Researchers have identified a species of puny dinosaur so odd looking -- quills like a porcupine, a parrot-like beak and fangs like a vampire -- it probably deserved a small part in "Jurassic Park."

The finding was reported Wednesday in the online journal ZooKeys by Paul Sereno, a paleontologist and dinosaur specialist at the University of Chicago.

A rare Sumatran tiger has died after his transport to an Indonesia park was aborted and he was put on a second flight because plane passengers complained about the smell, an official said.

The eight-year-old big cat was being sent with other animals on a commercial flight Tuesday from Banda Aceh in the northern tip of Sumatra island to a conservation center on Java island.

Almost a century after a French colonial hunter put a bullet in what came to be viewed as the last Atlas lion living in the wild, a Moroccan zoo is struggling to claw the fabled subspecies back from the brink of extinction.

The majestic animal, also known as the Barbary lion and once common across north Africa, was eventually declared extinct after the 1922 hunt that saw it vanish from its natural environment.

 The NASA rover Curiosity has beamed back pictures of bedrock that suggest a fast-moving stream, possibly waist-deep, once flowed on Mars — a find that the mission's chief scientist called exciting.

There have been previous signs that water existed on the red planet long ago, but the images released Thursday showing pebbles rounded off, likely by water, offered the most convincing evidence so far of an ancient streambed.

The Australian government admits the Great Barrier Reef has been neglected for decades after a study showed it has lost more than half its coral cover in the past 27 years.

Environment Minister Tony Burke said research released Tuesday by scientists from the Australian Institute of Marine Science and the University of Wollongong should be setting off alarm bells across the country.

A giant supply ship burned up over the South Pacific early Wednesday in a self-destruct operation after a six-month mission to the International Space Station, the European Space Agency (ESA) said.

Laden with rubbish from the ISS, the Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) undocked from the orbital outpost last Friday to begin its final maneuvers.

From missing seismic devices to insufficient emergency back-up systems, stress tests on Europe's nuclear power plants show hundreds of problems requiring billions in new investment, an EU report showed Tuesday.

In the report obtained by Agence France Presse, the European Commission estimates the cost of improving safety at 134 reactors "in the order of 10-25 billion euros" ($13-$32 billion) and wants the upgrades monitored and finalized by 2015. But it demands no plant closures.

Australia's Great Barrier Reef has lost more than half its coral cover in the past 27 years due to storms, predatory starfish and bleaching linked to climate change, a study found Tuesday.

The research by scientists from the Australian Institute of Marine Sciences (AIMS) and the University of Wollongong warned that coral cover on the heritage-listed reef -- the world's largest -- could halve again by 2022 if trends continued.

When a bio-medical study is retracted, most of the time it is because of misconduct rather than error, a report published Monday said.

Two-thirds of all retractions around the world stem from acts like fraud, suspected fraud or plagiarism, it added.

A team of New Zealand scientists claimed to be a step closer to producing allergy-free milk Tuesday, using a genetically-modified cow for their medical breakthrough.

The team at the AgResearch Institute said they had bred the first cow in the world to produce high-protein milk with significantly reduced amounts of a protein believed responsible for allergies.