Solar powered aircraft attempting first night flight

The prototype of a pioneering Swiss bid to fly around the world on solar energy aims to take to the skies on Thursday in the first attempt at a night flight fuelled by the sun, the team said.

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• Swiss solar-energy plane passes first flight test
• Abu Dhabi to build world's largest solar power plant
• Gallery: Solar Impulse aircraft

Atom smasher gaining pace and breaking records

The world's biggest atom smasher is swiftly gaining pace as scientists seek to unravel the secrets of the universe, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) said on Monday.

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• CERN composing musical compositions from LHC experiments
• Missing piece found in particle puzzle
• LHC big bang project expects new exotic findings

Oil spill Gulf on edge as Tropical Storm Alex surges

The first major storm of the Atlantic season was entering the Gulf of Mexico Monday, seeming set to avoid the BP oil spill but leaving residents jittery after causing 10 deaths.

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• BP defends CEO, storm threatens cleanup
• First Atlantic storm kills 10 in Central America
• Storm threatens gulf chaos
• Season's 1st tropical storm forms near Yucatan

Guerrilla in our midst: Primate activist Jane Goodall

At an age when many contemporaries have settled into slippers and easy chairs and await visits from their grandchildren, Jane Goodall is relentlessly on the move.

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Oscar the cat walks with bionic legs

A cat whose back legs were chopped off in a farming accident has been given a new bionic pair, in a ground-breaking feline first in Britain.

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Gene may hold clue to evolutionary step

Two genes controlling a tissue protein may have played a role in the key period when fish shed their fins and became limbed land-lovers, a study published by Nature on Thursday said.

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