The World Bank on Friday said the world's oceans were at risk and called for a coalition of governments, NGOs and other groups to protect them, aiming to raise $1.5 billion in five years.

"The world’s oceans are in danger," from over-fishing, marine degradation and loss of habitat, World Bank president Robert Zoellick said. "Send out the S-O-S: We need to Save Our Seas."

Stargazers of the world are getting a treat this weekend.

On Saturday and again Sunday, Venus, Jupiter and Earth's moon converge for a brilliant night show.

The collapse of the Mayan civilization was likely due to a relatively mild drought, much like the drier conditions expected in the coming years due to climate change, scientists said Thursday.

Scholars have long believed that a major drought caused severe dry conditions that killed off the ancient culture known for its mastery of language, math and astronomy.

More than 50 million years ago, the Earth was a hotter place than it is today and horses the size of pet cats roamed the forests of North America, U.S. scientists said on Thursday.

These earliest known horses, known as Sifrhippus, actually grew smaller over tens of thousands of years in order to adapt to the higher temperatures of a period when methane emissions spiked, possibly due to major volcanic eruptions.

A new species of lizard with striking iridescent rainbow skin, a long tail and very short legs has been discovered in the rainforest in northeast Cambodia, conservationists announced.

Scientists named the skink Lygosoma veunsaiensis to honor theVeun Sai-Siem Pang Conservation Area in Rattanakiri province where it was found, Conservation International (CI) said in a statement.

Australian researchers Thursday revealed they had filmed a pod of extremely rare Shepherd's beaked whales for the first time ever.

The Australian Antarctic Division team was tracking blue whales off the coast of Victoria state last month when they spotted the reclusive mammals, which are so rarely seen that no population estimates of the species exist.

Theories that men will eventually become extinct because the Y chromosome which determines maleness is shrinking are quite wrong, according to a gene study published on Wednesday.

The men-are-doomed scenario leapt to prominence nearly a decade ago when scientists found that the male chromosome had dramatically shriveled.

A European experiment that in September showed particles moving faster than the speed of light has been exposed as a mistake due to a faulty wire connection, the U.S. journal Science said Wednesday.

"A bad connection between a GPS unit and a computer may be to blame," said the report on the magazine's website section Science Insider, citing "sources familiar with the experiment."

An astronaut attempting to visit recently discovered planetGJ1214b would land in hot water -- literally, U.S. scientists say.

Researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics said they have identified an entirely new kind of planet, dominated not by rock, gas or other common materials, but water.

Researchers digging through mud in northeast India have discovered a new family of legless amphibians in a rare scientific breakthrough detailed in a study released on Wednesday.

The family of burrowing, tailless creatures was identified by scientists working for five years in remote Indian states including Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland.