British researchers have unveiled a futuristic Antarctic research base that can move, sliding across the frozen surface to beat the shifting ice and pounding snow that doomed its predecessors.

The British Antarctic Survey said Wednesday that the Halley VI Research Station is the sixth facility to occupy the site on the Brunt Ice Shelf — a floating sheet of ice about 10 miles (16 kilometers) from the edge of the South Atlantic.

Earth-like worlds may be closer and more plentiful than anyone imagined.

Astronomers reported Wednesday that the nearest Earth-like planet may be just 13 light-years away — or some 77 trillion miles (124 trillion kilometers). That planet hasn't been found yet, but should be there based on the team's study of red dwarf stars.

Seen by some as emblematic of the Mediterranean landscape and cuisine, the olive tree in fact has its domesticated roots in Kurdish regions, said a study Wednesday that seeks to settle an age-old debate.

Harvesting of wild olive trees called oleasters has been documented from the Near East (the area around ancient Palestine and Jordan) to Spain since the Neolithic or New Stone Age that started about 10,000 BC.

Moles need both nostrils to locate food underground, in the way that humans see and hear in stereo, according to research reported on Tuesday.

The common mole (Scalopus aquaticus) has tiny eyes tucked between fur and skin and is nearly blind, with small ears attuned only to low frequency sounds.

The world's third-largest paper producer Asia Pulp and Paper said Tuesday it had stopped using logs from Indonesia's natural forests, after fierce campaigning by green groups against the company.

The firm has in recent years lost packaging contracts with big brands such as foodmaker Kraft and Barbie's Mattel after Greenpeace accused APP of clearing carbon-rich forest, home to endangered Sumatran tigers and orangutans.

Japan's whaling program costs taxpayers $10 million a year, a pressure group said Tuesday, as it demanded an end to the "dying industry".

The International Fund for Animal Welfare said money raised from the sale of whale meat falls far short of the cost of running and maintaining the fleet that hunts the mammals in the Southern Ocean.

After more than 55 days flying over Antarctica, NASA's huge Super-TIGER scientific balloon has broken the record for the longest flight of its kind, bringing back a wealth of data, the U.S. space agency said Monday.

The Super-TIGER balloon spent 55 days, one hour and 34 minutes aloft at an altitude of 127,000 feet (38,710 meters), beating the old record set in 2009 by just over a day.

Furry crabs once thought to be damaging the Great Barrier Reef may in fact be helping save the coral by stopping the spread of disease, a researcher said Tuesday.

Scientists at James Cook University studied the impact of furry coral crabs on fragments suffering from white syndrome, a deadly disease that appears throughout the Indo-Pacific and causes coral tissue to slough off.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Monday he is ready "to be the first man in space" under Iran's ambitious program which aims to send a human being into orbit by 2020.

"Our youth are determined to send a man into space within the next four, five years and I'm sure that will happen," he said during a ceremony in Tehran where two new Iranian-made satellites were unveiled, according to ISNA news agency.

The oil and gas industry is trying to ease environmental concerns by developing nontoxic fluids for the drilling process known as fracking, but it's not clear whether the new product will be widely embraced by drilling companies.

Houston-based energy giant Halliburton Inc. has developed a product called CleanStim, which uses only food-industry ingredients. Other companies have developed nontoxic fluids as well.