Science News

Some interesting electrical activity in the clouds of ash drifting around Europe as a result of that Icelandic volcano. Models predicted that electrical charge should be limited to the top and bottom of any ash plume, which is often the site of spectacular lightning.

But info obtained by a weather balloon found significant electrical charge within the plume. And that such charge was being generated within the plume--it wasn’t a remnant of the energy of the volcanic eruption or a result of any local weather events. Interactions among ash particles seem to be constantly renewing the charge.

By Rob Taylor

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Australia's government on Friday announced plans for legal action against Japan to stop Southern Ocean scientific whaling, but said it did not expect retaliation from its second-biggest trading partner.

Never mind your dentist. Your cardiologist might want you to brush your teeth more often. [More]

After a 16-hour pause to evaluate the effects of the " top kill " operation, BP plans to start pumping mud again this evening in an attempt to staunch the flow of oil from the MC 252 well in the Gulf of Mexico. In the meantime, "the well continues to flow," said BP chief operating officer Doug Suttles during a press briefing on May 27 . "We have not yet stopped the flow so the operation has not yet achieved its objective." [More]

BP's "top kill" effort has halted the flow of oil from the Mississippi Canyon 252 well, according to U.S. Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, national incident commander for the oil spill response. BP has yet to comment, however, noting only that "there are no significant events to report at this time," according to a statement on its Web site .

A set of descriptions last year of a 4.4-million-year-old hominid dubbed Ardipithecus ramidus pegged the primate as a human ancestor that lived in ancient African woodlands. [More]

By Chris Baltimore

HOUSTON (Reuters) - The amount of oil spilled by BP Plc's blown-out Gulf of Mexico well has eclipsed the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster, and could be flowing at a rate nearly four times BP's recent estimates, according to findings of a U.S. government expert panel released on Thursday.

MIAMI--A satellite launched by NASA in 2009 to map the sky in infrared wavelengths is beginning to deliver on one of its ancillary promises, the mission's scientific leader said here at the semiannual meeting of the American Astronomical Society. Edward Wright , a University of California, Los Angeles, astronomer who serves as principal investigator for the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), said in a talk Monday that the spacecraft has already discovered at least two cool, substellar objects known as brown dwarfs. [More]