Science News

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The Milky Way, the Earth's home galaxy, is spinning much faster and has a mass 50 percent larger than previously believed, raising the probability of a collision with another galaxy, according to a report out Monday.

WASHINGTON - Take that, Andromeda! For decades, astronomers thought when it came to the major galaxies in Earth's cosmic neighborhood, our Milky Way was a weak sister to the larger Andromeda. Not anymore. The Milky Way is considerably larger, bulkier and spinning faster than astronomers once thought, Andromeda's equal.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Soil rich in diamond dust discovered across North America reinforces a theory that falling meteors caused the extinction of mammoths and other animals, said a study in the journal Science.

WASHINGTON — President George W. Bush on Tuesday will create three new marine monuments in the Pacific Ocean to protect the deepest place on Earth, some of the last pristine corals and sanctuaries for vanishing marine species.

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Hardline anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd said it has been forced to temporarily abandon its pursuit of Japan's whaling fleet in the Antarctic while its ship refuels.

SAN DIEGO - They could be the next stars of "The Biggest Loser." Seven elephants at the San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park have lost a combined total of 11,314 pounds ever since zookeepers enforced a nutrition and exercise regiment for them in 2000.

A nearly complete skull of a primitive cheetah that sprinted about in China more than 2 million years ago suggests the agile cats originated in the Old World rather than in the Americas.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Scientists in China say they have discovered the world's largest dinosaur fossil site in the eastern province of Shandong, state media reported on Tuesday.

BEIJING (AFP) - Paleontologists in east China have dug up what they believe is one of the world's largest group of dinosaur fossils including the remains of an enormous "platypus", state press said Tuesday.

THURSDAY, Jan. 1 (HealthDay News) -- In a finding that could help doctors fine-tune breast cancer treatments even further, a new study confirms that there are genes that increase the likelihood that the disease will spread throughout a woman's body.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A UK researcher has a new explanation for how the human race manages to keep a fairly even balance of males and females, despite massive deaths of young males in war and selective abortion of female fetuses in certain parts of the world.

LONDON (Reuters) - Many genes linked to various cancers do not appear to raise the risk of getting cancer after all, according to an analysis of hundreds of studies published on Tuesday.

MOSCOW (AFP) - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Monday ordered gas giant Gazprom to start cutting supplies to Ukraine bound for European consumers in response to Kiev's alleged siphoning from pipelines.

BOSTON (Reuters) - Citgo Petroleum Corp, the U.S. arm of Venezuela's state oil company, has suspended its program to provide free heating oil to hundreds of thousands of low-income U.S. families, the head of the nonprofit organization that distributed the fuel said on Monday.

MOSCOW/KIEV (Reuters) - Russia reduced gas flows to Europe via Ukraine on Monday, a measure it said was to stop its neighbor siphoning off fuel but which Kiev said could jeopardize supplies to European countries including Germany.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Tiny diamonds sprinkled across North America suggest a "swarm" of comets hit the Earth around 13,000 years ago, kicking up enough disruption to send the planet into a cold spell and drive mammoths and other creatures into extinction, scientists reported on Friday.

Obese men reported better sexual function after losing lots of weight in a new study, one of several to show the side benefits of slimming down.

WASHINGTON - Take that, Andromeda! For decades, astronomers thought when it came to the major galaxies in Earth's cosmic neighborhood, our Milky Way was a weak sister to the larger Andromeda. Not anymore. The Milky Way is considerably larger, bulkier and spinning faster than astronomers once thought, Andromeda's equal.