AP - With the Bush administration on the verge of relaxing regulations protecting endangered species, Democratic leaders are looking at ways to overturn any last-minute rule changes.

AP - Researchers studying a rare and endangered species of penguin have uncovered a previously unknown species that disappeared about 500 years ago.

AFP - Japan and Australia said Wednesday they were doing everything they could to diplomatically resolve an emotionally charged dispute over whaling, though officials' remarks showed divisions remained deep.

AFP - Biologists on Wednesday explained how the larvae of marine zooplankton can see with just two cells, using what is believed to be the world's simplest vision system.

AFP - Japanese scientists said Tuesday they had created a cloned embryo from the dead body of an endangered species of rabbit and are hoping for a birth.

AFP - Mosques in Malaysia's Terengganu state, which was once a major turtle breeding ground, will give an unusual sermon on protecting the endangered animals this Friday, conservationists said.

AP - The mother ship in Japan's whaling fleet left Monday for the country's annual hunt in the Antarctic, the environmental group Greenpeace said, as anti-whaling activists vowed to disrupt the expedition once again after high-seas clashes forced an early halt last year.

AFP - A tonne of ivory items and 57 suspects were netted in a four-month operation billed Africa's largest-ever crackdown on wildlife crime, the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) said Monday.

AFP - Japan's whaling fleet set sail Monday, environmentalists said, apparently on an annual Antarctic hunt likely to provoke fresh friction with anti-whaling countries such as Australia.