The world's leading energy officials will meet this week in South Korea to discuss the sector's major challenges, ranging from climate change to the rise of fracking and nuclear power's uncertain future.

The 22nd World Energy Congress begins Monday in the southeastern city of Daegu, which has set its sights on becoming a model for the use of renewable energy, particularly solar.

Thousands marched Sunday across Romania to protest against a Canadian company's plans to open a gold mine seen as a threat to the environment, and called for the government's resignation.

In what has become one of the longest-running protests in post-communist Romania, an estimated 4,000 people demonstrated in the capital Bucharest to demand the mine project in Rosia Montana be dropped.

Iran is planning to send another live monkey into space within a month, a top space official said in remarks reported by media Sunday.

"The second live animal will be ready within a month to be sent into space," said Hamid Fazeli, deputy head of Iran's space organisation, the Jomhuri Eslami newspaper reported.

China marks 10 years since it first sent a human into space Tuesday, with its ambitious programme rocketing ahead while rival NASA is largely closed due to the U.S. government shutdown.

Yang Liwei orbited the Earth 14 times during his 21-hour flight aboard the Shenzhou 5 in 2003, blazing a trail into the cosmos for China.

U.S. Army researchers are working on building hi-tech body armor that would give soldiers "superhuman strength" in a real-life version of the suit featured in "Iron Man" films.

The blueprint for the "revolutionary" Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit (TALOS) would include an exoskeleton to allow a soldier to carry heavy equipment, built-in computing power, beefed up protection to stop bullets and a system to monitor vital signs, officials said.

Scientists say NASA's Jupiter-bound spacecraft that looped around Earth to catapult to the outer solar system, is operating normally again.

The Southwest Research Institute, which leads the mission's science operations, said Friday that Juno is out of "safe mode." That's a state a spacecraft is programmed to go into when it senses something is wrong.

Gentlemen, we can rebuild him, after all. We have the technology.

The term "bionic man" was the stuff of science fiction in the 1970s, when a popular TV show called "The Six Million Dollar Man" chronicled the adventures of Steve Austin, a former astronaut whose body was rebuilt using artificial parts after he nearly died.

Farmers and hunter-gatherers lived side by side in Europe for about 2,000 years and sometimes intermingled, according to genetic research Thursday that counters the notion that farmers swiftly overtook foragers.

This co-existence persisted until about 5,000 years ago, much later than previously thought, said a pair of studies by international researchers in the journal Science.

Astronomers have autopsied a distant, broken apart planet and revealed signs of water and a rocky surface together for the first time, delighting scientists on the hunt for alien life.

In a planetary system some 150 light years away, the right conditions for life appear to have once existed, and planets like Earth may have orbited a star known as GD 61, British astronomers reported in the journal Science.

Brazil said Thursday it will start work early next year on a new Antarctic base to replace the one gutted by a 2012 fire.

The new station would be modern, newer and built with more resistant material, Navy Admiral Julio Soares de Moura told reporters as he unveiled the $54 million project.