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Even robots like to have fun. NASA's rover on Mars showed off its playful side by snapping a picture of its own shadow. It's the latest self-portrait since the rover, named Opportunity, landed on the red planet in 2004.

The world's first private supply ship flew tantalizingly close to the International Space Station on Thursday, acing a critical test in advance of the actual docking.

A privately built space capsule that's zipping its way to the International Space Station has also launched something else: A new for-profit space race.

U.N. climate talks ran into gridlock Thursday as a widening rift between rich and poor countries risked undoing some advances made last year in the decades-long effort to control carbon emissions that scientists say are overheating the planet.

European researchers are planning to use new techniques to analyze DNA that could help crack the mystery of whether Bigfoot exists.

Warming in Great Britain appears to have given a little brown and orange butterfly an edge. The brown argus butterfly has spread about 49 miles (79 kilometers) northward on the island over 20 years, observations indicate.

More than 500 million people live close to volcanoes that could erupt with little or no clear warning, causing widespread devastation and even global effects on climate, as in the case of the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo. Although scientists keep an eye on many of the world's volcanoes for ground movements, gas emissions and other signs of unrest, volcanologists still face challenges directly linking surface activity with volcanic plumbing changes deep underground.

Early modern humans could have spent their evenings sitting around the fire, playing bone flutes and singing songs 40,000 years ago, newly discovered ancient musical instruments indicate. The bone flutes push back the date researchers think human creativity evolved.

Organic molecules — compounds that on Earth can be linked with life — encased within Martian meteorites now reveal biological activity on the Red Planet could not have formed these materials, researchers say.

A full-size replica of the space shuttle departed NASA's Florida spaceport for the agency's Texas space center early Thursday morning (May 24), riding atop an open air barge.

Climate researchers said Thursday the planet could warm by more than 3.5 degrees Celsius (6.3 degrees Fahrenheit), boosting the risk of drought, flood and rising seas.

Biologists on Wednesday reported they had discovered a new sensory organ on blue, humpback, minke and fin whales that helps explain why these mammals are so huge.

When NASA's space shuttle Endeavour lands at the California Science Center in Los Angeles this fall, it will be displayed in a temporary exhibit, and later a new museum facility named for an entrepreneur, explorer and philanthropist.

LONDON (Reuters) - GlaxoSmithKline said it would not proceed with its $2.6 billion offer for Human Genome Sciences unless the U.S. biotechnology company dropped a "poison pill" shareholder rights plan imposed to block the deal. Human Genome adopted the stockholder rights plan earlier this month in an attempt to ward off GSK in what is becoming an increasingly acrimonious battle between the companies that together sell new Lupus drug Benlysta. The British company is taking its $13-a-share offer direct to investors after Human Genome's board said it was inadequate. ...

LONDON (Reuters) - GlaxoSmithKline said it would not proceed with its $2.6 billion offer for Human Genome Sciences unless the U.S. biotechnology company dropped a "poison pill" shareholder rights plan imposed to block the deal. Human Genome adopted the stockholder rights plan earlier this month in an attempt to ward off GSK in what is becoming an increasingly acrimonious battle between the companies that together sell new Lupus drug Benlysta. The British company is taking its $13-a-share offer direct to investors after Human Genome's board said it was inadequate. ...

LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists have for the first time succeeded in taking skin cells from patients with heart failure and transforming them into healthy, beating heart tissue that could one day be used to treat the condition. The researchers, based in Haifa, Israel, said there were still many years of testing and refining ahead. But the results meant they might eventually be able to reprogram patients' cells to repair their own damaged hearts. ...

Science and space exploration have caught up to science fiction in many ways, producing marvels beyond the imaginings of the visionary writers of the past. Yet there are staples of science fiction that current technology is still leagues away from attaining, and which some doubt can ever be achieved.