Iran aims to set up the country's first dark sky area on an island in the Persian Gulf to promote astronomical research and tourism.

Iran's English-language state Press TV quotes the director of Iran Sky Party, Hooman Najafi, as saying Wednesday the so-called dark sky park — an area kept free of artificial light pollution to promote astronomy and stargazing — will be established on Qeshem, the biggest Iranian island in the Gulf.

Thousands of bathers enjoying the hot New Year's Day weather on Australia's Bondi Beach fled the water on Tuesday after a shark alert was sounded.

The crowded sea was cleared in a matter of minutes after authorities raised the alarm when a surf patrol boat said it had seen what it thought could have been a large shark.

Nobel medicine laureate Rita Levi-Montalcini, a neurologist and developmental biologist, died Sunday at her home in Rome aged 103, the Italian news agency ANSA reported.

She was the oldest living Nobel laureate at the time of her death.

Two centuries after the French people beheaded Louis XVI and dipped their handkerchiefs in his blood, scientists believe they have authenticated the remains of one such rag kept as a revolutionary souvenir.

Researchers have been trying for years to verify a claim imprinted on an ornately decorated calabash that it contains a sample of the blood of the French king guillotined in Paris on January 21, 1793.

Since captivating the world with its acrobatic landing, the Mars rover Curiosity h

as fallen into a rhythm: Drive, snap pictures, zap at boulders, scoop up dirt. Repeat.

The remorse felt by Himali Chungda Sherpa after he killed three snow leopard cubs in retaliation for his lost cattle inspired him to set up a scheme to prevent other herders from doing the same.

Sherpa lost his cattle near Ghunsa village at the base of Mount Kangchenjunga on the Nepal-India border, later finding their remains in a cave beside three sleeping snow leopard cubs.

Australia Saturday condemned Japan's annual whaling expedition as its hunting fleet steamed to the Southern Ocean, and said a challenge through the International Court of Justice should be heard in 2013.

Canberra is strongly opposed to whaling and launched legal action challenging the basis of the so-called "scientific" hunt in December 2010 after failing to persuade Tokyo to halt the cull of almost 1,000 animals through diplomatic channels.

An endangered whale that beached in New York City died on Thursday despite a day-long effort to keep the emaciated 18-meter (60-foot) finback alive by spraying it with water.

"We are on the scene and the whale has passed," Robert DiGiovanni, director of the Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research and Preservation, told Agence France Presse.

Unilever, the maker of Vaseline, Axe deodorants and Dove soaps, among other cosmetic and hygiene products, says it will phase out the use of microplastics by 2015.

Many soaps, skin scrubs and shower gels contain microplastics, which are tiny polyethelene beads. Scientists and environmental groups are concerned that they contribute to polluting oceans.

South Korea has recovered what it believes to be debris from the engine of the long-range rocket launched by North Korea this month, the defense ministry said Friday.

"If it is confirmed to be engine debris, it will be very useful for analyzing North Korea's missile technology," a ministry spokesman said.