Royal Dutch Shell Plc has been granted a long-awaited federal air-quality permit the oil company needs to conduct exploratory drilling this year in Alaska’s Beaufort Sea, government officials said late on Friday. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued the permit to Shell to cover air pollutants emitted from the drill ship and fleet of support…

The United States and China clashed on Friday about how to revive climate talks in 2010, complicating the first U.N. session since the acrimonious Copenhagen summit fell short of agreeing a treaty. Many delegates at the 175-nation talks in Bonn from April 9-11 urged efforts to restore trust between rich and poor countries but few…

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing to add 16 chemicals to the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) list of reportable chemicals, the first expansion of the program in more than a decade. Established as part of the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act (EPCRA), TRI is a publicly available EPA database that contains…

Researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine have found that exposure to three common chemical classes — phenols, phthalates and phytoestrogens — in young girls may disrupt the timing of pubertal development, and put girls at risk for health complications later in life.

In an analysis of the past 1.2 million years, UC Santa Barbara geologist Lorraine Lisiecki discovered a pattern that connects the regular changes of Earth’s orbital cycle to changes in Earth’s climate. The finding is reported in the scientific journal Nature Geoscience.

Some people and animals are color blind. For those who can see the world of colors there is endless wonder. So how do these colors happen in nature? How do you choose to be pink, black or violet? How different creatures in the animal kingdom — from colorful birds and reef fish to butterflies and…

Climate negotiators meet in Bonn on Friday for the first time since the fractious Copenhagen summit but with scant hopes of patching together a new legally binding U.N. deal in 2010. Delegates from 170 nations gathered on Thursday for the April 9-11 meeting that will seek to rebuild trust after the December summit disappointed many…

Scientists are reporting that particle size may affect the toxicity of zinc oxide, a material widely used in sunscreens. Particles smaller than 100 nanometers are reported as slightly more toxic to colon cells than conventional zinc oxide when ingested. Their study is in the ACS Chemical Research in Toxicology, a monthly journal. Zinc Oxide is…

A new study from The Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM) has found that regular, moderate aerobic exercise for pregnant women can lead to a modest reduction in size of the offspring. The exercise was also found not to restrict the development of maternal insulin resistance.

It is always amazing to watch birds in flight because they often behave as if they respond to unseen commands when they turn in unison. Pigeons have been recently studied by Oxford University and Eötvös University (Hungary) to see who is command in a given flock. Pigeon flocks (they concluded) are guided by a flexible…