Starfish, whose fanciful five-armed figure is symbolic of the seashore, have become veritable shooting stars of late - here one moment, gone the next.

Following a boom in their population only a few years ago, starfish have since become so scarce that researchers in Rhode Island are even having difficulty collecting enough of them to study an unidentified disease that may be linked to their die-off.

"It's one of those mystery detective stories," said Marta Gomez-Chiarri, a biology professor at the University of Rhode Island in the department of fisheries, animal and veterinary science.

The case of the disappearing starfish, also known as sea stars, began more than a year ago when Caitlin DelSesto, then an undergraduate student at URI, began collecting starfish for a project on how they respond to ocean acidification, a symptom of climate change.

The operator of Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, TEPCO, has admitted for the first time since March 2011 that crippled reactors continue to leak highly contaminated radioactive waters into the Pacific Ocean.

TEPCO had previously denied suspicions that contaminated water had reached the sea, despite the fact that levels of potentially cancer-causing radioactive substances present in ground and seawater samples at the plant had soared.

"But now we believe that contaminated water has flown out to the sea," TEPCO spokesman Masayuki Ono said at a Monday news conference.

Study part-funded by the CIA to investigate national security implications of geoengineering

The power, reach and influence of the Central Intelligence Agency is a staple of conspiracy theories.

The news that the CIA is reportedly part-funding a scientific geoengineering study into how to control the weather is unlikely to dampen speculation over their activities.

According to US website 'Mother Jones' the CIA is helping fund a study by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) that will investigate whether humans could use geoengineering - which is defined as deliberate and large-scale intervention in the Earth's climatic system - to stop climate change.

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In the blink of an eye, an enormous bright red light flashes above a thundercloud, spreading energetic branches that extend five times taller than Mount Everest and look like jellyfish tendrils and angel's wings.

These mysterious phenomena are known as Transient Luminous Events (TLEs), and are usually invisible to the naked eye because they happen on millisecond timescales, too fast to be seen. They occur between 50 to 100 kilometers above the ground, a long-ignored area of the atmosphere that is too high for aircraft but too low for satellites to investigate. There, the thin air interacts with strong electrical fields to ionize molecules and create arcing plasmas.

Tharparkar: Wildlife Department has failed to control the New Castle "Ranikhet" disease as two more peacocks died of the deadly disease here on Thursday raising the overall death toll to 118.

It should be mentioned that beauty of Tharparkar, renowned for the wandering peacocks in open air, was fading due to deaths of peacocks due to birds epidemics.

More than 300 peacocks were killed of New Castle disease locally known as Ranikhet last year and 118 have died during last two months.

The locals who love the precious bird like their other pets have expressed grave concerns over outspread of disease as it claimed more than 100 of their beloved birds besides leaving dozens others affected. It was feared that death toll may rise further as many peacocks were stated to be adversely affected of Ranikhet.

They demanded the Wildlife Department and government to take steps to save the precious birds from extinction.

Forest fires are burning north and east of Russia's Irkutsk Oblast. The Irkutsk Oblast is located in southeastern Siberia in the basins of Angara, Lena, and Nizhnyaya Tunguska Rivers.

NASA's Aqua satellite passed over the area and captured an image showing multiple forest fires and smoke plumes. Some of the places affected by the smoke include Cokhchuolu, Ust'ye-Chony, Skysykatakh, and Chernyshevskiy along the Vilyuy River. These appear to be recreational areas.

South of the Vilyuy River is the town of Mirny. It is known for having the world's largest diamond mine.

Forest fires continue to plague the hot, dry western part of the United States this summer. In Idaho, several fires were spotted by NASA's Aqua satellite on July 20, 2013. Actively burning areas, detected by MODIS's thermal bands, are outlined in red.

The Lodgepole Fire was detected at noon on Saturday, July 20. Local fire resources were dispatched to the scene where aggressive fire suppression efforts were put into place. The fire is currently burning in lodge pole pine and dispersed Douglas fir. Currently 650 acres have burned and the cause of this fire is under investigation.

The 3,060 acre Ridge Fire has been burning since July 18, the result of a lightning strike. It is currently 7% contained. Fire crews are being helicoptered into the remote, steep location to fight the fire.

Scientists from Denmark and Canada are worried by their new findings showing that several bioaccumulative perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) are crossing the blood brain barrier of polar bears from Scoresby Sound, East Greenland.

PerFluoroAlkyl Substances (PFASs) and precursor compounds have been used in a wide variety of commercial and industrial products over the past six decades. Applications include water and oil repellent coatings, e.g. for textiles, paper products, carpets and food packaging, pharmaceuticals and surfactants in cleaning products and fire-fighting foams. PFASs are highly resistant to chemical, thermal and biological degradation.

PFASs and their precursor compounds have shown a dramatic increase and dispersal around the world over the past four decades. An increasing amount of information is becoming available on the toxicity of these compounds. Hence, studies have documented the toxicity of PFASs on wildlife and human health, including carcinogenesis, genotoxicity and epigenetic effects as well as reproductive and developmental toxicities, neurotoxicity, effects on the endocrine system and immunotoxicity.

Bioaccumulative PFASs enter all parts of the brain

Despite the fact that the liver is considered the major repository in the body for most PFASs, some shorter chain compounds from this grouping have previously been reported in the brain of chicken embryos, suggesting that they are able to cross the blood-brain barrier.

Previous studies have shown a dramatic biomagnification of several PFASs, and particularly one known as perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) as well as several compounds of the perfluorinated carboxylate (PFCAs) grouping, in polar bears. PFOS have been shown to be at concentrations in the liver that are 100 fold higher than the ringed seals on which they are predating. In a new study Arctic researchers from Carleton University in Canada and Aarhus University in Denmark have used the polar bear as a sentinel species for humans and other predators in the top of the food chain. The researchers demonstrated accumulation of PFOS and several PFCAs in eight brain regions of polar bears collected from Scoresby Sound, East Greenland. Dr. Robert Letcher, Carleton University, explains:

"We know that fat soluble contaminants are able to cross the brain-blood barrier, but is it quite worrying that the PFOS and PFCAs, which are more associated with proteins in the body, were present in all the brain regions we analyzed."

Professor Rune Dietz, Aarhus University, is also worried about the results: "If PFOS and PFCAs can cross the blood-brain barrier in polar bears, it will also be the case in humans. The brain is one of the most essential parts of the body, where anthropogenic chemicals can have a severe impact. However, we are beginning to see the effect of the efforts to minimize the dispersal of this group of contaminants."

Two decades of plummeting population halves number of key species, adversely affecting bees, birds and biodiversity - study

Europe's grassland butterfly population has plummeted in the past two decades, new research published on Tuesday shows, with a near halving in the numbers of key species since 1990.

The precipitous decline has been blamed on poor agricultural practices and pesticides, by the European Environment Agency, which carried out the research. Falling numbers of butterflies are bad news not just for nature-lovers and for biodiversity, but have a knock-on effect on farming, as - like bees - they act as pollinators, and their disappearance harms birds and other creatures that need them for food.

Butterfly populations are a leading indicator of the health of other insect species. The new study therefore suggests many other species of insect, which are also food sources for birds and small mammals, and which play a key role in the health of the countryside, are also under threat.

Scientists from the EEA, the European Unoin's environment watchdog, looked at 17 key species of grassland butterflies, of which seven were common species and 10 more specialist, using data gathered from 1990 to 2011 in 19 European countries. Of the total 17 species, eight have declined, including the common blue, which has suffered a serious fall in numbers; two species remained stable, including the Orangetip; and only one increased. The trend for the remaining six species is still uncertain, including the much-appreciated Lulworth skipper, beloved of butterfly watchers.

Grassland butterflies make up the majority of butterflies in Europe, with over 250 species out of the more than 400 found in Europe. Others species prefer to colonise woods, wetlands, heaths and other habitats. Chris van Swaay, one of the authors of the report, from the Dutch conservation organisation De Vlinderstichting, said that the same pesticides that affect bees - leading to the EU to ban certain products, at least temporarily - also have an effect on butterflies. "The pesticide problem is especially a problem in the intensive agricultural areas of western Europe," he said. "In eastern Europe, it is less of a problem."

A 2-year-old girl was recovering Tuesday after being attacked by a coyote.

The girl was with her mother at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Cypress on July 18 when the attack occurred, authorities said.

"My 3-year-old said 'oh a doggy' and I said 'no that's a coyote.' As I was running over there my daughter Klarissa turned around and it bit her." mother Michelle Luper said.

The coyote bit the girl on her back, then dragged her by the leg toward some bushes.