Europe faces key decisions this week about its role in space, pondering plans for a new rocket and its involvement in the International Space Station at a time of money crunch.

Meeting in Naples on Tuesday and Wednesday, science ministers from the European Space Agency's 20 member states will be asked to set a multi-year program with billions of euros at stake for the highly successful space industry.

A New Zealand volcano that featured as Mount Doom in "The Lord of the Rings" movies is in danger of erupting as pressure builds in a subterranean vent, officials said on Monday.

The Department of Conservation (DOC) warned hikers to avoid the summit of Mount Ruapehu, saying that temperature readings by scientists indicated there was an increased risk of eruption at New Zealand's largest active volcano.

The World Bank warned Sunday that global temperatures could rise by four degrees this century without immediate action, with potentially devastating consequences for coastal cities and the poor.

Issuing a call for action, the World Bank tied the future wealth of the planet -- and especially developing regions -- to immediate efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions from sources such as energy production.

A Russian cosmonaut and two astronauts from the International Space Station touched down early Monday on the steppes of Kazakhstan in a Russian Soyuz capsule after spending over four months aboard the ISS.

Russia's Yury Malenchenko, Sunita Williams of the U.S. and Akihiko Hoshide of Japan touched down as scheduled just before 0200 GMT, the Russian Space Flight Control Center announced as the message "Landing Accomplished" was flashed on a giant screen.

The population of Uganda's mountain gorillas has grown to 400, up from 302 in 2006, according to a census conducted last year, bringing the total number of mountain gorillas in Africa to 880 and giving hope to conservationists trying to save the critically endangered species.

Uganda is now home to nearly half of the world's mountain gorillas remaining in the wild, a source of confidence for a country that has come to depend heavily on the popular apes for substantial tourism revenue. The rest of the surviving mountain gorillas — the species Gorilla beringei beringei — are in Congo and Rwanda.

Astronomers using a complex system of super telescopes have caught a glimpse of what is likely the most distant, and thus oldest, galaxy ever seen -- some 13.3 billion light years from Earth.

The star cluster was observed in its infancy -- as it looked when the Universe was just three percent of its present age, NASA and the European Space Agency announced.

Could pigs be an unexpected source for transmitting the deadly Ebola virus?

That is the question raised by a Canadian lab study, which says six piglets deliberately infected with Ebola passed the virus on to macaque monkeys housed in wire cages inside their pig pen.

New advances in hearing aids and medical imaging may be possible thanks to a tiny insect from the South American jungle, according to a study released Thursday.

The South American bush cricket, also called the katydid, has some of the smallest ears of any creature on the planet.

Freestyle rap, an improvised style of the music genre associated with back-to-front baseball caps, baggy jeans and gold chains, has burst onto the science stage, shedding light on the workings of the brain.

Researchers at the National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders in the United States have examined freestyle rappers' brains to see which areas light up during the creative phase.

Australia Friday created the world's largest network of marine reserves, protecting a huge swathe of ocean environment despite claims it will devastate the fishing industry.

The announcement, after years of planning and consultation, will significantly expand the protection of creatures such as the blue whale, green turtle, critically endangered populations of grey nurse sharks, and dugongs.