"A couple of weeks ago, Munich Re, one of the world’s largest reinsurance firms, issued a study titled 'Severe Weather in North America.' According to the press release that accompanied the report, 'Nowhere in the world is the rising number of natural catastrophes more evident than in North America.' The number of what Munich Re refers to as 'weather-related loss events,' and what the rest of us would probably call weather-related disasters, has quintupled over the last three decades."

"Documents obtained by Greenpeace show officials controlling information about wildlife affected by the disaster."

"Genetic engineering of crops is essentially the same as centuries-old, conventional plant breeding, except more precise, scientists say." As voting time nears on California's Proposition 37, arguments about science, safety, and the public's right to know intensify.

The hour-long report on the fossil-industry and right-wing climate science denial movement broadcast on PBS Frontline Tuesday night raises a key issue. Did deniers win their fight to stop action on global warming by killing it in Congress and keeping it out of the presidential campaign?

"Penn State University scientist Michael Mann, whose work showed that Earth’s temperatures have risen along with increased fossil fuel use, announced Tuesday he had filed a lawsuit against the conservative National Review and the Competitive Enterprise Institute for defamation, complaining that they falsely accused him of academic fraud and compared him to convicted child molester Jerry Sandusky."

"L'AQUILA, Italy -- Six scientists and a government official were sentenced to six years in prison for manslaughter by an Italian court on Monday for failing to give adequate warning of an earthquake that killed more than 300 people in L"Aquila in 2009."

A lawyer for a climate-change-denial group seeking records from scientist Michael Mann apparently failed to get advance permission from his then-employer EPA to work on the case pro bono.

"Julia Whitty is on a three-week-long journey aboard the the US Coast Guard icebreaker Healy, following a team of scientists who are investigating how a changing climate might be affecting the chemistry of ocean and atmosphere in the Arctic."

"Budget cuts to the ozone monitoring department were $13.3m this year, the 25th anniversary of the Montreal protocol."

"BRUSSELS -- The European Food Safety Authority said Thursday it cannot accept an 'inadequate' report by a French scientist on a link between cancer and genetically modified corn."

"The EFSA said an initial review showed that the 'design, reporting and analysis of the study ... are inadequate,' meaning it could not 'regard the authors' conclusions as scientifically sound.'