A U.S. astronaut departing this week for the International Space Station said Monday that the bulk of the scientific benefits from the orbiting laboratory will be seen over the coming decade, amid questions on whether the estimated $100 billion spent in last 12 years is worth the effort.

"The first ten years were really intensive in the construction side of it, bringing all the pieces together and really getting the science enabled," said NASA astronaut Kevin Ford, who will blast off on a Soyuz craft from the Russian-leased Baikonur spacer center in Kazakhstan on Tuesday together with Russian colleagues Oleg Novitsky and Yevgeny Tarelkin.

Massive extraction of groundwater helped unleash an earthquake in southeastern Spain last year that killed nine people, injured at least 100 and left thousands homeless, geologists said on Sunday.

The finding adds a powerful piece of evidence to theories that some earthquakes are human-induced, they said.

Chronic exposure to pesticides has a bigger knock-on effect on bees than conventional probes suggest, according to a new study on Sunday touching on the mysterious collapse of bee colonies.

Biologists at the University of London carried out an exceptional field study into bumblebees exposed to two commonly used agricultural insecticides.

A court will hand down verdicts Monday in the trial of six Italian scientists and a government official charged with manslaughter for underestimating the risks of a deadly earthquake in 2009.

The case has provoked outrage in the international scientific community, with some commentators warning that any convictions would dissuade other experts from sharing their expertise.

South Korea plans to make its third attempt to join the exclusive club of countries capable of placing a satellite in space on Friday with a rocket launch from the Naro Space Center on the south coast.

Science Minister Lee Ju-Ho told reporters Monday that the Korea Space Launch Vehicle (KSLV-I) would blast off as scheduled, barring any last-minute hitches or problems with weather conditions.

Silvery fish have found a smart way to get around the laws of physics so that they maintain their reflective camouflage in open water, biologists reported on Sunday.

Sprats, sardines and herrings have a skin that neutralizes the polarization of light, enabling them to keep their protective silver cloak, they found.

A verdict in the trial of seven top Italian scientists for manslaughter for underestimating the risks of an earthquake which killed 309 people in L'Aquila, central Italy, in 2009, is expected on Monday.

"The verdict is expected on October 22," said Enzo Musco, a lawyer for Professor Gian Michele Calvi who is one of the defendants.

Efforts to reverse the worrying loss of Earth's dwindling natural resources received a substantial boost on Saturday when a U.N. conference in India agreed to double biodiversity aid to poor countries.

Governments reached an early-morning deal after long nights of tough bargaining in Hyderabad, south India, that once again saw battle lines drawn between developing and affluent states.

Stan Ovshinsky, the self-taught inventor who developed the nickel-metal hydride battery used in the hybrid vehicle industry, has died at his home in suburban Detroit after a fight with cancer. He was 89.

Ovshinsky, who ran Energy Conversion Devices, a car battery development company, also created a machine that produced 9-mile-long sheets of thin solar energy panels intended to bring cheaper, cleaner power to homes and businesses.

Governments are "not on track" to achieve a target of keeping the average global temperature rise below two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), the U.N. climate chief said Thursday.

Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), told a forum in Singapore that the world was moving in the right direction, but not fast enough.