Mongolia Cabinet in Desert

Climate change a concern for Mongolia

Sun-like star HD 10180

European Southern Observatory artist's rendition

Chicago's gator

A 3 1/2 to 4 foot American Alligator swims along the North branch of the Chicago River, Monday, Aug. 23, 2010, in Chicago. The alligator is the second to be sighted in the area this month. On Aug. 6, 2010 a 2 1/2 foot alligator was captured nearby. (AP Ph

Miss Universe 2010

Miss Mexico Jimena Navarrete competes in the evening gown competition during the Miss Universe pageant, Monday, Aug. 23, 2010 in Las Vegas. Navarrete was later crowned Miss Universe 2010. (AP Photo/Isaac Brekken)

Bird vs. moon

A bird soars in front of a half moon near Glencoe, Ky., Monday, Aug. 16, 2010. (AP Photo/Ed Reinke)

Gulf spill turtles released

Admiral Thad Allen, ret. USCG, left, and Dr. Jane Lubchenko, right, National Oceanic and Atmospheric administrator, release the first two of 23 rehabilitated Kemp's Ridley sea turtles in the Gulf off Cedar Kay, Fla., Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2010. Twenty two o

Harbor Seal

A harbor seal relaxes in the water at the Cleveland MetroParks Zoo, Thursday, Aug. 19, 2010, in Cleveland.

Bat Threat

A small cluster of hibernating little brown myotis (Myotis lucifugus) each showing different stages of infection from the cold-loving fungus, Geomyces destructans. One of the most common bat species could face extinction in the Northeast within decades du

Donkey

Donkey Anapka undergoes medical checks upon arrival in Moscow's Kremlin horse riding school, Wednesday, Aug. 4, 2010. Anapka was made to parasail high over the Azov Sea beach in a promotional stunt last month. (AP Photo/Mikhail Metzel)

Cheetah

Nine-year-old male cheetah Kago hangs out on a rock at The Indianapolis Zoo. The Indian government plans to import cheetahs from Africa and introduce them into the country's grasslands, six decades after the fleet-footed feline was hunted here until it di

Hailstone

A hailstone that was found by a ranch hand in Vivian, S.D., on June 23, 2010. The hailstone has set U.S.records. It measured 8 inches in diameter and weighed 1 pound, 15 ounces. The previous record for diameter was 7 inches for a hailstone found in Aurora

Solar Storms

In this x-ray photo provided by NASA, the sun is shown early in the morning of Sunday, Aug. 1, 2010. The dark arc near the top right edge of the image is a filament of plasma blasting off the surface _ part of the coronal mass ejection. The bright region

Massive Star

The star R136a1, thought to be the heaviest star ever discovered, hundreds of times more massive than the sun, scientists said Wednesday after working out its weight for the first time. Those behind the find say the star, called R136a1, may once have weig

Octopus Oracle

Octopus oracle Paul chooses a mussel from a glass tank marked with a Spanish flag in the SeaLife Aquarium in Oberhausen, Germany. Psychic octopus Paul may have retired but he's still basking in the glory of his perfect World Cup predictions. Paul's German

Rare Primate

A Horton Plains slender loris, scientifically known as Loris tardigradus in the Horton Plains sanctuary in Horton Plains, Sri Lanka. Researchers in a central Sri Lankan forest have photographed the rare primate that was feared extinct for more than 60 yea

Stonehenge

Tourists look at The Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain in England. Scientists scouring the area around Stonehenge said Thursday July 22, 2010 they have uncovered the foundations of a second circular structure only a few hundred meters (yards) from the world f

Corpse Flower

A vistor takes a picture of "Lois", a rare "corpse" flower that is blooming at the Houston Museum of Natural Science Thursday, July 22, 2010 in Houston. The flower is an Amorphophallus titanum, which has only ever bloomed 29 times in t

Vermontasaurus

Brian Boland, 61, a former teacher, hot-air balloon designer and balloon pilot who runs the rural Post Mills Airport in Thetford, Vt., stands with his "Vermontasaurus," where the 25-foot tall oddity thrown together with scrap wood now faces oppo

Asteroid Monitoring

Spacecraft Operations Manager Andrea Accomazzo controls the Rosetta asteroid mission at the Space Operations Centre of ESA (European Space Agency) in Darmstadt, Germany, on Saturday, July 10, 2010. ESA's Rosetta comet-chaser is on the way to its main targ

Solar Plane

Solar Impulse's Chief Executive Officer and pilot Andre Borschberg fly in the solar-powered HB-SIA prototype airplane after its first night flight attempt near Payerne airport, Switzerland, as the sun rise, Thursday, July 8, 2010 . An experimental solar-p

Diving Dachshund

Sergei Gorbunov helps Boniface the dachshund dog as he is learning how to scuba-dive, in a special scuba diving suit before an underwater dive in the Pacific ocean on a beach near the settlement of Slavyanka, some 50 km (31 miles) from Russia's Far Easter

Sand Cleaners

Workers demonstrate a sand-cleaning technology, called Green Tech, for evaluators from Florida's Department of Environmental Protection and BP on Pensacola Beach Thursday morning, July 1, 2010. The Florida DEP organized the event to find new ideas for tre

Space Cam

Technicians work on the Space-Based Space Surveillance satellite in Boulder, Colo. The satellite is a $500 million U.S. Air Force spacecraft that will provide the first full-time, space-based eye on thousands of other satellites and pieces of debris that

Two-Headed Calf

Egyptian farmers feed their two-headed calf that still can't stand on its own legs because it is top heavy at a village near Alexandria, Egypt, Saturday, July 3, 2010. The calf owner Sobhy el-Ganzoury, said Saturday the veterinarian informed him that the

Dying Glacier

A helicopter prepares for landing on glaciers on Puncak Jaya, mountains in eastern Indonesia. "These glaciers are dying," Lonnie Thompson, one of the world's most accomplished glaciologists, said Wednesday, June 30, 2010, after wrapping up a 13-

Saving Turtles

A Kemp

Prosthetic Legs for Cat

Oscar was given a pair of new artificial feet last November in a single surgical procedure by the surgeon after his rear paws were amputated by a combine harvester as he basked in the sunshine. The revolutionary design of the feet uses custom-made implant

Saving Rhinos

A Javan rhino walks in the national park in Ujung Kulon, about 160 kilometers (100 miles) southwest of Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia. The discovery of three dead Javan rhinos has intensified efforts to save one of the world's most endangered mammals f

Space Landing

A technician examines a sampler capsule that was detached on the day before from JAXA's Hayabusa probe, the first spacecraft to complete a seven-year, 4-billion mile (6-billion kilometer) round-trip journey to an asteroid, in a desert in the Woomera Prohi

Space Launch

Expedition 24 NASA Flight Engineer Shannon Walker, top, Expedition 24 NASA Flight Engineer Doug Wheelock, center, and Expedition 24 Soyuz Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin waving farewell from the bottom of the Soyuz rocket at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Baikonu