Earth

Ecosystems

Sea of plastics

Oceanographers are finding more patches of floating polymers, some up to 20 meters deep.

Animals

Whale hunts: Discussions on lifting the ‘ban’

The International Whaling Commission will formally address its future, next week, at a meeting in St. Petersburg, Fla. Once comprised of whaling nations, the IWC now includes member states just as likely to condemn any hunting of cetaceans. That internal tension is guiding the meeting’s agenda. On it’s plate: whether to overturn the organization’s long-standing moratorium on commercial whaling.

Science & Society

Placement of marine reserves is key

A study finds that focusing on the heaviest-fished areas can help meet conservation goals.

Climate

Climate science: Credibility at risk, scientists say

Publication of hacked emails exchanged by climate scientists. News accounts of problems in vetting data used in climate-assessment reports. Charges by critics that scientists won’t release their raw data so that others might independently vet published analyses of climate trends. Taken together, these events have marred the reputations of climate scientists, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and perhaps science generally. Or so concluded a distinguished panel of science luminaries.

Tech

Leasing car batteries to the power company

Most people, on average, drive their cars only an hour or two a day. The rest of the time, those pricey vehicles sit parked on the street or in some garage. But if those cars had a big bank of batteries – typical of today’s gasoline hybrids or soon-to-hit-the-road plug-in hybrids – they could be earning their owners money while sitting parked. Maybe $5 to $10 a day, just by serving as a back-up energy-storage system for the electric-utility grid.

Earth

Sea levels erratic during latest ice age

Mineral crusts deposited 81,000 years ago in a Mediterranean island’s caves suggest an abrupt jump in sea level.

Agriculture

EPA reviews hints of weed killer’s fetal risks

The Environmental Protection Agency will be convening meetings of its Scientific Advisory Panel on pesticides throughout 2010 to probe concerns about the safety of atrazine, a weed killer on which most American corn growers rely. The first meeting of these outside experts started Tuesday. And although a large number of studies have indicated that atrazine can perturb hormones in animals and human cells — and might even pose a possible risk of cancer amongst heavily exposed people, these outcomes were not the focus of EPA’s review Tuesday. Risks to babies were.

Earth

Oldest feathered dino shows its colors

Analysis of a fossil suggests plumage first evolved for display, not flight.

Earth

Florida’s big chill may have hammered corals near shore

January cold snap caused rare wintertime coral bleaching and die-offs for Florida’s coral reefs.

Earth

The FY 2011 budget: So much for transparency

Cabinet officials and other administration leaders met with reporters yesterday to outline the President’s Fiscal Year 2011 federal budget. That spending blueprint includes $147-billion-and-change for research and development programs. But in contrast to past years, details tended to be skimpy today — and any chance for followup or verification of apparent trends has proven more difficult than usual.

Life

Keeping black bears wild

Wildlife managers compare ways to keep bears away from food and people.

Climate

Water vapor slowed recent global warming trend

A decline in stratospheric water vapor has slowed Earth’s surface warming slightly in recent years.