Birds with multiple versions of their color patterns evolved into new species more quickly than those with uniform plumage, Australian researchers revealed in a significant genetic study published Thursday.

The University of Melbourne research, published in "Nature", found that birds with more than one version of its markings such as the Gouldian finch, which can have a red, black or yellow head, "rapidly" evolved into new species.

Peru's northern beaches have been declared off-limits as scientists scramble to pin down what is causing the mysterious deaths of thousands of birds and dolphins.

Since March some 4,000 birds, mostly pelicans and boobies, have been found dead along a 200-kilometer (120 mile) stretch of northern coastline reaching up to the border with Ecuador along with at least 900 dolphins.

A Singapore-born teenager who recently moved to Canada won a national science award Tuesday for her groundbreaking work on the anti-aging properties of tree pulp, officials said.

Janelle Tam, 16, won the $5,000 award in the 2012 Sanofi BioGENEius Challenge Canada for showing that cellulose, the woody material found in trees that enables them to stand, also acts as a potent anti-oxidant.

The smallest-ever mammoth roamed Crete up to 3.5 million years ago, measuring some four feet (just over a meter) at the shoulder, the size of a baby elephant today, said a study published Wednesday.

Mammuthus creticus weighed in at about 310 kilograms (680 pounds) and probably had no woolly coat unlike some of its relatives, study author Victoria Herridge told Agence France Presse, adding that the animal was "probably quite cute."

Norway on Monday inaugurated what it called the world's largest laboratory for capturing carbon dioxide, a leading strategy for fighting global warming.

Located at an oil refinery on Norway's west coast, the Technology Centre Mongstad aims to test French and Norwegian methods of capturing carbon dioxide emissions and burying them underground to prevent them from escaping into the atmosphere.

Giant dinosaurs that roamed the Earth millions of years ago may have warmed the planet with the gas they produced from eating leafy plants, British scientists said on Monday.

Much like modern cows that emit a significant amount of methane in their digestive process, the 20,000 kilogram (44,000 pound) sauropods contributed the same way, and likely more, to the warming climate, said the study in the U.S. journal Current Biology.

Scientists said Monday a new fossil discovery suggested Australia's dinosaurs were cosmopolitan globe-trotters, unlike the "unique weirdos" of its current wildlife.

Palaeontologist Erich Fitzgerald said an ankle bone fossil found 87 kilometers (54 miles) from Melbourne indicated that meat-eating dinosaurs known as ceratosaurs lived in what is now Australia some 125 million years ago.

The biggest and brightest full moon of the year arrives Saturday night as our celestial neighbor passes closer to Earth than usual.

But don't expect any "must-have-been-a-full-moon" spike in crime or crazy behavior. That's just folklore.

The Fukushima crisis is eroding years of Japanese efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming, as power plants running on oil and natural gas fill the electricity gap left by now-shuttered nuclear reactors.

Before last year's devastating tsunami triggered meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, Japan had planned to meet its carbon emissions reduction targets on the assumption that it would rely on nuclear power, long considered a steady, low-emissions source of energy.

Crab fisherman Mark Anello noticed something odd near his boat off the Northern California coast: three buoys floating nearby were moving. Motoring closer he saw a gray whale tangled in a large fishing line.

It was the same whale, officials determined later, that was first spotted hundreds of miles south off the Orange County coast April 17, dragging several buoys attached to a net.