U.S. researchers have successfully carried out gene editing on human embryos using the revolutionary technique known as CRISPR, the first time the procedure has been performed in the U.S., a report said Thursday.

"The effort, led by Shoukhrat Mitalipov of Oregon Health and Science University, involved changing the DNA of a large number of one-cell embryos with the gene-editing technique CRISPR, according to people familiar with the scientific results," the MIT Technology Review said.

A small green sponge discovered in dark, icy waters of the Pacific off Alaska could be the first effective weapon against pancreatic cancer, researchers said Wednesday.

The Moon, long thought to be a dry, inhospitable orb, hosts surprisingly large sub-surface water reserves, which one day may quench the thirst of lunar explorers from Earth, scientists said Monday.

Our Sun is much like other stars, and not an anomaly because of its magnetic poles that flip every 11 years, scientists said Thursday.

Three Siberian tigers rescued in Lebanon from an attempt to smuggle them into war-ravaged Syria were being resettled to France on Tuesday, an animal rights group said.

The White House has championed a new era of U.S. leadership in space, but its aspirations are complicated by tight budgets, vacancies in top posts and the rising role of private industry in aerospace innovation, experts say.

During a speech Thursday at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Vice President Mike Pence delighted hundreds of space agency employees and contractors by pledging that "under President Trump, we will achieve more in space than we ever thought possible," including a "return to the Moon" and "American boots on the face of Mars."

European scientists said Thursday they have discovered a new subatomic particle containing a never-before-seen combination of quarks -- the most basic building blocks of matter.

A massive asteroid strike that wiped out the dinosaurs millions of years ago created room for frogs to colonize the Earth, said a study Monday that shows how frogs became among the most diverse vertebrates in the world.

As many as 10 types of frogs are believed to have survived the mass extinction some 66 million years ago, which erased three-quarters of life on Earth, said the report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Dutch scientists on Monday celebrated the discovery of only the sixth meteorite found in recent history in The Netherlands, which at 4.5-billion years old may hold clues to the birth of our solar system.

(By Gary Li, Ph.D. Candidate in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles)

Nearly 50 years after landing on the moon, mankind has now set its sights on sending the first humans to Mars. The moon trip took three days; a Mars trip will likely take most of a year. The difference is in more than just time.