A fossil of the oldest known ancestor of modern rats -- an agile creature that could climb, burrow and eat just about anything -- has been unearthed in China, scientists said Thursday.

The newly named species Rugosodon eurasiaticus had flexible ankles for tree-climbing and sharp teeth that could gnaw both animals and plants, according to the U.S. journal Science.

A lap-sized critter that looks like a mix between a raccoon and a teddy bear was unveiled Thursday as the first new carnivore in the Western Hemisphere in 35 years.

Scientists say the olinguito has actually been around for ages, in zoos, museums and in the forests of Ecuador and Colombia, but was mistaken for its larger cousin, the olingo.

NASA said Thursday it cannot fix its hobbled planet-hunting Kepler Space Telescope and is considering what sort of scientific research it might be able to do at half-capacity.

"Today, we are reporting we do not believe we can recover three-wheeled operations, or Kepler's original science mission," said Paul Hertz, NASA Astrophysics Division director.

The White House is going green. Solar panels are being installed on parts of the residence, a U.S. official said Thursday -- making good on a pledge that dates back to 2010.

With President Barack Obama and his family vacationing in Martha's Vineyard for a week, workers equipped with cranes have been buzzing around the home in downtown Washington.

Scientists said Wednesday they were surprised to witness a chimpanzee and an orangutan swimming and diving in water -- a skill that primates were thought to have lost long ago.

Evolutionary researchers Renato and Nicole Bender made the astonishing observation while filming two primates raised in captivity in the United States.

Scientists said Wednesday they had created a window coating that can be switched electrically to regulate the amount of heat and light that enters a building.

A team of molecular and material scientists from the United States and Spain created a transparent film using nanocrystals -- microscopic clusters of atoms that can change the wavelength of light.

Climate change will trigger harsher and more frequent heat waves in the next 30 years regardless of the amount of Earth-warming carbon dioxide we emit, a study said Thursday.

But targets adopted today for curbing greenhouse gas emissions will determine whether the pattern stabilizes thereafter, or grows even worse.

Australia's carbon pollution would increase by at least nine percent by 2020 under the policies of the conservative opposition, breaching global commitments, new pre-election modelling showed Thursday.

The modelling, published by Australia's independent Climate Institute thinktank, showed that "under all (opposition) coalition scenarios Australia's emissions continue to increase to 2020 and beyond".

Scientists said Tuesday they had used stem cells to grow human heart tissue that contracted spontaneously in a petri dish -- marking progress in the quest to manufacture transplant organs.

A team from the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, used induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells generated from human skin cells to create precursor heart cells called MCPs.

Scientists said Wednesday they had discovered two new species of a strange bone-devouring worm thriving in the mysterious waters that surround the Antarctic continent.

The Osedax worms feed on the bones of dead whales that settle on the sea floor, fulfilling an important recycling role, said a study published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.