ESR Forensics boss Dr Keith Bedford has had oversight of the forensic evidence in virtually every high-profile court case in New Zealand in recent decades.

Being almost too exhausted to write this very article about tiredness is painfully ironic, writes new dad Jamie Morton.

The Earth's climate does change, and over the past 4.5 billion years it has naturally fluctuated between being very cold and covered in ice, to very hot and dry.

The shedding of emotional tears is unique to humans, but our evolutionary, psychological and biological reasons for "crying it out" remain a mystery.

COMMENT: The internet contains a vast store of information which is much bigger than any individual brain can carry - and that's not always a good thing.

COMMENT: Our current system already proves an essential point: robots must be able to disobey in order to obey, writes Matthias Scheutz.

London's first timber skyscraper could be a step closer to reality after researchers presented Mayor of London Boris Johnson with conceptual plans.

COMMENT: Any move to reduce the impact of poor quality science and base our decisions on genuine, peer-reviewed information is a positive one for NZ.

New findings could explain why failures in the control of bed bug infestations are so common.

A team of Kiwi researchers have won funding to help tackle a mysterious protein that conspires against treatment for some forms of cancer.

COMMENT: We believe that random funding is a fair and transparent way to choose between equally qualified applicants, writes Kath McPherson.

An Internet investor has enlisted famed physicist Stephen Hawking to help him with a futuristic plan for seeking life in outer space. (April 12)

Popular geologist and palaeontologist Hamish Campbell has co-written two of the definitive books on how New Zealand was formed.

With no cause and no cure, autism remains one of the most mind-bogglingly complex disorders for researchers to tackle.

Dr Javier Virues-Ortega, director of the university's applied behaviour analysis programme, believes the project will be a pioneering effort to bring together behavioural and neuro-imaging experts to seek out any links or improvements therapies may have had on brain connectivity.

Up to $250,000 worth of scientific equipment might have just been lost with a pair of massive ice bergs which have broken off the Antarctic coastline.

The catastrophic eruption that wiped out the famed Pink and White Terraces may have been triggered by a build-up of magma beneath Lake Rotomahana.

An interactive therapeutic robot, the Food and Drug Administration have categorised them as a class II medical device.

Why is it that by the time millions of us are adults, we are subsisting on diets full of saturated fats and processed sugars?

WATCH: They don't look like much, but these tiny trap-jaw spiders found only in NZ and southern South America are the Beauden Barretts of the arachnid world.

It would take six to eight months' travel by rocket, if the planet is lined up with Earth in the right way.

Here is a list of substances that are more poisonous than their LD50 values might indicate.

Last year, in a lab in Japan, a mouse grew hair.

Scared of looking down more than you used to be?

A breakthrough development in growing skin in labs could mean a lifetime with a full head of hair.

Food is actually an engineered structure, consisting of water, proteins, carbohydrates and fats that each undergo a series of changes during mixing, whipping and cooking.

US researchers have confirmed a strange link between touching rough surfaces and feeling for others, which could help charities raise more money.

Visitors to an upcoming Mars exhibit at Nasa's Kennedy Space Center will be able to explore several sites on the red planet, reconstructed using real imagery from Nasa's Curiosity Mars Rover.

Is your morning routine feeling like more of a battle lately?