"Supervolcanoes and cosmic impacts get all the terrible glory for causing mass extinctions, but a new theory suggests lowly algae may be the killer behind the world's great species annihilations."

"India and China signed an agreement Wednesday to cooperate on ways to fight climate change and pledged to establish a group to exchange views concerning international negotiations on climate change."

"The United States and many other major pollutant-emitting countries have concluded that it is more useful to take incremental but important steps toward a global agreement rather than to try to jam through a treaty that is either too weak to address the problem or too onerous to be ratified and enforced."

"Nuclear industry operators are pushing to extend the life of their plants to 60 or even 80 years. Running plants longer is one way to recoup their investment but it has safety implications."

"After years of volatility, oil prices have found a level that seems to satisfy producing nations, oil companies and major consumers. But in the wake of the economic crisis and the collapse in demand, a new reality has also set across the petroleum industry. Today’s price of around $70 a barrel is increasingly viewed as a new floor for the industry."

"Cod is slipping closer to disappearing from key European fishing grounds, officials warned Friday, saying that only steep catch cuts will prevent the disappearance of a species prized for centuries for its flaky white flesh."

"Representatives of the world's biggest carbon polluters began two days of informal talks in London on Sunday to map out common ground 50 days before a key UN climate conference in Copenhagen."