A huge canyon twice the size of the longest river in Britain and as deep as the Grand Canyon lies beneath the ice sheet in Greenland, scientists said Thursday.

Prior to the establishment of the ice sheet some four million years ago, the canyon is believed to have been a major pathway for water from the interior of the land mass to the coast.

From a shopping mall in New Jersey to the farm fields of India, experiments show that poverty saps people's brainpower and may lower IQ by 13 points, scientists said Thursday.

The findings in the U.S. journal Science suggest that being poor can drain a person's mental resources, leaving him or her less capable of focusing on other things, like solving problems and controlling impulses.

Earth, Mars, Jupiter and Neptune all have traveling companions — space rocks that share the planets' orbits as they circle the sun.

Now scientists have discovered one that tags along with Uranus. About 38 miles (61 kilometers) wide, the icy rock runs ahead of the planet.

Being short on cash may make you a bit slower in the brain, a new study suggests.

People worrying about having enough money to pay their bills tend to lose temporarily the equivalent of 13 IQ points, scientists found when they gave intelligence tests to shoppers at a New Jersey mall and farmers in India.

A giant "terror bird" deemed to have been one of Earth's top predators after the demise of the dinosaurs was in fact probably a plant-loving herbivore, German scientists reported on Thursday.

Palaeontologists have wrangled for years about Gastornis, a huge flightless bird that lived between 40 million and 55 million years ago.

China has experienced its hottest August for more than half a century, weather authorities said, after a summer heatwave that saw meat cooked on pavements.

A map on the website of the China Meteorological Administration (CMA) shows large parts of central and eastern China, and the western province of Xinjiang, had average daily maximum temperatures of more than 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) between July 31 and August 29.

Scientists said Wednesday they had used stem cells to grow primitive human brain tissue for use in studying disorders and early development of this most complex of organs.

They used the cells to grow what they dubbed "cerebral organoids" -- pea-sized blobs of 3D brain tissue in a Petri dish, with characteristics of early embryonic brain tissue.

China will add some 1,500 gigawatts of power production capacity by 2030, or the equivalent of Britain's existing capacity every year, a study showed on Wednesday.

Although the world's biggest carbon emitter will continue to draw considerable capacity from coal-fired plants, about half of the new capacity will be generated from renewable sources, Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) said in its report.

A slowing in global warming that climate sceptics say undermines the greenhouse theory is simply a "hiatus" from higher temperatures, scientists said on Wednesday.

Grasping one of the thorniest issues in climate politics, the researchers said the recent slowdown lies in a natural but temporary cooling in the tropical Pacific Ocean.

Gus, the beloved and famously neurotic polar bear at the Central Park zoo in New York, has died aged 27, the Wildlife Conservation Society said Wednesday.

Some 20 million people are thought to have visited Gus during his time at the zoo, which saw him become famous for his obsessive swimming routine, and even become the star of a book based on his life.