Science News

A tiny piece of a defunct Russian satellite zipped by the International Space Station Tuesday, but was far enough away that outpost's two-man crew did not have to strap into their lifeboat to wait out the close shave, NASA officials said.

Astronomers have discovered hundreds of Jupiter-like planets in our galaxy. However, a handful of the planets found orbiting distant stars are more Earth-sized. This gives hope to astrobiologists, who think we are more likely to find life on rocky planets with liquid water.

MOSCOW (AFP) - A space capsule carrying a Belgian, a Canadian and a Russian landed safely in the steppes of Kazakhstan on Tuesday after the trio spent half a year on the International Space Station (ISS).

KATHMANDU (AFP) - An international project that prevented a glacial lake in Bhutan from bursting its banks underlined how climate change can be tackled by adaptation, the environmental group WWF said on Tuesday.

CUMBERLAND, Ohio - Officials at a southeast Ohio conservation center say a southern white rhinoceros could be the first fourth-generation member of the threatened species born in any other North American managed herd.

NAIROBI, Kenya - African authorities raided shops, intercepted vehicles at checkpoints and used sniffer dogs to detect and seize over 3,800 pounds (1,768 kilograms) of illegal elephant ivory in a six-nation operation, Interpol and the Kenya Wildlife Service said Monday.

A cluster of ancient stars is likely the relic of a dwarf galaxy that merged with the Milky Way during its early days, scientists now find.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - New fossils unearthed in what is now the Sahara desert reveal a once-swampy world

WASHINGTON - A 20-foot-long crocodile with three sets of fangs — like wild boar tusks — roamed parts of northern Africa millions of years ago, researchers reported Thursday. While this fearsome creature hunted meat, not far away another newly found type of croc with a wide, flat snout like a pancake was fishing for food.

BEIJING (AFP) - China has approved genetically modified strains of rice and corn in a move experts say could dramatically boost crop yields and help the world's most populous nation avoid food shortages.

Learning anatomy with cadavers is a centuries-old rite of passage that once again is getting a face-lift as medical schools struggle to mix this core knowledge with an explosion of new information from the genetics revolution.

After years of complications and high-profile setbacks, a series of small but intriguing advances has suggested that gene therapy may hold real future potential for treatment

NEW YORK (Reuters) - BP Plc discovered an oil and gas spill on a pipeline that serves the giant Prudhoe Bay oil fields in Alaska over the weekend, a company spokesman said on Monday.

SEOUL (Reuters) - Tata Group is planning to produce hybrid versions of its Nano, billed as the world's cheapest car, to join in the environment-friendly trend, its chairman said in an interview with a South Korean newspaper.

RAMBOUILLET, France (AFP) - French energy giant EDF has signed a deal with Russia's Gazprom to join the consortium building the South Stream gas pipeline, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Friday.

Loneliness, like a bad cold, can spread among groups of people, new research finds.

GENEVA - The world's largest atom smasher broke the world record for proton acceleration Monday, firing particle beams with 20 percent more power than the American lab that previously held the record.

Exercise is known to have a bounty of health benefits that can ward off age-related diseases, but a new study shows that regular physical activity has an anti-aging effect at the cellular level.