WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The estimated total cost of Lockheed Martin Corp's F-35 fighter jets being bought by the Pentagon may be nearly twice as high as originally forecast, the Defense Department said Friday.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Federal limits on water that can be pumped out of a major river delta for California farmers are scientifically justified, a much-anticipated report said on Friday, a finding hailed by environmentalists in the state's epic water wars.

SANTIAGO (Reuters) - Chileans' knowledge of earthquakes, combined with the abnormally long time it took for the February 27 quake to reach its crescendo, saved thousands of lives, a leading geophysicist said on Thursday.

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Researchers in Japan have designed a super-elastic iron alloy which they hope can be used in sophisticated heart and brain surgeries and even buildings in earthquake zones.

LONDON (Reuters) - German scientists have created a three-dimensional "invisibility cloak" that can hide objects by bending light waves.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 fighter aircraft landed vertically for the first time on Thursday, a bright spot in the Pentagon's priciest arms purchase program, troubled by cost increases and delays.

LONDON (Reuters) - German scientists have created a three-dimensional "invisibility cloak" that can hide objects by bending light waves.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Russian Soyuz space capsule carrying a U.S. astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut from the International Space Station landed safely in Kazakhstan on Thursday.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - From French poodles to German shepherds, domestic dogs likely trace most of their ancestry to the Middle East, as opposed to East Asian origins suggested by previous research, a genetic study reported on Wednesday.

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Ancestors of a hobbit-like species of humans may have colonized the Indonesian island of Flores as far back as a million years ago, much earlier than thought, according to a new study published Thursday.