Astronomers on Wednesday said they had snared an image of what may be the oldest galaxy ever seen, a starry cluster that came into being when the Universe was still a baby.

The tiny smudge of light captured by the orbiting Hubble telescope took 13.2 thousand million years to reach Earth, which means the galaxy was born some 480 million years after the "Big Bang" that created the cosmos.

Orangutans are far more genetically diverse than thought, a finding that could help their survival, say scientists delivering their first full DNA analysis of the critically-endangered ape.

The study, published Thursday in the science journal Nature, also reveals that the orangutan -- "the man of the forest" -- has hardly evolved over the last 15 million years, in sharp contrast to Homo sapiens and

U.S. doctors are treating soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder by plunging them back into combat using a virtual reality game that simulates scenes from Iraq and Afghanistan.

The therapeutic game, called Virtual Iraq or Virtual Afghanistan, was developed from the X-Box game Full Spectrum Warrior, a combat tactical simulation game launched with funding from the U.S. Army.

Amnesty International and Friends of the Earth Tuesday said they had filed an official complaint against Anglo-Dutch firm Shell for shirking responsibility for oil spills in Nigeria and wreaking havoc on the environment.

A joint statement said Shell's operations in the southern oil-rich Niger Delta breached the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)'s guidelines for responsible business.

The best way to not forget a newly learned poem, card trick or algebra equation may be to take a quick nap, scientists surprised by their own findings reported.

In experiments, researchers in Germany showed that the brain is better during sleep than during wakefulness at resisting attempts to scramble or corrupt a recent memory.

Will Lonesome George ever become a dad?

Scientists are still hoping to mate the near century-old giant tortoise from the Galapagos — even though efforts over the past two decades have failed.

Experts use different parts of their brains than amateurs, maximizing intuition, goal-seeking and pattern-recognition, said a study out Thursday that examined players of shogi, or Japanese chess.

Researchers used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans to compare the brain activity of amateurs and professionals who were presented with various shogi board patterns and were told to think of their next move.

The U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization said Thursday that 2010 was the warmest year on record, confirming a "significant" long-term trend of global warming.

The trend also helped to melt Arctic sea ice cover to a record low for December last month, the WMO said in a statement.

Scientists have pinpointed a molecular mechanism in mice which helps skin cancer cells confound the animal's immune system, according to a study released Wednesday.

The discovery -- if duplicated in humans -- could one day lead to drug treatments that block this mechanism, and thus the cancer's growth, the study reported.

Japanese researchers will launch a project this year to resurrect the long-extinct mammoth by using cloning technology to bring the ancient pachyderm back to life in around five years time.

The researchers will try to revive the species by obtaining tissue this summer from the carcass of a mammoth preserved in a Russian research laboratory, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported.