Biodiversity

"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."

"Japan's whaling fleet has been scaled back and today departed late for the Southern Ocean aiming to catch hundreds of minke whales and 50 fin whales." They will be met and harassed by a three-ship flotilla from the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which includes a new high-speed trimaran interceptor and video crews from Animal Planet.

Mangroves forests are among the most important ecosystems in the world, and now scientists have used satellite images to compile a comprehensive worldwide map of them.

"A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the destruction of plantings of genetically modified sugar beets developed by Monsanto Co after ruling previously the U.S. Agriculture Department illegally approved the biotech crop."

Opponents of genetically engineered salmon are warning the Food and Drug Administration not to approve it because they fear fish could escape from aquaculture pens and interbreed with wild stocks or out-compete them.

"The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has designated more than 187,000 square miles of on-shore barrier islands, denning areas and offshore sea-ice as critical habitat for the threatened polar bear under the Endangered Species Act."

"The United Nations' cultural arm UNESCO has appealed to Congolese President Joseph Kabila to guarantee there will be no oil exploration in the forest home of rare gorillas where two UK-listed firms hold drilling rights."

"With the tiger on the verge of extinction, officials from 13 nations agreed Tuesday on a program to double the population of the big cat by 2022, the next Year of the Tiger under the Chinese zodiac."

"This week an Illinois fish processor is sending 44,000 pounds of Asian carp back to Asia as food. A small startup in Pearl, Ill., the Big River Fish Company is just one group that sees Asian carp not as a voracious, invasive species, but as a business opportunity."