Japan launches 5th spy satellite
TOKYO (AP) — Japan launched its fifth spy satellite into orbit Saturday in a bid to boost its ability to independently gather intelligence, the government said. The domestically developed H-2A rocket carrying the $565 million satellite lifted off from a space center on the southern island of Tanegashima, said Hisashi Michigami, an official at the Cabinet Office.
Rat pack: Scientists warming up to African rodent
SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Naked mole rats don't get cancer. They shrug off brushes with acid and age so well, some are older than the college-aged researchers handling them. "They really are from Mars, I think," said Thomas Park, a professor of biological sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Space shuttle Atlantis, 7 astronauts back on Earth
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Space shuttle Atlantis and its seven astronauts returned to Earth with a smooth touchdown Friday to end an "amazing" flight that resupplied the International Space Station. Within a few hours of landing, the astronauts feasted on turkey and trimmings with their families.
NASA: Floating 'junk' no threat to space station
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA says a piece of old space junk that it's been tracking for a few days is no threat to the International Space Station. But there's another piece of debris in the space station's neighborhood.
Britain, France back global fund for climate ills
PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad (AP) — The leaders of Britain and France gave their backing Friday to a global fund that would provide billions of dollars to poor countries to help them reduce the output of greenhouse gases linked to climate change. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy said the wealthiest nations should set aside the money as part of a climate agreement at next month's U.N. summit on the issue in Copenhagen.
In Greenland, warming fuels dream of hidden wealth
TASIILAQ, Greenland (AP) — Gert Ignatiussen returns to this fjord-front Inuit town with the spoils of his hunting trip. Six seals, all killed with a single shot to the head. With nimble handwork, his wife Bartholine cuts them up on the porch of their wood-frame home, saving the best meat for dinner. Ignatiussen throws leftover chunks of flesh and intestines to the yelping sled dogs fettered on a dusty slope below the house.
China to launch second lunar probe next October
BEIJING (AP) — China is set to launch its second lunar probe next October in preparation for an unmanned moon landing by the end of 2012, space program officials were quoted Friday as saying. The Chang'e 2 probe is an advanced version of the Chang'e 1 that crashed into the moon in a controlled collision at the end of a 16-month mission in March.
Indonesia rejects Bali plan for turtle sacrifices
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesia has rejected a push by the resort island of Bali for rare turtles to be legally slain in Hindu ceremonies, siding with conservationists of the protected reptiles against religious advocates, an official said Friday. Bali Governor I Made Mangku Pastika enraged environmentalists by advocating a quota of 1,000 green turtles be killed each year, strictly for ceremonial purposes.
New climate targets may not change daily life much
WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans' day-to-day lives won't change noticeably if President Barack Obama achieves his newly announced goal of slashing carbon dioxide pollution by one-sixth in the next decade, experts say. Except for rising energy bills. And how much they'll go up depends on who's doing the calculating.
Jobs, economics complicate Brazil's Amazon fight
NOVO PROGRESSO, Brazil (AP) — Drawing his .40-caliber pistol, Severiano Pontes dashes across the steaming, muddy jungle floor, a hunch telling him what he would find around a bend. The thick Amazon rain-forest canopy suddenly opens to a clearing where massive Jatobas and other hardwood trees have been reduced to 40 waist-high trunks lying on the ground. Fires set to help clear the underbrush still smolder nearby, sending sinewy gray smoke columns into the sea-blue sky.
