The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown's sequel to The Da Vinci Code, is a puzzle-packed fantasy. But its settings are real, and rife with history, science, and yes, symbols.

Africa's largest snake—the "vicious," 20-foot rock python—is now colonizing the Everglades, scientists say. The giant snake's threat is "worse" than that of the Burmese python, another alien likely introduced to the swamp by the pet trade.

See blue ducks blanket the Thames, a fire truck submerged in a sinkhole, a historic landmark turned purple, and more in the week's best news pictures.

A "handsome" three-foot rodent is among the 40 potentially new species found on Mount Bosavi in central Papua New Guinea, one of the least explored places on Earth, conservationists say.

A meat-eating marsupial, a purring frog, and the first new dolphin species in three decades are among at least 1,300 plant and animal species discovered in Australia since 1999, a new report says.

In a discovery worthy of a Dan Brown novel, archaeologists in Jerusalem say they've found an ancient ritual cup with an intentionally cryptic message.

When forged over burning human bones, swords become filled with "spirit," says the Taiwanese swordmaker behind the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon sword and other masterpieces. Video.

Using "leftovers" from liposuction patients, scientists have turned human fat into stem cells, a new study says—an efficient and apparently uncontroversial new method.

Twice the size of Texas, the remote Eastern Pacific Garbage Patch is home to much of the world's plastic trash, and now a scientific expedition has documented the vast "dump" for the first time.

Rock rabbit dung heaps in Africa—some dating back tens of thousands of years—are time capsules of climate and vegetation information. Video.

Former dolphin trainer Ric O'Barry, star of the new documentary The Cove, again confronts the Japanese town where dolphins are trapped and killed by hand in "drive hunts." Video.

A digital tongue that can measure the human taste of sweetness has been created, a new study says. The technology may someday be used to detect diseases in people.

Chinese soldiers practice their singing, a "flydog" takes to the air in Hungary, and Greece's hillsides burn in this week's best news photos.

Two Asian elephants in Thailand have been fitted with new prosthetic limbs after each lost a leg to landmine explosions.

A long-legged mammal, a sharp-toothed rodent, and an iridescent beetle are among the more than 6,500 fossils recently unearthed in Germany's Messel Pit, where creatures trapped in 47-million-year-old shale have been helping scientists better understand life during the Eocene epoch.