Science - AFP

OSLO (AFP) - After wind, sun, currents and tides, a company is preparing to make clean electricity by harnessing another natural phenomenon, the energy-unleashing encounter of freshwater and seawater.

SYDNEY (AFP) - More than 100, and possibly hundreds, of Antarctic icebergs are floating towards New Zealand in a rare event which has prompted a shipping warning, officials said on Monday.

PARIS (AFP) - The East Antarctic icesheet, once seen as largely unaffected by global warming, has lost billions of tonnes of ice since 2006 and could boost sea levels in the future, according to a new study.

LAS TABLAS DE DAIMIEL NATIONAL PARK, Spain (AFP) - Columns of smoke and the acrid smell of burning peat now greet visitors to one of the largest wetland zones in Europe, where smouldering fires in the subsoil are causing alarm among environmentalists.

DALI, China (AFP) - In the mountains above the southwestern Chinese town of Dali, dozens of new wind turbines dot the landscape -- a symbol of the country's sky-high ambitions for clean, green energy.

LONDON (AFP) - Prime Minister Gordon Brown warned fellow world leaders on Sunday that they "cannot afford to fail" to strike a substantial deal on climate change in Copenhagen next month.

GABORONE (AFP) - Tourists love to watch herds of elephants trekking across Botswana's famed Okavango Delta, but nearby farmers watch in dismay when the animals trample their crops, leaving them little to eat.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Shuttle Atlantis astronauts on Saturday completed the second of their mission's three spacewalks to maintain and install more high-tech gadgets on the International Space Station.

GUATEMALA CITY (AFP) - Central American nations will demand 105 billion dollars from industrialized countries for damages caused by global warming, the region's representatives said on Friday.

SYDNEY (AFP) - Australia has issued "catastrophic" alerts after record-breaking temperatures and wild lightning storms sparked more than 100 fires across the country, officials said Saturday.

MORELIA, Mexico (AFP) - The mysterious Monarch butterfly, which migrates en masse annually between Canada and Mexico, is now facing a new peril: another insect thriving in Western Mexican forests.

JAKARTA (AFP) - Hundreds of Greenpeace activists rallied Saturday in support of a commitment by Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to reduce greenhouse gas emissions caused by deforestation.

WARSAW (AFP) - Poland is to sell 15 million euros' (22 million dollars) worth of carbon credits to Ireland, the Polish environment minister said Saturday.

ROME (AFP) - Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini on Saturday warned world leaders their credibility could suffer if they failed to make concrete commitments at next month's Copenhagen climate summit.

GENEVA (AFP) - The world's biggest atom-smasher, shut down after its inauguration in September 2008 amid technical faults, restarted on Friday, a spokesman for the European Organisation for Nuclear Research said.

BRASILIA (AFP) - Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is calling a meeting of eight Amazon countries next week to forge a common stand ahead of next month's key climate talks, officials said Friday.

NEW DELHI (AFP) - India, a stronghold of vegetarianism where the cow is a sacred animal for the majority Hindu population, has urged the rest of the world to give up eating beef to help reduce global warming.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Space shuttle Atlantis astronauts aboard the International Space Station delayed their second spacewalk Saturday after being jolted awake by a false alarm, NASA said.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik entered an unusual space countdown on Friday as he waited onboard the International Space Station for the birth of his daughter back on Earth.

MOSCOW (AFP) - Thawing permafrost caused by global warming is costing Russian energy firms billions of dollars annually in damage control and shrinking Russia's territory, Greenpeace warned in a new study Friday.

BRUSSELS (AFP) - The European Commission announced Friday that it is taking France to court over failure to properly treat waste water in over 60 large towns and cities including Avignon, Bordeaux and Lyon.

GENEVA (AFP) - The world's biggest atom-smasher, which was shut down soon after its inauguration amid technical faults, is set to restart this weekend, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research said on Friday.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Astronauts from the shuttle Atlantis have completed the first space walk of their mission, replacing a vital communications antenna on the exterior of the International Space Station.

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) - Efforts to craft a comprehensive climate treaty in Copenhagen next month will certainly "yield a success," the UN's top climate official has pledged.

MONSTER, Netherlands (AFP) - On the beach at Monster, bulldozers painstakingly turn sand dredged from the bottom of the North Sea bed into dunes in an ambitious effort to safeguard the Netherlands from flooding.

SYDNEY (AFP) - Australia said it was "deeply disappointed" after a fleet of Japanese whaling ships set out to kill hundreds of the giant ocean mammals on their annual hunt.

SYDNEY (AFP) - Australian firefighters battled dozens of bush blazes on Friday as record-breaking hot weather sparked "catastrophic" warnings in two states, just months after the country's worst ever wildfire disaster.

MONTEVIDEO (AFP) - From a devastating food crisis in Guatemala to water cuts in Venezuela, El Nino has compounded drought damage across Latin America this year.