California crab fisheries will close for the season in April when whales are feeding off the state's coast as part of an effort to keep Dungeness crab fishery gear from killing protected whales, officials announced Tuesday. The April 15 closure, three months before the crab fishing season normally ends, is part of a settlement reached by the Center for Biological Diversity and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. The center sued the state agency in 2017, saying it was liable for a surge in entanglement of endangered whales and sea turtles because it oversees operation of the fishery on state and federal waters off California's coast.

Just about every week, it seems, scientists publish the unique DNA code of some creature or plant. Just in February, they published the genome for the strawberry, the paper mulberry tree, the great white shark and the Antarctic blackfin icefish. They also announced that, thanks to a crowdfunding campaign, they'd produced the genome of Lil BUB, a female cat with a large internet following. That followed a notable advance in January: an improved genome for the axolotl, a salamander renowned for regrowing severed limbs and other body parts.

Surveys of more than 400 species of birds in 1985 and then in 2017 have found that populations of almost all had declined, as many as eight had disappeared completely, and nearly all had moved to higher elevations in what scientists call "an escalator to extinction."

NASA's Opportunity, the Mars rover that was built to operate for just three months but kept going and going, rolling across the rocky red soil, was pronounced dead Wednesday, 15 years after it landed on the planet. The six-wheeled vehicle that helped gather critical evidence that ancient Mars might have been hospitable to life was remarkably spry up until eight months ago, when it was finally doomed by a ferocious dust storm.

University of Nebraska-Lincoln professor Brett Ratcliffe named a new scarab beetle species drogoni, rhaegali and viserioni. The names are Latinized versions of Drogon, Rhaegal and Viserion, three dragons owned by Daenerys Targaryen's character in "Game of Thrones." He's a fan of the series, but ultimately chose the names to draw attention to biodiversity and the amount of undiscovered species. "When you create names like these, you do it to gain a little bit of notoriety and bring public attention to it," he said.

Fifty years ago on Christmas Eve, a tumultuous year of assassinations, riots and war drew to a close in heroic and hopeful fashion with the three Apollo 8 astronauts reading from the Book of Genesis on live TV as they orbited the moon. To this day, that 1968 mission is considered to be NASA's boldest and perhaps most dangerous undertaking.

Hawaii's Supreme Court upheld a decision to grant a construction permit for an embattled, international giant telescope project planned for a mountain Native Hawaiians consider sacred. The court ruling Tuesday is a victory for the contentious Thirty Meter Telescope planned for Hawaii's tallest mountain, Mauna Kea.

An endangered species of whale is experiencing a mini-baby boom in New England waters. The North Atlantic right whale is one of the rarest species of whale on the planet, numbering only about 411. But the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, Massachusetts, said its aerial survey team spotted two mom and calf pairs in Cape Cod Bay a day earlier.

A NASA spacecraft 4 billion miles from Earth yielded its first close-up pictures Wednesday of the most distant celestial object ever explored, depicting what looks like a reddish snowman.

Environmental research projects on everything from endangered animals to air and water quality are being delayed and disrupted by the month-long partial federal government shutdown, and not just those conducted by government agencies. Scientists with universities, nonprofit organizations and private companies say their inability to collaborate with federal partners, gain access to federal lands and laboratories, and secure federal funding is jeopardizing their work.