Wildlife researchers say 25 species of monkeys, langurs, lemurs and gorillas are on the brink of extinction and need global action to protect them from increasing deforestation and illegal trafficking.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature said Monday that primates from Asia and Africa are severely threatened. Six of the species live on the island nation of Madagascar.

Eben Alexander's quick trip to heaven started with a headache.

It was November 2008 and a rare bacterial meningitis was fast on its way to shutting down the University of Virginia neurosurgeon's neocortex -- the part of the brain that deals with sensory perception and conscious thought.

Scientists on Sunday said they had found water molecules in samples of lunar soil, and their unusual signature points to the Sun as the indirect source.

Samples returned to Earth by the Apollo missions carry molecules of water and a precursor of water called hydroxyl, according to their study, published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

Word that a giant eyeball washed up on a Florida beach has created a buzz on the Internet and in the marine biology community.

An assistant biology professor at Florida International University in Miami on Friday said the blue eyeball may have come from a deep sea squid or a large swordfish. Heather Bracken-Grissom says she started discussing the eyeball with her colleagues as soon as they saw the pictures on the Internet.

A court has blocked the export of 25 captive dolphins trained in the Philippines to become show animals at a Singapore casino, a Filipino official and animal rights groups said Saturday.

A civil suit filed by the rights groups alleged the traffic in live Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins for sport or entertainment was illegal, cruel and would cause the extinction of the species.

The U.S. space shuttle Endeavour is making its final journey, at the less than rocket-propelled speed of two miles an hour, in a meticulously planned and stately trip through the streets of Los Angeles.

Some 400 trees have had to be cut down -- provoking initial protests from locals -- and power lines turned off to make way for the 78-ton vehicle on the two-day, 12-mile (19-kilometer) journey to the California Science Center.

At its prime, the space shuttle Endeavor cruised around the Earth at 17,500 mph, faster than a speeding bullet.

In retirement, it's crawling along at a sluggish 2 mph, a pace that rush-hour commuters can sympathize with.

Twinkling stars are not the only diamonds in the sky. Scientists reported Thursday the existence of a "diamond planet" twice the size of Earth and eight times its mass, zooming around a nearby star.

In fact, this is not the first diamond planet ever discovered, but it is the first found orbiting a sun-like star and whose chemical makeup has been specified.

A rock analyzed by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has a surprising and more varied composition that resembles rare rocks from the bowels of our planet, the U.S. space agency said Thursday.

"This rock is a close match in chemical composition to an unusual but well-known type of igneous rock found in many volcanic provinces on Earth," Curiosity co-investigator Edward Stolper of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena said in a statement.

The University of Nottingham says that Keith Campbell, a prominent biologist who worked on cloning Dolly the sheep, has died at 58.

University spokesman Tim Utton said Thursday that Campbell, who had worked on animal improvement and cloning since 1999, died last Friday. Utton did not specify the cause of death. Campbell had worked at the university until recently.