"More than 20,000 high-temperature records have been broken so far this year in the United States. And the heat is especially bad in cities, which are heating up about twice as fast as the rest of the planet."

"The U.S. Justice Department is ramping up its rhetoric against BP PLC for the massive 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, describing in new court papers examples of what it calls 'gross negligence and willful misconduct.'"

Science is at the heart of some key policy issues dividing Republicans and Democrats. Presidential candidates Obama and Romney may never square off in person on TV over scientific issues like climate. But through "Science Debate 2012," they are addressing them in writing online. Is that good enough?

"The Democratic party has restated its commitment to combat climate change and boost clean energy in the party platform it will approve on Tuesday at the 2012 party convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. But compared to its 2008 party platform, the 2012 version, called Moving America Forward, offers more restrained statements about the urgency of addressing climate change and shifts the party's energy strategy away from going "green" toward an "all-of-the-above" approach, a phrase also used in the Republican's 2012 platform."

"The Obama administration has cleared another hurdle for Shell to drill in Alaska’s Arctic waters – the second in as many days – changing the company’s air pollution limits so its drill ship can operate in the Chukchi Sea."

Crews from the DC-area Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission spend a lot of time checking the sewer pipes outside restaurants. The grease that builds up in the network of sewer pipes causes some 40 percent of sewer overflows in the U.S.

"Residents in almost all parts of the United States live on lands that contain minor to substantial concentrations of radionuclides of one type or another.1 These substances often make their way into tap water, leading to exposures by ingestion, inhalation, or dermal pathways during showering or other contact with the water.

Cases of the hantavirus disease that recently killed four in California occur regularly in many parts of the U.S.

"PORTLAND, Ore. — About 15 years ago, this environmentally conscious state with a fir tree on its license plates began pushing the idea of making renewable energy from the ocean waves that bob and swell on the Pacific horizon. But then one of the first test-buoy generators, launched with great fanfare, promptly sank. It was not a good start."

"Does an organic strawberry contain more vitamin C than a conventional one?"