Global warming has caused monthly records for heat to increase five-fold in frequency, according to a study by scientists in Germany and Spain, published on Monday.

In parts of Europe, Africa and southern Asia, the frequency of months with record-breaking heat has surged tenfold, it said.

Russia's struggling space agency has unveiled a new multi-billion-dollar plan that will see the development of a replacement for the ageing Soyuz rocket by 2020.

The $70-billion plan published over the weekend on the website of the Russian Space Agency (Roscosmos) also envisions the launch of new unmanned missions to the Moon and beyond.

Tens of millions of people may be spared droughts and floods by 2050 if Earth-warming carbon emissions peak in 2016 rather than 2030, scientists said on Sunday.

Climate researchers in Britain and Germany said emission cuts now would delay some crippling impacts by decades and prevent some altogether.

A new DNA test can restore at least part of the identity of long-dead people who left no trace of their image, scientists reported on Monday.

The technique has revealed the hair and eye colors of unknown individuals slaughtered as sub-humans by the Nazis and of a mystery woman buried alongside monks in a medieval crypt, they said.

Astronomers on Friday said they had observed the largest structure yet seen in the cosmos, a cluster of galaxies from the early Universe that spans an astonishing four billion light years.

The sprawling structure is known as a large quasar group (LQG), in which quasars -- the nuclei of ancient galaxies, powered by supermassive black holes -- clump together.

A space rock popularly dubbed the "doomsday asteroid" because of fears it could smash into Earth a couple of decades from now poses no risk, NASA said after new observations of the object.

Asteroid 99942 Apophis was scanned by optical telescopes and deep-space radars as it made a flyby this week, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) said in a press release.

Firefighters were battling scores of wildfires raging in Australia Saturday, as a government commission warned that climate change had raised the risk of scorching heatwaves becoming more frequent.

In the eastern state of New South Wales, some 1,000 firefighters were attempting to douse about 94 wildfires, about dozen uncontained, while fires were also burning in neighboring Victoria and Queensland states.

A government report warned Friday that the United States could face more frequent severe weather including heat waves and storms for decades to come as temperatures rise far beyond levels being planned for.

The draft Third National Climate Assessment, a scientific study legally mandated to advise U.S. policymakers, made few bones that carbon emissions have been causing climate change -- a source of controversy among some lawmakers.

About a dozen killer whales trapped under sea ice appeared to be free after the ice shifted, village officials in Canada's remote north said Thursday, while residents who feared they would get stuck elsewhere hired a plane to track them down.

The whales' predicament in the frigid waters of Hudson Bay made international headlines, and locals had been planning a rescue operation with chainsaws and drills before the mammals slipped away.

Hong Kong's name may mean "fragrant harbour", but cargo ships burning dirty fuel in what is one of the world's busiest ports add to a foul layer of pollution that kills more than 3,000 people a year.

Now the government is vowing to get tough, with activists hoping mandatory restrictions on shipping emissions will be among a raft of measures announced next week aimed at making the city more environmentally friendly.