The earthquake that devastated Nepal and left thousands of people dead shifted the earth beneath Kathmandu by up to several metres south, but the height of Mount Everest likely stayed the same, experts said Tuesday.

The massive 7.8-magnitude quake on Saturday was the Himalayan nation's deadliest disaster in more than 80 years, killing more than 4,300 people and causing massive destruction.

Thailand seized 3 tons of ivory hidden in tea leaf sacks from Kenya in the second-biggest bust in the country's history, one week after the biggest seizure, customs officials said Monday.

The 511 elephant tusks worth $6 million, bound for Laos, were seized upon arrival Saturday at a major port in Chonburi province in eastern Thailand. The bust came after customs officials received a tip-off in Laos and Thailand and tracked the containers from Kenya, Customs Department Director-General Somchai Sujjapongse told reporters.

Crowded Japan has got a little bit roomier after a 300-meter (1,000-foot) strip of land emerged from the sea and attached itself to the coast, experts said Monday.

The extra stretch of coastline at the town of Rausu on Hokkaido island has risen as high as 10 meters from the sea surface in some places, exposing what used to be the ocean floor to the elements.

The EU has cleared 19 controversial genetically modified products including human food, animal feed and cut flowers, the European Commission said Friday.

The new lines are produced by companies including US giants Monsanto and DuPont, and German firms Bayer and BASF.

Scientists are getting their best look yet at the DNA code for the woolly mammoth, thanks to work that could be a step toward bringing back the extinct beast.

Researchers deciphered the complete DNA code, or genomes, of two mammoths. The new genomes are far more refined than a previous one announced in 2008.

What better way to celebrate the Hubble Space Telescope's quarter-century in orbit than with cosmic fireworks?

On Thursday — one day before the 25th anniversary of Hubble's launch — NASA released an image taken by the space telescope showing a brilliant breeding ground for stars. This stellar nursery is 20,000 light-years from Earth in the Constellation Carina.

A big reservoir of hot, partly molten rock has been discovered beneath the famed Yellowstone National Park in the United States, but researchers said Thursday there is no added risk of volcanic eruption.

The findings in the journal Science show for the first time that the amount of magma beneath the surface is far bigger than previously thought.

Global scientists on Thursday renewed calls to halt controversial research to genetically edit human embryos after a Chinese team published details of a breakthrough attempt in this new frontier in science.

First reported by Nature News on Wednesday, the paper by Junjiu Huang, a gene-function researcher at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, and colleagues appears in a little known online journal called Protein and Cell.

The world's oceans are awash in riches, with output rivaling that of some of the world's largest economies, but over-fishing, pollution and climate change are rapidly eroding those resources, WWF warned Thursday.

In a new report, the conservation group said oceans each year generate goods and services worth at least $2.5 trillion, while their overall value as an asset is worth 10 times that.

Australia Thursday said its plan to pay polluters to reduce carbon emissions blamed for climate change was off to a good start and would help the nation become a "world leader" in meeting pledges to tackle greenhouse gases.

The conservative government axed a controversial tax on greenhouse gas emissions last year as part of an election pledge, replacing it with a so-called "direct action" plan that included paying companies to increase energy efficiency and not pollute.