The rapidly-spreading virus has been declared a global health emergency in an effort to fast-track international action and research priorities.

The WHO says two experimental vaccines could lead to trials being done in West Africa in January, while another flu drug is being tested as well.

The winning research offers a new way of studying cells and disease processes by allowing researchers to see individual molecules inside living cells.

The arrival of such lamps changes the way places are lit, offering longer-lasting and more efficient alternatives to 19th-century incandescent bulbs.

The new bird flu strain that has killed 36 people has proved resistant to Tamiflu for the first time, a development scientists find "concerning".

The World Economic Forum has warned anger with inequality -- evident from the Occupy movement to the Arab Spring -- risks setting back globalisation.

Astronomers have spotted an exotic planet that seems to be made of diamond racing around a tiny star in our galactic backyard.

The clinical trials business has gone global as drugmakers seek cheaper venues for studies and cast their net for pools of "treatment-naive" patients.

A US-Italian scientist is tantalisingly close to delivering the world's first malaria vaccine.

Francis Collins, who helped map the human genome, did not get around to having his own genes analysed until last summer. And he was surprised.

President Jacob Zuma said on Friday the mandate of the South African Reserve Bank needs debate.