鈥淎l Gore has done more to educate the world about climate change than anyone. But as extraordinary as his work has been, there鈥檚 nothing like $4 a gallon gas to get your attention.鈥�
Barack Obama reminding us of what really makes people tick (The New York Times, 17 June)
鈥淚 am not dictating to the states that they drill or they engage in oil exploration.鈥�
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John McCain wants to relax federal rules so that states can allow oil extraction along their coasts if they wish 鈥� though not in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska (Detroit Free Press, 17 June)
鈥淲ater quality doesn鈥檛 get more exciting than this.鈥�
Marina J.F. Busatto of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power relishes dumping 400,000 floating black plastic balls into a Californian reservoir. The idea is to prevent sunlight catalysing a reaction between natural bromide and added chlorine that forms bromate, which is carcinogenic (Los Angeles Times, 10 June)
鈥淎t long last we are going to get crooked cucumbers in our shops. Hooray for Europe!鈥�
British Labour MP Dennis McShane applauds the European Commission鈥檚 plans to ease restrictions that prevent the sale of knobbly fruit and vegetables as 鈥渃lass one鈥� goods (The Independent, London, 16 June)
鈥淗e鈥檚 a super-powered snail 鈥� doing really well.鈥�
Artist Vicky Isley on Austin the snail, one of three snails in her Real Snail Mail project at the University of Bournemouth, UK. Web users can send emails which are transmitted to chips fitted to the gastropods and carried at a snail鈥檚 pace to an electronic reader in a different part of their tank (BBC Online, 17 June)