A BIODIVERSITY map drawn up by British naturalist Russel Wallace in 1876 depicting how life evolved on our continents has been updated after 136 years.Technological advances and data on more than 20,000 species have allowed a team of 15 international researchers 20 years to map biodiversity in ...

Bill McKibben It’s been a tough few weeks for the forces of climate-change denial.First came the giant billboard with Unabomber Ted Kacynzki’s face plastered across it: “I Still Believe in Global Warming. Do You?” Sponsored by the Heartland Institute, the nerve-centre of ...

SCIENTISTS have discovered a planet which could have the most Earth-like environment ever found - raising a 'very compelling case for life there. Gliese 581g, located around 123trillion miles away, orbits a star at a distance that places it squarely in the habitable - or Goldilocks - zone, Nasa ...

ASTRONOMERS have discovered the youngest extra-solar planet around a solar-type star, named BD+20 1790b. The giant planet, six-times the mass of Jupiter, is only 35 million years old. It orbits a young active central star at a distance closer than Mercury orbits the Sun. Young stars are usually ...

Astronomers have discovered a new Earth-like planet that is larger than our own and may be more than half covered with water, according to a study published Wednesday in the science journal Nature. The so-called super Earth is about 42 light years away in another solar system and has a radius ...

Marking International Volunteer Day, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has paid tribute to the key role that volunteers around the world play in protecting the planet, as world leaders prepare to gather at the climate change conference in Copenhagen set to kick off next week. The decisions and actions ...

GALILEO knew he had discovered a new planet in 1613, 234 years before its official discovery date, according to a new theory by a University of Melbourne physicist. Professor David Jamieson, Head of the School of Physics, is investigating the notebooks of Galileo from 400 years ago and believes ...

HOLLYWOOD actors Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are the most powerful celebrity couple on the planet, according to a new study. The Hollywoods star pair scored a perfect 30 on 30 on a test that used a formula to work out how much stronger they are together than they would be individually. The ...

EXOPLANET researchers have discovered the lightest exoplanet found so far. The planet, e, in the famous system Gliese 581, is only about twice the mass of our Earth. The team also refined the orbit of the planet Gliese 581 d, first discovered in 2007, placing it well within the habitable zone, ...

THREE undergraduate students, from Leiden University in the Netherlands, have discovered an extrasolar planet. The extraordinary find, which turned up during their research project, is about five times as massive as Jupiter. This is also the first planet discovered orbiting a fast-rotating hot ...

VAST glaciers, up to a mile thick and tens of miles long, have been discovered on Mars in what scientists believe is the remnants of an ice age. The ice sheets are the 'most dramatic' evidence yet of climate change on the red planet, and could help us understand temperature shifts on Earth, the ...

Scientists have snapped the first picture of a planet outside our solar system orbiting a star similar to the sun. The distant world is giant and has about eight times the mass of Jupiter. It lies far out from its star about 330 times the distance of the Earth from the Sun. Images of the ...

PARIS (AFP) - People who fear a powerful atom-smashing machine, due to start operations next Wednesday, will cause Earth to be gobbled up or reduced to grey goo can rest assured, according to a study released Friday. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has been shadowed by Internet-fuelled concerns ...

OSLO  - As the world mulls the question of how to satisfy a seemingly endless appetite for energy and still slash greenhouse gas emissions, researchers have stumbled upon an unexpected hero: algae. So-called microalgae hold enormous potential when it comes to reining in both climate change, ...

THE smallest planet in the Solar System has become even smaller, studies by the Messenger spacecraft have shown. Data from a flyby of Mercury in January 2008 show the planet has contracted by more than one mile (1.5km) in diameter over its history. Scientists believe the shrinkage is due to ...

PARIS  - Two years after Pluto was struck from the planetary A-list and downgraded to "dwarf-planet" status, the ninth rock from the Sun regained some dignity Thursday by lending its name to a new category of celestial bodies. In a revised taxonomy of the mainly lifeless objects circling ...