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Conservation biologists have successfully trained dogs to use their sharp sense of smell to help in a variety of conservation tasks.

"Glaciers in the Alps of Europe pose a scientific mystery. They started melting rapidly back in the 1860s. In a span of about 50 years, some of the biggest glaciers had retreated more than half a mile."

"The pending closure of the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station is the latest in a string of planned plant retirements that many industry analysts say forecast a shrinking role for nuclear in the nation’s energy mix."

"NORTH GRAFTON, Mass. -- A loon was beached on Cobbossee Lake in Winthrop, Maine, a maggot-filled wing wound keeping it from flying or resisting capture from a game warden."

"For years, the advocacy group Environment and Human Health Inc. has led the battle against outdoor wood furnaces, claiming their smoke is bad to breathe. Now it has an ally -- Attorney General George Jepsen."

"The human genome codes for approximately 23,000 genes, yet some experts have suggested that the total information coded by the human genome alone is not enough to carry out all of the body’s biological functions. A growing number of studies suggest that part of what determines how the human body functions may be not only our own genes, but also the genes of the trillions of microorganisms that reside on and in our bodies."

The small Michigan town of Mancelona is the site of one of the nation's largest underground plumes of the toxic industrial solvent trichloroethylene. Wells dug to supply uncontaminated water are now themselves threatened.

"The Eagle Ford shale geological formation unfurls through the lower third of Texas, stretching 400 miles long and 50 miles wide from East Texas to Mexico, from Brazos County northeast of Houston to the Burgos Basin just over the border."

"Firefighters in California gained ground on Monday against a massive wildfire burning part of Yosemite National Park, although complete containment may be weeks away, officials said."

"Japan pledged nearly $500 million to contain leaks and decontaminate radioactive water from the tsunami-crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, as the government stepped up its intervention in the worst atomic disaster in a quarter century."