The oil giant plans to start drilling in the Arctic this fall - and the Obama administration is doing nothing to stop it

On June 15th, as BP's catastrophic spill in the Gulf neared its third month, President Obama addressed the nation from the Oval Office. His administration, he assured the American people, would not let such a disaster happen again. He had put an indefinite hold on plans to open up new coastal areas, including Florida and Virginia, to offshore exploration. And he had frozen all new permits to drill in deep waters for six months, to give a blue-ribbon commission time to study the disaster. "We need better regulations, better safety standards and better enforcement," the president insisted.

But Obama's tough-guy act offers no guarantee that oil giants like BP won't be permitted to repeat the same mistakes that led to the nightmare in the Gulf. Indeed, top environmentalists warn, the suspension of drilling appears to be little more than a stalling tactic designed to let public anger over BP's spill subside before giving Big Oil the go-ahead to drill in an area that has long been off-limits: the Arctic Ocean. The administration has approved plans by both BP and Shell Oil to drill a total of 11 exploratory wells in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas above Alaska - waters far more remote and hostile than the Gulf. Shell's operations could proceed as soon as the president's suspension expires in January. And thanks to an odd twist in its rig design, BP's drilling in the Arctic is on track to get the green light as soon as this fall.

"The administration seems to want to avoid just shutting down these leases, even though they have every legal right to," says Charles Clusen, who leads the Alaska project for the Natural Resources Defense Council. "My fear is that people will start to forget about the Gulf spill, and the government will give Shell permits next year. We'll have had a pause, but not enough to assess the resources at risk or to develop technology that would be truly safe."

Firefighters were making progress Thursday containing a wildfire that has burned more than 22 square miles of scenic northern Arizona forest.

U.S. Forest Service spokesman Willie Begay said the Schultz fire burning near Flagstaff was 25 percent contained and holding at 14,300 acres.

Begay said fire bosses are concerned about winds of 15 mph predicted in the fire zone Friday, with possible gusts over 25 mph. Air tankers packed with fire retardant and helicopters dropping water are on standby in case fire managers need to call them in.

Crews spent Thursday securing and building fire lines on the west, south and north sides of the fire as they prepare for whatever the wind brings. Dark smoke could be seen east of Flagstaff on Thursday afternoon.

American scientists who shot nearly 1,000 sperm whales with tissue-sampling darts discovered stunningly high levels of toxic and heavy metals in the animals that they say could affect the health of both ocean life and the millions who eat seafood.

A report Thursday noted high levels of cadmium, aluminum, chromium, lead, silver, mercury and titanium in the mammals, according to samples taken over five years.

Analysis of cells from the sperm whales showed that pollution is reaching the farthest corners of the oceans, from deep in the polar region to "the middle of nowhere" in the equatorial regions, said biologist Roger Payne, founder and president of Ocean Alliance that conducted the research. The whales travel on voyages up to 87,000 miles (140,000 kilometers).

"The entire ocean life is just loaded with a series of contaminants, most of which have been released by human beings," Payne said in an interview on the sidelines of the International Whaling Commission's annual meeting.

Four leaders of a Rockford, Illinois Boy Scout group may be wishing they had taken their own advice, after being struck by lightning Wednesday afternoon in Rock Island.

"The sirens went off. The radio with us, it went off. So we sent the boys up for protection and it just happened real quick," said Jesse McDuell, a scout leader who was hit by lightning.

About 5 p.m. Wednesday night, a slew of dangerous storms closed in on the KOA campground where the scouts were staying since Sunday.

With the seven boys in a restroom shelter, the four leaders grabbed onto the metal braces of an awning, trying to keep it from blowing away.

A North Carolina man dubbed the unluckiest in the state had the unlikely experience of being mauled by a bear -- four years after being struck by lightning.

Rick Oliver, 51, of Wake County, said he was attacked by a bear while working on his truck at about 2 a.m. June 3, leaving him with deep cuts on his wrist, the Raleigh News & Observer reported Thursday.

"You have a greater chance of getting struck by lightning than getting killed by a bear," a report published by the U.S. Forest Service's Bear Aware program reads.

However, Oliver had the unlikely experience of a bear attack only four years after being struck by lightning.

A University of Alberta research team has discovered that a plant's strategy to capture nutrients in the soil is the result of integration of different types of information.

U of A ecologist J.C. Cahill says the plant's strategy mirrors the daily risk-versus-reward dilemmas that animals experience in their quest for food.

Biologists established long ago that an animal uses information about both the location of a food supply and potential competitors to determine an optimal foraging strategy. Its subsequent behavioral response is based on whether the food supply is rich enough to accept the risks associated with engaging in competition with other animals.

Cahill found plants also have the ability to integrate information about the location of both food and competitors. As a result, plants demonstrate unique behavioural strategies to capture soil resources.

For a plant, light is life. It drives everything from photosynthesis to growth and reproduction. Yet the chain of molecular events that enables light signals to control gene activity and ultimately a plant's architecture had remained in the dark. Now a team of researchers from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and Duke University have identified the courier that gives the signal to revamp the plant's gene expression pattern after photoreceptors have been activated by light.

"Light is probably the most important environmental cue for a plant," says Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator Joanne Chory, Ph.D., professor and director of the Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology Laboratory and holder of the Howard H. and Maryam R. Newman Chair. "Understanding how light signaling triggers morphological changes in the plant will have a really big impact on every facet of plant biology."

Most animals are able to move away from unfavorable conditions, but plants are sessile and must cope with whatever comes their way. "They have developed an amazing plasticity to deal with varying environmental conditions," says first author Meng Chen, Ph.D., formerly a postdoctoral researcher in the Chory laboratory and now an assistant professor in the Department of Biology at Duke University.

Their findings, which are published in the June 25 issue of Cell, bring scientists a photon closer to being able to harness plants' phenotypic plasticity to help boost agricultural yields and manage weeds under challenging growing conditions.

Date-Time:
Thursday, June 24, 2010 at 05:32:28 UTC

Thursday, June 24, 2010 at 03:32:28 PM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
5.531°S, 151.157°E

Depth:
42 km (26.1 miles) set by location program

Region
NEW BRITAIN REGION, PAPUA NEW GUINEA

Distances:
110 km (70 miles) E of Kimbe, New Britain, PNG

185 km (115 miles) SW of Rabaul, New Britain, PNG

615 km (385 miles) NE of PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea

2430 km (1510 miles) N of BRISBANE, Queensland, Australia

Two scenes from Pensacola-- one of a dying baby dolphin, the other of water bubbling like there's acid in it.

A dying, oil-covered baby dolphin is taken from Pensacola waters. It died shortly after being discovered.

Pensacola Beach -- The worst blow yet to the Florida coastline from the growing oil spill struck Wednesday in an eight-mile line of thick, sticky goo that stained the pristine sands of this Panhandle community.

Workers spent the day raking up the chocolate-brown oil mats and tar patches that washed ashore, and the state ordered road graders to lift the gunk from the once-white beaches.

Some local leaders complained it was too little, too late.

''It's pitiful,'' said Buck Lee, executive director of the Santa Rosa County Island Authority. ''It took us four hours to clean up 50 to 60 feet of beach and I don't see this stopping for a while.''