AP - After being rushed in from Russia, a toilet pump was loaded into space shuttle Discovery on Thursday just in time for this weekend's liftoff to the international space station, where the lone commode is acting up.

AP - England's enigmatic Stonehenge served as a burial ground from its earliest beginnings and for several hundred years thereafter, new research indicates.

AP - The world's rarest rhino does not like the limelight. A Javan Rhino was captured on video attacking a camera set up in an Indonesian jungle to study the habits of the animal, apparently because she sensed the lens was a threat to her calf, the WWF said Thursday.

Reuters - Dr. Francis Collins, who helped lead the sequencing of the human gene map, said on Wednesday he was stepping down as director of the U.S. National Human Genome Research Institute.

AFP - Oil giant ExxonMobil tried Wednesday to placate ecology-minded shareholders by promoting energy efficiency while insisting that oil and gas remain the answer to near-term global energy demand.

Reuters - Australian scientists unveiled on Thursday the fossilized remains of the oldest vertebrate mother ever discovered, a 375-million-year-old placoderm fish with embryo and umbilical cord attached.

AFP - Hidden cameras in the jungles of Indonesia's Java island have captured rare footage of the world's most threatened rhino, boosting efforts to save it from extinction, the environmental group WWF said Thursday.

AFP - Japan's Kibo module, the main component of which will be carried to the International Space Station next week by NASA's Discovery shuttle, marks a major expansion of the station's research capacity.

AP - The federal government has plenty of reasons to move hundreds of families out of trailers they have occupied since Hurricane Katrina: the start of a new hurricane season, concerns about toxic fumes and the need for residents to find permanent homes.

AP - Along Utah's Nine Mile Canyon lies what some call the longest art gallery in the world — thousands of prehistoric rock carvings and paintings of bighorn sheep and other wildlife, hunters wielding spears, and warriors engaged in hand-to-hand combat. But now, a dramatic increase in natural gas drilling is proposed on the plateau above the canyon, and preservationists fear trucks will kick up dust that will cover over the images.

AP - Fresh off a successful campaign to list polar bears as a threatened species, a conservation group is asking for similar protection for the bears' main prey.

AP - Robotic rovers have patrolled deep space and the deepest seas, but scientists are still struggling to create drones that can overcome the multiple challenges of exploring Antarctica.

AP - Scientists began releasing the robotic arm on NASA's new Mars spacecraft on Wednesday, one day late because of a radio problem. The Phoenix lander, which arrived on Mars on Sunday, is in excellent shape, said project manager Barry Goldstein. He said the communications glitch was only a blip in the robot's three-month exploration of the planet's northern arctic region.

AFP - ExxonMobil softened its tone on environmental responsibility and the need to invest in alternative energy sources Wednesday in the face of strong opposition from shareholders.