Scientists in Australia have devised a method of scanning lab rats' brains as they scurry about freely, eliminating the need for anesthesia or forced restraint, a report said Wednesday.

Lab rats currently have to be anaesthetized for most PET (positron emission tomography) scans, as any movement would distort the three-dimensional images used to study the functioning of organs.

Scientists will gather from Bangalore to Texas on Saturday to honor British mathematician Alan Turing, a pioneer of the modern computer whose code-cracking is credited with shortening World War II.

On the June 23 centenary of his birth in London, several cities will host conferences and exhibitions to celebrate the work of a man hailed as a rare genius today but persecuted for being gay when he was alive.

The fossil of a dinosaur that roamed the earth 70 million years ago should be turned over to the United States by an auction house so that it can be returned to its home in Mongolia, a lawsuit brought by the U.S. government demanded Monday.

The nearly complete Tyrannosaurus bataar skeleton was imported from Great Britain to Gainesville, Fla., in March 2010 with erroneous claims that it originated in Great Britain and was worth only $15,000, according to the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

A botched computer analysis resulted in design flaws that are largely to blame for unprecedented wear in steam tubes at the San Onofre nuclear power plant, but it isn't clear how the problems can be fixed, federal regulators said.

The preliminary findings by a team of Nuclear Regulatory Commission investigators were disclosed Monday night nearly five months after the seaside plant was shut down following a break in a tube that carries radioactive water. There is no date to restart either of its two reactors.

A proposed method of cutting harmful carbon emissions in the atmosphere by storing them underground risks causing earthquakes and is unlikely to succeed, a U.S. study said Monday.

The warning came in a Perspective article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, just days after another independent U.S. study warned that carbon capture and storage (CCS) risked causing earthquakes.

Air Canada's first-ever flight using biofuels headed from Toronto to Mexico City Monday, in an effort to showcase the aviation industry's global commitment to greener transportation.

An Airbus 319 used recycled cooking oil and jet fuel for the journey, which the aircraft maker says could cut carbon dioxide emissions by more than 40 percent.

A Chinese spacecraft carrying three astronauts docked with an orbiting module Monday, another first for the country as it strives to match American and Russian exploits in space.

The Shenzhou 9 capsule completed the maneuver with the Tiangong 1 module shortly after 2 p.m. (0600 GMT), 343 kilometers (213 miles) above Earth. The docking was shown live on national television.

What is a sip of clean water worth? Is there economic value in the shade of a tree? And how much would you pay for a breath of fresh air?

Putting a price on a natural bounty long taken for granted as free may sound impossible, even ridiculous. But after three decades on the fringes of serious policymaking, the idea is gaining traction, from the vividly clear waters of the Maldives to the sober, suited reaches of the World Bank.

A pilotless space plane developed by the U.S. Air Force has landed safely back on Earth after spending 469 days in orbit, officials said.

The robotic X-37B, a sort of miniature space shuttle weighing just five tons and measuring some 29 feet (8.8 meters) long, touched down Saturday at Vandenberg Air Force Base in western California, the Air Force said in a statement.

A rare white rhinoceros has been born in a zoo in Ramat Gan, near Tel Aviv, a zoo official told Agence France Presse on Saturday.

"This baby rhino, a male, was born early on Friday afternoon without any problems," said Netta Guetta, who heads the African animals department, adding that the newcomer has yet to be named.