AUSTRALIAN beef has been implicated in a health scare in the United States, and is now the subject of a recall in at least one state.

The Department of Agriculture confirmed yesterday it had received notification from its American equivalent that shipments of Australian beef were believed to be the source of a potentially deadly E. coli contamination detected in ground beef products in the state of South Carolina last week.

NTPC Ltd, India’s biggest power producer, said it plans to spend as much as $15 billion (Rs 82, 521 crore) over a decade to secure overseas coal supplies as prices of the fuel tumble to a 19-month-low.

The utility may sign five- or 10-year contracts for the first time to import as much as 150 million metric tonnes of coal, Chairman Arup Roy Choudhury said by telephone from New Delhi on Tuesday.

A satellite sensor launched from a space centre in French Guyana is being used by the NSW Environment Protection Authority to track illegal dumping of ACT construction waste across the border.

The Spot 5, launched a decade ago, is a three-tonne computer mapping device that takes a high-resolution photo every 90 seconds during its high-speed orbit of the Earth.

New species of native succulent plants appear to have been discovered at the site of a planned uranium mine in Western Australia, the state's independent environment watchdog says.

Environmental Protection Authority chairman Paul Vogel said it appeared new species of tecticornia were present at Toro Energy's Wiluna uranium project in the Mid-West region.

Sharks have a reputation of being apex predators of the sea. But even they have their weak points. Many shark populations have plummeted in the past three decades as a result of excessive harvesting — for their fins, as an incidental catch of fisheries targeting other species, and in recreational fisheries. This is particularly true for oceanic species. However, until now, a lack of data prevented scientists from properly quantifying the status of Pacific reef sharks at a large geographic scale.

A Peruvian minister has denied claims that explosions used in oil exploration are to blame for the deaths of hundreds of dolphins.

Fisheries Minister Gladys Triveno said a government investigation showed that natural causes were to blame.

She contradicted a study by an environmental group which suggested that explosions had caused the deaths.

The animals have washed up along Peru's northern coastline since the beginning of the year.

RESIDENTS of areas hit by natural disasters such as cyclones and storms could face carbon tax bills for the greenhouse emissions arising from rubbish created by the disaster, a Senate estimates hearing was told yesterday.

The revelation came as the government released a list of 104 local councils it believes may have to pay the tax because of the carbon emissions from rubbish dumps, 46 of which are in NSW and 21 in Victoria.

Australia's Bureau of Meteorology said the climate models it monitors indicate a possible return of the El Nino weather pattern, often linked to heavy rainfall and droughts, in the second half of 2012.

The last severe El Nino in 1998 killed more than 2,000 people and caused billions of dollars in damage to crops, infrastructure and mines in Australia and other parts of Asia.

In the first study of its kind in Australasia, scientists have used 27 natural climate records to create the first large-scale temperature reconstruction for the region over the last 1000 years.

The study was led by researchers at the University of Melbourne and used a range of natural indicators including tree rings, corals and ice cores to study Australasian temperatures over the past millennium and compared them to climate model simulations.

Toro Energy won a recommendation from a state agency on Monday to build what would be Western Australia's first uranium mine.

The West Australian Environmental Protection Authority said the environmental impact of Toro's proposal had been meticulously examined.

Toro, 39 percent owned by OZ Minerals, has been looking to make a final decision on its Wiluna project by the end of 2012, and aiming to make its first uranium sales in 2014, assuming it can line up funding for the project.