Environment

New fissures have opened on Hawaii's Big Island as earthquakes continue to rock the island, and scientists are warning about further volcanic eruptions.

Officials announced the island's 17th fissure on Saturday evening, hours after a 16th fissure emerged, releasing lava that traveled 250 yards before settling. That fissure opened near the Puna Geothermal Venture plant, where officials have removed 60,000 gallons of flammable liquid as a precaution.

A shallow earthquake, with a magnitude of 3.5, also hit the island on Saturday.

With the help of a rented plane, Jerry Eisterhold found the perfect place to start a vineyard with grapes native to the Midwest — grapes that no one had cultivated for more than 150 years.

The grapes also saved the European wine industry, allowing people today to enjoy chardonnays and cabernets.

A soil scientist by training, Eisterhold liked the dirt on the Missouri River bluffs north of Kansas City, Mo.

A massive floating nuclear power plant is now making its way toward its final destination at an Arctic port, after Russia's state nuclear corporation Rosatom launched the controversial craft over the weekend. It's the first nuclear power plant of its kind, Russian officials say.

Called the Akademik Lomonosov, the floating power plant is being towed at a creeping pace out of St. Petersburg, where it was built over the last nine years. It will eventually be brought northward, to Murmansk – where its two nuclear reactors will be loaded with nuclear fuel and started up this fall.