Stockholm/Oslo  - Nordic bourses dipped Tuesday, the day after US investment banker Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy protection, triggering a global decline on stock markets.

Washington , September 16 : NASA has selected a Mars robotic mission that will provide information about the Red Planet’s atmosphere, climate history and potential habitability in greater detail than ever before, in 2013.

Called the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft, the 485 million dollar mission is scheduled for launch in late 2013.

Washington, September 16 : A new study has shown that rather than large glaciers, it is the small ones that account for most of Greenland’s recent loss of ice.

The study shows that the dozens of much smaller outflow glaciers dotting Greenland’s coast together account for three times more loss from the island''s ice sheet than the amount coming from their huge relatives.

Reports indicate that nearly 75 percent of the loss of Greenland ice can be traced back to small coastal glaciers.

New York  - Three major US rating agencies have downgraded another victim of the US credit crunch, insurance conglomerate American International Group (AIG), reports said Tuesday.

Standard and Poor's, Moody's and Fitch lowered AIG's previous good-to-very-good credit rating to good-to-satisfactory after Wall Street financial institutes came under pressure to bail out the company.

The downgrading makes it more difficult for the struggling insurance giant to raise capital on financial markets to meet its obligations.

The rating agencies also placed AIG under observation and did not rule out a further lowering of its credit-worthiness ratings.

Washington, September 16 : Researchers at the University of Bath in the UK are helping to develop new rechargeable batteries that could improve hybrid electric cars in the future.

As concern grows about climate change, a range of ‘green technologies’ are being developed to help reduce carbon emissions.

Hybrid petrol/electric cars that use conventional metal-hydride batteries are already available but they are heavy and the cars have limited power.

Professor Saiful Islam, of the Department of Chemistry at the University of Bath, is researching new materials to use in rechargeable lithium batteries, similar to those that have helped to power the worldwide ‘portable revolution’ in mobile phones, laptops and MP3 players.

Washington, September 16 : A new study has shown that oil palm plantations are no substitute for tropical rainforests, which makes the protection of the rainforests all the more important.

Emily Fitzherbert from the Zoological Society of London and University of East Anglia carried out the study.

The continued expansion of oil palm plantations will worsen the dual environmental crises of climate change and biodiversity loss, unless rainforests are better protected, warn scientists.

“There has been much debate over the role of palm oil production in tropical deforestation and its impacts on biodiversity. We wanted to put the discussion on a firm scientific footing,” said Fitzherbert.