Latest from Science

Andrew Hammond: Tide turning on climate change
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has released the most comprehensive ever study on global warming, prepared by more than 200 scientists over two years.

Giant waves pose huge risks
New report which rewrites danger level across the country requires big changes to civil defence readiness.

Climate report 'a wake-up call'
A damning international report on mankind's role in climate change should be a wake-up call for urgent action, New Zealand environmentalists say.

Sunpower plan to cut gases
Two of Britain's leading scientists have urged the setting up of a world programme to generate solar electricity that is cheaper than fossil fuel power by 2025.

GM food not properly labelled - Greens
Consumers are not being properly informed when the product they are buying has been processed with genetically modified organisms, the Green Party says.

Want to know state of the planet? Count penguins
As key indicators of climate change, penguins serve a crucial role for scientists examining what fluctuations in the white continent mean for the rest of the world.

Gales set to lash North Island
Gales of up to 100km/h are set to lash the North Island this weekend after a brief respite from this week's heavy rain and gales.

Canyon's tsunami threat to capital
The threat of a huge, landslide-triggered tsunami to Wellington lurks below the water only 10km off the city's coast - but the region's quakes haven't come near what it would take to trigger one.

Genes could dictate jail time
A future where a criminal's genetic make-up affects how long they spend in jail and whether they are released was discussed at a lecture in Dunedin last night.

Man grows nose on forehead
A Chinese man has had a new nose grown on his forehead. The man, who has only been named as Xiaolian, had the treatment to create a replacement for his original nose which was infected and deformed.

Family anger at acid spill
A boy, injured when acid splashed in his eye during a science class, will need up to a year to recover.

Whale of an achievement
Persistent prompting by an Auckland scientist has persuaded the shipping industry to rearrange its schedules, for a whale.

Wildlife heroes honoured
In an emotion-charged ceremony, Rochelle Constantine was one of three inaugural recipients of the Holdaway Awards at the Hauraki Gulf Forum's annual seminar this month.

Earth's heat could push humans to take refuge on Mars
Life on Earth will continue for at least another 1.75 billion years ... but human life could die out long before.

Parkinson's treatment trial starts
Human trials of a locally developed Parkinson's disease treatment have begun in New Zealand after the first round yielded promising results.

Sheep trials may find therapy for Huntington's
Scientists are preparing to test a potential therapy for Huntington's disease in sheep that have been genetically modified to carry the mutation that causes the disease.

$8m target to devlop brain research strategy
When patients have a certain kind of brain surgery to treat epilepsy at Auckland City Hospital is sent over the road to the Auckland University for research.

Can we survive?
Some of Britain's finest minds are drawing up a "doomsday list" of catastrophic events that could devastate the world.

Personal, revealing memoir exposes Hawking's marriage traumas
The painful end of Stephen Hawking's first marriage, and the bitter acrimony of his second, have been described in detail by the Cambridge cosmologist for the first time in his autobiography.

Alarm over fossil's fate
One of the rarest dinosaur fossils could be lost to science when it is auctioned for private sale in November, scientists warned yesterday.

Fonterra bottles fail boy's acid test
An 11-year-old put Fonterra's light-proof milk bottles to the test.

Put time on hold? Easy cell
British business executives, sports stars, celebrities and anyone else with £38,400 ($75,300) to spare will be able to freeze a backup of their adult selves for potential use decades later.

Brains: Unlocking the secrets
Within moments of sitting down in his office, Prof Richard Faull whips out a human brain, places it on the desk between us and announces, "Here it is," in the manner of someone displaying their most-prized possession.

Twenty of life's questions
Just in case you were wondering what the universe is made of, whether ET exists and if something can be done about global warming, cancer and beating bacteria, here's what scientists know ...

Closing ozone hole may heat up Antarctica - researcher
The ozone hole over New Zealand is closing, but it may warm up Antarctica which could then affect the West Coast and Canterbury Plains, a university researcher says.

'It's almost science fiction'
Australian doctors have achieved a world first by helping a woman become pregnant from ovarian tissue grafted into her abdomen.