Nicknamed the "chicken from hell," a newly identified species of feathered dinosaur as tall as a human roamed North America at least 66 million years ago, paleontologists announced Wednesday.

With a hen-like crest on its head, lanky legs like an ostrich, sharp claws on its forelimbs and jaws built for crushing eggs and prey, the Anzu wyliei weighed a hefty 440-660 pounds (200-300 kilograms).

Kenya must take drastic action to stem a surge of elephant and rhino poaching, veteran conservationist Richard Leakey warned Wednesday, lamenting that known ringleaders are operating with "outrageous impunity".

The poachers have "an extraordinary level of international criminal backing... operating with outrageous impunity, killing our elephants and rhinos at levels that will make them extinct within the country," Leakey told reporters.

Swedish researchers have developed a new method for diagnosing pancreatic cancer at a much earlier stage than currently possible, the University of Gothenburg said Tuesday.

The test detects the first signs of the deadly disease with 97 percent accuracy, which researchers hope will help improve the low survival rate among those diagnosed.

The Burmese python has a built-in compass that allows it to slither home in a near-straight line even if released dozens of kilometers away, researchers said Wednesday.

Capable of growing over five meters (16 feet) long, pythons are among the world's largest snakes. Although native to South and Southeast Asia, the snakes have taken up residence in South Florida's Everglades National Park, possibly after being released as unwanted pets.

Women are being put off careers in science by stereotypes and are less than half as likely as men to apply for degrees in the field, said a study published Wednesday.

A young woman in Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Spain and the United States has on average a 35 percent probability to enrol in a scientific undergraduate degree, compared to a 77 percent chance for young men, the research found.

Paris has leapt into the headlines over an alert for dangerous atmospheric particles, yet it does not ordinarily count among the world's most polluted cities.

Here are the top 10 cities for which data is available, according to a 2011 World Health Organisation (WHO) report.

Archaeologists have found the 3,200-year-old skeleton of a man with a spreading form of cancer, the oldest example so far of a disease often associated with modern lifestyles, scientists said Monday.

The remains of a man believed to be aged between 25 and 35 were found last year in a tomb in Sudan on the banks of the River Nile by a student at Durham University in northeast England.

U.S. researchers say they have spotted evidence that a split-second after the Big Bang, the newly formed universe ballooned out at a pace so astonishing that it left behind ripples in the fabric of the cosmos.

If confirmed, experts said, the discovery would be a major advance in the understanding of the early universe. Although many scientists already believed that an initial, extremely rapid growth spurt happened, they have long sought the evidence cited in the new study.

A corner of South Korea is in the grip of a frenzied hunt for valuable space souvenirs, following a rare meteor shower there last week.

Hundreds of people have been scouring hills and rice paddies for meteorites near the southeastern city of Jinju after the shower on March 9, some of them armed with GPS devices and metal detectors, according to media reports.

Analysis of satellite data showed that dusty conditions in North Africa and West Asia were followed within days by stronger monsoon rains in the subcontinent, according to research published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

"Dust in the air absorbs sunlight west of India, warming the air and strengthening the winds carrying moisture eastward," the U.S.-based Pacific Northwest National Laboratory said in a press release.