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By Ron Cowen of Nature magazine The European Space Agency (ESA) will forge ahead with ExoMars, an ambitious two-part robotic mission that would look for signs of life on the Red Planet, even though NASA has reneged on its promise to provide a launch rocket for the first stage of the mission. During a 12-13 October ESA council meeting in Paris, the agency decided to begin negotiations with Russia for a rocket that would launch the first stage of ExoMars, in 2016, in exchange for Russian participation in the mission

No, that's not the setup to a joke. Google, YouTube, Lenovo, Space Adventures, NASA, ESA, and JAXA are pulling science and tech education into the spotlight yet again, hosting a global science fair with prizes that are, quite literally, out of this world.

A miniature airborne drone has helped archaeologists capture images for creating a 3-D model of an ancient burial mound in Russia, scientists say. Archaeological sites are often in remote and rugged areas . As such, it can be hard to reach and map them with the limited budgets archaeologists typically have.

A miniature airborne drone has helped archaeologists capture images for creating a 3-D model of an ancient burial mound in Russia, scientists say.

Several investors, including some notable celebrities, are banking on the spam-free search engine to compete against Bing, Yahoo, and Google. Upstart search engine Blekko has closed a $30 million funding round in its quest to be the spam-free Google. Yandex, the most popular search engine in Russia, has invested $15 million and promised to share its servers and other technology

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - A huge hole that appeared in the Earth's protective ozone layer above the Arctic in 2011 was the largest recorded in the Northern Hemisphere, triggering worries the event could occur again and be even worse, scientists said in a report on Monday. The ozone layer high in the stratosphere acts like a giant shield against the Sun's ultraviolet (UV) radiation, which can cause skin cancers and cataracts

Editor's Note: The following excerpted from The Prince of Evolution: Peter Kropotkin's Adventures in Science and Politics

Editor's Note: The following excerpted from The Prince of Evolution: Peter Kropotkin's Adventures in Science and Politics

Plastic Logic's e-reader may yet live as an educational tool in Russia, just as Apple and Microsoft bid for millions of tablet PCs destined for Turkish schools. The e-education game is getting serious. Plastic Logic has just landed $150 million in investments from a state fund in Russia to bring its ill-fated soft-screened e-reader to the nation's schools.

Every northern country is making territorial claims to land being exposed under melting ice, creating a truly cold new Cold War near the North Pole. If you don't believe that the Arctic ice cap is melting, ask the Russians about it.

ST PETERSBURG, Russia (Reuters) - Russia completed Friday the multi-billion-dollar construction of an abandoned Soviet-era dam complex in St Petersburg to protect its former imperial capital from potentially devastating floods. The project was launched in 1979 but was abandoned and left to ruin after it proved too costly following the 1991 Communist collapse. [More]

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Arctic ice cover receded to near record lows this summer, opening elusive northern trade routes from Asia to the West, Russia's climate research agency said on Wednesday. After the third hottest year on record since 1936 in the Arctic last year, ice cover has melted as much as 56 percent more than average across northern shipping routes, making navigation in the perilous waters "very easy," it said. [More]

As CEO of Novartis, Europe's second largest drug company, the former competitive swimmer Joe Jimenez won't rest until he snags the top spot. The key: innovative products, expansion into new markets, and good old-fashioned team building. As a teenager, Joe Jimenez spent four hours a day, seven days a week in the pool training for swim meets

For some small businesses, doing business abroad is helping get them through tough times at home. Since last year the Obama administration has been pushing small businesses to venture into global markets, part of an ambitious goal to double U.S. exports by 2014.

Conservation groups are reporting better than expected news on two rare leopard species, the critically endangered Amur leopard ( Panthera pardus orientalis ) in Russia and the endangered snow leopard ( P.