U.S. scientists say the familiar sunspot cycle seems to be entering a hibernation period unseen since the 17th century, a pattern that could have a slight cooling effect on global temperatures.

For years, scientists have been predicting the Sun would by around 2012 move into solar maximum, a period of intense flares and sunspot activity, but lately a curious calm has suggested quite the opposite.

Sharply reducing emissions of soot and smog could play a critical role in preventing Earth from overheating, according to a U.N. report released on Tuesday.

Curbing these pollutants could also boost global food output and save millions of lives lost to heart and lung disease, said the report from the U.N. Environment Program (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO).

Humans may be evolving a third as slowly as commonly thought, according to an investigation into genetic changes in two generations of families.

The genetic code comprises six billion nucleotides, or building blocks of DNA, half of which come from each parent.

Scientists have uncovered a trio of genes tied to migraine headaches, including one in which the link is exclusive to women, according to a new study.

Migraines are acutely debilitating headaches -- sometimes with an "aura", in which patients have the impression of seeing through frosted glass -- that strike up to 20 percent of the population.

By 2050, the coolest summers in the tropics and parts of the northern hemisphere will still be hotter than the most scorching summers since the mid-20th century if global warming continues apace, according to a new study.

Tropical regions in Africa, Asia and South America could see "the permanent emergence of unprecedented summer heat" even within the next decades, said the study, to be published later this month in the journal Climatic Change Letters.

The U.S. space agency on Friday launched a satellite to observe levels of salt on the surface of the world's oceans and measure how changes in salinity may be linked to future climate.

The $400 million Aquarius/SAC-D spacecraft, a partnership with Argentina, launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 7:20 am Pacific time (1420 GMT).

After nearly three years, the bloom of a rare flower at a Washington state university finally came up, but it didn't smell like roses.

The University of Washington Biology department says its so-called corpse flower opened after midnight and unleashed its stink of rotting meat on the hundreds waiting.

A pair of NASA probes wandering in deep space discovered that the outer edge of the solar system contains curious magnetic bubbles and is not smooth as previously thought, astronomers said Thursday.

The NASA Voyager twin spacecraft, which launched in 1977, are currently exploring the furthest outlays of the heliosphere, where solar wind is slowed and warped by pressure from other forces in the galaxy, the U.S. space agency said.

They exist for only seconds at most in real life, but they've gained immortality in chemistry: Two new elements have been added to the periodic table.

The elements were recognized by an international committee of chemists and physicists. They're called elements 114 and 116 for now — permanent names and symbols will be chosen later.

A new telescope designed to map the stars in unprecedented detail has delivered astonishing images in its trial run, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) said on Wednesday.

The VLT Survey Telescope, or VST, has been built on a mountain top in northern Chile's Atacama Desert, benefitting from viewing conditions in one of the driest and least light-polluted places on Earth.