Rocket carrying satellite blasts off

A rocket carrying a U.S.-French ocean-monitoring satellite lifted off early Friday from Vandenberg Air Force Base on the Central California coast.

The Delta 2 rocket blasted off at 12:46 a.m. after what officials called a "remarkably smooth" countdown. The satellite, called Ocean Surface Topography Mission-Jason 2, will use a radar altimeter to precisely measure the height of the ocean surface, which changes depending on temperature.

The data will be used to monitor the effects of climate change on sea level and to improve global weather, climate and ocean forecasts, NASA said.

Drinking coffee may extend life

Drinking up to six cups of coffee per day does not affect the death rate of men and may have a protective effect on women, researchers reported Tuesday in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

The study of more than 84,000 women found that coffee decreased the death rate from cardiovascular disease by 25% over a 24-year period and decreased the death rate from all other causes except cancer by 18%.

Researchers found no association between coffee and cancer deaths.

Ice shelf breakup goes on in winter

An Antarctic ice shelf bigger than Connecticut that began to break up in February is shedding ice even as the southern continent's winter sets in, the European Space Agency said Monday.

The breakup is the latest sign that warmer temperatures are affecting the Antarctic Peninsula, a portion of the continent that points toward South America. The peninsula has warmed about 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit in the last 50 years, and seven ice shelves have retreated or disintegrated in the last two decades, ESA said.

About 62 square miles broke off the shelf May 30 and 31, the first documented calving of ice in winter, the Paris-based agency said.

African rhino is almost extinct

The northern white rhino of central Africa is on the verge of being wiped out, a conservation group said Tuesday.

The four surviving wild specimens of this rare subspecies have not been seen since August 2006, said Martin Brooks of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which compiles an annual list of the world's most endangered animals.

The rhinos live in Garamba National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly known as Zaire, and are hunted by poachers for their horns, which are prized as trophies and as ingredients in some forms of traditional medicine.

Beaver dam first in Britain in ages

Two beavers imported from Germany have constructed the first beaver dam seen in England in centuries, British authorities said Monday.

Beavers were hunted to extinction in England and Wales during the 12th century and disappeared from Scotland 400 years later.

The imported beavers, settled in a private preserve, built a 6-foot dam on the River Tale near Ottery St. Mary.

From Times Staff and Wire Reports