A gene linked to obesity which makes ice cream and sugary foods tastier for girls has been discovered by scientists.

Dame Anne Salmond has become the first social scientist to win the country's highest science and technology honour.

Distinguished Professor Dame Anne Salmond, the current New Zealander of the Year, has been awarded the country's highest science and technology honour.

Kiwi researchers will play a star role in one of the biggest and boldest scientific projects in history - the construction of the world's largest radio telescope.

It's common knowledge that Australia gets too many of our best brains and skilled workers - but are we getting their wind-borne bugs?

Astronomers call it the monster. It was the biggest and brightest cosmic explosion ever witnessed. Had it been closer, Earth would have been toast.

Last week, microbiologist Dr Siouxsie Wiles won the Prime Minister's Science Media Communication Prize.

It's been one of the mildest flu seasons in 20 years, but the young, elderly and Pacific Island and Maori people are still at serious risk from the flu.

Drug-resistant "superbugs" represent one of the gravest threats in the history of medicine, leading experts warn.

Scientists have discovered possibly the earliest signs of life on Earth - remains of bacteria that are almost three-and-a-half billion years old - in a remote region of northwest Australia.

For years, scientists have been dogged by this evolution question: Just where did man's best friend first appear?

They call him Blinky - a tiny freshwater crab fished out of the Hoteo River on the Kaipara Coast that's made a splash around the world this week, thanks to its three eyes.

New electronic signs will alert trampers on the Tongariro Alpine Crossing to increased risk of volcanic eruption. Lights on the signs

Two University of Auckland professors whose technology stands to change the world have won this year's Prime Minister's Science Prize.

Scientists studying North Island robins, bowel bacteria and condensed matter physics are among the winners of prestigious research fellowships announced this morning.

The European Space Agency says its GOCE research satellite will crash to Earth on Sunday night or during the day on Monday, but debris is unlikely to cause any casualties.

The study of blood-splatter patterns, made famous by popular TV crime shows CSI and Dexter, is being looked at by NZ researchers.

The Curse of Mars also applies to Asian countries, writes Gwynne Dyer. About two-thirds of the attempted missions to Mars have failed, many of them even before leaving Earth's orbit.

The Milky Way galaxy is teeming with Earth-like planets that are not too hot and not too cold for liquid water to exist at their surface - and so be capable of supporting life.

Forget all that creaking and groaning of stressed metal as the pressure of millions of tonnes of water comes to bear. That's pure Hollywood. It's actually dead quiet.

A joint Japanese/New Zealand survey of the Kermadec Trench has returned with shots of the weird and wonderful life deep beneath the sea off New Zealand. Photos / Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology

They are novel DNA-changing techniques that blur the lines around what is and what isn't genetic engineering.

In the last of a three-part series, Young New Zealander of the Year and CEO of the Sustainable Coastlines Charitable Trust ,Sam Judd, discusses the United Nations Environment Programs’ Global Partnership on Marine Litter.

For decades, scientists have observed how giant ice streams have flowed out of West Antarctica, eventually feeding the frozen continent's largest ice shelf.