BEVERLY HILLS, Calif Organisers of the Rio Olympics are confident they are in “good shape” to guarantee the health of competitors in the sailing events after taking several measures to cope with the polluted water of Guanabara Bay. The cleaning of Guanabara Ba... More »
WASHINGTON One of the enduring mysteries of paleontology, the demise of a highly successful group of dolphin-like marine reptiles called ichthyosaurs that flourished in Earth’s seas for more than 150 million years, may finally have been solved. Scientists on T... More »
SYDNEY Pushed out of the limelight by cuddly koalas and kangaroos, Australia’s less glamorous native bats and rodents have failed to catch the eyes of scientific researchers, a new study shows. Just 11 percent of scientific studies on Australian wildlife since... More »
A fossilized lizard found in Southeast Asia preserved in amber dates back some 99 million years, Florida scientists have determined, making it the oldest specimen of its kind and a “missing link” for reptile researchers. The lizard is some 75 million years old... More »
TOKYO Three former Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) executives were indicted on Monday for failing to take safety measures to prevent the nuclear disaster at Fukushima Daiichi plant in 2011, a Tokyo District Court official said. The indictments, forced through by ... More »
A crew of goats brought in to devour invasive plants at a popular park in Oregon’s state capital, Salem, have been fired because they ate indiscriminately, cost nearly five times as much as human landscapers and smelled far worse, a city official said on Frida... More »
Pregnant women should consider not traveling to the 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil due to the risk of Zika virus infection, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Friday. CDC also said women considering becoming pregnant, and their male part... More »
OSLO Bees and other pollinators face increasing risks to their survival, threatening foods such as apples, blueberries and coffee worth hundreds of billions of dollars a year, the first global assessment of pollinators showed on Friday. Pesticides, loss of hab... More »
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, who returns next week after nearly a year aboard the International Space Station, said on Thursday the secret to enduring the longest U.S. spaceflight is marking individual milestones, not ticking days off the c... More »
SYDNEY The Fijian government and international aid agencies began delivering much needed aid on Wednesday to the Pacific nation’s remote islands and coastal villages devastated by a powerful cyclone that killed 42 people. The death toll has crept up in the day... More »
LONDON A baby gorilla has been delivered by a rare caesarean section at a British zoo in an operation performed by a hospital gynaecologist, the zoo said on Tuesday. Vets at Bristol zoo in western England called in expert medical help after the mother Kera sho... More »
WASHINGTON DNA coaxed out of a 12,000-year-old fossil from Argentina is providing unique insight into one of the strangest Ice Age giants: a tank-like mammal the size of a small car with a bulbous bony shell and a spiky, club-shaped tail. Scientists said on Mo... More »
A wild elephant went on a rampage in a village in West Bengal on Wednesday, damaging around 100 structures, villagers said. Video taken in the village of Ektiasal showed the beast wandering around and knocking over flimsy huts. The elephant strayed into the vi... More »
TAINAN, Taiwan Rescuers pulled out alive an eight-year-old girl and her aunt from the rubble of a Taiwan apartment block on Monday, more than 60 hours after it was toppled by a quake, as the mayor of the southern city of Tainan warned the death toll could exce... More »
LOS ANGELES A skinny sea lion pup with a taste for the finer things in life turned up on Thursday inside a fancy San Diego restaurant, where it settled down into a booth. The malnourished mammal appears to have arrived at The Marine Room after sauntering down ... More »
WASHINGTON In an ancient streambed on Kenya’s Rusinga Island, scientists have unearthed fossils of a wildebeest-like creature named Rusingoryx that boasted a weird nasal structure more befitting of a dinosaur than a mammal. Researchers said on Thursday the cre... More »
WASHINGTON They emerge from their hiding places at night, driven to slake their thirst for human blood. Vampires? No. Bedbugs! These tiny insects have staged a global resurgence in the past two decades after being nearly eradicated in many regions, but scienti... More »
WASHINGTON The mystery behind the extinction of a huge flightless bird called Genyornis that flourished in the grasslands and woodlands of prehistoric Australia may have been solved, with burned eggshells as the clue and people as the culprits. Scientists said... More »
OSLO A record-breaking string of hot years since 2000 is almost certainly a sign of man-made global warming, with vanishingly small chances that it was caused by random, natural swings, a study showed on Monday. Last year was the hottest since records began in... More »
BEIJING China’s output of electric power and steel fell for the first time in decades in 2015, while coal production dropped for a second year in row, illustrating how a slowing economy and shift to consumer-led growth is hurting industrial consumers. China’s ... More »
MIAMI – The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that exploded into a fiery ball just after landing at sea off California on Sunday had descended with pinpoint accuracy onto an ocean barge before a landing leg buckled, causing the booster to tip over, a landing video showed... More »
VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from California on Sunday to put a climate-monitoring satellite into orbit, NASA said. Technology entrepreneur Elon Musk’s SpaceX then planned to attempt to land the rocket on a barge in th... More »
RENNES, France A man left brain dead after a drug trial in northwest France died on Sunday, said the hospital where he was being treated. The Rennes hospital said in a statement that five other volunteers were in stable condition after they were admitted last ... More »
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. NASA cut short a spacewalk on Friday at the International Space Station after one of the astronauts reported a leak in his spacesuit helmet, the U.S. space agency said. Tim Peake, who on the mission became the first astronaut from Britain ... More »
Gifts of sex toys, glitter and nail polish are not what the armed protesters who seized a U.S. wildlife refuge in Oregon were expecting when they put out a public call for supplies to help get them through the winter. The occupiers, who took over buildings at ... More »
NEW YORK A rare crested macaque that took a now internationally famous “selfie” cannot own the copyright to the photograph because he is not human, a U.S. judge ruled in a suit brought by animal rights group PETA on behalf of the monkey. People for the Ethical... More »
HARARE A scorching drought in Southern Africa that led to widespread crop failure could nudge African nations to finally embrace genetically modified (GM) crops to improve harvests and reduce grain imports. The drought, which extends to South Africa, the conti... More »
WASHINGTON Plesiosaurs, marine reptiles that thrived in the world’s seas when dinosaurs ruled the land, swam much like penguins by using their flippers to “fly” underwater, scientists said on Thursday, resolving a debate that began nearly two centuries ago. Pl... More »
SINGAPORE Six crew members are still missing after a general cargo freighter sank in the Singapore Strait following a collision with a chemical tanker at 8:14 p.m. (7.14 a.m. ET) on Dec. 16. The 10,385 deadweight tonne (dwt) cargo freighter Thorco Cloud, opera... More »
WASHINGTON Along a lush river delta in what is now northeastern Spain, a herd of dinosaurs munched on ferns and conifers similar to modern-day cypresses 125 million years ago. These creatures stood out from the others in this Cretaceous Period landscape by vir... More »
WASHINGTON In pandas as in people, it appears that passion prevails. Scientists studying captive breeding of the endangered bamboo-eating bears said on Tuesday pandas are far more likely to mate successfully and produce cubs when they show through a complex se... More »
PARIS A four-year global effort to craft a binding deal to brake rising world temperatures enters an intense home stretch on Monday, with senior officials in Paris stepping up pressure to resolve the most contentious points. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry,... More »
A small plane carrying Oscar-winning Morgan Freeman made an unexpected landing in Mississippi on Saturday after a tire blew on take-off but neither the actor nor the pilot were injured, according to media reports. Freeman, 78, was traveling from Mississippi to... More »
PARIS Residents of central Paris got a chilling reminder on Thursday of the challenge facing negotiators at the world climate summit on the city’s outskirts: 80 tonnes of Greenland ice left to slowly melt on the cobbles in front of the Pantheon. The ice was sc... More »
WASHINGTON Habitat destruction along routes taken by the world’s migratory birds poses an increasing peril to these long-distance fliers, with a vast majority crossing terrain that nations are inadequately protecting, according to scientists. The researchers s... More »
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. A Colorado-based startup developing a satellite network to predict weather using radio signals will launch its first two spacecraft on an Indian rocket, the company said on Thursday. Privately owned PlanetiQ signed a contract with Antrix C... More »
WASHINGTON What does a strange giraffe-like animal with three horns atop its head and a set of fangs that roamed Europe about 15 million years ago have in common with a pretty young queen from the “Star Wars” movies? Plenty, according to the scientists who on ... More »
PARIS World leaders will launch an ambitious attempt on Monday to hold back the earth’s rising temperatures, urging each other to find common cause in two weeks of bargaining meant to steer the global economy away from dependence on fossil fuels. They arrive a... More »
LONDON Debris from a U.S. rocket, most likely the doomed SpaceX Falcon 9, has been recovered near the Isles of Scilly, off the coast of southwest England, the UK coastguard has said on Friday. It was covered in barnacles and was initially mistaken for a dead w... More »
WASHINGTON Geckos boast one of the most impressive talents of any animal: the ability to scamper up a smooth wall or across a ceiling with ease. How do they do it? Well, it is all in the genes. Scientists on Tuesday said they have sequenced the genome of the g... More »
WASHINGTON Scientists aiming to take the bite out of malaria have produced a strain of mosquitoes carrying genes that block its transmission, with the idea that they could breed with other members of their species in the wild and produce offspring that cannot ... More »
YANGON Hopes faded on Monday that any of 100 people still missing would be found alive two days after a landslide near a jade mine in northern Myanmar smashed into a makeshift settlement, burying mine workers as they slept. Rescue workers had recovered 104 bod... More »
LONDON, The World Health Organization’s failure to sound the alarm until months into West Africa’s Ebola outbreak was an “egregious failure” which added to the enormous suffering and death toll, global health experts said on Monday. A specialist panel convened... More »
WASHINGTON South America’s vast Amazon region harbors one of the world’s most diverse collection of tree species, but more than half may be at risk for extinction due to ongoing deforestation to clear land for farming, ranching and other purposes, scientists s... More »
NEW YORK A volunteer firefighter from Mississippi whose face was burned off during a home fire rescue received the world’s most extensive face transplant, New York University Langone Medical Center said on Monday. After a 26-hour surgery performed at the New Y... More »
WASHINGTON DNA extracted from a skull and a molar tooth of ancient human remains discovered in the southern Caucasus region of Georgia is helping sort out the multifaceted ancestry of modern Europeans. Scientists said on Monday they sequenced the genomes of tw... More »
WASHINGTON It is an aerial maneuver far beyond the capabilities of even the most sophisticated modern aircraft: landing upside down on a ceiling. But it is routine business for bats, and now scientists have learned precisely how they do it. Researchers using h... More »
LOS ANGELES El Nino’s warm currents have brought fish in an unexpected spectrum of shapes and colors from Mexican waters to the ocean off California’s coast, thrilling scientists with the sight of bright tropical species and giving anglers the chance of a once... More »
JAKARTA When Indonesia’s anti-drugs czar announced plans to guard a death-row prison island with crocodiles, the government rushed to explain that it was just a joke, but on Friday Budi Waseso said he was now thinking of using tigers and piranha fish too. Medi... More »
WASHINGTON Murals from ancient Egypt’s vibrant New Kingdom era depicting bees and honey amid scenes of everyday life some 4,400 years ago provide early evidence of people using of beehive products. But humans have been using the stuff far longer than that. Sci... More »
WASHINGTON In a warm, lush environment near a meandering river 79.5 million years ago in Montana, a dinosaur nicknamed “Superduck” munched on leaves and kept a lookout for predators related to Tyrannosaurus rex that might threaten its herd. Scientists on Wedne... More »
ST PETERSBURG The first bodies from a plane crash in Egypt in which all 224 passengers, most of them Russians, died over the weekend arrived in St Petersburg early on Monday morning aboard a Russian government plane. The crashed Airbus A321 plane, operated by ... More »
WASHINGTON The well-preserved partial skull and skeleton of a gibbon-like creature that lived 11.6 million years ago in Spain is shedding new light on the evolutionary history of modern apes. Scientists on Thursday announced the discovery in Catalonia of fossi... More »
LOS ANGELES Tillman, the English bulldog who in 2009 set a Guinness World Record as the fastest skateboarding canine and starred in videos that demonstrated his four-wheeled prowess, has died in Southern California at age 10, his owner said on Thursday. Tillma... More »
WASHINGTON When it comes to unleashing their trademark zaps, electric eels employ an impressive and sophisticated set of tactics. A study unveiled on Wednesday detailed how these dangerous denizens of the muddy waterways of South America’s Amazon and Orinoco b... More »
ISTANBUL Disparate ideas like a sea-borne zoo, an Aboriginal peace treaty and the lost birdsong of a ruined Armenian capital form a cohesive body of work at this year’s Istanbul Biennial, a top international art show taking place in turbulent times. “Saltwater... More »
TOFINO, British Columbia A Canadian whale-watching tour boat with 27 passengers on board sank off the coast of British Columbia on Sunday, killing five people with one missing, rescue officials said. Twenty-one people had been rescued when the search was calle... More »
WASHINGTON The howler monkeys whose guttural calls reverberate through Central and South American rainforests possess a secret that the males of the species may prefer to be left unrevealed. Howler monkeys make among the loudest, deepest sounds of any land ani... More »
WASHINGTON The plague germ that caused the “Black Death” in the 14th century and other ferocious pandemics has stalked humankind far longer than previously known. A study unveiled on Thursday of DNA from Bronze Age people in Europe and Asia showed the bacteriu... More »
HAVANA Cuba on Wednesday launched an initiative to protect sharks in some of the most pristine habitat for the predators whose populations have been in steep decline. The action plan, reached through two years of collaborative research with the New York-based ... More »
WASHINGTON Scientists have identified a new species of giant tortoise on the Galápagos Islands, using genetic data to determine that a group of 250 of the slow-moving grazing reptiles was distinct from other tortoise species residing in the Pacific archipelago... More »
WASHINGTON A diet of putrid rotting flesh may not be your cup of tea, but to the cinereous vulture, found across southern Europe and Asia, it is positively delightful. This tough bird, it turns out, is genetically wired to thrive on the stuff. Researchers on T... More »
STA. ROSA, Philippines A typhoon swept across the northern Philippines killing at least nine people as trees, power lines and walls were toppled and flood waters spread far from riverbeds, but tens of thousands of people were evacuated in time. Officials fear ... More »
BERKASOVO, Serbia Thousands of migrants clamored to enter European Union member Croatia from Serbia on Monday after a night spent in the cold and mud of no-man’s land, their passage west slowed by a Slovenian effort to impose limits on the flow to western Euro... More »
WASHINGTON Maybe we cannot blame late-night TV, endless Internet surfing, midnight snacks, good books, bothersome work deadlines and other distractions of modern life for encroaching on our sleep. Research unveiled on Thursday showed that people in isolated an... More »
WASHINGTON Scurrying under the feet of dinosaurs in swampy terrain in Spain around 125 million years ago was a furry chipmunk-sized critter with tiny hedgehog-like spines, horny body armor and an unpleasant fungal hair infection. This intrepid little guy now i... More »
POLK CITY, Fla. At a Florida retirement home for former circus elephants, residents enjoy a steady diet of high-quality hay and local fruits and vegetables, as well as baths and occasional walks. For these majestic beasts, this life of relative leisure at the ... More »
WASHINGTON DNA extracted from the skull of a man buried 4,500 years ago in an Ethiopian cave is providing new clarity on the ancestry of modern Africans as well as shedding light on an influx of people from the ancient Middle East into the Horn of Africa. The ... More »
BEIJING A typhoon bringing heavy rain churned inland through southern China on Monday, a day after making landfall, killing at least six people, injuring hundreds, knocking out power and overturning cars. The storm made landfall in the southern province of Gua... More »
PARIS Four people were still missing on Monday after flash floods on the French Riviera killed at least 17 people over the weekend, prompting the government to declare a natural disaster in the southeastern tourist region. Some 5,000 homes were still without e... More »
WASHINGTON The blue whale is the largest creature on Earth and perhaps the biggest that ever lived, so it is no surprise it has a huge appetite. But the strategies this behemoth uses to get enough food has not been well understood – until now. Scientists said ... More »
WASHINGTON It was a combination of calamities – an asteroid strike followed by vast volcanic eruptions half a world away – that doomed the dinosaurs and many other creatures 66 million years ago. That is the conclusion of scientists who said on Thursday they h... More »
ORLANDO, Fla. A love triangle between bald eagles that played out before thousands of fans on a live webcam has ended badly in Florida with the death of Ozzie, longtime mate of Harriet, according to a Florida wildlife clinic. Ozzie was critically wounded on Se... More »
MILWAUKEE Wisconsin wildlife officials have taken to social media to refute a hoax letter that suggested they had mistakenly added deer lawn ornaments to the last two annual statewide deer tallies. The state’s Department of Natural Resources said on Facebook t... More »
BRUGELETTE, Belgium Belgian researchers are examining the excrement of giant pandas to try to understand how they can digest tough bamboo, hoping for clues on how to develop new generations of biofuel. The genetic make-up of endangered pandas is that of a carn... More »
Rapper Fetty Wap, a rising star in hip hop, was injured on Saturday when he collided with a vehicle while riding his motorcycle in his hometown of Patterson, New Jersey, celebrity website TMZ reported. TMZ posted photos from the scene of the crash, including o... More »
WASHINGTON Two-million-year-old fossils including the three tiny bones of the middle ear are helping scientists figure out the auditory abilities of early human ancestors at a time when they were beginning to hear more like a person and less like a chimpanzee.... More »
PORTLAND, Ore. The U.S. federal government has killed more than 1,000 seabirds on an Oregon island since May to protect endangered salmon as part of a plan that environmentalists say is flawed and are seeking to stop with a lawsuit. So far, 1,221 adult cormora... More »
WASHINGTON The origins of the enamel that gives our teeth their bite is no ordinary fish tale.Scientists said on Wednesday fossil and genetic evidence indicates enamel did not originate in the teeth but in the scales of ancient fish that lived more than 400 mi... More »
FRANKFURT/HAMBURG Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE) told U.S. dealers to halt sales of some 2015 diesel cars after regulators found software it designed for the affected vehicles gave false emissions data, the company said Sunday, announcing it had launched an investigat... More »
WASHINGTON The Inuit, a group of people who make the Arctic their home, have benefited from a handy set of genetic adaptations that help them survive in some of Earth’s harshest conditions. Scientists on Thursday said a study of the genomes of Inuit from Green... More »
WASHINGTON Rising temperatures at the top of the world may be bad news for Arctic denizens like polar bears, but good news for the local mosquitoes, pesky bloodsuckers that prosper with warmer weather. Researchers said on Tuesday that increasing temperatures w... More »
(This version of the story corrects number of troops in paragraph 1 to 1,000 from 10,000- headline altered to reflect change) PADAMARAN, Indonesia (Reuters) – Indonesia said on Friday it will send more than 1,000 troops to fight fires in southern Sumatra, as s... More »
NEW YORK Chemical giant DuPont Monday will face the first trial in litigation from residents near one of its plants in West Virginia who have accused the company of sickening them by emitting a toxic chemical that leaked into their drinking water. Carla Marie ... More »
CRADLE OF HUMANKIND, South Africa Humanity’s claim to uniqueness just suffered another setback: scientists reported on Thursday that a newly discovered ancient species related to humans also appeared to bury its dead. Fossils of the creature were unearthed in ... More »
KUALA LUMPUR Sixty-one bodies have been recovered from an overloaded wooden boat which sank off Malaysia carrying dozens of Indonesian illegal immigrants, maritime officials said on Saturday. The dead were mostly men, with one toddler on board, the maritime ag... More »
Google Inc’s YouTube is planning to provide advertisers with data on how many of the ads on its internet video service can be seen by viewers, in response to advertiser complaints, according to the Financial Times. The online story, which cited unnamed people ... More »
BRUSSELS Deep divisions over how to cope with a flood of migrants from the Middle East, Africa and Asia pose a threat to the European Union’s values and global standing and may diminish its ability to act jointly to reform the euro zone and ease Greece’s debt.... More »
WASHINGTON Scientists have discovered why TNT is so toxic to plants and intend to use this knowledge to tackle the problem of cleaning up the many sites worldwide contaminated by the commonly used explosive. Researchers on Thursday said they have pinpointed an... More »
WASHINGTON It was a creature that one scientist said resembled “a strange, gluttonous lizard that swallowed a small Frisbee.” But a sophisticated skull analysis showed that this reptile called Eunotosaurus africanus that lived in southern Africa 260 million ye... More »
LONDON Rebekah Brooks, the Rupert Murdoch protegee cleared last year of orchestrating a criminal campaign that damaged the British establishment, will return to her old job running the tycoon’s British newspapers next week in a stunning comeback. Brooks, who w... More »
TRIPOLI A boat carrying migrants sank off Libya’s Mediterranean coast, killing at least 37 people, a local official said on Sunday, the second such fatal accident within days. “We had reports this morning that there are seven bodies of illegal migrants that sa... More »
BEIJING People whose apartments were damaged in explosions in the northeastern Chinese port city of Tianjin can sell their homes to a group of property developers or choose to have the government renovate them, the official Xinhua news agency said. Hundreds of... More »
BERLIN Knut, the star polar bear who was hand-reared at Berlin zoo after his mother rejected him, had a type of auto-immune inflation of the brain that is found in humans, scientists said on Thursday. Knut, who was just four when he drowned at the zoo in 2011,... More »
LOS ANGELES Despite a devastating four-year drought that has forced strict water conservation measures across California, most Los Angeles County supervisors still have their cars washed two or three times a week, a local newspaper reported. The multiple weekl... More »
British IndyCar driver Justin Wilson died on Monday after suffering a severe head injury during a wreck in the closing laps of a race the previous day at Pocono Raceway in Pennsylvania, IndyCar officials said. He was 37. Wilson, a former Formula One driver and... More »
WASHINGTON President Barack Obama, fresh from vacation and nine rounds of golf in Martha’s Vineyard, launched into a busy two weeks promoting renewable energy and his nuclear deal with Iran. With the U.S. presidential election campaign and China’s slumping sto... More »
YANGON Myanmar was evacuating parts of a city on Wednesday after mudslides wiped away hundreds of houses and torrential rain threatened further damage in the worst floods to hit the country in decades. The government in Hakha, the capital of impoverished Chin ... More »
Loss-making teen apparel retailer American Apparel Inc (APP.A) said on Tuesday it doesn’t expect to have sufficient funds to keep the business running for the next 12 months, warning shareholders may lose some or all of their investments and it may not be able... More »
(Corrects fifth paragraph to delete reference to President Barack Obama acting by executive order) By Jeff Mason and Valerie Volcovici WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama challenged America and the world to step up efforts to fight global warming on ... More »
