A union representing 15,000 Canadian government scientists said Wednesday their right to speak publicly about their work regardless of what they discover should be addressed in contract negotiations.

The scientists feel they are not allowed to speak freely to the media -- especially if findings contradict government positions -- because of rules requiring them to seek permission first, according to the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada.

A rare dinosaur skeleton goes on display at London's Natural History museum on Thursday -- the first to be exhibited there in a century.

The near-complete fossilized remains of a Stegosaurus, a plant-eating dinosaur, were bought by the museum in the United States last year.

Anthropologists on Wednesday said they had found the earliest engraving in human history on a fossilised mollusc shell some 500,000 years old, unearthed in colonial-era Indonesia.

The zigzag scratching, together with evidence that these shells were used as a tool, should prompt a rethink about the mysterious early human called Homo erectus, they said.

A Frenchman who killed a young Israeli woman in a hit-and-run accident in Tel Aviv and immediately fled the country, sparking huge outrage, has been sentenced to five years in jail.

Eric Robic, who confessed to being behind the wheel at the time of the 2011 tragedy, was sentenced by a Paris court to five years behind bars while his passenger, Claude Khayat, was sentenced to 15 months late Wednesday.

The Orion spacecraft, designed to carry humans farther in deep space than ever before, is poised to blast off Thursday in what NASA hailed as a first step in mankind's journey to Mars.

No astronauts will be on board the capsule when it launches aboard the United States' largest rocket, the Delta IV Heavy made by United Launch Alliance, but engineers will be keenly watching to see how it performs during the four-and-a-half hour flight.

Just how big a hit was "Gangnam Style"? So mammoth that the Internet literally wasn't ready to handle it.

YouTube said that the 2012 song by South Korea's Psy -- accompanied by a horse-riding-like dance that became a global sensation -- this week reached the maximum number of views that its counter had imagined to be conceivable.

Somalia's Shebab insurgents said they had assassinated a former lawmaker and his bodyguard and wounded another MP in a drive-by shooting in Mogadishu on Thursday to show the government they remained a threat.

Gunmen in a moving car opened fire as the lawmaker drove through the center of the city, before racing off, witnesses said. MP Mustafa Mayow was wounded in the attack.

Turkish rescue workers have recovered the remaining bodies of 18 miners who were trapped by a flooding accident in a pit in late October, reports said on Thursday.

The miners died in a disaster in the Ermenek coal mine in the Karaman region of southern Turkey that highlighted the country's already dire mine safety record.

Hong Kong's student leaders said Thursday they would decide in the coming days whether to leave protest sites they have occupied for more than two months, following violent clashes.

The rallies for fully free leadership elections drew tens of thousands at their height, but numbers have dwindled as public support for the movement has waned.

Eight more bodies were recovered Thursday from the area where a South Korean trawler sank in the Bering Sea off Russia's far east coast, leaving 33 crew members still missing, officials said.

A total of 20 bodies have now been recovered since the 1,753-tonne Oryong 501 trawler went down Monday in rough, icy seas with 60 people on board.