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A volcano has been erupting on the ocean floor 130 miles off the southern Oregon coast since Tuesday, April 3, but scientists say it does not pose a threat to ships or coastal communities.

The eruption has generated more than 1,000 minor earthquakes, with the largest measuring 4.5.

?We?re mobilizing to get a research ship to check it out,? says Robert Embley, a marine geologist with NOAA?s Vents Program. Researchers would like the ship to arrive in time to find ?megaplumes,? gigantic bursts of hot, mineral-rich water that are spewed out of underwater eruptions. So far, they have been using undersea instruments to track the volcano?s activity.
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A controversial operation to transplant the entire head of a monkey onto a different body has been a partial success, as the monkey lived for some time after the operation. The scientist who performed the operation, Professor Robert White of Cleveland, wants to try the same thing on humans, but other members of the scientific community have called the experiment ?grotesque.?

White says that the operation could be used to treat people who are paralyzed or whose bodies are severely diseased, while their brains are still healthy. ?People are dying today who, if they had body transplants, in the spinal injury community would remain alive,? he says.

The monkey could see, hear, taste and smell after the operation because the nerves were left intact in the head. read more

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The Hanford nuclear reservation, in the windswept desert of south-central Washington State, is being menaced by radioactive tumbleweeds. Russian thistle has tap roots that reach down as far as 20 feet into the ground. Every winter, the roots decay and the spiny brown skeletons break off and roll away, a common occurrence in desert areas all over the U.S.
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In a spectacular show of corporate power, Monsanto has succeeding in forcing a Canadian farmer to pay for genetically modified crops found growing in his fields, even though the seeds blew in from neighboring fields and he never intended to grow them in the first place.

?Basically, the judge is saying that it doesn?t matter how it got into your field, it?s Monsanto?s property. But how does a farmer know if he?s got a genetically altered seed that belongs to Monsanto?? asks the farmer, Percy Schmeiser of Saskatchewan, Canada.
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