U.S. scientists on Tuesday completed a nearly two-week mission to explore waters around the U.S. Virgin Islands as part of a 12-year project to map the Caribbean seafloor and help protect its reefs.

A team with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration studied an area of 270 square miles (700 square kilometers), using equipment including underwater gliders and a remotely operated vehicle to help map the seafloor and locate areas where fish spawn. They focused mostly on the southern coast of St. Croix and the northwestern coast of St. Thomas.

The Netherlands is the land of giants: on average, its women stand almost 1.71 meters (5.6 feet) tall, and its men 1.84 meters.

But how the Dutch became the world's tallest people has been somewhat of a mystery.

Traces of radioactivity originating from the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant in 2011 have been detected in a seawater sample collected near Canada's west coast, according to a radiation monitoring group.

The Integrated Fukushima Ocean Radionuclide Monitoring (InFORM) Network said Monday that it was the first time traces of Cesium 134 had been detected off North American coasts. 

The Building Alliance for Local Advancement, Development, and Investment (BALADI) program, funded by the United Stated Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by Rene Moawad Foundation (RMF), inaugurated the Ecological Adventure Park in Bentael Nature Reserve in Mechehlen, Jbeil.

The inauguration took place in the presence of USAID Deputy Assistant Administrator Mrs. Mona Yacoubian, USAID Mission Director Mrs. Carolyn Bryan, Former Minister and President of René Moawad Foundation Mrs. Nayla Moawad, the representative of the Head of the Office of Common Administration at the Ministry of Interior and Municipalities Mrs. Racha Hourani, other relevant ministry representatives, as well as representatives from the Edde municipality, Bentael Nature Reserve Committee, and the community of Bentael, Bhdidat, Kafar, Kfoun, Dmilsa, and Kfarmashoun.

Greenpeace activists have boarded an Arctic-bound Shell oil rig in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, the environmental group and oil giant said Monday.

Shell denounced the action as a "stunt" and said it would not deflect it from its Arctic oil exploration plans.

U.S. scientists said Monday they have found a way to use discarded corn husks and stalks to make cheap hydrogen fuel that doesn't pollute the environment like fossil fuels.

The advances by a team at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University save time and money while producing a zero-emissions fuel that could speed up the movement toward hydrogen-powered vehicles, said the report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a peer-reviewed U.S. journal.

A sushi restaurant in downtown Flagstaff added a Pluto roll to its menu. A yearlong exhibit celebrates the work of the amateur astronomer in the city who discovered the now-dwarf planet in 1930. And a walking tour leads people to the movie theater and restaurant the astronomer visited the night of his big find.

Pluto has taken on new prominence in Flagstaff, where it was spotted by Clyde Tombaugh from Lowell Observatory and where residents have since been fascinated with the icy world. The worldwide attention that followed the discovery meant Flagstaff would be known as more than a railroad, cattle ranching and timber community on the way to the Grand Canyon.

The leader of Turkmenistan on Sunday pledged to streamline water use, a huge problem in the isolated desert nation believed to be among the world's top water wasters.

Some 80 percent of ex-Soviet Turkmenistan is covered by the Karakum desert, one of the driest places on earth.

The world's biggest particle accelerator is back in action after a two-year shutdown and upgrade, embarking on a new mission that scientists hope could give them a look into the unseen dark universe.

Scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, on Sunday shot two particle beams through the Large Hadron Collider's 27-kilometer (16.8-mile) tunnel, beneath the Swiss-French border near Geneva.

India's government launched a new air quality index on Monday, under intense pressure to act after the World Health Organization declared New Delhi the world's most polluted capital.

Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar said the government would publish air quality data for 10 cities, amid growing public concern over the impact of air pollution on the health of India's 1.2 billion people.