Lebanon took part in the Sixth International Conference on Environmental Science and Technology reaping the first prize through its representative Dr. in Environmental Engineering Mervat el-Hoz for her research project titled Site Evaluation for Olive Mills Waste Composting Facility.

The conference was held in Houston-Texas and sponsored by the American Academy of Sciences. It aimed to provide a major interdisciplinary forum for presenting new approaches from relevant areas of environmental science, to foster integration of the latest developments in scientific research into engineering applications, and to facilitate technology transfer from well-tested ideas into practical products, waste management, remedial processes, and ecosystem restoration.

Scientists have discovered a rift the size of the Grand Canyon hidden under the Antarctic ice sheet, which they say is contributing to ice melt and a consequent rise in the sea level.

The rift, some 1.5 kilometers (one mile) deep, 10 kilometers wide and 100 kilometers long, was found by researchers using radar to measure the sub glacial topography, glaciologist Robert Bingham told Agence France Presse.

Seven nations may lose their ability to legally trade tens of thousands of wildlife species after U.N. conservation delegates agreed Thursday to penalize them for lacking tough regulations or failing to report on their wildlife trade.

The suspensions against the seven nations — Comoros, Guinea-Bissau, Paraguay, Nepal, Rwanda, Solomon Islands and Syria — were approved by consensus among the delegates and would take effect Oct. 1.

Japanese women are no longer the world's longest living, their longevity pushed down in part by last year's devastating earthquake and tsunami, according to a government report Thursday. The top of the global life expectancy rankings now belongs to Hong Kong women.

The annual report by Japan's health ministry said the expected lifespan for Japanese women slipped to 85.90 years in 2011 from 86.30 the year before, mainly due to disease and other natural causes of death. The life expectancy for men also declined slightly, from 79.55 to 79.44.

Snakes evolved their curious body shape on land, not in water, and are probably the descendants of small burrowing lizards, scientists have deducted from 70-million-year-old fossil remains.

Closely examining jaw, tooth and spinal fragments of Coniophis, biologists in the United States concluded it was the most primitive animal of its kind -- the missing link in snake evolution.

U.S. scientists have been able to help blind mice see again by injecting a chemical that makes them sensitive to light, according to a study released on Wednesday.

The findings in the journal Neuron offer hope of a treatment that could one day help people who suffer from the most common forms of blindness, such as macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa.

Scientists say there has been a freak event in Greenland this month: Nearly every part of the massive ice sheet that blankets the island suddenly started melting.

Even Greenland's coldest place showed melting. Records show that last happened in 1889 and occurs about once every 150 years.

Australian scientists said Wednesday cavers had stumbled upon a vast network of tunnels containing fossils that could offer key insights into species' adaptation to climate change.

The limestone caves in Australia's far north contained what University of Queensland paleontologist Gilbert Price described as a "fossil goldmine" of species ranging from minute rodents and frogs to giant kangaroos.

The Swiss sun-powered aircraft Solar Impulse landed back home in Switzerland late Tuesday after completing the final leg of its historic transcontinental flight.

The high-tech aircraft was greeted by an enthusiastic crowd of supporters at Payerne airport in western Switzerland two months after it took off from there on May 24 on a journey that took it from Europe to North Africa and back.

A community of French earthworms has been discovered stealthily colonizing a farm in Ireland, possibly aided by global warming to thrive so far north of their natural habitat, a study said.

No clash seems to be looming as the French worms prefer to eat a different part of the soil as their Irish cousins, according to a report Wednesday in the Royal Society Journal Biology Letters.