Tropical storm Norbert weakened quickly over cool waters in the Pacific Ocean, forecasters said Sunday, after the storm left some 2,500 people homeless in Mexico.

The storm had surged to a category three hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale but by Sunday had lost much of its punch and was downgraded to a tropical storm, packing top sustained winds of 60 miles (95 kilometers) per hour, said the U.S. National Hurricane Center.

Renewable energy, essential for meeting global CO2 emission targets, needs a stable regulatory framework, a cut in fossil fuel subsidies and more interconnected power grids to develop, a global energy agency said Sunday.

The development of renewable energy will lead to a "new industrial paradigm" for electricity production, as it should expand by 70 percent globally between 2011 and 2030, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency.

Chady Assaad is a Lebanese national, who was selected along with 1,028 others to advance to the second round of a global competition to help colonize Mars.

Assaad, 33, is a telecommunication Engineer who hails from the Borjein village in Mount Lebanon and is interested in discovering the universe.

Members of the Kielce University of Technology team watch their "Impuls" …

Robots built to traverse the rugged terrain of Mars battled it out in Poland on Friday in a competition to find the best way to explore the Red Planet.

Australia's big kangaroos are thriving, but wildlife campaigners hold fears for their smaller cousins, including the little-known bettong and the rock wallaby, WWF Australia has warned.

"The kangaroo is probably the most recognisable Australian animal of all," WWF-Australia spokesperson Darren Grover told Agence France Presse ahead of national threatened species day on Sunday.

Panama Canal expansion work has uncovered an unexpected trove of archeological and paleontological treasures, scientists said, as the massive construction project winds down.

Workers who have blasted through mountains and dug up thick vegetation, have also uncovered the fossils of some 3,000 invertebrates and 500 vertebrates, as well as of more than 250 plants -- including the remains of a forest consumed by fire after a volcanic eruption.

Lava from one of the world's most active volcanos is creeping slowly but steadily through cracks in the earth toward a rural subdivision on Hawaii's Big Island. Scientists warn that if the lava flow from Kilauea continues on its path, it could reach a small patch of homes in about a week.

Here's a look at Kilauea, which has been continuously erupting since 1983:

A German museum said Thursday it will look into the origins of a scalp claimed by a Native American tribe as an ancestral artefact.

Scientists from the Karl May Museum in the eastern town of Radebeul near Dresden will begin an investigation to shed light on the provenance of one of 17 scalps in its collections, a museum spokeswoman said.

Greenland began heating up around 19,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age, just like the rest of the northern hemisphere, researchers said Thursday in a report that resolves a paradox over when that warming happened.

Previous studies had suggested this warming went back only 12,000 years, according to the study published in the U.S. journal Science.

Creating a sanctuary to protect international waters surrounding the North Pole would be supported by a huge majority of people across 30 countries, a Greenpeace poll said.

A total of 74 percent of respondents reported they were in favor of a formally protected area, while only 17 percent said they were against the idea.