"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."

"The author of a report critical of climate scientists defended himself against plagiarism charges Tuesday, and denied he was pressured by Republicans to tilt the report."

A House Energy subcommittee held one last hearing on climate science before GOP deniers take over the gavels. It was quite a show.

"Not only is Earth's surface warming, but the troposphere -- the lowest level of the atmosphere, where weather occurs -- is heating up too, U.S. and British meteorologists reported on Monday." The findings may put to rest a 20-year-old controversy over differences between satellite and surface measurements of warming.

"Eighteen months after the Environmental Protection Agency announced reforms to its controversial process for evaluating health hazards posed by dangerous chemicals, significant problems continue to hamper the program and leave the public at risk, according to a new report by a nonprofit research group."

"In the face of  probes by a state attorney general, hints of  hostile congressional hearings and assaults from  critics in the blogosphere, hundreds of members of the American Geophysical Union are forming a rapid-response team aiming to challenge disinformation and misinformation deployed in the policy wars over global warming."

"Federal financing of science research, which has risen quickly since the Obama administration came to power, could fall back to pre-Obama levels if the incoming Republican leadership in the House of Representatives follows through on its list of campaign promises."

"In the wake of Election Day, prepare for a new round of politicized skirmishes in the never-ending climate wars, with the battleground shifting once again to Capitol Hill hearing rooms."

"Energy magnate David Koch ceded his spot on a National Cancer Institute (NCI) advisory board last month, but green advocates are taking aim at the conservative mega-donor nonetheless by calling for a review of federal ethics policies that allowed him to sit on the panel despite a potential conflict of interest."

Physicists probing the origins of the universe at the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva hope they will turn up evidence of parallel universes.

"Have hundreds of millions of dollars in grants from major oil companies compromised the ethics of energy research at such institutions as UC Berkeley, UC Davis and Stanford?"

"The sun may warm the Earth more during waning solar cycles, new satellite data has shown, turning scientific understanding on its head and helping to explain extreme local weather patterns, scientists said on Wednesday."

"The University of Virginia and an embattled climate scientist said Monday that it would continue to fight state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II's efforts to obtain documents related to a climate scientist's work, just hours after Cuccinelli reissued a civil subpoena for the papers."

"A long-delayed government epidemiological study of possible ties between diesel exhaust and lung cancer in miners may finally be published this fall -- but only after a mining industry group, represented by the Washington lobbying powerhouse Patton Boggs, finishes a pre-publication review of the study's drafts."

"The oil giant nears an agreement to dispense $500 million through an alliance overseen by gulf state governors. Critics fear expertise elsewhere will be overlooked."