Reuters - Average household heating fuel costs this winter will be 15 percent higher than last year, with heating oil and natural gas users taking the biggest hit due to more expensive crude oil and colder weather than last winter, the government's top energy forecasting agency said Tuesday.

AFP - From tiny tree frogs to gorillas, wild animals already facing extinction due to habitat loss, pollution and hunting must now cope with the added threat of virulent disease, conservation scientists said Tuesday.

SPACE.com - A NASA probe has begun beaming back stunning new images from its successful second flyby of Mercury, the planet closest to the sun.

AP - Tropical Storm Marco roared ashore on Mexico's Gulf coast with near-hurricane force winds on Tuesday, prompting a shutdown of some oil platforms.

AP - More than 370 penguins that mysteriously washed up on Brazil's equatorial beaches were flown south on a huge air force cargo plane and released closer to the frigid waters they call home, animal advocates said Monday.

AP - Two Japanese scientists and an American won the 2008 Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for theoretical advances that help explain the behavior of the smallest particles of matter.

Reuters - The parents of a 7-year-old boy who broke into an Australian outback zoo and fed a string of small animals to its resident crocodile are likely to be sued after police said the boy was too young to be held responsible.

AFP - Astronomers said a small space rock was expected to have collided with Earth early Tuesday, which would have created a spectacular fireball over Sudan but was unlikely to have caused any damage on the ground.

AP - A bad electrical connection likely caused the malfunction that sidelined the world's largest atom smasher days after it was launched with great fanfare, a senior scientist said Monday.