Science - AP

BEIJING - China will launch its third manned space mission in late September, featuring its first-ever space walk, a state news agency said.

DARMSTADT, Germany - The European deep space probe Rosetta successfully completed a flyby of an asteroid millions of miles from earth, but its high resolution camera stopped shortly before the closest pass, space officials said Saturday.

PASADENA, Calif. - The latest images from NASA's Cassini spacecraft show faint, partial rings orbiting with two of Saturn's small inner moons, scientists said Friday.

DALLAS - The oldest gorilla in captivity, a 55-year-old female named Jenny, has died at the Dallas Zoo — her home for more than half a century, a spokesman said Friday.

VISALIA, Calif. - Federal researchers are warning that warming temperatures could soon cause California's giant sequoia trees to die off more quickly unless forest managers plan with an eye toward climate change and the impact of a longer, harsher wildfire season.

WASHINGTON - Smog, soot and other particles like the kind often seen hanging over Beijing add to global warming and may raise summer temperatures in the American heartland by three degrees in about 50 years, says a new federal science report released Thursday.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - NASA moved shuttle Atlantis to the launch pad on Thursday for a flight next month to the Hubble Space Telescope after being waylaid by a pair of tropical storms.

TORONTO - A chunk of ice shelf nearly the size of Manhattan has broken away from Ellesmere Island in Canada's northern Arctic, another dramatic indication of how warmer temperatures are changing the polar frontier, scientists said Wednesday.

JERUSALEM - Israeli archaeologists say they have uncovered new sections of Jerusalem's ancient walls, continuing a project started more than a century ago.

WASHINGTON - The tropics seem to be going crazy what with the remnants of Gustav, the new threat from Hanna, a strengthening Ike and newcomer Josephine. Get used to it.

ATLANTA - The only panda born at a U.S. zoo so far this year was placed in an incubator on Monday for closer monitoring by zookeepers after visitors flocked to watch mother and child on a live video feed at Zoo Atlanta.

SEATTLE - Alishia Beckham is on the front lines defending the United States from foreign invaders — armed with weapons that include a hand mirror and a flashlight.

EAST LANSING, Mich. - Who says science doesn't turn people on? Kate McAlpine is a rising star on YouTube for her rap performance — about high-energy particle physics.

SPOKANE, Wash. - The government and environmentalists have reached an agreement to help the endangered Kootenai River white sturgeon spawn for the first time since the 1970s, the parties say.

GENEVA - The next U.S. president must show greater leadership than previous administrations in tackling climate change, the head of the United Nations said Sunday.

WASHINGTON - The difference between a monster and a wimp for Gulf of Mexico hurricanes often comes down to a small patch of warm deep water that's easy to miss. It's called the Loop Current, and hurricane trackers say Gustav is headed right for it, reminiscent of Katrina.

WASHINGTON - Roads and canals connected walled cities and villages. The communities were laid out around central plazas. Nearby, smaller settlements focused on agriculture and fish farming.

WASHINGTON - More ominous signs Wednesday have scientists saying that a global warming "tipping point" in the Arctic seems to be happening before their eyes: Sea ice in the Arctic Ocean is at its second lowest level in about 30 years.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Purdue University on Wednesday reprimanded a scientist who has been accused of falsifying claims he produced nuclear fusion in tabletop experiments.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - Tropical Storm Fay brought some good news to the state's parched Everglades and its liquid heart, Lake Okeechobee — lots and lots of water.

NEW YORK - Talk about an extreme makeover: Scientists have transformed one type of cell into another in living mice, a big step toward the goal of growing replacement tissues to treat a variety of diseases.

WASHINGTON - New satellite measurements show that crucial sea ice in the Arctic Ocean has plummeted to its second lowest level on record.

PASADENA, Calif. - The plucky Mars rover Opportunity is driving out of a giant crater nearly a year after a dangerous descent to examine exposed bedrock.

HAZLETON, Pa. - Nearly a year after federal epidemiologists first sounded the alarm over a cluster of rare blood cancers in northeastern Pennsylvania, their research has zeroed in on a hardscrabble region 80 miles northwest of Philadelphia that is home to several Superfund sites and a power plant fired by waste coal.

WASHINGTON - Talk about animal magnetism, cows seem to have a built-in compass. No bull: Somehow, cattle seem to know how to find north and south, say researchers who studied satellite photos of thousands of cows around the world.

WASHINGTON - For capuchin monkeys, it seems, it's better to both give and receive, than just to receive. At least, that's what researchers at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center at Emory University in Atlanta have found.

WALLOPS ISLAND, Va. - NASA destroyed an unmanned experimental rocket carrying a pair of research satellites Friday when it veered off course shortly after an early morning liftoff.

WASHINGTON - In northern Greenland, a part of the Arctic that had seemed immune from global warming, new satellite images show a growing giant crack and an 11-square-mile chunk of ice hemorrhaging off a major glacier, scientists said Thursday.