"Giving new meaning to toasted wheat, a team of agricultural researchers has spent the past three years and almost a million dollars installing electric heaters over wheat fields in the desert of Maricopa, Ariz."

TEPCO and the Japanese government's constant assurances that the nuclear meltdown at Fukushima is under control have started to unravel. Releases of radioactive material continue. Mounting radiation at the site threatens to curtail efforts to prevent more radiation releases.

"Big earthquakes over the last 30 years have not triggered global chains of massive seismic activity, U.S. scientists reported on Monday. But major quakes do trigger other big ones close by and smaller ones far away, researchers said."

"There's nothing new about studying animal sounds; ...  But Bryan Pijanowski is now asking his colleagues to take a huge step back and, metaphorically speaking, listen not just to the trees, but to the forest."

"Vegetation change underway in northern forests as a result of climate change creates feedback loop that prompts more warming, scientists say."

"The U.N. atomic energy chief called a Vienna summit to tackle mounting concerns about nuclear safety, saying on Monday the international community needed a coordinated response in the wake of Japan's crisis."

"In the country that gave the world the word tsunami, the Japanese nuclear establishment largely disregarded the potentially destructive force of the walls of water. The word did not even appear in government guidelines until 2006, decades after plants — including the Fukushima Daiichi facility that firefighters are still struggling to get under control — began dotting the Japanese coastline."

"Sharply elevated radiation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex on Sunday raised the possibility of spreading contamination and forced an evacuation of a part of one of the buildings at the damaged plant."

"Japan's nuclear regulator has amassed power while growing closer to the industry it regulates, according to former regulators and industry critics who blame the trend for lapses that may have contributed to the Fukushima Daiichi accident."

"As the Japanese authorities order a wider evacuation area around the stricken Fukushima reactor complex to as far out as 19 miles, three health and environmental groups in the United States announced that they were seeking further information about why American officials recommended that its citizens keep at least 50 miles away."