SciTech Daily Review - science, technology, future developments, innovations, implications

Swirling Arctic winds -- the Arctic Oscillation -- change the world's weather. The Oscillation itself, and its effects, may well be affected by human activities ... [more]

Walk barefoot on broken glass. Dip your hand into a pot of molten lead. Have a concrete block broken on your chest. Don't worry, it's all safe -- if you understand a little bit of physics ... [more]

The diminutive threadsnake -- tiny terror of ants' nests -- boasts a unique feeding system that may have great evolutionary and ecological importance ... [more]

When midnight approaches on 31 December and the world goes mad, what exactly will people be celebrating? Even devout Christians concede that Jesus wasn't born exactly 2000 years ago. So how about choosing some other pivotal event that could mark the start of our calendar? ... [more]

A new technique using ultrasound to assess serious burns will enable doctors to make the crucial decision of whether to perform skin grafts or not with much greater accuracy ... [more]

Cats' bird-catching days may be numbered, with the aid of a quietly-beeping electronic collar ... [more]

In mapping the structure of short-lived bacterial 'switches,' biochemists may have found a novel answer to antibiotic resistance ... [more]

By analyzing residues in cauldrons, bowls and urns found inside a 2,700-year-old tomb, scientists have figured out the menu at King Midas’ funeral feast ... [more]

Tiny carbon nanotubes can be used to sniff out toxic gasses -- a discovery that could lead to a new generation of tiny environmental sensors ... [more]

By fusing organic synthesis and inorganic materials chemistry at their core, researchers have created a new class of hybrid materials that are greater than the sum of their parts ... [more]

When you see holiday lights reflected on your living room wall, the colors you perceive may not be what’s really there ... [more]

Step lightly upon the Earth: The Audobon Society offers ten tips to help heal our home planet ... [more]

It took more than 500 scientists and seven years of research, but the first global earthquake hazard map is finally complete ... [more]

Ichthyosaurs, reptiles that swam the seas during the time of the dinosaurs, had huge eyes -- indicating that they dove to tremendous depths where sunlight hardly penetrates ... [more]

Don't worry about the pesticides on the vegetables -- there are enough natural toxins in the traditional Christmas dinner to put you off food altogether ... [more]

It's time to deck the halls with boughs of holly, drape the mantelpiece with ivy, and plan dangerous liaisons under the mistletoe. They may be traditional Christmas decorations, but did you know that these Yuletide evergreens are also some of life's great survivors? ... [more]

A new technique developed by Salk scientists allows the first glimpse of HIV inside a living cell, and shows how the virus advances toward its ultimate target, the nucleus ... [more]

Across the Western US, "channelization" has turned dozens of rivers into lifeless concrete-walled drainage canals. Now an innovative plan may help keep rivers in their natural state ... [more]

Energetic byproducts of lightning known as whistler waves streak thousands of miles above Earth's atmosphere into the magnetosphere, where they engage in a near-space dalliance that could be called the electron shuffle ... [more]

The aurora borealis and australis, the eerie, multicolored lights that often streak the sky above the Earth's polar regions, have an invisible counterpart ... [more]

As environmentalists and government agencies become more adept at using their influence, market power is successfully aiding the environment ... [more]

Those rowdy children, El Niño and La El Niña, have been stirring up more than ocean storms ... [more]

'Soft spots' on volcanoes can collapse at any time, triggering mudflows that can be more devastating than eruptions. But satelite monitoring could help pinpoint the danger zones ... [more]

What do you get when you cross a wildcat with a wildcat -- and a housecat? A very special wildcat kitten, with a very ordinary foster mother ... [more]

Liquid crystals are better known as the stuff of TV and laptop displays, but surgeons could one day use them to rebuild shattered bones ... [more]

An automated search project and a flurry of e-mails allowed a speedy and fortuitous change to Chandra's plans -- which captured the image of a supernova ... [more]

A newly developed fortified, orange-flavored drink can significantly improve nutrition and growth for children in the developing world ... [more]

Meet Conan the Bacterium: A radiation-resistant microbe could play a major role in Martian exploration ... [more]

Ozone, a major constituent of smog, inhibits plants' ability to breathe ... [more]

Comet Hale-Bopp may have a satellite. If so, it would allow astronomers to measure a comet's mass for the first time ... [more]

A hidden microbial world has been found, deep beneath the Antarctic ice -- extending the range of extreme conditions under which life is known to survive ... [more]

Even soft-gamma repeaters have a hard side ... [more]

Surgical gloves and condoms pose a risk to millions of people who have a potentially fatal allergy to latex. A hunt for a non-allergenic alternative has led to an obscure Mexican plant, which is even resistant to viruses ... [more]

The accidental bycatch of seabirds can be decreased by simple changes in gillnets, and the time of day that fishing occurs ... [more]

Workplace depression is a growing cause of personal and economic hardship -- but until recently it was largely neglected by health programmes ... [more]

Surface decontamination with steam could make for safer food ... [more]

Urban denizens have yet another reason to hate traffic: It pollinates their air. Cars and trucks stir up dust, much of it laden with allergy-causing plant pollens and molds ... [more]

Lurking at the back of your kitchen cupboards are the forgotten foods, bought but never used, fated for the dump. Peer into the murky shadows of consumer waste ... [more]

Unearthing the secrets of ants' nests is a grubby but engrossing task ... [more]

How old is that doggie in the window? ... [more]

A new use for old drugs offers hope of actually reversing osteoporosis ... [more]

Life for an East African cichlid fish is one long social whirl -- with surprising effects on their biology ... [more]

Good morning, and welcome to your e-levator! For your entertainment during the next three minutes, we have a range of fascinating ads, news and weather reports ... [more]

Physicists have shed new light on chemical bonding, combining a single molecule with a single atom to form a new molecule ... [more]

Vast stockpiles of nuclear waste may be put to beneficial use -- in the treatment of cancer ... [more]

Texas researchers are developing a way to eliminate the stink surrounding the hog industry ... [more]

While you think you're resting at night, your sleeping brain is putting your heart through its paces ... [more]

Oblique satellite mapping is giving us a new angle on earthquakes ... [more]

Drifting in the vast silence of space, astronauts are being deafened by a constant tumult of machine noise ... [more]

A small worm, Caenorhabditis elegans, has made history as the first animal to have its entire genome mapped -- a job that has taken 15 years, and has major implications for human health ... [more]

If you're planning to rob a bank it may be wise to start practising silly walks ... [more]

The essence of NASA’s Deep Space 2 project is this: stuff a basketball-size container with electronics and other equipment, blast it into the ground at 400 mph, and have it still work afterwards ... [more]

The discovery of the first nearly-complete juvenile Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton has opened a window onto the childhood of the world's favourite dinosaur ... [more]

The lure of mountain peaks draws thousands of challenge-seekers every year -- but their legacy is a trail of debris strewn across once pristine landscapes. Efforts are now underway to clean up these mountains of rubbish ... [more]

For many people the dark, gloomy days of fall and winter can bring on seasonal affective disorder, a form of depression which can be so debilitating that one individual described it as a "sea of gray" ... [more]

A 'smart home' can make your morning coffee, feed your pets, and even order more eggs when you run out. But what do you do when your new 'smart home' has bugs? ... [more]

Now soldiers can radio without fear of detection by radar, thanks to a new long-range plasma antenna ... [more]

German researchers are basking in the green glow of success, after creating a genetically modified insect with glow-in-the-dark eyes -- a move that could help combat crop pests and insect-borne diseases ... [more]

A technique that can measure ozone-depleting gases hundreds of miles from where they are released could prove invaluable in monitoring greenhouse gas emissions ... [more]

A high-tech effort is underway to trace the last hours of the elusive Amelia Earhart ... [more]

A fungus that grows best on tomato juice looks promising as a herbicide for organic crops ... [more]

Swiss scientists have managed to photograph what goes on in the brain while we are learning and remembering ... [more]

It's mean, it's minty, & it could beat malaria. Researchers in India have found that peppermint oil not only repels adult mosquitoes but also kills the larvae ... [more]

Scientists in New Zealand have been given the go-ahead to raise two herds of genetically-modified cows -- though they are not allowed to introduce any human genes into the animals ... [more]

A new system being tested by the US Air Force will stop fighter planes from crashing into the ground -- even when their pilots don't know it's happening ... [more]

At last, ecologically-minded musicians can breathe easy, with the development of a polycarbonate acoustic guitar that's as good as a wooden one ... [more]

Pheromone-spiked scents are a new twist on old love potions -- but the old-fashioned ways are still the most reliable ... [more]

Well-meaning but overzealous hackers have tinkered with the software volunteers use to help search for extraterrestrial intelligence to make it run faster. But the scientists who run the SETI project say the altered program could be more of a hindrance than a help ... [more]

Astronomers think they have witnessed a meteor striking the Moon -- the first such confirmed observation ... [more]

Engineers in Australia are building a two-legged industrial robot inspired by the robotic "exoskeleton" worn by Sigourney Weaver in the movie Aliens. The Robolift will be able to walk about doing things no forklift truck ever could. ... [more]

The Shimura-Taniyama-Weil (STW) conjecture has baffled and defeated some of the greatest minds in maths over the last 40 years. Now an international team is claiming victory at last ... [more]

Monsanto's herbicide-resistant soya beans are feeling the heat ... [more]

Evergreen trees, planted as windbreaks around farmers' fields, also provide an efficient buffer to reduce pesticide drift ... [more]

The discovery of high levels of three unexpected elements on Jupiter has thrown planet-formation theories into disarray ... [more]

The problem with bubbles in space is that they don't know where to go. An electrifying study is seeking the secrets of low-gravity bubble-pushing ... [more]

To survive their harsh environment, desert bees hedge their bets with a wait-and-wet attitude ... [more]

Tomorrow's computer keyboard may be played more like an accordion than a piano ... [more]

A new generation of submersibles are seeking out the legendary monsters of the deep ... [more]

Astronomers recently witnessed the first direct evidence of an extrasolar planet ... [more]

Thanks to Canadian research, a neural amplifier implant may one day allow paraplegics to stand or even walk ... [more]

Dutch researchers have been working to chart the dynamics of rainclouds ... [more]

Frustrated fiddling with fairy lights could become a thing of the past: A genetically modified Christmas tree could grow its own multicoloured lights ... [more]

The peak of the 11-year sunspot cycle in the middle of next year may mean that the sun picks up where Y2K leaves off ... [more]

Visitors to the Vatican City next summer will receive blessed relief from a new heat watch system -- designed to warn them when it's time to cool their devotions and take steps to avoid heat stress. ... [more]

Why did the geneticist cross the chicken? To turn it into a cheap pharmaceuticals factory ... [more]

It may soon be possible to grow your own new heart valves ... [more]

Massive suction pads for ferries could cut their time in port ... [more]

Move over Apatosaurus, here comes Jobaria -- a giant sauropod which seems to have roamed the Earth during the wrong era ... [more]

Evidence shows that lots of galaxies made the universe's background glow ... [more]

NASA wants you! (to help observe the Leonids) ... [more]

Spring-loaded spies may become a cop's best friend ... [more]

Mount Everest is the highest point on earth -- and it's even taller than we thought ... [more]

Geophysicists in Israel are setting off tonnes of explosives, creating fake quakes under the Dead Sea ... [more]

The upcoming Leonids meteor shower (Nov. 17-18) is predicted to be the biggest in decades and perhaps for the next century. While we are safe on the ground, satellite operators are concerned that even small impacts could short-circuit satellites ... [more]

(Almost) everything you ever wanted to know about meteors ... [more]

A virus being spread by intravenous drug users is evolving 300 times faster than usual due to needle sharing ... [more]

"Lonesome George," a solitary giant Galapagos tortoise, has turned up his nose at any number of females -- but tortoises from an island almost 200 miles away may hold the key to his heart ... [more]

A 128 metre diameter flying pumpkin should soon be providing NASA with data from space ... [more]

Remote sensing applied to precision agriculture: An eye in the sky and instruments in the dirt are teamed to help scientists and farmers figure out the best way to nurture crops ... [more]

NASA will be looking for a little help from amateur radio operators, as they gather data to be used in designing an advanced propulsion system: one that plugs into the Earth's magnetosphere ... [more]

A recent fossil find suggests the existence of possibly the largest creature ever to walk the earth: a dinosaur so tall it could have peered into a sixth-story window (had there been any to peer into) ... [more]

A tiny parasite looks out on the world through most peculiar eyes. Sporting 50 lenses each, such eyes were last seen in fossils of long-extinct trilobites ... [more]

The secret of dinosaur air conditioning? Have a huge, huge nose ... [more]

Britain's endangered Exmoor ponies eye up a bunch of thistles much as we might look at a slab of chocolate -- and their discriminating taste in weeds is helping to rescue threatened ecosystems ... [more]

Microwave ovens have inspired the development of an entirely new kind of spacecraft engine ... [more]

Cosmic fossils show that the Milky Way is a galaxy gobbler ... [more]

Imagine trying to count bats as they flitter through the night. A novel use for voice recognition software has just made that job much, much easier ... [more]

Icebergs crashing against the sea floor could be the most devastating natural disaster that any living community on Earth experiences ... [more]

Chimpanzees are far more genetically diverse than human beings are -- a finding that has implications both for efforts to conserve the endangered primates, and for learning more about human origins ... [more]

A new, less-invasive treatment promises sound sleep for snorers (and their families) ... [more]

Squashed by a prehistoric standing stone about 600 years ago, dug up by archaeologists before the war and then lost in the Blitz, the medieval barbersurgeon of Avebury has made a second unexpected appearance ... [more]

An estate of "smart homes", wired with the latest in interactive and internet-based technology, has sold out before the houses have even been finished ... [more]

Like a creature from a horror movie, suburban sprawl is gobbling up everything in its path ... [more]

Humans have been poisoned by carbon monoxide since they first discovered hydrocarbon fuels. Yet the risks are as great -- and misdiagnosis as common -- as ever ... [more]

It's Halloween: time to learn the truth about that monster in your closet ... before it's too late! ... [more]

In a new sexual revolution, it has been revealed that females are not the "default" sex after all ... [more]

For the first time in history, scholars are witnessing a lingustic "Big Bang": a complex sign language being created by deaf children in Nicaragua ... [more]

An image of the Centaurus A galaxy gives new insight into what happens when galaxies collide ... [more]

Solar cell efficiency has taken a giant leap forward, more than doubling current ratings ... [more]

Doctors in Britain's accident and emergency departments aren't fazed by much. But the current craze for body piercing is causing them real problems ... [more]

How do you tell the difference between an ordinary fuel drum and a barrel of nerve gas? A "sound gun" built by a team at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico could make the job of weapons inspectors much easier ... [more]

Recent large and deadly earthquakes might make it seem like Earth's knees have suddenly turned to jelly. But appearances can be deceptive ... [more]

The presence of cannabinoid receptors in the brain has long puzzled scientists. Now we know why they're there: researchers have recently documented the release of a naturally produced cannabinoid in response to pain ... [more]

Robot-controlled farming could soon lead to crop fields being replaced by metal shipping containers ... [more]

Mussels cling onto wave-lashed rocks for dear life. Now biologists are stealing the secrets of that grip to produce water-resistant glues that could eventually mend broken bones and teeth ... [more]

The first intact woolly mammoth has been successfully exhumed from its 23,000-year-old Siberian grave. Plans are already in place to try to clone the massive creature ... [more]

Look! Up in the sky! It's a UFO -- It's an airplane -- No, it's Jupiter! ... [more]

The first high-resolution radar map of Antarctica has revealed the frozen continent in extraordinary detail ... [more]

The millennium -- when it isn't, and why ... [more]

New cameras mounted on two of the world's largest telescopes have provided images of Neptune, which are at least as sharp as those from the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope ... [more]

While an asteroid impact destroys one side of the planet, shockwaves converge to devastate the opposite side of Earth. Then, of course, there's that interminable winter to contend with ... [more]

Working models of Renaissance inventions, at a major new exhibition at the London Science Museum, demonstrate that some of the finest artists in history were equally brilliant engineers ... [more]

The development of a new synthetic enzyme to produce hydrogen gas fuel takes us a significant step closer to a cleaner world ... [more]

Contradicting a long-held belief, researchers say the brain is constantly producing new neurons for its learning and memory center ... [more]

Some ecologists are embracing a profound contradiction: poisoning the waters to save the fish ... [more]

A new model for bird flight forecasting could help pilots adjust their flight paths to avoid crowded skies ... [more]

"Use it or lose it" applies as much to the nervous system, as to the muscles ... [more]

Believe it or not, the most abundant greenhouse gas is water vapour ... [more]

Fresh milk may be the fungicide of the future ... [more]

NASA officials knew all along that the odds were slim they'd detect water by slamming a spacecraft into the Moon. Still, they had to try ... [more]

The LZ N07 is not your grandfather's zeppelin ... [more]

Irish coffee may be just the ticket for stroke victims ... [more]

Extinction debts come due long after the damage is done ... [more]

At any given spot along its path, the Aug 11, 1999 total eclipse offered up to 2-1/2 spectacular minutes of total lunar coverage of the sun. But for two NASA researchers, the show's not over. They're just getting started on probing a 50-year-old mystery ... [more]

The future is beginning to look a little brighter for the world's tigers ... [more]

Think of it as an underwater R2D2 ... [more]

The world’s first closed-chest, beating heart bypass surgery was a giant step for mankind, and an equally giant step for machines. That’s because the human surgeons involved took a step back -- behind a computer console -- and let the Zeus Robotic Surgical System get its hands on the patient ... [more]

After more than 200 years of balloon flight, the scientists and engineers of NASA are setting out to teach an old dog some new tricks ... [more]

It took almost all of human history for Earth's human population to reach 1 billion. In the last two centuries, we have reached 6 billion. My, how we've grown ... [more]

Farmed Atlantic salmon are being bred in ever greater numbers. Meanwhile, their wild cousins are disappearing at a staggering rate -- and no-one is quite sure why ... [more]

US chemists have reinvented the leaf, constructing a molecule that mimics the ability of green plants to capture sunlight and use the energy for photosynthesis ... [more]

An extraordinary experiment has produced pictures of a cats'-eye view of the world ... [more]

Following a legend, the Hokule’a -- the re-creation of an ancient Polynesian voyaging canoe -- sailed upwind and found an island that jutted up in the midst of the rising sun ... [more]

Despite plans to demolish the Mir, two cosmonaut crews are in training for a new mission to the abandoned space station ... [more]

The first sea-launch of a commercial satellite heralds a new -- and cheaper -- era in the space business ... [more]

Science's understanding of the evolution and role of hemoglobin is being rewritten, with the help of a common intestinal parasite ... [more]

When the going gets toxic, the hungry get clever -- very quickly ... [more]

The recovery from Mount St. Helens' 1980 eruption has yielded a wealth of new information in volcanology and ecology ... [more]

Ontario police forces are getting soft(ware) on solving crime ... [more]

Contrary to previous analysis, new images from Mars show no evidence of the shorelines of ancient oceans ... [more]

After barely two months in space, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has revealed a brilliant ring around the heart of the Crab Nebula ... [more]

Two new drugs target not just the horrific pain of rheumatoid arthritis, but the disease itself. Unfortunately, they're not quite perfect ... [more]

A method to create cheaper and more efficient gene analysis chips has been developed, using technology from an unlikely source -- digital overhead projectors ... [more]

Oil from a burning bush could smite disease-carrying mosquitoes ... [more]

Blowing your sniffly nose could make your cold worse ... [more]

The latest in plastics technology is biodegradable and infinitely renewable -- and extracted from genetically-modified plants ... [more]

Archaeological finds at a mysterious 2,000-year-old stone circle in Florida indicate widespread trade among the tribes of the area ... [more]

Virtual-reality technology will soon let some diabetics peer inside the human body, helping them learn to manage the effects of the disease ... [more]

When Chinese scientists blew gently into the mouthpiece of a 9,000-year-old bone flute, they produced tones unheard for millennia, yet familiar to the modern ear ... [more]

A "pacemaker" for the larynx allows patients to breathe more easily ... [more]

With the loss of Mars Climate Orbiter, the red planet has claimed another victim. But failure is an inevitable part of space exploration ... [more]

Breast milk produces smarter kids -- but it's nutrition, not bonding, that really does the trick ... [more]

No need to develop a sophisticated brain. To find its way around, all a robot needs is a headful of chemical goo ... [more]

Thanks to the sharp eyes of astronomers in Hawaii, Uranus has gained three new, distant, weirdly-orbitting moons. The discovery makes the oddball planet look a little more normal ... [more]

A team of engineers managed an improbable scientific coup this summer, building a world-class fusion research device with hand-me-downs, leftovers -- and a lot of ingenuity ... [more]

Buckyball shards show promise for more efficient chemical separations ... [more]

Will the continued march of exotic species across the globe result in a "global McEcosystem"? Ecologists are working to predict and control the invaders ... [more]

The Space Shuttle shuffle: not a game for the faint of heart ... [more]

Ever wondered why that old painting hanging in your hallway has gone yellow? Here's why ... [more]

NASA is probing acidic hot springs for tiny signs of life ... [more]

Mirror images can ease phantom limb pain for amputees ... [more]

Everlasting lightbulbs, super-CDs and more precise surgery are in the works -- thanks to a new semiconductor ... [more]

Tracing the tides on Europa ... [more]

Bacteria and fungi chow down on dangerous chemicals in high-tech compost heaps ... [more]

It may be degenerate, but scientists are coaxing ultracool atoms into doing things that are most unnatural ... [more]

All is not equal between the sexes -- at least not on a neurochemical level ... [more]

Cool fuel could help airliners fly safer, cleaner and farther ... [more]

Listen carefully, and you can hear the Earth singing quietly to itself ... [more]

In an exquisite"quantum nondemolition" experiment, physicists have seen a single photon -- and then seen it again ... [more]

Our preference for lean meat is breeding anorexic pigs. But studying their illness could speed up the search for drugs to treat human eating disorders ... [more]

R-100 isn't quite C-3PO, but this new Japanese robo-butler can recognise and respond to its owners. It's even programmed to be cute -- and it talks in its sleep ... [more]

Oil and water don't mix, right? But "near-critical" water can be an ideal reaction solvent for certain chemical processes ... [more]

A new type of pesticide "strangles" insects by preventing them from shedding their shells as they grow ... [more]

A trio of galaxies photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope are courting at a distance, but they will soon merge ... [more]

It has just 78 atoms, took four years to build and has a spindle that takes hours to rotate, but this molecular motor could be the forerunner of a revolution ... [more]

"Excuse me, I've got to take a call from my tomatoes. They're thirsty." Phytomonitoring may prove to be the future of farming ... [more]

Plasma, plasma, everywhere ... NASA unveils a new model of the plasmasphere surrounding our world ... [more]

Electron diffraction microscopy provides a strange but real peek at atomic structures ... [more]

Vaccination without needles? Sounds too good to be true ... [more]

Bugging the bugs: eavesdropping software can help farmers detect the presence of unwanted visitors among crops ... [more]

Archaeologists have found evidence of a huge wooden cousin of Stonehenge ... [more]

Move over, Lucy ... "Madeleine" is adding fuel to the fiery debate over human evolution -- and she may well have had a homo sapiens-like capacity for language ... [more]

Stressed mothers conceive more girls ... [more]

Testing the limits of vocal ingenuity, the throat-singers of Tuva can create sounds unlike anything in ordinary speech or song ... [more]

A tiny space telescope uncovers big secrets ... [more]

Bacteria have been around for 3.5 billion years, so they have learnt the techniques of survival. The discovery of antibiotics 70 years ago was just one more challenge to them -- one they look set to surmount ... [more]

Optical fibre-based radiation detectors will make life tougher for plutonium smugglers -- but easier for doctors ... [more]

Emily has to wear a bike helmet at school, to protect the soft tissue of her skull. She's looking forward to leaving the helmet at home -- and a new bone growth product is bringing that day closer ... [more]

US scientists have found a method of binding carbon dioxide with common minerals -- a development which could help tackle climate change ... [more]

New imaging techniques provide the first detailed wiring diagrams of the human brain ... [more]

Do your jeans wear out too fast? Maybe it's your dryer's fault ... [more]

Hormone therapy may present a novel way to regulate weight gain and loss -- at least in mice ... [more]

Microbes ooze in where humans fear to tread -- a lemon-yellow gel provides safe, low-tech decontamination for defunct nuclear facilities ... [more]

Liquid-filled lungs could soon help seriously ill patients breathe more easily ... [more]

Space is full of surprises. Just ask Julianne Dalcanton, who found a comet when she wasn't even looking for one ... [more]

Now you're cooking! A new device created by an inventor in Cameroon turns water into gas ... [more]

Better be careful -- the dust bunnies are watching you! ... [more]

Cleaning up water contaminated with deadly chemicals is a piece of cake ... [more]

The stuff that puts the nip in catnip is a turnoff for cockroaches ... [more]

Smell is our oldest sense, but it remains the most mysterious ... [more]

A worldwide project to create artificial organs is about to begin constructing its first man-made heart ... [more]

Smelly socks and pongy shirts need no longer lurk in the darkest corners of your bedroom ... [more]

Trachoma -- a leading cause of blindness -- can be controlled by treating entire communities with a simple course of oral antibiotic ... [more]

The final eclipse of the century gave scientists a rare opportunity to study climatic effects ... [more]

Ornithorhynchus anatinus sleeps deeply, lost in ancient platypus dreams ... [more]

Wearable computers are an existential technology, dropping the boundaries between human and machine ... [more]

Microbes work their magic on hazardous air pollutants ... [more]

Forget the millennium bug -- before anyone gets that far, there's the end of the week to deal with ... [more]

It may be possible to spot signs of dyslexia in babies' brainwaves -- but what do we do with the knowledge ... [more]

Sulphur from ships' emissions is keeping the world cool ... [more]

It sounds like science-fiction: a 60-story-high balloon collecting some of the rarest stuff in the Universe -- antimatter -- and, just possibly, evidence that entire anti-galaxies exist. ... [more]

If the Cassini spacecraft was a ping-pong ball, and planetary gravity was an electric fan ... [more]

It may not be warp speed, but plasma propulsion is pretty far out ... [more]

What's that you say, Flipper? The secret of dolphin-speak is hidden in the clicks ... [more]

A planet in a test tube yields hints about planetary circulation ... [more]

A new laser imaging device can help in the early detectection of retinal disease ... [more]

New-born infants' painful experiences don't fade as easily as we would like to think ... [more]

Would you buy a health food full of bacteria from an astronaut's gut? ... [more]

Spacecraft of the future could consume themselves to make extra fuel ... [more]

Low biodiversity can be a good thing ... [more]

Drooping daisies? Flaccid fresias? Try slipping your blossoms a little blue pill ... [more]

Are there enough mammae to go round? Not a question which bothers mole-rats who break the typical mammalian offspring-to-mammary gland ratio ... [more]

Fear minus death equals fun.That's the Disney equation for making NASA a hot property to invest in ... [more]

Space families stick together, travel together and occasionally drift apart. We're not talking about aliens or astronauts but asteroids ... [more]

Pizza afficianados can revel in the development of a perfect mozzarella. Who sez science never invents anything useful?! ... [more]

Why would an eclipse affect a Foucault Pendulum? It's a mystery which may be about to be resolved ... [more]

Listening out for signs of long-term climate change ... [more]

Confusion still reigns regarding as to whether genetically modified cotton is going to beat the bollworm -- further research is indicated ... [more]

Forget about cloudy skies ruining your appreciation of the forthcoming eclipse. Try listening to the audio version instead ... [more]

Faced with a choice between possible mutation and death, the cell under UV's genetic seige chooses to go mutant ... [more]

Wearing sunscreen is no excuse for baking yourself ... [more]

It may be a while before a mechanical Pele emerges, but the Robot World Cup has classy play all of its own ... [more]

What? Wha...? Waddya say? The music's too loud?? Naaah -- waddya mean my hearing's bad?? ... [more]

Just as well that nearby supernova was five million years ago and only wiped out a bunch of plankton and marine life -- imagine what it could do today ... [more]

Who needs the latest fashion from Milan when you could have a bikini with built-in audio or a skisuit with a collision alarm? ... [more]

Black rain and a sea of liquid methane -- not a holiday spot by any means, but one which could tell us about how early life began ... [more]

Infidelity, cuckoldry, cheating and divorce is on the rise -- and that's just in the animal kingdom! ... [more]

Doctor Doolittle had it easy -- he should have tried talking to computers if he wanted a real challenge ... [more]

Sperm competition shows that you're better off being a Johnny-come-lately ... [more]

Hey you ageing couch potatoes out there -- do your brain a good turn and get off the sofa and onto the streets ... [more]

Electromagnetic radiation rots your brain and kills your children. After years of these claims, it appears that the original crucial data was faked ... [more]

Look me in the eye and tell me you're not too tired to drive ... [more]

"Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker", as the phrase goes, but it may not be only the woman on the receiving end of such tactics ... [more]

You don't want to encounter a Torino event of magnitude seven, not unless you're on another planet altogether ... [more]

Don't let your lizards eat fireflies ... [more]

Researchers take further steps to understand animal magnetism ... [more]

What can a 25,000-year-old child tell us about our roots? ... [more]

Give us your old PCs, your dispossessed, and we will build a glowing future, or at least a supercomputer worthy of the name ... [more]

A "braking glitch" may point to a massive starquake, signalling a major change on a neutron star ... [more]

Stuart Hoenig has a dream - and it starts with worn-out tyres ... [more]

Boys like it hot ... [more]

Researchers have now managed to measure a photon repeatedly without destroying it, enabling them to study an individual quantum object with a new level of non-invasiveness ... [more]

Specially-treated immune system cells could prove a powerful new weapon against cancers and chronic viral infections ... [more]

Tiny molecular computers have just come a big step closer ... [more]

Love may make the world go 'round, but hormones lend a helping hand ... [more]

Lions from the Colosseum still have their uses ... [more]

Coral reef bleaching is a worry, but it may not be the coral that's under stress but its symbiotic algae that provides colour and food ... [more]

The remains of supernovae rest underneath our oceans ... [more]

A planetary wobble nine millennia ago set the course for how human civilisation developed ... [more]

See Kismet. See Kismet play. Play, Kismet, play. Gooood robot ... [more]

A circle of waterlogged wooden posts on a beach in England holds the secrets of a 4,000-year-old culture ... [more]

Did the ancients build monumental structures as fortifications or fair sites, or just because they could? ... [more]

A collision 35 million years ago explains why some Chesapeake Bay groundwater is still salty ... [more]

Darwin would be horrified to see hitchhiking frogs making their way to the Galapagos ... [more]

Understanding what makes traffic stop and start means more than just blaming the idiot in front with his foot jammed on the brake ... [more]

Our natural daily rhythm is much closer to that of other living things than previously believed, and is the same for young and old ... [more]

Do antibiotic-resistant bacteria from food animals pose a threat to humans? ... [more]

It sounds like something out of Little Shop of Horrors -- a plant that is five feet tall and stinks of carrion. It's only the tenth one to flower in the US this century, and botanists await its blooming eagerly ... [more]

The good, the bad and the ugly of genetically modified food ... [more]

Bacteria may have learned how to crystallise their own genetic information ... [more]

It's bad enough when the weather changes quickly, but what do you do when the climate changes quickly? ... [more]

Infertility can be transmitted from father to son ... [more]

Explore your creatively imaginative right brain lobe. If you're still into the pop psychology of left brain-right brain separation, you should know that things are not that simple ... [more]

Yet more evidence that galaxies are being gobbled by by central black holes ... [more]

What is a conscientious green investor to do with their millions? ... [more]

Almost 1,000 kilometres of trees will mark out Le Meridien -- that's the French Prime Meridian ... [more]

It is natural for a woman to be unfaithful in order to secure both the best genes and the best carer for her children -- the two are not necessarily synonymous ... [more]

If you think video games do strange things to the brain, you're right -- and it could just be the key to helping epilepsy ... [more]

And Cassini's rounded Venus for the second time, look at that spacecraft go ... [more]

Here's a great opening line for a party conversation: "So what's your favourite brain lobe?" ... [more]

Don't fly those ever-warming skies -- jet contrails are set to become a significant contributor to global warming ... [more]

Who said coffee was bad for you? Caffiene-laced mice survive lethal doses of radiation ... [more]

White sharks are picky eaters -- they won't chomp on just any old surfer ... [more]

Are kids really learning more stuff with computers in the classroom or are the machines just another technological panacea? ... [more]

Does lightning like testosterone or do more men play golf in storms? Whatever the cause, they're four times more likely than women to get zapped ... [more]

Remember Cordwainer Smith's stories of laminated mouse brains controlling interplanetary spaceships -- we're finally on our way ... [more]

The odds of being able to reset our biological clocks are getting better and better ... [more]

Stop worrying about dangerous computer viruses -- it's the delete functions you need to watch! ... [more]

There's a chance that a new form of bandage will be a bit more proactive than simply trying to stem the crimson tide ... [more]

Just six diseases account for 90% of all the deaths from infectious disease, and they are getting more and more out of control ... [more]

Japanese wives take to chemically checking up on their husbands' fidelity ... [more]

That moment of antici...pation can be worse than the real thing where pain is involved ... [more]

It lives again -- 250 million years since it stalked the Earth ... [more]

Genetically based vaccines could have all the positive effects of existing vaccines, while avoiding the risks ... [more]

Yes, we have a banana -- a 500-year-old one, chucked into a pond by someone in Tudor England! ... [more]

Seeing things in black and white can be bad for your health (and we're not talking about television) ... [more]

There's a sooty cloud spread over 10 million square kilometres of the Indian Ocean ... [more]

If organic molecules from space had something to do with life here, that means they were -- and always are -- available to help with the development of life elsewhere ... [more]

Is innovation a solely human trait? Naaaahh ... [more]

The Trifid is a galactic murderer that's rocking sits right next to a stellar cradle ... [more]

Is citing Cleopatra as a proponent of magnetic health a good-enough reason to believe in the claimed healing powers of magnets? ... [more]

Who wants buffaloes -- bring back the pachyderms which once roved the plains of North America ... [more]

It was a dark and stormy night -- it was a dark and stormy night. Now you're lucky if it gets beyond pseudo-twilight in light-polluted areas, frustrating astronomers, authors and anthropologists alike ... [more]

Helicopters the size of insects spread out to explore Mars -- well, one day they might ... [more]

There are probably more individual animals of endangered turtle species being killed for food every day in one Chinese live food market than could be conserved in a lifetime ... [more]

Which will kill more butterflies -- Bt transgenic corn or cars? ... [more]

Icy Smash to End Lunar Mission!!! ... [more]

Is hanging on to the smallpox virus a matter of keeping a mediaeval Apocalypse on ice? ... [more]

Does everyone really know everyone else? Maths can reveal a lot about the society pages (or the publisher of them) ... [more]

This space open for business -- outer space that is. Book me a ticket on a reusable rocket so I can get to work ... [more]

Thoughts are to brains as steam is to what? Careful, your whitegrey matter may be showing you up ... [more]

There's a Law of Conservation of Forests -- put First World forests off-limits, and the Third World forests in the tropics will suffer as a result ... [more]

Are new weather technologies really going to take the guesswork out of what tomorrow's going to be like? ... [more]

Watch out for the white powder -- cocaine may blow your heart as well as your mind ... [more]

If you have a heart attack in the US, boost your survival odds and get to a high-volume hospital ... [more]

Watch out -- those CIA agents can tell when you're lying ... [more]

Move over George Jetson here's a flying car that'll take you off the road and intoor out of the sky ... [more]

Is there life in Siberia? Space scientists are investigating with a view to gearing up for checking out Mars ... [more]

When you need a new spacesuit design who better to do it than a Hollywood costume designer experienced in developing temperature-controlled suits for heavy wardrobe work ... [more]

Mobius makes an appearance in the playground, giving climbing children a whole new perspective ... [more]

There's gamma ray in them thar clouds -- more to thunderstorms than meets the eye ... [more]

If you're driving round the UK and see a dead hare on the road, please scrape it up and bag it. Bristol University researchers will collect it --my, the things we do for science ... [more]

Sure beaming radio messages out into space in the hopes that something will one day hear them may be futile, but it's grandly futile ... [more]

Getting a toehold on land was no easy thing, and finding out about it has proven almost as difficult ... [more]

What do you do when tempers flare and you can't go outside to cool off because you're in space? ... [more]

Is it your sixth sense that tells you that that person is really attracted to you ... [more]

Fly the noisy skies -- don't worry about crashing, worry about what that engine noise is doing to your ears ... [more]

Who needs Prozac when a placebo can help? But the really odd thing is that the placebo seems to produce the oppopsite brain response to the drug, even though both are lifting depression ... [more]

Something else to blame television for -- Fijians see a rise in eating disorders following a diet of Melrose Place and Seinfeld ... [more]

Cows could hold the answer to the madness of King George III ... [more]

Why does a mouse go in a house and what does it do when it gets there? ... [more]

Can using cellphones fry the brain? Apparently not ... [more]

If we share 98.5% of our genes with chimpanzees, which genes make us human? ... [more]

It may be hard to bring back the dinosaurs, but the Tasmanian tiger has a reasonably good chance of being resurrected ... [more]

Some spiders spin a web of cooperation that make ants look disorganised ... [more]

Save the endangered ground squirrel -- burn down the forests! ... [more]

Live to see in the 22nd Century and you may even see in the 23rd. Here's hoping ... [more]

And you thought people were the only creatures to have life assurance. Male moths provide their mates with lifelong protection against spiders ... [more]

Tracking lizards by the tip of their tails ... [more]

Did elephants' trunks originally develop as snorkels? ... [more]

It looks like we've found a genetic master switch that controls bacterial infection ... [more]

It's amazing what a bit of lawn and a couple of trees can do for housing project morale and safety ... [more]

Ever been stuck on hold with a computer generated version of Fur Elise? No, music does not always have charms to sooth the savage breast ... [more]

Don't use words like "probably", "likely" or "small chance" when talking about risks, particularly to children, as you may end up with wildly differing ideas about the possibility of danger ... [more]

Astronomy video enchancement techniques find a more down-to-earth use at crime scenes ... [more]

And you thought HAL was something to worry about?! He was really just trying to make everyone feel better, and your computer could be next. ... [more]

Get those baby photos before Junior is born, and all in living 3D ... [more]

Seeing is believing where the development of an artificial retina is concerned ... [more]

Where should that first lunar subdivision go in? It's all a matter of location, location, location. ... [more]

Is rapid eye movement about your eye plumbing or your brain function? ... [more]

There are good reasons for the biological analogies in the computer virus world ... [more]

Don't wash that oily bird -- dry-clean it with iron filings and a magnet! ... [more]

Forget those graceful creatures dining off the treetops in Jurassic Park -- long-necked dinosaurs were more like cows than giraffes ... [more]

Magnetic stripes on Mars suggest the Red Planet once had plate tectonic movement like Earth, but the dynamo has since died ... [more]

Speech can be distorted to apparently gibberish and still be understood ... [more]

Samoa is a hot island chain -- no, not a new tourism campaign, but the discovery of a large active undersea volcano ... [more]

The latest in landmine-detecting equipment -- bees! ... [more]

The Hominid family tree shows evidence that the human branch has been severely pruned back at times, and there's lot more variation in our hairier cousins than once thought ... [more]

Shocking bra designed for heart patients ... [more]

Dyslexics rule, KO! Maybe we can knock the problem out if a new idea regarding the development and progress of dyslexia proves correct ... [more]

Did you know "gullibility" isn't in the Oxford English Dictionary? If you believe that, you need to read about the psychology of what makes us gullible ... [more]

Almost 3 million square miles of lava show where a massive explosion split super-continent Pangea apart 200 million years ago ... [more]

Follow that spot! A simple laser pointer spot seems to unlock the freeze response of some Parkinson patients ... [more]

Empirical research reveals something we have all suspected -- political pundits who are wrong in their predictions retain nearly as much confidence in the fundamental soundness of their judgments as those who were actually right, and are rarely shaken by disproof ... [more]

Two Worlds, One Sun -- a new motto for an old time-telling technique as a sundial is set to head for Mars ... [more]

Riding the big wave in tsunami research ... [more]

It's official -- early humans and Neanderthals did interbreed ... [more]

You want an all-dancing, all-seeing telescope that will give you infrared and radio and visual and x-ray vision? Well, Nature says you can't have it, but coordinate your vision and you can get a better idea of what the universe is up to ... [more]

Ask not what computer models can do for social science, but what social science can do for computer modelling ... [more]

The thought of cooperative tyrannosaurs sends shivers up the spine, and the hunt for evidence is on ... [more]

Bacterial behemoths. Take a look at these bacteria -- you won't need a microscope because they are big, very BIG ... [more]

Discovery of three planets circling round another star suggests that planetary formation may be easier than we thought ... [more]

Halos shed a light on dolphin mysteries. They may not be as fast as we thought, but they definitely do strange things to the water around them ... [more]

Ever had that traumatic experience when your helium-filled balloon whooshed up into the sky never to be seen again? NASA scientists weren't worried but ecstatic about their balloon heading into the wild blue yonder in search of meteoroids ... [more]

And in the left corner is the middleweight black hole, weighing in at 100 to 10,000 solar masses, a newcomer to the ring! ... [more]

Phantom taste and smell can be as agonising -- and as puzzling -- as pain from a phantom limb ... [more]

Is your dog suffering from separation anxiety? Why bother taking it for a walk when you can dose it with drugs to be happy ... [more]

Get used to your appliances doing the thinking for you, when your fridge starts talking to the local supermarket about what you have -- and haven't -- got to eat ... [more]

Why have a fishing village 50 miles from the sea that supplies it? It wasn't the village that moved, but the sea which shrunk, and it doesn't look like it'll be coming back ... [more]

Let's set sail for the sails or whip over to Mars (literally!) ... [more]

Cross a newt with a small lizard and you get a missing link between the amphibians and the reptiles ... [more]

"Houston, this is the mother ship. And over there is the daddy ship, and spreading out all over the galaxy are the baby ships." Applying Darwinian selection to spacecraft design could result in a new form of engineering evolving. ... [more]

Take a 20-foot metal pole and drop it on your house. See it crunch through the roofs and walls. Sounds like fun? It's serious business to engineers developing tornado "safe rooms" ... [more]

On a clear night, you can see forever, or can you? ... [more]

How to predict the switch from standing ovation to riotous rampage, whether fish or human ... [more]

Red sprites shooting above the thunderstorms are not gremlins and fiffinellas after all, but energy discharges ... [more]

A teenager is being interviewed for a summer job. "You'll get 50 dollars a week to start off", says his boss. "Then after a month you'll get a raise to 75 dollars a week." If you chose the slapstick punchline, it could be a sign of brain-damage ... [more]

Martina Hingis isn't just a good tennis player, she can see into the future. That explains how humans can respond to objects that are travelling too fast for the eye to tell the brain they're there ... [more]

And you thought that it would be a wasted effort to study why some insignificant marine bacteria glow. Shame on you. These wee critturs could light the way to a whole new approach to antibiotics ... [more]

Move over Tiddles, robotic cats are set to curl up on elderly laps and purr sweet nothings into geriatric ears: "Today is the karaoke party, let's sing a lot" ... [more]

And the long-range forecast for this spring is minus 300 degrees, with bright cloud cover, massive storms and watch out for wobbles in the rings ... [more]

It may not be Versace, but clothing with built-in pesticide detoxifiers are making more than a fashion statement ... [more]

Here's a cheery thought -- measles and mumps may be cousins to HIV and Ebola viruses, according to new structural work on viral harpoons ... [more]

Disrupting an ecosystem may be easier than we think -- you gotta keep an eye on the little things ... [more]

Superior workmanship but inferior preservation may be a clue that the shrunken head you have is fake ... [more]

Spider Poison Saves Brain Damage! Not a tabloid headline, honest, but a real possibility. ... [more]

Smell that tang in the air of ozone and thunderstorms? If Atlanta's anything to go by, your city could be making its own nasty weather ... [more]

Men don't have bigger brains than women for higher cognitive functioning -- all that visuospatial skill is just so they can wander off and find a mate ... [more]

The Universe is too fat for everything to have come out of the tiny space of the Big Bang ... [more]

H.G. Wells saw off his pesky Martians with the help of minute, invisible bacteria, but it looks like they may have had nanobacteria all along ... [more]

Under our feet is a giant double-boiler transferring heat from the depths of the planet ... [more]

Will being able to spot hot spots prior to a volcanic eruption save lives or cause unecessary panic? The answer's probably both ... [more]

The Moon was from the Earth untimely ripped ... [more]

Flatworms may hold the clue to finding out how we ended up being bilateral animals instead of circular ones ... [more]

Subtle is the beauty of the desert and even subtler are some of the ways we are inadvertently destroying that beauty ... [more]

In a sarcophagus of stone and a coffin of lead, an important corpse was laid to rest 1800 years ago -- who said the class system is a new invention? ... [more]

Canada's really big crop circles may be the result of natural energy flows. No, it's not more New Age silliness ... [more]

It's splash-up as well as splash-down for a new ocean-launched rocket system ... [more]

A natural infrared propulsion system may explain where near-Earth asteroids come from ... [more]

You really gotta see this sucker --lots of suckers, and they're glowing ... [more]

Why make rats race round a maze when you could watch snakes slither around in the name of curing brain injuries ... [more]

Spotting shears in the Sun's magnetic fields can tell us when the thing is ready to explode ... [more]

Pass me another brain, Igor, and a liver, and a heart too. Neo-organs are getting nearer ... [more]

The rainforests of the oceans are dying and in dire straits, but if we can use electricity to suck stone out of water, they may have a brighter future ... [more]

Max Headroom is here as computer-assisted reporting moves from geekdom to the newsroom ... [more]

We always knew getting a tie to look right was a complex topological problem involving higher mathematical ability, now it's been proven ... [more]

There's iron in them thar hills, and that could mean a power-rich Mars for early explorers ... [more]

Throwing an undersized fish back only to see it float listlessly on the surface is a deflating experience. Now science has helped out with a fish deflator that gives the fish a chance to swim back to the deep ... [more]

Would you trust a space vehicle described as a "traffic cone with helicopter blades"? ... [more]

As Bill Clinton might say, volunteer, but not too much ... [more]

Squinting at the Sun may get easier with the Next Generation Space Telescope ... [more]

It's official -- if the quality of parenting at home is good, having a working mother won't harm the children ... [more]

Australian wildlife just got wierder with the discovery that one of the country's marsupials can breathe through its skin ... [more]

And what teeth would you like us to grow for you today? ... [more]

Maybe Italians just have a better grasp on the origins of language, if gesticulating really did form the basis of the way we speak ... [more]

Is the hearing world able to listen to what the deaf want in the ongoing debate about the use of cochlear implants and biotech answers? ... [more]

Could humpback whales be singing gramatically? Information theory may give us a chance to figure out what they're saying ... [more]

The solar maximum is coming up so button down the hatches, buy a gas heater and chuck away your cellphone ... [more]

Should couch potatoes be worried that lazy mice grower fewer new brain cells, or is this something we've known all along ... [more]

Travelling at the speed of light takes on a whole new meaning as the fastest thing in the universe is slowed to a crawling 38 miles per hour ... [more]

Venereal studies (OK, so it should be Venusian) hold the key for the future of Earth, as scientists peer through the coverings of a maidenly planet ... [more]

It's not often you find a scientifically based organization making recommendations from unpublished results, but the US National Cancer Institute has done just that in the hopes of helping cervical cancer patients ... [more]

The history of halitosis, or why politicians and lawyers tend to have bad breath ... [more]

Whereas the familiar consequences of global warming will simply force expensive but gradual adjustments, the abrupt cooling promoted by man-made warming looks like a particularly efficient means of committing mass suicide ... [more]

Meaning is tied into sound at six months as those important babblings start us on the way to figuring out how to produce comprehensible language ... [more]

Food manufacturers and retailers could mislead customers if they claim that their highly processed products are 100% free of genetically modified ingredients, as there is no way to check if they are or not ... [more]

We haven't just been talking about the weather for the past 10,000 years, we've been making cultural changes because of it ... [more]

When is a drug not a drug? When it's a natural health supplement ... [more]

Did Neanderthals talk or not -- two studies, similar findings, two views ... [more]

Cutting down on cabling for oil hunts means cutting down on environmental impacts too ... [more]

Make way Magellan -- women are the true global explorers, genetically speaking, it just takes them a little more time ... [more]

New research into bacterial fossilization produces results that look remarkably similar to the suggested Martian bacterial remains ... [more]

The world's most sophisticated imaging system has a surprising amount of randomness in it, yet still works brilliantly ... [more]