Science News

EPSOM, N.H. - The cries of a baby led rescuers to him in the wreckage of a home flattened by a tornado that killed his grandmother and blew his grandfather into the yard, officials said Friday.

MEXICO CITY - Tropical Storm Genevieve has strengthened into a hurricane far off Mexico's Pacific coast, and forecasters say it is expected to stay out at sea.

Weather around the U.S.A.

BEIJING (Reuters) - China aims to build a leading aerospace industry by 2015, when the country would command 10 percent of the world's commercial satellite market, and 15 percent of the space launch market, Xinhua said on Friday.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Explosions of magnetic energy between Earth and the moon are behind the sparkles and wavy glows of the Northern Lights that color the night sky, NASA has said.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Scientists have exposed some of the mystery behind the northern lights. On Thursday, NASA released findings that indicate magnetic explosions about one-third of the way to the moon cause the northern lights, or aurora borealis, to burst in spectacular shapes and colors, and dance across the sky.

OMAHA, Neb. - Humane society workers have found 117 cats, a raccoon and a rabbit in a north Omaha house. The discovery came Wednesday after Council Bluffs, Iowa, police caught the 54-year-old woman who lives at the house reportedly stealing cat food. Officials say she smelled like cat urine.

BRUSSELS, Belgium - The European Union proposed an import ban Wednesday on products derived from seals that are killed in a cruel way, a move that could hurt the annual seal hunt in Canada — the largest in the world.

HELSINKI (AFP) - The World Wildlife Fund on Tuesday criticised the European Union's illegal wood imports, singling out Finland as the top offender and calling for EU-wide legislation to tackle the issue.

MADRID (AFP) - The remains of several unknown insect species which became extinct long before dinosaurs stopped roaming the earth have been discovered in pieces of 110-million-year-old amber found in Spain, researchers said Thursday.

TOKYO - Japanese and Mongolian scientists have successfully recovered the complete skeleton of a 70-million-year-old young dinosaur, a nature museum announced Thursday.

TOKYO (AFP) - Fossil hunters say they have discovered a rare skeleton of a young Tarbosaurus dinosaur in the Gobi Desert that could yield important clues on the species.

TOWSON, Md. - Dr. Victor A. McKusick, a key architect of the Human Genome Project and a winner of the National Medal of Science, has died. He was 86.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Meat and milk from cloned animals may not be safe to be sold in the European Union after all, the bloc's top food safety agency will say on Thursday after a rethink on the issue, EU sources said.

CHICAGO (AFP) - Scientists have isolated two genes which may prevent people from contracting HIV or at least slow the rate at which they develop AIDS, a new study has found.

CHARLOTTE AMALIE, U.S. Virgin Islands - The U.S. Virgin Islands may build a pipeline to replace diesel-generated power with natural gas brought in from a bigger grid in the nearby U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, the head of the islands' utility company said Thursday.

WASHINGTON - House Republicans on Thursday scuttled a bill that Democrats hoped would help lower gasoline prices by forcing the Energy Department to release 70 million barrels of oil — about a three-day supply — from the national stockpile.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Thursday threatened to veto legislation that would require the government to sell 10 percent of the oil in the nation's emergency petroleum stockpile.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Scientists have exposed some of the mystery behind the northern lights. On Thursday, NASA released findings that indicate magnetic explosions about one-third of the way to the moon cause the northern lights, or aurora borealis, to burst in spectacular shapes and colors, and dance across the sky.

Barack Obama spoke in front of 200,000 Germans in Berlin on Thursday at the start of a European tour, while John McCain talked to small business leaders at a fourth-generation German restaurant in Columbus, Ohio. But regardless of the audience, people undoubtedly paid as much attention to the nonverbal performance as they did to what each presidential candidate said.

A study of top-selling laundry products and air fresheners found the products emitted dozens of different chemicals. All six products tested gave off at least one chemical regulated as toxic or hazardous under federal laws, but none of those chemicals was listed on the product labels.