"Here in the vast wilderness surrounding Peru's Alto Purús National Park, the locations of [mahogany] trees, worth tens of thousands of dollars in the United States, have become closely guarded secrets among members of indigenous tribes."

"The Arab world, one of the driest regions on the planet, will tip into severe water scarcity as early as 2015, a report issued [Nov. 4] predicts."

NDM-1, a gene that gives most gram-negative bacteria a resistance to almost all drugs used to treat them, has been spreading across the globe rapidly since it was discovered in 2008. It has been found in hospital-acquired infections in the U.S. It is bad news.

Bryan Fischer, the American Family Association's issues director, has called for all grizzlies to be shot on sight. He justifies the position by quoting Exodus.

"Up to 1.1 million acres of prairie in the Flint Hills of Kansas could be protected under the first National Wildlife Refuge unit designated by the Obama administration. To create the new protected area, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will establish a voluntary conservation easement program in eastern Kansas."

In a new book, a Dutch researcher says a new class of insecticides, the neonicotinoids, may be causing as much damage to bird populations as the DDT Rachel Carson wrote about in Silent Spring. Some bird populations in Europe are crashing dramatically.

A record amount of US corn-based ethanol is being exported, despite the PR campaign touting ethanol as a domestic alternative to importing foreign oil. The reason: a Congress-passed tax credit for blending ethanol with gasoline. The credit -- a giveaway adding at least $6 billion to the federal deficit -- is scheduled to expire this year.

"U.N. climate talks starting in Mexico this month will seek a complex set of interlocking deals to slow global warming but will fall well short of a new treaty, the U.N.'s climate chief said on Wednesday."

The Pew Environmental Group Thursday released a detailed report concluding that the risks of a blowout in Alaska's Beaufort Sea could be even worse than the Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf.

Residents of Joliet, Illinois, worry about what coal ash in huge pits will do to their wells -- and their health.