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In the wake of radioactive releases from Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, critics are saying a California nuclear plant's susceptibility to earthquakes and tsunamis could affect its chances of renewing its operating license. While the federal licenses for Pacific Gas & Electric's Diablo Canyon plant, near San Luis Obispo, and Southern California Edison's San Onofre plant are valid for at least another decade, both utilities have begun the renewal process ahead of time.

One of the risks in writing about endangered species is concentrating too much on the cute ones. But I couldn't skip covering the African black-footed cat ( Felis nigripes ) and the scientific breakthrough that could give this rare species an extra chance at survival. The African black-footed cat is one of the world's smallest and rarest cat species, not to mention one of the least studied.

Dear EarthTalk : Instances of people with thyroid problems seems to be on the rise.

The sun strikes every square meter of our planet with more than 1,360 watts of power. Half of that energy is absorbed by the atmosphere or reflected back into space.

High-end restaurants have begun adding a new piece of equipment to the kitchen that until recently was found mainly in medical laboratories and university chemistry departments. The bigger versions look a bit like washing machines, but the spin cycle in these ultracentrifuges is a lot more powerful than that of any Maytag. They whirl vials around tens of thousands of times a minute, generating centrifugal forces up to 30,000 times as strong as Earth’s gravity.

By Jon Cartwright Scientists in the United States have devised a new way to avoid collisions among space debris, and possibly even reduce the amount of debris in orbit. [More]

A full meltdown has been avoided so far at Japan's 40-year-old Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

By K.S. [More]

Imagine life without fire. A lot of huddling for warmth

Whenever someone finds out I'm an identical twin, one question is always asked. "So, who's older?" [More]

How does a nuclear reactor work? Most nuclear reactors, including those at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi generating station, are essentially high-tech kettles that efficiently boil water to produce electricity. They rely on harnessing nuclear fission--the splitting of an atom into two smaller atoms, which also yields heat and sends neutrons flying.

Mr. Jacob Stauffer, a naturalist from Lancaster, PA, sent in this drawing of a five legged frog that was captured in Conestoga, PA (near Lancaster). The extra leg seemed to be a fusion of two hind legs rather than a full-grown independent limb

People preaching their point of view seem awfully sure of themselves. [More]

Just after 6 AM local time on Tuesday in Japan, a sound like an explosion was heard near the suppression pool of reactor No. 2 at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. This followed an explosion March 11 that ripped the roof off reactor No

By Amy Maxmen Helpful bacteria don't just aid digestion; they also fend off the flu, according to a report published March 14 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. A research team led by Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, found that mice treated with neomycin antibiotics were more susceptible than control mice to influenza viruses.