Radiation in space might harm the brains of astronauts in deep space by accelerating the development of Alzheimer's disease, a new study on mice suggests.

The research reveals another risk that manned deep-space missions to places such as Mars or the asteroids could pose, scientists added.

This year has been a busy one for space missions, and it looks like next year will ramp things up even more.

Though NASA has retired its space shuttles, astronauts and cosmonauts are still launching regularly on Russian rockets to the International Space Station, and will continue to do so. Plus, China is planning another manned docking mission for 2013, and many more countries, such as South Korea, India, Canada and a coalition of European nations, will launch robotic science probes next year.

High seas and strong winds prevented crews from boarding an oil drilling ship to check for any damage after the large vessel went aground off an uninhabited island in the Gulf of Alaska.

A Coast Guard plane and a helicopter flew over the Kulluk on Tuesday, but severe weather did not permit putting marine experts on board the drilling rig, which had grounded on a sand and gravel beach in stormy seas.

Iran aims to set up the country's first dark sky area on an island in the Persian Gulf to promote astronomical research and tourism.

Iran's English-language state Press TV quotes the director of Iran Sky Party, Hooman Najafi, as saying Wednesday the so-called dark sky park — an area kept free of artificial light pollution to promote astronomy and stargazing — will be established on Qeshem, the biggest Iranian island in the Gulf.

Thousands of bathers enjoying the hot New Year's Day weather on Australia's Bondi Beach fled the water on Tuesday after a shark alert was sounded.

The crowded sea was cleared in a matter of minutes after authorities raised the alarm when a surf patrol boat said it had seen what it thought could have been a large shark.

Nobel medicine laureate Rita Levi-Montalcini, a neurologist and developmental biologist, died Sunday at her home in Rome aged 103, the Italian news agency ANSA reported.

She was the oldest living Nobel laureate at the time of her death.

Two centuries after the French people beheaded Louis XVI and dipped their handkerchiefs in his blood, scientists believe they have authenticated the remains of one such rag kept as a revolutionary souvenir.

Researchers have been trying for years to verify a claim imprinted on an ornately decorated calabash that it contains a sample of the blood of the French king guillotined in Paris on January 21, 1793.

Since captivating the world with its acrobatic landing, the Mars rover Curiosity h

as fallen into a rhythm: Drive, snap pictures, zap at boulders, scoop up dirt. Repeat.

The remorse felt by Himali Chungda Sherpa after he killed three snow leopard cubs in retaliation for his lost cattle inspired him to set up a scheme to prevent other herders from doing the same.

Sherpa lost his cattle near Ghunsa village at the base of Mount Kangchenjunga on the Nepal-India border, later finding their remains in a cave beside three sleeping snow leopard cubs.

Australia Saturday condemned Japan's annual whaling expedition as its hunting fleet steamed to the Southern Ocean, and said a challenge through the International Court of Justice should be heard in 2013.

Canberra is strongly opposed to whaling and launched legal action challenging the basis of the so-called "scientific" hunt in December 2010 after failing to persuade Tokyo to halt the cull of almost 1,000 animals through diplomatic channels.