A Japanese billionaire and his producer rocketed to space Wednesday as the first self-paying space tourists in more than a decade.

Fashion tycoon Yusaku Maezawa and producer Yozo Hirano, who plans to film his mission, blasted off for the International Space Station in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft along with Russian cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin.

The emergence of the new omicron variant and the world's desperate and likely futile attempts to keep it at bay are reminders of what scientists have warned for months: The coronavirus will thrive as long as vast parts of the world lack vaccines.

The hoarding of limited COVID-19 shots by rich countries — creating virtual vaccine deserts in many poorer ones — doesn't just mean risk for the parts of the world seeing shortages; it threatens the entire globe.

- WHAT IS THIS NEW COVID-19 VARIANT? -

South African scientists identified a new version of the coronavirus this week that they say is behind a recent spike in COVID-19 infections in Gauteng, the country's most populous province. It's unclear where the new variant first emerged, but scientists in South Africa first alerted the World Health Organization and it has now been seen in travelers to Belgium, Botswana, Hong Kong and Israel.

Albert Einstein's handwritten notes for the theory of relativity are being auctioned in Paris on Tuesday, expected to fetch millions of euros. 

Scientists have been able to get a rare glimpse into a crucial, early stage of human development by analyzing an embryo in its third week after fertilization — a moment in time that has been difficult to study because of both practical and ethical considerations.

European researchers looked at a single embryo that was 16 to 19 days old, donated by a woman who ended her pregnancy. Until now, experts said, researchers have lacked a full understanding of this stage of development because human embryos at this stage are difficult to obtain. Most women don't yet know they're pregnant by this point and decades-old global guidelines have until recently prohibited growing human embryos in a lab beyond 14 days.

Russia's defense ministry on Tuesday admitted to destroying one of its satellites during a missile test but rejected U.S. accusations that it had endangered the International Space Station. 

U.S. officials on Monday accused Russia of a "dangerous and irresponsible" strike on a satellite that had created a cloud of debris and forced the ISS crew to take evasive action.

Wang Yaping has become the first Chinese woman to conduct a spacewalk as part of a six-month mission to the country's space station.

Wang and fellow astronaut Zhai Zhigang left the station's main module on Sunday evening, spending more than six hours outside installing equipment and carrying out tests alongside the station's robotic service arm, according to the China Manned Space agency.

What if a simple pill could help heal from Covid-19?

France has successfully launched a state-of-the-art satellite into orbit, designed to allow all of France's armed forces across the globe to communicate swiftly and securely. 

A hefty set of tusks is usually an advantage for elephants, allowing them to dig for water, strip bark for food and joust with other elephants. But during episodes of intense ivory poaching, those big incisors become a liability.

Now researchers have pinpointed how years of civil war and poaching in Mozambique have led to a greater proportion of elephants that will never develop tusks.