A huge haul of illegal ivory in China has revealed the vast scale of the trade and flaws in the country's system of legal ivory sales, a wildlife monitoring group said.

A court heard that authorities seized a total of 7.7 tonnes of ivory on a series of occasions in 2011, reports said last week, and three people were jailed for terms ranging from seven to 15 years in connection with the case.

The number of researchers exposed to low-level radiation in an accident at a nuclear laboratory in Japan last week has hit 30, officials said Monday, with human error likely worsening the problem.

The accident happened on Thursday as 55 people were working at a laboratory in Tokaimura, 120 kilometers (75 miles) northeast of Tokyo, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) said.

Minerals found in craters on the Moon may be remnants of asteroids that slammed into it and not, as long believed, the satellite's innards exposed by such impacts, a study said Sunday.

The findings, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, cast doubt on the little we knew of what the Moon is actually composed of.

China's commercial hub Shanghai plans to turn recycled cooking oil, some of it seized by authorities, into an environmental asset by converting it into fuel for vehicles, state media said Monday.

The country has been rocked by a series of food safety scandals including the re-use of waste oil recycled from restaurants and called "gutter oil" in Chinese.

A baby gorilla has been born to first-time parents at an Ohio zoo.

The healthy 5-pound (2.2-kilogram) male gorilla arrived Thursday at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, joining 16 other gorillas there.

The rugged landscape created by volcanic eruptions and tectonic plate shifts in east and south Africa millions of years ago may be what prompted our human ancestors to start walking on two legs, a study said Friday.

The research published in the journal Antiquity challenges the commonly-held theory that early hominins (members of the broad human family) were forced onto two feet on the ground because climate change reduced the number of trees they lived in.

Four researchers were exposed to radiation in an accident at a Japanese nuclear physics laboratory this week, officials said Saturday.

The accident occurred on Thursday at a laboratory in Tokaimura, 120 kilometers (75 miles) northeast of Tokyo, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) said.

France's meteorological center said Friday that the winter-like weather that has gripped much of Western Europe was likely to continue into June.

With snow in the plains of Switzerland, record cold in the Netherlands and a distinct lack of sunshine in France and Germany, meteorologists say Western Europe is suffering from "exceptional" weather for this time of year.

Google has followed in the footsteps of Charles Darwin to gather images of the beauty and biological diversity of the Galapagos Islands for the Internet titan's online maps.

A Google Maps team toting 360-degree cameras sticking from backpacks hiked trails, hills, and even into a live volcano to take Street View pictures of the precious environment where Darwin gleaned insights for his theory of evolution.

The United States is gearing up for more Atlantic hurricanes than usual this year, triggered by warmer water temperatures than average, U.S. forecasters said Thursday.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Prediction Center predicted that the six-month Atlantic hurricane season that begins June 1 will see 13 to 20 named storms, seven to 11 hurricanes and three to six major hurricanes, with winds of at least 111 miles (178 kilometers) per hour.