Charles H. Townes, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist who helped create the laser that would revolutionize everything from medicine to manufacturing, has died. He was 99.

Townes had been in poor health before his death on the way to an Oakland hospital Tuesday, officials at the University of California, Berkeley, said.

An extensive survey of birds in Myanmar has revealed nearly two dozen not known to have existed in the country, including a large black seabird with a ballooning red neck sack and a tiny black and white falconet with a surprised, panda-like expression.

The Great Frigate and the Pied Falconet were among 20 previously undocumented birds spotted during a four-year field survey by the Bird and Nature Society, the Wildlife Conservation Society, Flora and Fauna International and several other bird-enthusiast associations, said Thet Zaw Naing, one of the surveyors.

Coral rely on algae for food and their survival.

So when the stress of warmer-than-average ocean temperatures prompted many of Hawaii's corals to expel algae last year — a phenomenon called bleaching because coral lose their color when they do this — many were worried they might die.

A new look at four fossils has revealed that snakes' earliest known ancestor lived as many as 70 million years earlier than thought, scientists said Tuesday.

Until now, the fossil record had suggested snakes slithered onto the scene in the Upper Cretaceous period, about 94-100 million years ago.

Rio Olympics organizers say sailing and windsurfing events will not be switched from Guanabara Bay, a picturesque vista marred by pollution, despite apparent disagreement on the extent to which the venue can be cleaned up in time.

Despite warnings from Rio state's new Environment Secretary, Andre Correa, that the city authorities could not guarantee to meet an official target of reducing pollution, Games' communications chief Mario Andrada told reporters the target stood.

A newly discovered solar system — with five small rocky planets — makes ours look like a baby.

An international team of astronomers announced Tuesday that this extrasolar system is 11.2 billion years old. With the age of the universe pegged at 13.8 billion years, this is the oldest star with close-to-Earth-size planets ever found.

The U.S. government announced plans to open swathes of the western Atlantic to oil and gas drilling Tuesday, while simultaneously protecting seas off Alaska's coast.

President Barack Obama called for 9.8 million acres in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas to be off limits, while his Interior Department announced plans to drill in the Atlantic from Virginia to Georgia.

A huge haul of elephant ivory seized in Uganda probably includes tusks stolen from government strongrooms last year, wildlife officials said Tuesday.

In November, Ugandan authorities discovered that more than a tonne (2,204 pounds) of impounded ivory had vanished from state vaults.

Suspicions that shooting stars come from comet dust, transformed into fiery streaks as they hit Earth's atmosphere, have been bolstered by Europe's Rosetta space mission, scientists reported Monday.

Comets and asteroids have both been eyed as possible progenitors of  meteors, also known as shooting or falling stars -- and now particles spewed from comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko have provided proof of paternity.

Thinking of a new career? Buying a home? Have you consulted your amygdala?

These almond-shaped clusters of neurons deep in the brain may play a vital part in long-term planning, said a study published Monday.