Scientists are analyzing a small blue object that plummeted from the sky and killed a man in southern India, after authorities said it was a meteorite.

The object slammed into the ground at an engineering college over the weekend, shattering a water cooler and sending splinters and shards flying. Police say a bus driver standing nearby was hit by the debris and died while being taken to a hospital.

Australian researchers have created a "bionic spinal cord" they said Tuesday could give paralyzed people hope of walking again through the power of thought, without resorting to open brain surgery.

The system would use a device the size of a paperclip implanted in a blood vessel next to the brain.

Indian authorities say a falling object that killed a bus driver and injured three others was a meteorite. If proven, it would be the first such death in recorded history.

Experts said other explanations were possible for the incident Saturday in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.

Dog owners who think their beloved pets are just smarter than the others might be right, according to a report published in Britain on Monday based on intelligence tests on 68 border collies.

Researchers from the London School of Economics (LSE) and University of Edinburgh said they used a "purpose-built barn" to measure navigation ability, speed and skills in following a pointed arm.

Discoveries in an Israeli cave dating back 200,000 years show that early humans ate turtles alongside plants and large game animals, the Tel Aviv university said on Tuesday.

Turtle specimens found around the Qesem cave, some 12 kilometers (seven miles) east of Tel Aviv, also indicated the methods used to prepare them.

Ravens can imagine being spied upon by a hidden competitor, showing a capacity for abstraction once thought to be exclusively human, according to a study released Tuesday.

In a clever set of experiments, scientists showed that the famously intelligent birds take extra care to hide food if they suspect their movements are being monitored by another raven, even when the second bird is not really there.

Conservationists announced Monday the "amazing discovery" of a previously unknown lion population in a remote northwestern region of Ethiopia, confirming local reports with camera trap photographs for the first time.

Lions were spotted in the Alatash National Park on Ethiopia's border with Sudan, lion conservation group Born Free said.

Britain on Monday granted its first licence to genetically modify human embryos for research into infertility and why miscarriages happen, in a move likely to raise ethical concerns.

"Our licence committee has approved an application from Dr Kathy Niakan of the Francis Crick Institute to renew her laboratory's research licence to include gene editing of embryos," the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) said in a statement.

Scientists in China have engineered monkeys with a human autism gene and symptoms, in the hopes of unlocking a treatment for the debilitating but little-understood disorder, a study said Monday.

The "transgenic" macaques behaved similarly to humans afflicted with autism, the team wrote -- making repetitive gestures, and displaying anxiety and poor social interaction. 

Finland on Saturday began a controversial wolf cull that gives hunters the right to kill around one fifth of the endangered animals, in a decision that has angered environmentalists.

Authorities hope the trial cull of 46 of Finland's estimated 250 grey wolves will curb illegal poaching, which some rural landowners have resorted to in recent years after seeing wolves roaming their property, sometimes killing dogs and livestock.