"The largest gathering of scientists and engineers from around the world to discuss the effects of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill kicks off in New Orleans on Monday, with more than 800 people from universities, state and federal agencies, non-governmental organizations and industry expected to attend. The three day Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill & Ecosystem Science Conference is aimed at understanding the impacts of pollution resulting from the spill and its effect on natural systems in the Gulf and along the shoreline, and on the people who live and work there."

"The lighting industry has finally come up with an energy-efficient replacement for the standard incandescent bulb that people actually seem to like: the LED bulb."

"In a bid to clean up one of the nation’s dirtiest coal-fired power plants without causing economic harm to the Navajo Nation that surrounds it, the Environmental Protection Agency indicated on Friday that it would give the plant’s owners five extra years, until 2023, to install expensive state-of-the art emissions reduction equipment."

"A Harvard academic has put the blame squarely for America's failure to act on climate change on environmental groups. She also argues that there is little prospect Barack Obama will put climate change on the top of his agenda in his second term."

"President Obama made addressing climate change the most prominent policy vow of his second Inaugural Address on Monday, setting in motion what Democrats say will be a deliberately paced but aggressive campaign built around the use of his executive powers to sidestep Congressional opposition."

"ANCHORAGE -- North America's largest living land mammals could roam the Alaska wilderness again by 2014, a century after they vanished in the state, under an agreement announced on Thursday to reintroduce wood bison to the lower Yukon River area."

"Diet and exercise are seen as the key factors that cause obesity, but new research suggests that certain chemicals called obesogens contribute to the global weight problem. Bruce Blumberg, professor of developmental and cell biology at the University of California at Irvine tells host Steve Curwood that the effects of an obesogenic chemical he studied seem to persist for several generations."

"CHATHAM, Va. -- In a landscape of rolling pastures and grazing cattle, Stewart East stepped from his pickup truck with a Geiger counter. He pointed it at a puddle filled by recent rains, and the instrument erupted in scratchy feedback."

"Washington -- Denise Tortorello, a real estate agent at Riviera Realty in Point Pleasant, N.J., said she can't tell yet where property values are headed since Hurricane Sandy demolished a string of beach towns built on a slender strip of barrier islands in the Atlantic."

"On Jan. 11, the National Climate Assessment Advisory Committee -- a consortium of 13 federal agencies -- released its third draft report on the impact of climate change on the U.S. As seems to be the rule with federal documents, it’s monstrously long, but fairly readable and the online table of contents is easy to navigate."