Conservationists say the elephant population in Mozambique has dropped nearly 50 percent in the last five years because of poaching, but cite good news from Uganda, where the elephant population is increasing.

Poachers have slaughtered tens of thousands of African elephants in recent years to meet demand for ivory, particularly in China. Conservationists and governments have collaborated on an aerial, continent-wide census of elephants to better marshal efforts to protect wildlife.

In 1974, anthropologists in Ethiopia found the astonishing fossilized remains of a human-like creature who last walked the planet some 3.2 million years ago.

Was "Lucy," as the hominid was called, the direct ancestor of Homo sapiens? Was she "The Mother of Mankind," as some headlines claimed?

This year's North Atlantic hurricane season is forecast to be less active than usual, largely because of the El Nino weather pattern, the U.S. government said Wednesday.

There is a 70 percent chance of six to 11 tropical storms during the span from June 1 to November 30, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration said.

A fossil find adds another twig to the human evolutionary tree, giving further evidence that the well-known "Lucy" species had company in what is now Ethiopia, a new study says.

A lower jaw, plus jaw fragments and teeth, dated at 3.3 million to 3.5 million years old, were found in the Afar region of northern Ethiopia four years ago.

Glaciers in the Everest region could shrink at least 70 percent or even disappear entirely by the end of the century as a result of climate change, scientists warned on Wednesday.

Researchers in Nepal, the Netherlands and France studied weather patterns on the roof of the world and then created a model of conditions on Everest to determine the future impact of rising temperatures on its glaciers.

Japanese fishermen vowed Wednesday to continue their dolphin hunt, despite a pledge by zoos and aquariums not to buy animals caught with the controversial method. 

"We will never stop it," Yoshifumi Kai of the fisherman's cooperative in the western Japanese town of Taiji, where the hunt takes place, told reporters. 

The U.S. Air Force has certified private company SpaceX to launch military satellites, opening the doors to a lucrative market previously held solely by a Lockheed and Boeing joint venture.

With the clearance SpaceX can compete for military space contracts valued by U.S. authorities at $9.5 billion over the next five years.

A South American parrot with a wine-colored chest is in deep trouble, with its population down to some 3,000 and a habitat reduced to a speck of what it once was, researchers said Tuesday.

The Vinaceous-breasted Amazon -- Amazona vinacea -- lives in just three places in the world: Brazil's Atlantic coast jungle, southeastern Paraguay and the Misiones region of northeast Argentina.

NASA said Tuesday it has chosen a trove of instruments to send to Jupiter's ice-covered moon Europa, as it press forward with its search for evidence the orb could support life.

The nine gadgets -- from cameras to radars to magnetic field gauges -- will be used to try to determine if Europa has an ocean beneath its glacial surface, as scientists have long suspected. 

Poachers have killed nearly half of Mozambique's elephants for their ivory in the past five years, the U.S. based Wildlife Conservation Society said Tuesday.

A Mozambique government-backed survey showed a dramatic 48 percent decline in elephant numbers from just over 20,000 to an estimated 10,300, the WCS said in a statement.