TOKYO - Achieving a breakthrough in battery technology is the key to tackling pollution caused by cars and sustaining a rapid growth in car ownership worldwide, an official at the Japanese automakers' lobby said.  An estimated 700 million cars are on the road today and this is expected to double "in no time" given rapid motorization in China, India and other emerging markets, said Minoru Taniguchi, head of the environment department at the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association.

PASADENA, Calif.--A team of American and Canadian scientists has devised a new way to study Earth's past climate by analyzing the chemical composition of ancient marine fossils. The first published tests with the method further support the view that atmospheric CO2 has contributed to dramatic climate variations in the past, and strengthen projections that human CO2 emissions could cause global warming.

In the current issue of the journal Nature, geologists and environmental scientists from the California Institute of Technology, the University of Ottawa, the Memorial University of Newfoundland, Brock University, and the Waquoit Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve report the results of a new method for determining the growth temperatures of carbonate fossils such as shells and corals. This method looks at the percentage of rare isotopes of oxygen and carbon that bond with each other rather than being randomly distributed through their mineral lattices.

The Aug. 3 outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Britain was tied to a government laboratory and a private vaccine manufacturer in Pirbright, England. Initial tests show a second outbreak, which is still under investigation, was the same strain as the lab-related outbreak.

RENO (Reuters) - Search teams on foot, horseback and all-terrain vehicles resumed their quest on Sunday in western Nevada for millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett, missing since taking off alone in a small plane on September 3.

The ground search, now in its second day, focused on a patch of rugged terrain identified by U.S. Air Force radar analysis as an area where Fossett's aircraft was likely to have gone down, said Gary Derks, a state Department of Public Safety official overseeing the operation.

Speaking to Reuters by telephone from the command center in Nevada's capital, Carson City, Derks said the teams were expected to finish covering the search area of roughly 50 to 60 square miles by nightfall.