Oil companies paid more than $1 billion collectively to acquire 1.6 million acres of oil and natural gas blocks in the Gulf of Mexico, the U.S. government said.
The U.S. Interior Department's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management published the final tallies from a March 20 lease sale for the central Gulf of Mexico.
U.S. makes $1 billion in gulf lease sale
'Big leap' towards curing blindness in stem cell study
The prospect of reversing blindness has made a significant leap, according to scientists in the UK. An animal study in the journal Nature Biotechnology showed the part of the eye which actually detects light can be repaired using stem cells.
The team at Moorfields Eye Hospital and University College London say human trials are now, for the first time, a realistic prospect.
Experts described it as a "significant breakthrough" and "huge leap" forward.
Former Mobil VP Warns of Fracking and Climate Change
Few people can explain gas and oil drilling with as much authority as Louis W. Allstadt. As an executive vice president of Mobil oil, he ran the company's exploration and production operations in the western hemisphere before he retired in 2000.
In 31 years with the company he also was in charge of its marketing and refining in Japan, and managed its worldwide supply, trading and transportation operations. Just before retiring, he oversaw Mobil's side of its merger with Exxon, creating the world's largest corporation.
No, global warming hasn’t stopped and here’s why
As ridiculous as it sounds, that simplistic analysis is the basis for one of most frequently cited critiques of climate science. Indeed, any time I write about global warming an email rebuttal arguing the globe hasn’t heated in 15 years reliably lands in my inbox.
Aluminum shuffle: Goldman profits as consumers pay billions
Hundreds of millions of times a day, thirsty Americans open a can of soda, beer or juice. And every time they do it, they pay a fraction of a penny more because of a shrewd maneuver by Goldman Sachs and other financial players that ultimately costs consumers billions of dollars.
The story of how this works begins in 27 industrial warehouses in the Detroit area where a Goldman subsidiary stores customers’ aluminum. Each day, a fleet of trucks shuffles 1,500-pound bars of the metal among the warehouses. Two or three times a day, sometimes more, the drivers make the same circuits. They load in one warehouse. They unload in another. And then they do it again.
Israel Needed A European Wake-Up Call
The Free World has been faced with a conundrum: how to oppose Israel’s occupation of the West Bank while making clear that it does not delegitimize Israel’s existence per se. The E.U.’s new guidelines forbiding financing or supporting Israeli Institutions in the West Bank may send the right message: the West stands behind Israel, but will never accept the occupation.
While Israel’s current government includes two parties—Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid and Tzipi Livini’s Hatnu’a—that are committed to the two-state solution, the Likud itself is nowadays largely composed of people who expressly reject the two-state solution. They are taking over the party’s central institutions, and it is doubtful that Benjamin Netanyahu could genuinely move towards a two state solution, even if he wanted to, without losing his own party.
Four mosquito repellent ingredients effective and safe
Officials at the Environmental Working Group say four compounds are most effective at warding off mosquitoes without risking a person's health.
"While consumers are aware that bug bites may affect their health, many people are also concerned about the possible drawbacks of common repellents such as DEET," David Andrews, senior scientist at EWG, said in a statement. "It is hard to find objective scientific evaluations of the many different repellents on the market."
Science for hire - Trial over plastic exposes disclosure deficit
By 2012, Eastman Chemical seemed to be perfectly positioned when it came to producing plastic for drinking bottles. Concerns about a widely used chemical called bisphenol A (BPA) had become so great that Walmart stopped selling plastic baby bottles and children's sippy cups made with it and consumer groups were clamoring for regulators to ban it.
Medical societies were warning that BPA's similarity to estrogens could disrupt the human hormone system and pose health risks, especially to fetuses and newborns.
Helen Thomas, pioneer journalist, dies at 92
Helen Thomas, the irrepressible White House correspondent who used her seat in the front row of history to grill nine presidents — often to their discomfort and was not shy about sharing her opinions, died Saturday. She was 92.
Thomas, who died at her apartment in Washington, had been ill for a long time, and in and out of the hospital before coming home Thursday, according to a friend, Muriel Dobbin.
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