Great white sharks are likely rising in numbers off the coast of California and are not at risk of extinction despite some reports to the contrary, U.S. researchers said Monday.

The findings are good news for the ocean predator, suggesting that around 2,000 of them are swimming about in the Eastern North Pacific, not 219 as research released three years ago had indicated.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry Monday sounded the alarm on the perils facing the world's oceans, calling for a global strategy to save the planet's life-giving seas.

"Let's develop a plan" to combat over-fishing, climate change and pollution, Kerry urged as he opened a ground-breaking two-day conference of world leaders, scientists and industry captains.

Aerospace giant Airbus Group (Berlin: AIR.BE - news) and French engine maker Safran (Paris: FR0000073272 - news) announced a joint venture Monday on space launchers, as Europe looks to compete with rising US rival SpaceX.

The two companies said in a statement they would team up on production of Ariane rockets for Arianespace, which is facing intense competition from low-cost SpaceX in sending up communications satellites.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry launches an unprecedented global effort Monday to save the world's oceans under siege from overfishing, climate change and pollution.

Heads of government and state as well as ministers from some 80 countries will gather with researchers and experts from the fishing, plastics and farming industries for the two-day conference aiming to find ways to protect the planet's seas and marine life.

Australia is home to some of the most pristine environment on Earth, but two of its most high-profile protected areas face threats to their status as World Heritage Sites at a UNESCO meeting starting Sunday in Doha.

In such a vast country that boasts large tracts of desert, rainforest and coast, many of Australia's natural wonders have won UNESCO World Heritage listings.

The European Union agreed Friday to limit the bloc's use of biofuels made directly from agricultural products after criticism they push up food prices and add to pollution.

Ministers from the 28-nation bloc overcame a year-long deadlock to agree a reduction in the use of 'first generation' biofuels, which are made from crops such as corn, beetroot or rapeseed.

Thousands of Australians rallied Saturday against the proposed logging of protected forests in rugged Tasmania ahead of a UNESCO World Heritage meeting where the issue will be discussed.

The conservative government has asked UNESCO to revoke its World Heritage listing for 74,000 hectares (183,000 acres) of forest, claiming it was not pristine, and open it up to the timber industry.

Dinosaurs weren't cold-blooded -- like modern-day reptiles -- nor were they warm-blooded -- like mammals and birds, according to a study out Friday aiming to answer a question that has intrigued paleontologists for decades.

Instead, the prehistoric creatures' metabolic rates were somewhere in between, said the report published in the U.S. journal Science.

Astrophysicists are casting doubt on what just recently was deemed a breakthrough in confirming how the universe was born: the observation of gravitational waves that apparently rippled through space right after the Big Bang.

If proven to be correctly identified, these waves -- predicted in Albert Einstein's theory of relativity -- would confirm the rapid and violent growth spurt of the universe in the first fraction of a second marking its existence, 13.8 billion years ago.

In the decade that fisherman Edward Njeleza has been trawling the deep, clear waters of Lake Malawi in Africa's Great Rift Valley, he has seen his once abundant catch shrink by 90 percent.

Now he spends most days on the shore searching for pods and a special type of grass he uses to make necklaces, key rings and bracelets to supplement his income.