A person's gut bacteria and the colony of microbes that live in the body and on the skin may serve as a unique identifier, much like a fingerprint, researchers said Monday.

The study led by Harvard University is the first to investigate just how identifiable people are based on their bacteria, which can vary substantially based on a person's age, diet, geographic location and overall health.

Two families of endangered monkeys were stolen from a zoo in central France over the weekend, the sanctuary's director told Agence France Presse late on Monday.

Rodolphe Delord said the thieves broke in to the zoo in Beauval on Saturday night, avoiding security cameras and patrols, and took seven golden lion tamarins and 10 silver marmosets.

With Gaza's supply of drinking water expected to dry up by 2020, a Palestinian engineer is pioneering a machine to make seawater potable for residents of the coastal territory.

Diaa Abu Assi, a 29-year-old father-of-two, has spent much of his spare time in the past 18 months developing the system, which he hopes will be instrumental in saving lives in the besieged enclave.

Wildlife experts welcomed Monday census figures showing India's population of endangered Asiatic lions has increased in the last five years in the western state of Gujarat.

Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel said officials counted 523 lions, up 27 percent from the last census conducted in 2010 in Gir sanctuary, the last habitat for the big cats globally. 

More than 20 whales were found dead and rotting along a rocky coast of southern Chile, maritime officials said Friday, as they tried to determine what killed them and when.

The whales, discovered beached north of the Gulf of Penas, measured about 10 meters (33 feet) long, according to officials with Chile's national fisheries service.

Before going up to Mauna Kea's summit on Hawaii's Big Island, Heather Kaluna makes an offering to Poliahu, the snow goddess of the mountain. She holds it sacred, as do other Native Hawaiians.

The mountain holds another important place in her life: Poised to be the first Native Hawaiian to get an astronomy doctorate from the University of Hawaii, she uses the mountain to gaze at the stars.

Belize is considering new offshore drilling regulations that could open up nearly the entire coast to exploration and exploitation, environmental groups have warned, calling it a threat to vital reefs, fisheries and tourism concerns.

The proposal recently made public by the Ministry of Energy would even allow drilling in the vicinity of the Great Blue Hole, a world-famous diving destination that can be seen from space and looks just like what its name suggests, the U.S.-based activist group Oceana said.

An unmanned Russian supply ship disintegrated as it plummeted to Earth on Friday after suffering a communications failure on its way to the International Space Station, in a fiery end to a mission to deliver oxygen, water and supplies.

Though the ISS crew of six international astronauts is not in immediate danger of running out of essentials, the crash marks the latest in a series of problems suffered by Russia exposing shortcomings in its space program.

Russia said an unmanned supply ship set for the International Space Station will fall back to Earth Friday and burn up in the atmosphere, after the spacecraft suffered a communications failure.

The Progress supply ship is expected to "end its existence on May 8" between 12:45 am and 06:36 am, Moscow time (21:45 GMT Thursday and 03:36 GMT Friday)," the Russian space agency said in a statement released Thursday.

Astronomers have located the most distant galaxy ever measured in the universe, and it looks like a bright blue mass of stars some 13.1 billion light-years from Earth.

The galaxy, called EGS-zs8-1, is "one of the brightest and most massive objects in the early universe," according to a statement from Yale University.