"A mercury-containing preservative rarely used in the United States should not be banned as an ingredient in vaccines, U.S. pediatricians said Monday, in a move that may be controversial."

"For those who might be keeping score, we just passed the 333rd consecutive month of global temperatures above the 20th-century average."

"The operator of a Japanese nuclear power plant that blew up after a tsunami last year said on Friday its lack of safety and bad habits were behind the world's worst nuclear accident in 25 years, its most forthright admission of culpability."

"Debris that gathered this past summer on Alaska's Kayak Island made walking on its beaches feel like walking through a natural disaster zone, a federal biologist said Thursday."

"A WikiLeaks-style Web dump of drafts of the 2013 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change provides fresh evidence that the organization’s policies and procedures are a terrible fit for an era in which transparency will increasingly be enforced on organizations working on consequential energy and environmental issues."

Negotiations over an international treaty to combat mercury emissions will reach a climax next month in Geneva.

"Today -- to the dismay of whale lovers and friends of marine mammals, if not divers and submarine captains -- the ocean depths have become a noisy place."

"The sale of advanced battery maker A123 to China's Wanxiang Group could recoup US taxpayer funds. But critics warn the threats to US security outweigh any benefits from the pending sale of A123."

"Fears that the world will end on 21 December are rife, despite there being no evidence. So, why are we so fixated with end of the world theories?"

"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."