US carbon capture 

Mattoon, Illinois, will host the US's first commercial scale coal-fuelled power plant to capture carbon dioxide and bury it underground. The site was chosen by the Department of Energy's FutureGen project, a $1.5 billion 
(£0.76 billion) public-private partnership to design the plant, which will take at least 10 years to complete. 

DNA methylation studies awarded Wolf Prize 

The prestigious 2008 Wolf Prize in medicine has been awarded to Howard Cedar and Aharon Razin, of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, for their work in understanding the role of DNA methylation in gene expression. 

Court battles over US car emissions continue 

California, used to being allowed to set its own targets on pollutants that are tougher than federal standards, is not getting its own way when it comes to regulating greenhouse gas emissions from cars. In December 2007, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) refused to grant a waiver allowing the state to set higher tailpipe emissions standards than were agreed nationally. California and 15 other states are now suing the EPA over the refusal.

Go Figure 

70 per cent reduction in the average presence of heavy metals in UK air over the last 25 years, according to a report on air quality by the National Physical Laboratory (NPL). Lead, iron, copper, and other harmful heavy metals have been monitored monthly across the country since 1980. Average concentrations in air have fallen from 1873ng per cubic metre of air in 1980, to 568ng per cubic metre in 2006.