The world broke new heat records in July, marking the hottest month in history and the warmest first seven months of the year since modern record-keeping began in 1880, US authorities said Thursday.

The findings by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration showed a troubling trend, as the planet continues to warm due to the burning of fossil fuels, and scientists expect the scorching temperatures to get worse.

Humans are super-predators that upset the natural balance on Earth by killing far too many adult animals and fish, scientists said Thursday, urging a focus on catching fewer and smaller creatures.

A bird cull on a New Zealand island has been abruptly halted after marksmen killed four rare takahe, an endangered species with only 300 known to exist, officials said Friday.

The deaths were "deeply disappointing", Conservation Department director Andrew Baucke said in a statement. 

Greenpeace said Thursday it had launched legal action to demand that Switzerland shut down Beznau, the world's oldest commercial nuclear plant, for security reasons.

The plant, located in the northern Swiss canton of Aargau, near the German border, has been running for 46 years.

Seals and porpoises are becoming a common sight in the Thames Estuary and further upstream in London, survey results published on Thursday show.

A total of 2,732 marine mammals were spotted by members of the public in the river between 2004 and 2014, the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) said in a report.

The United Nations and other international bodies have vastly overestimated China's greenhouse gas emissions over the last decade or more, according to a study released Wednesday.

In 2013, for example, China's total carbon emissions were 14 percent less than the figures used by the UN's panel of experts tasked with providing the scientific framework for global climate talks, the research showed.

The Smithsonian's first shot at online crowdfunding ended Wednesday after raising a hefty $719,779 to restore the spacesuit that Neil Armstrong wore when he walked on the moon.

A total of 9,477 people contributed to the month-long Kickstarter "Reboot the Suit" campaign, which surpassed its $500,000 goal on July 24.

Ultrasound tests on Mei Xiang, the female giant panda at the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington, indicate she might be pregnant, officials said Wednesday.

Veterinarians detected what they think is a fetus which, at four centimeters (1.5 inches), suggests Mei Xiang could give birth next week or in early September.

An almost complete version of a tiny human brain has been grown in a U.S. lab in a move that could bring major strides to the treatment of neurological diseases, a scientist says.

Rene Anand, a professor at Ohio State University, has grown in a dish a brain equal in maturity to that of a five-week-old fetus, his university reported.

Scientists say they have found rare evidence of a prehistoric massacre in Europe after discovering a 7,000-year-old mass grave with skeletal remains from some of the continent's first farmers bearing terrible wounds.

Archaeologists who painstakingly examined the bones of some 26 men, women and children buried in the Stone Age grave site at Schoeneck-Kilianstaedten, near Frankfurt, say they found blunt force marks to the head, arrow wounds and deliberate efforts to smash at least half of the victims' shins — either to stop them from running away or as a grim message to survivors.