Strange beasts--including a giant rat, a lungless worm, and a vegetarian spider--dominated National Geographic News's most popular new-species coverage of 2009.

Rajesh Gopal, who heads the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), will soon submit a report on ecological impact of a proposed Rs 900-crore mega science project in a tiger reserve in Tamil Nadu which has drawn flak from the green brigade.

Despite their fearsome fangs, male sabertoothed cats may have been less aggressive than many of their feline cousins, says a new study of male-female size differences in extinct big cats. Commonly called the sabertoothed tiger, Smilodon fatalis was a

New Zealand scientists hope to improve the survival odds of the endangered snow leopard by studying its main prey in the Himalayas, the bharal, or blue sheep. A Nepali PhD student at Massey University, Achyut Aryal, and his professor are tramping

It sounds like a futuristic fantasy, but scientists are quietly creating a global databank of DNA bar codes for the world's flora and fauna that could be used to identify illicit goods at borders and track the spread of disease. From tiny micro-

DNA analysis will now be used to solve the most widely perpetrated crimes today - those against the ecology. Biologists are now taking the DNA route to track the effects of global warming on the world's species or for identifying a piece of dried meat

Wolves may have domesticated themselves in China when they began scavenging around the garbage dumps at the first human settlements. As they became tamer, they were captured and bred. Given local traditions, the wolves would have been bred to be eaten.

The dramatic rearing horsehead nebula and mysterious glowing Bow of Orion are just two of the unforgettable images that have been entered into the Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2009 competition. More than 500 entries from around the world - from

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station and Discovery shuttle are nearly finished packing up a huge canister full of rubbish that they will return to Earth in a few days time. The Italian-built cylinder - flew up aboard Discovery with seven

Far from the fury of traditional race-tracks, spectators got a glimpse of the future as they watched electric cars rev up, and silently bomb off around the Mason-Dixon Dragway.