SALT LAKE CITY — A federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday that gay marriages can continue in Utah, denying a request from the state to halt same-sex weddings until the appeals process plays out.

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the state’s request for an emergency stay on a federal judge’s ruling that found Utah’s same-sex marriage ban violates gay and lesbian couples’ rights.

The judge who made that ruling, U.S. District Judge Richard Shelby, refused the state’s first request to put a halt to the marriages Monday.

Utah’s last chance to temporarily stop the marriages would be the U.S. Supreme Court.

The appeals court ruling means county clerks can continue to issue marriage licenses to gays and lesbians. Nearly 700 gay couples have obtained marriage licenses since Friday, with most coming in the state’s most populous county.

Utah is the 18th state where gay couples can wed, and the sight of same-sex marriages taking place just a few miles from the headquarters of the Mormon church has provoked anger among the state’s top leaders.

‘Until the final word has been spoken by this Court or the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of Utah’s marriage laws, Utah should not be required to enforce Judge […]

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This is the first Christmas that the Swann family won’t spend with extended family in Alabama – a situation that makes members shake their heads in disappointment and tear up with joy.

They can’t go home because they moved to Colorado Springs this fall to treat their daughter Allie’s severe epilepsy with a marijuana oil that is illegal in Alabama. But, they say, their sorrow is overwhelmed by the joy they feel seeing their daughter’s rapid improvement.

After three weeks of taking the oil, her seizures are drastically reduced.

‘It’s the greatest gift. It really is,’ said Allie’s father, Butch Swann. ‘It’s so sad. We have something so joyful to share, and we can’t be there. But that is OK. We’ll spend Christmas in Colorado with our new family.’

Families looking to cure epileptic children find first dose of hope with special Colorado marijuana oil

That new family is made of almost 100 families such as the Swanns who moved to Colorado this fall, drawn by online videos and media reports showing a marijuana oil called Charlotte’s Web that appears to help children with debilitating seizures that other treatments have failed.

The migration has driven the number of registered pediatric medical marijuana users in the state […]

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The Louisiana parish of Plaquemines is taking on a group of oil and gas giants including BP and Chevron for allegedly dumping toxic waste – some of it radioactive – from their drilling operations into its coastal waters, according to a lawsuit removed to federal court on Thursday.

Plaquemines Parish is claiming the companies violated the Louisiana State and Local Coastal Resources Management Act of 1978 by discharging oil field waste directly into the water ‘without limitation.’ Worse, the companies allegedly failed to clear, revegetate, detoxify or restore any of the areas they polluted, as required by state law. The oil and gas companies’ pollution, along with their alleged failure to adequately maintain their oilfields, has caused significant coastal erosion and contaminated groundwater, the lawsuit said.

‘I think the oil companies have an obligation to self-report, I think the oil companies are to blame and I think the oil companies took advantage of the state,’ John Carmouche, on of the lead attorneys for the parish, said in November when the suit originally came out in state court. The lawsuit is just one of nearly 30 that were filed in November by both Plaquemines and Jefferson parishes, targeting dozens of energy companies and […]

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An extensive analysis of Neanderthal’s fossilized hyoid bone,found in neck, has hinted towards the species’ speaking ability.

Neanderthal’s speaking ability has been suspected ever since the first hyoid was discovered in 1989. The recent study proves it through computer modeling and illustrated exactly how the bone was used in speaking, similar to modern human.

The hyoid bone supports the root of the tongue and hence plays an important role in speaking.

Using 3D x-ray imaging and mechanical modeling, the team of researchers analyzed the fossil Neanderthal throat bone. They observed how the hyoid behaved in relation to the other surrounding bones.

‘We would argue that this is a very significant step forward. It shows that the Kebara 2 hyoid doesn’t just look like those of modern humans – it was used in a very similar way,

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An international scientific research project known as the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISI-MIP), run by 30 teams from 12 countries, has attempted to understand the severity and scale of global impacts of climate change. The project compares model projections on water scarcity, crop yields, disease, floods among other issues to see how they could interact.

The series of papers published by the Proceedings for the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) shows that policymakers might be underestimating the social and economic consequences of climate change due to insufficient attention on how different climate risks are interconnected.

Europe, North America at risk

One paper whose lead author is Franziska Piontek of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research explores impacts related to ‘water, agriculture, ecosystems, and malaria at different levels of global warming.’ The study concludes that:

‘… uncertainty arising from the impact models is considerable, and larger than that from the climate models. In a low probability-high impact worst-case assessment, almost the whole inhabited world is at risk for multisectoral pressures.’

The uncertainties in the model are large enough that they may ‘mask’ the risk of a ‘worst case’ scenario of ‘multisectoral hotspots,’ where impacts affecting ‘water, agriculture, ecosystems, and health’ […]

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