"New research suggests the chemicals are playing a significant and previously unknown role in the global decline of amphibians."

"Islanders claim Berkeley-based Earth Island Institute failed to fulfill deal to pay $400,000 to stop hunt."

"ANCHORAGE -- North America's largest living land mammals could roam the Alaska wilderness again by 2014, a century after they vanished in the state, under an agreement announced on Thursday to reintroduce wood bison to the lower Yukon River area."

"Any food sold in Washington state and made with genetically engineered crops would have to be labeled under a ballot initiative submitted Thursday."

"At last, the “Vine that Ate the South” may have met its match. To most longtime Southerners, it sounds great: a bug that loves to eat kudzu and can kill off half an infestation of the tangled vine in a couple of years. What’s not to like?"

"EL VALLE, Panama — In moist, mossy rooms, rows of glass aquariums bathed in eerie light shelter the last of the last of the frogs. It is a secure facility, for here reside the sole survivors of their species, rescued from the wild before a modern plague swept through their forests and streams in a ferocious doomsday event that threatens the planet’s amphibians with extinction."

"Salmon that has been genetically engineered to grow twice as fast as its natural counterpart inched a little closer toward the nation’s dinner tables on Friday."

"ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- Two types of ice seals joined polar bears Friday on the list of species threatened by the loss of sea ice, which scientists say reached record low levels this year due to climate warming."

"MIAMI — Though still depleted in its historic home in the Everglades, the wood stork has expanded its range and numbers in the nearly 30 years since it was declared at risk of extinction."

"The marine conservation group Sea Shepherd has scored a propaganda victory over Japan after it emerged it had bought its newest anti-whaling vessel from the Japanese government, apparently without its knowledge."

The American chestnut once dominated the forest landscape from Georgia to Maine. Then the blight struck, and by the 1950s, it was all but extinct. Now, after 30 years of breeding and crossbreeding, the American Chestnut Foundation believes it has developed a blight-resistant tree.

"MIAMI -- The battle to control Burmese pythons in the Everglades has employed an array of tactics to date, including snake-sniffing dogs, GPS-equipped 'Judas' snakes and teams of state-licensed reptile wranglers."

"Cheatgrass is about as Western as cowboy boots and sagebrush. It grows in yellowish clumps, about knee high to a horse, and likes arid land. One thing cheatgrass does is burn — in fact, more easily than anyone realized. That's the conclusion from a new study that says cheatgrass is making Western wildfires worse."

"CHICAGO — A federal judge Monday threw out a lawsuit filed by five states that want barriers placed in Chicago-area waterways to prevent Asian carp from invading the Great Lakes, but said he would consider new arguments if the case were filed again."

Cornfields -- which occupy a big fraction of U.S. farmland -- differ from normal ecosystems in that they are nearly sterile ecologically. Breeding and spraying aim to prevent anything from living but corn.

"We'll start in a cornfield — we'll call it an Iowa cornfield in late summer — on a beautiful day. The corn is high. The air is shimmering. There's just one thing missing — and it's a big thing...

...a very big thing, but I won't tell you what, not yet.