The New Orleans-area citizens' group Louisiana Bucket Brigade has been conducting a survey of the Gulf oil spill's possible health effects that may pave the way for larger and more scientific federal studies yet to be started.

"Lawmakers have criticized BP PLC for attempting to 'muzzle' scientists researching the Gulf of Mexico oil spill with confidentiality agreements and blocking the 'open exchange of scientific data and analysis.' But the government is employing similar tactics itself."

"The House of Lords has stepped up its efforts to make Christopher Monckton – climate sceptic and deputy leader of the UK Independence party -- desist in his repeated claims that he is a member of the upper house. The push comes as Buckingham palace has also been drawn into the affair over his use of a logo similar to parliament's famous portcullis emblem."

"A month after the Deepwater Horizon disaster began, scientists from the University of South Florida made a startling announcement. They had found signs that the oil spewing from the well had formed a 6-mile-wide plume snaking along in the deepest recesses of the gulf. The reaction that USF announcement received from the Coast Guard and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the federal agencies that sponsored their research: Shut up."

"With a startling report that some researchers call more spin than science, the government said Wednesday that the mess made by the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is mostly gone already."

"A huge mass of magnetically charged material ejected from the sun is racing across space toward our planet, where it is expected to arrive on Tuesday. When it strikes the Earth's magnetic field, it could produce spectacular auroras."

"A House energy panel is concerned that scientists hired to assess the oil spill may be muzzled. The company's research funding is also under scrutiny."

"The Environmental Protection Agency unleashed a full-throated defense on Thursday of scientific evidence that mankind is dangerously warming the planet, and of the Obama administration's unilateral moves to curb the heat-trapping gas emissions scientists blame for climate change."

"Stephen H. Schneider, a Stanford University climate scientist who for decades built the case that global warming, while laden with complexity, justified an aggressive response, has died."

BP and the Coast Guard, after months of blocking news media from covering the Gulf spill, say they have gone straight. One whistleblower who used to help them block TV coverage is now telling all.

Mainstream news media have given far less coverage to the five major panels that have debunked the "climategate" stolen-email flap kicked up by the fossil-fuel blogosphere than they did to the original charges now proven false.

"Last March, President Obama promised he'd have a strategy for restoring scientific integrity to the federal government on hand by July 29. A full year later, federal agencies still have not received any new directives and some government scientists say that conditions have not improved noticeably since Obama took power."

"Companies with a financial interest in a weed-killer sometimes found in drinking water paid for thousands of studies federal regulators are using to assess the herbicide’s health risks, records  of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency show. Many of these industry-funded studies, which largely support atrazine’s safety, have never been published or subjected to an independent scientific peer review."

"Leading climate scientists on Thursday welcomed a British report that cleared researchers of exaggerating the effects of global warming and said they hoped it would restore faith in the fight against climate change."

"Climate scientists in the US say police inaction has left them defenceless in the face of a torrent of death threats and hate mail, leaving them fearing for their lives and one to contemplate arming himself with a handgun."