A significant amount of the potent greenhouse gas methane may be leaking into the atmosphere from abandoned oil and gas wells, according to a study in Pennsylvania out Monday.

The study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences is based on direct measurements of methane outflow from and near 19 abandoned oil and gas wells in the northeastern U.S. state.

Scientists in a lab used a powerful laser to re-create what might have been the original spark of life on Earth.

The researchers zapped clay and a chemical soup with the laser to simulate the energy of a speeding asteroid smashing into the planet. They ended up creating what can be considered crucial pieces of the building blocks of life.

The slaughter of Africa's elephants and the illegal trade in ivory in China are "out of control" and could push wild elephants extinction within a generation, conservationists said Tuesday.

Soaring quantities of ivory are being sold in rapidly growing numbers of shops in China, with over 100,000 elephants killed from 2010 to 2012, the joint report read from the campaign groups Save the Elephants and The Aspinall Foundation.

An American probe that will explore Pluto woke up from its slumber Saturday, after a nine-year journey to take a close look at the distant body for the first time.

"New Horizons is healthy and cruising quietly through deep space, nearly three billion miles from home, but its rest is nearly over," said Alice Bowman, the craft's operations manager at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory outside Washington.

A pod of six sperm whales washed up dead Monday in a rare mass stranding on the South Australia coast, with animal welfare officials struggling over the logistics of handling the huge carcasses.

The whales, which can weigh up to 50 tonnes, were found at low tide by residents on Parara beach, about 150 kilometers (93 miles) northwest of Adelaide.

China is developing a huge rocket that will be used for its first manned mission to the moon, state media said Monday, underscoring Beijing's increasingly ambitious space program.

The first launch of the Long March-9 will take place around 2028, said the China Daily, which also cited experts saying the rocket's development is at the research stage.

Ministers and the U.N. chief fly into Lima this week to bolster negotiators in a final push for consensus on key elements of a world pact to curb potentially disastrous global warming.

With a week of talks gone, and five days left, parties remain deeply divided on key aspects of the deal they have committed to signing in Paris in December 2015, to take effect in 2020.

Developing countries may need up to $500 billion per year by 2050 to adapt to the ravages of climate change, dwarfing previous estimates, a U.N. report said Friday.

The figure was about 20 times today's public spending on climate adaptation, according to the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) that warned of a "significant funding gap after 2020."

In a strikingly green corner of Mali, one man is leading an agricultural revolution, using organic farming methods to get the most out of the land -- and pass his techniques on to others in west Africa.

Oumar Diabate has established a reputation for raising chemical-free vegetables, fruit and medicinal plants at his small farm about 30 kilometers (19 miles) from the capital Bamako.

The effectiveness of the fishing watchdog in lucrative Pacific island waters was under scrutiny Saturday after talks aimed at protecting the region's valuable tuna stocks ended in stalemate.

Small Pacific island states and the powerful countries which fish in their waters were unable to agree on tuna conservation measures during a week of heavy talks at the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) annual conference.