Science News

State wildlife officials Wednesday ruled that the California tiger salamander deserves protection as a threatened species, subjecting landowners to more scrutiny if they want to build or farm in the amphibian’s habitat.

“We have learned over the years, at our peril, that remoteness is no guarantee of conservation,” commissioner Michael Sutton said.

Read the rest of this entry »

South African President Jacob Zuma flew into London on Tuesday for his first state visit to Britain, which will mix pomp and ceremony with sporting trips and talks on climate change.

He will be formally received by Queen Elizabeth II on Wednesday in a ceremonial welcome, before a procession to her Buckingham Palace residence.

Read the rest of this entry »

South African President Jacob Zuma flew into London on Tuesday for his first state visit to Britain, which will mix pomp and ceremony with sporting trips and talks on climate change.

He will be formally received by Queen Elizabeth II on Wednesday in a ceremonial welcome, before a procession to her Buckingham Palace residence.

Read the rest of this entry »

Utility crews are working to restore power to tens of thousands of homes and businesses still in the dark in the Northeast after a winter storm last week.

More than a million homes and businesses lost electricity at the height of the storm Friday. New Hampshire and New York state are now each reporting about 50,000 customers without power.

Read the rest of this entry »

The veil has been lifted on Bloom Energy, the secretive energy start-up that has been quietly installing its fuel-cell servers that promise cleaner and cheaper energy at some of Silicon Valleys biggest businesses

The Sunnyvale, Calif., company says that it has developed a new method of making fuel cells, which generate electricity through an electrochemical reaction, that could take the technology from being largely a niche pursuit to one that is broadly accepted by both large companies and small homeowners alike.

Read the rest of this entry »

As wind power expands in Maine, the industry is feeling a gust of push back from those who worry about the turbines’ noise and impact on scenery and about whether too many towers are going up too fast.

State officials acknowledge heightened awareness across the state to wind power as it transforms “from the theoretical to the practical,” said Karin Tilberg, senior policy adviser to Gov.

Read the rest of this entry »

Gov. Rick Perry and other top Texas officials on Tuesday announced a legal challenge to the federal government’s finding that greenhouse gases are dangerous to people, claiming the ruling was based on flawed science.

Texas - the which leads the nation in greenhouse gas emissions and is frequently at odds with the EPA - announced it has asked a federal appeals court to review the endangerment finding.

Read the rest of this entry »

If you needed an extra twist of the arm to set off on a Hawaii vacation, here it is: The big-wave state was the happiest place to live in 2009, according to a newly released national survey.

The results come from interviews with more than 350,000 American adults who took part in the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index in 2009.

Read the rest of this entry »

State health officials said Tuesday they found nothing unusual about the rate of birth defects among infants in a San Joaquin Valley farm town located next to the largest toxic waste dump in the West.

“It’s important to keep in mind that this is a preliminary finding, and we are going to be in the community gathering additional information,” said Kevin Reilly, chief deputy director of the California Department of Public Health.

Read the rest of this entry »

Michigan wants the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider its refusal to close Chicago-area shipping locks in hopes of keeping Asian carp out of the Great Lakes.

Solicitor General Elena Kagan acknowledged that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers learned of the DNA find Jan. 15 but did not inform the high court until hours after the Jan.

Read the rest of this entry »