AP - The National Hurricane Center's director says it could take tens of millions of dollars for research and up to 10 years if officials want to substantially reduce errors in forecasting the intensity of hurricanes. -- read full article
LiveScience.com - A new study published by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS)
predicts there will be more than 55 million cosmetic surgery procedures
performed in 2015. That's nearly one procedure for every five
Americans, including children, based on U.S. Census Bureau population
projections. Of course, the bulk of procedures are done on adults, and
some people might get more than one body part fixed in a year. -- read full article
AFP - Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region said it has signed two oil contracts with Canada's Talisman Energy despite Baghdad's stiff opposition to such deals before a national oil law is drawn up.
AFP - The 80-nation International Whaling Commission gathered here at its annual meeting Monday with its very existence at stake amid tension over Japan's perennial bid to resume commercial whale hunting.
AFP - Astronomical clues found in Homer's "The Odyssey" could help confirm a total solar eclipse when Odysseus returned home, providing a potentially accurate timeline for the fall of Troy, two scientists reported Monday.
Reuters - Divers found
ghostly white bodies floating head up inside a sunken passenger
ferry in the central Philippines on Tuesday raising fears of a
mass grave below the waves.
LiveScience.com - Neanderthal tools found in England suggest our early human relatives hunted with blades and spear tips that were pretty sophisticated, rivaling those made by modern humans, a new analysis suggests. -- read full article
AP - For the last three years, researchers in camouflage and waders have slogged through the east Arkansas woods hoping to spot a rare bird that so far seems unwilling to be seen.
AP - NASA told a Senate panel on Monday that it anticipates losing 3,000 to 4,000 jobs at its launching site once the space shuttles stop flying in two more years, about half the cutback initially reported.
AP - Using clues from star and sun positions mentioned by the ancient Greek poet Homer, scholars think they have determined the date when King Odysseus returned from the Trojan War and slaughtered a group of suitors who had been pressing his wife to marry one of them. -- read full article
AP - Exactly 20 years after warning America about global warming, a top NASA scientist said the situation has gotten so bad that the world's only hope is drastic action.
AFP - Oil prices rose above 136 dollars a barrel on Monday after major energy producers ruled out further output despite consumer fears the world faces a tight supply situation.
AFP - The 80-nation International Whaling Commission began meeting in Chile Monday to debate whether to lift a 22-year-old ban on commercial whale-hunting.
SPACE.com - When astronauts Pete Conrad and Alan Bean stepped out of the
Apollo 12 lunar module in November 1969, they were within walking distance of
Surveyor 3, an unmanned U.S. spacecraft that had landed in April 1967. -- read full article
