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SCIENCE IN THE NEWS WEEKLY

White House Denies Pipeline Permit

The Obama administration has denied a permit for the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada. The builder can reapply this year, but it will undoubtedly prolong a bitter political fight that has raged for months.

In other environmental news, a new study suggests that small reductions in the emission of methane and soot could help keep the planet cooler.

Humans have "become important agents of disturbance in the Amazon Basin," an international consortium of scientists wrote in Nature. The dry season is growing longer in areas where humans have been clearing the trees -- as has water discharge from Amazon River tributaries in those regions. Multiyear and more frequent severe droughts are killing trees that humans don't cut down and increasing the risks of more common fires.

Scientists and educators report mounting resistance to the study of man-made climate change in middle and high schools. And the National Center for Science Education, based in Oakland, California, has turned its attention from defending the teaching of evolution in U.S. classrooms to the issue of climate change.