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U.S. Army dumps 64 million pounds of chemical weapons into the ocean

What to do with 64 million pounds of leftover nerve and mustard gas? Eh, just dump it off the coast of Jersey. Thanks, U.S. Army! (h/t: Think Progress)

Progress Doesn’t Pay

North Carolina fines driver for not paying taxes on vegetable-oil fuel A kerfuffle in North Carolina shows what might be in store for users of DIY fuel: the state fined […]

Phosphorus Is Bad Phor Us

Gulf of Mexico “dead zone” still large and in charge As happens every spring, billions of pounds of nitrogen and phosphorus from agricultural fertilizer have made their way down the […]

Water You Waiting For?

Donate to Grist, win a chance at splash-tastic prizes You know how two-thirds of the planet is covered in water? Funny thing: we still need to raise two-thirds of our […]

G8 nations agree on weak climate deal, Bush admin tools with Clean Water Act, and more

Read the articles mentioned at the end of the podcast: A Jury Of Your Pyrrhus Raptor ‘Round Their Fingers An Ugly Alternative Find ITT on eBay Clean Water Is Highly […]

A. Carl Leopold, nature activist, answers Grist’s questions

What work do you do? Mostly the organizations I’m involved with are oriented toward active programs for nurturing quality pieces of nature. I am on the board of the Aldo […]

Nice job, Einstein

I'll give you some hints. Just a few days ago, a man walked on a stage a few hundred yards from where I sit to accept an honorary degree in science. Following is the speech that preceded the award:

As Einstein is to relativity you are to biodiversity -- the insight that our world is unimaginatively rich in its number of species, whose lives are inextricably woven together. This idea has powered much subsequent biological research and re-shaped forever human understanding of the world and our place within it. This intellectual journey began, as so often in science, with a child's curiosity -- in your case with the ants you collected in the series of Southern towns in which you were raised. Your fascination in the face of nature's detail led to your adult study of how species adapt to their surroundings and how genes and culture interact to affect social behavior. Most recently you have inspired the growing inquiry into the vast array of species with which we share this planet and into the delicate web that holds together all life. In doing so you have fathered the modern environmental movement and inspired countless scientists with the knowledge that there is so very much more of life to be discovered. Like Einstein you, too, are dedicated to unifying ideas across the disciplines -- to finding those areas in which science, humanities, and social sciences converge -- and to exploring how science can best inform religion, morality, and ethics. And, as relativity shaped so much of the human agenda of the Twentieth Century, so biodiversity stands poised to do in the Twenty-First -- providing head-spinning new insights along with the sober realization that upon the use we make of this knowledge hangs the very existence of human life.

Richard Rorty, RIP

This will likely be of interest to exactly none of you, but one of my great philosophical heroes died yesterday. The first paper I ever presented at a professional philosophy […]

Jon Stewart on the G8

Friday music blogging: M. Ward

M. Ward is a rarity: an artist who started out as something of a novelty act but has gotten consistently better, blossoming into one of the most expressive, interesting songwriters […]