A look into how some of New Zealand's biggest volcanoes erupted hundreds of years ago could help predict lava flows for future eruptions.

From the steaming banks of Lake Rotomahana, watching a man hanging off the side of a boat and dropping a strange yellow object into the water may seem an odd sight.

Scientists have uncovered an infectious giant virus that had been entombed in Siberian permafrost for 30,000 years.

The pillars that form Stonehenge may have been chosen because they were like sacred "prehistoric glockenspiels", according to researchers.

There's no signpost to say you're nearing New Zealand's subantarctic islands, but a welcome that's a little more dramatic.

Ears and noses could be grown in a laboratory and transplanted into humans using a technique developed by British scientists.

A future where our elderly have faithful robot servants to look after them might be closer than we think, with the Govt offering researchers new cash to push the concept forward.

A gem found on a sheep ranch in Australia has been found to have formed 4.4 billion years ago - making it the oldest piece of our planet ever recorded.

The impact of volcanic eruptions on global warming could provide a new explanation for the so-called “pause” used by sceptics to deny climate change, scientists say.

How do you stop truckloads of unsaleable food from going to the dump - and turn it into something useful? Put a few thousand piggies in the middle.

There's been plenty of news lately about sinkholes. What exactly are they - and why do so many seem to be opening up around the Earth?

One day in the 1980s, a scientist took a bizarre phone call about a sheep in Canterbury that couldn't stop having triplets.

Most couples will testify that their sex life plummets on the birth of a new baby, with new mothers often worrying that they are no longer attractive

Using advances in genetic science, a small research team are testing whether it is possible to make an evolutionary loophole work to the advantage of pest control.

They call him 007 because he gets the job done - and for this feathered little thinker, doing so was quite the task.

Crisis shows the value of taking a scientific approach to agriculture.

Scientists have finally come up with an explanation for a visual illusion that was first identified in the 16th century by Galileo Galilei.

Mark Orams will research mammals on the Blake expedition to the Auckland Islands.

In his last months, Sir Peter Blake spoke of something alarming happening in his familiar Southern Ocean.

This week we profile five of the expedition's members, starting with Shelley Campbell, CEO of the Sir Peter Blake Trust.

The final portion has been raised to build oceanographer Jacques Rougerie's gigantic, solar-powered, floating aquatic observation vessel.

"Bionic man is not far away". That's the assessment of World Anti-Doping Agency director-general David Howman as his organisation.

'Wow, this guy's a whopper,' said experts of a 1.5m monster jellyfish that washed up on a Hobart beach last month. So what does its sting feel like?

Research by an Otago University geology student has uncovered a strange pre-Ice Age world where primitive porpoises and baleen whales roamed the North Pacific alongside comparatively modern marine mammals.

If your body was laid bare to the alien environment of Mars, the vacuum of space would boil every fluid in it, then freeze-dry your remains.

The flight of the bumblebee - once thought to be aerodynamically impossible - has proven to be even more scientifically astounding than previously believed.

Tony Abbott's administration has been accused of being the most conservation-hostile in living memory.