Researchers in Cambodia find nest of rare riverine bird

Wildlife researchers in Cambodia have found a breeding location for the masked finfoot, one of the world’s most endangered birds, raising hopes of its continuing survival.

The New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society said Thursday its scientists, along with conservationists from Cambodia’s Environment Ministry and residents along the Memay river in the Kulen Promtep Wildlife Sanctuary, discovered the only confirmed breeding location in Cambodia for the very rare species.The International Union for Conservation of Nature has placed the bird on its red list of globally endangered species because its worldwide population of less than 1,000 is declining at an alarming rate. It is found only in Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Scientists say massive iceberg has broken off in Antarctica

One of the biggest icebergs ever recorded, a trillion-ton behemoth more than seven times the size of New York City, has broken off of Antarctica, triggering disagreement among scientists over whether global warming is to blame.

The event, captured by satellite, happened sometime in the past few days when the giant chunk snapped off an ice shelf.

Ocean world near Saturn top contender for life beyond Earth

A tiny, ice-encrusted ocean world orbiting Saturn is now a hotter-than-ever candidate for potential life.

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has detected hydrogen molecules in the geysers shooting off the moon Enceladus, possibly the result of deep-sea chemical reactions between water and rock that could spark microbial life, scientists announced Thursday.

NASA and others are quick to point out this latest discovery does not mean there's life on Enceladus (ehn-SEHL'-uh-duhs), but that there may be conditions favorable for life.

Tiny tubes in Canadian rock may be oldest known fossils

Tiny tubes and filaments in some Canadian rock appear to be the oldest known fossils, giving new support to some ideas about how life began, a new study says.

The features are mineralized remains of what appear to be bacteria that lived some 3.77 billion to 4.28 billion years ago, the scientists said. That would surpass the 3.7 billion years assigned to some other rock features found in Greenland, which were proposed to be fossils last August.

7 Earth-size worlds found orbiting star; could hold life

For the first time, astronomers have discovered seven Earth-size planets orbiting a single nearby star — and these new worlds could hold life.

This cluster of planets is less than 40 light-years away in the constellation Aquarius, according to NASA and the Belgian-led research team who announced the discovery Wednesday.

The cave squeaker returns: Rare frog seen after decades

The cave squeaker is back.

Researchers in Zimbabwe say they have found a rare frog that hasn't been seen in decades.

The Artholeptis troglodytes, also known as the "cave squeaker" because of its preferred habitat, was discovered in 1962 but there were no reported sightings of the elusive amphibian after that. An international "red list" of threatened species tagged them as critically endangered and possibly extinct.

Scientists: Moon over the hill at 4.51 billion years old

It turns out the moon is older than many scientists suspected: a ripe 4.51 billion years old.

That's the newest estimate, thanks to rocks and soil collected by the Apollo 14 moonwalkers in 1971.

A research team reported Wednesday that the moon formed within 60 million years of the birth of the solar system. Previous estimates ranged within 100 million years, all the way out to 200 million years after the solar system's creation, not quite 4.6 billion years ago.

Vera Rubin, who did pioneering work on dark matter, dies

Vera Rubin, a pioneering astronomer who helped find powerful evidence of dark matter, has died, her son said Monday.

She was 88.

Allan Rubin, a professor of geosciences at Princeton University, said his mother died Sunday night of natural causes. He said the Philadelphia native had been living in the Princeton area.

Vera Rubin found that galaxies don't quite rotate the way they were predicted, and that lent support to the theory that some other force was at work, namely dark matter.