US pushes G8 to remove climate-change goals from agreement: The US requested changes to a Group of Eight declaration on climate change that eliminate some targets for reducing greenhouse gases and delete language stressing the need for urgent action. The proposed revisions are in a draft copy of the statement obtained by Bloomberg News. The document, dated last month, includes portions that the US has requested be crossed out when a final version is released at the end of the G8 summit scheduled for June 6-8 in Heiligendamm, Germany. Bloomberg

Treasure trove deep in Antarctic ocean: The lightless depths of the Antarctic’s Southern Ocean harbour an unexpectedly diverse “treasure trove” of marine life, including more than 700 previously unknown species, according to a new international study. Cosmos

Greenpeace activists to rebuild Noah’s Ark: Environmental activists are building a replica of Noah’s Ark on Mount Ararat — where the original Biblical Ark is said to have landed after the great flood — in an appeal to world leaders to take action against global warming. Greenpeace said that Turkish and German volunteer carpenters are making the wooden ship on the mountain in eastern Turkey, bordering Iran. Gulf Daily News

Mystery of Murdoch’s backflip on climate change: It would have been impossible for News Corporation chief executive Rupert Murdoch to ignore the hot topic of climate change at his company’s weekend management conference, at Pebble Beach, California, last July. Keynote speakers included some of the world’s most high-profile political climate-change crusaders Arnold Schwarzenegger, Al Gore, Tony Blair and Bill Clinton who were surely not invited just to putter about the $A578-per-game golf course or provide amusing anecdotes over dinner.  Canberra Times

Animal Extinction — the greatest threat to mankind: In the final stages of dehydration the body shrinks, robbing youth from the young as the skin puckers, eyes recede into orbits, and the tongue swells and cracks. Brain cells shrivel and muscles seize. The kidneys shut down. Blood volume drops, triggering hypovolemic shock, with its attendant respiratory and cardiac failures. These combined assaults disrupt the chemical and electrical pathways of the body until all systems cascade toward death. Such is also the path of a dying species. Independent