"Large swaths of toxic algae have punished U.S. coastal towns at record levels this year, shutting down shellfish harvests and sickening swimmers from Maine to Texas to Seattle."

"Sammy Haddock started working with elephants when he joined the circus at 20, in 1976, a young man's dream. He walked them, groomed them, cleaned up after them. More than once, he later confessed, he beat them."

"President Obama will not arrive at the Copenhagen climate summit until Friday, its final day, but he worked the phones Monday to push world leaders to cut a deal on a new global-warming agreement."

"Environmental groups said Monday they want the Tennessee Valley Authority to be prosecuted for its huge coal ash spill in Tennessee and not shielded from penalties for polluting."

"Rates of black-lung disease are growing, most notably among younger miners, reversing decades of progress and prompting more federal scrutiny and calls to lower exposure to coal dust."

House Science Committee Chairman Bart Gordon (D-TN) announced that he would retire at the end of this Congress. Gordon faced a strong GOP challenge. The Science Committee has jurisdiction over several key environmental issues.

"It is not easy to reinvent the wheel, but researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are giving it their best shot."

"Hispanic farmworkers in California poisoned by pesticides are demanding that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency exercise greater control over toxic substances used in agriculture."

"As environmental concerns threaten to derail natural gas drilling projects across the country, the energy industry has developed innovative ways to make it easier to exploit the nation's reserves without polluting air and drinking water." But are they used?

The first robot to cross the Atlantic Ocean is a prototype that may offer dramatic new opportunities for measuring the ocean's properties at various depths -- a key to better understanding of climate change, as well as an aid to hurricane prediction, fishing, and shipping.