China Science & Technology Museum opens in Beijing

A boy plays a game in the new China Science and Technology Museum in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 20, 2009. The Hi-tech and newly-built museum covering an area of 48,000 square meters was opened to the public on Sunday. (Xinhua/Li Wen)

People look dinosaur fossils in the new China Science and Technology Museum in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 20, 2009. The Hi-tech and newly-built museum covering an area of 48,000 square meters was opened to the public on Sunday. (Xinhua/Li Wen)

Children experience the shooting theory in the new China Science and Technology Museum in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 20, 2009. The Hi-tech and newly-built museum covering an area of 48,000 square meters was opened to the public on Sunday. (Xinhua/Li Wen)

Visitors experience an air bicycle in the new China Science and Technology Museum in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 20, 2009. The Hi-tech and newly-built museum covering an area of 48,000 square meters was opened to the public on Sunday.(Xinhua/Li Wen)

The Hi-tech and newly-built China Science and Technology Museum covering an area of 48,000 square meters was opened to the public on Sunday.

This year's El Nino expected to be mild

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) -- This year's El Nino would be mild, resembling the pattern of 2006 and 2007, weather experts said in remarks published on Sunday.

The oscillation of hot water in the eastern Pacific Ocean is going to be a let-down, in terms of precipitation over a parched California, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) researcher Bill Patzert told the San Diego Union-Tribune.

"This El Nino is definitely puny," Patzert said , adding that this year's pattern resembles the mild El Nino of 2006-2007, which left California's snowpack and reservoirs short of what water experts had coveted: an end to five years of drought.

Although the jet stream pattern still shows that California might get a wet winter, the likelihood of floods and massive rains is diminishing, the paper quoted climatologists as saying.

"We're planning for a dry 2010," said Elissa Lynn, senior meteorologist for the state Department of Water resources, in an interview with the paper.

El Nino is the name given to a change in Pacific currents that moves the jet stream and storm track from their normal vectors. Strong El Ninos can see Southern California's coastal plains get triple the normal 10-12 inches of annual rainfall.

This year's El Nino appeared to be off to a strong start, but has fizzled.

Patzert said it's time to find a new name for mild El Ninos, so that the public is not confused.

"You have to reserve the name 'El Nino' for the real big events that only happen every 12 to 14 years," he said.

"It's actually eroding the credibility of long-range forecasters and climatologists."

Space shuttle Discovery stays overnight in Louisiana

The space shuttle Discovery, mounted atop a modified Boeing 747 shuttle carrier, lifts off from Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., on Sunday, Sept. 20, 2009. The space shuttle Discovery is on a cross-country flight to Florida after landing from space earlier this month in Southern California. (AP Photo/Nick Ut)

BEIJING, Sept.21 (Xinhuanet) -- The space shuttle Discovery started a cross-country ferry flight back to its home port in Florida on September 20, after more than a week after returning to Earth from its latest mission to orbit. NASA typically spends approximately 1.8 million U.S. dollars and a week of time hauling shuttles home to Florida from California.

According to media reports, it has stopped for the night at Barksdale Air Force Base in Shreveport, Louisiana.

The shuttle is being ferried atop a Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, which is a modified 747 jumbo jet.

A refueling stop was made earlier Sunday at the international airport in Amarillo, Texas, and dozens of well-wishers and space enthusiasts gathered at airport to greet shuttle discovery.

The shuttle should reach Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Monday.

Discovery landed at Edwards Air Force Base on Sept. 11 in California to end a two-week, 5.7-million mile (9.1 million km)mission to the international space station.

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Pandas to return to famous China reserve in 2012

A panda cub plays at the Giant Panda Breeding Centre in Chengdu in Sichuan province. Sixty of the creatures who were transferred to zoos around China after last year's devastating earthquake in the region destroyed their home are set to return in 2012, state media reported. (AFP/File/Peter Parks)

Sixty pandas relocated last year from a famous Chinese nature reserve after their breeding center was severely damaged by a massive earthquake will return home after repairs in 2012.

The panda breeding center in the Wolong nature reserve in southwest China's Sichuan province is undergoing a 379 million yuan ($55 million) reconstruction expected to be completed by 2011, the official Xinhua News Agency said late Saturday.

The Wolong reserve's location in a damp, narrow valley several hours from Chengdu, the Sichuan capital, made it vulnerable during the 7.9-magnitude quake, which sent boulders the size of cars crashing down, destroying enclosures and administrative buildings.

The May 12, 2008, quake left nearly 90,000 people dead or missing, including 12 staffers at the panda center.

The center had 63 pandas before the quake, but one died, another went missing and a third died of illness, Xinhua said, citing Luo Zengbin, deputy head of the provincial forestry department. The surviving pandas have been moved to zoos elsewhere in China, with most sent to the Bifengxia panda base in the city of Ya'an.

About 1,590 pandas are living in the wild, mostly in Sichuan and the western province of Shaanxi. An additional 180 have been bred in captivity.

Wolong is part of efforts to breed giant pandas in hopes of increasing the species' chances of survival.

(Agencies)

Australia's Copenhagen warning, aims at compromise

Australia on Monday said crunch climate change talks in December would fail if a "one size fits all" approach was adopted, instead suggesting a compromise deal aimed at developing nations.

Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said that under the scheme, developing countries would agree to binding goals in areas such as deforestation or renewable energy, rather than signing up to economy-wide emissions targets.

Ahead of December's UN-sponsored talks in Copenhagen, Wong said flexibility was needed to break the deadlock between developed and developing nations.

"A one-size-fits-all is not going to get the agreement we need," she told public broadcaster ABC from Washington, where she presented the compromise proposal to a meeting last week of the world's 17 biggest carbon polluters.

"We simply won't get the broad participation from major developing economies that the climate needs."

The Australian compromise seeks to find a formula acceptable to developing nations, who argue their economic advancement should not be hobbled to fix a climate problem largely created by rich countries.

Wong said participants in the US talks, which move to New York this week, had shown interest in her proposal.

"It's certainly been one of the issues that's been the subject and focus of discussion as one of the ways forward," she said.

Local media said US climate change envoy Todd Stern had described it as "useful" and "constructive".

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said time was running out to find a compromise before Copenhagen and he hoped this week's G20 summit in Pittsburgh could advance the talks.

"There's a danger, speaking absolutely frankly, that options for final decision in Copenhagen are left too late, because we are now I think less than 80 days away from Copenhagen," he told reporters in New York.

"There are big questions and big decisions to be made on targets for developed countries, on verifiable commitments for developing countries, about bringing down greenhouse gas emissions."

Australia has pledged to cut its greenhouse gas emissions to 25 percent of 2000 levels by 2020 if a comprehensive agreement is reached in Copenhagen.

(Agencies)

Carbon emissions fall with global downturn: report

Greenhouse gas emissions have fallen thanks to the global downturn, handing the world a chance to move away from high-carbon growth, a report said Monday, citing an International Energy Agency study.

The unpublished IEA study found carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels had dropped significantly this year -- further than in any year in the past four decades.

Falling industrial output is largely responsible for the plunge in emissions, but other factors also played a role, including shelving plans for new coal-fired power stations because of falling demand and lack of financing.

The fall will exceed the drop in the 1981 recession that followed a crisis in the oil markets, according to the results of study published in the Financial Times newspaper.

"We have a new situation, with the changes in energy demand and the postponement of many energy investments," said Fatih Birol, the IEA's chief economist.

"But this only has meaning if we can make use of this unique window of opportunity. (That means) a deal in Copenhagen."

The December meeting in Copenhagen, under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, aims to set down action for tackling heat-trapping carbon emissions beyond 2012, when the current provisions of the Kyoto Protocol run out.

Government policies to cut emissions have also had an impact on emission levels, with the IEA estimating that about a quarter of the reduction is the result of regulation.

The study is an excerpt from the Paris-based IEA's annual World Energy Outlook, which will be published in November. The excerpt will be released early next month ahead of the Copenhagen meeting, according to the FT.

The report also comes as world leaders converge on New York and Pittsburgh this week for pivotal talks in the two-year effort to remake global climate rules, ahead of Copenhagen.

Birol said a global agreement was needed in Copenhagen to encourage companies to cut emissions.

"We hope that an agreement in Copenhagen would give a signal for new investments to go in (an environmentally) sustainable direction," he said.

"If we miss this opportunity, it will be much more expensive and therefore harder than ever to bring the world? s energy system on to a sustainable path."

(Agencies)

Last old-modeled Russian cargo spaceship undocks from ISS

MOSCOW, Sept. 21 (Xinhua) -- The last Russian cargo spacecraft with the outdated analogue control system, Progress M-67, successfully undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) on Monday and began its autonomous flight, said a spokesman for the Mission Control Center outside Moscow.

The spacecraft loaded with the garbage collected from the ISS undocked from the Zvezda service module at about 11:25 Moscow time(0725 GMT), said Valery Lyndin.

The spacecraft will then temporarily serve as an orbital laboratory for a week to conduct a series of geophysical experiments under the Plasma-Progress program, before plunging into a "spaceship cemetery" in the southern Pacific, he said.

Progress M-67 arrived at the ISS on July 29, bringing 2.5 tons of supplies including fuel, water, and various equipment. It is the last spacecraft with the analogue control system.

The new generation of Progress vehicles, such as Progress M-01Mand Progress M-02M, which have been successfully launched by Russia in the last two years, is digitally controlled and lighter in weight.

The new generation can also ensure more accuracy when docking with the space station.