MADRID, April 1, 2008 (AFP) - Climate change pushed the woolly mammoth to extinction even if it was hunting by our ancestors that finally finished off the species about 3,500 years ago, a Spanish study said Tuesday.

Using climate models and fossil remains, researchers concluded that the habitat available to the mammoth had shrunk by 90 percent as glaciers receded through the ages.

WASHINGTON, March 31, 2008 (AFP) - US scientists have perfected a new technique to magnify by more than 1,000 times molecules deep inside the human body which may help detect miniscule tumors, a study said Monday.

CHICAGO, March 31, 2008 (AFP) - Archeologists have unearthed a nearly 4,000-year-old necklace which shows that gold was being used as a status symbol in the Americas much earlier than previously thought, according to a study released Monday.

CHICAGO, March 27, 2008 (AFP) - Rats can learn rules and apply them to new situations, an ability which is thought to be a keystone of human thought, according to a study released Thursday.

CHICAGO, March 27, 2008 (AFP) - People with schizophrenia have high rates of rare genetic mutations which appear to disrupt the developing brain, according to a study released Thursday.

PARIS, March 27, 2008 (AFP) - It's no-one's idea of great music -- to some, it may sound like a dolphin with tonsilitis -- but the ghostly warbling of a French folk song nearly 148 years ago comprises the oldest recording of the human voice, France's Academy of Sciences says.

WASHINGTON, March 27, 2008 (AFP) - Thomas Edison's 1877 phonograph established him as the father of recorded sound, but US researchers have now played back a French inventor's recording made 17 years earlier, a US audio sound archive group announced Thursday.

PARIS, March 27, 2008 (AFP) - France's National Museum of Natural History on Tuesday unveiled the world's first 'plastinated' squid -- a 6.5-metre-long (21.25-feet) deep-sea beast donated by New Zealand and named in honour of a creature featuring in Maori legend.

Plastination entails replacing the animal's water, fat and other liquids with a polymer that hardens.

PARIS, March 26, 2008 (AFP) - It's late at night, you are in a town that you don't know very well and all the restaurants are closing.

You are famished, and spot a stall that will sell you a small snack.

Should you take the snack or venture further, hoping to find a place that will serve you a hearty meal but knowing that you may also find nothing?

PARIS, March 26, 2008 (AFP) - An international team of scientists said on Wednesday the evolution of life on Earth had been braked for nearly two billion years because of oxygen deficiency and a lack of the heavy metal molybdenum in the oceans.