NASA will try to launch a "flying saucer" into Earth's atmosphere Saturday to test technology that could be used to land on Mars.

After several weather delays, the attempt off the coast of the Hawaiian island of Kauai will test the disc-shaped vehicle and a giant parachute.

German lawmakers adopted a law on Friday to reduce renewable energy subsidies as the government seeks to keep its green "energy transformation" on track, curb rising prices and fight nagging criticism.

The reform of the "Energiewende" is one of the first big projects of Chancellor Angela Merkel's third term, together with a national minimum wage, and has been a political hot potato both in Germany and with the European Commission.

Japanese stemcell scientists have succeeded in slowing the deterioration of mice with motor neurone disease, possibly paving the way for eventual human treatment, according to a new paper.

A team of researchers from the Kyoto University and Keio University transplanted specially created cells into mice with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also called Lou Gehrig's, or motor neurone disease.

The waters off the Hawaii's largest island are home to a half-million brightly-colored tropical fish that are scooped up into nets each year and flown across the globe into aquariums from Berlin to Boston.

Scientists say the aquarium fishery off the Big Island is among the best managed in the world, but it has nevertheless become the focus of a fight over whether it's ever appropriate to remove fish from reefs for people to look at and enjoy.

Earthquakes used to be almost unheard of on the vast stretches of prairie that unfold across the U.S. Midwestern states of Texas, Kansas and Oklahoma.

But in recent years, they have become commonplace. Oklahoma recorded nearly 150 between January and the start of May. Most were too weak to cause serious damage or endanger lives. Yet they've rattled nerves and raised suspicions that the shaking might be connected to the oil and gas drilling method known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, especially the wells in which the industry disposes of its wastewater.

Marine mammals, with pollutants particularly high in the youngest whales, according to information released Wednesday by U.S. scientists who have studied them for the past decade.

Biologists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration summarized a compilation of research findings that reveal the mysterious lives of a small population of endangered killer whales that frequent the Puget Sound off the northwestern U.S. coast.

Iran is rushing to try to save one of the world's critically endangered species, the Asiatic cheetah, and bring it back from the verge of extinction in its last remaining refuge.

The Asiatic cheetah, an equally fast cousin of the African cat, once ranged from the Red Sea to India, but its numbers shrunk over the past century to the point that it is now hanging on by a thin thread — an estimated 50 to 70 animals remaining in Iran, mostly in the east of the country. That's down from as many as 400 in the 1990s, its numbers plummeting due to poaching, the hunting of its main prey — gazelles — and encroachment on its habitat.

Wildlife webcam operators around the world are grappling with a problem: Viewers don't want to see any harm come to critters they've grown to love.

Officials caved in to protests about the grittier side of nature last month in Minnesota, attempting to rescue a baby eagle with a broken wing. In coastal Maine, a struggling eaglet died last weekend after wildlife experts decided to let nature take its course, triggering outcry from viewers across the country.

Climate change is likely to exact enormous costs on U.S. regional economies in the form of lost property, reduced industrial output and more deaths, according to a report backed by a trio of men with vast business experience.

The report, released Tuesday, is designed to convince businesses to factor in the cost of climate change in their long-term decisions and to push for reductions in emissions blamed for heating the planet.

An Arizona company said Tuesday it has successfully completed the first small-scale test flight of a high-altitude balloon and capsule being developed to let tourists float 20 miles (32 kilometers) above the earth.

World View Enterprises of Tucson said it launched the flight last week from Roswell, New Mexico.