"Women who took folic acid supplements before and during pregnancy were about 40% less likely to have a baby later diagnosed with autism, according to a provocative new study generating high interest in the scientific community."

"DOHA, Qatar -- An amount of freshwater almost the size of the Dead Sea has been lost in parts of the Middle East due to poor management, increased demands for groundwater and the effects of a 2007 drought, according to a NASA study."

Pope Benedict XVI was known as the Green Pope.

"The mystery of how horsemeat got into Findus beef lasagne has led to an international hunt already taking in four countries.

"Multinational food, drink and alcohol companies are using strategies similar to those employed by the tobacco industry to undermine public health policies, health experts said on Tuesday."

"There's a global campaign to force meat producers to rein in their use of antibiotics on pigs, chickens and cattle. European countries, especially Denmark and the Netherlands, have taken the lead. The U.S. is moving, haltingly, toward similar restrictions. Now the concerns about rampant antibiotic use appear to have reached China, where meat production and antibiotic use have been growing fast."

The labels meant to give consumers confidence in the sustainability of the seafood they buy may be deceptive.

"President Obama on Tuesday called North Korea's third successful nuclear test a 'highly provocative act' that 'undermines regional stability' and threatens action by the international community."

"Organised criminal gangs operating internationally are suspected of playing a major role in the horsemeat scandal that has seen supermarket shelves cleared of a series of products and triggered concerns about the contamination of the UK's food chain."

"Amid all the progress on this planet -- declining losses from terrible diseases and war, rising literacy and the rest -- there remain plenty of planet-scale risks requiring serious focus, from pandemic flu to centuries of locked-in climate change to, yes, collisions with space rocks."