Conservation group Sea Shepherd Australia said Monday it was preparing for increased aggression from Japanese whalers in its annual campaign to stop the slaughter of the giant animals off Antarctica.

Three Sea Shepherd boats are due to leave from Melbourne and Hobart within days to harass and deter the Japanese harpoon ships which hunt minke, fin and humpback whales in the southern hemisphere summer.

China's Jade Rabbit rover sent back its first pictures from the moon, as state media on Monday lauded the first lunar soft landing in nearly four decades as a step forward for the "well-being" of the world.

The images released by China's official news agency Xinhua show the lander, covered in golden foil, standing in the Sinus Iridum or Bay of Rainbows, its solar panels open to generate power.

A space module carrying China's first lunar rover landed on the moon Saturday, state television said, the first soft landing on the moon in nearly four decades and a major step for Beijing's ambitious space program.

Scientists burst into applause as a computer generated image representing the spacecraft was seen landing on the moon's surface via screens at a Beijing control center, state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) showed, 12 days after Chang'e-3 blasted off on a Long March-3B carrier rocket.

Scientists said Friday they have discovered a cave on the Indonesian island of Sumatra that provides a "stunning" record of Indian Ocean tsunamis over thousands of years.

They say layers of tsunami-borne sediments found in the cave in northwest Sumatra suggest the biggest destructive waves do not occur at set intervals -- meaning communities in the area should be prepared at all times for a tsunami.

Iran's president said Saturday that the Islamic Republic has successfully sent a monkey into space for the second time, part of a program aimed at manned space flight.

Hassan Rouhani's website president.ir said that the launch of the rocket dubbed Pajohesh, or Research in Farsi, was Iran's first use of liquid fuel. It said the monkey, named Fargam or Auspicious, was returned to earth safely.

China will attempt to land a probe carrying the country's first lunar rover on the moon Saturday in a major breakthrough for its ambitious space program.

The spacecraft is expected to make touchdown at 9:40 pm (1340 GMT), state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) said, 12 days after the Chang'e-3 mission blasted off on a Long March-3B carrier rocket.

Sponges are getting squeezed out of a distinctive role in evolution. A new study says they don't represent the oldest branch of the animal family tree after all.

The DNA research gives the spot instead to comb jellies, a group of gelatinous marine animals with names like the sea walnut and the sea gooseberry.

Below-average snow cover, melting sea ice and declines in the population of reindeers and caribou are the new normal in the modern-day Arctic, said a scientific report out Thursday.

While this year was not as extreme as 2012, the trend toward a warming planet means these changes are likely here to stay, said the Arctic Report Card 2013, issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Taking a picture to help you remember something might end up having the opposite effect, according to research published in the United States.

A study released this week showed that people who took photographs of items during a museum tour were less likely to remember details than those who merely looked at the objects.

Air flows through lizard lungs in one direction, a finding that may prompt a rethink about how some species evolved following Earth's biggest mass extinction, a study said on Wednesday.

Humans and most other animals in contrast have a so-called "tidal", or two-way, breathing system.