Astronauts to inspect station

Two astronauts on the International Space Station will make a spacewalk next week to find out if a micrometeoroid strike damaged a critical part of the outpost's power system, officials said on Thursday. The station is not in any danger and is still producing enough power to support the arrival of a Russian cargo ship this month, said station deputy program manager Kirk Shireman.

Cirrhosis kills 26 crocs:

As many as 26 endangered crocodiles have been found dead over the last three days in northern India and experts attribute the rare mass deaths to cirrhosis of the liver, authorities said on Friday. The reptiles died in the waters of the Chambal river, which runs along the borders of the northern state of Uttar Pradesh and the central state of Madhya Pradesh, baffling experts as it is considered their natural habitat.

Loan offer for flu vaccine

Hungary has offered loans to Indonesia to build a plant to develop and produce a bird flu vaccine for humans using Indonesia's H5N1 avian flu virus strain, a senior industry ministry official said on Friday. With 93 human deaths from bird flu so far, Indonesia has the world's highest death toll from the disease.

Lice threaten wild salmon

Infestations of sea lice at salmon farms on Canada's west coast are threatening local wild pink salmon populations and could result in their extinction in another four years, Canadian researchers said on Thursday. They collected nearly four decades of data on the numbers of pink salmon in rivers along the central coast of British Columbia, comparing wild salmon populations exposed to salmon farms to those not exposed.

Researchers make HIV find

An ingredient in human semen may actually help the HIV virus infect cells, German researchers said on Thursday. They said naturally occurring prostatic acidic phosphatase or PAP, an enzyme produced by the prostate, can form tiny fibers called amyloid fibrils that can capture bits of the human immunodeficiency virus and usher it into cells.

Man dies from bird flu

An Indonesian man from an area west of the capital Jakarta died from bird flu on Thursday, an official said, bringing the total number of deaths in from the illness in Indonesia to 93. Runizar Roesin, head of the bird flu center in Jakarta, told Reuters the 47-year-old man from Tangerang died on Thursday evening.