Science News

This Fourth of July weekend will be filled with dazzling fireworks displays for many Americans, but not for NASA astronaut Michael Barratt, who is flying high above Earth on the International Space Station.

NASA's newest spacecraft in orbit around the moon has sent its first snapshots of the lunar surface.

Three crewmembers of the International Space Station took a short trip aboard their Soyuz lifeboat late Thursday as traffic heats up at the orbital outpost.

CHIANG MAI, Thailand - Thousands of excited visitors flocked Saturday to a zoo in northern Thailand for the first public viewing of a baby panda, which has been featured on Thai front pages almost every day since her birth six weeks ago.

GENEVA (AFP) - The environmental group WWF on Friday urged the Group of Eight industrialised nations to show global leadership by making a commitment to keep climate change in check at their summit next week.

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Fossils of three new species of dinosaurs have been discovered in Australia, including a meat-eater larger than Velociraptor from the Jurassic Park movies, suggesting Australia may have a more complex prehistoric past.

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Fossils of three new species of dinosaurs have been discovered in Australia, including a meat-eater larger than Velociraptor from the Jurassic Park movies, suggesting Australia may have a more complex prehistoric past.

CANBERRA, Australia - Scientists have confirmed for the first time that Australia was once home to a dinosaur that was big, fast and terrifying, and they've named it like something from an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. Meet the Australovenator.

SYDNEY (AFP) - Australian scientists hailed the country's most significant dinosaur discovery in decades on Friday after three new species were unearthed in a Queensland billabong.

PARIS (AFP) - France on Friday rejected a report by the European Union's food safety watchdog that said a controversial strain of genetically-modified corn was safe.

TOKYO (AFP) - A genetic mutation of swine flu that is resistant to the anti-viral Tamiflu has been discovered in Japan, the first such case in the country, the health ministry said.

WASHINGTON - With swine flu continuing to spread around the world, researchers say they have found the reason it is — so far — more a series of local blazes than a wide-raging wildfire. The new virus, H1N1, has a protein on its surface that is not very efficient at binding with receptors in people's respiratory tracts, researchers at the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology report in Friday's edition of the journal Science.

TOKYO (AFP) - Japan's near-silent hybrid cars have been called dangerous by the vision-impaired and some users, prompting a government review on whether to add a noise-making device, according to an official.

BEIJING (AFP) - China said on Thursday that it was "firmly" opposed to provisions in a new US clean energy bill that will make it easier to impose trade penalties on nations that reject limits to globe-warming pollution.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India should end controls on prices of petrol and diesel and allow entry for private and foreign firms in the energy sector, a finance ministry survey said on Thursday.

SYDNEY (AFP) - Australian scientists hailed the country's most significant dinosaur discovery in decades on Friday after three new species were unearthed in a Queensland billabong.

John Adams predicted in a letter to his wife Abigail that Americans would celebrate their Independence Day on July 2. Off by two days - not too bad for government work.

Cockroaches may be tiny enough to slip through the smallest of cracks, but just like humans, these eternal pests can get fat on an unhealthy diet.