"Working in top secret over a period of 17 years, Russian and American scientists collaborated to remove hundreds of pounds of plutonium and highly enriched uranium — enough to construct at least a dozen nuclear weapons — from a remote Soviet-era nuclear test site in Kazakhstan that had been overrun by impoverished metal scavengers, according to a report released last week by the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard."

"WASHINGTON, DC -- The first new carnivore species to be identified in the American continents in 35 years was introduced to the public today by the Smithsonian Institution scientist who recognized it from skins and skulls tucked away in the collection of the Chicago Field Museum."

"The operator of Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant is preparing to remove 400 tons of highly irradiated spent fuel from a damaged reactor building, a dangerous operation that has never been attempted before on this scale."

"UNITED NATIONS — After months of negotiations, the United Nations announced Wednesday that U.N. experts will depart imminently for Syria to investigate alleged chemical weapons use."

"MONTREAL -- Tests conducted by an environmental group suggest last month’s Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, train disaster had a devastating impact on water quality and soil in the affected area."

"MEXICO CITY — President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico on Monday, pushing one of the most sweeping economic overhauls here in the past two decades, proposed opening his country’s historically closed energy industry to foreign investment."

"A U.S.-led drive to reduce soot and other heat-trapping air pollutants worldwide is less promising than hoped as a new front in the fight against climate change, according to a study published on Monday."

"Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron has given his unequivocal backing to the divisive 'fracking' process used to extract shale gas from rocks, risking angering his party's supporters from more rural areas."

"LYON, France -- Securities fraud, insider trading, embezzlement, money laundering and cybercrime – the intangible nature of the global carbon trading markets puts them at risk for exploitation by criminal networks, according to a new law enforcement guide produced by Interpol."

"A viable, effective vaccine against malaria has long eluded scientists. Results from a preliminary study have ignited hope that a new type of vaccine could change that. The experimental vaccine offered strong protection against malaria when given at high doses, scientists Thursday in the journal Science."

The study was extremely small and short-term. And the candidate vaccine still has a long way to go before it could be used in the developing world.

"The beepocalypse is on the cover of TIME, but it looks like managed honeybees will still pull through. Wild bees—and wild species in general—won't be so lucky in a human-dominated planet."

"TOKYO — First, a rat gnawed through exposed wiring, setting off a scramble to end yet another blackout of vital cooling systems at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Then, hastily built pits for a flood of contaminated water sprang leaks themselves. Now, a new rush of radioactive water has breached a barrier built to stop it, allowing heavily contaminated water to spill daily into the Pacific."

"The weather is one of those topics that is fairly easy for people to agree on. Climate, however, is something else. Most of the scientists who study the Earth say our climate is changing and humans are part of what's making that happen. But to a lot of nonscientists it's still murky. This week, two of the nation's most venerable scientific institutions tried to explain it better."

"WASHINGTON -- A new massive federal study says the world in 2012 sweltered with continued signs of climate change. Rising sea levels, snow melt, heat buildup in the oceans, and melting Arctic sea ice and Greenland ice sheets, all broke or nearly broke records, but temperatures only sneaked into the top 10."

"Britain's biggest ever 'fatberg' has been removed from a London sewer. Thames Water say a 'bus-sized lump' of food fat mixed with wet wipes formed in drains under London Road in Kingston upon Thames."