A study of haze over India shows that aerosols, long thought to be global coolers, can sometimes warm the lower atmosphere just as much as greenhouse gases.

Four rare apes were shot in Africa's Virunga park on July 22. Get up close with other Virunga gorillas as rangers patrol the park to prevent another tragedy.

It took 1,200 Iranian weavers 18 months to make the soccer-field-size carpet, which will cover the main prayer hall of a mammoth new mosque.

Fossils of tiny fish that lived 420 million years ago have given scientists the earliest insight yet into how vertebrates developed tooth-bearing jawbones.

The packet of genetic code that increases the odds of being a southpaw is also linked to certain mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, a new study says.

Some areas of Zimbabwe have nearly been wiped clean of wildlife—a disastrous effect of a highly controversial land-seizure program—a new study finds.

In captivity the apes tailor their gestures to help humans understand their desires, a new study suggests.

A burial chamber found near the pyramids of Abu Sir had been refashioned by nobles thousands of years after its original use, archaeologists say.

An unusual skull found in a Romanian bear cave has provided more evidence for the controversial theory that modern humans and Neandertals interbred.

In a legally symbolic gesture, Russian mini-subs dove under the Arctic ice to try and secure rights to the region's potential natural resources.

Get caught up on the most recent findings that add to evidence of Mars's watery past.

Plants thought to treat impotence and cancer are disappearing from Uganda's rain forest before scientists can study whether they actually work, experts say.

The world's largest freshwater lake is both shrinking and getting hotter, occurrences that may be related, experts say.

It's the dawn of the living dead for some ancient bacteria frozen in Antarctic glaciers: The microbes were recently brought back to life by scientists.

Analysis of more than 5,000 ancient teeth indicates that early humans who settled in Europe arrived from Asia and not direct from Africa.

A 1,300-year-old skeleton and a cache of gold artifacts have been found in a Bolivian pyramid previously thought to have been picked clean by looters.

Coral reefs in the Indian and Pacific Oceans have been disappearing much faster and for a longer time than previously thought, a new study shows.

Four galaxies are crashing into each other in one of the largest celestial smashups ever seen, forming a new galaxy that will be ten times the size of the Milky Way.

Planets like Jupiter and Saturn may form much more easily than previously believed, hints a study of red giant stars.

One's pretty, the other not so much. But a new species of shrew and a rare orchid were both discovered by scientists recently in the southwestern Philippines.

A massive new survey effort found fewer than 1,500 wild tigers—a sharp decline from previous estimates released just five years back.

A two-month expedition has uncovered a handful of new animal species in a remote forest that has been out of scientific reach for nearly 50 years.

A newly found jawbone and skull suggest two early human species co-existed, challenging the widely accepted linear theory of human evolution.

England's gene pool has shrunk considerably since the days of the Vikings, possibly due to two deadly, centuries-old plagues that wiped out large parts of its population.

Jupiter may develop self-esteem issues. A puzzling new planet is nearly twice as big—but weighs only three-quarters as much.

Estimated at 16 feet (5 meters) tall, the giant marble likeness of Hadrian is among the most exquisite ever found, archaeologists say.

A possible chamber under a stone carving of a fearsome goddess could be the first Aztec tomb ever to be discovered, archaeologists announced.

A new model warns that half of the years after 2009 will be warmer than 1998, the hottest year on record.

Soot from American coal burning before 1950 was likely a major contributor to warming the Arctic climate, a new study says.

The black-footed ferret, North America's most endangered mammal, has made a remarkable recovery in Wyoming, where only five of the animals existed in 1997.

No one knows how they got there, but three mummified ibises and five falcons have been recovered from a textile factory by Egyptian antiquities authorities.

Three Mexican students beat teams from Canada and the United States to take the gold at the eighth National Geographic World Championship.

A new window into space has allowed astronomers to glimpse unusually large, tumultuous galaxies where stars constantly collide.

A moonless night sky on August 12 will offer a clear view of the annual bevy of "shooting stars," with as many as one or two a minute appearing during prime hours.

Though the dynamics are mysterious, sunspots may be linked to heavy rains, flooding, and even outbreaks of bug-borne disease in East Africa, a new study says.

There's light at the end of the tunnel for Florida's gopher tortoises, thousands of which were killed under a law that allowed builders to pave over their burrows.

The kingdom of Angkor was the world's largest preindustrial settlement, but sprawl and environmental degradation hastened its downfall, a new study hints.

Photos: Angkor's Ancient Sprawl

It's a matter of when—not if—a massive earthquake will strike Southern California. And the results could be "along the lines of Hurricane Katrina," experts say.

When faced with a northern Pacific rattlesnake, California ground squirrels turn up the heat in their tails to subdue the heat-sensitive reptile.

High-tech satellite tags are offering researchers a clearer picture of the feeding and breeding behaviors of the huge but elusive fish, two new papers report.

Photos: Tuna Demand Pressures Wild Stocks

The drop-off is likely due to market forces, not environmental policies, experts say.

HRP-2 can lie down, serve tea, and help lift loads. Now researchers are hoping the graceful automaton can help preserve traditional dances as human performers fade away. With video

Flossie is expected to bring strong winds and heavy rain to the northwestern islands, but it's nothing the marine reserve there can't handle, a NOAA expert says.

As NASA readies a permanent lunar outpost for the 2020s, some scientists want to see a "lunar ark" of Earth's civilization in the event of a cataclysmic impact.

The star Mira is shedding material rich in the basic building blocks of stars, planets, and potential life—a "completely new and unexpected" find.

The half-ton fish are known as China's "pandas under the water," but they'll soon vanish from the wild unless a new breeding program can save it. Third in a series on megafishes

Hurricane Flossie's near miss yesterday was more than just luck, experts say: In general, hurricanes hardly ever hit the island chain.

Female hyenas force males to leave home by snubbing their sexual advances, thereby cutting the risk of incestuous mating, a study has found.

The finding suggests the evolutionary jump from fish fins to animal limbs occurred millions of years earlier than previously thought, scientists say.

A large stone sarcophagus of an Egyptian noblewoman who lived between 525 and 402 B.C. was found in a tomb near Cairo.

A weakened tropical storm Erin may still cause flooding in Texas, which has already seen record rainfall. And a new threat, Hurricane Dean, is looming.

California's San Andreas Fault has long, straight sections that could send earthquakes zooming faster than the speed of sound, new research suggests.

A cache of 70 Jurassic-era fossils is offering new insight into the evolutionary history of this mysterious marine animal.

Exclusive: Last month's gorilla "executions" are the result of a burgeoning illicit charcoal trade that includes government officials, wildlife rangers allege.

The magnitude 8.0 quake did not crack the ocean floor, which would likely have created a major tsunami, experts say.

Some 2,000 animals are undertaking a great migration—by truck—to repopulate a national park devastated by crime and poaching.

A new theory of how Enceladus' famous geysers work could put hopes of water—and maybe life—on ice.

A controversial proposal to throw sulfur particles into the sky to combat global warming would create worldwide drought, a new study shows.

The sea ice is melting much faster than computer models predicted, and may be gone altogether by 2030, experts say—prompting talk of a tipping point.

After lashing Jamaica's southern coast on Sunday, the strengthening Category 4 storm is headed for the Yucatán Peninsula.

• Photos: Dean Lashes Jamaica

The discovery of manioc, or cassava, at an ancient Maya farm may solve the mystery of how the culture produced enough energy rich-food to fuel its vast empire.

The storm's winds may reach more than 160 miles (257 kilometers) an hour as it rolls toward Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula.

Photos: Dean Lashes Jamaica

Refugee cattlemen in a popular Uganda reserve are poisoning predators to protect their livestock, government officials say—but the cattlemen claim otherwise.

Vampire bats in Latin America are turning their fangs on cattle as rain forest is being cleared to make way for livestock, new research shows.

The first Category 5 storm to make landfall in 15 years, Dean is expected to cause catastrophic damage as it crosses the Yucatan Peninsula.

In response to recent "executions" of endangered mountain gorillas, 30 rangers have formed a "crisis cell" to safeguard the rare, remote apes.

New and rare marine species have been discovered in abundance on a deep-sea mountain range in the middle of the North Atlantic, scientists say.

Photos: See the Deep-Sea Creatures

Amid concerns over a gash in the craft and an oncoming hurricane, Endeavour's seven-member crew touched down in Florida no worse for the wear.

A new study of massive colliding galaxy clusters raises "uncomfortable" questions about our understanding of dark matter, scientists say.

The minuscule gemstones are 4.25 billion years old and could provide a rare glimpse into Earth's distant geologic past, scientists say.

Ten-million-year-old teeth found in Ethiopia could change working theories of when and where humans and great apes split from a common ancestor, a new study says.

After ravaging the Yucatán Peninsula, the hurricane crossed the Gulf of Mexico and made second Mexican landfall with 100-mile-an-hour (160-kilometer-an-hour) winds.

Countries bordering the Arctic Ocean are vying to claim ownership to the seafloor and the rich oil reserves that may lie below it.

Today's top athletes would be no contest for meat-eating dinosaurs that ran on two feet, according to new computer simulations of how the extinct predators moved.

Despite its new "critically endangered" status, the Okinawa dugong might see even more of its habitat destroyed due to a U.S. airbase expansion, conservationists warn.

Hurricane Dean caused 20 deaths and billions of dollars of damage in Mexico and Jamaica-and may be a harbinger of additional powerful storms, forecasters say.

Watch as a young lion journeys from a dismal cage and a diet of stray dogs to an open-air sanctuary that provides refuge for predators in need of a home.

The first image of the rings taken by a ground-based telescope is allowing astronomers to gain new insight by peeking where the sun doesn't often shine.

The financial and environmental costs of exploiting fuel reserves under the seabed might outweigh potential gain, experts say.

A patch of sky lacking much of the universe's usual background radiation could be a gaping hole that's devoid of all matter, according to a controversial new theory.

Two golf-oriented developments may create a water shortage that irreversibly damages the rare and teeming Chamela-Cuixmala Biosphere Reserve, researchers say.

Adult female rhesus monkeys use high-pitched baby talk to communicate with infants and forge friendships with other females, a new study says.

Evidence that ancient organisms in permafrost stay just barely alive suggests that similar life might exist in the frozen soils of distant worlds, a new study says.

Firefighters have beat back the flames that threatened Olympia, birthplace of the Olympic Games, but dozens more wildfires are raging throughout Greece.

Swarms of dinner-plate-size creatures have been spotted from Texas to South Carolina in what scientists say is an increasingly common spectacle.

Contrary to a decades-old theory, the presence of the huge gas giant wasn't necessary for life to take hold on Earth, a new computer model suggests.

Find out where to get the best view of tomorrow's total eclipse of the moon—the second and last of 2007.

Some salamanders take great risks in order to grow more quickly and become too large for predators to eat, a new study reports.

The joint U.S.-Canada NEPTUNE project, the world's first cabled ocean observatory, will stream continuous images and data from the sea to the Web beginning in 2008.

Join the filmmakers of the adventure film Arctic Tale as they get chummy with walruses and polar bears, and find out why these animals may be on thin ice.

A silken air bubble allows the European water spider to monitor and replenish oxygen levels as needed, according to a new study.

Ancient cave formations found in Israel provide the first concrete evidence that a change in rainfall allowed early humans to migrate out of Africa, experts say.

Pollen-bearing parts attached to the back of a bee from 10 million to 15 million years ago offer new insight into the flowers' evolution, researchers say.

A survey of the Iriomote cat, believed to number fewer than a hundred in 1994, is offering evidence that the cat's already small population is shrinking, experts warn.

New infrared data from the Spitzer Space Telescope are providing clues to how water gets incorporated into planets, researchers say.

More than 1,500 victims of the bubonic plague have been found on what may have been the world's first disease-quarantine colony.

Pictures: Mass Graves off Venice

A huge tectonic shift 2.5 billion years ago may have pushed more volcanoes above water, allowing oxygen to build up in the atmosphere, a new study says.

An early-morning light show will present amateurs and scientist alike a rare chance to study the remnants of a far-flying comet.

The colorful new species of toxic frog can only be found in a patch of Colombian forest the size of ten city blocks.

A video of a baiji dolphin, which was declared "functionally extinct" just months ago, is prompting a "mission impossible" plan to gather up the last of the rare animals.

Cracks in his skull and injuries to his brain suggest that a blow to the head added to the lethal arrowhead wound that killed the prehistoric man, researchers announced.

A 2,200-year-old tomb has been discovered completely intact in Tuscany, revealing a mass burial dating back to the Etruscans, who ruled Italy long before the Romans.

A recent UN report says that Afghanistan now accounts for 93 percent of the world's production of opium, the raw material for heroin.

Groundbreaking new images have revealed the surprising sprawl of Cambodia's iconic imperial city.

As conservationists warn that bluefin tuna are near extinction due to overfishing, scientists are using the latest technology to tease out the fishes' migration mysteries and hopefully craft better protections.

The first photographs of a wild Chinese mountain cat have been taken high in the Tibetan Plateau in China's Sichuan Province.

See pictures of the damage in Mexico and Belize caused by Dean after the powerful storm slammed into the Yucatan Peninsula.

Pushed to their limits most of the year, Indian temple elephants are treated to an end-of-summer regimen of massage, rest, and health food.

Unprecedented floods, heat waves, snowstorms, and wildfires have afflicted Earth in the first months of 2007, the UN reports.

Satellite imagery and scenes of destruction illustrate the first chapter of the storm's story as it heads for Mexico and the U.S.

See images of the new Phoenix Mars Lander and the evidence for water on the red planet that the mission is designed to pursue.

More than 1,500 victims of 15th- and 16th-century bubonic plague have been found in mass graves on an island near Venice.

Found only on the Asian island, the animals number only about 15,000 and are threatened by logging, plantations, and human settlements, a new satellite study shows.

Take a virtual tour of Rome circa A.D. 320, and compare the city's digital re-creations with modern photos of the real-life monuments.

From a fearsome viperfish to a see-through squid, see the strange animals recently found on a deep-sea survey in the North Atlantic.

See a roundup of the week's news and events: Bridge over Mississippi River collapses, new Veil Nebula images released, and more.

See a roundup of the week's news: coal mine collapse in Utah, record-breaking battery-operated car, giant sea bloom, and more.

See a roundup of this week's news: India celebrates its 60th year of independence, London's Big Ben gets a cleaning, Mexico's Saint of Death gets a makeover, and more.

See a roundup of this week's news: New neutron star discovered, German police test gyrocopter, Egyptians seek sand treatment, and more.

See a roundup of this week's news: Lunar eclipse seen over Sydney, eight-year-old runs across China, Burning Man lights up Nevada, and more.