CLIMATE CHANGE: The Ostrich Brigades

Colder than usual January temperatures in the United States have brought the climate change deniers out of hibernation, flooding websites, and opinion and letters pages about the "great global warming hoax". They even organised their own conference on denial in New York City this week.

DEVELOPMENT: NGOs Wary of Doomsday Seed Vault

Agricultural non-governmental organisations (NGOs) working in India and elsewhere are criticising the newly-opened Global Seed Vault (GSV) at Svalbard in Norway as fundamentally unjust in its objectives.

Q&A: &#39&#39Plan by TNCs to Control Seeds Bound to Fail&#39&#39

An attempt by a handful of developed countries and trans-national corporations (TNCs) to monopolise and control the world's seeds is doomed to failure, says Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher, director-general of Ethiopia's Environment Protection Agency, and a formidable negotiator at biodiversity-related fora.

AUSTRALIA: Act Now On Climate Change Gov’t Warned

An interim report on Australia’s ability to combat climate change has called on the government to take action now as a matter of urgency.

BIODIVERSITY: Life Under the Macroscope

Free, authoritative and online: 1.8 million species.

ENVIRONMENT: Household Chemicals Wreaking Havoc in Fish

When people take their daily doses of birth control pills, antidepressants and antibiotics, fish are being dosed too.

SCIENCE: Deposing the Tyranny of English

For scientists around the world, it is publish - in English - or perish.

SCIENCE: Latin America Lags in Innovation and Technology

Brazil is the world leader in manufacturing small aircraft. In Argentina it was discovered that substances in the impotence drug Viagra can also treat sleep disorders. A non-polluting reactor was developed in Mexico to separate gold and silver from ore. All of this thanks to the work of home-grown scientists.

ARMS-US: Satellite Shootdown Fuels Fears of New Space Race

Independent arms-control critics here say that Wednesday's successful strike by a missile launched from a U.S. warship in the Pacific Ocean of a dying spy satellite will add to growing fears in Russia and China that Washington is determined to assert military dominance in space.

HEALTH-ARGENTINA: Juicy Hamburgers Threaten Young Kidneys

Famed as one of the world’s leading beef producers, Argentina holds the unfortunate record for the highest incidence of Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome (HUS), an infectious disease caused by bacteria present in incompletely cooked foods, such as hamburgers.

BRAZIL: GM Maize ‘Worst Tragedy’ of Lula Administration – NGOs

Non-governmental organisations actively involved in the Campaign for a GM-Free Brazil are protesting against what they call "the worst tragedy" to befall the country during the government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva: the release for cultivation and sale of two transgenic varieties of maize.

ENVIRONMENT: First Map of Human Impacts on Oceans Released

Oceans span nearly three quarters of the Earth's surface and despite this vast size hardly a square kilometre has been untouched by humans.

ASTRONOMY-COLOMBIA: Dazzled by Stars, Dreams and Doubts

Esteban Felipe is six years old and wants to be a policeman when he grows up. Or better still, an astronomer, he says as he plays with a plastic rocket that he decorated with coloured paper at one of the children’s workshops at the 11th Festival of self-taught astronomers.

SCIENCE-US: Top Scientists Want Research Free From Politics

Leading U.S. scientists called on Congress Thursday to make sure the next president does not do what they say the George W. Bush Administration has done: censor, suppress and falsify important environmental and health research.

Q&A: "Vitamin A and Zinc Should Be an Essential Part of Malaria Control Strategies"

Malaria continues to cut a swathe through Africa, which accounts for most cases of the disease and the majority of malaria-related deaths. Globally, more than a million people die from malaria each year. In the case of children, this translates into a death every 30 seconds, according to the World Health Organisation.

CLIMATE CHANGE: Security Council Urged to Punish CO2 Offenders

The world's small island nations are calling for the U.N. Security Council to help protect their lands and resources by using its authority to demand reductions of carbon dioxide emissions, and to penalise those nations that fail to comply.

Q&A: "You Can See the Whole Hemisphere Breathing"

Dr. Ralph Keeling is a climate change expert who explores how rises in carbon dioxide influence global oxygen levels.

LATIN AMERICA: A Hellish Life for Dolphins

Mexico is one of the few countries in Latin America that allows the operation of dolphin aquariums - tourist venues that rake in high profits and where these sea mammals often live in severely inadequate conditions, according to studies.

AGRICULTURE: Deep-Freezing Crop Diversity as Safeguard for the Future

Three tons of maize and wheat seeds are on their way to a deep-freeze vault built on an island in Norway, in the Arctic Circle, to be stored with 200,000 crop varieties from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East.

ENVIRONMENT-MEXICO: Science Can Show the Way to Cleaner Mining

In 2010 the Mexican mining company Peñoles could be using a unique, more environmentally-friendly method for extracting gold and silver from ore - but convincing the company to consider the new approach was not easy.

HEALTH-US: Watchdog Groups Uneasy About Cloned Animal Products

Meat and milk from cloned animals are as safe to eat as those from conventionally bred animals and can therefore be sold immediately without any special labeling, the U.S. federal agency regulating food has concluded.