Two scientists who illuminated how brain cells communicate, three researchers who developed implants that let deaf people hear and philanthropists Bill and Melinda Gates have won prestigious Lasker Awards for medical research and contributions to public health.

The Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation announced the recipients of the $250,000 prizes on Monday. The awards will be presented Sept. 20 in New York City.

Hong Kong's first battery-powered public bus took to the streets Monday as part of a drive against the city's choking pollution.

Chief executive Leung Chun-ying has pledged to make pollution one of his top priorities during his five-year term, with an official report saying it was the "greatest daily health risk" to the city's residents.

Three simple numbers will prove whether sarin was used to gas Syrians last month: 99-125-81.

Chemists this week around Europe are feeding samples of bodily tissue and dirt collected after chemical attacks in Syria into sophisticated machines. They are waiting for those three numbers to read out in a bar graph on a computer screen. The numbers are sarin's fingerprint, said Carlos Fraga, a chemist who specializes in nerve agent forensics at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in the U.S. "You're always going to see that."

Geologists on Thursday announced they had uncovered a stupendous volcano that is the biggest in the world and rivals the greatest in the Solar System.

Dubbed Tamu Massif, the volcano is part of the Shatsky Rise, a deep plateau on the floor of the Pacific located around 1,600 kilometres (1,000 miles) east of Japan, they said.

The giant panda cub born 13 days ago at the National Zoo in Washington is female and she has a live-in dad, the zoo said Thursday.

"We have another girl in our family," said research scientist Jesus Maldonado of the zoo's genetics center as father Tian Tian lounged in the morning sunlight and mother Mei Xiang tended to her newborn in private.

Under the rich Venezuelan soil, paleontologists have found treasures rivaling the bountiful oil: a giant armadillo the size of a Volkswagen, a crocodile bigger than a bus and a saber-toothed tiger.

Oil companies' surveys of the soil have uncovered a trove of fossils dating from 14,000 to 370 million years ago.

NASA hopes to unravel more of the Moon's mysteries Friday by launching an unmanned mission to study its atmosphere, the U.S. space agency's third such probe in five years.

The Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) is to launch Friday at 11:27 pm (Saturday 0327 GMT) aboard a Minotaur V rocket -- a converted peacekeeping missile -- from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.

U.S. researchers said Wednesday they have found a way to reverse Down syndrome in newborn lab mice by injecting an experimental compound that causes the brain to grow normally.

While the study in the journal Science Translational Medicine offers no direct link to a treatment for humans, researchers are hopeful it may someday offer a path toward future breakthroughs.

New Zealand said Thursday it may revise its plans to create the world's largest ocean sanctuary off Antarctica after they were blocked by Russia earlier this year, amid concerns the proposal may be scaled-back.

The plan for a 1.6 million square kilometre (640,000 square mile) fishing-free haven in the Ross Sea, supported by the US, was knocked back after Moscow raised objections at an international meeting in July.

A pint-sized android has uttered the first robotic words in space, showcasing Japan's drive to combine cutting-edge technology with cuteness.

The wide-eyed and bootie-wearing "Kirobo" -- roughly the size of a chihuahua -- broadcast a message from inside the International Space Station, greeting citizens of Earth and paying cheeky tribute to Neil Armstrong.