WASHINGTON, D.C.–(ENEWSPF)–July 28, 2011.  U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) today chaired a hearing of the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Subcommittee to examine the federal government’s preparedness for the economic impact of weather events which are growing in frequency and severity.  Traditionally, disaster relief funding has been largely unplanned[Read More…]

Washington, DC–(ENEWSPF)–July 28, 2011.  A new report released last week finds that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) voluntary program to evaluate chemicals fails to protect children. According to the evaluation report by EPA’s Inspector General, the Voluntary Children’s Chemical Evaluation Program (VCCEP) was hampered by industry’s refusal to voluntarily[Read More…]

WASHINGTON—(ENEWSPF)—July 28, 2011. Caterpillar Inc. has agreed to pay a $2.55 million civil penalty to settle alleged Clean Air Act violations for shipping more than 590,000 highway and non-road engines without the correct emissions controls, the Justice Department and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced today.   Caterpillar also allegedly failed to[Read More…]

WASHINGTON DC–(ENEWSPF)–July 28, 2011.  As the nation grapples with a record year for storms, drought and weather-related devastation, a new report released yesterday by the Natural Resources Defense Council reveals climate change is leaving American cities open to a range of water-related vulnerabilities – from drought to sea level rise[Read More…]

UNITED KINGDOM–(ENEWSPF)–27 July 2011.  The farther that human populations live from the equator, the bigger their brains, according to a new study by Oxford University. But it turns out that this is not because they are smarter, but because they need bigger vision areas in the brain to cope with[Read More…]

UNITED KINGDOM–(ENEWSPF)–27 July 2011.  Oxford scientists are producing an entire map of the world’s religious forests – locations that contain some of richest biodiversity in the world, including some of the highest numbers of threatened species. A research team is now engaged in a project to scientifically measure the full[Read More…]

WASHINGTON–(ENEWSPF)–July 26, 2011.  International wildlife conservation groups Pro Wildlife, Defenders of Wildlife, and the Animal Welfare Institute, issued a report today titled Canapés to Extinction: The international trade in frogs’ legs and its ecological impact. The report is the first comprehensive study of the frog leg market ever conducted and[Read More…]

UNITED KINGDOM–(ENEWSPF)–26 July 2011.  Members of the public are being asked to help decode papyri, in order to find fragments of lost gospels, works of literature, and letters about everyday life in ancient Egypt, in a new project launched by Oxford University. Ancient Lives (http://ancientlives.org/) which launches today, is putting[Read More…]

Washington, DC–(ENEWSPF)–July 26, 2011.  Yesterday, in the case of Oluf Johnson v. Paynesville Farmers Union Cooperative Oil Company, Judge Ross of the Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled that pesticides drifting from one farm to another may constitute trespass. Organic farmers Oluf and Debra Johnson filed a civil suit alleging that[Read More…]

Source: Hubblesite.org Liverpool-(ENEWSPF)- Astronomers are puzzled by the announcement that the masses of the largest objects in the Universe appear to depend on which method is used to weigh them. The new work was presented at a specialist discussion meeting on ‘Scaling Relations of Galaxy Clusters’ organised by the Astrophysics[Read More…]