Green Options

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Researchers in a remote jungle in Indonesia have discovered a giant rat and a tiny possum that are apparently new to science, underscoring the stunning biodiversity of the Southeast Asian nation, scientists said Monday.

Unearthing new species of mammals in the 21st century is considered very rare. The discoveries by a team of American and Indonesian scientists are being studied further to confirm their status.

The animals were found in the Foja mountains [...]

DETROIT, Michigan (AP) — Lee Thomas’ skin is betraying him.

His once brown, even complexion is now mottled with pale patches around his eyes and mouth, along his nose and on his ears; his arms, shoulders and chest are speckled and blotched.

“I’m a black man turning white on television and people can see it,” says Thomas, an anchor and entertainment reporter for the local Fox Broadcasting Company affiliate. “If you’ve watched me over the years, [...]

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Industrialized countries have a moral responsibility to help Africa mitigate the effects of climate change, Kenya’s Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai said on Friday.

“For the global South, especially Africa, environmental issues are not a luxury,” the environmental activist said in an article in Kenya’s Business Daily newspaper on the final day of climate change talks in Bali.

“Arresting the world’s warming and protecting and restoring our natural systems are issues of life and [...]

ATLANTA (Reuters) - Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee took the lead for the Republican nomination in the early-voting state of South Carolina in a poll released on Friday that mirrored his rapid rise in national polls.

Huckabee was the choice of 24 percent of South Carolina Republicans in the CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll taken December 9-12, up from 3 percent when a similar poll was conducted in July.

Huckabee campaigned this weekend in the state, which holds its Republican primary on January [...]

LONDON (Reuters) - Three British polar explorers have postponed for a year a trip to the North Pole they were due to make in early 2008 to try to establish when Arctic summer sea ice will vanish because of global warming.

A spokesman said on Friday expedition leader and veteran Polar explorer Pen Hadow had postponed the trip until February 2009 to expand the range of scientists and sponsors involved.

“It will only take a few [...]

NEW YORK, Dec 14 (Reuters Life!) - A few decades ago it would have made their mothers or grandmothers blush but pornography is now more acceptable for college women, researchers said.

They found that nearly half of female students in six colleges across the United States who took part in their study said viewing pornography was an acceptable way to express their sexuality.

The researchers from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah suggest that the easy availability of pornography on the Internet [...]

Exposure to traffic pollution may increase respiratory problems and reduce lung volumes in children with asthma, according to researchers who studied the effects of road and traffic density on children’s lung function and respiratory symptoms in the border town of Ciudad Juarez in Mexico.

“Our results show that close proximity to vehicular traffic-related emissions, either at home or at school, can lead to chronic effects in the respiratory health of children with asthma,” said Fernando Holguin, [...]

TORONTO (Reuters) - A Canadian oil-field worker, stunned to get a C$85,000 ($83,700) cell phone bill, has had the charges reduced to C$3,400, but is still fighting them.

Piotr Staniaszek, a 22-year-old oil and gas well tester in rural northwest Alberta, became a figure of international media attention this week when his father went to the press to complain about the size of his son’s bill.

Staniaszek’s father, also named Piotr Staniaszek, said his son thought he could use his new phone [...]

NUSA DUA, Indonesia (Reuters) - Climate talks in Bali reached a deal on Friday to tackle greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation, hailed as a sign of developing nations’ commitment to fighting global warming.

The breakthrough might eventually allow poor but forested nations to turn conservation into a tradeable commodity, with the potential to earn billions of dollars selling carbon credits.

But one of the scheme’s key architects warned that, if successful, it will create such large [...]

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada’s post office and police are trying to track down a “rogue elf” who wrote obscene letters to children on behalf of Santa Claus, a newspaper reported on Friday.

The Ottawa Citizen said at least 10 nasty letters had been delivered to little girls and boys in Ottawa who wrote to Santa this year care of the North Pole, which has a special H0H 0H0 Canadian postal code. Return letters from Santa are [...]

NUSA DUA, Indonesia (Reuters) - Europe toned down a clash with the United States over 2020 climate goals on the final day of U.N. talks in Bali on Friday, raising hopes of a deal to start negotiations on a new global warming treaty.

“I think that the situation is good, the climate in the climate conference is good, that we will have success in the end,” German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said in a shift [...]