Articles by Christopher Mims

Solar power from the moon is fake, but also real

Solar panels that transform light from the moon into usable quantities of energy: Fake! Solar panels covering the moon that would transmit massive quantities of energy back to earth using lasers […]

Fukushima workers prepared to die; don’t even know how much radiation they’ve been exposed to

A piece in today's Guardian reveals that TEPCO, the utility responsible for the Fukushima Dai-Ichi reactors, did not until very recently have enough dosimeters for all of the employees who […]

When locally sourced food isn’t available, the tough grow it anyway

Ruben and Kristin Hernandez are bakers in Baltimore, Maryland, who wanted to use locally-sourced wheat in their bread. Only problem is, no one grows the required “hard” wheat in Maryland, […]

Climate change linked to rising infertility [APRIL FOOLS]

UPDATE: This is an April Fools' Day post, entirely made up. To the best of our knowledge, your ovaries are blissfully unaware of climate chaos.

Mmm, nothing like some hot scrambled huevos: A new report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention details rising infertility rates in America -- and, for the first time, cites global warming as one potential culprit. The report, released earlier this week, says that 17 percent of couples in the U.S. are experiencing difficulty bearing fruit -- a 5 percent jump from 2005. Airborne toxins and even Old Spice body wash have previously been linked to lower fertility, but climate change is a new one. The report says that rising global temperatures, and extreme temperatures in particular, seem to be affecting women's body chemistry in poorly understood ways, thus hampering their ability to conceive and carry a baby to term. It's a controversial theory sure to inspire lots more research and provoke plenty of criticism.