AFP - Japan plans to start exploring its seabed to harvest rare earth elements used in electronics, hoping to reduce its heavy reliance on Chinese imports, a government official sai.. READ MORE

AFP - Soil rich in diamond dust discovered across North America reinforces a theory that falling meteors caused the extinction of mammoths and other animals, said a study in the jou.. READ MORE

AFP - The Milky Way, the Earth's home galaxy, is spinning much faster and has a mass 50 percent larger than previously believed, raising the probability of a collision with another .. READ MORE

AFP - One in five Hong Kong residents is considering leaving the city because of its dire air quality, a survey released Monday has found, raising fears over the financial hub's com.. READ MORE

AFP - As mass-produced electric cars come closer to reality, their makers are trying to polish the image of what experts say could be a hard sell in the current recession."Plea.. READ MORE

AFP - A third rare sturgeon has died in a Hong Kong aquatic park, a spokeswoman said Sunday, the latest misfortune to strike a school of the endangered fish donated from China to ma.. READ MORE

AFP - The US space agency's Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity this month mark their fifth anniversary on the Red Planet, where they have endured harsh conditions and revealed a del.. READ MORE

AFP - Saving the planet by eating kangaroos and wild camels may seem like pie in the sky, but the offbeat menu comes with a scientific stamp of approval in Australia.The aim in both.. READ MORE

AFP - A group of Australian environmental campaigners were on Saturday forced to withdraw from their high-seas pursuit of Japanese whalers to refuel, giving the harpooners a fortnig.. READ MORE

AFP - French nuclear services group Areva announced this week that it has applied for US government approval to build a two billion dollar uranium enrichment plant in the northweste.. READ MORE

AFP - Air pollution across large swathes of Hong Kong last year reached its highest level since records began, despite government efforts to improve the environment, official figure.. READ MORE

AFP - Australian researchers funded by US billionaire Bill Gates Friday claimed a breakthrough which could help in the fight against dengue fever by stopping the often deadly diseas.. READ MORE

AFP - A sharp slowdown in coral growth on Australia's Great Barrier Reef since 1990 is a warning sign that precipitous changes in the world's oceans may be imminent, scientists said.. READ MORE

AFP - California wildfires ravaged some 1.4 million acres (5,600 square kilometers) in 2008, costing the large western state one billion dollars, the Los Angeles Times reported.Half.. READ MORE

AFP - The crew of the doomed shuttle Columbia was violently spun around in the cabin as the spacecraft desintegrated on reentry, NASA says in its final report on the 2003 tragedy that includes safe.. READ MORE

AFP - Ethanol sales for 2008 for the first time are outpacing those of gasoline in Brazil, a top ethanol producer, the National Petroleum Agency reported Tuesday.The figures only ta.. READ MORE