Landmark roadmap sets climate change course for 2015
After two and a half days of round-the-clock discussions at the end of COP17, global leaders have finally agreed on a course to fight climate change.
Richard Ingham
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Aids: A tale of tragedy and hope
On June 5 1981 epidemiologists reported a baffling event: five young gay men in Los Angeles, all previously healthy, had fallen ill with pneumonia.
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‘The world is free of rinderpest’
World farm monitors on Wednesday declared that a cattle-killing virus that has been a curse through the ages has been wiped out.
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Lattice to replace chips in computers to come
For more than half a century, computers have been obeying "Moore’s Law," a principle named after Gordon Moore, the co-founder of chip maker Intel.
Call for ICC to probe ‘Zanu-PF rape campaign’
The ICC must probe allegations that Robert Mugabe’s youth militia launched a campaign of rape during 2008 elections, a campaign group has said.
Gel breakthrough lifts mood at Aids conference
A breakthrough test of a vaginal gel to protect women against HIV unleashed a wave of optimism at the world Aids conference on Tuesday.
Football’s just a game … isn’t it?
The World Cup’s message is this: football is a vehicle of harmony, uniting nations under the banner of sport. What if the truth were not so pretty?.
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Walkout heightens failure fears over climate summit
The UN climate summit hit major turbulence on Monday when developing nations walked out of key negotiations and China accused the West of trickery.
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Crunch climate talks enter second week
The marathon United Nations climate summit entered its second week on Monday as environment ministers readied closed-door meetings.
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Haggling begins at UN climate talks
Negotiators at the UN climate talks in Copenhagen got down to the nitty-gritty on Tuesday.
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Hangover? Take two eels and call me in the morning
Whatever the language and wherever it takes place, a hangover is the same: headache, nausea, shaking, blurred vision, biliousness and dry mouth.
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Chewing the fat: Theories on obesity pandemic
Fatty hamburgers, sugar-laden sodas and a couch-potato lifestyle: these are the familiar villains in the crisis of obesity sweeping developed countries. But what if they had been convicted without fair trial? What if the global fat explosion had other causes?
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Fore play in space leaves scientists unamused
A publicity stunt in which a golf ball will be whacked into orbit from the International Space Station has met a chilly reception from scientists, who say the scheme is risky and adds to the growing problem of space junk. Russian cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov is to take on the role of a celestial Tiger Woods under a deal between a Canadian golf club manufacturer and the cash-strapped Russian Space Agency.
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You too can probe the mystery of the universe
Fed up with the daily grind? Eager for something different? A little glory, perhaps? Well, how about helping a quest to understand the life and death of stars? And how about the reward of making your name immortal? Scientists are looking for people with keen eyesight, lots of patience and spare time on their home computer to help them sift through the results from an extraordinary space mission.
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How Rasputin the Rat astounded scientists
For nearly five months, he led his pursuers a merry dance, swimming nearly half a kilometre across open sea to a new home, laughing at the traps and the poisoned baits and the baying hounds bent on killing him. When the annals of rodentology are written — as they surely must — this rat deserves an honoured place.
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Elusive giant squid caught on film at last
Japanese zoologists have made the first recording of a live giant squid, one of the strangest and most elusive creatures in the world. The size of a bus, with vast eyes and a querulous beak, <i>Architeuthis dux</i> has long nourished myth and literature, and until now, the only evidence of giant squids was extraordinarily rare.
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High-tech European probe reaches moon
Europe’s first mission to the moon, the unmanned exploratory probe <i>Smart-1</i>, has been safely placed in lunar orbit after a voyage of more than 13 months, the European Space Agency announced on Tuesday. <i>Smart-1</i>, a tiny test-bed of revolutionary technology, was successfully captured by the moon’s gravity on Monday.