A new study has put even more genetic distance between the extinct moa and their old bush mates, the kiwi, but found similarities with a South American bird.

A research breakthrough could net our economy $125 million each year by combining cutting-edge technology with something New Zealand famously has in abundance - sheep.

Call it the Cretaceous cold case. For years scientists were puzzled by bones found in a Canterbury river in 1982. Which sea monster did they belong to?

Hollywood director James Cameron is among those lamenting the loss of a robotic research submarine which imploded in the Kermadec Trench.

How do you load a plane quicker? New research suggests a lengthy airport gate queues could be slashed by seating passengers according to their hand luggage.

Researchers in Germany have developed a way of enabling sleepers to control their dreams by applying electric current to the brain which prompts lucid dreams, involving a state of heightened awareness.

Polar bears may hold the answer to the obesity crisis in their genes, new research has shown.

A survey off the North Island's East Coast has uncovered a huge hidden network of frozen methane and methane gas.

Kiwi scientists have been left unconvinced by a new US study suggesting the pest didymo is not a recently-introduced foreign invader, but the result of native species responding to environmental change.

Scientists say it’s common for people to see non-existent features because human brains are uniquely wired to recognise faces, so that even when there’s only a slight suggestion of facial features the brain automatically interprets it as a face.

A new study has added further evidence to the theory that we can’t help seeing faces in random data: we’re hard-wired to recognise human faces.

In a Canvas exclusive, Eleanor Catton talks to Professor Jim Al-Khalili about physics, life, the universe and everything.

Just how did the ancient Egyptians shift stones weighing as much as 2.5-tonnes with technology no more complex than a sledge?

Dr Jim Sprott, crusading forensic scientist and controversial cot-death and road safety campaigner, has died in Auckland, aged 89.

One of the scientists designing the testing regime for synthetic drugs says trialling novel drugs on humans without testing them on animals first is likely to be considered unethical in NZ.

Tom Pringle has accidentally set his head alight, had a potato cannon explode in his hands and dyed his tongue blue with a mouthful of nasty chemicals.

Stephen Hawking explains why he believes Artificial-intelligence could be the worst thing the human race does to itself - and the last thing it does too.

A Kiwi researcher has helped advance one of science's most intriguing concepts - using our DNA to reveal where we came from.

The damaged hearts of laboratory monkeys have been repaired successfully for the first time with human stem cells.

No one had known just what kind of weapon lay hidden off the coast of the South Island. Behind the unlikely facade of a harmless sea sponge lurked a fearsome cocktail of chemicals that had evolved over billions of years.

Scientists have modelled the effects of the strike of a giant asteroid, writes Akshat Rathi. The effects were so catastrophic that, along with the large earthquakes and tsunamis it created, this asteroid may have also set continents into motion.

A scientist is stepping back in time to solve the mystery behind a dramatic drop in the world's most threatened species of sea lion.

It was a bizarre phenomenon that troubled researchers for decades – a mysterious under sea 'quacking' heard every winter and spring in the depths of the Southern Ocean.

Graphene's reputation as a miracle material is well established but scientists have added another attribute to the carbon-derivative's Top Trumps card: you can make it using a kitchen blender.