China is planning to land a lunar probe on the far side of the moon, state media reported, the latest step for Beijing's ambitious space programme.

The mission will be launched before 2020 and aims to land a probe on a part of the moon never visible from earth, the official Xinhua news agency reported, citing officials at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Europe is poised for the launch on Friday of the next two satellites in its troubled multi-billion-euro Galileo satnav programme.

The project -- a rival to America's GPS for navigation and search-and-rescue services -- will ultimately consist of a constellation of 30 orbiters, including six spares, but it has been plagued by delays, technical glitches and budget questions.

Australian scientists have discovered what could be a new species of the deadly funnel-web spider, after finding a large specimen living in a national park.

The 50-millimetre (two-inch) spider found in Booderee National Park near Jervis Bay south of Sydney is believed to be from the Hadronyche genus, which typically lives in trees.

Sperm whales create social cliques based on a shared dialect of vocal clicks, evidence that humans are not alone in having culture, according to research published Tuesday.

Combining data gleaned from decades of field observation and computer models, the study suggests social learning, rather that genetic transmission, explains how these giant sea mammals cohere into distinct "clans".

European experts have pulled off a major advance that might one day help build new worlds in space after an astronaut in the International Station Station remotely guided a robot on Earth by feel.

Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen performed the breath-taking experiment in which he placed a peg into a very tight hole on Monday under the careful control of the European Space Agency.

Australia should consider leaving the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) if it cannot accept the regional body's firm stance on climate change, Kiribati President Anote Tong said Tuesday.

Tong said global warming had left small island nations fighting for their future and there was no room for compromise on the issue at this week's PIF meeting in Papua New Guinea.

Pacific leaders said Monday that upcoming climate talks in Paris are the last chance for the world to reach an agreement that can save their vulnerable island nations.

The leaders of the six smallest members of the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) said they were among the hardest hit by climate change, and a binding agreement at the so-called COP21 talks in December was crucial.

The rate at which the world is losing its forests has been halved, but an area of woodland the size of South Africa has still been lost since 1990, a UN report said Monday.

Improvement has been seen around the globe, even in the key tropical rainforests of South America and Africa, according to a surprisingly upbeat Forest Resources Assessment (FRA), which is released every five years.

Eight meters long and weighing 25 tonnes, a replica of the so-called Tsar Bomb, the most powerful nuclear bomb ever detonated, has gone on display for the first time in Russia, in the midst of an ongoing standoff with the West over Ukraine.

Tested in 1961 by the Soviet Union, the hydrogen bomb -- also known as the AN602 -- instilled a mix of pride and fear in retired military pilot Nikolay Krylov as he looked at the replica housed at an exhibition center near the Kremlin. 

Youths wearing gorilla costumes and rubber boots grunted and scampered in front of Rwanda's president on Saturday during the ceremonial naming of 24 baby mountain gorillas in the African country, where the critically endangered animals live in volcano-studded forests that are visited by increasing numbers of foreign tourists.

The young gorillas, whose families are closely monitored by trackers and researchers, were in their wild habitat and not at the naming event in Kinigi, a village near the entrance to Rwanda's Volcanoes National Park. But thousands of people, including students, soldiers, villagers and diplomats, gathered there to celebrate the threatened population of mountain gorillas, whose image adorns numerous sculptures in Rwanda as well as a national currency banknote.