Talks at which Japan pressed its case for pursuing whaling despite a landmark U.N. ruling were described as "constructive" Wednesday, as a meeting of scientific experts wrapped up in California.

Japanese experts made their latest submission at a closed-door meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC)'s scientific committee, expected to make recommendations later this month.

There's a chaotic dance going on at the far end of the solar system, involving Pluto and five of its closest friends, a new study finds.

Hubble Space Telescope images of Pluto, its largest moon Charon, and tinier moons Styx, Nix, Hydra and Kerberos show the odd rhythmic gyrations of the six distant objects in a dance unlike anything in the system.

Solar Impulse 2 will be stuck in Japan for at least a week, its pilot has said, after it sustained damage to its delicate wing following an impromptu landing in the country.

The plane was en route from China to Hawaii, in the most ambitious leg of a record-breaking attempt to circumnavigate the globe using only the power of the sun.

Australian scientists said Wednesday they have uncovered a "very rare" 2,000-year-old natural sea pearl -- the first found on the vast island continent -- while excavating a remote coastal Aboriginal site.

Archaeologists were working the site on the north Kimberley coast of Western Australia when they came across the unique gem below the surface, said Kat Szabo, an associate professor at the University of Wollongong.

Canada committed Tuesday to flying two astronauts to space within the next decade as part of its renewed participation with the International Space Station program.

The ISS is a joint endeavor by Canada, the United States, Japan, Russia, and the European Union. Canada is the third country to extend its participation until 2024.

Chimpanzees and humans share some of the basic brain skills needed for cooking, a finding that may explain a turning point in the story of mankind, a study said Wednesday.

Experiments at a chimp sanctuary suggest a common ancestor imparted these cognitive abilities to apes and humans alike, it said.

Sunshine-powered Solar Impulse 2, which has made an impromptu stop in Japan on its way around the world, was under cover in its mobile hangar Wednesday as the team waited out the weather before heading to Hawaii.

The featherweight flying machine had been exposed to the elements since its arrival in the central city of Nagoya on Monday night, with crew having to hold it down to prevent it being blown away by the wind.

Dutch scientists have developed a revolutionary system that could one day help isolated villages around the world steadily generate electricity from mundane water-logged plants such as rice growing in paddy fields.

"It's based on the principle that plants produce more energy than they need," said Marjolein Helder, co-founder of Plant-e, which makes products that harvest energy from living plants. 

The pilot of record-breaking Solar Impulse 2 pledged Tuesday to continue his adventure after the high-tech aircraft made an unexpected stop in Japan to avoid bad weather.

The landing in Nagoya, on Japan's main island, concluded what had been the aircraft's longest non-stop period of flight.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Tuesday he would pledge a 26 percent cut in the country's greenhouse gas emissions, ahead of a global summit on climate change this year.

Abe also promised to take a "leading role" in the international drive to reduce pollutants blamed for global warming.