The Indonesian government has said it aims to approve within a month a plan that would free up vast swathes of protected virgin rainforest on Sumatra island for commercial exploitation.

Rights groups reacted with outrage at the news that the plan, which also needs to be passed by the Aceh provincial parliament, was making progress, saying it would only benefit huge foreign companies and not the area's people.

A Chinese fishing vessel that ran aground on one of the Philippines' most famous coral reefs more than a week ago was removed on Friday, the coast guard said.

The 48-metre (157-foot) ship was hauled by a tugboat from Tubbataha, a UNESCO World Heritage-listed coral reef near the western island of Palawan where its crew are facing serious charges, a spokeswoman said.

Orbital Sciences, one of two private U.S. firms chosen by NASA to shuttle cargo to the International Space Station, will make a new attempt Saturday to launch a first test flight of its Antares rocket.

The new planned launch, which the company announced on Friday, came after an attempt was scrubbed on Wednesday because of technical problems.

Chinese carmaker BYD gave pride of place to its new S7 SUV at the Shanghai auto show Saturday while another of its models, a fully-electric vehicle, languished in a corner with only a handful of visitors.

The contrast is indicative of the battle in the auto sector with gas-guzzling SUVs blazing past green-energy cars despite state incentives to promote cleaner vehicles in a bid to tackle the country's air pollution crisis.

A Russian rocket carrying a capsule filled with 45 mice and 15 newts along with other small animals blasted off Friday on a month-long orbital mission that should pave the way for manned flights to Mars.

Live footage on the Roscosmos space agency website showed the Soyuz lifting off at 1000 GMT from the Russian-leased Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan with its treasured cargo and another experimental satellite on board.

NASA's planet-hunting telescope has discovered two planets that seem like ideal places for some sort of life to flourish. And they are just the right size and in just the right place.

One is warm, the other chilly.

Using a potent NASA space telescope to scan the skies for planets like ours where life may exist, astronomers said Thursday they have found the most Earth-like candidates yet.

Two of the five planets orbiting a Sun-like star called Kepler-62 are squarely in the habitable zone -- not too hot, not too cold and possibly bearing water, NASA scientists reported in the journal Science.

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on Thursday painted a dim picture of the world's environmental progress, two decades after he founded the environmental group Green Cross International.

Laying much of the blame on a lack of leadership and vision, he railed against governments for falling short on nuclear disarmament, waste, development and climate change.

An electronic fork that vibrates when you eat too fast went on sale Wednesday on Kickstarter, with its French inventors claiming it can help combat obesity and digestive issues.

Those who contribute at least $89 on the crowd funding website will get a HAPIfork, which comes in blue, green and pink, ahead of its planned general release to consumers in the United States and Europe later this year.

One of the world's most popular aquarium fishes on Wednesday joined the rat, the mouse, fruitfly and nematode worm in the roll call of creatures whose DNA has been sequenced to help fight disease among humans.

A consortium of researchers unveiled the genome of the zebrafish in the British journal Nature, declaring it made a vital model for pinpointing faulty genes.