Washington, March 25 : Analysis of deep sea rocks in Australia has suggested that they date back to 3.46 billion years ago, suggesting that not only did the oceans contain abundant oxygen then, but that the atmosphere was as oxygen rich as it is today.

The researchers drilled diagonally into the base of a hill in the Pilbara Craton in northwest Western Australia to obtain samples of jasper or hematite-rich chert that could not have been exposed to the atmosphere or water.

These jaspers could be dated to 3.46 billion years ago.

Bangkok - A team of 30 Chinese and Thai scientists have launched a two-year joint research programme to study the impact of climate change on the monsoon variability - the annual rains that are key to regional rice production, media reports said Wednesday.

The joint research programme will investigate variability of the monsoon in the Indian Ocean and China and its likely impact on rice- growing in China, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, The Nation newspaper reported.

San Francisco  - Few lessons have been learned from Exxon Valdez, as oil spills are a regular occurrence 20 years after the worst ecological disaster in US history, environmentalists warned Tuesday.

On March 24, 1989, a massive tanker captained by a man who had allegedly been drinking, sailed outside regular Alaskan shipping lanes and hit a reef.

Washington - The crew of the International Space Station and space shuttle Discovery received a phone call from US President Barack Obama on Tuesday.

Obama made the call from the White House along with a group of school children and members of Congress, whom he described as just as excited as the kids to speak with astronauts. He said he was proud of the US astronauts, but also of the international cooperation in the building and operation of the space station.

Washington, Mar 24 : Researchers at University of Liverpool have shown how a single-celled organism, living freely in the environment, could be a source of Salmonella transmission to animals and humans.

Salmonella are microscopic living creatures that can contaminate almost any food type, causing diarrhoea, abdominal pain and fever.

Washington, March 24: Images taken by the cameras of NASA’s Cassini spacecraft have captured, for the first time, the shadows of Saturn’s moons cast onto its broad expanse of rings, which signals the approach of a phase known as equinox.

Like Earth and most of the other planets, Saturn’s spin axis is tilted relative to its motion around the Sun.