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Famed scientist Richard Leakey warned that the worldwide credit crisis will be "just devastating" to scientific research in coming years, as endowment interest income drops and companies cut donations.

Leakey, who once served on a government economic team in his native Kenya, said much of the support for science comes from wealthy philanthropists, foundations and companies. All those groups likely will be affected by lowered interest rates and the squeeze of credit not being available to fund their operations, he said.

Pluto should have its status as a planet reinstated, leading astronomers have said.Senior space scientists, including experts from Nasa, will this week attack a controversial decision by the International Astronomical Union, the body responsible for astronomy nomenclature, to redefine what constitutes a planet.

Have you ever wondered what our world would look like stripped bare of all plants, soils, water and man-made structures? Well wonder no longer; images of the Earth as never seen before have been unveiled in what is the world’s biggest geological mapping project ever.

Scientists have stopped the ageing process in an entire organ for the first time, a study released today says.Published in today's online edition of Nature Medicine, researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University in New York City also say the older organs function as well as they did when the host animal was younger.The researchers, led by Associate Professor Ana Maria Cuervo, blocked the ageing process in mice livers by stopping the build-up of harmful proteins inside the organ's cells.

A chunk of ice spreading across 7 square miles (18 square kilometers) has broken off a Canadian ice shelf in the Arctic, scientists say.