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.

Teresita Mabignay does her ironing using free electricity on the slope of a garbage dump, an unlikely beneficiary of efforts to turn the Philippines' growing rubbish problems into a clean-energy windfall.

Mabignay lives at the base of one of Manila's largest landfills, which was the first in the country to have its methane gas converted into power as part of a United Nations' program aimed at tackling climate change.

The message emblazoned on a billboard outside the Peruvian capital sounds almost too good to be true: drinkable water for anyone who wants some in this arid village.

Even more intriguingly, the fresh, pure water on offer along a busy road in this dusty town some 90 kilometers (55 miles) south of Lima, has been extracted, as if by magic, from the humid air.

Chameleons took to the waves to migrate from Africa to Madagascar about 65 million years ago, said a study published on Wednesday that seeks to resolve a roiling biological debate.

Chameleons are famous for the extraordinary ability of some species to change colour, and for a lightning-fast talent to catch prey with their tongue.

An Australian-led group of scientists has for the first time tracked down and tagged Antarctic blue whales by using acoustic technology to follow its songs, the government said Wednesday.

The blue whale, the largest animal on the planet, is rarely spotted in the Southern Ocean but a group of intrepid researchers were able to locate and tag some of the mammals after picking up on their deep and complex vocals.

We know a lot about how babies learn to talk, and youngsters learn to read. Now scientists are unraveling the earliest building blocks of math — and what children know about numbers as they begin first grade seems to play a big role in how well they do everyday calculations later on.

The findings have specialists considering steps that parents might take to spur math abilities, just like they do to try to raise a good reader.

More than a quarter of a million Californians live in coastal areas which could be hit by devastating floods from a major tsunami in the quake-prone U.S. state, a new study says.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) study, published to mark Tsunami Awareness Week, says tidal waves of eight meters or more could hit northern California following a quake of magnitude 8 or more from a well-known tectonic fault line.

Scientists Tuesday made a rare live addition to the order of primates, unveiling two new species of mouse lemur -- tiny, big-eyed animals that inhabit the forests of Madagascar.

The find brings to 20 the known tally of mouse lemurs, nocturnal tree-dwellers that weigh less than a large apple.

The quest for rare earths vital to some of modern life's most indispensable technologies may see mining robots jet to the stars within decades, a world-first conference in Australia was told Wednesday.

Yttrium, Lanthanum and the other 15 minerals which make up the group of elements known as rare earths are crucial to everything from wind turbines and hybrid cars to cruise missiles and the ubiquitous smartphone.

Slowing the buildup of greenhouse gases responsible for warming the planet is one of the biggest challenges President Barack Obama faces. The effects of rising global temperatures are widespread and costly: more severe storms, rising seas, species extinctions, and changes in weather patterns that will alter food production and the spread of disease.

Politically, the stakes are huge.