China's commercial hub Shanghai plans to turn recycled cooking oil, some of it seized by authorities, into an environmental asset by converting it into fuel for vehicles, state media said Monday.

The country has been rocked by a series of food safety scandals including the re-use of waste oil recycled from restaurants and called "gutter oil" in Chinese.

A baby gorilla has been born to first-time parents at an Ohio zoo.

The healthy 5-pound (2.2-kilogram) male gorilla arrived Thursday at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, joining 16 other gorillas there.

The rugged landscape created by volcanic eruptions and tectonic plate shifts in east and south Africa millions of years ago may be what prompted our human ancestors to start walking on two legs, a study said Friday.

The research published in the journal Antiquity challenges the commonly-held theory that early hominins (members of the broad human family) were forced onto two feet on the ground because climate change reduced the number of trees they lived in.

Four researchers were exposed to radiation in an accident at a Japanese nuclear physics laboratory this week, officials said Saturday.

The accident occurred on Thursday at a laboratory in Tokaimura, 120 kilometers (75 miles) northeast of Tokyo, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) said.

France's meteorological center said Friday that the winter-like weather that has gripped much of Western Europe was likely to continue into June.

With snow in the plains of Switzerland, record cold in the Netherlands and a distinct lack of sunshine in France and Germany, meteorologists say Western Europe is suffering from "exceptional" weather for this time of year.

Google has followed in the footsteps of Charles Darwin to gather images of the beauty and biological diversity of the Galapagos Islands for the Internet titan's online maps.

A Google Maps team toting 360-degree cameras sticking from backpacks hiked trails, hills, and even into a live volcano to take Street View pictures of the precious environment where Darwin gleaned insights for his theory of evolution.

The United States is gearing up for more Atlantic hurricanes than usual this year, triggered by warmer water temperatures than average, U.S. forecasters said Thursday.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Prediction Center predicted that the six-month Atlantic hurricane season that begins June 1 will see 13 to 20 named storms, seven to 11 hurricanes and three to six major hurricanes, with winds of at least 111 miles (178 kilometers) per hour.

Slovenian adventurer Matevz Lenarcic landed on Thursday in Western France after having overflown the North Pole in an ultra-light plane equipped to measure air pollution.

"Only yesterday (Wednesday) I flew almost 4,000 kilometers (2,485 miles), no other similar (ultra-light) plane could do this," Lenarcic told Agence France Presse shortly after landing in Saint-Nazaire's airport, western France.

A tiny Ecuadoran satellite that collided in space with the remains of a Soviet rocket survived the crash, but was damaged and is not transmitting, Quito's space agency said Thursday.

Ecuador's space agency EXA had warned on Wednesday that a space fender-bender was likely between its "Pegaso" (Pegasus) nanosatellite and the remains of an S14 rocket launched by the Soviet Union into space in 1985, in the midst of the Cold War.

Cockroaches will eat anything. Except sugar, that is.

Some of the common pests have evolved to learn how to detect and avoid a certain kind of glucose often used in bait traps, according to research published in the U.S. journal Science on Thursday.