruster says. The injection well that caused the Youngstown quakes has been shut down, but the area can still look forward to another year of uncharacteristic seismic activity.

Rick Perry advocates solution to climate problem he doesn’t believe in

Of all the GOP candidates, Rick Perry has been perhaps the most fervently dismissive of the reality of human-caused climate change. So why does his energy plan include a provision for "clean coal" technology, which is used to capture carbon dioxide and pump it underground?

Shark sex increasingly kinky, thanks to warming waters

If you thought interspecies boot-knocking was the sole purview of a handful of Bronies, check out what Australia's sharks are up to. Climate change and shifting water temperatures are causing different shark species to mingle their habitats, and apparently the mingling doesn’t stop there. The continent is now seeing an unprecedented number of hybrid sharks. […]

Climate change messing with giant ice buildings

A century ago, winters in Bavaria were so brutal that one Christmas, villagers in Mitterfirmiansreut were unable to hike to the nearest church, and they were forced to build one out of snow. For the 101st anniversary of the snow church this year, the town enlisted architect Alfons Doeringer to rebuild the snowthedral, nicknamed “God’s […]