Two Russian cosmonauts and an American astronaut on Thursday returned to Earth aboard a Soyuz space capsule after six months at the International Space Station.

Yelena Serova -- the first female Russian cosmonaut to have spent time on the ISS -- landed along with Alexander Samokutyaev and Barry Wilmore in snowy Kazakhstan just after sunrise.

Solar Impulse 2 has broken a distance record for solar-powered planes as part of its bid to be the first to circumnavigate the globe powered solely by the sun. 

By the time it arrived in Ahmedabad, in western India on Tuesday, the plane had flown 1,468 kilometers (912 miles), the flight's organizers said. Solar Impulse project chairman and co-pilot Bertrand Piccard was at the controls.

Plans to dump dredge waste in Australia's Great Barrier Reef as part of an Indian-backed port expansion have been shelved in favor of land disposal, Queensland state said Wednesday.

The Australian government in January broadly ruled out allowing dredge dumping in the Great Barrier Reef area, but the Port Abbot project in north Queensland had been approved last year. 

Florida is widely known as the Sunshine State but when it comes to harnessing solar power, lots of customers find it just doesn't pay because electricity is already cheap and there is little incentive to make the change from fossil fuels.

Anger over the situation has whipped up an unusual coalition of hardline conservatives, evangelical Christians and liberal environmentalists who want to break down what they describe as a "monopoly" held by big power companies.

A team of Australian and New Zealand researchers has tracked scores of blue whales off Antarctica, eavesdropping as the world's largest animals  began their rumbling song, which can be detected 750 kilometers (465 miles) away.

During the six-week Australia-New Zealand Antarctic Ecosystem Voyage to the Southern Ocean, which returned Wednesday, the Antarctic marine scientists listened for the low moans of the endangered whales, and then tracked them to their feeding grounds.

Ethiopia's black-maned lions once represented a former emperor, "Lion of Judah" Haile Selassie, and were immortalized in a song by reggae legend Bob Marley. Today, they struggle for survival.

A booming human population, widespread habitat destruction and growing livestock numbers mean the animal that once graced Ethiopia's flag -- and is still a potent symbol for Rastafarians through the song 'Iron Lion Zion' -- is on the wane.

Solar Impulse 2 headed to India Tuesday on the first major sea leg of its epic bid to become the first plane to fly around the world powered solely by the sun.

Pilot Bertrand Piccard kept the aircraft close to the Pakistani coast on the 1,465 kilometre (910 mile) journey across the Arabian Sea to Ahmedabad from the Omani capital Muscat.

Men and women may not always be on the same footing but you would think both sexes would be equal in the face of gigantic floods, typhoons or droughts. Think again.

Countless studies show that natural disasters on average kill more women than men -- 90 percent female fatalities in some cases, prevent girls from going to school, increase the threat of sexual assault. And the list goes on.

More than two million migratory birds were killed in Cyprus last autumn to feed an illicit taste for the delicacy on the Mediterranean island, a conservationist group said Monday.

The survey by Birdlife Cyprus was carried out in the key season between September and October and estimates the number of birds indiscriminately trapped in nets or with limesticks.

Solar Impulse 2 landed Monday in Oman, completing the initial leg of its epic bid to become the first solar-powered plane to fly around the world, in a test of its pilots' endurance.

The aircraft touched down in Muscat after nightfall, 13 hours and two minutes after taking off from Abu Dhabi.