Antarctica's king penguins emit such copious amounts of nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, via their feces that researchers went a little "cuckoo" studying them,  according to a Danish scientific study.

"Penguin guano produces significantly high levels of nitrous oxide around their colonies," said the head of the study, Professor Bo Elberling, of the University of Copenhagen's Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management.

Scientists the world over are scrambling to perfect an anti-viral treatment for the novel coronavirus, and following what might seem to be some unusual trails.

A host of celebrities and scientists including Madonna, Robert de Niro and a clutch of Nobel Prize winners have called for radical change in the world rather than "a return to normal" after the coronavirus lockdowns.

China said Tuesday it will launch a new spacecraft at 6pm (1000 GMT), in a test of its ambitions to operate a permanent space station and send astronauts to the Moon.

A Russian cargo capsule with 2.5 tons of supplies docked with the International Space Station (ISS) on Saturday after the fastest such trip yet from earth, the national space agency Roscosmos said.

Oxford University is launching a human trial of a potential coronavirus vaccine, with the daunting aim of making a successful jab available to the public later this year.

Whether it came from a bat or a pangolin is not certain, but one thing is: the coronavirus outbreak that has killed tens of thousands and turned the world upside down comes from the animal world.

Two NASA astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut on Friday made a safe return from the International Space Station to find the planet transformed by the coronavirus pandemic.  

A three-man crew blasted off to the International Space Station on Thursday, leaving behind a planet overwhelmed by the coronavirus pandemic.

It will be at least another year before a vaccine against the new coronavirus will be ready for approval and available in sufficient quantities, the EU medicines agency said Tuesday.