Forty thousand costumed revelers took to the streets in Tokushima, Japan, where some dancers emulate "drunken fools" in remembrance of a sake-infused 15th-century celebration.

The world's oldest intact mummy wore the hides of herd beasts, not wild animals, says a new study that suggests the Iceman lived in a pastoral-agricultural society.

Corruption is rife throughout water industries worldwide, forcing the poor to pay more for basic drinking water and sanitation services, a new report says.

The 19th-century Cairo palace that houses Egypt's upper house of parliament was heavily damaged, and at least 13 people were hurt.

Amazonian Indians have blocked roads and oil and gas projects in Peru to protest a new law that makes it easier for the government to sell their lands.

Bodies with greater symmetry are more appealing to the opposite sex, according to a new study that suggests symmetry is a sign of biological fitness.

Ruins of a pagan temple from the second century A.D. have been unearthed in the heart of a former Jewish capital, archaeologists say.

A ghost festival conjures spirits, monsoons blast India, an Olympian shatters records, and more.

In Africa boys as young as 12 and 13 risk mercury poisoning in mines to help provide for their families.

With food prices and interest in organic produce growing, some Londoners are growing their own—as their grandparents did in World War II.

Gene therapies developed to treat muscle-wasting diseases, such as muscular dystrophy, could be used in sports as performance enhancers, experts warn.

A 10,000-year-old cemetery with hundreds of skeletons is giving unparalleled insight into life in Africa's great desert when it was green and lush.

A new British Museum survey of several important archaeological sites in southern Iraq suggests antiquities there are threatened more by neglect, erosion, and military activities than looting.

Giant kangaroo-like beasts and thousand-pound marsupial hippos went extinct on the Australian island of Tasmania more than 40,000 years ago from hunting, not climate change, scientists say.

In Indonesia trained elephants are patrolling remote villages to keep wild elephants out—and out of harm's way.