Science News

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.

Two astronauts raced through the second spacewalk of their docked shuttle mission at the International Space Station Saturday, getting so far ahead of schedule they took on jobs scheduled for future excursions.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - A spacewalking astronaut put aside the impending birth of his daughter and blazed through his first-ever venture outside the International Space Station on Saturday.

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.

KATHMANDU (AFP) - The legendary French movie star turned animal rights campaigner Brigitte Bardot has written to Nepal's president urging him to stop a mass animal sacrifice from going ahead next week.

That tuna in your sushi might be an endangered species, a new study finds.

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.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The fossils of five hitherto unknown bizarre-looking crocodiles which roamed the world 100 million years ago have been unearthed in the Sahara desert, US scientists revealed Thursday.

LINCOLN, Neb. - The University of Nebraska's governing board on Friday voted not to place tighter restrictions on embryonic stem cell research than those outlined under federal guidelines, which were expanded after President Barack Obama took office.

THURSDAY, Nov. 19 (HealthDay News) -- People's genetic makeup has been shown to affect how they respond to asthma medications, but a new study finds that many people respond well to a particular combination treatment regardless of their genes.

CHICAGO (AFP) - Embryonic stem cell therapy got a step closer to the clinic Thursday after US researchers said they filed a request for government approval of human trials.

DIMOCK, Pennsylvania (Reuters) - Residents of a small rural Pennsylvania town sued Cabot Oil & Gas Corp on Friday, claiming the company's natural-gas drilling has contaminated their water wells with toxic chemicals, caused sickness and reduced their property values.

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.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's cabinet on Thursday approved its first solar power plan, pledging to boost output from near zero to 20 gigawatts (GW) by 2020 as part of its plan to fight global warming.

GENEVA - Scientists are preparing the world's largest atom smasher to explore the depths of matter after successfully restarting the $10 billion machine following more than a year of repairs.

LONDON - Computer hackers have broken into a server at a well-respected climate change research center in Britain and posted hundreds of private e-mails and documents online — stoking debate over whether some scientists have overstated the case for man-made climate change.

Winston Churchill once predicted that it would be possible to grow chicken breasts and wings more efficiently without having to keep an actual chicken. And in fact scientists have since figured out how to grow tiny nuggets of lab meat and say it will one day be possible to produce steaks in vats, sans any livestock.