A California company has begun using solar power to squeeze oil out of an old oil field, flooding the underground rock with steam that comes from the sun’s heat instead of from burning natural gas.
The technique was tried in the 1980s by the Atlantic Richfield Company, but GlassPoint Solar, of Fremont, Calif., which cut the ribbon on a pilot project Thursday, says its plant is the only one of its kind now operating. Other companies have discussed such projects.
Using Solar Power to Extract Oil
GMOs Causing Cattle Miscarriages, Researcher Alleges
"Unknown Organism" Found in Roundup Ready Crops
A Purdue University researcher has linked Monsanto's Roundup Ready crops to an organism leading to miscarriages and spontaneous abortions in farm animals.
Professor Emeritus Don M. Huber has sent a letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, warning that an “electron microscopic pathogen” found in high concentrations of GM crops could significantly impact the health of both animals and humans.
Wis. Assembly passes bill taking away union rights
The Wisconsin Assembly early Friday passed a bill that would strip most public workers of their collective bargaining rights — the first significant action on the new Republican governor's plan.
The Assembly vote sends the bill on to the state Senate, where minority Democrats have been missing for a week. No one knows when — or if — they'll return from their hideout in Illinois. Republicans who control the Senate sent state troopers out looking for them at their homes on Thursday, but they turned up nothing.
Agent Orange 'used to clear Canadian roads until 1980s'
Canadian officials have acknowledged the country used Agent Orange to clear roadside brush as late as the 1980s. Provincial Transportation Minister Kathleen Wynne promised an inquiry after the Toronto Star revealed use of the Vietnam War-era defoliant.
The chemical was used by the US military to strip Vietnam's jungles. Vietnam says Agent Orange is responsible for massively high instances of genetic defects in areas that were sprayed.
Earliest human remains in US Arctic reported
Some 11,500 years ago one of America's earliest families laid the remains of a 3-year-old child to rest in their home in what is now Alaska. The discovery of that burial is shedding new light on the life and times of the early settlers who crossed from Asia to the New World, researchers report in Friday's edition of the journal Science.
The bones represent the earliest human remains discovered in the Arctic of North America, a "pretty significant find," said Ben A. Potter of the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Gay Marriage Clears Maryland Senate
Same-sex couples in Maryland would have the same full marriage rights as heterosexuals under a bill that cleared the Senate Thursday. If the House of Delegates approves it and the governor signs it, Maryland would be the sixth U.S. state to approve gay marriage.
Opponents, including Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller, D-Calvert, promised that if it does become law that a referendum question would be on the 2012 ballot so voters have the final decision.
Va. General Assembly agrees to regulate abortion clinics as hospitals
The Virginia General Assembly has agreed that abortion clinics should be regulated as hospitals instead of physician's offices, a move that antiabortion activists have sought for almost two decades, insisting that it would improve clinic safety.
Abortion rights advocates say it will make the state one of the most restrictive for abortions in the country and could force as many as 17 of the state's 21 abortion clinics to close.
Records Claim Fox News Chief Told Publisher to Lie
It was an incendiary allegation — and a mystery of great intrigue in the media world: After the publishing powerhouse Judith Regan was fired by HarperCollins in 2006, she claimed that a senior executive at its parent company, News Corporation, had encouraged her to lie to federal investigators two years before.
The investigators had been vetting Bernard B. Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner who had been nominated to become secretary of Homeland Security and who had had an affair with Ms. Regan.
Iowa Bills Could Also Allow for "Justifiable Homicide" Defense Against Abortion Docs
The Midwest is seeing a wave of new measures intended to give additional protections to fetuses—including a growing number of bills that could make it legal to kill an abortion doctor in the name of protecting an "unborn child."
A South Dakota bill that could have allowed the "justifiable homicide" defense to be used for individuals who murder abortion providers was shelved last week after public outcry. And as my colleagues Daniel Schulman and Nick Baumann reported Thursday morning, a Nebraska lawmaker introduced a very similar bill there.
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