After a new blowout preventer was latched to the wellhead, BP prepared to conduct tests that should allow the company to finish plugging the well.

As lawmakers call for new inquiries into Thursday's accident, oil industry executives say it will now be more difficult to lift the government's offshore drilling moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico.

A group of fisheries scientists argue that the Marine Stewardship Council, an influential body that ranks fish sources as sustainable, grants its seal of approval too easily. As a result, some fish populations may be more endangered than consumers believe.

The crackdown by Vietnamese forestry officials is part of a broader effort to halt the illegal international trade in the meat of threatened species.

After Pacific Gas & Electric, the giant California utility, began installing smart meters in the state's Central Valley, the company was swamped with complaints from residents that their utility bills had spiked. But an independent review of the smart meters released Thursday found that the devices were functioning properly and attributed the high charges to a heat wave last year that coincided with their installation as well as poor customer service by P.G.&.E.

J. Craig Venter wants to create creatures — bacteria, algae or even plants — to carry out industrial tasks and displace fossil fuels.

Recent food riots in poor countries prompted United Nations officials to call for a careful watch on prices.

France’s Champagne industry is trying to cut the carbon dioxide it emits transporting billions of tiny bubbles around the world.

The scientists involved in crafting the panel’s climate reports need to be more open to alternative views and more transparent, an independent review said.

A judge ruled that the state attorney general failed to make his fraud case against Michael E. Mann but could try again.

The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday said it does not have the legal authority to ban lead bullets.

Some lenders are taking a stand on practices like mining and deforestation that may be risky to their reputations.

Many residents of Texas City, Tex., said they developed respiratory ailments during the leak, which lasted for nearly six weeks after a piece of critical equipment malfunctioned.

As regulators investigate the causes of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the broader dangers posed by the oil industry’s push into deeper waters have gone largely unscrutinized.

No one person or company has been implicated. Instead, several missteps and oversights by the crew are being explored by federal investigators as possible triggers of the emergency.

New information suggests that the process of killing the failed well was far more stressful than the public knew.

Environmentalists were handed a surprising victory when President Dmitri A. Medvedev postponed construction of a Moscow-St. Petersburg highway.

The New Zealand Christmas tree thrives in San Francisco, but is destructive as well. Nonetheless, it is not easy for a homeowner to gain city permission to remove one.

Hearings trying to determine the causes of the Deepwater Horizon explosion have been dominated by disagreements among lawyers for the companies involved.

A tennis association has proposed a carbon-neutral complex that would be the first public bathroom of its kind in a New York City park.

South America’s Urubamba River valley and the surrounding region are as spectacular for birding as they are underrated.

Julian Cribb warns of worldwide famines in the near future, and offers sensible ways to help alleviate the “global feeding frenzy.”

An agronomist, defying the government, has planted genetically modified corn. Environmentalists have also taken matters into their own hands.

The states are asking a federal judge to take emergency action to close two shipping locks and install barriers to prevent Asian carp from overrunning the Great Lakes via a “carp highway.”

New York State and a utility disagree on how to handle the Indian Point nuclear plant’s effect on the Hudson River.

Sean Meenan has made Habana Outpost and Café Habana leaders among New York’s growing collection of ecologically conscious restaurants.

As more bring digital devices to national parks, rangers are seeing an increase in mishaps involving technology.

As he did with the Sept. 11 victims fund, Kenneth R. Feinberg will have to untangle all sorts of thorny issues in administering a $20 billion oil spill fund.

Researchers who model the oil spill’s progress expect subsurface oil to collect in a shipping channel that manatees use on their migration from Florida to Alabama.

The existence of a huge plume of dispersed oil might pose a continuing threat to wildlife for months or years.

BP will delay the final sealing of its stricken well while it replaces some equipment on the well that led to its failure in April.

A new federal agency is financing attempts to find a renewable replacement for gasoline and diesel fuel, like a new liquid fuel or a much better battery.

BP engineers and government scientists are evaluating alternatives for proceeding with a relief well that is intended to put the final plug in the Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico.

Rising nitrogen levels are suffocating the vegetation and marine life in saltwater ponds and estuaries on Cape Cod, posing a threat to the shellfishing industry and the tourist economy.

The Obama administration said it would require more review before approving offshore drilling permits, ending a practice in which regulators essentially rubber-stamped projects.

As the Louisiana white shrimp season opened, consumer confidence was the biggest issue facing the industry.

The Vineyard Golf Club, where President Obama is expected to play this month, is thought to be the only completely organic course in the United States.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change would do well to cultivate contacts between its authors and reporters in poor countries.

The head of the review of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change weighs in on the panel's leadership and flaws in its treatment of uncertainty.

The official who led China's delegation in recent climate negotiations says the right to a better life in poor countries trumps the responsibility to cut emissions.

Jeffrey Marlow answers questions about deep-sea vents at Hydrate Ridge.

Learning which water sources villagers use and how far they carry heavy jerrycans of water is itself thirsty work in the Rwandan heat.

Opponents of offsetting have likened the system to the kind of financial engineering on Wall Street that helped precipitate the recent banking crisis.