A huge slab of sea floor near the Great Barrier Reef is in the early stages of collapse and could generate a tsunami when it finally breaks off, researchers warned Friday.

Marine geologists from Australia's James Cook University have been using advanced 3D mapping techniques on the deepest parts of the reef -- below diving depth -- since 2007 and have discovered dozens of sub-marine canyons.

The Tungurahua volcano in central Ecuador keeps spewing gas, ash and red-hot rock, forcing hundreds to evacuate from their homes.

The country's Geophysical Institute says incandescent rock shot from the crater of the 16,479-foot (5,023-meter) high mountain fell about half a mile (a kilometer) down its flanks. Explosions early Wednesday rattled windows 9 miles (14 kilometers) away, while rain-borne ash has been falling to the southwest of the crater.

Biologists say the human hand is a wonder of evolution, providing dexterity that lets our species perform activities as diverse as bricklaying, writing, ice hockey and brain surgery.

But what were the forces that, over thousands of years, sculpted our hand into the shape it is today?

A Soyuz spacecraft carrying Russian, American and Canadian astronauts blasted off on Wednesday from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan bound for the International Space Station (ISS).

The spacecraft took off on schedule at 1212 GMT carrying Russian Roman Romanenko, NASA astronaut Thomas Marshburn and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Chris Hadfield, an AFP correspondent said.

A U.S. appeals court ordered American anti-whaling activists to keep 500 yards (457 meters) away from Japanese whaling ships off Antarctica.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued an injunction against the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which sends vessels every December to disrupt whale killings by Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research.

"Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse."

Er, not quite.

Tau Ceti, one of our closest stars, is a good candidate for hosting an Earth-like planet, astronomers reported on Wednesday.

Located a relatively close 12 light years away, the Sun-like star has five planets that orbit it in a balmy zone which gives the best chance for nurturing life, they said.

Ecuador's Tungurahua volcano spewed lava and towering plumes of ash Tuesday but the alert level remains the same, seismic experts said.

"During the overnight and early morning hours, there continued to be a series of explosive events and signs of quaking and (lava) emission," said a statement from the Geophysical Institute in Quito, capital of the Andean nation.

A growing majority of Americans think global warming is occurring, that it will become a serious problem and that the U.S. government should do something about it, a new Associated Press-GfK poll finds.

Even most people who say they don't trust scientists on the environment say temperatures are rising.

An assassin slit the throat of Egypt's last great pharaoh at the climax of a bitter succession battle, scientists said Monday in a report on a 3,000-year-old royal murder.

Forensic technology suggests Ramses III, a king revered as a god, met his death at the hand of a killer, or killers, sent by his conniving wife and ambitious son, they said.