A team of scientists has identified a new species of monkey in central Africa that had been known to the locals simply as lesula, a medium-sized, slender animal that looks similar to an owl-faced monkey that was already known to scientists.

In findings published this week in the scientific journal Plos One, the researchers identified the species as Cercopithecus lomamiensis, which is endemic to the lowland rainforests of central Congo. This is only the second time in the past 28 years that a previously unknown species of monkey has been identified, they said, highlighting the importance of preserving biodiversity in a part of central Africa where forests are threatened by illegal logging.

The baby of NASA's space shuttle fleet is about to leave home — for good.

At sunrise Monday, Endeavour will depart Kennedy Space Center for a museum in California, with a two-day stopover in Houston, home to Mission Control and the astronauts who flew aboard the replacement for the lost shuttle Challenger.

Antarctica's Ross Sea is often described as the most isolated and pristine ocean on Earth, a place where seals and penguins still rule the waves and humans are about as far away as they could be. But even there it has proven difficult, and maybe impossible, for nations to agree on how strongly to protect the environment.

The United States and New Zealand have spent two years trying to agree on an Alaska-sized marine sanctuary where fishing would be banned and scientists could study climate change. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton took a strong interest in the outcome, regularly prodding diplomats, and New Zealand recently sent a delegation to Washington to hash out a tentative deal.

For the first time, scientists have improved hearing in deaf animals by using human embryonic stem cells, an encouraging step for someday treating people with certain hearing disorders.

"It's a dynamite study (and) a significant leap forward," said one expert familiar with the work, Dr. Lawrence Lustig of the University of California, San Francisco.

The Mars rover Curiosity is preparing to roll again after it completes its health checkups this week, project managers said Wednesday.

Since landing in an ancient crater near the Martian equator Aug. 5, the car-size rover has trekked more than the length of a football field, leaving wheel tracks in the soil that could be spied from space.

International conservation groups have unveiled a list of the earth's most threatened 100 animals, plants and fungi and say urgent action is needed to protect them.

The groups identified the species Tuesday in a report presented to a global conservation forum on the southern South Korean island of Jeju.

The European Space Agency is exploring the possibility of cooperating with China on manned space missions by the end of the decade.

The head of ESA's human spaceflight division says some European astronauts are already learning Chinese in preparation for joint missions.

Scientists have discovered well-preserved frozen woolly mammoth fragments deep in Siberia that may contain living cells, edging a tad closer to the "Jurassic Park" possibility of cloning a prehistoric animal, the mission's organizer said Tuesday.

Russia's North-Eastern Federal University said an international team of researchers had discovered mammoth hair, soft tissues and bone marrow some 328 feet (100 meters) underground during a summer expedition in the northeastern province of Yakutia.

A rapidly worsening water shortage threatens to destabilize the planet and should be a top priority for the U.N. Security Council and world leaders, a panel of experts said in a report Monday.

The world's diminishing water supply carries serious security, development and social risks, and could adversely affect global health, energy stores and food supplies, said the report titled "The Global Water Crisis: Addressing an Urgent Security Issue."

There's enough wind to power the world many times over, according to a study out Monday, but it would take a massive infrastructure investment to harness it that analysts say is not realistic.

As the world seeks to lessen its reliance on fossil fuels like coal and natural gas, renewable energy sources like wind and solar power are being developed as alternatives.