Almost 200 pilot whales stranded themselves Friday on a New Zealand beach renowned as a deathtrap for the marine mammals, conservation officials said.

At least 24 whales from the pod of 198 that beached themselves at Farewell Spit had died and rescue workers were trying to refloat the survivors, the Department of Conservation (DOC) said.

Saudi customs agents have foiled an attempt to smuggle in almost 3,000 live "ornamental" birds from Bahrain, official media reported on Thursday.

"They were found hidden in three vehicles entering the kingdom" via the King Fahd Causeway from the island nation, the Saudi Press Agency said.

Gene sequencing of Galapagos Island finches first studied by Charles Darwin have found the birds have a traceable evolutionary history going back two million years, scientists said on Wednesday.

Arguably the most famous community of birds in the world, the finches came to Darwin's attention when he visited the islands in 1831.

Canada vowed Wednesday to keep open an observatory in eastern North America where the first dark skies reserve was created, hours after its director said budget cuts would force its closure.

"Our government will pay to keep the Observatoire Astronomique du Mont-Mégantic open for the two years," International Development Minister Christian Paradis said in a Twitter message.

A $340 million satellite that aims to alert people to potentially dangerous solar activity and geomagnetic storms blasted off toward deep space Wednesday atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

Experts say the DSCOVR -- a joint collaboration of the U.S. Air Force, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) -- will help with the preparation and response to "space weather," thereby protecting utilities, consumers and industries.

A winter of strange weather and turbulent transatlantic flights has scientists asking: Has a predicted climate imbalance of the jet stream begun?

The Arctic is warming faster than other parts of the world, and scientists believe that is having a dramatic impact on the jet stream, which may be responsible for the unusual weather and stronger upper atmospheric winds of late.

No meteor from outer space, no unstoppable pandemic, no heroic, ultimately futile last stand. Instead poor sperm, weak knees and ovarian cysts mark the end of a lifeline cut short by human greed, ignorance and indifference.

With just five northern white rhinos left on earth, the animal's end is inevitable.

Attempts to curb climate change by capturing carbon underground or geo-engineering to help the Earth better reflect incoming sunlight are nowhere near ready for use, a U.S. panel of scientists said.

"There is no substitute for dramatic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to mitigate the negative consequences of climate change," said the National Research Council in a two-part report on proposed climate-intervention techniques.

Elephants have joined the front line in the fight against poaching and illegal logging in the dense jungles of Sumatra.

Guided by their Indonesian mahouts, they trek alongside rivers, over rough terrain and deep into the rainforest in an area that is home to numerous endangered species, from orangutans to tigers, but which has suffered devastating deforestation in recent years.

Whenever an endangered animal dies at the San Diego Zoo, researchers race out, regardless of the hour, to remove its sperm or eggs, maybe a bit of ear or eyeball, and carefully freeze the cells in liquid nitrogen.

Today, the survival of the northern white rhinoceros and dozens of other species could hinge on the collection amassed over nearly 40 years that has become the largest gene bank of its kind: The Frozen Zoo.