"Most people try to avoid ticks. But not Tom Mather. The University of Rhode Island researcher goes out of his way to find them."

"She may be the only boss in America who will tell you during a job interview that you really, truly, almost certainly don't want the job. Go home and think about it, she might say. Reconsider if you need. Imagine what you'll be doing."

"JUNGFRAUJOCH, Switzerland -- On a clear day at the Sphinx, a legendary atmospheric observatory 11,000 feet up in the snowed-in peaks of the Bernese Alps, the blue sky runs down green hills and white glaciers toward seemingly all of Europe beyond. On a lucky day here, though, there's only gray. There are only clouds."

"The Environmental Protection Agency updated water quality guidelines for the nation's beaches Monday, moving in response to charges that the federal government has not done enough to protect bathers from polluted water."

"Republicans stopped Sen. Jon Tester's (D-Mont.) Sportsmen's Act dead in its tracks Monday evening."

"The United States resisted pledging steeper cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 on Monday despite calls by poor nations at the start of a U.N conference for tougher action to avert storms, droughts and rising seas."

"For drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline, the 17-page article in the New England Journal of Medicine represented a coup. The 2006 report described a trial that compared three diabetes drugs and concluded that Avandia, the company’s new drug, performed best. ... What only careful readers of the article would have gleaned is the extent of the financial connections between the drugmaker and the research."

"A species of giant tortoises from the Galapagos Islands could be brought back from extinction despite the death earlier this year of the famed 'Lonesome George,' a tourist magnet and conservation icon who was the last of his kind."

"A top Mexican government official said Thursday that the long-awaited but highly controversial approval of genetically modified (GM) corn fields on a commercial scale will drag into next year."

"The Obama administration [Wednesday] released a final rule setting aside 9.6 million acres of critical habitat for the federally threatened northern spotted owl, a species whose population continues to slide despite decades of conservation efforts."