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New Quest to Study 'Living Fossil' Coelacanth

French and South African biologists will dive to deep-sea caves in the Indian Ocean next month in a bid to locate the coelacanth, the "living fossil" fish whose history predates the dinosaurs, France's National Museum of Natural History said on Friday.

The "Gombessa" expedition, named after a local term for the coelacanth, will run from April 5 to May 15, exploring locations in the Jesser Canyon, 120 meters (390 feet) below the waters of Sodwana Bay, where the strange fish is believed to live.

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Canadian Researchers Develop Energy Storage System

Canadian researchers have developed a ground-breaking method which may ultimately enable excess energy created by wind turbines and solar panels to be stored for later use.

Two researchers at the University of Calgary report in the journal Science that they have invented a relatively inexpensive way of using rust to act as a catalyst for capturing energy through the electrolysis of water.

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China to Build Two More Antarctic Bases

China is to build two extra research stations in Antarctica, where it currently has three facilities, the State Oceanic Administration confirmed on Friday.

A summer base, to be used between December and March, will be built between two of its existing stations -- Kunlun and Zhongshan -- on the frozen continent, the official Xinhua news agency said.

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Mysterious Fairy Circles Demystified: It's Termites

They appear in the desert in southwest Africa and persist for decades: so-called fairy circles, or puzzling rings of grass with a barren center.

Now a new study, published Thursday in the U.S. journal "Science," purports to end the enigma and explain just what is going on: it's the work of termites.

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Solar-Powered Plane Prepares for Coast-to-Coast U.S. Flight

A groundbreaking solar-powered Swiss aircraft is ready to make a coast-to-coast flight across the United States, its creators said Thursday.

The experimental Solar Impulse plane, which has made several trips since its maiden flight in 2009, will take off on May 1 on a transcontinental tour split in five stages.

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New Crew Enters ISS after Express Ride from Earth

A new Russian-American crew arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) on Friday after an express trip from Earth of under six hours, the fastest ever journey to the orbiting laboratory.

A NASA astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts opened the hatches of their Soyuz-TMA spaceship and floated into the ISS to a warm welcome from the three incumbent crew, live pictures broadcast on Russian television showed.

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Rare Find Backs Shape-Shifting Neutrino - Scientists

Physicists announced further proof Wednesday for a theory that mysterious particles called neutrinos which go "missing" on the journey from the Sun to Earth are in fact shape-shifting along the way, arriving undetected.

The evidence: a muon-type neutrino dispatched from the CERN research laboratory near Geneva had arrived as a tau neutrino at the INFN Gran Sasso Laboratory in Italy, 730 kilometers (450 miles) away, they said in a statement.

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U.S. Regulators Under Fire over Bee-Toxic Pesticides

U.S. environmental regulators are under fire from beekeepers and conservationists who say they are failing to vet risky pesticides that put people and valuable crop pollinators like bees in peril.

On Wednesday, the Natural Resources Defense Council issued a scathing report of the Environmental Protection Agency's record of using a loophole to allow more than 10,000 "untested or under-tested" pesticides on the market.

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Study: 'Holy Grail' Foot-and-Mouth Vaccine Created

British scientists have developed a "holy grail" vaccine for foot-and-mouth disease that is safer and more resilient than current vaccines, according to an article published in journal PLOS pathogens Wednesday.

At the moment, animals are given a small dose of live infectious virus to stimulate the body's immune system into producing antibodies that recognize and destroy the pathogen whenever it appears in the bloodstream.

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Is Global Warming Causing Harsher Winters?

Millions of people in northern Europe are still battling snow and ice, wondering why they are being punished with bitter cold when -- officially -- spring has arrived and Earth is in the grip of global warming.

Yet some scientists, eyeing the fourth year in a row of exceptionally harsh late-winter weather in parts of Europe and North America, suggest warming is precisely the problem.

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