Science World

Chimpanzees are back in court. Today, judges in New York state heard the first in a series of appeals attempting to grant “legal personhood” to the animals. The case is part of a larger effort by an animal rights group known as the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) to free a variety of creatures—from

Lockheed Martin Corp said on Wednesday it had made a technological breakthrough in developing a power source based on nuclear fusion, and the first reactors, small enough to fit on the back of a truck, could be ready for use in a decade. Tom McGuire, who heads the project, said he and a small team

A scientist whose project was deemed so hopeless that he had to pursue it in his spare time has won the 2014 Nobel prize in physics for an invention that paved the way for widespread energy-efficient lighting. Shuji Nakamura, 60, at the University of California, Santa Barbara, shares the coveted

Ebola has now infected about 9,000 people and killed nearly 4,500, including 263 health care workers, the World Health Organization reported Wednesday. These numbers are probably an underestimate, WHO officials said. Disease transmission is still rampant in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone,

When Canada switched on its Boundary Dam power plant earlier this month, it signaled a new front in the war against climate change. The commercial turbine burns coal, the dirtiest of fossil fuels, but it traps nearly all the resulting carbon dioxide underground before it reaches the atmosphere.