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If a 9.0 earthquake were to strike along California's sparsely populated North Coast, it would have a catastrophic ripple effect. A giant tsunami created by the quake would wash away coastal towns, destroy U.S. 101 and cause $70 billion in damage over a large swath of the Pacific coast. More than 100 bridges would be lost, power lines toppled and coastal towns isolated. Residents would have as few as 15 minutes notice to flee to higher ground, and as many as 10,000 would perish. For years, scientists believed the largest earthquake the area could produce was magnitude 7.5. But scientists...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – A potent greenhouse gas many thousands of times more effective at warming the world's atmosphere than carbon dioxide (CO2) is four times more prevalent than previously thought, according to a study released Thursday. Researchers using a new NASA-funded measurement network discovered there was 4,200 metric tons of the gas nitrogen trifluoride in the atmosphere in 2006, not 1,200 tons as previously estimated for that year. In 2008 there are 5,400 metric tons of the gas in the atmosphere, an average of an 11 percent tonnage increase per year, said Ray Weiss, head of the research team from...

RENO, Nev. – If everything lines up just right, the Sierra Nevada and Lake Tahoe ski resorts could be in for some rough but welcome weather in the days ahead. The National Weather Service has issued a special weather statement for the region beginning Thursday through the weekend. Forecasters on Monday predicted snow totals in the range of 5 to 10 feet along the Sierra crest, with about 2 feet around Lake Tahoe. Three storm systems are approaching the region and forecasters said they will be accompanied by strong winds that could create blizzard conditions. Rain is likely at first...

WASHINGTON, April 6, 2007 – The partnership between Iraqi and U.S. soldiers is helping to tamp down insurgent violence northwest of Baghdad, a senior U.S. military officer assigned in Iraq said today. “The key to this counterpart relationship is our partnering of one U.S. company to each Iraqi army battalion,” Army Col. Paul E. Funk, commander of the 1st “Iron Horse” Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division, told Pentagon reporters during a satellite-carried news conference from his headquarters in Iraq. Assigned to Multinational Division Baghdad, Funk and his 3,800 soldiers have teamed with Iraqi Army troops and police forces...

Mounting evidence suggests a plastic additive common in baby and sports bottles and used to line the inside of soda and tin cans is accumulating in our bodies at levels far beyond those known to cause considerable health problems in lab animals. At least that's the conclusion in research underwritten by the government or an independent source such as a university, a new review of 115 peer-reviewed publications has found. Industry-sponsored research has so far found no problem with the additive, bisphenol-A. And that, say the authors of a report published in the current edition of Environmental Health Perspectives, contributes...

The federal government is having problems, again, as it tries to grow the nation's official crop of medical marijuana. The news comes at a bad time for Health Canada, which has been told by an Ontario court to find a way to supply medically authorized users with the drug rather than making them get it from criminal dealers. The federal department has been trying to produce a uniform, quality controlled crop since 2000, when it gave Saskatoon-based Prairie Plant Systems a $5.75-million contract to grow the stuff inside a mine in Flin Flon, Man. Health Canada is growing the drug...

It's about freedom... On the day I die By Deborah Marie Pulaski As told to Claire Wolfe "I love freedom more than I love anything. More than I ever loved anything. And that's what makes the thought of dying so bitter, and at the same time, so welcome."- Deborah Marie Pulaski This week I learned I'm dying. Of course I've always known, in the everyday, human sense, that I was going to die. But this week I learned I am going to die - soon. In a year or so at most, I won't be on this planet. No more...