The most recent fossils ever found of a human-like species in southeast China have presented scientists with a mystery about what may be an unknown Stone Age culture, researchers said Wednesday.

Sometimes called the "red deer people," the remains are about 11,500 to 14,500 years old and appear to show a mix of modern and archaic peoples, said an Australian and Chinese team of researchers in the journal PLoS One.

Amazed biologists have uncovered a new species of frog in the jungle -- New York's concrete jungle.

The mottled green creature was for years mistaken as belonging to a widespread variety of the leopard frog. But now scientists realize this is new.

Rats are smart, that's a well-known fact. But U.S. researchers said Tuesday a series of tests have shown they may be just as good as humans at juggling information in order to make the best decision.

The discovery could help scientists better understand how the brain works in order to help people with autism who have difficulty processing various stimuli the way that others can, said the study authors.

Australia said Wednesday that it remains committed to beating South Africa to host the world's largest and most sensitive radio telescope, which will address fundamental questions about the universe including how the first black holes were formed.

A consortium of 20 countries will announce as early as next month whether South Africa or a joint bid from Australia and New Zealand will be chosen to host the Square Kilometer Array, which will be 50 times more sensitive and survey the sky 10,000 times faster than any other telescope.

Several endangered black-footed cats have been born recently in the U.S. and researchers say Crystal's birth is the rarest — the first ever born from an embryo fertilized in a lab dish, frozen, and later implanted in a housecat's womb.

The black-footed cat is Africa's smallest wildcat and one of the world's smallest felines — smaller even than a domestic cat.

Australia's climate is warming at an alarming rate and is set to become drier despite recent record floods, scientists said in a report that warns of increased drought and fiercer storms.

The country has seen annual average daily temperatures rise by 0.9 degrees Celsius since 1911, with each decade since the 1950s warmer than the last, the report by government science body CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology said.

A Norwegian family was flabbergasted to find that what appeared to be a piece of a meteorite had crashed through the roof of their allotment garden hut in the middle of Oslo, media reported Monday.

The rock weighing 585 grams (one pound, four ounces), which split in two, probably detached from a meteorite observed over Norway on March 1, experts said, and had landed on the empty hut in the Thomassen family's allotment in a working-class neighborhood of the Norwegian capital.

European and U.S. scientists said Monday that many meat-eating animals appear to lose their ability to taste sweet flavors over time, a finding that suggests diet plays a key role in evolution.

Most mammals are believed to possess the ability to taste sweet, savory, bitter, salty, and sour flavors, said researchers at the Monell Chemical Senses Center inP ennsylvania and University of Zurich, Switzerland.

An unusual opportunity to see two of the brightest planets, Venus and Jupiter, appear to be right next to each other in the night sky is peaking in the next two days, astronomers said.

On a clear night from March 12-14, skywatchers may extend an arm and see the two planets look as though they are a couple fingers' width apart, or about three degrees, even though they are actually quite far from one another in space.

Russia's crisis-hit space agency intends to send its first manned mission to the Moon and deploy research stations on Mars under an ambitious plan presented to the government this month.

The Kommersant daily said the mission statement from the Roscosmos space agency through 2030 reveals no financial details but includes plans to find outside sources of funding that do not put additional pressures on the budget.