Reuters - U.S. Energy Secretary Sam Bodman told Congress on Thursday that crude oil prices have reached record-high levels of $135 a barrel because global oil production has failed to keep up with demand.

LiveScience.com - More than 50 percent of wide-ranging oceanic shark species are threatened with extinction as a result of overfishing, according to a new study.

AFP - Deposits of silica detected in 2007 by the US robot Spirit on Mars were formed by volcanic vapors or hot-spring-type events crossing through soil and could contain traces of past life, scientists found in a study out Thursday.

Reuters - The 2008 Atlantic hurricane season will be active with 12 to 16 named storms, six to nine of which are expected to become hurricanes, the U.S. government's top climate agency predicted on Thursday.

AP - Chain saws scream in a northern Michigan forest, but it's not the familiar sound of lumberjacks.

AFP - Oil prices leapfrogged to record highs above 135 dollars on Thursday on runaway fears about strained energy supplies and fervent demand, analysts said.

Reuters - President George W. Bush on Wednesday signed a law that prohibits discrimination against anyone whose genetic information shows a predisposition to illnesses such as cancer or heart disease.

AP - Scientists say they have found dinosaur tracks on the Arabian Peninsula, a discovery they say may shed more light on where dinosaurs lived, their migration patterns and how they evolved they way they did.

AP - The state of Alaska will sue to challenge the recent listing of polar bears as a threatened species, Gov. Sarah Palin announced Wednesday.

AP - In a stroke of cosmic luck, astronomers for the first time witnessed the start of one of the universe's most fiery events: the end of a star's life as it exploded into a supernova.

Reuters - The last two Atlantic hurricane seasons passed with barely a stir in south Louisiana, sparing New Orleans another disaster. But some local officials fear the respite may have contributed to a false sense of safety in parts of the city that still face great danger.