EMERGING MARKET: The likelihood of a White House farmers market seems to be growing. Green thumbs have been flying across keyboards and cell phones since President Obama first planted the seed in the public's mind a few weeks ago, mentioning that he and First Lady Michelle Obama have been considering opening a farmers market near the White House. A nonprofit group called Fresh Farm Markets — which is working with the Obamas, according to city officials — has filed an application to close Vermont Avenue north of the White House on Thursday afternoons through Oct. 29, and Obama chef/garden consultant Sam Kass has appeared at public meetings to support the proposal. While Michelle Obama has become a home-gardening hero around the country for her White House vegetable garden, and has made improving national nutrition her top issue, she and other White House officials are denying that she's behind the farmers market. (Sources: Washington Post, Guardian, DCist)

 

HEALTH CARE AND CLIMATE CARE: "If the health care bill fails, the climate change bill will fail, too." That's according to Sen. Joseph Lieberman, who spoke at the Climate Change, Energy and National Security conference in Washington on Wednesday, hours before President Obama addressed Congress about health-care reform. Lieberman said that if the health-care fight damages Obama's already threadbare relationship with Republicans, there's little hope for the climate bill, which is the next major piece of legislation on deck after health-care reform. He named coal as the main source of partisan problems over climate change, and stressed the importance of aisle-crossing compromises on health care so the Senate's climate debate can begin with a spirit of cooperation. (Source: New Scientist)

 

GRAY AREA: A federal judge has ruled that gray wolf hunts can continue in the Northern Rockies, where the animal was virtually wiped out a few decades ago and was removed from the endangered species list just a few months ago. U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy shot down an attempt by conservation groups to stop the hunts, citing biologists who say gray wolf populations could sustain up to a 30 percent yearly kill rate without long-term harm. (Current plans involve killing 1,350 wolves, a roughly 20 percent reduction.) While that left some conservationists howling, Molloy still threw them a bone — he pointed out that the Fish and Wildlife Service apparently broke the law by delisting the wolf in Idaho and Montana but not Wyoming. "The service has distinguished a natural population of wolves based on a political line, not the best available science," he said. "That, by definition, seems arbitrary and capricious." It could also help the ongoing lawsuit against the FWS, in which various groups are trying to get the gray wolf relisted as an endangered species. Four gray wolves have already been shot in Idaho since that state's season began Sept. 1, and Montana's season is scheduled to begin next week. (Sources: Associated Press, Los Angeles Times, Christian Science Monitor, Seattle Post Intelligencer)

 

FILET-O-HOKI: When making frozen fish sticks or a McDonald's Filet-O-Fish, it doesn't really matter if you use an attractive fish. That's why the orange roughy — an ugly bottom-dweller formerly known as a "slimehead" — was chosen decades ago, until it turned out to reproduce slowly and live to be more than 100 years old. New Zealand's faster-living but equally hideous hoki was chosen as the roughy's replacement for processed fish sticks and sandwiches, and soon became the paragon of sustainable fishing — or so we thought. The NY Times reports today that New Zealand has been quietly cutting back on hoki quotas as populations decline, and chain restaurants such as Denny's, Long John Silver's and even McDonald's are relying less on hoki for fear the fishery is crashing. (Source: New York Times)

 

TREEPLUGGERS: Researchers from the University of Washington have successfully created an electrical circuit that runs off of trees, although they admit they aren't really sure why it works. It's similar to an MIT study last year, in which trees were coaxed to create up to 200 millivolts of electricity by attaching one electrode to them and one to the ground. Those researchers have since started a company that uses the technology to power forest sensors, but the Washington electrical engineering team says its is the first peer-reviewed paper that shows how to power something "entirely by sticking electrodes into a tree." The researchers suspect the electrical charge comes from some kind of signaling going on in trees, like humans' electrical nerve impulses but at a slower speed. (Source: ScienceDaily)

 

CAT UNDER A HOT TIN ROOF: A house cat named "Smoka" survived for 26 days buried beneath the rubble of a building fire in Ohio, the AP reports. Smoka's owner had assumed the 1-year-old female cat died in the Aug. 10 fire, which spread from a flower shop below her second-story apartment. Demolition crews had been clearing away rubble for weeks when workers noticed a cat's head sticking out from underneath 16 feet of debris, and aside from a voracious appetite and difficulty walking, Smoka is reportedly OK. (Source: AP)

 

— Russell McLendon