Oil prices tumbled below $30 a barrel on Friday, with daily losses rivaling their biggest of the winter as flailing Chinese markets and the soon-coming increase of Iranian exports adds to concerns that the global glut will linger. [WSJ]

The ongoing methane leak from an underground reservoir run by SoCalGas has spurred a new search for innovative ways to detect large scale gas leaks. [The Guardian]

New research published in the journal Nature suggests that there may have had a close scrape with a period earlier in the current geological epoch known as the Holocene. [The Washington Post]