Nintendo has a knack for changing the course of video games, appealing to the masses from kids to grandparents even if its technology isn't the most advanced.

The creator of "Mario Bros." and "Donkey Kong" said Thursday that it will launch its first high-definition gaming console on Nov. 18 in the U.S., later that month in Europe and on Dec. 8 in Japan.

A team of scientists has identified a new species of monkey in central Africa that had been known to the locals simply as lesula, a medium-sized, slender animal that looks similar to an owl-faced monkey that was already known to scientists.

In findings published this week in the scientific journal Plos One, the researchers identified the species as Cercopithecus lomamiensis, which is endemic to the lowland rainforests of central Congo. This is only the second time in the past 28 years that a previously unknown species of monkey has been identified, they said, highlighting the importance of preserving biodiversity in a part of central Africa where forests are threatened by illegal logging.

The baby of NASA's space shuttle fleet is about to leave home — for good.

At sunrise Monday, Endeavour will depart Kennedy Space Center for a museum in California, with a two-day stopover in Houston, home to Mission Control and the astronauts who flew aboard the replacement for the lost shuttle Challenger.

Antarctica's Ross Sea is often described as the most isolated and pristine ocean on Earth, a place where seals and penguins still rule the waves and humans are about as far away as they could be. But even there it has proven difficult, and maybe impossible, for nations to agree on how strongly to protect the environment.

The United States and New Zealand have spent two years trying to agree on an Alaska-sized marine sanctuary where fishing would be banned and scientists could study climate change. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton took a strong interest in the outcome, regularly prodding diplomats, and New Zealand recently sent a delegation to Washington to hash out a tentative deal.

The Mars rover Curiosity is preparing to roll again after it completes its health checkups this week, project managers said Wednesday.

Since landing in an ancient crater near the Martian equator Aug. 5, the car-size rover has trekked more than the length of a football field, leaving wheel tracks in the soil that could be spied from space.

During the season debut airing Wednesday on Fox, the audience cheers her, Simon Cowell defers to her and Spears is crisp, if not a wit, in her contestant verdicts.

We get the pop princess who knows how to hold the spotlight, not the young woman who has struggled in her personal life, in the taped premiere of "X Factor." Live episodes start airing in November.

The trial of a man believed to be involved in the planning of a suspected terrorist attack against Israeli interests on Cyprus has been postponed.

Criminal court judges agreed Wednesday to reschedule the trial for Sept. 28 to give 24-year-old suspect Hosham Taleb's lawyer time to review a new set of charges presented by the state prosecutor.

International conservation groups have unveiled a list of the earth's most threatened 100 animals, plants and fungi and say urgent action is needed to protect them.

The groups identified the species Tuesday in a report presented to a global conservation forum on the southern South Korean island of Jeju.

The European Space Agency is exploring the possibility of cooperating with China on manned space missions by the end of the decade.

The head of ESA's human spaceflight division says some European astronauts are already learning Chinese in preparation for joint missions.

Scientists have discovered well-preserved frozen woolly mammoth fragments deep in Siberia that may contain living cells, edging a tad closer to the "Jurassic Park" possibility of cloning a prehistoric animal, the mission's organizer said Tuesday.

Russia's North-Eastern Federal University said an international team of researchers had discovered mammoth hair, soft tissues and bone marrow some 328 feet (100 meters) underground during a summer expedition in the northeastern province of Yakutia.