AP - Crime scene DNA is typically recovered from blood or semen stains, but the DNA that exonerated members of JonBenet Ramsey's family came from invisible skin cells.
Reuters - A top U.S. Democratic senator said in
a newspaper interview published Wednesday that he would
consider supporting opening up new areas for offshore oil and
gas drilling.
Reuters - Some odd-looking fish fossils
discovered in the bowels of several European museums may help
solve a lingering question about evolutionary theory, U.S.
researchers said on Wednesday.
AP - A zookeeper's house cat has adopted a baby red panda abandoned by its mother and is nursing the cub along with her own kittens, the Artis zoo said Wednesday.
LiveScience.com - A funky fish with one eye atop its head and another on its side lurked in Europe's reef shallows about 50 million years ago, newfound transitional fossils suggest. -- read full article
LiveScience.com - Artists may now be able to paint dinosaurs and ancient birds and mammals in their true colors, thanks to the discovery of pigment residues in fossilized feathers.
In recent years, paleontologists have found fossil feathers in about 50 rock formations pegged to dates ranging from the Jurassic period (from about 200 million to 150 million years ago) to the late Tertiary (from 65 million to about 2 million years ago).
These feathers are preserved as residues of carbon that were previously thought to be traces of feather-degrading bacteria. ... -- read full article
AP - Nine environmental groups said Tuesday they plan to sue the federal government if wolverines aren't granted protection under the Endangered Species Act within 60 days.
AP - The United States and leaders of the Czech Republic agreed Tuesday to place a radar system in this former Soviet satellite that would warn of long-range missiles coming to Europe from the Middle East.
LiveScience.com - Some songbirds can contract their vocal muscles with the
fastest muscle movements yet described - about 100 times faster than humans can
blink an eye, according to new research. -- read full article
AP - A 14,500-year-old woolly mammoth skeleton dug up in 1994 has been unveiled at the Milwaukee Public Museum, giving locals a glimpse of perhaps the most intact specimen discovered in North America.
AP - Pressured by desperate parents, government researchers are pushing to test an unproven treatment on autistic children, a move some scientists see as an unethical experiment in voodoo medicine.
AP - A joint gathering of major developed and developing nations on Wednesday agreed that climate change was "one of the great global challenges of our time" and pledged to back a United Nations effort to conclude new climate pact by 2009. The major economies said they supported longterm and midterm goals for greenhouse-gas reductions, but endorsed no targets.
