A Japanese study is claiming that toxic air pollution from China is to blame for high mercury levels atop the country's beloved Mount Fuji.

The research will likely do little to help simmering hostilities between the Asian giants, a relationship marred by historical animosities and territorial disputes.

U.S. doctors prescribe antibiotics to six out of 10 patients with a sore throat, even though only one infection in 10 is severe enough to merit them, researchers said Thursday.

Overprescribing of antibiotics is dangerous because it contributes to the rise of superbugs that do not respond to treatment.

The man whose research team discovered the Titanic shipwreck is now leading a mission to investigate major faults and underwater volcanoes in the northern and eastern Caribbean to collect information that could help manage natural disasters.

Robert Ballard is overseeing 31 scientists who will set out Friday using remotely operated vehicles to explore the Septentrional and other faults and underwater formations around Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the eastern Caribbean islands of Dominica and Montserrat.

Braving perilous river rapids in Suriname's rainforest, international scientists found six frogs and 11 fish that are among 60 creatures that may be new species, a tropical ecologist with a U.S.-based conservation group said Thursday.

Trond Larsen, with the nonprofit research and advocacy organization Conservation International, said in a phone interview that the team catalogued creatures and studied freshwater resources during a three-week expedition in pristine forest of southeast Suriname near the border with Brazil.

People who read literary fiction are better than readers of popular fiction or nonfiction at figuring out the emotions of others, according to a U.S. study out Thursday.

Researchers hypothesized that people who read works of literature would be better at sensing what is going on in the inner worlds of others, but they wanted to test the notion.

Researchers said Wednesday they had discovered four natural mosquito repellents to succeed DEET, a compound whose origins go back to World War II.

DEET -- the abbreviation for N,N-diethyl-meta-toluamide -- was introduced by the U.S. Army in 1946 after troops deployed in the Pacific theater fell sick from malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases.

Scientists have discovered ancient supervolcanoes on Mars similar to the caldera that sits under Yellowstone National Park.

Volcanoes previously have been spotted on Mars, which is known to have been volcanically active billions of years ago.

China for years has welcomed the world's trash, creating a roaring business in recycling and livelihoods for tens of thousands. Now authorities are clamping down on an industry that has helped the rich West dispose of its waste but also added to the degradation of China's environment.

The Chinese campaign is aimed at enforcing standards for waste imports after Beijing decided too many were unusable or even dangerous and would end up in its landfills. Under the crackdown dubbed Green Fence, China has rejected hundreds of containers of waste it said were contaminated or that improperly mixed different types of scrap.

The U.S. government shutdown puts international science collaboration in peril and could have far-reaching impacts on innovation and research, a top science group said Wednesday.

"If the government shutdown continues for a week or more, it is going to make the United States less desirable as an international research collaborator," said Joanne Carney, director of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Office of Government Relations.

Australia's native koala could face a wipeout from increasing temperatures unless "urgent" action is taken to plant trees for shelter as well as eucalypts to eat, a study found Thursday.

Lead researcher Mathew Crowther from the University of Sydney said the three-year study tracked 40 koalas by satellite in north-western New South Wales to examine their nesting and feeding habits.