She wore a tight red dress, a new pair of high heels and a matching handbag. He wore a suit, bright tie and a chunky watch.

He thought she looked older and heavier compared with her page on the dating site. She thought he looked shorter than the 1m 83 (six feet) he had advertised. Twenty minutes into their drink, she learned he was only a junior in his sales department, and not a supervisor as he had made out.

A major winter storm headed toward the U.S. Northeast on Thursday, with up to 2 feet (0.6 meters) of snow expected for a Boston-anchored region that has seen mostly bare ground this winter, the National Weather Service said.

It will be a rare and major storm, the type that means "you can't let your guard down," said Louis Uccellini, director of the weather agency's National Centers for Environmental Prediction.

North Korea has vowed to carry out a third nuclear test, but scientists and concerned foreign governments may have a tough time verifying the actions of the reclusive state.

One critical question is whether North Korea uses uranium or plutonium. North Korea's 2006 and 2009 tests involved plutonium, so a uranium detonation would prove that Kim Jong-Un's regime has opened an additional way to make bombs.

British researchers have unveiled a futuristic Antarctic research base that can move, sliding across the frozen surface to beat the shifting ice and pounding snow that doomed its predecessors.

The British Antarctic Survey said Wednesday that the Halley VI Research Station is the sixth facility to occupy the site on the Brunt Ice Shelf — a floating sheet of ice about 10 miles (16 kilometers) from the edge of the South Atlantic.

Earth-like worlds may be closer and more plentiful than anyone imagined.

Astronomers reported Wednesday that the nearest Earth-like planet may be just 13 light-years away — or some 77 trillion miles (124 trillion kilometers). That planet hasn't been found yet, but should be there based on the team's study of red dwarf stars.

Seen by some as emblematic of the Mediterranean landscape and cuisine, the olive tree in fact has its domesticated roots in Kurdish regions, said a study Wednesday that seeks to settle an age-old debate.

Harvesting of wild olive trees called oleasters has been documented from the Near East (the area around ancient Palestine and Jordan) to Spain since the Neolithic or New Stone Age that started about 10,000 BC.

Moles need both nostrils to locate food underground, in the way that humans see and hear in stereo, according to research reported on Tuesday.

The common mole (Scalopus aquaticus) has tiny eyes tucked between fur and skin and is nearly blind, with small ears attuned only to low frequency sounds.

The world's third-largest paper producer Asia Pulp and Paper said Tuesday it had stopped using logs from Indonesia's natural forests, after fierce campaigning by green groups against the company.

The firm has in recent years lost packaging contracts with big brands such as foodmaker Kraft and Barbie's Mattel after Greenpeace accused APP of clearing carbon-rich forest, home to endangered Sumatran tigers and orangutans.

Japan's whaling program costs taxpayers $10 million a year, a pressure group said Tuesday, as it demanded an end to the "dying industry".

The International Fund for Animal Welfare said money raised from the sale of whale meat falls far short of the cost of running and maintaining the fleet that hunts the mammals in the Southern Ocean.

After more than 55 days flying over Antarctica, NASA's huge Super-TIGER scientific balloon has broken the record for the longest flight of its kind, bringing back a wealth of data, the U.S. space agency said Monday.

The Super-TIGER balloon spent 55 days, one hour and 34 minutes aloft at an altitude of 127,000 feet (38,710 meters), beating the old record set in 2009 by just over a day.