"In an unusual scenario that raises questions of conflict of interest, a company that conducts research on behalf of the pesticide industry has paid a U.S. government agency to help prove some controversial chemicals are safe."

Three House Republicans have asked newly installed Appropriations chairmen to zero out NASA climate research. This would effectively end scientists' ability to measure changes in climate.

"Scientific research, environmental protection and other priorities of the Obama administration would face steep cuts under a congressional Republican spending plan released Wednesday."

"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has proposed tight restrictions on using people as test subjects — or, as critics have put it, guinea pigs — in pesticide research."

In Gillette, Wyoming, coal country, science teachers can feel the pressure against teaching scientific truth about climate in the classroom. Sometimes they push back.

"NASA is about to launch an Earth-observing satellite with new technology onboard designed to broaden our understanding of how the Sun and tiny atmospheric particles called aerosols affect Earth's climate."

"Fraudsters are targeting climate scientists with fake conferences in a bid to make cash and obtain details." Is it a ploy to plant spy programs on scientists' computers?

"For the first time, antimatter has been observed occurring naturally on Earth, as scientists using NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have documented beams of antimatter produced above thunderstorms."
 

The earth's glaciers and icecaps seem to be melting faster in recent years. Climate change is suspected, but the behavior of the earth's cryosphere does not lend itself to simple generalizations.

News accounts often present a false balance between the central estimate of 5 or 6 degrees Fahrenheit global warming (for doubled carbon dioxide) and much lower estimates put forth by fossil-industry-funded "skeptics" at the fringes of legitimate science. In fact, the skeptics' take should be balanced by the real worst-case estimate from mainstream science: 18 or 20 degrees of warming.

"The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy on Friday issued long-awaited guidelines to prevent political interference in science and promote transparency at federal agencies, a move that drew cautious praise from activists in the scientific community who had been dismayed by an 18-month delay at the science office."

"A federal judge yesterday threw out a federal scientific study that forms the basis for protecting the delta smelt in California's sprawling Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta."

"The Environmental Protection Agency said on Wednesday it was again delaying its final rule on smog limits, with the rule now expected by the end of July 2011."

"The United States government lobbied the head of the U.N. climate panel to block the appointment of an Iranian scientist to a key position, saying it would be problematic, leaked U.S. diplomatic cables show."

"At a 2 p.m. news conference streamed live over the Web, scientists at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said they found microbes in the mud beneath a California lake that can use arsenic -- usually considered toxic -- rather than phosphorus as one of the building blocks of its DNA. Phosphorus is one of the elements that sustains all other life forms on earth."