Grist List

Guerilla Grafters make ornamental plants bear fruit

Duck and cover, it's a drive-by fruiting! Guerilla Grafters stick fruit-bearing limbs onto San Francisco's ornamental trees, making city streets into food-producing mini-orchards. (Grafting has been standard practice with fruit trees since basically forever, so there's nothing Frankenfoody about this.) It's not technically legal — the city discourages planting fruit trees, because of worries that […]

Jess Zimmerman Agriculture

Donate your socks to a weasel

If you celebrate a gift-giving holiday this season, you're probably going to get socks from a well-meaning relative. (I'm looking forward to it! I really need socks.) And now you can do some good with your old ones, or the ones whose mates got lost in the wash and which you've been wearing as odd […]

Jess Zimmerman Science

Critical List: Oil slick moves towards Nigerian coast; adorable polar bear cub

The oil slick off the Nigeria coast is moving towards shore. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved the design for a new generation of nuclear reactors. Climate change will help parasites thrive. Simple design is green design. Here is an adorable polar bear cub. That is all.

Sarah Laskow Science

Video: Here’s what being in a tsunami looks like

We saw some pretty insane videos of the Japanese tsunami back in March, when it happened, but this one (which is going newly viral for whatever reason, and which I hadn't seen before) is by far the insanest. This delivery driver caught the earthquake on his in-dash video, and it looks like no big deal […]

Jess Zimmerman Climate & Energy

Great idea: Bike accident report cards

Bike lawyer Josh Zisson, of Bike Safe Boston, had these cards printed up so that bikers would have immediate legal recourse if they got in an accident. The cards sport a clear graphical representation of Massachusetts' bike laws, and space to record the details of the accident, the driver's plate number and insurance information, and […]

Jess Zimmerman Transportation

Rick Perry right about something

When a town hall attendee asked Rick Perry about groundwater pollution from hydrofracking, he sneered at the idea, saying that it would have had widespread press coverage if it were true: Perry: I am truly offended that the American public would be hoodwinked by stories that do not scientifically hold up. If that was true, […]

Jess Zimmerman Energy

BP spends $20 billion on oil but can’t afford solar

BP gave being green a try, guys, really! They had a solar panel business going, but they had to kick it to the curb, because they just couldn't afford it. Times are tough, you know? Heck, the company only has $20 billion to spend on oil and gas every year. They have to pinch … […]

Jess Zimmerman Energy

Border fence is bad for bears

Ever since America decided the best way to keep the teh-rur-ists and immigrants out was to build a fence along the southern border, environmentalists have worried about the impact of a gigantic, impenetrable fence on the local wildlife. And while we know that it's hard for most people to get their hackles up about the […]