Australia's cuddly koala rarely drinks water and doesn't have any sweat glands, long leaving scientists to wonder how it cools off in a heatwave.

On Wednesday, zoologists announced they had uncovered the iconic mammal's secret -- hugging trees, whose trunks can be several degrees cooler than the surroundings.

An American who illegally imported dinosaur skeletons from Mongolia -- one of them 70 million years old -- was sentenced Tuesday to three months in prison, authorities said.

Eric Prokopi, who pleaded guilty back in December 2012, was accused of ordering from Mongolia and then carefully rebuilding a 70-million-year-old Tarbosaurus bataar (T-bataar) skeleton. 

A Japanese stem cell scientist accused of fabricating research has agreed to retract papers published in the respected journal Nature, an official said Wednesday.

Haruko Obokata, 30, would withdraw two papers at the centre of the controversy, according to a spokeswoman for Riken, the respected research institute that sponsored the study, marking a steep fall from grace for the young researcher.

A big-eared bat which was thought to be extinct has been found in a forest in Papua New Guinea, highlighting the unique biodiversity of the developing nation, researchers said Wednesday.

Until the find the bat, or Pharotis imogene, had not been seen in 120 years.

File photo taken on September 23, 2013 shows new-born panda cubs in a crib at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in Chengdu, China's Sichuan province

A crack team of baby pandas will be used to predict World Cup scores in China, according to reports, in a homegrown answer to deceased soccer soothsayer Paul the Octopus.

A U.S. flag hangs from a home in a heavily damaged section of East New Orleans on November 21, 2005

Hurricanes with feminine names may kill three times as many victims because people do not perceive them as being as threatening as storms named after men, scientists said Monday.

A sun-powered plane made a successful test flight on Monday, clearing a vital hurdle towards its goal of a round-the-world trip next year, its pilot and mission chiefs said.

Solar Impulse 2 carried out a flight lasting two hours and 15 minutes, half an hour longer than scheduled, German test pilot Markus Scherdel said.

Astronomers have spotted the "Godzilla" of all Earths, a huge rocky planet orbiting a star 560 light years away that is changing scientists' understanding of the origins of the universe.

This new mega-Earth weighs 17 times as much as our planet, and was found by NASA's Kepler mission, experts said at a meeting in Boston of the American Astronomical Society.

The skies off the Hawaiian island of Kauai will be a stand-in for Mars as NASA prepares to launch a saucer-shaped vehicle in an experimental flight designed to land heavy loads on the red planet.

For decades, robotic landers and rovers have hitched a ride to Earth's planetary neighbor using the same parachute design. But NASA needs a bigger and stronger parachute if it wants to send astronauts there.

Like viewers worldwide, Fabien Cousteau was entranced by his famous grandfather's films about marine life and human exploration underwater. Now he's adding to his family's sea stories with a 31-day underwater expedition in the Florida Keys.

Cousteau dove Sunday to Aquarius Reef Base, a school bus-sized laboratory 60 feet (18 meters) below the ocean's surface, a few miles off Key Largo. He plans to spend more than a month living underwater with a five-person crew, making a documentary and leading science experiments on the nearby coral reef.