Animal Rights: Saving Chinese Dogs From the Cooking Pot

NEW YORK–In China, where stewed dog appears on restaurant menus regularly, being an animal-rights activist can be a risky proposition.

Last Friday an animal-rights activist spotted a truck full of dogs on a highway outside of Beijing. He swerved his car in front of the truck, stopping the truck driver and highway traffic; at the same time, he alerted his thousands of followers on Weibo, a Chinese Twitter clone, of the hundreds of dogs languishing in the back, bound for restaurant tables in Northeast China. Within an hour, more than 300 supporters had arrived at the scene."When I saw this on Weibo I was very angry,"says A Gui, a 22-year-old snowboard seller, who rushed over after hearing the news. After determining the truck driver's papers were in order, the original activist sent out more posts, and 15 hours later, had raised almost $20,000 to purchase the dogs and deliver them to locations all around Beijing; many ending up at Dongxing Veterinary Hospital in a narrow alley in the center of the city. It was Beijing's first reported citizen's arrest for legal dog trafficking.

This burgeoning animal-rights activism, aided by the ease of Weibo communication, coexists not only with the braised dog stew found on menus across China but also with China's"take many prisoners"attitude toward human-rights activists. Over the past few months, dozens of outspoken lawyers, artists, and underground church pastors have been harassed, detained, or arrested; some activists say it's the most stifling environment since the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. These arrests rarely make it into China's muzzled media. The dog saving, however, has been a very big story."Weibo is really quick,"says Tang Yitong, one of the volunteers."We wouldn't have been able to do this a few years ago, where you can send a message and suddenly everyone knows."At the same time, on many levels Chinese civil society is flourishing. Some in the domestic NGO world believe 2010 and 2011 have been two of the best years for domestic philanthropy, social innovation, and grassroots NGO growth, especially for those organizations without foreign involvement or politically sensitive agendas. There are almost a million registered dogs in Beijing, and their owners and advocates have a voice.

“I think those who eat dog meat are sons of bitches.”

The scene today at the Dongxing Veterinary Hospital revealed a flourishing civil society tinged with the possibility of repression. At any one time about 30 volunteers, mostly young, white-collar, sleep-deprived women, hustled about the two-story building, carrying dogs, mopping the floors, and arranging the donations of dog food, blankets, and bottled water. A student studying animal law introduced me to some of the more than 50 convalescing dogs."Although some volunteers write long notes about the dogs because they love them, we're very standardized: The doctors take care of their feeding and medical needs."Representatives from various government bureaus flitted in and out. The volunteers showed around the curmudgeonly, 85-year-old director of China's Small Animal Protection Bureau and made a big scene to show how important she was."There always has to be an official side in China,"grumbled one activist.

For those who pay attention, the specter of the arrest of artist and provocateur Ai Weiwei hangs in the air. Carted away more than two weeks ago without charge, he's the highest profile person to disappear in this recent crackdown."The dog problem is something we can fix,"says one woman, who wanted to be quoted as her Weibo handle, The Thousand Year Small Rabbit, where her posts on beauty tips and animal rights have earned her 30,000 followers."We can't use our car to bar the road"if they capture an activist, she added. Mao Mao owns a small clothing store and has been volunteering at the hospital every other day."A lot of human-rights problems we common people can't solve,"she said.

In a China that too often looks conformist from the outside, the hospital is a refreshingly quirky place, where people are united by their love of dogs. Tattoos cover almost half of A Gui's body, and a ring earring hangs deep from his ear."I'm one of those… I like pain,"he admits. He leans over conspiratorially and whispers to me"I think those who eat dog meat are sons of bitches."Tang tells me,"I've been to America many times, and when they talk about Chinese and say 'Chinese people eat dogs,' it really hurts."She used to work in hotel public relations, and when she went on domestic business trips, she'd take the train and fly her two dogs to meet her.

One of the neighbors yells, and a heavyset volunteer runs out to mediate, carrying a cigarette and wearing an English language shirt which claims that she's jailbait. Mao Mao wears a dress with white clouds and blue patches of sky; she has"Come as You Are"tattooed on her arm in German, from the Nirvana song."Even though they said taking these dogs affected social order, we actually saved a lot of dogs. What we're doing shows results."

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Belief in Magical Change Fuels Credit Card Abuse

People who overuse credit have very different beliefs about the products they buy than those who spend within their budget, new research suggests.

In a new study, University of Missouri professor Marsha Richins found those who build credit debt are often buying products in the hope those items will make them happier and notably transform their lives.

“People who are most likely to have this magical belief in what these products can do for them are the most likely to overuse credit,” Richins told LiveScience.“A good part of it stems from what they hope will happen to their lives when they buy something.”

In the end, Richins said, those transformations rarely occur, and the shoppers instead go out to buy more things, hoping for other changes.

“It seems there is this self-perpetuating, yet unfulfilling, quest for change through goods,” she said.“It leads people to really overextend themselves.”

A separate study in 2008 found credits cardscause people to spend more.

While consumer debt has been on the decline for two years, the Federal Reserve reportscredit cardsare still used more than 20 billion times a year in the United States for $1.9 trillion worth of transactions.

Index Credit Cards, an online site offering credit card comparisons, reports the average cardholder uses a credit card 119 times a year, for transactions averaging $88 apiece. This comes to an average annual total of about $10,500 in credit card purchases for a single cardholder.

In Richins’ research, which looked at nearly 400 people ages 22 to 60, she found four types of changes that are expected by people who overuse credit cards for purchases.

• Transformation of the self:  The belief that a purchase will change who you are and how people perceive you. This is commonly held by young people.
• Transformation of relationships: The expectation that a purchase will provide more or better relationships with others.
• Hedonic transformation: The belief that a purchase will make life more fun.
• Efficacy transformation: The expectation that purchases will make you more effective in your life. 

Personal-finance expert and author Manisha Thakor said there are times when using a credit can be a useful tool– for instance, offering an extra layer of protection, through credit card insurance, on certain purchases, or helpingimprove credit scores.

“It is a way to do it, if done responsibly, that doesn’t require you to live above your means,” she said of the positive effect paying acredit cardbill in full and on time can have on a credit score.

Thakor believes the Credit Card Act of 2009– designed to protect consumers from unfair or inappropriate practices of credit card companies— has helped bring many of the dangers of credit spending to the forefront.

“A lot of people have become much more aware of how expensive credit cards are,” she said.

In order to help curb credit abuse, Richins believes a revision is needed to the current financial literacy and credit counseling programs.

“We need to give people a better understanding of consumption,” she said.“Focus the financial literacy to address some of the psychological problems going on.”

Richins’ study,“Materialism, Transformation Expectations, and Spending: Implications for Credit Use,” is scheduled to be published this fall in the Journal of Public Policy and Marketing.

This $ci-Fi article is part of an ongoing LiveScience series that explores the science of personal finance to help you navigate everyday life.

• The Truth About Shopaholics
• New Device Makes Your Credit Card Smart
• How to Improve Your Credit Score

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Judge hears levee demolition case, no immediate ruling

CAPE GIRARDEAU, Missouri (Reuters)– A federal judge on Thursday ended a hearing on plans by the federal government to blow a hole in a Mississippi River levee without issuing an immediate ruling or indicating when he might do so.

U.S. District Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh, Jr. was listening to arguments over whether the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers should breach the Birds Point levee to prevent flooding in Cairo, Illinois, an historic town of almost 3,000 residents.

A levee breach would flood 130,000 acres of Missouri farmland, which contain about 100 homes.

While attorneys for states that could be affected debated the issues of navigation and easement, the heart of the case, according to Limbaugh, was whether he had jurisdiction.

"I'm really concerned about my ability to get involved," the judge said.

The Corps had planned to decide this weekend whether to blow up the levee.

Missouri claims the action would damage the farmland, leaving a layer of silt that would take a generation to clear.

The Illinois Attorney General had intervened in the case on the side of the Corps, arguing it was more important to save Cairo than a rural area that had long been designated as a floodway.

"The city of Cairo is on the verge of being the next 9th Ward of New Orleans," Mayor Judson Childs had said in a statement, referring to an area devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

(Reporting by Miriam Moynihan; Editing by Jerry Norton)

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First Space Tourist: How a U.S. Millionaire Bought a Ticket to Orbit

This story is part of a SPACE.com series to mark a decade of space tourism. Coming tomorrow: The future of space tourism and its impact on space science.

If the era of commercial spaceflight has a birthday, it's April 28, 2001.

On that date, American businessman Dennis Tito became history's firstspace tourist, paying his own way to the International Space Station aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Forty years to the month after Yuri Gagarin became the first person in space, Tito showed that there was money to be made in human spaceflight -- potentially lots of money, as he plunked down a reported $20 million for his flight.

Now, 10 years later, the industry looks set to heat up, with multiple firms jockeying for position in acommercial space racethat is arguably already under way.

"The private spaceflight industry did start with Dennis' flight," said Tom Shelley, president of Space Adventures, the Virginia-based company that brokered Tito's eight-day mission with Russia's Federal Space Agency and has sent a total of seven people on eight orbital flights since 2001."That was the first real milestone and demonstrated to a lot of people that there was a market for private citizens to go to space." {Photos: The World's First Space Tourists}

A lifelong dream, nearly deferred

Tito made his millions in the world of finance. But he was once an engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and has been a space enthusiast since he was a teenager.

"My dream was to fly in space before I die," Tito said."And I basically came up with that lifelong goal around the time ofYuri Gagarin's flight."

In early 2000, Tito started working toward making his dream a reality. He would turn 60 later that year, and he felt like his chances of getting into space were rapidly running out. The oldest rookie spaceflyer at the time, after all, was NASA astronaut Deke Slayton, who first made it to orbit in 1975 at the age of 51.

"So I was gettting over the hill, I thought," Tito told SPACE.com."So I said,'It's now or never.'"

In June 2000, Tito signed a deal with a company called MirCorp to ride a Soyuz to Russia's Mir space station. However, those plans fell through in December of that year, when Russia announced that it planned to deorbit the aging station. (Mir burned up in Earth's atmosphere in March 2001.)

Undeterred, Tito soon made other arrangements. He signed on with Space Adventures, which brokered an April 2001 flight to theInternational Space Station, again on a Soyuz. The station was a relatively new project at the time, having just begun assembly operations in November 1998.

NASA makes it tough

The Russians agreed to take Tito's money and offer him a seat on a Soyuz. But the other station partners -- notably NASA and space agencies from Canada, Europe and Japan -- were not so thrilled. They informed Russia that they"recommended against" Tito's mission.

NASA officials said at the time that they didn't object in principle to the presence of a paying customer aboard the orbiting lab. They just didn't think Tito's training would be sufficient by April, which they said was a time of complex and crucial station operations.

"During this period, the presence of a nonprofessional crewmember who is untrained on all critical station systems, is unable to respond and assist in any contingency situation which may arise, and who would require constant supervision, would add a significant burden to the Expedition and detract from the overall safety of the International Space Station," reads a NASA press release from March 19, 2001.

Tito thinks his age may also have been a factor.

"If you're older, heart attacks happen, strokes happen, whatever," he said."And what are they going to do, transport a corpse back to Earth? That would be very embarrassing for them, and traumatic."

So NASA did what it could to keep Tito from getting off the ground in April, according to Tito and Space Adventures officials.

"They put up everything that they could throw in the way to make it not happen," Shelley told SPACE.com.

Eight months at Star City

Meanwhile, Tito carried on. He continued his training at the Star City complex outside Moscow, where cosmonauts have prepped for flight since Gagarin's day. Tito spent the better part of a year there, toiling in a sort of limbo.

"It wasn't easy," Tito said."I had to hang out in Russia for eight months without really knowing whether I was going to fly or not."

Eventually, Tito's perseverance paid off. Over NASA's objections, he launched on April 28, 2001, becoming the 415th person ever to reach space. But Tito said all the drama and difficulties are water under the bridge, especially since the agency has been so supportive of the six other space tourists who have since flown to the orbiting lab -- and so supportive of private spaceflight in general over the past decade. {10 Years of Space Tourism}

"Their support is stronger than I would've ever dreamed or hoped for," Tito said."So my bottom line is, I have nothing but good things to say about NASA."

Fulfilling the dream

Tito made it to orbit, spent about six days aboard the space station, and then landed in Kazakhstan on May 6, 2001.

His mission has had a lasting impact, inspiring a range of private spaceflight investment and activity, according to Shelley.

"I think {Virgin Galactic's} Richard Branson and {Blue Origin's} Jeff Bezos, and even Elon {Musk of SpaceX} -- they really wouldn't be in this industry if it wasn't for what Dennis originally did," Shelley said. Tito's flight, he added, demonstrated"that this was a feasible activity for private citizens to step up and pay the money."

For his part, Tito said he is happy to have been a part of the birth of this industry, though he shifts praise onto spaceflight entrepreneurs and the orbital tourists who came after him. And for him, of course, the trip will always resonate on a much more personal level.

"To me, it was a 40-year dream," Tito said."The thing I have taken away from it is a sense of completeness for my life -- that everything else I would do in my life would be a bonus."

You can follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter:@michaeldwall.Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter@Spacedotcomand onFacebook.

• Photos: The First Space Tourists
• 10 Years of Space Tourism
• Space Tourism Pioneer: Q&A With Private Spaceflyer Dennis Tito

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Pulling 6 Gs: A Wild, Intense Ride Awaits Space Tourists

I've never been to space, but I've felt the closest thing there is to a spaceship ride on the ground.

As suborbital jaunts to space promise to become available soon to anyone with a couple hundred thousand dollars to spare, I can tell those considering a trip: You're in for a wild ride.

Anniversary of space tourism

Thefirst space tourist, American millionaire Dennis Tito, made the inaugural passenger trip to space aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket on April 28, 2001. He reportedly paid $20 million for the privilege. {Q& A: World's First Space Tourists}

Ten years later, space is becoming more accessible than ever. Six people have followed in Tito's footsteps as passengers on Soyuz voyages, and soon a slew of cheaper suborbital spacecraft should be available to tourists.

At about $200,000 a pop, these spaceships– such as Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo– would take passengers to space for about five minutes, and then plunge back to the ground before making a complete orbit around the Earth.

SpaceShipTwo would subject riders to up to 6 Gs– that's six times the normal force of gravity. Having felt such a load myself, I can tell you, it's pretty intense. {Video: SpaceShipTwo's First Solo Glide Test.}

Suborbital trainee

I was lucky enough to participate in the suborbital scientist training program with seven others at theNational Aerospace Training and Research Center(NASTAR) in Southampton, Pa. Over three days, the eight of us trainees practiced enduring additional forces of gravity in a centrifuge. We were strapped into a carriage on the end of the machine's 25-foot (7.6 meter)-long arm and spun around until the centrifugal force packed on what felt like the weight of an elephant onto our chests. {Photo Gallery of My Spaceflight Training Course}

We experienced G loads on two axes: one pointing down from our heads to our toes, and one pointing into our chests. The trainers started us off easy, with just a few times the normal force of gravity pressing against us. Even this is a bizarre sensation. The force pounding on my chest pressed down into my lungs, making it hard to breathe. The force going down toward my feet was even worse, making my toes feel heavy and my head too light.

The program culminated on day three with a full flight simulation of a ride on SpaceShipTwo (modeled on the ship's predecessor, SpaceShipOne, built by Scaled Composites). This trip subjects riders to 3.5 Gs in both directions during ascent, and 6 Gs into your chest and 1.5 Gs along your length during descent.

While I can only imagine what the real thing will feel like, NASTAR's version aims to come pretty darn close. In addition to the extra gravity, I felt my seat vibrate and saw a full-screen view of the ground getting smaller and smaller below me.

Almost like the real thing

The strangest part for me was the kick during ascent when SpaceShipTwo is dropped from its mother ship, called WhiteKnightTwo, in midair, and the spaceship's engines ignite, propelling the craft the rest of the way up to space. All of a sudden I was accelerated up to 3.5 Gs after only a few seconds. I was caught off guard and screamed my lungs off as the Gs just kept building.

Once my simulated spacecraft had reached space, I felt a blissful few moments of"weightlessness." While I was still feeling the normal 1 G force of gravity, in comparison to the loads that had just been lifted, I did feel extremely light, almost as if I was floating.

The break was over soon enough, though, as it was time for my spaceship to come back down to Earth. The return trip was even more intense, packing on 6 Gs in one direction and 1.5 Gs in the other as I plummeted to the ground.

In order to push my lungs out against the overwhelming weight on my chest, I had to practice a special pressure breathing technique we had learned during the training. The force along the other axis was trying to pull all my blood down to my feet. Quickly I felt lightheaded, and then my vision started tunneling, the edges blurring into black.

Luckily, we had learned techniques for this, too. To keep blood in my head and prevent myself from blacking out, I had to squeeze my arm and leg muscles as tight as I could, blocking too much blood from pooling there and forcing it to stay in my brain. The maneuver involves grunting"hut!" like a football player to boot.

Soon enough, the ride was over, and I was almost as proud of myself for not blacking out or throwing up as I would have been on a real ride to space.

I hope that space tourists signing up for Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo know what they're in for. The incredible ride beats any roller coaster I've ever been on, and it certainly isn't for the faint of heart.

But the physical strains apparently haven't dissuaded the more than 400 passengers who've already bought tickets for SpaceShipTwo, which is set to carry its first passengers sometime next year.

You can follow SPACE.com senior writer Clara Moskowitz on Twitter @ClaraMoskowitz. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and onFacebook.

• Photo Gallery of My Spaceflight Training Course
• Future of Space Tourism: Who's Offering What
• 10 Years of Space Tourism

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Floods force evacuations in Ohio Valley, Missouri

ST. LOUIS, Mo (Reuters)– The National Weather Service warned on Monday of the imminent failure of a levee on the Black River in southeast Missouri, prompting a mandatory evacuation of about 1,000 people in Poplar Bluff.

Water is topping the levee at several points, which may lead to a failure of the levee system between Poplar Bluff and the town of Qulin, the weather service said.

County officials have evacuated about 500 structures in the southeastern part of Poplar Bluff, which has about 17,000 residents.

Flood warnings have prompted evacuations of hundreds of people in Indiana, Kentucky and Missouri, following days of rain that led to rivers cresting over the flood stage, according to forecasters.

"The ground is very saturated -- there are areas with 9-10 inches of rain," said Mike O'Connell, spokesman for the Missouri Department of Public Safety. He noted that some local roads are flooded in southern Missouri, and drivers are being warned not to go past barriers.

Governor Jay Nixon activated the Missouri National Guard on Monday to help in areas hit by flooding.

He also criticized U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plans to intentionally breach Birds Point levee along the Mississippi River in southeastern Missouri.

Nixon said that would affect hundreds of families and"pour a tremendous amount of water into 130,000 acres of prime farmland."

A spokesperson for the Army Corps of Engineers was not immediately available for comment.

The Black River is expected to rise higher than it did in 2008 when heavy rains caused widespread flooding, according to the National Weather Service in Little Rock. Portions of Davidsonville Historic State Park and Powhatan Historic State Park in northwest Arkansas are closed due to the rising of the river.

Many schools in northeastern Arkansas also closed Monday because of flooding.

Parts of Utica in southern Indiana and Louisville, Kentucky, have flooding, according to Mike Callahan, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service in Louisville.

"This is the worst flooding we've had since 1997," he said.

He said more flooding was reported in western Kentucky and southern Illinois. People who live along the Ohio River near Louisville started leaving their homes ahead of the flood late last week, and some roads around the city were closed, he said.

Bill Davis, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Springfield, Missouri, expects problems to be especially bad along the Taneycomo River in southwest Missouri.

"It's only (going) to get worse over the next couple of days," said Davis."There's going to be more water on top of water."

(Writing by Mary Wisniewski; Additional reporting by Susan Guyett and Suzi Parker; Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst and Greg McCune)

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Kelly: Giffords cleared to attend shuttle launch

HOUSTON– Rep. Gabrielle Giffords will attend husband Mark Kelly's space shuttle launch in Florida on Friday, Kelly said, allowing the Arizona congresswoman to travel for the first time since she was flown from Tucson to Houston more than three months ago to recover from a gunshot wound to the head.

In an interview with CBS' Katie Couric, Kelly said Giffords' doctors had given her permission to travel to Cape Canaveral, Fla., for the launch of Endeavour, which is scheduled for 3:47 p.m. Friday. Kelly is the commander of the shuttle mission.

CBS released excerpts of the interview Sunday, and it was scheduled to air Monday on"CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,"according to a network statement.

"I've met with her doctors, her neurosurgeon and her doctors, and ... they've given us permission to take her down to the launch,"Kelly said in the interview in Houston. The network statement did not specify when the interview occurred.

James Harsfield, spokesman for NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, referred all questions about Giffords to the congresswoman's office, where there was no immediate comment.

President Barack Obama and the first family also are scheduled to watch the launch, although it's unclear if they will watch it with Giffords.

Families view launches at Kennedy Space Center from a restricted area, and there are no plans for Giffords to make a public appearance.

It will be the first time Giffords has traveled since she was flown from Tucson, Ariz., to Houston on Jan. 21 for rehab. The Democrat was shot in the head Jan. 8 in a shooting in Tucson that killed six people and injured 12 others.

Giffords' spokesman, C.J. Karamargin, and her chief of staff, Pia Carusone, plan to hold a news conference after the launch to discuss the congresswoman's reaction, but Giffords will not go to the news conference because it could be an emotional moment for her, Karamargin said.

Giffords went to Kelly's last launch in 2008, when he commanded the space shuttle Discovery. The two married in 2007.

Obama last saw Giffords on Jan. 12, just four days after the shooting, when he visited her intensive care hospital room in Tucson and reported that she opened her eyes for the first time a few minutes after he left.

More recently, he wrote a tribute about the congresswoman in Time magazine's list of 100 most influential people in the world, saying that she wasn't known before the shooting, but now"she's got the prayers of a nation rooting for her."

He also wrote that Giffords is"a needed voice that cannot return soon enough."

The shooting happened as Giffords was holding a community outreach event in the parking lot of a Tucson shopping center. A gunman shot her in the head and worked his way down the line of her staff members and people waiting to talk with her. Jared Lee Loughner, 22, has pleaded not guilty to charges stemming from the attack and is in custody.

Giffords has not been seen publicly since the shooting and has spent the last three months relearning how to speak, walk and take care of herself. She has been singing— as part of musical therapy— asking for her favorite foods and visiting with family, friends, and her rabbi.

Kelly returned to training for the shuttle launch in February after taking time off to be at his wife's hospital bedside.

Endeavour's two-week trip will be the last for that shuttle and the next-to-last shuttle mission. Shuttle Atlantis will close out the 30-year shuttle program this summer. Kelly and five crewmates will deliver a $2 billion physics experiment to the International Space Station, as well as critical spare parts to keep the orbiting outpost running for another decade.

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Diabetic completes first-ever polar flight of its kind

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters)– Former British Royal Air Force pilot Douglas Cairns succeeded in flying his light plane to the North Pole and landing it there this week, overcoming strong headwinds, the failure of his satellite-based navigation system and his diabetes to earn a place in aviation record books.

"It was rather surreal and very exhilarating to be at the crown of our Planet Earth with 24 hours of daylight," he said Friday in an Anchorage interview.

"I'm delighted to be able to do this kind of thing solo, with diabetes."

Cairns, 47, flew from Barrow, the northernmost community in the United States, to the North Pole on Tuesday in a Beechcraft Baron and completed the 1,300-mile flight in eight hours and 20 minutes.

He has submitted the time to the World Air Sports Federation for verification as a world speed record for a light, twin-engine piston aircraft. But the submission is largely academic because Cairns believes he is the first pilot to have made the trip in such an aircraft and to land it at the pole -- a claim backed by a spokesman for Guinness World Records.

After circling the geographic pole several times, Cairns landed at a nearby Russian ice camp, making him the first to land a twin-engine piston aircraft at the pole.

He then flew home back to Barrow in six hours and 20 minutes, aided by strong tailwinds.

For part of the journey, he had to navigate using the sun's position in the sky because global positioning satellite equipment becomes unreliable near the North Slope.

The flight was one of a series of expeditions Cairns, who helped found an organization called Pilots with Diabetes, has completed to demonstrate ways to overcome limitations imposed by the disease.

Diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in 1989, Cairns was forced to end his RAF flying career and go into finance.

But now, five nations allow insulin-treated diabetics to hold private pilots' licenses. One is the United States, which allows diabetics to fly solo so long as they adhere to regular in-flight monitoring of blood-sugar levels, with corrective actions taken if warranted.

After U.S. authorities cleared diabetic pilots for flight in 1997, Cairns took to the skies again and has set various speed and distance records.

They include the first-ever around-the-world flight by a diabetic pilot in 2003 and a 50-state flight completed in 2010.

His North Pole expedition drew much interest in aviation-crazed Alaska. A veteran Alaska pilot, Ron Sheardown, has been on his support team for years. Alaska Airlines and Alaska-based Era Aviation provided hangar space. And Cairns and his plane were filmed for an appearance in a future episode of"Flying Wild Alaska," a Discovery Channel television series about Alaska bush pilots.

Next on Cairns' agenda is a planned speed record circumnavigation around the British coastline, a flight he intends to do in about 14 hours.

After that?"In the next few years, I would very much like to make a journey down to the South Pole," he said.

(Editing by James B. Kelleher and Jerry Norton)

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Japan quake briefly cut US military computer links

PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo.– The Air Force says computer links with some U.S. bases in the Pacific were severed by the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan on March 11, but one of its cyber squadrons restored them within five hours.

The Air Force said Thursday that bases in Japan, Korea and Guam were affected. It wasn't immediately clear what the consequences were.

The 561st Network Operations Squadron in Hawaii coordinated the repairs. The squadron is part of a unit at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado. The Air Force Space Command, which ultimately oversees all Air Force cyber operations, is also based at Peterson.

The Air Force says the Hawaii squadron also canceled planned interruptions for maintenance on Pacific computer networks so they would remain open.

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Why You Won't Read This Earth Day Article (And Why That Doesn't Matter)

Earth Day turns 41 this year, but in some ways, environmentalism seems to be stumbling. According to recent Gallup polls, 48 percent of Americans now believe that the dangers of climate change are exaggerated, up from 41 percent in 2009 and 31 percent in 1997. Meanwhile, environmental concerns rank eighth on Americans' worry list, behind terrorism, illegal immigration and the size and power of the federal government.

Getting people to care about environmental threats -- especially distant onessuch as climate change-- can be tough, environmental advocates say. But whether or not people care about the environment may not matter much at all.

"Many people do things that would be considered environmentally sound, even if they aren't doing it for environmental reasons," said Edward Maibach, a professor of communication at George Mason University in Virginia who has studied Americans' opinions about climate change."Several groups are concerned, one is not. But all of them place a high value on conserving energy." {Read:The Carbon Footprint of Sex& Other Daily Activities}

"It's tapping into a broadly held value," Maibach told LiveScience."People just think it's a good idea to save energy and to save money as a result ofsaving energy."

Who cares about climate?

Maibach and his colleagues conducted a nationally representative survey of American adults in 2008 to understand how the public thinks about climate change.

They found that 18 percent of people are alarmed, convinced of the seriousness of global warming and taking steps to alter their behavior. Another 33 percent are concerned, but not taking action. Another 19 percent of people are cautious, meaning they believe climate change is a problem but don't feel a sense of urgency about it. The disengaged (12 percent) and doubtful (11 percent), on the other hand, either don't know much about climate change or don't think it's a big problem. And 7 percent of people are dismissive, actively campaigning against a nationalresponse to climate change.

But surprisingly, all of the groups conserved energy at the same rates, said Anthony Leiserowitz, the director of the Yale University Project on Climate Change, who was involved in the study with Maibach.

"The dismissive are conserving energy and saving energy as much as anyone else," Leiserowitz told LiveScience.

Part of the reason is that alarmed people are only beginning to translate their concern into action, Leiserowitz said. Another reason is that for too many people, conservation is a means to another end beside environmentalism. Some want to save money. Others see kicking foreign oil as a national security issue. Some Christian evangelicals believe protecting the Earth is a biblical mandate, Leiserowitz said.

"It's about thrift, conservation," Leiserowitz said."These are core American values."

Can green be easy?

For that reason, convincing more people that climate change is happening may not be as productive as making it easier for people to be environmentalists -- even if they don't call themselves that.

"The real opportunity for us isn't to further bolster public opinion," Maibach said."The real opportunity is for us as a society to figure out how to make it easier to perform these behaviors."

Maibach, Leiserowitz and their colleagues asked Americans about what sort of actions they thought were important for conservation and what actions they were actually taking. They found that almost everyone thinks that carpooling, biking instead of driving, reducing trash and other behaviors are important. But there were many gaps between what people believed andwhat they actually did. About 72 percent of people said carpooling or taking public transportation were important activities, but only 12 percent said they did either (another 2 percent said it wasn't important, but they did it anyway).

In contrast, people tended to engage in easier activities. Ninety-five percent of people said turning off unneeded lights is important, and 90 percent reported doing so.

It all comes down to barriers that prevent people from taking environmental action, Leiserowitz said.

"I would love to be able to take a bullet train from Connecticut to California, but I can't because my society hasn't provided me with one, whereas Japan and China and Europe have," he said. {Infographic: Full Speed Ahead for High-Speed Rail}

Making Earth Day count

So does Earth Day matter? It can be helpful, Maibach said, at least if it causes people to think about year-round environmental strategies.

"Earth Day is important in the sense that different cancer awareness days are important," said Mia Yamaguchi, the CoolClimate Network outreach coordinator at UC Berkeley's Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory."Maybe the average American isn't involved in or organizing an event, but they may be more likely to read an article or donate."

Yamaguchi said she doesn't want to see more people worried about the environment -- she wants to see action.

"There aremany, many things that any one person can doto manage their own environmental impacts, which I think makes it really different from worries like the national debt or U.S. foreign policy," Yamaguchi said. In those cases,"I can probably write a letter to a politician, maybe donate to a cause," she said."But if I actually start looking at what it would take to improve my vehicle's fuel efficiency by 5 miles per gallon, that makes a big difference."

TheCoolClimate Networkhas a variety of online widgets for people interested in calculating their own energy footprint. In the meantime, April 22 is a good day to step back and remember the planet we live on, Leisowitz said.

"It's Earth Day," he said."Go out and celebrate."

You can followLiveScience senior writer Stephanie Pappas on Twitter@sipappas.Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter@livescience and onFacebook.

• 10 Ways to Green Your Home
• 10 Ways to Green Your Spending
• Earth Checkup: 10 Health Status Signs

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BP sues Transocean for $40 billion over oil spill

NEW YORK (Reuters)– On the first anniversary of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, BP Plc sued Transocean, seeking at least$40 billion in damages and other costs from the owner of the Deepwater Horizon rig.

London-based BP also sued Cameron International Corp for negligence, saying a blowout preventer made by Cameron failed to avert the catastrophe.

Both complaints were filed Wednesday in federal court in New Orleans.

Eleven people died when the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded. About 4.9 million barrels, or more than 200 million gallons, of oil later flowed out of a subsurface BP well. BP has incurred tens of billions of dollars of liabilities from the disaster.

BP accused Transocean of negligence, saying it caused the drilling rig to be"unseaworthy."

"The simple fact is that on April 20, 2010, every single safety system and device and well control procedure on the Deepwater Horizon failed, resulting in the casualty," BP said.

Transocean called the lawsuit a"desperate bid" by BP to renege on a contract to assume full responsibility for pollution and environmental costs.

"This suit is specious and unconscionable," it said in a statement.

In a separate lawsuit, BP asked U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier, who oversees national litigation over the spill, to order Houston-based Cameron to reimburse it for"all or a part" of its damages.

"The blowout preventer failed to work and perform the function it was designed and manufactured to perform -- i.e., to secure the well," BP said."The blowout preventer was flawed in design, and alternative designs existed that did not have these flaws."

BP said it took a$40.9 billion pre-tax charge in 2010 related to the spill, and by year end had incurred$17.7 billion of costs.

WEDNESDAY DEADLINE

In a statement on Wednesday, BP said it wants"to ensure that all parties involved in the Macondo well are appropriately held accountable for their roles in contributing to the Deepwater Horizon accident."

Cameron did not address the substance of BP's claims in an emailed statement, and said Wednesday was a deadline for companies tied to the spill to file claims against each other.

In one such case, cruise operator Carnival Corp filed claims against BP, Cameron, Transocean and several other companies connected to the well to recover damages for added fuel and vessel cleaning costs, as well as lost revenue from decreased bookings.

A Norwegian testing company concluded in a report issued March 23 that the blowout preventer's failure was caused by a stuck section of drill pipe that blocked cutting devices from shearing and sealing the leaking well. {ID:nN23265456}

That finding, in a report commissioned by the U.S. Interior Department and U.S. Coast Guard, is separate from earlier conclusions by a White House commission that oil industry and regulatory missteps set into motion events that led to the biggest offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

Last June, BP created a$20 billion compensation fund for spill victims including businesses, fishermen and property owners, with incentives for people who agree not to sue the company. Kenneth Feinberg, who oversees the fund, in an interview said it is"working as intended."

The case is In re: Oil Spill by the Oil Rig"Deepwater Horizon" in the Gulf of Mexico, on April 20, 2010, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Louisiana, No. 10-md-02179.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York and Jeremy Pelofsky in Washington, D.C.; Additional reporting by Moira Herbst in New York and Kristen Hays; Editing by Steve Orlofsky, Sofina Mirza-Reid and Gary Hill)

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FEMA chief says economy adds to storm challenges

ATLANTA– The Federal Emergency Management director says a bad economy that's causing belt tightening all over shouldn't stop government officials from preparing for the upcoming hurricane season.

Craig Fugate on Tuesday stressed how important it is for newly elected public officials to learn how to respond during hurricanes and other powerful storms. Hurricane season for the Atlantic officially begins on June 1.

Speaking to attendees at the National Hurricane Conference, Fugate said that governors, mayors and others must participate in hurricane preparedness drills to understand the decisions they could have to make this summer. He also stressed the need for emergency management community to take advantage of social media to engage the public.

The conference continues through Saturday.

___

Online:

National Hurricane Conference:http://www.hurricanemeeting.com

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NASA awards nearly $270 million to 4 companies

LOS ANGELES– NASA has awarded nearly $270 million to four companies competing to develop a commercial spacecraft that could replace the aging space shuttle fleet.

The lion's share of the award announced Monday went to Boeing Co., which received $92.3 million. SpaceX, Sierra Nevada Corp., and Blue Origin also won contracts from NASA. The companies have been working on building a craft to transport astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station.

There are two shuttle flights left as NASA winds down the shuttle program. Astronauts will keep hitching rides to the space station on Russian capsules until private firms are able to develop space taxis to and from low-Earth orbit.

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Lowe's staff save dozens as storm hit NC store

SANFORD, N.C.– More than 100 employees and customers at a home improvement store, crammed shoulder-to-shoulder seeking safety from one of the deadly storms that ripped through the South, screamed in near unison once the steel roof curled off overhead, the store's manager said Sunday.

They all made it out alive Saturday, thanks to quick action by Lowe's store manager Michael Hollowell and his employees, who carried out an emergency response plan they had learned. They herded everyone to the windowless rear area of the store, away from the direct hit out front.

"You could hear all the steel ripping. People screaming in fear for their lives,"Hollowell told The Associated Press.

Hollowell and his employees deserve credit for moving customers to a safe zone in the store about 40 miles south of Raleigh, said Sanford police Capt. J.R. Weeks.

"It can't help but have saved lives,"he said. Since most of the damage was in the front, getting them farther away likely prevented some people from harm.

Search and rescue crews combing through the store found no one buried in the debris that knocked down concrete block walls and left trailers leaning vertically against towering shelves in the lumber department. About two-thirds of the warehouse store was exposed to the elements. The front of the store looked as if it had been flattened, and cars in the parking lot were flipped over on their roofs.

"We're just thankful that more people weren't hurt,"said Cindy Hall, a local Red Cross volunteer. Other businesses nearby were also badly damaged, including a tractor supply store which saw its roof ripped off.

In all of Lee County, where Sanford is located, officials said there was just one confirmed fatality during the storm, which claimed at least 21 lives statewide, damaged hundreds of homes and left a swath of destruction unmatched by any spring storm since the mid-1980s.

Hollowell said he'd heard severe weather warnings earlier in the day, but his first glimpse of imminent danger came when he saw employees running toward the back of the store. The safest part of the store, with joined concrete walls and without heavy inventory stacked high on shelves, it was the destination in an emergency, set in the store's preparedness plan.

Hollowell looked out the front door and saw the tornado nearly across the street. He called his assistants into action on in-store phones and in seconds the warnings had the 50 or so employees and up to 60 customers running to the back, packed in shoulder-to-shoulder.

"It was so tight that you couldn't move with everybody in the hallway. We got as close as we could,"Hollowell said.

Dan Wear, another employee, was guiding customers to safety only to see some had stopped to record the barreling twister with their cellphone cameras. He moved them out of the way just in time. As he was running to the back, a customer behind him was lifted by the wind and rolled like a bowling ball through Wear's churning legs. They both ended up sprawled under racks of carpeting in aisle 42, Wear said.

Hollowell dismisses any talk of heroism, saying the safety exercise was a team effort.

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NASA Space Shuttle Contractor Announces Layoffs for 2,800 Workers

The NASA contractor responsible for most of the work of maintaining the space shuttles announced Friday (April 15) that it will have to lay off almost 50 percent of its employees– up to 2,800 workers– after the shuttle program shuts down this year.

The layoffs were already anticipated as a consequence of the looming end of NASA's shuttle program, which has only two more scheduled missions before the orbiter fleet is retired. The shuttle Endeavour is slated to lift off on its final flight April 29, and Atlantis is planned to follow on June 28. {The Most Memorable Shuttle Missions}

The contractor, United Space Alliance, plans to reduce its workforce following that last launch. USA anticipates laying off between 2,600 to 2,800 of its total of 5,600 employees in late July and early August"due to the completion of tasks related to day-to-day operations of the Shuttle fleet," according to a USA statement.

The majority of the company's employees work in Florida, in or near NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, but USA also has divisions in Texas and Alabama, near other NASA centers. The layoffs will affect all sites.

"The accomplishments of this team are unmatched in human spaceflight," said Virginia Barnes, USA president and chief executive officer."It will be difficult to say goodbye to such tremendously talented and dedicated teammates, and we are committed to making this transition as smooth as possible for them."

NASA has been planning toretire its space shuttlessince as far back as 2004. The decision to retire the shuttles was made by the administration of President George W. Bush following the 2003 Columbia shuttle disaster.

Once the shuttle program draws to a close, NASA plans to focus on developing a more powerful rocket to carry humans to an asteroid and Mars.

While the layoffs don't come as a surprise, NASA's space shuttle program manager John Shannon said they are still difficult.

"They're just a unique team," he said of the shuttle workforce, speaking at a press conference in March."This is more than a job to them.They're totally dedicated to supporting the legacy of the shuttle program and doing it right." {NASA's Space Shuttle Program in Pictures}

He said NASA has tried to help workers transition into related jobs in their field.

"We have done a lot of work making sure we have retention plans in place, there are workforce centers, job fairs," he said.

USA also plans to offer services such as resume development, job interview training and career transition training– in addition to severance.

Although the looming space shuttle retirement is all but certain, USA is working on a long-shot proposal to extend the program byflying the shuttles commercially. The company is putting forward a plan to NASA, but admits its chances of happening are slim, since the space agency has already made definitive retirement plans, includingspecifying which museumseach orbiter will be displayed in after they are grounded.

Ultimately, the company says it's still in the game, regardless of what happens with the shuttles.

"Though USA will be a significantly smaller company after the space shuttle program is completed, we are optimistic about our future," Barnes said."USA has a great deal to offer in the way of skills, experience and expertise, and we are looking forward to providing our unique capabilities to a wide variety of new and existing customers."

You can follow SPACE.com senior writer Clara Moskowitz on Twitter @ClaraMoskowitz. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter@Spacedotcomand onFacebook.

• NASA's Space Shuttle Program in Pictures: A Tribute
• 30 Years of NASA Space Shuttle Missions
• NASA Gives Space Shuttles to Smithsonian and Museums in Calif., Florida and NYC

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Scientists map volcanic plume under Yellowstone

HELENA, Mont.– Scientists using electric and magnetic sensors have mapped the size and composition of a vast plume of hot rock and briny fluid down to 200 miles below Yellowstone National Park's surface, according to a new study soon to be published.

The so-called"geoelectric"imaging of a plume to this extent is a first, giving researchers a clearer picture of the material that feeds Yellowstone's volcanic features, said Robert B. Smith, the study's co-author, a University of Utah professor emeritus and a coordinating scientist of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory.

The information will help scientists better understand the evolution of these hot spots that are an integral part of continental drift and are active in 20 places around the world from Hawaii to Iceland, he said.

"This is the first time that an electrical image has been made of a plume anywhere in the world, period,"Smith said."We're getting much more information on the composition and evolution of the earth."

The plume is made up of solid rock, partly molten rocks and briny fluid that conducts electricity like seawater, said Smith and principal author Michael Zhdanov, a University of Utah geophysics professor. The plume rises from the earth's depths at a 40-degree angle and extends 400 miles from east to west, the data found. The image of the plume reaches a depth of 200 miles, the limit of the technology.

A previous study by Smith using seismic waves measured the plume's depth to at least 410 miles below the Montana-Idaho border.

The study will be published in Geophysical Research Letters within the next few weeks, according to the American Geophysical Union.

The new data, which measured the plume's electrical conductivity to create the image, supplements Smith's seismic data that gave scientists their first detailed look at the plume in 2009. Both seismic and electrical conductivity are imaging technologies that reveal different things.

Together, the data reveal a plume that is larger and contains more brine and fluid than previously believed.

"All this is very important to better understand the physics of this plume,"Zhdanov said."We are just learning. It's a very new phenomenon and now we've got another tool to get an image and better understanding of the composition and geographical shape."

That tool may help lead one day to developing a way to better forecast eruptions and other volcanic activity, he said.

Derek Schutt, an assistant professor at Colorado State University, said others have used the geoelectric technology but not to these proportions. The technology is a useful supplement to seismic measurements and will lead to a better understanding of how the earth is forming, he said.

"I think what this will be particularly useful for is we can understand much better the magma distribution of what's under Yellowstone,"he said.

The research says nothing about the chance for a large eruption happening at Yellowstone, which draws millions each year to see its bubbling pots and spouting geysers. Yellowstone's caldera, a 37-by-25-mile volcanic feature at the center of the park, has erupted three times since the North American continent drifted over the hot spot. The last eruption was 642,000 years ago.

The plume stops rising about 60 miles below the surface. Some of that melted rock then leaks up, possibly through a series of rock fractures, to a chamber about five miles below the surface of the Yellowstone caldera, Smith said. That magma chamber feeds the volcanic activity on the surface.

If enough of the plume breaks off and rises to the chamber, an eruption could happen. But that accumulation happens very slowly over thousands of years and there is no indication of when an eruption could occur, Zhdanov said.

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Former Cambodian poacher turns gamekeeper

MONDULKIRI, Cambodia (AFP)– As a hunter roaming the remote forests of eastern Cambodia, Lean Kha shot animals from dozens of endangered species, including tigers, bears and elephants.

But the repentant former poacher is now putting his tracking skills to good use as a wildlife ranger in Mondulkiri Protected Forest, which Cambodia hopes will become an eco-tourism hotspot.

Over nearly three decades, the 50-year-old shot hundreds of creatures as he tried to eke out a living in poverty-stricken Mondulkiri province, a sparsely populated and mountainous area nestled against the border with Vietnam.

Most of the carcasses were sold, though some wild cattle, deer and pigs were used to feed his family.

"I shot them because we had nothing to eat," Kha said as he prepared for a patrol at a ranger outpost in Mereuch, deep inside the protected forest."Now I never eat wildlife. I will not destroy what I am protecting."

The Cambodian government hopes to attract more visitors to the forest, which covers some 300,000 hectares and is rich in natural beauty, to help provide a steady income for local communities.

It has joined forces with conservation groups who have recruited experienced hunters like Kha to help protect endangered animals and keep illegal loggers at bay.

Keo Sopheak, who manages Mondulkiri Protected Forest for the government's Forestry Administration, envisages a future where locals"go into the forests to guide the tourists, not to hunt wildlife".

Much of Mondulkiri's wildlife was wiped out by poachers during the country's three decades of conflict, which ended in 1998.

Kha himself started hunting at the age of 13, when he was recruited by Khmer Rouge soldiers.

Armed with an AK-47 rifle, he recalls disappearing into the jungle for days before returning with an ox-cart full of wild meat, horns and tiger bones -- kills he now says he regrets.

"At that time I was totally ignorant," he said."I didn't know the value of the animals. I had never heard about wildlife conservation."

Nor did poaching make him rich. The income was irregular and he earned just enough for his family to get by. Often, he was paid with bags of rice.

After being approached by wildlife conservationists who offered him a steady salary as a forest ranger, Kha decided he had more to gain from safeguarding animals.

That was more than a decade ago, and he is now a keen protector of wildlife as he tries to make up for what he calls"his past sins".

Kha is not alone -- 10 other ex-poachers also work as rangers in the dense forest.

With financial backing from international conservation group WWF, they spend at least 16 days a month patrolling the vast area on elephant back, on foot or by boat, always in the company of armed policemen.

Last year, the patrol teams arrested eight poachers caught with rare or endangered species.

"Nowadays, I feel very happy. All of us want to... preserve rare wildlife so that they will survive for the next generation," Kha said as he steered a small boat along the murky Sre Pok river, on the lookout for illegal poaching or logging activities.

Their efforts appear to be paying off, with increased sightings reported of Asian elephants, black bears, Eld's deer, leopards, rare vulture species and banteng, a type of wild cattle.

"Protection efforts by both government agencies and community rangers like Lean Kha have helped to deter people from hunting wildlife which has seen a rise in animal observations," said WWF programme manager Michelle Owen.

But the organisation warns more work needs to be done to stamp out poaching, with at least 11 rare and endangered animals known to have been killed in the forest in 2010, including a pygmy loris, a leopard and an Asian elephant.

"Although there are positive signs that wildlife is rebounding, many of the species are globally at risk. These efforts therefore need to be continued and supported by local communities and champions such as Lean Kha," Owen said.

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U.S. poised to lift federal protections for wolves

SALMON, Idaho (Reuters)– The gray wolf would become the first creature ever removed from the U.S. endangered species list by an act of Congress under a provision in the budget deal set to be passed by lawmakers this week.

The measure would lift federal safeguards for some 1,200 wolves in the western states of Montana and Idaho, placing them back under state control and allowing licensed hunting of the animals. It also would bar judicial review of the decision to rescind federal protections.

The provision is included in massive, must-pass legislation to keep the federal government operating through the end of the fiscal year on September 30. It is expected to be passed in Washington by the Congress by the end of the week.

The move is being hailed by ranchers who see the growing wolf population in the Northern Rockies as a threat to their herds. Cattle producers, hunters and state game wardens say wolf packs in some places are preying unchecked on livestock and other animals such as elk.

"Congress has never before made a species-specific decision," said Matt Kirby, a wildlife expert for the Sierra Club conservation group."It opens up a Pandora's box where you could have politicians cherry-picking inconvenient species."

But U.S. Senator Jon Tester, a Montana Democrat who sponsored the provision, said,"Right now, Montana's wolf population is out of balance, and this provision will get us back on the responsible path with statement management."

A similar plan implemented by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2009 was struck down last August by federal judge Donald Molloy in Montana, who ruled it violated the Endangered Species Act.

The Obama administration has sought to quell the dispute by persuading wildlife advocates to embrace the management plans of Montana and Idaho as adequate to keep wolf populations at healthy levels now that they exceed recovery targets.

On Saturday, Molloy rejected the plan again after it was presented as a negotiated settlement between the federal government and 10 conservation groups. Several environmental organizations continue to oppose it.

Once abundant across most of North America, gray wolves were hunted, trapped and poisoned to near extinction in much of the continental United States by the 1930s under a government-sponsored eradication program.

Decades later, biologists recognized that wolves had an essential role to play in mountain ecosystems as a predator. Listed as endangered in 1974, the animals have made a comeback in the region around Yellowstone National Park since the government reintroduced them there in the mid-1990s.

The language now before Congress would override Molloy and put the 2009 plan back into place.

A number of animals have been removed from the U.S. endangered species list over the years through a process of scientific review established under federal law. But this legislation would mark the first time an animal has been removed by Congress from the endangered list.

(Additional reporting by Wendell Marsh; Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Jerry Norton and Will Dunham)

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Body of Calif. man killed by tsunami found in Ore.

GRANTS PASS, Ore.– The body of a man washed out to sea last month when the tsunami from Japan hit the Northern California coast has been found 330 miles north in Oregon near the mouth of the Columbia River, the Oregon State Medical Examiner's Office said Tuesday.

Dental records showed that the body found April 2 at Fort Stevens State Park by a person walking on the beach is Dustin Douglas Weber, 25, who disappeared three weeks earlier, authorities said.

"It was just somebody who made a mistake, not knowing what was going on,"Jon Weber, of Bend, said of his son's death.

The time the surge was predicted to hit the coast, 7:30 a.m., had passed.

"As far as they knew, it was all over with,"Joe Weber said."The wave came in and that was it."

Dustin Weber was the first person killed by a tsunami on the West Coast since 1964, when 11 people in nearby Crescent City, Calif., died from the surge created by an earthquake in Alaska.

Dustin Weber had moved from Bend to Requa, Calif., to start a new life on the Yurok reservation at the mouth of the Klamath River, where his mother grew up, two weeks before the March 11 tsunami. He was fixing up a house given to him by his grandmother, family members have said.

Thinking the initial tsunami surge had passed and that subsequent waves would be small, Dustin Weber hiked with two new friends from off the reservation down a steep and narrow path that winds through thick brush. It runs past a rock formation said to resemble a Yurok woman with a basket on her back, to a small rocky beach on the north side of the Klamath River, family members have said. His two new friends tried to save him, but couldn't.

"They just couldn't get him,"said Dustin Weber's mother, Lori Davis, of Bend."The wave just came so fast and hard. They were soaking wet, both of them. They were lucky they weren't taken also."

The currents along the shore would usually take a body to the south. But the tsunami would have taken it miles out to sea, where it was pushed north by the winds from winter storms that have been unusually numerous and intense this year, said Humboldt State University tsunami expert Lori Dengler.

"Wow,"she said upon learning of the distance the body had traveled."I must admit that I am surprised."

The biggest of the tsunami surges measured 8.1 feet in the harbor at Crescent City, about 20 miles north.

Family and friends searched the beaches for days, using ropes to descend the steep embankment to reach some of them, with no sign of the body.

"If you walk that whole beach, it's pretty awesome, as far as the strength of that wave coming down there, which was pretty unique,"said Jon Weber."It gets flowing very, very fast there. You get in that current and you're gone like a bullet. I think that's what happened. I hope that's what happened. I hope he was knocked out. It's tough."

Davis said her boyfriend told her the news of an unidentified body found near Astoria after reading about it while visiting Eugene, and she immediately contacted authorities there.

Jon Weber said the family has already held a memorial service for his son, and published a notice in the newspaper, but had not yet developed firm plans on what to do next. He was thinking about spreading some of his son's ashes along trails leading to hot springs at Paulina Lake in the Cascade Range south of Bend, where they would go to soak and relax.

"The last time it was just him and I and the bald eagles and the golden eagles, and we set there and enjoyed life a few moments,"he said.

Davis said she would put some beneath a headstone in a family cemetery near where her son died.

"We can finally put this to rest and go on with our life,"she said."And just remember Dustin the way he used to be and the way he made us all feel good inside. He just brought smiles to our face every time we looked at him. He was just such a beautiful, handsome man."

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New Zealand navy monitors Greenpeace oil dispute

WELLINGTON (AFP)– New Zealand has sent a naval vessel to ensure a high-seas dispute between Greenpeace activists and a Brazilian-owned vessel exploring for oil does not escalate, police confirmed Tuesday.

In recent days, swimmers from a Greenpeace flotilla have entered the water in Raukumara Basin, off New Zealand's East Cape, forcing a vessel from the Brazilian state-owned oil company Petrobras off course and disrupting its work.

Police superintendent Barry Taylor said he had several officers on board the navy ship Pukaki, which is now in the area monitoring the protest.

Prime Minister John Key said the area is within New Zealand's Exclusive Economic Zone and the police had the right to uphold the law there and could call on the navy for assistance if required.

"My expectations are that the police would balance the rights of people to peacefully protest, but also with the rights of the company to carry out the seismic activity in the Raukumara Basin that we granted them," Key said.

"How they balance those rights on the high seas is clearly an operational matter for the police.

"The police have had a long-standing memorandum of understanding in operation with the navy that, if and when required, they can use naval assets in conducting police work."

Greenpeace climate campaigner Steve Abel said protesters were sending an"emphatic message" to the government that deep sea oil drilling would not be tolerated in New Zealand waters.

"If we don't stop this initial deep sea oil exploration, rigs could be off coasts all around New Zealand in the near future, each one increasing the risk of spills and fuelling climate change as the oil is burnt."

Key said balancing the rights of Petrobras and the protesters at sea was no different from a protest on land.

He added the government believed there were opportunities for New Zealand in the oil and gas exploration and that was why Petrobras had been granted an exploration licence.

Superintendent Taylor said police had been in contact with Greenpeace and Petrobras and assured both sides"that safety and the lawful right to protest and to conduct the lawfully permitted survey work is paramount."

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Study reveals cost of nitrogen pollution

LONDON (AFP)– Nitrogen pollution costs Europe between 70 and 320 billion euros ($100bn-$460bn) per year in its impact on health and the environment, according to a major European study launched in Britain on Monday.

The first European Nitrogen Assessment, the result of a five-year research programme, found that the costs represented more than double the benefits for the continent's agriculture sector.

The ENA was to be launched Monday at a five-day international conference in Edinburgh.

The study was carried out by 200 experts from 21 countries and 89 organisations, who came up with recommendations on how to reduce the amount of nitrogen in water, the air, the earth and ecosystems.

The invention of synthethic fertiliser in the early 20th century revolutionised agriculture, multiplying yields and improving quality.

However, the amount of nitrogen in the environment has doubled on the world level, and tripled in Europe.

ENA coordinator Mark Sutton said:"More than half the world's population relies on synthetic nitrogen fertiliser for food production, but measures are necessary to reduce the impact of nitrogen pollution.

"The solutions include more efficient usage of mineral and organic fertiliser (manure, liquid manure and compost) and eating habits aimed at more moderate meat consumption.

"We have the know-how to reduce nitrogen pollution, but we must start applying these solutions at the European level in an integrated way."

The event in the Scottish capital will bring together scientists and policy makers to launch the ENA and discuss the latest scientific progress on nitrogen.

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Tokyo zoo to show pandas

OSAKA, Japan (AFP)– The Tokyo government said Tuesday a local zoo will start showing giant pandas from Friday, when it will resume operations after a temporary closure following a deadly earthquake and tsunami.

A pair of the animals, leased from China, arrived at Ueno Zoo on February 21, causing a media frenzy in the panda-loving nation.

They were originally scheduled to appear before the public from March 22.

But the zoo closed after the 9.0-magnitude quake and deadly tsunami on March 11, which also caused a massive nuclear power plant accident, prompting a nationwide radiation scare.

The zoo will wave admission fees for victims of the natural disasters until April 10, the Tokyo metropolitan government said.

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Pennsylvania to Begin Extensive Testing on Possible Fracking-Contaminated Water

Natural gas drilling through a method called high-volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing, or"fracking," has become a major cause for concern and citizen uproar in Pennsylvania, where energy companies have tapped into major deposits. But this past week, environmental regulators in Pennsylvania announced that thestate would be requesting further testing on waterthat is treated in both wastewater treatment plants and drinking water treatment plants to see if fracking water is contaminating drinking water supplies.

The process of natural gas drilling through frackinginvolves injecting large amounts of water into deposits deep below the ground. Natural gas is stored in compacted layers of shale within the bedrock and high-pressure water allows the shale to be broken up quickly so that the natural gas can be released and collected. In order to make the water injections more effective, corrosive and toxic chemicals are added and the water often picks up radioactive substances that are found naturally in rock deposits, including uranium and radium.

After the water is used in the fracking process, it's highly toxic and contains everything from carcinogens to radioactive materials to highly corrosive salts. But major problems arose when it was discovered that energy companies were taking millions of gallons of fracking wastewater to sewage treatment plants. These plants have no treatment steps that could remove the harmful chemicals, and the fracking water was processed through and dumped into rivers, many of which are public drinking water sources. Even worse is that drinking water treatment plants didn't test for radioactivity.

The practice of dumping contaminated water had been going on since at least as recently as 2009, but studies confirmed the problem was kept private and confidential until outside investigations discovered it.

In this week's announcement, state officials said that25 wastewater treatment plants would be requested to have their water testedin addition to requesting the same from officials in charge of public water supplies. The tests would include analyses of a variety of chemical substances often found in fracking water.

The fracking problem in Pennsylvania has put major criticism on energy companies. Recently,FracFocus.orgdebuted as a way to offer concerned residents information on the chemicals used by different energy companies which utilize fracking for natural gas drilling. As an online registry, companies all across the United States can submit their information. Additionally, the website contains information on the fracking process and state-by-state regulations.

Rachel Krech provides an in-depth look at current environmental issues and local Chicago news stories. As a college student from the Chicago suburbs pursuing two science degrees, she applies her knowledge and passion to both topics to garner further public awareness.

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A Brief Timeline of the Soviet/Russian Manned Space Program

The Soviet, then Russian, space program was born of Cold War competition. After the fall of the Soviet Union, it became the last vestige of Russia as a super power, a shadow of its former self. Here are some highlights.

April 12, 1961 - Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes first man to orbit the Earth in hisVostok 1.

Aug. 11-12, 1962 - Simultaneous flights ofVostok 3andVostok 4.They pass within four miles of each other. First ship-to-ship communication in space.

June 16, 1963 - Launch ofVostok 6. Valentina Tereshkova becomes first female in space.

Oct. 12, 1964 -Voshkod 1launched with three-man crew. First multi-manned mission.

March 18, 1965 -Voshkod 2launched with two-man crew, cosmonaut Alexi Leonov performs first space walk.

April 23, 1967 -Soyuz 1launched. Cosmonaut Vladmir Komarov dies in crash landing.

Jan. 14-15, 1969 - Launch ofSoyuz 4andSoyuz 5. Docked with each other and achieved crew transfer.

April 19, 1971 - Launch of first space station,Saylut 1. First crew of three die while reentering Earth on board a Soyuz spacecraft.

July 15-24, 1975 -Apollo-Soyuz test project. A Soviet Soyuz and an American Apollo were launched and successfully docked in low Earth orbit, constituting the first joint mission for the two super powers.

July 25, 1984 -Svetlana Savitskayabecomes first woman to walk in space while on Soviet space stationSaylut 7.

Feb. 19, 1986 - First module ofMir space stationlaunched. Several other modules were added and a total of 28 crews occupied the facility until it was deorbited in 2001.

Oct. 5, 1992 -Agreement signedto put Russian cosmonauts on the American space shuttle and American astronauts on the Mir space station.

September 1993 - Agreement negotiated between Russia and United States to build joint International Space Station.

June 29,1995 -Space shuttle Atlantis docks with Mir. First docking of a U.S. and Russian spacecraft since Apollo-Soyuz test project.

Nov. 29, 1998 - Russia launchesZarya, first module for theInternational Space Station.

Oct. 2, 2000 -First crew, including two Russian cosmonauts, launched to International Space Station aboard Soyuz spacecraft.

April 28, 2001- Russia takes first paying customer,Dennis Tito,to ISS. Seven tourists so far have stayed on the ISS on behalf of Russia.

April 4, 2011 -Soyuz spacecraft"Gagarin"takes two Russians and one American to the International Space Station.

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Company planning biggest rocket since man on moon

WASHINGTON– A high-tech entrepreneur unveiled plans Tuesday to launch the world's most powerful rocket since man went to the moon.

Space Exploration Technology has already sent the first private rocket and capsule into Earth's orbit as a commercial venture. It is now planning a rocket that could lift twice as much cargo into orbit as the soon-to-be-retired space shuttle.

The first launch is slotted for 2013 from California with follow-up launches from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

Space X's new rocket called Falcon Heavy is big enough to send cargo or even people out of Earth's orbit to the moon, an asteroid or Mars. Only the long retired Saturn V rocket that sent men to the moon was bigger.

"This is a rocket of truly huge scale,"said Space X president Elon Musk, who also founded PayPal and manufactures electric sports cars.

The Falcon Heavy could put 117,000 pounds into the same orbit as the International Space Station. The space shuttle hauls about 54,000 pounds into orbit. The old Saturn V could carry more than 400,000 pounds of cargo.

The old Soviet Union had a giant moon rocket bigger than the Falcon Heavy, but it failed in all four launch attempts. Another Soviet rocket, also bigger than Falcon Heavy and designed to launch its version of the space shuttle, had one successful flight more than 20 years ago.

While the new Space X rocket is designed initially for cargo, it satisfies NASA's current safety requirements for carrying humans and after several launches could carry people too, Musk said. He has said that if NASA does buy rides on commercial rockets, he would be able to fly astronauts to the space station in his smaller Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule within three years.

Potential customers for the new larger rocket are NASA, the military, other governments and satellite makers.

Musk said Falcon Heavy will be far cheaper than government or private rockets. Launches are about $100 million each. He said the Air Force pays two older more established aerospace firms about $435 million for each of its launches. Over its 40 year design history, the space shuttle program has cost about $1.5 billion per launch, according to a study by the University of Colorado and an Associated Press analysis of NASA budgets.

Musk, who has a contract to supply the space station with cargo using the smaller Falcon 9, said his pricing is more fixed than traditional aerospace firms. He joked:"We believe in everyday low prices."

To get costs that low, Musk said he needs to launch about four Falcon Heavy rockets a year but plans on launching about 10. He doesn't have a paying customer for his first launch, but is in negotiations with NASA and other customers for flights after his company proves the new rocket flies.

"It would be great if it works, if it's safe,"said Henry Lambright, a professor of public policy and space scholar at Syracuse University."I don't want to come across as skeptical, but I am."

Lambright said companies have often made big claims about private space without doing much. But, he added, Musk has some credibility because of his successful Falcon 9.

If Musk's plans work, it will give President Barack Obama's space policy a needed boost, Lambright said. Obama has been battling some in Congress over his plans to use more private space companies, like Space X, for getting people to orbit with NASA concentrating on missions to send astronauts to new places, such as nearby asteroids.

Several companies are vying to launch private rockets that could replace the shuttle. NASA is now paying Russia to send astronauts to and from the space station on Soyuz spacecraft.

Howard McCurdy, a space policy expert at American University, said of Musk:"If he's not in the lead, he's well positioned for the finish."

McCurdy said NASA's space shuttle was a technological marvel, but had a bad business model and wasn't cost effective. He said Musk, who is using his own money in his privately held firm, has incentive to be more financially savvy.

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Online:

Space X:http://www.spacex.com/

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