Geneva atom smasher sets record for beam energy
GENEVA (AP) — Operators of the world's largest atom smasher on Friday ramped up their massive machine to three times the energy ever previously achieved, in the run-up to experiments probing the secrets of the universe. The European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, said beams of protons circulated at 3.5 trillion electron volts in both directions around the 27-kilometer (17-mile) tunnel housing the Large Hadron Collider under the Swiss-French border at Geneva.
Nevada wild-horse roundup death toll rises
RENO, Nev. (AP) — Activists in Nevada are questioning the rising death toll from a government roundup of wild horses from the range north of Reno. U.S. Bureau of Land Management spokeswoman JoLynn Worley says 77 mustangs involved in the Calico Mountains Complex gather have died so far — 70 at a Fallon facility where they were taken and the rest at the roundup site.
Arizona state employee fired over jaguar capture
PHOENIX (AP) — The Arizona Game and Fish Department has fired an employee based on results of an internal investigation into the capture and death of what was the only known wild jaguar in the U.S. Officials said Friday that 40-year-old Thornton W. Smith was a field biologist and had been with the agency 12 years.
Cloak of invisibility takes a step forward
WASHINGTON (AP) — From Grimm's fairy tales to Harry Potter, the cloak of invisibility has played a major role in fiction. Now scientists have taken a small but important new step toward making it reality. Researchers at Germany's Karlsruhe Institute of Technology report they were able to cloak a tiny bump in a layer of gold, preventing its detection at nearly visible infrared frequencies.
Export ban on Atlantic bluefin tuna rejected
DOHA, Qatar (AP) — Fishing nations won a victory over environmentalists Thursday when a U.S.-backed proposal to ban export of the Atlantic bluefin tuna was overwhelmingly rejected at a U.N. wildlife meeting. Japan won over scores of poorer nations with a campaign that played on fears that a ban would devastate their economies. Tokyo also raised doubts that such a radical move was scientifically sound.
Arctic animals doing better, but not close to pole
WASHINGTON (AP) — The overall number of animals in the Arctic has increased over the past 40 years ago, according to a new international study. But critters who live closest to the North Pole are disappearing. The report by the United Nations and other groups released Wednesday at a conference in Miami concludes that birds, mammals and fish have increased by about 16 percent since 1970. That's mostly because of decades-old hunting restrictions. The number of geese have about doubled. Marine mammals, such as certain whales, are also rebounding.
NASA finds shrimp dinner on ice beneath Antarctica
WASHINGTON (AP) — In a surprising discovery about where higher life can thrive, scientists for the first time found a shrimp-like creature and a jellyfish frolicking beneath a massive Antarctic ice sheet. Six hundred feet below the ice where no light shines, scientists had figured nothing much more than a few microbes could exist.
China without Google: 'a lose-lose scenario'
BEIJING (AP) — China without Google — a prospect that looks increasingly likely — could mean no more maps on mobile phones. A free music service that has helped to fight piracy might be in jeopardy. China's fledgling Web outfits would face less pressure to improve, eroding their ability to one day compete abroad. Chinese news reports say Google Inc. is on the verge of making good on a threat to shutter its China site, Google.cn, because Beijing forces the Internet giant to censor search results. The reports indicated that Google had, in fact, already stopped censoring results, but searches Tuesday for sensitive topics like "Tiananmen massacre" appeared to still return only whitewashed results.
Leaky valves could delay space shuttle launch
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Space shuttle Discovery has some leaky valves that could delay its launch next month. NASA discovered the helium leaks over the weekend. The valves are part of a control system used to maneuver the shuttle in orbit and for re-entry.
Research monkey deaths prompt calls for crackdown
SPARKS, Nev. (AP) — Workers at a Nevada research lab were checking on a primate room when they came across a ghastly sight: Thirty dead monkeys were essentially cooked alive after someone left the heater on. Two others were near death and had to be euthanized. At a lab run by the same company, a monkey died last year after it was sent through a washer while still in its cage. The temperatures were so scalding the monkey never had a chance.
