Science News

A small chunk of space trash made an uncomfortably close pass by the International Space Station late Friday, but not close enough to force the astronauts aboard to take shelter in their Russian lifeboats.

A Seattle-based team has won $900,000 in this year's Space Elevator Games, a NASA-sponsored contest to build machines powered by laser beams that can climb a cable in the sky.

When a NASA spacecraft rammed into the moon in October, it tossed up a hard-to-see plume of lunar material.

OKLAHOMA CITY - An animal rights group on Friday asked a U.S. Department of Agriculture agency to look into an owner's treatment of a circus elephant that escaped and was hit by a sport utility vehicle on a northwestern Oklahoma highway.

OSLO - Norway has joined Canada in asking the World Trade Organization to settle its seal hunt dispute with the European Union.

GENEVA (AFP) - More than 1,000 freshwater fish species are threatened with extinction, reflecting the strain on global water resources, an updated global "Red List" of endangered species showed Tuesday.

NELSON, New Zealand (AFP) - Scientists have discovered the first evidence that dinosaurs roamed the South Island of New Zealand with 70-million-year-old footprints found in six locations.

Spanning just 10 feet in length and sporting a tiny horn on its nose, a newly identified dinosaur has become the oldest known relative of the fierce meat-eater, Tyrannosaurus rex. The discovery suggests such tyrannosaurs were quite petite before they evolved into giant killing machines just before their demise.

A husband and wife team of paleontologists has discovered a newfound species of armored dinosaur that lived 112 million years ago in what is now Montana.

THURSDAY, Nov. 5 (HealthDay News) -- The reported success of gene therapy in treating two children with adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD) brings hope to patients with the potentially crippling and fatal brain disorder and their families, says a nonprofit group that supports ALD research.

THURSDAY, Nov. 5 (HealthDay News) -- New research sheds light on the possible link between the genes you inherit and the size of your belly.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Want to know your entire DNA sequence? A California company has done it for as little as $1,700.

WASHINGTON, Nov 5 (OneWorld.net) - Climate analysts are calling on the Obama administration to use an international finance meeting this week to press for a swift end to subsidies for coal, oil, and natural gas companies around the world.

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Exxon Mobil on Thursday became the first US company to win a contract since Iraq's oil industry was nationalised almost 40 years ago, further expanding the role of foreign nations in the industry.

STOCKHOLM - Sweden and Finland on Thursday approved a Baltic Sea pipeline project that would ship Russian natural gas to Germany, clearing two key obstacles for construction to begin next year.

With the upcoming disaster film "2012" and the current hype about Mayan calendars and doomsday predictions, it seems like a good time to put such notions in context.

The small earthquakes that sporadically rattle the central United States may actually be aftershocks from a few extremely large quakes that occurred in the region almost 200 years ago, according to a new study

Space explorers have yet to get their hands on the replicator of "Star Trek" to create anything they might require. But NASA has developed a technology that could enable lunar colonists to carry out on-site manufacturing on the moon, or allow future astronauts to create critical spare parts during the long trip to Mars.