A proposal to create a whale sanctuary in the southern Atlantic lacked "scientific backing", Japan said Tuesday after leading the charge to scupper the plan at an international meeting.

"Japan carries out whaling on scientific grounds," said Shigehito Numata of the Japanese Fisheries Agency's whaling section. "The proposal lacked scientific backing."

An experimental solar-powered aircraft that had been scheduled to depart Morocco for Spain on Tuesday for its return journey to Switzerland has been grounded by strong winds, organizers said.

The Swiss-made Solar Impulse had been set to take off at 0800 GMT from the Rabat-Sale airport and due to land in Madrid's Barajas airport after midnight on Wednesday on its way home, organisers said Monday.

German researchers said Monday they have discovered a fossil of a feathered hatchling that may be the earliest evidence of a plumed, meat-eating dinosaur that was not closely related to birds.

The fossil is believed to belong to a young land-based dinosaur from the Late Jurassic period, some 170 million years ago, said the study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Japan opened several solar energy parks on Sunday as a new law came into force requiring companies to purchase renewable energy at a fixed price in a push for alternatives to nuclear power.

The openings come on the same day engineers began refiring an atomic reactor, despite growing public protests in the aftermath of meltdowns at Fukushima, ending nearly two months in which Japan was nuclear-free.

Engineers in Japan on Sunday began refiring an atomic reactor, despite growing public protests in the aftermath of meltdowns at Fukushima, ending nearly two months in which the country was nuclear-free.

Local media reported that the process to restart Unit No. 3 at Oi in western Japan began around 9:00 pm (1200 GMT).

A Soyuz space capsule carrying a three-man multinational crew touched down safely Sunday on the southern steppes of Kazakhstan, bringing an end to their 193-day mission to the International Space Station.

More clues are expected next week in the worldwide hunt for an elusive sub-atomic particle, the Higgs boson, that is the missing piece in the standard model of physics.

Sometimes referred to as the "God particle" because it seems to be everywhere, the Higgs boson is believed to give objects mass, but physicists armed with the world's most potent atom-smashers have yet to identify it.

Serbian archaeologists have discovered the remains of at least seven mammoths at a dig at an open pit mine, which could turn out to be a mammoth cemetery, lead archaeologist Miomir Korac told Agence France Presse Friday.

"We are at the start of the excavations. We first found the remains of one mammoth and then every 30 meters or so the bones of six more animals at the same depth," said Korac, who leads the team carrying out the dig.

Scientists working with Greenpeace will undertake an expedition to the Arctic that will produce the first 3D models of the Arctic sea ice, the group said on Friday.

The team was due to leave on Friday for the icy north from the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard.

An experimental solar-powered plane, flying without using any fuel, arrived late Friday in Rabat on a return journey to Switzerland after its successful flight over the Moroccan desert.

The Swiss-made Solar Impulse took off from Quarzazate in southern Morocco at 0733 GMT, and touched down in the Moroccan capital at 2320 GMT, to applause from the Solar Impulse team and Moroccan officials.