Updates.

See "Is Local Food Better?" May/June 2009, p. 6

Fat-Fighting MIT researchers are calling for increased local food production to tackle the U.S. obesity epidemic. Local food offers a healthier alternative to the "national-scale system of food production and distribution, which surrounds children ... with high-calorie products," they write.

See "Bye, Bye Birdie," July/August 2006, p. 28

Life Losses Eleven more species are either fully extinct or extinct outside of captivity, including a Tanzanian toad and eight tree-snail species, according to the latest Red List of Threatened Species. The number of species threatened with extinction now totals 17,291.

See "Living with Climate Change in the Arctic," September/October 2005, p. 18

No See Ice A Canadian scientist reported in October that the multiyear ice covering the Arctic Ocean has effectively vanished, a development that will facilitate polar shipping but that reflects faster-than-projected melting of the northern ice cap.

See "Poisonous Waters," January/February 2003, p. 22

Poisonous Ponds Artificial ponds may be responsible for the arsenic-laced groundwater that has poisoned more than 2 million...